Belisarius fluttered his right hand, indicating that the matter was not quite so simple. "Yes—and no. She agrees that it would aid the war against Malwa. Aid it immensely, in fact. But she fears the repercussions in the future."
Khusrau nodded, calmly. The Emperor of Persia had no difficulty understanding the quandary which faced Rome's ruler. Someday, hopefully, Malwa would be gone. Rome and Persia, on the other hand—those two great Empires had clashed for centuries.
Aide's voice spoke. Belisarius could sense the agitation of the facets.
Stupid woman! She is so unreasonable about this!
The general had to physically restrain himself from making an actual calming gesture. Fortunately, from long experience, he had learned to keep his interchanges with Aide unnoticeable to the people around him. Still, it was distracting, and—
The facets subsided, grudgingly. Belisarius brought his attention back to the Emperor. Khusrau was speaking.
"I understand her suspicions," he mused. "And, unfortunately, there is nothing I can say or do that would alleviate them. We can swear to a Hundred Years' Peace—we can swear to a
Aide could not control his frustration.
So what? The problem is now—with Malwa! If that problem is not solved, Rome and Persia
Belisarius could sense the hurt feelings emanating from Aide. He was not concerned. They weren't hurt much. Aide reminded him, in that moment, of a child obeying an adult's command. Sulking, pouting; thinking dark thoughts about cosmic injustice.
But he needed to concentrate on the problem before him. And he already knew Aide's opinion. During the days at Constantinople when this very question had been thrashed out by Theodora and her advisers, Aide had practically overwhelmed him with visions drawn from the human future.
A thousand visions, it had seemed. The ones he remembered best had been the portraits of the British Raj's conquest of India. "Conquest" was not, even, the right term. The establishment of British rule would be a long and complex process which, in the end, would not primarily be decided by military factors. True, the British would have guns. But so, soon enough, would the Indian rajahs who opposed them. Yet those Indian monarchs would never match the superior political, social and economic organization of the British.
For the same reason, Aide had argued, giving the secret of gunpowder to Persia posed no long term threat to Rome. It was not weapons technology, by itself, which ever determined the balance of power between empires and nations. It was the entirety of the societies themselves.
Rome was a cosmopolitan empire, rich in traders, merchants and manufacturers. And, for all the elaborate pomp of its official aristocracy, it was a society open to talent. To a degree, at least.
Persia was none of those things. The Empire of the Aryans was a thoroughly feudal society. It had nothing like the population of Rome, and was positively dwarfed in terms of industry and manufacture. The military equality which Persia had been able to maintain vis-a-vis its western rival was entirely due to the ferocious skill of its heavy cavalry.
Introduce gunpowder into that mix, and the result would be the exact opposite of Theodora's worst fears. Within half a century, Aide had predicted, Persia would be no match for Rome at all.
Belisarius had agreed with Aide, then, and had argued that very case. Along with the more pressing point that the defeat of Malwa overrode all other concerns.
But Theodora—
He shook his head. "She is a suspicious woman, I'm afraid."
Khusrau chuckled. "Nonsense, Belisarius.
He bit off the sentence. "We will discuss that problem later. For now, I must officially request that the Roman Empire provide us with a gunpowder capability."
The Emperor gestured to the south. "As you can see, we have been able to hold them off so far with traditional weapons. But I must do more, Belisarius." He clenched his fist. "I must
