Antonina felt a pang of grief. She remembered that harbor very well herself. She had been sitting next to Eon when he died, reading to him from the Bible.
"Best of all, it'll be garrison duty. In one of the world's largest and busiest seaports. Dens of vice and iniquity on every street. No more fighting, dying and bleeding. Let the Hindu heathens fight it out amongst themselves, from now on. For Axum, the war is over—and what remains are the pickings."
The grin flashed again. "Great pickings, too. There are even more merchant coffers in Bharakuccha than taverns and brothels. Just skimming the tolls—even the light ones we'll maintain—will make Axum rich. Richer still, I should say."
He basked in that happy thought, for a moment. Then the scowl came back.
"And will you get some sleep, woman? You'll need to be wide awake and alert tomorrow morning."
"Whatever for? I'm not pulling an oar." Half-righteously and half-apologetically, she added: "I'm too small. It'd be silly."
"Who cares about that? I remind you that it will be your responsibility—not mine!—to oversee the transfer of your emperor son and his sahrdaran wife aboard ship. Especially her. God only knows what absurd contrivance the Persians will come up with, for the purpose. But I'm sure it'll involve elephants."
Antonina didn't quite scamper from the docks. Not quite.
* * *
"Yes," replied Jaimal. Udai nodded his agreement.
Sanga's lieutenant traced a line on the map. "We can follow the rivers, most of the way, east of the Aravalli mountains. Basically, it's the same route we took years ago, when we tried to catch up with Belisarius by sea. That time, it took us almost three weeks. But we had tired horses, after that long chase, where this time we'll be starting with fresh ones. And... well..."
Sanga smiled thinly. "Yes, I know. Last time, I wasn't really driving the matter, since I knew it was hopeless anyway."
He straightened up from the map. "Well enough. Be out of the city as soon as possible. Try to make it in two weeks. But don't be foolish!" He held up an admonishing finger. "Better to use half the day—most of it, if need be—to make sure you've got the best horses in Bharakuccha. You'll make up the difference within five days."
The admonition was simply a symptom of Sanga's tension, so Jaimal and Udai took it in good enough spirits. On its face, of course, it was insulting. Teach a Rajput about horses!
* * *
The final message was also brief.
EMERALD READY IN TIME FOR TRANSACTION
"I'm off, then," said Belisarius. "At first light."
Kausambi
Lady Damodara came into the chamber that served Dhruva and Lata as something in the way of a modest salon. There was no expression on her face, but her features seemed taut.
"Valentinian? I'm not certain—neither is Rajiv—but..."
Even after all these months, Dhruva could still be surprised at how quickly Valentinian moved when he wanted to. Before she quite knew what was happening, he'd plopped the baby he'd been playing with into her lap and was at the side of the one window in the room.
His finger moved the curtain. Just slightly, and very briefly, as if a breeze had fluttered it.
"It's starting," he said, turning away from the window.
Lady Damodara was startled. "But you only glanced—"
Then, seeing the look on Valentinian's face, she smiled wryly. "Yes, I know. Stupid to question an expert."
Valentinian waved at Dhruva and Lata, who was perched on another settee. "Out, now. Into the tunnel. Lata, you make sure all the other maids and servants on this floor are moving. Don't let them dilly-dally to pack anything, either. They're supposed to be packed already."
Anastasius came into the room, scowling. "If you can tear yourself away from—oh. You know, I take it?"
Valentinian scowled right back at him. "Why is it that philosophy never seems to help you with anything useful? Of course, I know. What's the major domo up to?"
"He's getting everyone out of the kitchens. Rajiv and Khandik are rousting the rest of the servants on the floor above."
Valentinian nodded, and turned to Lady Damodara. "It will help if you and Lady Sanga take charge of the evacuation. Anastasius and I and the Ye-tai—and Rajiv—need to concentrate on the delaying action."
The tautness came back to Lady Damodara's face. "Rajiv, too?"
"Especially Rajiv," said Valentinian. He gave her what he probably thought was a reassuring look. Even in the tension of the moment, Dhruva had to fight down a laugh. On his face, it didn't look reassuring so much as simply sanguine.
"We need him, Lady," added Anastasius. "Rajiv's more cool-headed than the Ye-tai. We've been training him to handle the charges."
"Oh." The tautness faded. "You won't have him in the front?"
Valentinian started to say something that Dhruva was pretty sure would come out as a snarl, but Anastasius hastily interrupted.
"That'd be silly, wouldn't it? What I mean is, those tunnels aren't wide enough for more than two men at the front, and what with me and Valentinian—" He waved a huge hand at his glowering comrade. "No room for Rajiv there, anyway."
"We're wasting time," snarled Valentinian. "The boy goes with us, Lady Damodara. No way I want some damn Ye-tai deciding when to blow the charges."
* * *
By the time Dhruva and Lata got all the servants and maids chivvied into the cellars, some order had been brought to the initial chaos.
Quite a bit, actually. Between them, the wives of Damodara and Rana Sanga practically oozed authority, and the major domo was always there to handle the little details. Most of the cooks and servants and maids were now being guided into the tunnel by the Bihari miners.
That, too, had been planned long before. One miner for every four servants. True, they were now short the two murdered miners—and shorter still, in terms of the Ye-tai mercenaries who were supposed to oversee the whole operation. Still, there was no trouble. Khandik and one of the other two remaining mercenaries were staying in the cellars to help with the evacuation. The third one was upstairs with the two Roman cataphracts and Rajiv.
Things were even orderly enough for Lata to do a quick count.
"We're missing one of the maids, I think. That one—I can't remember her name—who helps with the washing."
Dhruva scanned the faces, trying to place her. The two sisters hadn't had much contact with the servants on the upper floors, as a rule. But because Lady Damodara insisted that all clothes washing had to be done indoors, they did encounter the ones who came to the laundry.
"I don't know her name either, but I know you who mean. The one... Well. She's pretty stupid, from what I could tell."
They saw the major-domo walking quickly toward Lady Damodara and Sanga's wife, who were standing in the center of the big cellar watching over everything. From the frown on his face, Dhruva was pretty sure he'd just finished his own head count and had come to the same conclusion.
A moment later, he and the two ladies were talking. All of them were now frowning. The two sisters couldn't hear the words, but the subject was fairly obvious.
"I better help," Lata said. "Will you be all right with the baby?"
"Yes. I'll wait till the last. Be careful."
Lata hurried over. Sanga's wife spotted her coming almost instantly. A faint look of relief came to her face.
As Lata neared, Lady Sanga interrupted the major domo. "Yes, fine." She pointed at Lata. "We can send her upstairs to find out what happened to the girl."
Lady Damodara looked at Lata and gave her a quick nod. An instant later, she was scampering up the stairs.
* * *
Even before she got to the main floor, she could hear the dull booming. The Malwa soldiery must be trying to batter down the main entrance door. Over the months, as discreetly as possible, Lady Damodara had had iron bars placed over all the windows on the palace's ground floor. To stymie thieves, she'd claimed, the one time a Malwa city official had investigated. He'd probably thought the explanation was silly, since that wealthy part of Kausambi with its frequent military patrols was hardly a place that any sensible thief would ply his trade. But he hadn't pursued the matter.
Now, that official would probably lose his head for negligence. Or be impaled on a stake, if the secret police decided that more than negligence was involved. The only way into the palace for troops trying to storm it quickly was through the main entrance. And that wasn't going to be quick, even with battering rams, as heavy and well-braced and barred as it now was.
Lata reached the landing and scampered toward the sound of the booming. The cataphracts would be there, of course.
So, indeed, they were. Along with Rajiv and the third Ye-tai mercenary, they were standing in a small alcove at the far end of the great entry vestibule. The same alcove that Lata entered, since it was the one that led to the basement floor and the cellars below.
Anastasius waved her down, without turning his head. "We know, Lata. She's over there."
Lata looked past him. Sure enough, the missing maid was cowering against a far wall of the vestibule.
"Come here, girl!" Rajiv shouted. "There's still time!"
There was plenty of time, in fact. The main door shook again, booming fiercely as whatever battering ram the soldiery had smashed into it. But, beyond loosening one of the hinges, the blow seemed to have no impact. The door would stand for at least another minute or two. More than enough time for the maid to saunter across to the alcove and the safety beyond, much less run.
But it didn't matter. The girl was obviously too petrified to think at all, even if she weren't dim-witted to begin with. She'd been overlooked in the initial evacuation, and now...
"Step aside, Rajiv," Valentinian said harshly.
Lata could see the shoulders of the young Rajput prince tighten. He didn't move from his position at the front of the alcove.
Rajiv took a shuddering little breath; then, moved aside and flattened himself against the wall.
Valentinian already had an arrow notched. The bow came up quickly, easily; the draw, likewise. Lata wasn't astonished, even though Valentinian had once let her draw that bow when she'd expressed curiosity.
Try to draw it, rather. She might as well have tried to lift an ox.
She never really saw the arrow's flight. Just stared, as the poor stupid maid was pinned to the far wall like a butterfly. Only a foot or so of the arrow protruded from her chest. The arrowhead had passed right through her and sunk into the thick wood of the wall.
Valentinian had no expression on his face at all. Another arrow was already out of the quiver and notched.
"It was quick, Rajiv," said Anastasius quietly. "In the heart. We can't leave anyone behind who might talk, you know that. And we need you now on the detonator."
Tight-faced, Rajiv nodded and came toward Lata. Looking down, Lata saw an odd-looking contraption on the floor not more than three feet away from her. It was a small wooden box with a wire leading from it into the wall of the alcove, and a knobbed handle sticking up from the middle. A plunger of some kind, she thought.
Rajiv didn't look at Valentinian as he passed him. He seemed surprised to see Lata. And, from the look on his face, a bit frightened.
"You have to go below!" He glanced back, as if to look at Valentinian. "Quickly."
"I just came up to see what happened to her. We took a count and..."
Turning his head slightly, Valentinian said over his shoulder: "Get below, Lata. Now."
* * *
Once she was back in the cellar, she just shook her head in response to the question in Lady Damodara's raised eyebrows.
The lady seemed to understand. She nodded and looked away.
"What happened?" Dhruva hissed.
"Never mind. She's dead." Lata half-pushed her sister toward the tunnel. "We're almost the last ones. Let's get in there. We're just in the way, now."
There were two Bihari miners left, still standing by the entrance. One of them came to escort them.
"This way, ladies. You'll have to stoop a little. Do you need help with the baby?"
"Don't be silly," Dhruva replied.
* * *
The upper hinge gave first. Once the integrity of the door was breached, three more blows from the battering ram were enough to knock it complete aside.
By the time those blows were finished, Valentinian had already fired four arrows through the widening gap. Each one of them killed a Malwa soldier in the huge mass of soldiery Rajiv could see on the street beyond.
Anastasius fired only once. His arrow, even more powerfully shot, took a Malwa in the shoulder. Hitting the armor there, it spun him into the mob.
The Ye-tai mercenary fired also. Twice, Rajiv thought, but he wasn't paying him any attention. He was settling his nerves from the killing of the maid by coldly gauging the archery skill of the two cataphracts against his father's.
Anastasius was more powerful, but much slower; Valentinian, faster than his father—and as accurate—but not as powerful.
So, a Rajput prince concluded, his father remained the greatest archer in the world. In India, at least.
That was some satisfaction. Rajput notions concerning the responsibility of a lord to his retainers were just as stiff as all their notions. Even if, technically, the maid was simply a servant and not one of Rajiv's anyway, her casual murder had raised his hackles.
Don't be silly, part of his mind said to him. Your father would have done the same.
Rajiv shook his head. Not so quickly! he protested. Not so—so—
The voice came again. Uncaringly? Probably true. And so what? She'd have been just as dead. Don't ever think otherwise. To you, he's a father and a great warrior. To his enemies, he's never been anything but a cold and deadly killer.
And you are his son—and do you intend to flinch when the time comes to push that plunger? Most of the men you'll destroy when you do so are peasants, and some of them none too intelligent. Does a stupid maid have a right to live, and they, not?
The door finally came off the hinges altogether and smashed—what was left of it—onto the tiles of the huge vestibule. Malwa soldiers came pouring in.
Valentinian fired three more times, faster than Rajiv could really follow. Valentinian, once; the Ye-tai, once. Four Malwa soldier fell dead. One—the Ye-tai's target—was merely wounded.
Valentinian stepped back quickly into the shelter of the alcove. Anastasius and the Ye-tai followed, an instant later.
Rajiv's hand struck down the plunger.
The charges carefully implanted in the walls of the vestibule turned the whole room into an abattoir. In the months they'd had to prepare, the major domo had even been able to secretly buy good drop shot on the black market. So it was real bullets that the mines sent flying into the room, not haphazard pieces of metal.
Rajiv supposed that some of the soldiers in the room must have survived. One or two, perhaps not even injured.
But not many. In a split second, he'd killed more men that most seasoned warriors would kill in a lifetime.
* * *
Somewhere on the stairs leading to the cellars, Rajiv uttered his one and only protest.
"I didn't hesitate. Not at all."
Anastasius smiled. "Well, of course not."
Valentinian shook his head. "Don't get melancholy and philosophical on me, boy. You've still got to do it twice more. Today."
For some reason, that didn't bother Rajiv.
Maybe that was because his enemies now had fair warning.
Anastasius smiled again, more broadly. At the foot of the stairs, now in the cellar, Valentinian turned around and glared at him.
"Who cares about 'fair warnings'? Dead is dead and we all die anyway. Just do it."
Anastasius, now also at the bottom of the stairs, cleared his throat. "If I may put Valentinian's viewpoint in proper Stoic terms, what he means to say—"
"Is exactly what the fuck I said," Valentinian hissed. "Just do it."
He glanced up the stairs. "In about ten minutes, at a guess."
* * *
His guess was off, a bit. Rajiv didn't blow the next charges for at least a quarter of an hour.
Whether because he'd satisfied himself concerning the ethics of the issue, or simply because Valentinian's cold-blooded murderousness was infectious, he wasn't sure. For whatever reason, Rajiv had no trouble waiting until the cellars were full of Malwa soldiery, probing uncertainly in the torch-lit darkness to find whatever hole their quarry had scurried into.
From the still greater darkness of the tunnel, Rajiv gauged the moment. He even out-waited Valentinian.
Two minutes later, he drove in the next plunger. The same type of shaped-charge mines implanted in the walls of the cellars turned those underground chambers into more abattoirs.
"Quickly, now!" urged Anastasius, already lumbering at a half-crouch down the tunnel. "We've got to get to the shelter as soon as possible. Before they can figure out—"
He continued in that vein, explaining the self-evident to people who already knew the plan by heart. Rajiv ignored him. Looking ahead, down the tunnel, he could see the figure of the Ye-tai already vanishing in the half-gloom thrown out by the few oil lamps still in place. Valentinian was close on his heels.
"You're doing good, boy," said the Mongoose. "Really, really good."
All things considered, Rajiv decided the Roman cataphract was right.
To be sure, this was not something he'd ever brag about. On the other hand...
When did you ever hear your father brag? came that little, back-of-the-mind voice.
Rajiv had noticed that, in times past. Now, finally, he thought he understood it. And, for the first time in his life, came to feel something for his father beyond love, admiration and respect.
Simple affection. Nothing fancy. Just the sort of fondness that a man—a woman too, he supposed—feels when he thinks about someone who has shared a task and a hardship.
* * *
When they reached the shelter, even Valentinian took a deep breath.
"Well," he muttered, "this is where we find out. God damn all Biharis—miners down to newborn babes—if it doesn't."
The Ye-tai just looked blank-faced. Anastasius' eyes flicked about the small chamber, with its massive bracing. "Looks good, anyway."
It seemed fitting, somehow, for Rajiv to finally take charge. "Place the barrier." It seemed silly to call that great heavy thing a "door."
He pointed to it, propped against the entrance they'd just come through. "Anastasius, you're the only one strong enough to hold it in place. Valentinian, you set the braces. You"—this to the Ye-tai—"help him."
The work was done quickly. The last of it was setting the angled braces that supplemented the great cross-bars and strengthened the door by propping it against the floor.
There was no point in waiting. The shelter would either hold, or they'd all be crushed. But there'd be no point to any of it if Rajiv didn't blow the last charges before the surviving Malwa in the palace that was now over a hundred yards distant as well as many feet above them had time to realize what had happened.
"I guess you'd better—" Valentinian started to say, but Rajiv's hand had already driven home the plunger.
"Well, shit," he added, before the earthquake made it impossible to talk at all.
* * *
The Malwa general in command of the entire operation had remained outside the palace. After he was knocked off his feet, he stared dumbfounded as the walls of the palace seemed to erupt all around the base.
The palace came down, like a stone avalanche.
Some of those stones were large, others were really pieces of wall that had somehow remained intact.
Some were blown a considerable distance by the explosion. Others bounced, after they fell.
Scrambling frantically, the general managed to avoid all the ones sent sailing by the blast. But as close as he'd been standing, he didn't escape one section of wall—a very big section—as it disintegrated.
* * *
A few minutes later, his second-in-command and now successor was able to finally piece together the few coherent reports he could get.
There weren't many, and they weren't all that coherent. Only three of the soldiers who had gone into the palace were still alive, and one of them was too badly injured to talk. None of the soldiers who'd gone into the cellar had survived, of course.
But he was pretty sure he knew what had happened, and hastened to make his report to Emperor Skandagupta.
* * *
In his own far greater palace, the Emperor waited impatiently for the officer to finish.
When he was done, Skandagupta shook his head. "They all committed suicide? That's nonsense."
He pointed at the officer. "Execute this incompetent."
Once that was done, the Emperor gave his orders. They were not complicated.
"Dig. Remove all the rubble. There's an escape tunnel there somewhere. I want it found."
Carefully—very carefully—none of his advisers allowed any of their dismay to show. Not with the Emperor in such a foul and murderous mood.
Not one of them wanted to draw his attention. It would take days to clear away all that rubble. Long, long days, in which the Emperor would probably have at least one or two more men executed for incompetence.
At least. As the advisers assigned to the task of excavation started filing out of the imperial audience chamber, Skandagupta was already giving orders to discover which incompetent—no, which traitor—in charge of the capital's munitions supply had been so corrupt or careless—no, treasonous—to allow such a huge quantity of gunpowder to slip through his fingers.
* * *
After the advisers reached the relative safety of the streets outside the palace, they went their separate ways to begin organizing the excavation project.
All but one of them, that is. That one, after he was certain no one was watching him, headed for Kausambi's northern gate.
The city was still in a state of semi-chaos, so soon after the word of Damodara's rebellion had spread everywhere from the telegraph stations, despite the secret police's attempts to suppress the news. The destruction of Lady Damodara's palace, right in the middle of the imperial quarter, would simply add to it.
The adviser thought he had a good chance of slipping out of the city unnoticed, if he moved immediately. He had no choice, in any event, if he had any hope of staying alive himself or keeping his wife and children alive.
True, the adviser had no connection to Kausambi's munitions depot. But one of his first cousins was in charge of it, and the adviser knew perfectly well the man was not only corrupt but careless. He had no doubt at all that an investigation would soon discover that Lady Damodara's agents had simply bought the gunpowder. Probably had it delivered to the palace in the munitions depot's own wagons.
Fortunately, his wife and two children had remained in their home town farther down the Ganges. With luck he could get there in time to get them out. He had enough money on his person to bribe the guards at the gate and even hire transport. There was considerably more money in their mansion. With that, they might be able to escape into Bengal somewhere...
Beyond that, he thought no further. There was no point in it. He could feel the Malwa Empire cracking and breaking under his feet. With that greatest of all the world's certainties shaking, what man could possibly foresee the future?
* * *
He made it out of the city. But, within a day, was captured by a cavalry patrol. The Emperor had soon considered that possibility also, and had placed a ban on any officials leaving Kausambi without written orders. By then, his savage punitive actions had terrified the city's soldiery enough that the guards at the gate whom the adviser had bribed prattled freely to the secret police.
Before noon of the next day, the adviser's body was on a stake outside Skandagupta's palace. Four days later, the bodies of his wife and two children joined him. The soldiers had some trouble fitting the boy, since he was only three.
Not much, however. By then, Skandagupta's fury was cutting through the imperial elite like a scythe, and small stakes were being prepared. Plenty of them.
* * *
"He's hysterical," Lady Damodara said, pinched-faced, after getting the latest news from one of the stable-keeper's sons. "Even for Skandagupta, this is insane."
Sanga's wife shifted a bit on her cushions. The cushions were thinner than she was used to, and—worse—their quarters were extremely crowded. The entire staff from the palace was crammed into the last stretch of the tunnel while they waited for the first search of the city to run its course. So were over a dozen miners. But she knew that even after they were able to move into the stables, in a few days, the conditions wouldn't improve all that much.
As places of exile went, the stables would be utterly wretched. As a place of refuge from the Malwa madness sweeping the city and leaving hundreds of people staked outside the imperial palace, however, it would be superb.
She gave the stable-keeper's son a level look. "Are you frightened, Tarun?"
The twelve-year-old boy swallowed. "Some, Lady. Not too much, though. The soldiers who searched the stables this morning were irritated, but they didn't take it out on us, and they didn't search all that seriously. They didn't really search at all in the stable that has the hidden door leading to this tunnel. Since then, our parents and our sisters stay out of sight, but my brother and I can move around on the streets easily enough. The soldiers even answer our questions, usually. They really aren't paying much attention to... Well. People like us."
Lady Damodara chuckled, humorlessly. "So Narses predicted. 'You'll be lost in Kausambi's ocean of poverty,' were his exact words. I remember. Damn his soul."
"No," said Rajiv forcefully. "Damn Malwa's soul."
Both ladies gave him a level look.
"The false Malwa, I mean," added Rajiv hastily.
Lady Damodara's chuckle, this time, had a bit of humor in it. "Look at it this way, Rajiv. When it's all over, if we survive, we can look at Skandagupta on a stake."
"Oh, yes," said the lady serenely.
Lady Sanga sniffed. "Maybe. By the time he gets here, Rajiv, your father's temper will be up. They'll need toothpicks. I doubt if even Lord Damodara will be able to restrain him enough to keep some portion of Skandagupta's body suitably sized for a stake."
"He probably won't even try," allowed Lady Damodara. "Now that I think about it."
The Punjab
"I am leaving you in charge, General Samudra," said Great Lady Sati. To the general's relief, the tone and timber of the voice was that of the young woman Sati appeared to be, not...
The thing for which it was really just a vessel.
The god—or goddess—he should say. But Samudra was beginning to have his doubts on that issue. Desperately, he hoped that the thing inside Great Lady Sati could detect none of his reservations.
Apparently not, since she said nothing to the special assassins positioned against the walls of her caravan. Perhaps that was simply because Samudra's general anxiety over-rode anything specific.
He didn't want to be left in charge of the Malwa army in the Punjab. That was not due to any hesitations concerning his own military abilities, it was simply because the situation was obviously beginning to crumble for political reasons, and Samudra was wary of the repercussions.
Samudra had always stayed as far away as he could from political matters. Insofar as possible, at least, within the inevitable limits of the Malwa dynastic system of which he was himself a member. He was one of the emperor's distant cousins, after all. Still, he'd done his very best throughout his life to remain a purely military figure in the dynasty.
But all he said was: "Yes, Great Lady."
"I will take thirty thousand troops with me, from here, and another ten from Multan. No artillery units, however. They will slow me down too much and I can acquire artillery once I reach the Ganges plain. Have them ready by early morning, the day after tomorrow. You may select them, but I want good units with Ye-tai security battalions. Full battalions, Samudra."
He managed not to wince. The problem wasn't the total number of soldiers Sati wanted to take back to Kausambi with her. Thirty thousand was actually lower than he'd expected. The problem would be filling out the ranks of the Ye-tai. Few of the security battalions were still up to strength. The defection of so many Kushans to Kungas and his new kingdom had forced the Malwa to use Ye-tai as spearhead assault troops. As brave as they were, the Ye-tai had little of the Kushan experience with that role. Their casualties had been very heavy, this past two years.
Samudra knew he'd have no choice but to strip the needed reinforcements out of all the other security battalions. And with only one full day to do the work, it would be done hastily and haphazardly, to boot, with not much more in the way of rhyme or reason than what he might accomplish with a lottery.
Gloomily, Samudra contemplated the months of fighting ahead of him here in the Punjab. The morale of the great mass of the soldiery was already low. The departure of Great Lady Sati, forty thousand troops—and a disproportionate percentage of the Ye-tai security forces—would leave it shakier still.
On the brighter side, the Romans seemed content to simply fight a siege. If Great Lady Sati...
Her next words brought considerable relief.
"I do not expect you to make any headway in my absence," she said. "Nor is it needed. Simply keep Belisarius pinned here while I attend to suppressing Damodara's rebellion. We will resume offensive operations next year."
"Yes, Great Lady." Samudra hesitated. The next subject was delicate.
"No artillery units, understood. But of the thirty thousand, how many... ah..."
"Cavalry? Not more than three thousand. Enough to provide me with a screen, that's all. You understand that none of the cavalry may be Rajputs, I assume?"
Samudra nodded. Although there'd been no open mutinies among the Rajputs yet—aside from the huge number already with Rana Sanga—no Malwa top commander could place much reliance on them until Damodara's rebellion was crushed.
Sati shrugged, in an oddly human gesture. "Without using Rajputs, we cannot assemble a large force of cavalry that I could depend upon. Since I'll need to use mostly infantry, I may as well make it a strong infantry unit with only enough cavalrymen to serve as scouts and a screen. It shouldn't matter, anyway. I don't expect to encounter any opposition until I've almost reached Kausambi. Damodara will probably reach the capital before I do, but he'll be stymied by the fortifications until I arrive. By then, after I've reached the plain, I'll have been able to assemble a huge army from the garrisons in all the major cities along the Ganges. With me as the hammer and the walls of Kausambi as the anvil, Damodara will be crushed."
* * *
"Here?" exclaimed Dasal. The oldest of the Rajput kings in the chamber rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling.
"All it needed," he muttered. From the expressions on their faces, it was obvious the other seven kings present in the chamber—they were all elderly, if none quite so old as Dasal—shared his gloomy sentiments.
His younger brother Jaisal rose from his cushion and moved to a nearby window, walking with the creaky tread of a man well into his seventies. Once at the window, he stared out over the city of Ajmer.
The capital of the Rajputs, that was—insofar as that fractious nation could be said to have a "capital" at all. Jaisal found himself wondering whether it would still be standing, a year from now.
"Where are they being kept?" he asked.
The Rajput officer who'd brought the news to the council shook his head. "I was not given that information. Nor will I be, I think. They may not even be in Ajmer, at all."
Dasal lowered his eyes. "They're here somewhere," he snorted. "Be sure of it."
"We could find them..." ventured one of the other kings. Chachu was his name, and his normally cautious manner was fully evident in the questioning tone of the remark.
Simultaneously, one sitting and one still standing at the window, the brothers Dasal and Jaisal shook their heads.
"What would be the point of that?" demanded Jaisal. "Better if we can claim we never knew the location of Damodara's parents."
Gloomy silence filled the chamber again. The seven kings in that room formed what passed for a Rajput ruling council. None of them, singly or together, had any illusion that if Damodara's rebellion was crushed, Rajputana would retain even a shred of its semi-autonomy. Direct Malwa rule would be imposed—harshly—and each and every one of them would be questioned under torture.
Still, it was easier to deny something under torture that was a false accusation. Very narrowly defined, of course—but these were men grasping at straws.
"That madman Rana Sanga," Chachu hissed. But even that remark sounded as if it were punctuated by a question mark.
* * *
"It's not much," said one of their kidnappers apologetically. "The problem isn't even money, since we were given plenty. But Ajat—ah, our chief—told us to remain inconspicuous."
Damodara's father finished his inspection of the room. That hadn't taken long, as sparsely furnished as it was. It would be one of many such rooms in many such buildings in Ajmer. The city was a center for trade routes, and needed to provide simple accommodations for passing merchants, traders and tinkers.
He spent more time examining the man who had spoken. An assassin, obviously. Lord Damodara recognized the type, from his adventurous youth.
A very polite assassin, however, as all of them had been since they seized Damodara's parents from the bedroom of their palace and smuggled them into the night.
Better to think of them as bodyguards, he decided wryly.
"I'm exhausted," his wife said. She gazed longingly at the one bed in the room. It had been a long trip, especially for people of their advanced years.
"Yes, we need sleep," her husband agreed. He nodded to the assassin. "Thank you."
The man gave a bow in return. "We will be in the next room, should you need anything."
After he was gone, closing the door behind him, Damodara's mother half-collapsed on the bed. She winced, then, feeling the thin pallet.
"Not much!" she exclaimed, half-laughing and half-sobbing.
Her husband made a face. "A year from now we, will either be skin-sacks hanging from Emperor Skandagupta's rafters or be sleeping in one of the finest chambers in his palace."
The noise his wife emitted was, again, half a sob and half a laugh. "Your son! I told you—years ago!—that you were letting him think too much."
* * *
There were times—not many—that Agathius was thankful he'd lost his legs at the Battle of the Dam.
This was one of them. Being an obvious cripple might deflect some of the Persian fury being heaped upon his unoffending person, where the strength of Samson unchained would have been pointless.
"—not be cheated, I say it again!"
Khusrau punctuated the bellow with a glare ferocious enough to be worthy of...
Well, an emperor, actually. Which he was.
The mass of Persian noblemen packed into Khusrau's audience chamber at Sukkur growled their approval. They sounded like so many hungry tigers.
Not a dehgan in the lot, either, so far as Agathius could tell. That broad, lowest class of the Iranian azadan—"men of noble birth"—hadn't been invited to send representatives to this enclave. The only men in the room were sahrdaran and vurzurgan.
Agathius shifted his weight on his crutches. "Your Majesty," he said mildly, "I just arrive here from Barbaricum. I have no idea beyond the sketchiest telegraph messages—which certainly didn't mention these issues—what the general has planned in terms of a postwar distribution of the spoils. But I'm quite sure he has no intention of denying the Iranians their just due."
Another surge of muttered growls came. The phrase he'd better not! seemed to be the gist of most of them.
"He'd better not!" roared Khusrau. His clenched fist pounded the heavy armrest of his throne. Three times, synchronized with bet-ter-not.
"I'm sure the thought has never crossed his mind," said Agathius firmly. He contemplated a sudden collapse on the floor, but decided that would be histrionic. He wasn't that crippled, after all. Besides, he'd said the words with such complete conviction that even the angry and suspicious Persians seemed a bit mollified.
And why not? The statement was quite true. Agathius was as certain as he was of the sunrise that the thought of swindling the Persians out of their rightful share of the postwar spoils had not, in fact, "crossed" Belisarius' mind.
Been planted there like a sapling, yes. Been studied and examined from every angle, to be sure. Weighed, pondered, appraised, considered, measured, gauged, adjudged, evaluated, assessed—for a certainty.
* * *
Belisarius studied the telegram.
"Pretty blistering language, sir," Calopodius said apologetically, as if he were somehow responsible for the intemperate tone of the message.
"Um." Belisarius scanned over it quickly again. "Well, I agree that the verbs 'cheat' and 'rob' are excessive. And there was certainly no need to bring up my ancestry. Still and all, it could be worse. If you look at it closely—well, squint—this is really more in the way of a protest than a threat."
He dropped the Persian emperor's message onto the table. "And, as it happens, all quite unnecessary. I have no intentions of 'cheating' the Persians out of their fair share of the spoils."
He turned to Maurice, smiling. "Be sure to tell Khusrau that, when he arrives."
Maurice scowled back at him. "You'll be gone, naturally."
"Of course!" said Belisarius gaily. "Before dawn, tomorrow, I'm off across the Thar."
* * *
Before Maurice could respond, Anna stalked into the headquarters bunker.
She spoke with no preamble. "Your own latrines and medical facilities are adequate, General. But those of the Punjabi natives are atrocious. I insist that something be done about it."
Belisarius bestowed the same gleeful smile on her. "Absolutely! I place you in charge. What's a good title, Maurice?"
The chiliarch's scowl darkened. "Who cares? How about 'Mistress of the Wogs'?"
Belisarius clucked his tongue. "Thracian peasant. No, that won't do at all."
He turned to Calopodius. "Exercise your talent for rhetoric here, youngster."
Calopodius scratched his chin. "Well... I can think of several appropriate technical titles, but the subtleties of the Greek language involved wouldn't mean anything to the natives. So why not just call her the Governess?"
* * *
A full hour before sunrise, Belisarius and his expedition left the Triangle. To maintain the secrecy of the operation, they were ferried south for several miles before being set ashore. By now, Roman patrols had scoured both banks of the Indus so thoroughly that no enemy spies could be hidden anywhere.
As always with water transport, the horses were the biggest problem. The rest was easy enough, since Belisarius was bringing no artillery beyond mortars and half a dozen of the rocket chariots.
By mid-morning, they were completely out of sight of the river, heading east into the wasteland.
* * *
At approximately the same time, Sati started her own procession out of the Malwa camp to the north. There was no attempt at secrecy here, of course. What can be done—even then, with difficulty—by less than a thousand men, cannot possibly be done by thirty thousand. So huge was that mass of men, in fact, that it took the rest of the day before all of them had filed from the camps and started up the road.
Preceded only by a cavalry screen and one Ye-tai battalion, the Great Lady herself led the way. Since the infantry would set the pace of the march, she would ride in the comfort of a large howdah suspended between two elephants.
The "howdah" was really more in the way of a caravan or a large sedan than the relatively small conveyance the word normally denoted. The chaundoli, as it was called, was carried on heavy poles suspended between two elephants, much the way a litter is carried between two men. Its walls and roof were made of thin wood, with three small windows on each side. The walls and roof were covered with grass woven onto canes and lashed to the exterior. The grass would be periodically soaked with water during the course of the journey, which would keep the interior cool as the breeze struck the chaundoli.
Since none of the Great Lady's special bodyguards or assassins were horsemen, those of them who could not be fit into her own chaundoli rode in a second one just behind her. They could have marched, of course. But the thing which possessed the body of the Great Lady had no desire to risk its special assistants becoming fatigued. Link didn't expect to need them, but the situation had become so chaotic that even its superhuman capacity for calculation was being a bit overwhelmed.
* * *
Lord Samudra watched Great Lady Sati's army depart from the great complex of fortresses and camps which had by then been erected facing the Roman lines in the Iron Triangle. Come evening, he returned to his own headquarters—which was, in fact, built much the same way as a chaundoli except the walls were of heavy timber. The water-soaked grass wasn't quite as effective a cooling mechanism with such a massive and stationary structure. But it was still far superior to the sweltering heat of a tent or the sort of buried bunkers the Roman generals used.
Idiots, they were, in Samudra's opinion. The only reason they needed bunkers was because of their flamboyant insistence on remaining close to the fighting lines. Samudra's own headquarters was several miles beyond the farthest possible range of Roman cannons or rockets.
"Have more water poured on the grass," Samudra commanded his major domo. "And be quick about it. I am not in a good mood."
The Iron Triangle
At least Emperor Khusrau had enough sense to leave his Persian army on the west bank of the Indus, when he came storming into Maurice's bunker on the Iron Triangle. In point of fact, Maurice wouldn't have allowed him to bring them across—and he, not the Persians, controlled the rivers. The Iranians had nothing to match the Roman ironclad and fireship.
Still, even Khusrau alone—in his current mood—would have been bad enough. Surrounded as he was with enough sahrdaran to pack the bunker, he was even worse. And the fact that Maurice was sure the Persian emperor was mostly playing to the audience didn't improve his own mood at all.
Maurice had had enough. "Cheated?" he demanded. "Who is 'cheating you', damnation?" He had just enough control of his temper left to add: "Your Majesty."
Maurice pointed to the west wall of the bunker. "Take as much as you can over there, for all I care! But don't expect me to do your fighting for you!"
Several of the sahrdaran hissed angrily, one of them very loudly. That was a sahrdaran in his early forties whose name was Shahrbaraz. He was the oldest son of the leader of the Karin family, which was one of the seven great sahrdaran houses and perhaps the most influential after the Suren.
Maurice glared at him, still pointing at the west wall. "Why are you here, hissing at me—instead of fighting to take the land you claim is yours?"
Shahrbaraz started to respond angrily, but the emperor waved him down.
"Be silent!" Khusrau commanded. He gave Maurice a fine glare of his own. "May I then assume that you will not object if I launch my own offensive?"
"And you will not object if we retain the land we conquer?"
Maurice snatched up the messages on the center table and shook them at the emperor. Those were copies of the exchange between Belisarius and Damodara that had taken place days earlier. "How many times do I need to show this to you? Your Majesty. Whatever you can take west of the river is yours. As far north as you can manage to get."
"To the Hindu Kush!" shouted one of the other sahrdaran. Maurice couldn't remember his name, but he was a prominent member of the house of the Spandiyads.
By a mighty struggle, Maurice managed not to sneer. "I'd recommend you stop at the foot of the Hindu Kush. Keeping in mind that King Kungas counts the Vale of Peshawar as part of it. Everything north of Kohat Pass and west of Margalla Pass belongs to him, he says. But if you think you can roll over the Kushans as well as the Malwa, so be it."
"And when have the Aryans cared—"
"Be silent!" Khusrau roared again. This time, thankfully, it was the Spandiyad who was the recipient of his imperial glare. "We are not at war with the Kushans," he stated. "All of the west Punjab to the Hindu Kush. We will stop once we have reached the passes into the Vale of Peshawar held by our allies the Kushans."
The emperor glanced down at the half-crumpled pile of messages. "As all have now agreed," he finished, more softly.
When he looked up at Maurice, he seemed considerably calmer. "Will your gunships provide us with protection from the Malwa ironclads?"
Maurice shook his head. Not angrily, but firmly nonetheless. "We can't, Your Majesty. I'm sorry, but we just can't. Neither the Justinian nor the Victrix is a match for them. Not even one of them, much less the two they have stationed on the Indus. That's why we laid the mine fields across the rivers. Once you move north of those minefields, you'll be on your own. I recommend you keep your army away from the rivers. Far enough away to be out of range of the ironclads' guns."
Khusrau didn't seem surprised by the response. Or angry, for that matter. He simply grunted softly and turned away.
"To the Hindu Kush!" he bellowed, striding toward the exit of the bunker.
Within a minute, they were all gone.
"Thank God," muttered Maurice. "Can't stand Persians. Never have liked the arrogant bastards. Think their shit doesn't stink."
"It certainly does," sniffed Anna. She'd happened to be present in the bunker, visiting her husband, when the Persian delegation arrived. "I've visited their camps, on the way up here. Their sanitary practices would cause a hyena to tremble."
Maurice chuckled. "Worse than the natives here?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact," Anna replied stiffly. "Even before I started governessing them. Today, the Punjabi habits are much better. A week from now—well, a month—there'll be no comparison at all."
Maurice didn't doubt it, although he thought Anna's estimate of one month was wildly optimistic. The difficulty wasn't so much native resistance—perhaps oddly, the Punjabis seemed quite taken by their new "Governess"—as it was the sheer scale of the problem.
Malwa armies were always notorious for their rough habits with local populations. The huge Malwa army dug in to the north of the Triangle was behaving especially badly, as packed in as those soldiers were and suffering all the miseries and frustrations of siege warfare. The Iron Triangle had become a refuge for untold thousands of Punjabis in the area. They came across the rivers, on small skiffs or even swimming through the minefields.
By now, the population density of the Triangle was almost that of a huge city. Worse, really, since most of the land area had to be left available for farming. The Triangle got much of its supplies from the Sind, brought up by the river boats, but it still had to provide the bulk of its own food. Controlling the raw sewage produced by such a population was enough to make Hercules' legendary cleaning of the Augean Stables look like an afternoon's easy chore.
* * *
"There'll be enough, General," said Ashot. "Just barely."
Belisarius nodded, after he finished wiping his face with a cloth. That was to clean off the dust, mostly. Despite the heat, the Thar was so dry that sweat didn't have time to really accumulate.
He was careful not to let his worry show. This was the third well they'd reached, and all of them had had just enough water—just barely—for his expedition. They had almost no reserve left at all. If even one of the wells was empty, or near-empty...
But there was no point in fretting over the matter. The long war with the Malwa was nearing its end, and there remained only to drive home the lance—or die in the attempt. It was in the hands of Fate, now.
"Let's be off," he said. He glanced at the horizon, where the dawn was beginning. "There's still enough time for three hours' travel before the sun's up high enough to force us to camp for the day."
"I feel like a bat," complained Ashot. "Live by night, sleep by day."
He said it fairly cheerily, though. Ashot had plenty of experience with desert campaigns, and knew perfectly well that no sane man traveled through an area like the Thar when the sun was up. Like all the cataphracts on the expedition, he was wearing loose-fitting Arab-style robes instead of armor—the only difference being that Ashot knew how to put them on without help from one of Abbu's men.
* * *
"Something's happening," Kujulo stated. Slowly, he swept the telescope across the terrain below the pass. "I'm not sure what, but there's too much movement down there."
"Are they preparing another attack?" asked one of the other Kushans.
"After the way we butchered the last one? Doubt it," grunted Kujulo. "No, I think they're pulling out some of their forces. And I think—not sure about this at all—that there's some sort of troop movement in the far distance. But it doesn't seem to be reinforcements."
He lowered the telescope. Awkwardly, since it was big and clumsy; one of the eyeglasses newly-made in Begram's fledgling optical industry, not one of the sleek Roman devices.
"Let the King know," he commanded. "This may be what he's expecting."
* * *
Miles away, a squad of Ye-tai had a much better view of what was happening. They were serving as sentries for the Malwa army positioned against the Kushans—and none too happy about it, either. In times past, it would have been Kushans themselves who'd be detached for this rigorous duty. But Kushans could no longer be relied upon, what few of them were still left in the Malwa forces. Their army's commander hadn't dared used common troops for the purpose. Kushans were much too good at mountain warfare to depend on levied infantry to serve as outlying sentries.
"Tell me again," said the squad leader.
The new member of the squad shrugged. He'd only arrived the day before. "Don't believe me, then. Great Lady Sati is on her way to the capital. With forty thousand troops. Seems there's a big rebellion."
"Why were you traveling with them?"
"I wasn't. I was just part of a troop sent by Samudra up here. We only marched with the Great Lady's expedition for a short distance. She's headed up the Sutlej, of course."
"I wish we were too," muttered one of the other squad members.
Again, the newcomer shrugged. "So do I. But they're leaving some of the Ye-tai they brought with them here—me among them, worse luck—while they take back to the Punjab almost ten thousand regular troops."
"Why do the two of you wish you were going back to the plain?" demanded the squad leader. "So we could get lost in a whirlpool in the Ganges? Don't be stupid."
Their camp was perched on a rise that looked directly onto Margalla Pass, which divided the Vale of Peshawar from the Punjab proper. From the distance, the squad leader couldn't see any of the Kushan troops who were holding the pass. But he imagined he could almost see the blood the Malwa army had left on those slopes, in the course of four defeated assaults.
They were being ground up here. On level ground, the Ye-tai squad leader would have faced Kushans without worrying too much. Up here, in the hills and mountains, fighting them was like fighting crocodiles in a river.
"I'm half-Sarmatian," he murmured. "Mother's side."
None of his mates so much as curled a lip, despite the absurdity of the statement. There hadn't been any Sarmatians in centuries.
It didn't matter, since that wasn't the point of the statement. Within a few seconds, all of the squad members were eyeing the new arrival.
Fortunately for him, he wasn't stupid. "The war's lost," he said, softly but clearly. "That's what I think, anyway."
The squad leader grinned. "What's your name?"
The new man grinned back. "Prabhak. I know, it sounds funny. It's a Sarmatian name. Given to me by my mother."
At that, the whole squad laughed. "Welcome, brother," said one of them. "Would you believe that all of us are half-Sarmatian?"
That brought another little laugh. When it died down, Prabhak asked: "When? And which way?"
The squad leader glanced at the sun, which was now setting. "As soon as dark falls. There'll be a half moon. Good enough. And we'll head for the Kushans."
Prabhak winced, as did most of the squad members.
"Don't be stupid," growled the squad leader. "You want to spend the rest of your lives living like goats?"
"They say King Kungas isn't a bad sort," mused one of the squad members.
The squad leader chuckled humorlessly. "Nobody says anything of the sort. He's a demon and his witch wife is even worse. Which is fine with me. Just the sort of rulers who can keep us alive, in what's coming."
* * *
The first fortress in the Vindhyas that Damodara's army reached was deserted. Its garrison had fled two days before, they were told by some of the natives.
So was the second, and the third.
The fourth fortress, far down from the crest, was still manned. Either the garrison or its commander were more stalwart.
They were stalwart enough to last for exactly eight minutes, once Sanga launched the assault, before they tried to surrender.
Tried, and failed. Sanga was giving no quarter.
Even if he'd been inclined to, which he wasn't—not with his wife and children in Kausambi—Lord Damodara had commanded a massacre.
Emperor Damodara, rather. As a mere Lord, Damodara had always been noted for his comparative leniency toward defeated enemies, by Malwa standards. But the garrison of the fortress which had dared to resist him were no longer simply "enemies." They were traitors and rebels.
Of course, Sanga allowed some of the garrison to escape. That, too, had been commanded by Emperor Damodara. There was no point in slaughtering garrisons if other garrisons didn't learn of it.
By the next day, Damodara's army was out of the mountains and marching up the Chambal river. The Chambal was the main tributary of the Yamuna, whose junction was still five hundred miles to the north. Once they reached that junction, they'd still have three hundred miles to march down the Yamuna before reaching Kausambi.
Even with every man in his army mounted, either as cavalry or dragoons, Damodara could not hope to make faster progress than twenty miles a day—and the long march would probably go slower than that. True, now that they were out of the Vindhyas, the countryside was fertile and they could forage as they went. But his army still numbered some forty thousand men. It was simply not possible to move such a huge number of soldiers very quickly.
Six weeks, at least, it would take them to reach Kausambi. Conceivably, two months—and if they had to fight any major battles on the way, longer than that. They simply could not afford to be delayed by any of the fortresses along the way.
The first fortress they encountered on the river was deserted.
"They've heard of us, it seems," said Rana Sanga to the emperor.
"I prefer to think it's the majestic aura of my imperial presence."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Though I'm not sure I understand the difference."
Damodara smiled. "Neither do I, as it happens. You'd think I would, since I believe I'm now semi-divine. Maybe even three-quarters."
* * *
The Bihari miner straightened up from his crouch. "They're getting close, master. I think so, anyway. It's hard to tell, because of all the echoes."
The term "echoes" seemed strange to Valentinian, but he understood what the miner meant. At the first dogleg, they'd dug two short false tunnels in addition to the one that led—eventually—to the exit in the stables. What the miner was hearing were the complex resonances of the sounds being made by the Malwa miners as they neared the end of clearing away the rubble that the Romans had left behind when they blew the charges.
"Will you know when they break through?"
"Oh, yes. Even before the charges go off."
The miner grimaced as he made the last statement. As someone who had spent all of his adult life and a good portion of his childhood working beneath the earth, he had an automatic sympathy for men who would soon be crushed in a series of cave-ins. Enemies or not.
Valentinian didn't share any of his sentiments. Dead was dead. What difference did it make if it came under tons of rock and soil, the point of a lance—or just old age?
He turned to Rajiv. "Are you willing to do this? Or would you prefer it if I did?"
The young Rajput prince shrugged. "If everything works right, the charges will go off automatically, anyway. I won't have to do anything."
"'If everything works right,'" Valentinian jeered. "Nothing ever works right, boy. That's the cataphract's wisdom."
* * *
But Valentinian proved to be wrong.
When their miners finally broke through the rubble into a cleared area, two Malwa officers pushed them aside and entered the tunnel. For all the risk involved, they were both eager. Emperor Skandagupta had promised a great reward for whatever officers captured Damodara's family.
Both of them moved their torches about, illuminating the area. Then, cursed together.
"Three tunnels leading off!" snarled the superior officer. "But which is the right one?"
His lieutenant gestured with his torch to the tunnel ahead of him. "I'll explore this one, if you want. You take one of the others. We can leave some men to guard the third, until we have time to investigate it."
"As good a plan as any, I guess." The captain swiveled his head and barked some orders. Within a minute, three guards had entered the tunnel along with one of the mining engineers.
"Make a diagram of the three tunnels," he commanded the engineer. "Nothing fancy. Just something that shows us—the Emperor—what direction they lead."
He ordered the guards to remain at the head of the third tunnel, while he and the lieutenant explored the other two.
The engineer was done with his task in less than two minutes. "Nothing fancy," the man had said—and the engineer didn't want to stay there any longer than he had to. His sketch completed, he crawled back through the opening into the area that had now been cleared of the rubble left behind by the great explosions.
He straightened up with a great sense of relief.
* * *
The lieutenant spotted the booby-trap in his tunnel just in time to keep his foot from triggering the trip-wire.
His superior was less observant.
The charges in all three tunnels were wired together, of course. So the lieutenant's greater caution only gave him a split-second longer lifespan, before the tunnels collapsed. The guards at the third tunnel were just as surely crushed.
The engineer was knocked off his feet by the explosion, and then covered with the dust blown through the opening. He had just enough presence of mind to keep a grip on the sketch he'd made and protect it from harm.
* * *
That caution, also, proved to be of no value.
"This is useless," snarled Skandagupta, after a quick study of the sketch. "They could have gone anywhere."
The emperor crumpled up the sketch and hurled it at the engineer. "Impale him," he commanded.
Kausambi
"They'll be doing another search of the city," Anastasius said. "For sure and certain."
Lady Damodara looked around the stall in the stable that had been turned into her personal chamber. Then, she smiled very crookedly.
"Who would have thought the day would come that I'd regard a stable stall as luxurious surroundings?"
Lady Sanga was smiling just as crookedly. "Living in a tunnel gives you a sense of proportion. Anything is better than that. Still, Anastasius is right. We can't take the risk."
Lady Damodara sighed. "Yes. I know. The next search might be more thorough. There's really no way to keep soldiers out of this stable if they insist on coming in. As it is"—she gave Valentinian a sly glance—"we'll have to work hard and fast to remove any traces that we were here."
Valentinian returned the glance with a scowl. He'd argued against moving into the stable at all, preferring to remain the whole time in the enlarged tunnel below. Eventually, he'd given in, for the sole reason that providing the hideaways with enough edible food was too difficult if they stayed for very long in the tunnels.
The problem wasn't money. Lady Damodara had a fortune in coins and jewels, and had brought all of it with her into the tunnels. She had more than enough money to feed them all with the world's finest delicacies for years.
The problem was that large purchases of anything beyond simple foodstuffs would eventually be noticed by the city's authorities. And, unfortunately, the sort of cheap and readily available food that the stable-keeper's family could purchase without notice needed to be cooked.
Cooking in a stable was easy. Cooking in a tunnel was not.
Valentinian had then had to wage a mighty struggle to keep the Indians from decorating the stable so much that it would be impossible to disguise their occupancy.
Anastasius was more sanguine. "No problem. One full day of horse shit will disguise anything."
Both women laughed. The horses who'd formerly occupied that stable had been moved into adjoining ones, of course, but they could be moved back quickly and easily.
The stable-keeper had explained to the one customer who'd inquired that the move was due to his doubts regarding the structural soundness of the stable. Doubts which, truth be told, weren't entirely faked. The stable that the refugees were using as a hiding place was the most wretched and rickety building in the compound. Of course, that meant it was also the one it was impossible to see into, because of the extra bracing and shoring.
"No help for it," Lady Damodara stated firmly, when she was done laughing. "We'll make the move back into the tunnel this evening. And stop scowling, Valentinian! If we tried to move immediately, we'd be too careless in covering up all the signs that we've been here for weeks."
That was true enough, but it didn't stop Valentinian from scowling.
"Something will go wrong," he predicted.
* * *
In the event, nothing did go wrong. Skandagupta ordered another major search of the city. But, as with the initial search, the effort was undone by its very ambition.
"Scour Kausambi" was an easy order to give, from the imperial palace. From the viewpoint of the mass of soldiers on the ground who had to carry it out, the task looked very different. All the more so because they were never given any clear instructions or explanations as to exactly what they were looking for, beyond "the Lady Damodara and her entourage." Most of the soldiers who conducted the search were peasants, other than the Ye-tai, who were usually semi-barbarians and almost as likely to be illiterate. Their assumptions concerning where a "great lady" could expect to be found hiding simply didn't include stables.
A squad of soldiers searched the stables, to be sure. But their investigation was perfunctory. They didn't even enter the stall where the entrance to the tunnels below was located, much less give it the kind of search that might have uncovered the well-hidden trapdoor.
Not surprising, of course. That stall had more manure in it than any of them.
* * *
Still, Valentinian insisted that everyone stay below for three days following the search. Only after Tarun, the stable-keeper's oldest son, reported that the search seemed to have ended all over the city, did Valentinian let the people from the palace come up to enjoy the relative comforts of the stable.
* * *
"See?" demanded Anastasius, grinning.
Valentinian's scowl was just as dark as ever. "Don't be an idiot. This isn't going as well as we'd thought it would."
"What are you talking about?" Still grinning, Anastasius waved a huge hand in the direction of the imperial palace. "Tarun says they added four more heads to Skandagupta's collection, perched on pikes outside the palace gates. He thinks one of them was even a member of the dynasty."
"All that philosophy has rotted your brains. What do you think will happen next, Anastasius? I'll tell you what'll happen. Whoever the new batch of officers are in charge of the search, they'll throw still more men at digging out the rubble. Put enough hands to the work, and they could dig up the whole city. We're only a few hundred yards from the Lady's palace, you know. That's really not that far, no matter how much we confused them with the doglegs."
The grin faded from Anastasius' face. "You think?"
"You're damn right 'I think.' I didn't worry about it, before, when we first came up with this scheme. Most of the tunnel passes under other buildings. To find out which direction it goes, once we collapsed the beginning of it, they can't just dig up soil. They have to level whole city blocks, in their own capital. Who's going to do that?"
Valentinian was literally chewing on his beard. "But I never expected Skandagupta to carry out this kind of reign of terror. I figured he'd be satisfied with one or two searches, and then give it up, figuring the Lady had somehow managed to get out of the city altogether."
"Stop chewing on your beard. It's disgusting." As if to give his fellow cataphract a better example, Anastasius started tugging on his own beard. "How soon do you think Damodara and Sanga can get here?"
Valentinian shrugged. At least the gesture dislodged the beard from his mouth. "Who knows? Be at least another month. And even when they do get here, so what? They still have to get into the city. There's no way to break down these walls without siege guns—and there's no way Damodara could have brought them with him from the Deccan."
"I'm sure he has a plan," said Anastasius. Uncertainly.
"Sure he does," sneered Valentinian. "Use his new imperial semi-divine aura to overawe the garrison."
Again, he shrugged. "It might even work, actually. But not quickly enough to save our necks. We've got to come up with a new plan."
* * *
By the next morning, he had his plan. Such as it was.
Everyone agreed with the first part of the plan. The Bihari miners were sent back underground to prepare new false tunnels—with charges in them, naturally—at the two remaining doglegs.
They made no protest, other than technical ones. Even leaving aside the fact that they were intimidated by Valentinian, the miners knew full well that their lives were now completely bound up with that of Lady Damodara and her entourage. If the Malwa caught them, they'd be staked alongside the others.
"Where will we get the wood?" asked the chief miner. "There's no way to shore tunnels without wood. Even flimsy tunnels we're planning to blow up."
"Don't be stupid." Valentinian swept his head in a little half-circle. "We're in a stable, if you hadn't noticed. Several stables, in fact. Take the wood from the stalls. Just use every other board, so the horses can't get out."
* * *
The stable-keeper protested, but that was more a matter of form than anything heartfelt. He, too, knew what would happen to himself and his entire family if the Malwa found them.
* * *
It was the second part of Valentinian's plan that stirred up the ruckus. Especially the part about Rajiv.
Rajiv himself, of course, was thrilled by the plan.
"That's the whole point," stated Valentinian. "Nobody notices kids. Especially if they're scruffy enough." He gave Rajiv a pointed look, to which the youngster responded with a grin.
"I can do 'scruffy.' Tarun will help."
The fourteen-year-old Tarun smiled shyly. He wasn't quite as thrilled by the plan as Rajiv, being a Bengali stable-keeper's son rather than a Rajput prince. But he had the natural adventurousness of a teenage boy, to which had been added something close to idol worship. Despite being a year older than Rajiv, Tarun was rather in awe of him—and delighted beyond measure that the Rajput prince had adopted him as a boon companion in time of trouble.
His parents, naturally, shared Lady Sanga's opinion.
"He's only fourteen!" wailed Tarun's mother.
"And small for his age," added his father.
"He's only a little bit small for his age," countered Rajiv. "But he's stronger than he looks—and, what's more important, he's very quick-witted. I don't have any hesitation at all about Tarun's part in the plan."
Before the argument could spin around in another circle, Lady Damodara spoke. Hers was ultimately the authoritative voice, after all.
"Let's remember that there are two parts to Valentinian's plan, and it's the second part that everyone's arguing about. But we may never have to deal with that, anyway. So let's concentrate today on the first part, which is the only part that involves the two boys. Does anybody really have any strong objection to Rajiv joining Tarun in his expeditions into the city?"
Lady Sanga took a deep breath. "No." But the hostile look she gave Valentinian made her sentiments clear. Like all mothers since the dawn of time, Lady Sanga knew perfectly well that the difference between "part of the way" and "all of the way," when dealing with a teenage son, could not be measured by the world's greatest mathematicians. Or sorcerers, for that matter.
No more than Valentinian, did she think that we may never have to deal with that was an accurate prediction of the future.
* * *
"It can be done," he told Valentinian four days later, after he and Tarun had finished their first round of scouting. "By you, at least. But not easily."
"I didn't think it would be easy." Valentinian and Anastasius exchanged a glance. Than, turned to stare at Khandik and the other two Ye-tai mercenaries.
Khandik grinned, rather humorlessly. "Why not? Five against a hundred."
"More like eighty," qualified Rajiv.
"Eighty-three," specified Tarun.
Everyone stared at him. "I can count!" protested the Bengali boy. "You have to be able to count, running a stable."
Anastasius grunted. "Still, it's odds of sixteen or seventeen to one. All garrison troops, of course." He spit on the floor of the stable, as if to emphasize his low opinion of garrison soldiers.
"It's not that bad," said Valentinian. "At least half of them will be off duty."
"On that day?" demanded Khandik. "With tens of thousands of Rajputs howling at the gates? I don't think so."
Valentinian grimaced. "Well... true." He tugged at his beard. "But the way Rajiv and Tarun report the layout of the gate, we'd only have to deal with some of them."
"If we move fast enough," agreed Rajiv.
Now, it was everyone's turn to stare at Rajiv.
"What's this 'we' business?" demanded Anastasius.
Rajiv squared his shoulders. "It'll go easier if I'm already inside."
"Me too!" said Tarun proudly. "Rajiv and me already figured it out."
Valentinian slanted his head skeptically. "And just why would you be invited in? Other than to be a catamite, which I don't recommend as a way to augment your princely status."
Rajiv made a face. So did Tarun, who stuck out his tongue in the bargain. "Uck!"
"It's not that," said Rajiv. For a moment, he had an uncertain expression on his face. An uncomfortable one, actually. "The soldiers are pretty friendly, to tell you the truth. Even their leaders, except for the captain. He's a kshatriya, but the rest are just peasants, including the four sergeants. Most of them Bengalis, just like Tarun. They've got their wives and kids in the barracks with them, too, remember. Lots of kids, and all ages—and the barracks are almost part of the gate itself. After a while, if Tarun and I spend enough time there, nobody will notice us coming or going."
"On that day?" asked Khandik skeptically.
Rajiv shrugged. "I think especially on that day. Who's going to pay any attention to me—when my father is on the other side of the gate, making threats and issuing promises?"
That brought a round of soft laughter to the small group of soldiers clustered in a corner of the stable.
"Well," said Khandik. "That's true."
* * *
Hearing the laughter, Lady Sanga scowled. She and Lady Damodara were perched on cushions in another part of the stable.
Her companion made a wry face. "I'm glad my son is only seven."
Lady Sanga sniffed. "Guard him carefully. Or the next thing you know, Valentinian will have him practicing with sticks."
Lady Damodara looked startled. Just the other day, she'd noticed...
* * *
But even the two ladies were in a better mood, nine days later.
Ajatasutra showed up. At last!
"Wasn't hard," he said cheerfully. "They're still not screening anyone at the city's gates very thoroughly. Skandagupta's an idiot, trying to suppress the news of the rebellion the way he is. The rumors are flying all over already—ten times more so, once the emperor reaches the Yamuna, which he should be doing pretty soon. But since nothing is officially confirmed by Skandagupta and his officials, and no clear orders are being given, the soldiers are still going about their business as usual. They're mostly peasants, after all. None of their business, the doings of the high and mighty."
"You look tired," said Dhruva. Hearing the concern in her voice, Valentinian frowned. Seeing the frown, Anastasius had to fight down a grin.
Valentinian, jealous. Would wonders never cease?
Smiling—tiredly—Ajatasutra shrugged. "Well, yes. I've come something like seven hundred miles in less than two weeks, since I left the emperor. Even as much time as I've spent in the saddle in my life, my legs feel like they're about to fall off. Best we not discuss at all the state of my buttocks."
Once the emperor reaches the Yamuna. Since I left the emperor.
Lady Damodara's almost shivered, at the casual and matter-of-fact manner of those statements. When she'd last seen her husband, he'd been simply the man she'd known and come to love since their wedding. They'd been but teenagers, at the time. He, sixteen; and she, a year younger.
"Oh, forgot." Ajatasutra started digging in his tunic. "Rana Sanga—the emperor also, once he saw—asked me to bring you gifts. Nothing fancy, of course, traveling as lightly as I was."
His hand emerged, holding two small onions. One, he gave to Lady Sanga; the other, to Lady Damodara.
Rana Sanga's wife burst into tears. Lady Damodara just smiled.
She even managed to keep the smile on her face a minute later. Ajatasutra had addressed her as "Your Majesty" from the moment he arrived, and had done so throughout the long report he'd given them. But she hadn't really thought much of it. That just seemed part of the project of disguise and deception she'd been involved with for over a year, now. Hearing him—so casually, so matter-of-factly!—refer to her as the Empress to Lady Sanga, was a different thing altogether.
* * *
After Ajatasutra left her part of the stable, to confer with the soldiers in their own corner, Lady Damodara gave vent to her confusion and uncertainty.
Her companion smiled. Rana Sanga's wife had become Lady Damodara's close friend, over the past months. The closest friend she'd ever had, in fact.
"Oh, but you are. Your semi-divine aura is quite noticeable now."
"Even when I shit?" Lady Damodara pointed to a chamber pot not more than five feet away. "Damn this stable, anyway."
Sanga's wife grimaced. "Well. Maybe you need to work on that part. On the other hand, why bother? Before too long, you'll either be dead or be crapping in the biggest palace in the world. With fifty chambermaids to carry out the results, and twenty spies and three executioners to make sure they keep their mouths shut about the contents."
* * *
A few minutes later, hearing the soft laughter coming from the knot of soldiers in the corner of the stable, she frowned.
"My son's not over there, is he?" But, looking around, she spotted him playing with two of the other small boys in a different part of the stable. So, her frown faded.
Lady Sanga's frown, on the other hand, had deepened into a full scowl.
* * *
"Only fifteen-to-one odds," said Khandik with satisfaction, "now that Ajatasutra's here."
Young Tarun shook his head. "Thirteen-to-one. Well. A bit more."
The glare bestowed upon him by the Ye-tai mercenary was a half-and-half business. On the one hand, it was unseemly for a mere stable-boy—a wretched Bengali, to boot—to correct his superior and elder. On the other hand...
"Thirteen-to-one," he said, with still greater satisfaction.
His two mates weren't even half-glaring. In fact, they were almost smiling.
Under normal circumstances, of course, thirteen-to-one odds would have been horrible. But those Ye-tai mercenaries were all veterans. The kind of fighting they were considering would not be the clash of huge armies on a great battlefield, where individual prowess usually got lost in the sheer mass of the conflict. No, this would be the sort of small-scale action out of which legends were made, because legends mattered.
The Mongoose was already a legend. His huge Roman companion wasn't, but they had no difficulty imagining him as such. "Bending horseshoes," with Anastasius in the vicinity, was not a phrase to express the impossible.
"Some people think you're the best assassin in India," said one of the Ye-tai.
"Not any Marathas," came the immediate rejoinder. Smiling, Ajatasutra added: "But I think even Marathas might allow me the honor of second-best."
The Iron Triangle
"It's just impossible," said Anna wearily, leaning her head against her husband's shoulder. "That great mass of people out there isn't really a city. It's a huge refugee camp, with more people pouring into it every day. Just when I think I've got one problem solved, the solution collapses under the weight of more refugees."
Calopodius stroked her hair, listening to the cannonade outside the bunker. The firing seemed a lot heavier than usual, on the Malwa side. He wondered if they might be getting nervous. By now, their spies were sure to have reported that a large Persian army had been camped briefly just across the river from the Iron Triangle.
But he gave only a small part of his mind to that matter. He had much more pressing and immediate things to deal with.
"Have you given any thought as to what you'd like to do, after the war? With the rest of your life, I mean."
Anna's head stirred. "Some," she said softly.
Now, her head lifted off his shoulder entirely. He knew she was looking at him sideways.
"Do you care?" she asked, still more softly.
He started to respond with "of course," but the words died before they were spoken. He'd spent quite a bit of time thinking about Anna, lately, and knew full well that "of course" was not an answer that would have even occured to him a few months ago.
So, he simply said: "Yes. I do."
There was a pause for a few seconds. Then, Anna's head came back to nestle on his shoulder again. "I think I'd like to keep the Service going. Somehow or other. I like healing people."
Calopodius kissed her hair. It felt rich and luxurious to him; more so now, than when he'd been able to see it.
"All right," he said. "That shouldn't be too hard."
Anna issued a sound halfway between a snort and a chuckle. "Not too hard! It's expensive, husband. Not even your family's rich enough to subsidize medical charity on that scale. Not for very long. And once the war is over, the money Belisarius and the army have been giving me will dry up."
It was Calopodius' turn to hesitate. "Yes, I know. But... how would you feel about remaining here in India?"
"I wouldn't mind. But why India?"
"Lots of reasons. I've been thinking about our situation myself. But let's start with three. One that matters—I think—to you. One that matters to me. And one that would matter to my family. Perhaps more to the point, my family's coffers."
Her head came back off his shoulder and, a moment later, Calopodius could feel her shifting her weight entirely. Within a few seconds, she was no longer lying beside him on their pallet but was sitting on it cross-legged, facing him. He knew the sensation quite well. Whenever they had something to really talk about, Anna preferred to be sitting up.
"Let's start with you. You already know that if our world keeps the same historical pattern with regard to disease as the one we diverged from, a terrible plague is 'scheduled' to start in eight years or so. By the time it's over, millions of people in the Mediterranean world will be dead."
"It might have already started, in fact," Anna mused. "Somewhere in China. Where the death toll will be just as bad."
Calopodius nodded. He wasn't surprised that she'd remembered that part of the future history that Belisarius had imparted to them.
"Yes. It'll enter the Roman Empire in Alexandria, in the year 541. But it almost certainly got transmitted through India."
He heard Anna draw in a sharp breath. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Then I think you should start thinking about it. If you move fast enough—fast enough and with enough money and authority—between your Service and the Hospitalers in Alexandria, it might be possible to forestall the plague. Reduce its effects, anyway."
"There's no cure for it," she said. "And no... what's the word?"
"'Vaccine,'" Calopodius supplied.
"Yes. No vaccine. Not anything we could make in time, in sufficient quantities."
Calopodius shrugged. "True. But from what Belisarius told me Aide said to him, it wasn't really a medical 'cure' that defeated the plague in the future, anyway. It was mostly just extensive and thorough public health and sanitation. Stuff as simple and plebeian as good sewers and clean drinking water. That is within our technological capacity."
He listened to Anna breathing, for a while. Then she said: "It would take a lot of money, and a lot of political influence."
"Yes. It'd be a life's work. Are you willing?"
She laughed abruptly. "I'm willing. But is the money willing? And..." Her voice lowered. "I really don't want to do anything that you wouldn't be happy with."
He smiled. "Not to worry! What I want to do is write histories and public commentaries. But what do I write about, once the war is over?"
He moved right on to supply the answer: "Write about India, that's what. Just think of it, love. An entire continent. One that Rome knows almost nothing about and with a history even longer than Rome's."
"Your life's work, then," Anna mused. Then, issued that same abrupt laugh. "So where's the money to come from?"
His smile widened, becoming very close to a grin. "Well, we'll have to keep it hidden from your family. Even from mine, the rough details. But you and I are about to found a branch of the Saronites enterprises, here in India. Crude stuff, I'm afraid. Manufacturing, mostly."
He wasn't surprised at all that the woman his wife had become did not even stumble over the prospect. "Manufacturing what?"
"I thought we'd start with medical supplies and equipment. Also pharmaceuticals. Nothing fancy, though. Mostly soap, dyes and cosmetics, at the beginning. Belisarius told me those were the substances that were the big money-makers for the chemical industry when it got really started in the future. In what he calls the 'industrial revolution.' Once the business gets rolling, we can expand into medicines."
"And exactly which one of us is going to oversee and organize this grand scheme of yours?" she demanded.
"Neither of us. We just front the money—I can get enough to start from my father—and we—mostly you—provide the political influence. I figured we could bring up your banker from Barbaricum—"
"Yes, him. He's shrewd as they come, and he knows India. For running the technical end, we'll use Eusebius."
"I already asked him. He says he'd love to. He's tired of figuring out new ways to kill people."
"Yes. And I think Justinian will go for it, too. Not directly, of course. He's got to get back to Constantinople as soon as the war's over or Theodora will send out the executioners. But he's intrigued by the idea and says he's sure he can siphon us some imperial financing—provided he gets to play with the gadgets at his end."
The pallet lurched. Calopodius knew that Anna had risen to her feet. Jumped to her feet, more like.
"You asked the Emperor of Rome to be our business partner in a manufacturing scheme? Are you out of your mind?"
"He's not the Emperor any longer, dear," Calopodius pointed out mildly. "Photius is."
"He's the Grand Justiciar. And you know how much he loves to play with gadgets."
"My husband!" Anna burst into laughter that was not abrupt at all.
* * *
Kungas came to his decision and moved away from the window looking out over Peshawar. "All right," he said, "we'll do it."
He gave the small group of Ye-tai deserters a gaze that wasn't cold so much as simply impassive. The way a glacier contemplates so many rocks who might be in its way when it ground forward to the sea. More indifferent than icy, since the outcome was inevitable.
The Ye-tai were squatting on the floor of his private audience chamber. They seemed like so many rocks, indeed, as motionless as they were. And for good reason. First, they were disarmed. Second, the Kushan soldiers standing around and guarding them were armed to the teeth. Third, there was no love lost between Kushans and Ye-tai to begin with. Hadn't been for a century, since the invading Ye-tai had broken the Kushan kingdom that Kungas had re-created.
"If you're lying, of course, you're dead men."
The Ye-tai squad leader made a shrug that was as minimal as any Kungas himself might have made. "Why would we lie?"
"I can't think of any reason myself. Which is why I decided to believe you." Kungas' crack of a smile came. "Besides, Sarmatians are noted for their honesty. Even half-Sarmatians."
That little joke brought a ripple of laughter in the room, as much from the Kushan guards as the Ye-tai prisoners. For the first time since they'd been ushered into the chamber—frog-marched, more like—the Ye-tai visibly relaxed.
Although his thin smile had remained, Kungas had not joined the laughter. When it ended, he shook his head.
"I'm not joking, really. You six are the founding members of my new military unit. If you're not lying—and I'm assuming you aren't—then you won't be the last Malwa deserters coming over to us. So I think I'll enroll all of you in the... What to call it?"
Irene piped up, sitting on a chair to one side. "The Royal Sarmatian Guards."
"That'll do nicely." Kungas turned to his lieutenants. "Get the army formed up. I want to march out tomorrow morning, early. Leave five thousand men in the capital."
"I won't need that many," said Irene. "Three thousand is plenty to maintain order and keep the hill tribes from getting any ideas."
Kungas thought about it, and decided she was right. He could leave the additional two thousand men with the five thousand already garrisoning the forts in the passes at Margalla and Kohat. That would secure the gates to the kingdom and leave him almost twenty thousand men to do...
Whatever. He didn't know yet. He was quite sure the Ye-tai deserters weren't lying. But that didn't necessarily mean their assessment of things was all that accurate, either.
Still, he thought it was probably was. Close enough, anyway. Kungas had been fighting almost since he was a boy. There was that smell in the air, of an enemy starting to come apart.
* * *
When Jaimal caught his first glimpse of the walls of Ajmer, he felt the greatest exhilaration he'd ever felt in his life. Even though he was also completely exhausted.
He glanced at Udai Singh, riding next to him at the head of the small Rajput cavalry column, and saw the same gleaming smile he must have had on his own face.
"A ride of legend!" Udai shouted. Half-croaked, rather.
Shouted or croaked, it was true. And the ragged chorus of that same half-croaked shout coming from the fifty cavalrymen following told Jaimal that their men knew it as well as they did.
Rajputana was a land of horsemen, as well as warriors. A great horse ride would become a thing of renown just as surely as a great feat of arms.
Emperor Damodara and Rana Sanga had asked them to accomplish the incredibly difficult task of riding from Bharakuccha to Ajmer in two weeks. If possible.
They'd done it in eleven days. Without losing more than nine of their horses.
"A ride of legend!" he shouted himself.
But there was no need for that, really. Already, he could see the gates of the city opening, and cavalrymen issuing forth. Hundreds of them. Even from the great distance, just seeing the way they rode, he knew they were all young men. Seeking their own place in legends.
Jaimal and Udai would give it to them.
* * *
Standing on the walls of Ajmer and watching the way the young warriors who had poured out of the city were circling the new arrivals—there were at least a thousand of them, now, with more sallying from the gates every minute—the oldest and therefore wisest king of Rajputana knew it was hopeless. That was a whirlwind of celebration and excitement, out there. Caution and sagacity would soon become so many leaves blown by the monsoon.
Dasal shook his head. Standing next to him, his brother Dasal did likewise.
"Not a chance," said Jaisal curtly. "Look at them, out there."
"We don't even know what it's about, yet," whined Chachu. One of the other kings who formed the council grunted something in the way of agreement.
Dasal shrugged. "Don't be foolish. No, we don't know exactly what news—or instructions—that cavalry column is bringing. But the gist of it is obvious."
He nodded toward the column, which was now advancing toward the gates with over a thousand other Rajput cavalrymen providing them with what was, for all practical purposes, an escort of honor.
"The new emperor sent them. Or Rana Sanga. Or both. And they will be demanding the allegiance of all Rajputs. So what do we say?"
He had no answer, himself. The Rajput heart that beat within him was just as eager as any of those young warriors out there. But that heart had now beaten for almost eighty years. Each and every year of which had hammered caution into his mind, whatever his heart might feel.
"Let's return to the council chamber and await them there," suggested Jaisal.
* * *
But when they returned to the council chamber, they discovered it had been pre-empted from them already. The seven thrones had been removed from their accustomed places in a half-circle at the elevated dais. They were now resting, still in a half-circle, facing the dais.
On the dais itself, sat only one chair. A smaller and less ostentatious chair, as it happened, than the seven chairs of the kings. And the man who sat in it was smaller—certainly more rotund—than any of the kings.
But it hardly mattered. Dasal understood who he was before he even spoke.
Chachu, as usual, had to be enlightened.
"I am Great Lord Damodara," the short, fat old man said. "The Emperor's father. I am the new viceroy of Rajputana. And you will obey me."
Behind him, in a row, stood half a dozen Malwa bodyguards. Assassins, to call things by their right name. More to the point, at least fifty young Rajput warriors were standing alongside the walls of the chamber. Each and every one of whom was glaring at the seven kings.
Suddenly, the plump face of Great Lord Damodara broke into a smile. The expression made him seem a much friendlier sort of fellow.
"But, please!" he exclaimed, waving his hand at the seven chairs before him. "Take your seats, kings of Rajputana."
Dasal considered the courtesy. Then, considered the titles. Finally, considered the chairs.
The chairs made the decision. They were the same chairs, after all. Very august ones. Not to mention comfortable.
He felt relief more than anything else. Clearly enough, the new regime in the land of the Rajputs was willing to accommodate the status—if not the authority—of the old one.
He was almost eighty years old, after all. Even the youngest of the seven kings of the council was past seventy.
"Yes, Great Lord." Dasal moved forward and sat in his accustomed chair. He gave his half dozen fellows an abrupt nod, commanding them to follow.
They did so, readily enough. Only Chachu made a token protest.
"I don't understand," he whined. "If you're still alive, why aren't you the new Emperor instead of your son?"
The smile on the Great Lord's face stayed in place, but it got an ironic twist.
"Good question. I'll have to take it up with my headstrong son when we meet again. For the moment, I ascribe it to the monsoon times we're living in."
The smile became serene. "But I don't imagine I'll argue the point with him. Actually, it might make for a good tradition. When emperors—and kings—get too old, they tend to get too set in their ways. Best to have them retire and take up some prestigious but less demanding post, while their son assumes the heavier responsibilities. Don't you think?"
The smile was friendly. But the assassins were still there, not smiling at all. And the young warriors were still glaring.
"Indeed, Great Lord," said Dasal.
His brother echoed him immediately. Chachu, thankfully, kept his mouth shut.
* * *
Or, at least, kept his mouth shut until the two leaders of the newly-arrived cavalry column finished their report.
"That's madness!" Chachu exclaimed. "Belisarius?"
But Dasal had come to the opposite conclusion. The Great Lord was right. Old men should retire, when the time comes.
Especially when presented with such a fine way to do so.
"It's brilliant," he rebutted, rising to his feet. "And I will lead the force that goes into the Thar to find him."
His brother came to his feet also. "I'll go with you."
"You're too old!" protested Chachu.
The two brothers glared at him, with the combined indignation of one hundred and fifty-six years of life.
"I can still ride a horse!" snarled Dasal. "Even if you can't ride anything other than a chair any longer."
* * *
They left the following evening, just after sunset. No sane man rides into the desert during the day. Dasal and Jaisal had one hundred and fifty-six years of sanity between them.
The young warriors were impatient, of course. All seven thousand of them.
Especially impatient were the six thousand that the two kings had insisted ride on camels, carrying the water and other supplies that they were quite sure Belisarius needed. Leave it to an idiot Roman to try to cross the desert without camels. Relying on wells! In the Thar!
Most impatient of all were the ten thousand—with more coming into the city every day—whom Dasal had insisted remain behind. With, fortunately, the agreement and approval of the new viceroy of Rajputana. They would just be a nuisance in the expedition, and a new Rajput army had to be formed.
Formed quickly. The monsoon was coming.
Fortunately, Rana Sanga's two lieutenants Jaimal and Udai Singh had the authority and experience for the task. They needed a rest anyway, after their ride of legend. By the time Jaisal and Dasal returned to Ajmer with Belisarius, the new army would be ready.
For... whatever. Given Belisarius, it would be a thing of legend. Dasal only hoped he would live long enough to see it.
Assuming the idiot Roman was still alive. Crossing the Thar on horses! Relying on wells!
* * *
When the Malwa assassination team finally rowed their ship into the great harbor at Bharakuccha, they knew another moment of frustration and chagrin.
"Look at that!" snarled one of them.
The captain of the team just shook his head. The docks and piers of the city seemed practically covered with a carpet of people, all of them come down to greet the Axumite fleet escorting the Emperor of Rome.
The fleet was already anchored. As they drew closer, the Malwa assassins could see the Roman imperial party being escorted to the great palace of the Goptri by a small army of Ethiopian sarwen.
Even if they'd been in position, there would have been no way to get to the boy Emperor. And once he was in the palace...
The captain of the assassination team and his lieutenant were both familiar with the great palace of the Goptri. As the palace of a conquering viceroy in a hostile land, serving a dynasty famous for its paranoia, it had been designed to thwart assassins. Unless the guards were utterly incompetent...
"Ethiopian sarwen," the lieutenant grumbled. "And you can be sure that Raghunath Rao will be there to advise them."
The captain spent a moment adding up the miles he and his team had traveled, to carry out an assignment that always seem to recede before them in the distance. It had been like trying to assassinate a mirage in the desert.
From Kausambi to Bharakuccha to Alexandria to Constantinople. And then back again, almost all the way.
Something like ten thousand miles, he thought. Who could really know?
"Nothing for it," he said. "We'll sell the ship as soon as we can, since we're almost out of money. Then... we'll just have to see what we can do."
* * *
Finding a buyer for the ship was easy. Whether rightly and wrongly—and, more and more, the captain was beginning to wonder if they weren't right—the merchants of Bharakuccha seemed quite confident that the old Malwa empire was gone from the Deccan and that trade would soon be picking up.
They even got a better price than the captain had expected.
That was the first and last thing that went as planned. No sooner had they emerged from the merchant clearinghouse than a harried-looking official accosted them. Accompanied, unfortunately, by a large squad of soldiers.
Not regular Malwa soldiers, either, to make things worse. Marathas, from their look, newly-impressed into the city's garrison. It seemed the new Axumite commander had given orders to form units from all residents of the city.
The captain sized them up. Eight of them there were, and tougher-looking than he liked. He didn't doubt that he and his four assassins could overcome them. But not without suffering casualties—and then what?
Five Malwa assassins in today's Bharakuccha, many if not all of them wounded, would be like so many pieces of bloody meat in shark waters.
"There you are!" the official exclaimed. "You are the trade delegation just returned from Rome, yes?"
That had been their official identity. The captain wondered how an official in Bharakuccha—the place was a madhouse!—had managed to keep track of the records and identify them so soon after their return.
He brought down a savage curse on all hard-working and efficient bureaucrats. A silent curse, naturally.
"Come with me!" the official commanded. "I've been instructed to send a courier team to catch up with the emperor"—he didn't even bother to specify the "new" emperor—"and you're just the men for the job!"
"I can't believe this," muttered his lieutenant. Very softly, of course.
* * *
The next morning, they were riding out of the city on excellent horses, carrying dispatches for Damodara. Along with a Maratha cavalry platoon to provide them with a safe escort out of the Deccan. The assassins were obviously Malwa—some sort of north Indians, at any rate—and despite the new truce between the Malwa and Andhran empires, it was always possible that a band of Maratha irregulars in the hills wouldn't obey it. Or have simply turned to banditry, as some soldiers always do at the end of a war.
That same escort, needless to say, also made it impossible for them to return to Bharakuccha and continue their assignment. Not, at least, until they'd passed the crest of the Vindhyas—at which point, they have to return another hundred miles or so, and do it without being spotted by Maratha patrols.
The only bright spot in the whole mess was that their luggage hadn't been searched. If it had been, the bombard would have been discovered—and they'd have had a very hard time explaining why and how a "trade delegation" had been carrying an assassination device. A bombard of that size and type was never used by regular military units, and it would have been even more useless for trade delegates.
That night, around their campfire and far enough from the Maratha escort not to be overheard, the five assassins quietly discussed their options.
"It's hopeless," the captain concluded. "We've done our best. Let's just give it up and return to Kausambi for a new assignment."
His lieutenant finally said it. "That's assuming we don't find a new emperor when we get there. Then what?"
The captain shrugged, and spit into the fire.
More cheerily, one of the other assassins said: "Well, there's this. Whoever the emperor is when we get there, one thing's for sure. We won't be reporting failure to Nanda Lal. No matter what."
That was true. Perhaps the only certainty left in their lives. They'd all seen Nanda Lal's head perched on a pike outside the Goptri's palace. There hadn't been much left of it. But the captain and the lieutenant had recognized the nose. Broken, years ago, by the boot of Belisarius. Battered, at the end, by boys in their play.
The Thar desert
Belisarius finally managed to force his eyes somewhere else. Staring at the empty well wouldn't make it fill up.
Not that he found the sight of the desert any prettier.
"So, I gambled and lost," he said to Ashot and Abbu, standing next to him.
Ashot was still scowling down into the well. Abbu was scowling at the desert, his eyes avoiding the general's.
The old bedouin grimaced. "This well was one of the best!" he protested. "I was worried about the last one. And another one some twenty miles farther. Not this one!"
Finally, Ashot straightened up. "Wells are finicky in a desert like this. If the water table was reliable, we wouldn't have had to dig our own. There'd have been wells already here."
The Armenian cataphract wiped the dust off his face with a cloth. "What do we do now, general? We don't have enough water left to make the crossing to the next well. Not the whole expedition, for sure. A few dozen could make it, maybe, if they took all the water we still have."
"For what purpose?" Belisarius demanded. Not angrily, just wearily.
He leaned over the well again, gauging the dampness at the very bottom. There wasn't much.
There were two decisions to be made. One was obvious to probably everyone. The other was obvious to him.
"No," he said. "We'll send a very small force—five men—with all the water they need to cross the rest of the Thar without stopping. They might be able to reach Ajmer in time to bring a Rajput relief expedition, if Rana Sanga's already gotten the word there."
Ashot winced. Abbu shook his head.
"That's a lot of 'ifs,' general," said the Armenian. "If they can cross in time. If the Rajputs are already prepared. If they'll listen to a handful of men in the first place. If they can get back in time with water before the rest of us are dead."
"The first 'if' is the easiest, too," Abbu added. "And it stinks. Five men, crossing as fast as they can... It would still take them at least five days. Another week—at least—before they could get back with enough water to make a difference. That's twelve days, general, at best."
Belisarius had already figured out the deadly arithmetic. If anything, Abbu was being optimistic—one of the few times Belisarius could ever remember him being so. Belisarius himself thought the minimum would be two weeks.
In the desert, in the hot season, a man without water could not survive for more than two days before he started to die. And he died quickly, thereafter. Maybe three days, depending on the temperature. That assumed he found shelter from the sun and didn't exert himself. If he did, death would come much sooner.
If the Roman expedition shared all their remaining water evenly—and gave none to the horses—they'd run out in three days. At most, the moisture still seeping into the bottom of the well might provide them with another day's water. Then...
They might last a little over a week, all told. Not two weeks, certainly. Probably not even twelve days.
There was no way to go back or to go forward, either. The last well was four days behind them, and it would be almost dry anyway after their recent use of it. The next well was at least two and a half days' travel, according to Abbu, for a party this size. Since they had to water the horses also, while traveling, they'd run out within the first day. The last two days they'd be without water.