Toward the end, his dreams slid into a flashing nightmare image of Bukkur Island. A log, painted to look like a field gun, sent flying by a lucky cannon ball fired by one of the Malwa gunships whose bombardment accompanied that last frenzied assault. The Romans drove off that attack also, in the end. But not before a mortar shell had ripped Calopodius' eyes out of his head.
The last sight he would ever have in his life was of that log, whirling through the air and crushing the skull of a Roman soldier standing in its way. What made the thing a nightmare was that Calopodius could not remember the soldier's name, if he had ever known it. So it all seemed very incomplete, in a way which was too horrible for Calopodius to be able to express clearly to anyone, even himself. Grammar and rhetoric simply collapsed under the coarse reality, just as fragile human bone and brain had collapsed under hurtling wood.
The sound of his aide-de-camp clumping about in the bunker awoke him. The warm little courtesy banished the nightmare, and Calopodius returned to life with a smile.
"How does the place look?" he asked.
Luke snorted. "It's hardly fit for a Melisseni girl. But I imagine it'll do for your wife."
"Soon, now."
"Yes." Calopodius heard Luke lay something on the small table next to the cot. From the slight rustle, he understood that it was another stack of telegrams. Private ones, addressed to him, not army business.
"Any from Anna?"
"No. Just more bills."
Calopodius laughed. "Well, whatever else, she still spends money like a Melisseni. Before she's done, that banker will be the richest man in India."
Beyond a snort, Luke said nothing in response. After a moment, Calopodius' humor faded away, replaced by simple wonder.
"Soon, now. I wonder what she'll be like?"
The Indus
The attack came as a complete surprise. Not to Anna, who simply didn't know enough about war to understand what could be expected and what not, but to her military escort.
"What in the name of God do they think they're doing?" demanded Menander angrily.
He studied the fleet of small boats -- skiffs, really -- pushing out from the southern shore. The skiffs were loaded with Malwa soldiers, along with more than the usual complement of Mahaveda priests and their mahamimamsa "enforcers." The presence of the latter was a sure sign that the Malwa considered this project so near-suicidal that the soldiers needed to be held in a tight rein.
"It's an ambush," explained his pilot, saying aloud the conclusion Menander had already reached. The man pointed to the thick reeds. "The Malwa must have hauled those boats across the desert, hidden them in the reeds, waited for us. We don't keep regular patrols on the south bank, since there's really nothing there to watch for."
Menander's face was tight with exasperation. "But what's the point of it?" For a moment, his eyes moved forward, toward the heavily-shielded bow of the ship where the Victrix's fire-cannon was situated. "We'll burn them up like so many piles of kindling."
But even before he finished the last words, even before he saw the target of the oncoming boats, Menander understood the truth. The fact of it, at least, if not the reasoning.
"Why? They're all dead men, no matter what happens. In the name of God, she's just a woman!"
He didn't wait for an answer, however, before starting to issue his commands. The Victrix began shuddering to a halt. The skiffs were coming swiftly, driven by almost frenzied rowing. It would take the Victrix time to come to a halt and turn around; time to make its way back to protect the barge it was towing.
Time, Menander feared, that he might not have.
"What should we do?" asked Anna. For all the strain in her voice, she was relieved that her words came without stammering. A Melisseni girl could afford to scream with terror; she couldn't. Not any longer.
Grim-faced, Illus glanced around the barge. Other than he and Cottomenes and Abdul, there were only five Roman soldiers on the barge -- and only two of those were armed with muskets. Since Belisarius and Khusrau had driven the Malwa out of the Sind, and established Roman naval supremacy on the Indus with the new steam-powered gunboats, there had been no Malwa attempt to threaten shipping south of the Iron Triangle.
Then his eyes came to rest on the vessel's new feature, and his tight lips creased into something like a smile.
"God bless good officers," he muttered.
He pointed to the top of the cabin amidships, where a shell of thin iron was perched. It was a turret, of sorts, for the odd and ungainly looking "Puckle gun" which Menander had insisted on adding to the barge. The helmeted face and upper body of the gunner was visible, and Illus could see the man beginning to train the weapon on the oncoming canoes.
"Get up there -- now. There's enough room in there for you, and it's the best armored place on the barge." He gave the oncoming Malwa a quick glance. "They've got a few muskets of their own. Won't be able to hit much, not shooting from skiffs moving that quickly -- but keep your head down once you get there."
It took Anna a great deal of effort, encumbered as she was by her heavy and severe gown, to clamber atop the cabin. She couldn't have made it at all, if Abdul hadn't boosted her. Climbing over the iron wall of the turret was a bit easier, but not much. Fortunately, the gunner lent her a hand.
After she sprawled into the open interior of the turret, the hard edges of some kind of ammunition containers bruising her back, Anna had to struggle fiercely not to burst into shrill cursing.
I have got to design a new costume. Propriety be damned!
For a moment, her thoughts veered aside. She remembered that Irene Macrembolitissa, in her Observations of India, had mentioned -- with some amusement -- that Empress Shakuntala often wore pantaloons in public. Outrageous behavior, really, but ... when you're the one who owns the executioners, you can afford to outrage public opinion.
The thought made her smile, and it was with that cheerful expression on her lips that she turned her face up to the gunner frowning down at her.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
The man's face suddenly lightened, and he smiled himself.
"Damn if you aren't a prize!" he chuckled. Then, nodding his head. "Yes, ma'am. As a matter of fact, there is."
He pointed to the odd-looking objects lying on the floor of the turret, which had bruised Anna when she landed on them. "Those are called cylinders." He patted the strange looking weapon behind which he was half-crouched. "This thing'll wreak havoc, sure enough, as long as I can keep it loaded. I'm supposed to have a loader, but since we added this just as an afterthought ..."
He turned his head, studying the enemy vessels. "Better do it quick, ma'am. If those skiffs get alongside, your men and the other soldiers won't be enough to beat them back. And they'll have grenades anyway, they're bound to. If I can't keep them off, we're all dead."
Anna scrambled around until she was on her knees. Then seized one of the weird-looking metal contraptions. It was not as heavy as it looked. "What do you need me to do? Be precise!"
"Just hand them to me, ma'am, that's all. I'll do the rest. And keep your head down -- it's you they're after."
Anna froze for a moment, dumbfounded. "Me? Why?"
"Damned if I know. Doesn't make sense."
But, in truth, the gunner did understand. Some part of it, at least, even if he lacked the sophistication to follow all of the reasoning of the inhuman monster who commanded the Malwa empire. The gunner had never heard -- and never would -- of a man named Napoleon. But he was an experienced soldier, and not stupid even if his formal education was rudimentary. The moral is to the material in war as three-to-one was not a phrase the man would have ever uttered himself, but he would have had no difficulty understanding it.