< Belisarius Series

Belisarius Series/Heartwarming


  • The part at the end when Rana Sanga's son greets him as he rides through the city gate.
  • The wedding between Shakuntala and Raghunath Rao
  • Dadaji Holkar reuniting with his wife
  • As much as the story emphasizes that Justinian and Theodora are not nice people, it also shows that their love for each other is genuine and unshakeable.
  • Another with Dadaji Holkar: after having become peshwa (vizier) to Empress Shakuntala, he gets word that his daughters are not only alive, but have been rescued. He tells the Empress that having been slave prostitutes will make the girls "unsuitable" to be daughters of a peshwa. "And I will not set them aside. Under no circumstances." So he intends to resign his position. Shakuntala sets her own cap on the Heartwarming by refusing to let him quit. If anyone wants to spread malicious talk about the children of her peshwa ... she has ways to deal with that. Those ways include executioners.
  • The confrontation between Belisarius and Antonina when they are arguing over the necessity of her pretending to be an adulteress while Belisarius is away in India, as a cover for Antonina's being their courier between the various leading figures of their benevolent conspiracy in Constantinople and Syria at a time when they're being too closely watched for anything else to work.

Belisarius: But this is all beside the point. You are lying, Antonina. You don't really care what people say about me, any more than I care what people say about you.
Antonina: (whispering) No, I don't.
Belisarius: You are afraid I will believe the tales. (Antonina starts crying) I will never believe them, Antonina.
Antonina: Yes, you will. Yes, you will. Not at once, not soon. Not for years, maybe. But eventually, you will. Or, at least, you will wonder, and suspect, and doubt, and distrust me.
[conversational digression skipped]
Antonina: There will never be any truth to the tales, Belisarius. I swear before God. Never. A month from now, a year from now, ten years from now. You will always be able to ask, and the answer will always be: no.
Belisarius: I know. And I swear this, before God: I will never ask.

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