"David Drake - Belisarius 3 - Destiny's Shield" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

sworn Justinian could actually see them.
"I made that man a general," said the former emperor. "It's one of the few
decisions I made that I've never regretted."
He leaned back in his seat. "The Persians will be delighted. Believe it."

Chapter 3
The next morning, when the Empress Regent gave Baresmanas the Roman response
to Persia's proposal, he was delighted. He had hoped for a larger army, true.
But neither he nor Emperor Khusrau had really expected the Romans to send them
forty thousand troops.
The Roman generosity in not demanding territorial concessions in the
borderlands also pleased him immensely. That was quite unexpected.
But, best of all -- Belisarius.

Not every member of the Persian delegation shared his attitude -- including
his own wife, the Lady Maleka. As soon as Baresmanas returned to the small
palace in which the Persians had been housed, right in the middle of the
imperial complex, she strode into the main salon, scowling fiercely.
"I do not approve," she told her husband, very forcefully. "We should not be
currying favor from these wretched Roman mongrels, as if we were lowborn
beggars."
Baresmanas ignored her. He stood before the flames burning in the salon's
fireplace, warming his hands from the chill of an April morning.
"I do not approve!" repeated Lady Maleka.
Baresmanas sighed, turned away from the fire. "The Emperor approves," he said
mildly.
"Khusrau is but a boy!"
"He most certainly is not," replied her husband firmly. "True, he is a young
man. But he is in every respect as fine an Emperor as ever sat the Aryan
throne. Do not doubt it, wife."
Lady Maleka scowled. "Even so -- He is too preoccupied with the Malwa
invasion! He forgets our glorious Aryan heritage!"
Her husband bit off a sharp retort. Unlike his wife, Baresmanas was well-
educated. A scholar, actually, which was unusual for a sahrdaran. Lady Maleka,
on the other hand, was a perfect specimen of their class. Like all Persian
high noblewomen, she was literate. But it was a skill which she had never
utilized once she reached adulthood. She much preferred to learn her history
seated on rich cushions at their palace in Ctesiphon, listening to bards
recounting the epics of the Aryans.
Baresmanas studied the angry face of his wife, trying to think of a way to
explain reality that would penetrate her prejudiced ignorance.
The truth of history, he knew, was quite different from her fantasy version of
it. The Iranians who ruled Persia and Central Asia had originated, like their
Scythian brethren, from the steppes of Asia. They, too, had been nomadic
barbarians once. Over a millennium ago, the Aryan tribes had marched south
from the steppes, in their great epic of conquest. The westward-moving tribes
had become known as the Iranians and had created the glory of the ancient
Medes and Persians. Their eastward-bound cousins had conquered northern India
and created the Vedic culture which eventually permeated the entire sub-
continent.