"Uh—"

"I'll speak to her," assured Belisarius. "I'm sure she'll listen to reason once—"

The door was suddenly jerked open. Agathius' young wife Sudaba was standing there, glaring.

"What is this insane business?" she demanded furiously. "I insist on accompanying my husband!" An instant later, she was planted in front of Belisarius, shaking her little fist under his nose. "Roman tyrant! Monstrous despot!"

Hastily, Maurice seized the wheelchair and maneuvered Agathius into the room, leaving Belisarius—Rome's magister militum per orientem, Great Commander of the Allied Army, honorary vurzurgan in the land of Aryans—to deal alone with Agathius' infuriated teenage wife.

"A command responsibility if I ever saw one," Maurice muttered.

Agathius nodded eagerly. "Just so!" Piously: "After all, it was his decision to keep the baggage train and camp followers to a minimum. It's not as if we insisted that the top officers had to set a personal example."

"Autocrat! Beast! Despoiler! I won't stand for it!"

"Must be nice," mused Maurice, "to have one of those meek and timid Persian girls for a wife."

But Agathius did not hear the remark. His two-year-old son had arrived, toddling proudly on his own feet, and had been swept up into his father's arms.

"Daddy go bye-bye?" the boy asked uncertainly.

"Yes," replied Agathius. "But I'll be back. I promise."

The boy gurgled happily as Agathius started tickling him. "Daddy beat the Malwa!" he proclaimed proudly.

"Beat 'em flat!" his father agreed. His eyes moved to the great open window, staring toward the east. The Zagros mountains were there; and then, the Persian plateau; and then—the Indus valley, where the final accounts would be settled.

"They'll give me my legs back," he growled. "The price of them, at least. Which I figure is Emperor Skandagupta's blood in the dust."