Harry Turtledove - Justinian

Leontios reported to me what had happened: "Emperor, the sneaky bastards tried a night attack to see if we were awake, but we turned 'em back, we drove 'em away."

"Good," I told him. "I hope they paid plenty for their folly."

"I expect they did." His head went up and down, up and down. "There weren't that many of them. Pickets coming over were almost enough on their own. Soon as soldiers from camp joined 'em, the Arabs knew they couldn't do anything to us."

But they had. I remember watching a conjurer at the palace, once years ago. The man was full of empty, distracting chatter; he would wave one hand about, to keep his audience from noticing what the other was doing. And then, with that other hand, the one we had not been watching, he would pluck silk scarves out of thin air, nomismata from our ears, once even a kitten from a Persian skullcap. He was so good, I had his fee doubled. But set alongside Abimelekh's brother Mouamet, he was as a child.

Both armies were astir before sunrise, each fearing the other would contrive to steal the battle by striking first. Men breakfasted as they had supped, on whatever bits of bread and cheese and onions and salt pork they had with them. Then, their officers shouting at them to hurry, they rolled up the blankets in which they had slept- if, indeed, they had slept anywhere but on the bare ground- the cavalrymen mounted their horses, and horse and foot alike formed line of battle.

Looking over toward the left wing, I could not see that Leontios had materially strengthened it. Perhaps he had done so in such a stealthy way, both I and the followers of the false prophet were deceived. If so, well and good. If not… I sent one of the excubitores trotting off to him to inquire.

The guardsman came back a few minutes later. "Emperor, he says he didn't, because of the night attack the Arabs made on our right. He says that if they had made a larger attack there later on, they might have broken through if he'd thinned things out too much." He looked nervous, as any man might who was bringing the Emperor of the Romans news he would not care to hear.

"I gave him an order," I growled. "He said he would obey it."

"Yes, Emperor." The excubitor's nods were quick, placating. "He says he knows that, and he's sorry, and he'll take the blame if things go wrong."

"He certainly will," I said. But Leontios was, or was supposed to be, a general. If he put his own judgment on the scales against mine, I had to believe- or so I told myself- he had a good reason. I waved for the excubitor to leave my presence. Leave he did, as if glad to escape.

"Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" The Arabs' war cry rang out: pounding, rhythmic waves of sound lifting their spirits and casting down those of the men who would oppose them. The Romans and Sklavenoi shouted back, as loudly as the followers of the false prophet but more as individuals than as drops of water in a wave. That second day, their lying cry of "God is great!" outdid our shouts, I fear.

As before, fighting spread all along the line. I had hoped that, by concentrating our forces on one wing, we could break them. Since Leontios, in what he judged his superior wisdom, had chosen not to do that, my hopes had to shift: either we might beat them in straight-on fighting or, demonstrating that we ourselves were steadfast and could not be made to retreat, we might force the Arabs, rather than facing further combat, to retreat from Roman territory.

Prince Mouamet, I assumed, had plans that might be described as the mirror image of my own, with his chief aim to break through the Roman line by hard fighting. That he thought like a serpent had never occurred to me.

For more than an hour, Roman horsemen and their Arab counterparts shot arrows at one another and sometimes came close enough to one another to hurl javelins or to slash with swords. The followers of the false prophet did not assail the Sklavenoi in Neboulos's special army so strongly as they had the day before. That pleased me beyond measure. Turning to Myakes, I said, "The Sklavenoi have taught them respect."

"It looks that way," he replied, and then scratched his head. "I wonder why, Emperor. The barbarians- your barbarians, I mean, not the Arabs- didn't fight all that well yesterday."

"They fought like lions," I said indignantly. Myakes shrugged. I allowed him more liberties than most men, but even he fought shy of coming out and contradicting me. I pointed ahead, to the fighting. "If the Arabs don't think so, why aren't they pressing them harder today?"

"That I can't tell you, Emperor."

"Then keep your ill-founded opinions to yourself," I snapped, and Myakes bowed his head in submission.

I sent a messenger up to Neboulos, ordering him to advance on the enemy if they hung back from attacking the special army. The messenger returned with Neboulos's promise of obedience, but the Sklavenoi did not advance. I sent another messenger. He returned with more promises, but the special army remained where it had lined up. I cursed. Here I had a perfectly good army, but none of its generals felt like doing anything with it.

Then, in the very center of the line, an Arab trumpeter rode out ahead of the army Mouamet commanded. Raising a horn to his lips, he blew three loud, discordant notes.

The Sklavenoi- not all of them, but far and away the greater number of them, at least two men out of every three- left off what they were doing and stood very still and very straight. Neboulos shouted something to the special army in their own barbarous dialect. Thanks to the sudden stillness on the part of the Sklavenoi, I recognized his voice without possibility of confusion.

Never having bothered to acquaint myself with the ugly tongue the Sklavenoi speak, I did not understand what Neboulos had shouted to his men. Yet I did not long remain in doubt as to its meaning. As if with one accord, those men who had stood straight and still abandoned the line of battle they had been holding and trotted across the dry, dusty plain toward the followers of the false prophet.

Hope dies hard. Deceiving myself as long as I could, or even a moment longer, I said to Myakes, "See! They are attacking the Arabs after all."

Mournfully, he shook his head. Even then, he did not offer direct contradiction. He pointed ahead of us, the action there disproving my words more effectively than any countering words of his could have done.

For the Sklavenoi, although trotting toward the Arabs, were not attacking them. Nor did the deniers of Christ offer any injury to Neboulos or the special army. Instead, they welcomed them as comrades, as brothers. And the Sklavenoi reached up and clasped in friendship the bloodstained hands of the mounted Arab warriors.

Later, I learned that, the night before, the prince Mouamet, alarmed at Roman steadfastness, sent a man to Neboulos with a purse loaded with goldpieces, promising him also land for himself and the Sklavenoi in Syria and women of their choosing. Not content with the honors I had given him- not gratefully remembering I had let him live when I could and should have given him a slow, painful death- Neboulos, accepting the gold, turned traitor to the Roman Empire. The flank attack that had paralyzed Leontios was, I suppose, intended to draw Roman attention to the right and away from the center, and achieved its purpose all too well.

At the time, I knew none of this, although, as I say, I could hardly avoid noticing the brute fact of the special army's defection. I could also hardly avoid noticing that, the Sklavenoi having switched sides, the center of our line was a line no longer, only a gaping hole. The Arabs could not avoid noticing as much, either.

I drew my sword and shouted to the excubitores: "Forward! We'll fill the gap!"

Forward we went, I on my horse and the excubitores, afoot, all around me. We linked up with the leftmost end of the right wing of the cavalry from the military districts, the Sklavenoi who had deserted to the deniers of Christ having come mostly from the rightward section of their battle line. But an Emperor of the Romans and a regiment of the imperial guard could not hope to cover the ground some twenty thousand men had formerly filled. The remnant of the treacherous tribe still remaining in Roman ranks stretched themselves out toward us, trying to sew shut the tear in the fabric of our military cloak.