Eric Flint - An Oblique Approach

"Yes, sir." Firmly, clearly.

"Good. You will be allowed to select the decarchs for your hundred. All ten of them."

Mark stood very straight. "Thank you, sir."

Belisarius repressed a smile. Sternly:

"Use your own judgment, but I urge you to consult with Peter. And you might also discuss the matter with Maurice, and Gregory. I think you'll find them quite helpful."

"I will do so, sir."

"A word of caution. Advice, rather. Avoid simply selecting from your own circle of friends. Even if they prove capable, it will produce resentment among others. A capable clique is still a clique, and you will undermine your own authority."

"Yes, sir."

"And, most of all, make sure your decarchs understand and accept my attitudes. You will be selecting them, which will reflect upon how I regard you. Your prestige among the cavalrymen whom you command will be thereby enhanced. But do not ever forget the corollary. I will hold you responsible for the conduct of your subordinates, as well as your own. Do I make myself clear?"

"As clear as day, sir." Another quick assessment of his new general. "Syrian day."

Now, Belisarius did smile. "Good. You may go."

Once Mark was gone, the three Thracians at the back of the tent relaxed and resumed their normal casual pose. In public, the members of Belisarius' personal retinue of three hundred cataphracts maintained certain formalities. Most of them, after all, held lowly official ranks. Even Maurice, their commander, was only a hecatontarch—the same official rank as the Syrian youth who had just left the tent.

In actual practice, the Thracian bucellarii served Belisarius as his personal staff. They had been carefully selected by him over a period of years, and the devotion of his retinue was fully reciprocated. Maurice, despite his rank, was in effect Belisarius' executive officer. Even Constantine, who was in overall command of the army's cavalry, along with the chiliarch Phocas who was his equivalent for the infantry, had learned to accept his actual authority. And, as they got to know the grizzled veteran, respect it as well.

"I believe the boy will work out quite nicely," commented Maurice. "Quite nicely. Once he gets blooded a bit." Maurice's smile vanished, replaced by a scowl. "I can't believe how badly your predecessor Libelarius let this army fall to pieces. Chiseling on fodder and gear is common enough. But we've even found cases where the men's pay was stolen. In some of the infantry regiments, at least."

"And the food!" exclaimed Basil, one of the other cataphracts. "Bad enough these bastards sell off some of the food, but they were cheating at both ends. The food was shit to begin with. Half-rotten when they bought it."

The third of the cataphracts chimed in. He was one of the few non-Thracians in Belisarius' retinue, an Armenian by the name of Ashot.

"What's even worse is the state of the army as a whole. What're we supposed to have, General? Eight thousand men, half cavalry?"

Belisarius nodded.

Ashot laughed scornfully. "What we've got, once you take a real count and strip away the names of fictitious soldiers whose pay these pigs have been pocketing, is five thousand men. Not four in ten of them cavalry."

Belisarius wiped his face again. He had spent most of his time, since arriving at the camp, trapped in the leaden, breezeless air of his tent. The heat was oppressive, and the lack of exercise was beginning to tell on him. "And," he concluded wearily, "the force structure's a joke. In order to hide the chiseling, this army's got twice as many official units as it does men to fill them properly."

"Nothing worse than a skeleton army," grumbled Maurice. "I found one infantry hundred that had all of twenty-two actual soldiers in it. With , naturally, a full complement of officers—a hecatontarch and all ten decarchs. Living high off the hog." He spit on the floor. "Four of those so-called decarchs didn't have a single soldier under their command. Not even one ."

Belisarius rose and stretched. "Well, that's pretty much behind us. Within two more days, we'll have this army shaken down into a realistic structure, with decent officers. And decent morale restored to the troops, I think." He cast a questioning glance at Ashot and Basil. Belisarius relied on his low-ranked cataphracts to mingle with the troops and keep his fingers on the pulse of his army.

"Morale's actually high, General," said Ashot. Basil nodded agreement, and added:

"Sure, things are still crappy for the troops. And will be, for a bit. But they don't expect miracles, and they can see things are turning around. Mostly, though, the troops are cheerful as cherubs from watching one sorry-ass chiseler after another come into this tent, and then, within the hour, depart through the gates."

" `Deadly with a blade, is Belisarius,' " quoted Ashot, laughing. "They'd heard that, some of them. Now they all believe it."

"How's the drill going?" asked Belisarius.

Maurice made a fluttering motion with his hand.

"So-so. Just so-so. But I'm not worried about it. The troops are just expressing their last resentment by sloughing it during the drill. Give it a week. Then we'll start seeing results."

"Push it, Maurice. I'm not demanding miracles, but keep in mind that we don't have much time. I can't delay our departure to Mindouos for more than a fortnight."

Belisarius rose and walked over to the entrance of his tent. Leaning against a pole, he stared through the open flap at the camp. As always, his expression was hard to read. But Maurice, watching, knew the general was not happy with his orders.

The orders, received by courier a week earlier, were plain and simple: Move to Mindouos and build a fort.

Simple, clear orders. And, Maurice knew, orders which Belisarius considered idiotic.

Belisarius had said nothing to him, of course. For all the general's casual informality when dealing with his Thracian retinue, he maintained a sharp demarcation with regard to matters he considered exclusively reserved for command.

But Maurice knew the general as well as any man. And so he knew, though nothing had been said directly, that Belisarius thought the Roman Empire was deliberately provoking Persia, for no good reason, and was then piling stupidity onto recklessness by provoking the Mede without first seeing to it that the provocation would succeed.

No, Belisarius had said nothing to Maurice. But Maurice knew him well. And if Maurice lacked his general's extraordinary intelligence, he was by no means stupid. And very experienced in the trade of war.

Maurice did not feel himself qualified to make a judgment as to the Emperor's wisdom in provoking the Persians. But he did feel qualified to make a judgment on the means the Emperor had chosen to do so. And, he thought, given the state of the Byzantine forces in the area, provoking Persia was about as sensible as provoking a lion with a stick.

The Persians maintained a large army stationed near the upper Euphrates, close to the border. In quiet times, that army was billeted at the fortified city of Nisibis. Now, with hostilities looming, the Mede army had moved north and established a temporary camp, threatening the Anatolian heartland of the Roman Empire.

To oppose them—to provoke them, no less—the Romans had only seventeen thousand men in the area. Five thousand of those were represented by Belisarius' army, which, when he assumed command, had proven to be as brittle as a rotten twig. As badly corrupted an army as Maurice had seen anywhere.

The remaining twelve thousand men were stationed not far away, in Lebanon. That army, from what Maurice had been able to determine, was in fairly good condition. Certainly it seemed to have none of the rampant corruption which they had encountered at Daras.