Belisarius mused on the problem, for a minute or so.
Could we dig our own wells, then?
I could find the spots for you. Very likely ones, at least. The records are good, and the aquifers would not have changed much. But there are no guarantees, and… In a desert this bad, if even one of my estimates proves wrong, it could be disastrous.
Belisarius was considerably more sanguine than Aide, on that score. He had found many times that Aide's superhuman intellect, while it often floundered with matters involving human emotions, rarely failed when it came to a straightforward task of deduction based on a mass of empirical data.
Still, he saw no reason to take unnecessary chances.
"Abbu, if I send you and some of your men through this desert-a dozen or two, whatever you wish-along with a chart indicating the likely spots to dig wells, could you find them?"
Abbu's expression was sour. "I don't read charts easily," he grumbled. "Detest the newfangled things."
Belisarius suppressed a smile. What Abbu said was true enough-the part about detesting the things, at any rate-but the scout leader was perfectly capable of reading them well enough. Even if he weren't, he had several young Arabs who could read and interpret maps and charts as easily as any Greek. What was really involved here was more the natural dislike of an old bedouin at the prospect of digging a number of wells in a desert.
You'd be an idiot to trust him to do it properly, anyway. If you want good wells made-ones that you can depend on, weeks or months later-you'd do better to use Greeks.
Teaching your grandfather to suck eggs again? I just want Abbu to find the spots. I'll send some of my bucellarii with him to do the work. Thracians will be even better than Greeks.
After he explained the plan to Abbu, the scout leader was mollified. "Easy, then," he announced. "Take us three weeks."
"No longer?"
Abbu squinted at the desert. "Maybe a month. The Thar is three hundred miles across, you say?"
Not really, Aide chimed in. Not today, before the worst of the desiccation has happened. Say, two hundred miles of real desert, with a fifty-mile fringe. We're still in the fringe here, really.
"Figure two hundred miles of real desert, Abbu, with another fifty on either side like this terrain."
The old Arab ran fingers through his beard. "And you want us to use horses. Not camels?"
Belisarius nodded.
"Then, as I say, three, maybe four weeks. Coming back will be quick, with the wells already dug."
Abbu cocked his head a little, looking at Belisarius through narrowed eyes.
"What rashness are you contemplating, general?"
Belisarius pointed with his chin toward the east. "When the time comes-if the time comes-I may want to lead an expedition across that desert. To Ajmer."
" Ajmer? " The Arab chief's eyes almost literally bulged. "You are mad! Ajmer is the main city of the Rajputs. It would take you ten thousand men-maybe fifteen-to seize the city. Then, you would be lucky to hold it against the counter-attack."
He stretched out his hand and flipped it, simultaneously indicating the desert with the gesture and dismissing everything else. "You cannot- can not, general, not even you-get more than a thousand men across that desert. Not even with wells dug. Not even in this fine rabi season-and we'll soon be in the heat of garam. With camels, maybe two thousand. But with horses? A thousand at most!"
"I wasn't actually planning to take a thousand," Belisarius said mildly. "I think five hundred of my bucellarii will suffice. With an additional two hundred of your scouts, as outriders."
"Against Rajputs? "
Fiercely, Abbu shook his head. "Not a chance, general. Not with only five hundred of your best Thracians. Not even with splendid Arab scouts. We would not get within sight of Ajmer before we were overrun. Not all the Rajputs are in the Deccan with Damodara, you know. Many are not."
Belisarius nodded placidly. "A great many, according to my spies. I'm counting on that, in fact. I need at least fifteen thousand Rajputs to be in or around Ajmer when we arrive. Twenty would be better."
Abbu rolled his eyes. "What lunacy is this? You are expecting the Rajputs to become changed men? Lambs, where once they were lions?"
Belisarius chuckled. "Oh, not that, certainly. I'd have no use for Rajput lambs. But… yes, Abbu. If I do this-which I may well not, since right now it's only a possibility-then I expect the Rajputs to have changed."
He reined his horse around. "More than that, I will not say. This is all speculation, in any event. Let's get back to the Triangle."
When they returned to the Triangle, Belisarius gave three orders.
The first summoned Ashot from the Sukkur Gorge. He was no longer needed there, in command of the Roman forces, now that the Persians had established firm control over the area.
"I'll want him in charge of the bucellarii, of course," he told Maurice, "since you'll have to remain behind."
The bucellarii were Belisarius' picked force of Thracian cataphracts, armored heavy cavalrymen. A private army, in essence, that he'd maintained for years. A large one, too, numbering by now seven thousand men. He could afford it, since the immense loot from the past years of successful campaigns-first, against the Persians; and then, in alliance with them against the Malwa-had made Belisarius the richest person in the Roman Empire except for Justinian and Theodora.
Maurice had been the leader of those bucellarii since they were first formed, over ten years earlier. But, today, he was essentially the second-in-command of the entire Roman army in the Punjab.
Maurice grunted. "Ashot'll do fine. I still say it's a crazy idea."
"It may never happen, anyway," Belisarius pointed out. "It's something of a long shot, depending on several factors over which we have no control at all."
Maurice scowled. "So what? 'Long shot' and 'no control' are the two phrases that best describe this war to begin with."
Rightly said! chimed in Aide.
Belisarius gave the crystal the mental equivalent of a very cross-eyed look. If I recall correctly, you were the one who started the war in the first place.
Oh, nonsense! I just pointed out the inevitable.
The second order, which he issued immediately thereafter, summoned Agathius from Mesopotamia.
"We don't need him there either, any more," he explain to Maurice.
"No, we don't. Although I hate to think of what chaos those damn Persians will create in our logistics without Agathius to crack the whip over them. Still…"
The chiliarch ran fingers through his grizzled beard. "We could use him here, better. If you go haring off on this preposterous mad dash of yours, I'll have to command the troops here. Bloody fighting, that'll be, all across the front."
"Bloodier than anything you've ever seen," Belisarius agreed. "Or I've ever seen-or anyone's ever seen. The two greatest armies ever assembled in history hammering at each other across not more than twenty miles of front. And the Malwa will hammer, Maurice. You can be sure that Link will give that order before the monster departs. Whatever else, it will want this Roman army kept in its cage, and not able to come after it."
Maurice's grunted chuckle even had a bit of real humor. Not much, of course. "But no fancy maneuvers required. Nothing that really needs the crooked brain of Belisarius. Just stout, simple-minded Maurice of Thrace, like the centurion of the Bible. Saying to one, come, and he cometh. Saying to another, go, and he goeth."