The Dance of Time: Chapter Seven

    After the general finished reading Anna’s message, and the accompanying one from Dryopus, he invited Calopodius to sit down at the table in the command bunker.

    “I knew you were married,” said Belisarius, “but I know none of the personal details. So tell me.”

    Calopodius hesitated. He was deeply reluctant to involve the general in the petty minutiae of his own life. In the little silence that fell over them, within the bunker, Calopodius could hear the artillery barrages. As was true day and night, and had been for many weeks, the Malwa besiegers of the Iron Triangle were shelling the Roman fortifications—and the Roman gunners were responding with counter-battery fire. The fate of the world would be decided here in the Punjab, Calopodius thought, some time over the next year or so. That, and the whole future of the human race. It seemed absurd—grotesque, even—to waste the Roman commander’s time...

    “Tell me,” repeated Belisarius. For all their softness, Calopodius could easily detect the tone of command in the words.

    Still, he hesitated.

    Belisarius chuckled. “Be at ease, young man. I can spare the time for this. In truth—” Calopodius could sense, if not see, the little gesture by which the general expressed a certain ironic weariness. “I would enjoy it, Calopodius. War is a means, not an end. It would do my soul good to talk about ends, for a change.”

    That was enough to break Calopodius’ resistance.

    “I really don’t know her very well, sir. We’d only been married for a short time before I left to join your army. It was—”

    He fumbled for the words. Belisarius provided them.

    “A marriage of convenience. Your wife’s from the Melisseni family.”

    Calopodius nodded. With his acute hearing, he could detect the slight sound of the general scratching his chin, as he was prone to do when thinking.

    “An illustrious family,” stated Belisarius. “One of the handful of senatorial families which can actually claim an ancient pedigree without paying scribes to fiddle with the historical records. But a family which has fallen on hard times financially.”

    “My father said they wouldn’t even have a pot to piss in if their creditors ever really descended on them.” Calopodius sighed. “Yes, General. An illustrious family, but now short of means. Whereas my family, as you know...”

    “The Saronites. Immensely wealthy, but with a pedigree that needs a lot of fiddling.”

    Calopodius grinned. “Go back not more than three generations, and you’re looking at nothing but commoners. Not in the official records, of course. My father can afford a lot of scribes.”

    “That explains your incredible education,” mused Belisarius. “I had wondered, a bit. Not many young noblemen have your command of language and the arts.”

    Calopodius heard the scrape of a chair as the general stood up. Then, heard him begin to pace about. That was another of Belisarius’ habits when he was deep in thought. Calopodius had heard him do it many times, over the past weeks. But he was a bit astonished that the general was giving the same attention to this problem as he would to a matter of strategy or tactics.

    “Makes sense, though,” continued Belisarius. “For all the surface glitter—and don’t think the Persians don’t make plenty of sarcastic remarks about it—the Roman aristocracy will overlook a low pedigree as long as the ‘nobleman’ is wealthy and well educated. Especially—as you are—in grammar and rhetoric.”

    “I can drop three Homeric and biblical allusions into any sentence,” chuckled Calopodius.

    “I’ve noticed!” laughed the general. “That official history you’re writing of my campaigns would serve as a Homeric and biblical commentary as well.” He paused a moment. “Yet I notice that you don’t do it in your Dispatches to the Army.”

    “It’d be a waste,” said Calopodius, shrugging. “Worse than that, really. I write those for the morale of the soldiers, most of whom would just find the allusions confusing. Besides, those are really your dispatches, not mine. And you don’t talk that way, certainly not to your soldiers.”

    “They’re not my dispatches, young man. They’re yours. I approve them, true, but you write them. And when they’re read aloud by my son to the Senate, Photius presents them as Calopodius’ dispatches, not mine.”

    Calopodius was startled into silence.

    “You didn’t know? My son is eleven years old, and quite literate. And since he is the Emperor of Rome, even if Theodora still wields the actual power, he insists on reading them to the Senate. He’s very fond of your dispatches. Told me in his most recent letter that they’re the only things he reads which don’t bore him to tears. His tutors, of course, don’t approve.”

    Calopodius was still speechless. Again, Belisarius laughed. “You’re quite famous, lad.” Then, more softly, almost sadly: “I can’t give you back your eyes, Calopodius. But I can give you the fame you wanted when you came to me. I promised you I would.”

    The sound of his pacing resumed. “In fact, unless I miss my guess, those Dispatches of yours will someday—centuries from now—be more highly regarded than your official history of the war.” Calopodius heard a very faint noise, and guessed the general was stroking his chest, where the jewel from the future named Aide lay nestled in his pouch. “I have it on good authority that historians of the future will prefer straight narrative to flowery rhetoric. And—in my opinion, at least—you write straightforward narrative even better than you toss off classical allusions.”

    The chair scraped as the general resumed his seat. “But let’s get back to the problem at hand. In essence, your marriage was arranged to lever your family into greater respectability, and to provide the Melisseni—discreetly, of course—a financial rescue. How did you handle the dowry, by the way?”

    Calopodius shrugged. “I’m not certain. My family’s so wealthy that a dowry’s not important. For the sake of appearances, the Melisseni provided a large one. But I suspect my father loaned them the dowry—and then made arrangements to improve the Melisseni’s economic situation by linking their own fortunes to those of our family.” He cleared his throat. “All very discreetly, of course.”

    Belisarius chuckled dryly. “Very discreetly. And how did the Melisseni react to it all?”

    Calopodius shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Not well, as you’d expect. I met Anna for the first time three days after my father informed me of the prospective marriage. It was one of those carefully rehearsed ‘casual visits.’ She and her mother arrived at my family’s villa near Nicodemia.”

    “Accompanied by a small army of servants and retainers, I’ve no doubt.”

    Calopodius smiled. “Not such a small army. A veritable host, it was.” He cleared his throat. “They stayed for three days, that first time. It was very awkward for me. Anna’s mother—her name’s Athenais—barely even tried to disguise her contempt for me and my family. I think she was deeply bitter that their economic misfortunes were forcing them to seek a husband for their oldest daughter among less illustrious but much wealthier layers of the nobility.”

    “And Anna herself?”

    “Who knows? During those three days, Anna said little. In the course of the various promenades which we took through the grounds of the Saronites estate—God, talk about chaperones!—she seemed distracted to the point of being almost rude. I couldn’t really get much of a sense of her, General. She seemed distressed by something. Whether that was her pending marriage to me, or something else, I couldn’t say.”

    “And you didn’t much care. Be honest.”

    “True. I’d known for years that any marriage I entered would be purely one of convenience.” He shrugged. “At least my bride-to-be was neither unmannerly not uncomely. In fact, from what I could determine at the time—which wasn’t much, given the heavy scaramangium and headdress and the elaborate cosmetics under which Anna labored—she seemed quite attractive.”

    He shrugged again. “So be it. I was seventeen, General.” For a moment, he hesitated, realizing how silly that sounded. He was only a year older than that now, after all, even if...

    “You were a boy then; a man, now,” filled in Belisarius. “The world looks very different after a year spent in the carnage. I know. But then—”

    Calopodius heard the general’s soft sigh. “Seventeen years old. With the war against Malwa looming ever larger in the life of the Roman Empire, the thoughts of a vigorous boy like yourself were fixed on feats of martial prowess, not domestic bliss.”

    “Yes. I’d already made up my mind. As soon as the wedding was done—well, and the marriage consummated—I’d be joining your army. I didn’t even see any reason to wait to make sure that I’d provided an heir. I’ve got three younger brothers, after all, every one of them in good health.”

    Again, silence filled the bunker and Calopodius could hear the muffled sounds of the artillery exchange. “Do you think that’s why she was so angry at me when I told her I was leaving? I didn’t really think she’d care.”

    “Actually, no. I think...” Calopodius heard another faint noise, as if the general were picking up the letters lying on the table. “There’s this to consider. A wife outraged by abandonment—or glad to see an unwanted husband’s back—would hardly be taking these risks to find him again.”

    “Then why is she doing it?”

    “I doubt if she knows. Which is really what this is all about, I suspect.” He paused; then: “She’s only a year older than you, I believe.”

    Calopodius nodded. The general continued. “Did you ever wonder what an eighteen-year-old girl wants from life? Assuming she’s high-spirited, of course—but judging from the evidence, your Anna is certainly that. Timid girls, after all, don’t race off on their own to find a husband in the middle of a war zone.”

    Calopodius said nothing. After a moment, Belisarius chuckled. “Never gave it a moment’s thought, did you? Well, young man, I suggest the time has come to do so. And not just for your own sake.”

    The chair scraped again as the general rose. “When I said I knew nothing about the details of your marriage, I was fudging a bit. I didn’t know anything about what you might call the ‘inside’ of the thing. But I knew quite a bit about the ‘outside’ of it. This marriage is important to the Empire, Calopodius.”

    “Why?”

    The general clucked his tongue reprovingly. “There’s more to winning a war than tactics on the battlefield, lad. You’ve also got to keep an eye—always—on what a future day will call the ‘home front.’ ” Calopodius heard him resume his pacing. “You can’t be that naïve. You must know that the Roman aristocracy is not very fond of the dynasty.”

    “My family is,” protested Calopodius.

    “Yes. Yours—and most of the newer rich families. That’s because their wealth comes mainly from trade and commerce. The war—all the new technology Aide’s given us—has been a blessing to you. But it looks very different from the standpoint of the old landed families. You know as well as I do—you must know—that it was those families which supported the Nika insurrection a few years ago. Fortunately, most of them had enough sense to do it at a distance.”

    Calopodius couldn’t help wincing. And what he wasn’t willing to say, the general was. Chuckling, oddly enough.

    “The Melisseni came that close to being arrested, Calopodius. Arrested—the whole family—and all their property seized. If Anna’s father Nicephorus had been even slightly less discreet... The truth? His head would have been on a spike on the wall of the Hippodrome, right next to that of John of Cappadocia’s. The only thing that saved him was that he was discreet enough—barely—and the Melisseni are one of the half-dozen most illustrious families of the Empire.”

    “I didn’t know they were that closely tied...”

    Calopodius sensed Belisarius’ shrug. “We were able to keep it quiet. And since then, the Melisseni seem to have retreated from any open opposition. But we were delighted—I’m speaking of Theodora and Justinian and myself, and Antonina for that matter—when we heard about your marriage. Being tied closely to the Saronites will inevitably pull the Melisseni into the orbit of the dynasty. Especially since—as canny as your father is—they’ll start getting rich themselves from the new trade and manufacture.”

    “Don’t tell them that!” barked Calopodius. “Such work is for plebeians.”

    “They’ll change their tune, soon enough. And the Melisseni are very influential among the older layers of the aristocracy.”

    “I understand your point, General.” Calopodius gestured toward the unseen table, and the letters atop it. “So what do you want me to do? Tell Anna to come to the Iron Triangle?”

    Calopodius was startled by the sound of Belisarius’ hand slapping the table. “Damn fool! It’s time you put that splendid mind of yours to work on this, Calopodius. A marriage—if it’s to work—needs grammar and rhetoric also.”

    “I don’t understand,” said Calopodius timidly.

    “I know you don’t. So will you follow my advice?”

    “Always, General.”

    Belisarius chuckled. “You’re more confident than I am! But...” After a moment’s pause: “Don’t tell her to do anything, Calopodius. Send Dryopus a letter explaining that your wife has your permission to make her own decision. And send Anna a letter saying the same thing. I’d suggest...”

    Another pause. Then: “Never mind. That’s for you to decide.”

    In the silence that followed, the sound of artillery came to fill the bunker again. It seemed louder, perhaps. “And that’s enough for the moment, young man. I’d better get in touch with Maurice. From the sound of things, I’d say the Malwa are getting ready for another probe.”

    Calopodius wrote the letters immediately thereafter, dictating them to his scribe. The letter to Dryopus took no time at all. Neither did the one to Anna, at first. But Calopodius, for reasons he could not determine, found it difficult to find the right words to conclude. Grammar and rhetoric seemed of no use at all.

    In the end, moved by an impulse which confused him, he simply wrote:

    Do as you will, Anna. For myself, I would like to see you again.