Sullen. Not as long as sour season. Not quite.

Fury. Fortunately, the shortest season of all. Very exciting while it lasted, though.

Then, they ranked each season in terms of its degree of intensity, from alpha to epsilon.

Photius gauged this one as a Sullen Epsilon.

Well… Not quite. Call it a Sullen Delta.

In short, caution was called for here. On the other hand, there was still some room for further prodding and pushing. Done gingerly.

"I like to travel myself," he piped cheerfully. "So I'm the logical one to send on a grand tour to visit our allies in the war. And it's not as if you really need me here."

He did not add: or want me here, either. That would be unwise. True, Theodora had all the maternal instincts of a brick. But she liked to pretend otherwise, for reasons Photius had never been able to fathom.

Tahmina said it was because, if she didn't, it would give rise to rumors that she'd been spawned by Satan. That might be true, although Photius was skeptical. After all, plenty of people already thought the Empress Regent had been sired by the devil.

Photius didn't, himself. Maybe one of Hell's underlings, but not Satan himself.

Theodora was back to glaring at the guard. No, a different one. His offense…

Hard to say. He resembled neither Belisarius nor Justinian. Except for being a man, which, in Theodora's current humor, was probably enough.

"Fine!" she snapped. "You can go. If nothing else, it'll keep Antonina from nattering at me every day once the radio starts working. By now, months since she left, she'll be wallowing in guilt and whining and whimpering about how much she misses her boy. God knows why. Devious little wretch."

She swiveled the dark-eyed glare onto Tahmina, sitting next to Photius. "You too. Or else once the cunning little bastard gets to Ethiopia he'll start nattering at me over the radio about how much he misses his wife. God knows why. It's not as if he's old enough yet to have a proper use for a wife."

Yet a third guard received the favor of her glare. "You can celebrate your sixteenth birthday in Axum. I'll send the gifts along with you."

Tahmina smiled sweetly and bowed her head. "Thank you, Mother."

"I'm not your mother. You don't fool me. You're as bad as he is. No child of mine would be so sneaky. Now go."

Once they reached the corridor outside Theodora's audience chamber, Photius whispered to Tahmina: "Sullen Delta. Close to Epsilon."

"Oh, don't be silly," his wife whispered back, smiling down at him. To Photius' disgruntlement, even though he'd grown a lot over the past year, Tahmina was still taller than he was. "That wasn't any worse than Sullen Gamma. She agreed, didn't she?"

"Well. True."

The announcement was made publicly the next day. Photius wasn't surprised. It was usually hard to wheedle Theodora into anything. But the nice thing was that, if you could, she'd move quickly and decisively thereafter.

The Emperor of Rome will visit our allies in the war with Malwa. All the way to India itself! The Empress will accompany him, sharing the hardships of the journey.

All hail the valiant Photius!

All hail the virtuous Tahmina!

After reading the broadsheet, the captain of the Malwa assassination team tossed it onto the table in the apartments they'd rented. It was all he could do not to crumple it in disgust.

"Three months. Wasted."

His lieutenant, standing at the window, stared out over the Golden Horn. He didn't bother, as he had innumerable times since they'd arrived in Constantinople, shifting his gaze to study the imperial palace complex.

No point in that, now.

The three other members of the team were sitting at the table in the kitchen. The center of the table was taken up by one of the small bombards that Malwa assassination teams generally carried with them. The weapons were basically just simple, very big, one-round shotguns. Small enough that they could be hidden in trunks, even if that made carrying the luggage a back-breaking chore.

All three of them were glowering at it. The captain would insist that they bring the bombard with them, wherever they went. And, naturally, being the plebeians of the team, they'd be the ones who had to tote the wretched thing.

One of the three assassins spoke up. "Perhaps… if we stayed here… Theodora…"

The captain almost snarled at him. "Don't be stupid. Impossible, the precautions she takes. Not even Nanda Lal expects us to have a chance at her. "

"She hasn't left the complex once, since we arrived," the lieutenant chimed in, turning away from the window. "Not once, in three months. Even Emperor Skandagupta travels more often than that."

He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. A moment later, the captain did the same.

"We had a good chance with the boy," the lieutenant added. "High-spirited as he is. He and his wife both. Now…"

He looked at his superior. "Follow them?"

"Yes. Only thing we can do."

"Not one of us speaks Ge'ez, sir," pointed one of the assassins. "And none of us are black."

Gloomily, the captain shook his head. "Don't belabor the obvious. We'll have to move fast and reach Egypt before they do. Try and do it there, if we can. All of us can pass as Persians among Arabs-or the reverse, if we must."

"We may well have to," cautioned his lieutenant. "The security in Egypt is reportedly ferocious. Organized by Romans, too. It'll be easier in Persia-easier still, in Persian-occupied Sind. The Iranians insist on placing grandees in charge of security, and grandees tend to be sloppy about these things."

"True." The captain stared down at the broadsheet. Then, did crumple it.

The Iron Triangle

"They're not even going to try to run the mines, I don't think," Menander said. He lowered the telescope and offered it to Belisarius.

The general shook his head. "Your eyes are as good as mine. At that distance, for sure. What are you seeing?"

Before answering, Menander came down from the low platform he'd been standing on to observe the distant Malwa naval base. Then, stooped slightly so that his head would be well below the parapet. That brought his face on a level with the general's, since Belisarius was standing in a slight crouch also.

That was something of a new habit, but one that had become well-ingrained. Beginning a few weeks earlier, the Malwa had demonstrated that they, too, could produce rifles good enough for long-range sniping.

"Both ironclads just came out of the bunker. But they steamed north. They're headed away from us."

Belisarius closed his eyes, thinking. "You're probably right. I'd already pretty much come to the conclusion that the Malwa were assuming a defensive posture. From that standpoint, building the ironclads actually makes sense-where it would be a pure waste of resources to build them to attack us here in the Triangle. They'd never get through the mine fields."

Menander frowned, trying to follow the general's logic. "But I still don't see… oh."

"Yes. 'Oh.' You've gotten a better look at those ironclads than anyone-certainly a longer one. Could you defeat them-either one-with the Justinian? Or the Victrix?"

"The Victrix would just be suicide. They've got a couple of big guns in the bows. Eighteen-pounders, I think. They'd blow the Victrix to pieces long before it could get close enough to use the fire cannon."

He paused, for a moment. "As for the Justinian… Maybe. Against one of them, not both. It would depend on a lot of things, including plenty of luck. I'd do better in a night battle, I think."