In the Heart of Darkness

Antonina gasped like a fish out of water. "What do you mean—commander?—I'm not a soldier!—I'm—" Wail: "I'm a woman, for the sake of Christ! Who ever heard of a woman—"

The Empress pointed her finger to the grenadiers, like a scepter.

"They have," she said. Theodora leaned back in the throne, very satisfied. "Besides, Antonina, I wouldn't trust this new regiment in anyone else's hands. These new gunpowder weapons are too powerful. You'll be my last hope, my secret force, when all else fails. I won't place my life in the hands of a man. Never again."

The Empress rose.

"I'll inform Sittas. He'll bleat, of course, like a lost lamb."

Coldly, grimly: "Let him. I'll shear him to the hide."

Oddly, Sittas did not bleat. Not at all.

"I thought she'd do that," he confided to Antonina. He was standing next to her, watching the reaction of the crowd to the announcement which the Empress had just made. "Smart woman," he said approvingly.

Antonina peered at him suspiciously.

"This is not like you," she muttered. "You're the most reactionary—"

"Nonsense!" he replied cheerfully. "I'm not reactionary at all. I'm just lazy. The reason I hate new ideas is because they usually require me to do something. Whereas this—"

He beamed upon the peasant grenadiers. Uncertainly, some of them smiled back. Most of them, however, were staring at their new commander. At the few, full-figured inches of her. The men were wide-eyed. Their wives were practically goggling.

"Have fun, girl," he murmured. "I'd much rather lounge back in the ease of my normal assignment. I could lead cataphract charges in my sleep."

He turned away, and leaned toward Theodora.

"I think we should call them the Theodoran Cohort," he announced.

"Splendid idea," agreed the Empress. "Splendid."

That night, clustered uneasily in the great hall of the villa, the village elders made clear that they did not think the situation was splendid.

Not at all. None

of it.

It was not the name they objected to. The name, so far as they were concerned, was irrelevant.

What they objected to was everything else.

"Who will till the land when they are gone?" whined one of the elders. "The villagers will starve."

"They will not," stated Theodora. She loomed over the small crowd of elders. At great effort, her throne had been moved into the villa.

"They will not starve at all. Quite the contrary. Every grenadier in the Theodoran Cohort will receive an annual stipend of twenty nomismata. I will also provide an additional ten nomismata a year for equipment and uniforms. Their wives—the auxiliaries—will receive half that amount."

Standing behind the elders, the representatives of the young grenadiers and their wives murmured excitedly. An annual income of twenty nomismata—the Greek term for the solidus—was twice the income of a Syrian peasant household. A prosperous household. The extra ten nomismata were more than enough to cover a soldier's gear. With the wives' stipends included, each peasant family enrolling in the Cohort had just, in effect, tripled their average income.

The elders stroked their beards, calculating.

"What of the children?" asked one.

Antonina spoke.

"The children will accompany the Cohort itself. The Empress has also agreed to provide for the hire of whatever servants are necessary."

That announcement brought another gratified hum from the grenadiers. And especially from their wives.

"In battle, of course, the children will be held back, in the safety of the camp."

"The camp will not be safe, if they are defeated," pointed out an elder.

One of the grenadiers in the back finally lost patience.

"The villages will not be safe, if we are defeated!" he snarled. His fellows growled their agreement. So did their wives.

The elders stroked their beards. Calculating.

They tried a new approach.

"It is unseemly, to have a woman in command." The elder who uttered those words glared back at the peasant wives.

"The girls will start giving themselves airs," he predicted.

To prove his point, several of the wives made faces at him. To his greater chagrin, their husbands laughed.

"You see?" he complained. "Already they—"

The Empress began to cut him off, but her voice was overridden by another.

"Damn you for Satan's fools!"

The entire crowd was stunned into silence by that voice.

"He does that so well, don't you think?" murmured Cassian.

The Voice stalked into the room from a door to the side.

The elders shrank back. The young grenadiers behind them, and their wives, bowed their heads. Even Theodora, seated high on her throne, found it hard not to bend before that figure.

That hawk. That desert bird of prey.

Michael of Macedonia thrust his beak into the face of the complaining elder.

"You are wiser than Christ, then?" he demanded. "More certain of God's will than his very Son?"