Eric Flint - An Oblique Approach

Belisarius, though he carried no such precise and definite imperial instructions, had his own reasons for seeking such a bond. Already, if only in outline, he was shaping the grand strategy of Rome's coming war with the Malwa Empire. The role of Axum in that conflict would be crucial.

His cataphracts and Eon's sarwen, experienced soldiers, had quickly detected the attitude of their superiors, and had shaped their own conduct accordingly. Menander, on his own, filled with the thoughtless certainties of youth, might have given vent to certain prejudices and animosities, but not with the two veterans watching him like a hawk.

So, during the many months prior to the battle with the pirates, in the company which they shared through the trip to Syria, and the sojourn at Daras, and the voyage to Egypt and then to Adulis, through the trek upcountry to the city of Axum, through the lengthy stay at Axum itself, through the return to Adulis and the embarkation aboard the Malwa vessel bearing its envoys back to India, the Romans and Axumites had maintained their good relations and the disciplined propriety of their conduct.

So they had. But—still, still, they were each foreign to the other, for all that the Ethiopians spoke good (if accented) Greek, and the Romans began to speak poor (and very accented) Ge'ez. To be sure, no words were ever uttered which might have given offense. (Save by Ousanas, of course. But since the dawazz insulted everybody equally, including tribes and nations no one else had even heard of, his outrageous behavior soon became accepted, much as one accepts the rain and the wind, and noxious insects.) But, through all the months of joint travel, and mutual good will, there had not been much in the way of open trust and confidence. And even less in the way of genuine intimacy.

Now, all that was changed. Since the battle, all former propriety and stiff good conduct had vanished. Vanished like it had never existed, especially among the common soldiers. In its place came insults and derision, mockery and ridicule, grousing and complaint—in short, all the mechanisms by which blooded veterans seal their comradeship.

The sarwen were no longer nameless. The one whose black skull had gained a new scalp scar in the battle was named Ezana. The other, Wahsi. The Romans now learned of a long-standing Ethiopian custom. The true name of a sarwen was never told to any but members of the sarawit, lest the warrior be subject to sorcery from his enemies. Upon receiving acceptance from his own sarwe into its ranks, an Axumite boy was given the name by which he would henceforth be known, in private, by his comrades.

Shortly after the battle with the pirates, in their own little ceremony held while the lords were carousing with Venandakatra, the two sarwen officially enrolled the three cataphracts into the ranks of the Dakuen, and spoke their true names.

The Roman soldiers thought the custom odd, in its particulars. But they did not sneer at it, for they found nothing odd in the general thrust of the thing. Valentinian and Anastasius carried about their persons various amulets and charms with which to ward off witchcraft. And Menander, through the long bouts of fever and delirium produced by his wound, never once relinquished his grip upon the little icon which he had been given the day he proudly rode off to answer the summons of his lord Belisarius. The village priest who gave him the icon had assured the young cataphract that it would shield him from evil and deviltry.

As it most surely did—for the youth recovered, did he not? And from a wound which, in the experience of his veteran companions, Roman and Ethiopian alike, almost invariably resulted in a lingering death from hideous disease. Truly, an excellent icon!

But, excellent icon or no, some of the credit for the young Thracian's recovery was surely due to the Ethiopians. To their strange and exotic poultices and potions, perhaps; to the comfort and companionship given him through the long, pain-wracked days and nights by the less seriously wounded Ezana, certainly.

In time, young Menander came to speak Ge'ez fluently, and more quickly than any of the other Romans. The lad's speech, moreover, was afflicted with almost none of the horrible accent which so disfigured the Ge'ez of all the other Romans. (Except Belisarius, of course, whose Ge'ez was soon indistinguishable from a native; but Belisarius was a witch.)

In his time, Menander would become the most popular of Roman officers, among the Axumite troops with which his own forces were so frequently allied. And, in a time far distant from the disease-infected agony of that wound, the cataphract would finally return to his beloved Thrace. No youth now, unknown to all but his own villagers, but an iron-haired warrior of renown. Who bore his fame casually, in the pleasant years of his retirement, and saved all his pride for his great brood of dark children, and his beloved Ethiopian wife.

Ezana, too, would survive the wars. From time to time, the sarwen would come to Thrace to visit his old comrade Menander, and the half-sister who had become Menander's wife. Ezana would bring no great entourage with him to Thrace, though he himself was now famous, and such a retinue was always offered to him by the negusa nagast; simply himself and his own collections of scars and memories.

In that future, Ezana would enjoy those visits, immensely. He would enjoy watching the sun set over the distant mountains of Macedon, his cup in his hand; the company of Menander and his half-sister; their great brood of attentive offspring, and the even greater horde of scruffy village children for whom Menander's modest estate was a giant playground; and the memories.

Sad, memories, some. Wahsi would not survive the wars. He would die, in a sea battle off the coast of Persia, his body unrecovered. But he would die gloriously, and his name would remain—carved on a small monument in the African highlands; spoken in prayers in a quiet monastery in Thrace.

Always, in those visits of the future, the time would come when Menander and Ezana would remember that ship on the Erythrean Sea, and speak of it. At those times, the children would cease their play, grow silent, and gather around. This was their favorite tale, and they never tired of it; neither they, nor the old veterans who told it once again.

(Menander's wife tired of it, of course, and grumbled to the village matrons who were her friends. But the men ignored the grumbling with the indifference of long experience; wives were a disrespectful lot, as was known by all veterans.)

The children who listened to the tale loved all the parts of it. They loved the drama of the sea battle: the dragon-fire and the boarding, the cut-and-thrust at the bow, and—especially!—the charge to the stern led by the legendary Belisarius. Oh, marvelous charge!

And if the description of the fury at the stern bore certain small improvements to the uncouth truth of history, there was none to set them wrong. Ezana said nothing while Menander embroidered—just a bit—the tale of his great wound. (Here, as always, the children would demand to see the grotesque scar on his belly, and Menander would oblige.) The sword which caused that wound had become, through the transmutation of veteran tales, the blade of a mighty Arab warrior, who overcame, through his legendary cunning, the skill of a valiant young Roman foe. There was nothing in the tale, now, of the confusion of inexperience in the chaos of battle, and the sheer luck which had enabled a nameless and unknown pirate to stab, without even knowing his exact target, a brave but clumsy novice.

No, Ezana said nothing. Nor did Menander speak, when, in the course of the tale, Ezana came to show his own honorable scar. The sarwen would bend his head, here, that the eager children might gather and spread the mat of kinky grey hair, and shriek with delighted horror, as always. Menander said nothing of what he might, now, from the experience of the many battles which had come after. He said nothing to the children of the panic which he knew had filled Ezana's heart at that moment, blood-blinded in the midst of murder.