Harry Turtledove - Justinian

"Looks that way," he answered, peering toward the Sklavenoi. "But how many of 'em there are is only half the question. The other half is, how well will they fight?"

"They fought us well enough when they didn't have to face the liquid fire," I said, nettled. "The followers of the false prophet can no more make the fire than the Sklavenoi can. What would keep the special army from fighting well, then?"

"Nothing I can think of," he said, which pleased me, but then he added, "Of course, the Arabs might think of something I can't," which did not.

Leontios rode out from the camp to greet me. "Here we are, Emperor, gathered together at your order and as you commanded," he proclaimed, redundant as usual.

I waved toward the half-separate camp of the special army. "As you see, we have the men we need to hit the deniers of Christ harder than they expect."

His round face went mournful. "Oh, aye, so we do, provided we don't come to blows and start fighting among ourselves first."

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"The Sklavenoi are cursed thieves, is what I mean," he said. "Every time one of them gets near my Romans, he steals something: a knife, a chain, some money, it doesn't matter what."

Neboulos came up then, riding on a pony that struggled under his bulk. "Emperor," he cried, "these cavalry, they hate your special army. They taunt us. They say they screw our wives, screw our sisters, screw our daughters, when they fight us before. They laugh. They make us hate them worse than your enemies."

Both Leontios and Neboulos started shouting at me, forgetting my station in their quest for advantage. Then I shouted, too: "Silence!" Leontios remembered himself first, and bowed his head. Neboulos, less used to having anyone over him, went on for another sentence or two before realizing he was doing his cause more harm than good by such rudeness. When he quieted, I pointed to him and said, "Are your men stealing from the cavalry of the military districts?"

"Soldiers always steal," he said.

That had a good deal of truth in it, which I declined to notice. "Soldiers loot from enemies," I said. "They do not steal from their comrades. The warriors from the military districts are the comrades of the special army. Do you understand that?"

"Yes," he said, giving Leontios a look anything but comradely.

"Good," I told him. "You had better. The next Sklavinian who steals from a comrade will have his hand cut off. Do you understand that?" He nodded sullenly. I said, "Good. See that your men understand it, too."

"That's fine, Emperor," Leontios said, beaming. "That's fine and dandy."

I turned my gaze on him. "Are your men taunting the Sklavenoi, as Neboulos says?"

He looked less happy. "Urr\a160… ahh\a160… Some of them, maybe, Emperor. Some. A few."

"That must also cease," I declared. "All of us here in this camp must join together against the common foe: the followers of the false prophet. Tell the men from the military districts that any of them caught obscenely mocking their comrades in the special army will be given a choice." I smiled unpleasantly.

"A choice, Emperor? What kind of choice?" Leontios was not so swift to follow my thought as I would have liked.

"A choice of the part he would sooner lose," I answered: "his tongue, with which he boasted of the lewdness he had committed, or his prick, the instrument of that lewdness."

"You Romans, you like to cut things," Neboulos observed.

I ignored him, watching Leontios. The general's round face (which he was not good at keeping closed) said he had not truly reckoned the men of the special army his comrades. "I will make certain the cavalry from the military districts knows of this choice," he said at last.

"See that you do." When assembling my army, I had not considered that its separate parts might find each other as inimical as the Arabs. If making them all fear me more than they hated each other yoked them in common cause, make them fear me I would.

For all his former bold attacks against the Arabs, Leontios proved a cautious, even an apprehensive, commander. Instead of setting out at once and storming into territory held by the deniers of Christ, he spent day after day drilling the cavalry from the military districts and Neboulos's special army.

I chafed at the delay, but did not follow my first impulse and order him to advance. The reason he adduced for waiting was plausible enough: planning cooperation between the Sklavenoi, who were foot soldiers, and the mounted men from the military districts. He tried several different formations, at last settling on one that placed the special army in the center of the line with cavalry on either wing and a body of horsemen behind the Sklavenoi as a reserve.

"The cursed butterheads can't move very fast, anyhow," he said to me. "We'll let them hold the Arabs and use the cavalry to get round the foe's flanks."

"Don't call them butterheads," I said. Two Romans had lost their tongues for taunting the Sklavenoi; four men from the special army had had their hands cut off for theft. The rest of the Romans, understanding they had been warned, accepted their fellows' punishment as something they had earned. I was less confident of the effect of my order on Neboulos's men, who were unused to discipline from their chieftains or anyone else save possibly their wives. I went on, "I wish we were already in combat with the followers of the false prophet. That would help pull us together."

"Soon, Emperor, soon," Leontios said soothingly. "Won't be long. We have to be ready. We have to prepare." Again he repeated himself. Again he said the same thing twice in slightly different ways.

I do not know whether Sergios and Patrikios, on their return to Damascus, told Abimelekh enough to let him anticipate my intentions, or whether the spies the Arabs keep in Roman territory (just as we keep spies in the lands they rule) sent word that our men were on the march. However he learned of it, the misnamed commander of the faithful hastily gathered together his soldiers and treacherously invaded Romania before we began our stroke against him. Thus was my wish for a speedy meeting with the Arabs granted, though not in the way I had intended.

Frontier guards all but killed their horses galloping back to Sebastopolis with word of the invasion. "It's a big army they have, Emperor," one of the men said on being brought before me. "I didn't reckon they could put so many men in the field so fast, but I was wrong."

"And the standard they're fighting under," another scout added.

"What standard is this?" I asked.

The scout hesitated, then answered, "Emperor, they've skewered a rolled-up parchment on a spear and carry it before them, saying it's the treaty you've broken."

"Liars!" I shouted. "Satanic hypocrites! They're the ones who broke the treaty, not I. They've put their own false, filthy words on their coins and on their papyrus, and I'm going to punish them for their presumption."

"Yes, Emperor," the scout said hastily, bowing his head. "All I'm doing is telling you what I've seen and what I've heard."

"Very well," I said, reminding myself the messenger was not responsible for the news he bore. A thought occurred to me: "Does Abimelekh lead them in person?" I saw myself parading the miscalled commander of the faithful through Constantinople in chains before sending him to the mines to work himself to death.

But all the frontier guards shook their heads. "No, Emperor," said the one who had told me of the Arabs' lying standard. "It is his brother Mouamet, the prince of northern Mesopotamia."

A prince of the Arabs' ruling line struck me as good enough prey. Having dismissed the scouts, I took counsel with Leontios, discussing how best to defeat the Arabs and drive after them into their territory. When the general heard who commanded the followers of the false prophet, he looked solemn. "This Mouamet is not a warrior to be despised, not a man to hold in contempt, Emperor. He sheds blood without pity. When the Arabs were fighting their civil war, he took Mesopotamia and Syria and Armenia from the rebels and restored them to Abimelekh's rule."