tremors

to it that a certain pimp named Constans gets his deserts."
Antonina was still. Very treacherous ground.
Belisarius started laughing. "Did you really think I wouldn't see past your scheme, once I had time to think about it?" He released her and stretched his arms languorously. "After I woke up, feeling better than I've felt in months, and could think without my thoughts clouded with fury?"
She glanced at him sideways. Then, after a moment, began laughing herself. "I thought I'd pulled it off perfectly. The little tremors, hesitations, the slight tinge of fear in the voice—"
"The enticing roll of the rump was particularly good," said Belisarius. "But it's what gave it all away, in the end. When we play our little game you always try to win, even if you enjoy losing. You certainly don't wave your delicious ass under my nose, like waving a red flag before a bull."
"And with much the same result," she murmured. A moment later: "You're not angry?"
"No," he replied, smiling. "I began to be, at first, until I remembered Valentinian's little whisper to Maurice: 'You know he won't tell you himself.' "
"Maurice took Valentinian?"
"And Anastasius."
Antonina clapped her hand over her mouth.
"Oh, God! I almost feel sorry for that stinking pimp."
"I don't," snarled Belisarius. "Not in the slightest." He took a deep breath, blew it out.
"I pretended I didn't hear Valentinian, but—it is hard, for a quirky man like me, with my weird pride, to accept that people love him. And that he forces them to manipulate him, at times." He gave his crooked smile. "Would you believe, Anastasius actually said—" Here Belisarius' voice became a rumbling basso: " 'violent characters, your pimps.' "
"Anastasius can bend horseshoes with his hands," choked Antonina.
"And then Valentinian whined: 'stab you in the back in a minute.' "
Antonina couldn't speak at all, now, from the laughter.
"Oh, yes. Exactly his words. Valentinian—who is widely suspected to wipe his ass with a dagger, since nobody's ever seen him