“What happened to the idea of our being equals?” said Alai.

“We are equals.”

“I never forced you to do anything.”

“And I’m not forcing you, either.”

“Saying that over and over won’t make it true.”

“I’m doing what I choose, and you’re doing what you choose. The only thing I want from you is—I want your baby inside me before I lead my troops to war.”

“What do you think this is, the middle ages? You don’t lead your troops to war.”

“I do,” said Virlomi.

“You do if you’re a squad commander. There’s no point when you have an army of a million men. They can’t see you so it doesn’t help.”

“You reminded me a minute ago that you aren’t Alexander of Macedon. Well, Alai, I am Jeanne d’Arc.”

“When I said I’m not Alexander,” said Alai, “I wasn’t referring to his military prowess. I was referring to his marriage to a Persian princess.”

She looked irritated. “I studied his campaigns.”

“He returned to Babylon and married a daughter of the old Persian Emperor. He made his officers marry Persians, too. He was trying to unite the Greeks with the Persians and form them into one nation, by making the Persians a little more Greek, and the Greeks a little more Persian.”

“Your point?”

“The Greeks said, We conquered the world by being Greek. The Persians lost their empire by being Persian.”

“So you aren’t trying to make your Muslims more Hindu or my Hindus more Muslim. Very good.”

“He tried to combine soldiers of Persia and soldiers of Greece into one army. It didn’t work. It fell apart.”

“We’re not making those mistakes.”

“Exactly,” said Alai. “I’m not going to make mistakes that destroy my Caliphate.”

Virlomi laughed. “All right, then. If you think invading China is such a mistake, what are you going to do? Divorce me? Void our treaty? What then? You’ll have to retreat from India and you’ll look like even more of a zhopa. Or you’ll try to stay and then I’ll go to war against you. It all comes crashing down, Alai. So you’re not going to get rid of me. You’re going to stay my husband and you’re going to love me and we’ll have babies together and we’ll conquer the world and govern it together and do you know why?”

“Why?” he said sadly.

“Because that’s how I want it. That’s what I’ve learned over the past few years. Whatever I think of, if I decide I want it, if I do what I know I need to do, then it happens. I’m the lucky girl whose dreams come true.”

She came to him, wrapped her arms around him, kissed him. He kissed her back, because it would be unwise of him to show her how sad and frightened he was, and how little he desired her now.

“I love you,” she said. “You’re my best dream.”

20

PLANS

From: ImperialSelf%[email protected]
To: Weaver%[email protected], Caliph%Salaam
@caliph.gov
Re: Don’t do this