Eric Flint: The tide of victory

"The least of your worries," the Rajput woman chortled. "Trust me, girls. The least."

There were three children in the room, also. The Rajput woman's, presumably. The oldest of them, a boy approximately twelve years of age, stepped forward and bowed stiffly.

"You are under the protection of my family," he announced proudly. "I myself, being the oldest male of the family present, will see to it."

Again, the Rajput woman laughed. "The least of your worries!" She wagged a finger at her son. "Enough of this, Rajiv! You'll cause more trouble with your damned honor than anything else. The girls will be quite safe."

Then, serenely: "Our retainers will see to it." She bestowed an approving gaze upon the two men who were sitting on a settee across the room. Also Rajputs, the sisters suspected, judging from their appearance.

That same appearance, both sisters thought, was a bit at odds with the woman's confidence. One of the men was quite elderly. The other, though young, had an arm in a sling. The signs of long-suffered pain were quite evident in his drawn face, which led the sisters to suspect that his arm was essentially not functional.

Which, finally-reluctantly-brought their attention to the last two men in the room. Who, very obviously, were quite functional.

Hesitantly, the sisters stared at them. Barbarians from somewhere in the west. So much was obvious from their faces. That alone would have made them a bit frightening. The fact that one was a giant-obvious, even while the man was sitting-and the other was perhaps the most vicious looking man either sister had ever seen.

The tension was broken by the infant in Dhruva's arms. For whatever odd reason, something about the vicious-looking man had drawn little Baji's attention. He began gurgling happily and waving his arms.

"Look, Valentinian-he likes you!" exclaimed the Rajput woman, smiling. She transferred the cheerful smile to Dhruva and motioned with her head. "Hand the child to him. It's good for him. And he has to get accustomed to children anyway." With a deep, rich chuckle: "Given his new duties."

The man Valentinian did not seem pleased at the prospect. Nor was Dhruva pleased herself, at the idea. But there was something about the Rajput woman which exuded authority, and so she obeyed.

The man Valentinian accepted the child with even greater reluctance than Dhruva handed him over. From the awkward way he held the infant, it was obvious he had no experience with the task. Despite her misgivings, Dhruva found herself smiling. There was something comical about the combination of such a wicked-looking man and a gurgling infant.

In the course of groping as babies do, Baji seized one of Valentinian's fingers in a little fist. Oddly enough, that seemed to bring a certain relief to the man. As if he were finally being presented with a familiar challenge.

"The kid's got a good grip," he announced. Dhruva was surprised by the ease with which he spoke Hindi. A bit of an accent, but much less than she would have expected.

"I guess he's too young to hold a knife," the man mused. "But I can probably start him with something."

Dhruva was startled. "He's not kshatriya!" she protested.

Valentinian's face creased in a cold, evil-looking smile. "Neither am I, girl, neither am I. You think I give a damn about any of that Indian foolishness?"

He looked up at her. And, for the first time, Dhruva got a good look at his eyes. Very dark, they were, and very grim. But she decided they weren't actually evil, after all. Just.

"I don't give a damn about much of anything," he added.

The statement was callous. Oddly, Dhruva found herself relaxing. He was still the most vicious looking man she had ever seen. But Baji was gurgling happily, and tugging at the finger, and grinning in the innocent way that infants do. Perhaps her infant, she decided, had the right of it.

A man who didn't give a damn about much of anything, when she thought about it, probably wouldn't go out of his way to imagine slights and difficulties and problems, either. The statement was callous, looked at from one angle. Yet, from another, it was simply. relaxed.

She had known few relaxed men in her life. After all that had happened since she and her sister were led into captivity, she found that prospect rather refreshing.

"I'll bet he could hold a breadstick," the man muttered. "You got any breadsticks in India?"

A general and an historian

"Let's quit for the day," said Belisarius. "Tomorrow we can start with the campaign into Mesopotamia. But I've got to get ready for the staff conference. Can't forget, after all, that I'm waging a campaign now. Or will be, soon enough."

Obediently, Calopodius leaned back in his chair, leaving unspoken the next question he had been about to ask. The scribe began putting away the writing equipment.

"How soon, do you think?" Technically, of course, an historian had no business asking such a question. But from their days of close association, Calopodius had become much bolder in the kind of questions he would ask his general.

"Too soon to tell," replied Belisarius, shrugging. "As always, it depends mostly on logistics. Which is complicated enough on paper, much less in the real world. At a guess? Not more than a few weeks."

He gestured with a thumb toward the north, where the sound of distant cannon fire was more or less constant, day and night. "I see no reason at all to give the Malwa any more of a breathing space than I absolutely must. Time is something which is entirely on that monster's side, not mine."

Calopodius hesitated. Then, boldly: "And what, would you say, is the factor which is most on your side?"

Belisarius stared at the young historian. Calopodius was so acute than Belisarius tended to forget about his blindness. But now, remembering, he let his crooked smile spread across his face in a manner so exaggerated that it would have brought down instant derision and sarcasm from Maurice and Sittas. Who, happily, were not present.

So he indulged himself in the smile. And indulged himself, as well, by speaking the plain and simple truth.

"The biggest factor in my favor is that I'm just a lot better at this than the monster is. Way better. War is an art, not a science. And for all that monster's superhuman intelligence, it's got about as much of an artistic streak as a carrot."

He rose to his feet and stretched his arms, working out the stiffness of a two hour session sitting in a chair, recounting his history.

"There are times," he said softly, "when I wish I could have been a blacksmith. But then there are other times when I'm glad I couldn't. This time and place more than any other in my life. War is also an honorable trade, after all-or can be, at least. And I suspect I'm a lot better at it than I ever would have been as a blacksmith."

He cocked his head a little, listening to the gunfire. "Soon, Calopodius. Soon I'll put paid to that monster. And teach it, and its masters, that a professional craftsman at the top of his trade can't possibly be matched by any know-it-all cocksure dilettante ."