Fortune's stroke b-4 Page 27

  "There is more," she added. "More than news." She took a deep breath. "My spies found his wife, also. A slave in a nobleman's kitchen, right in Kausambi itself. Following my instructions, they decided it would be possible to steal her away. In Malwa's capital," she snorted, half-chuckling, "noblemen do not guard their mansions too carefully."

  Kungas' eyes widened. In another man, they would have been practically bulging.

  Irene laughed. "Oh, yes. She is here, Kungas. In Suppara." She nodded toward the door. "In this very house, in fact. My man has her downstairs, in the salon."

  Now, even Kungas' legendary self-control was breaking. "Here?" he gasped. He stared at the door. Then, almost lunging, he began to move. "We must take her to him at once! He will be so-"

  "Stop!"

  Kungas staggered to a halt. For a moment, staring at Irene, he frowned with incomprehension. Then, his expression changed, as understanding came. Or so he thought.

  "She has been disfigured," he stated. "Dishonored, perhaps. You are afraid Dadaji will-"

  Irene blew out a breath-half-laugh, half-surprise. "No-no." She smiled reassuringly. "She is quite well, Kungas, according to my agent. Very tired, of course. He says she was asleep within seconds of reaching the couch. The journey was long and arduous, and her life as a slave was sheer toil. But she is well. As for the other-"

  Irene waved her hand, as if calming an unsettled child. "My spy says she was not abused, not in that manner. Not even by her master. She was not a young woman, you know. Dadaji's age."

  She looked away, her jaw tightening. "With so many young slaves to rape, after the conquest of Andhra, men simply beat her until she was an obedient drudge." Her next words were cold, filled with the bitterness of centuries. Greek women had been raped, too, often enough. And listened to Greek men, and Greek poets, boasting of the Trojan women. "Not even Dadaji will count that as pollution."

  "That is not fair," said Kungas harshly.

  Irene took a deep breath, almost a shudder. "No, it is not," she admitted. "Not with Dadaji, at least. Although-" She sighed, shaking her head. "How can any man as intelligent as he be so stupid?"

  It only took Kungas a second, perhaps two, to finally understand her concern.

  "Ah." He stared out the window for a moment. "I see."

  He looked down at his hands, and spread wide his fingers. "Tonight, the empress has called a council. She will finally decide, she says, which offer of marriage to accept."

  The fingers closed into fists. He looked up at Irene. "You will state your opinion, then, for the first time. And you do not want Dadaji to refrain from arguing his, because he feels himself so deeply in your debt."

  She nodded. Kungas chuckled. "I never imagined Rome's finest spymaster would hold herself to such a rigid code of honor."

  Irene made an inarticulate, sarcastic noise. "I hate to disillusion you, Kungas. I do this not from honor, but from simple-" She paused. When she spoke again, the acid-tinged sarcasm was gone from her voice.

  "Some, yes. Some." She sighed. "It is difficult to manipulate Dadaji, even for someone like me. It's a bit too much like maneuvering against a damned saint."

  She reached up and wiped her face, restoring the spymaster. "But that is still not my reason. My reason is cold-blooded statecraft. Whatever decision the empress makes will be irrevocable. You know Shakuntala, Kungas. She is as intelligent, I think, as Justinian."

  She barked a laugh. "She certainly has the willpower of Theodora." Then, shaking her head: "But she is still a girl, in many ways. If she discovers, in the future, that one of her closest advisers-he is like a father to her, you know that-withheld his advice on such a critical matter-" The headshaking became vigorous. "No, no, no. That would shake her self-confidence to the very roots. And that we cannot afford. She may make the wrong decision. Rulers often do. But her confidence must never waver, or all will be lost."

  Kungas eyed her, head aslant. "Have I ever told you that you were a very smart woman?"

  "Several times," she replied, smiling. She cocked her own head, returning his look of amusement with questioning eyes.

  "You still have not asked," she said softly. "What my opinion is. We have never discussed the matter, oddly enough."

  He spread his hands. "Why is that odd? I know your opinion, just as surely as you know mine."

  He dropped his hands and lifted his shoulders. "It is obvious. I even have hopes, once we explain, that Dadaji will be convinced."

  Irene snorted. Kungas smiled, but shook his head.

  "You are too skeptical, I think." The thick, heavy shoulders squared. "But we will know soon."

  He began to move toward the door, his head turned away. "I think it would be best, Irene, if you spoke first."

  "I agree. It will strike the harder, coming from an unexpected source. You will follow, of course, when the time is right."

  He did not bother to reply. There was no need. For a moment, never speaking, the man and woman in the room reveled together in that knowledge.

  Kungas had reached the door. But Irene spoke before he could open it.

  "Kungas." He turned his head. Irene gestured at the writing table. "You can read, now. Kushan, rather well, and your Greek is becoming passable. Your writing is still very crude, but that is merely a matter of practice."

  His eyes went to the table, lingering there for a moment. Then, closed shut.

  "Why, Kungas?" she asked. Her voice was calm, but tinged with anxiety. And, yes, some pain and anger. "My bed has always been there for you. But you have never come. Not once, in the weeks since the battle."

  Kungas reopened his eyes. When he looked at Irene, his gaze was calm. Calm, and resolute.

  "Not yet."

  Irene's own gaze was not so calm. "I am not a virgin, Kungas," she said. Angrily, perhaps-or simply pleading.

  The Kushan's mask of a face broke in half. Irene almost gasped. She had never seen Kungas actually grin.

  "I did not imagine you were!" he choked out. He lowered his head, shaking it back and forth like a bull. "Shocking news. Most distressing. I am chagrined beyond belief. Oh, what shall I do?"

  As tense as she was, Irene couldn't restrain her laughter. Kungas raised his head, still grinning.

  But the question remained in her eyes. He took a few steps forward, reached out his hand, and drew her head into his shoulder.

  "I have this to do first, Irene," he said softly, stroking her hair. "I cannot-" Silence, while he sought the words. "I cannot tend to my own needs, while hers are still gaping. I have guarded her for too long, now. And this struggle, I think, is perhaps her most desperate. I must see her through it safely."

  She felt his chest heave slightly, from soft laughter. "Call it my own dharma, if you will."

  Irene nodded, her head still nestled in his shoulder. She reached up and caressed the back of his neck. Slender fingers danced on thick muscle.

  "I understand," she murmured. "As long as I understand." She laughed once herself, very softly. "I may need reassurance, again, mind you. If this goes on and on."

  She knew he was smiling. "Not long, I think," she heard him say. "The girl is decisive, you know."

  Irene sighed, and ceased caressing Kungas' neck. A moment later, her hands placed firmly on his chest, she created a space between them.

  "So she is," she murmured. "So she most certainly is."

  Pushing him away, now. "Go, then. I will see you tonight, at the council meeting."

  He bowed ceremoniously. "Prepare to do battle, Irene Macrembolitissa. The dragon of Indian prejudice awaits your Roman lance."

  Gaiety returned in full force. "What a ridiculous metaphor! It's back to the books for you-barbarian oaf!"

  Chapter 25

  It was late in the night before Irene spoke. The council had already gone on for hours.

  Irene craned her neck, twisting her head back and forth. To all outward appearance, it was the gesture of someone simply stretching in order to remain alert in a long, long imperi
al council.

  In reality, she was just trying not to smile at the image which had come to her mind.

  This isn't a "council." It's a-down, smile, down! — damned auction.

  Her eyes, atop a rotating head, fell on the empress. Shakuntala was sitting, stiff and straight-backed, on a cushion placed on her throne. The throne itself was wide and low. In her lotus position, hands at her side, Shakuntala reminded Irene of the statue of a goddess resting on an altar. The girl had maintained that posture, and her stern countenance, throughout the session-with no effort at all, seemingly. That self-discipline, Irene knew, was another of Raghunath Rao's many gifts to the girl.

  Irene's head twisting became a little shake.

  Stop thinking of her as a "girl." That is a woman, now. Not more than twenty, yes, and still a virgin. But a woman nonetheless.

  In the long months-almost a year, now-since Irene had come to India, she had grown very fond of Shakuntala. In private, Shakuntala's imperious demeanor was transmuted into something quite different. A will of iron, still, and self-assuredness that would shame an elephant. But there was also humor, and quick intelligence, and banter, and a willingness to listen, and a cheerful acceptance of human foibles. And that, too, was a legacy of Raghunath Rao.

  Not one of Shakuntala's many advisers doubted for a moment that the empress, should she feel it necessary, could order the execution of a thousand men without blinking an eye. And not one of those advisers-not for instant-ever hesitated to speak his mind. And that, too, was a legacy of Rao.

  Irene's eyes now fell on the large group of men sitting before the empress, on their own plush cushions resting on the carpeted floor.

  The bidders at the auction.

  The envoys from every kingdom in India still independent of Malwa were there. Tamraparni, the great island south of India which was sometimes called Ceylon, was there. And, in the past two weeks, plenipotentiaries from every realm in the vast Hindu world had arrived also. Most of those envoys had brought soldiers with them, to prove the sincerity of their offers. The Cholan and Tamraparni units were quite sizeable. Suppara was packed like a crate, with soldiers billeted everywhere.

  Whether smuggled through the blockade of the coast, or, more often, marching overland from Kerala, they had come. Kerala, ruled by Shakuntala's grandfather, was there too, despite his treacherous connivance the year before with a Malwa assassination plot against her. Shakuntala had practically forced its representative Ganapati to grovel. But, in the end, she had allowed Kerala to join the bidding.

  Irene had never fully realized, until the past few weeks, the true extent of the Hindu world. She had always thought of Hinduism, and its Buddhist offspring, as religions of India. But, like Christianity, those religions had spread their message over the centuries. And, more often than not, spread their entire culture along with it.

  Representatives from Champa were there, and Funan, and Langkasuka, and Taruma, and many others. The faces of those envoys bore the racial stamp of southeast Asia and its great archipelagoes but, beneath the skin, they were children of India in all that mattered. Nations sired by Indian missionaries, suckled by Indian custom, nurtured by Indian commerce, and educated in Sanskrit or one of its derivatives.

  Even China was there, in the form of a Buddhist monk sent by one of the great kingdoms of that distant land. He, unlike the others, had not come to bid for Shakuntala's hand in marriage. He had come simply to observe. But men-not royal envoys, at least-do not travel across the sea in order to observe a stone. They come to study a comet.

  Shakuntala's rebellion had shaken Malwa. The world's most powerful empire was still on its feet, and still roaring its fury. But it was locked in mortal combat with adversaries from the mysterious West-enemies who had proven far more formidable than the Hindu world had envisioned. And now, rising from the stony soil of the Great Country, Shakuntala's rebellion was hammering the giant's knees. If those knees ever broke-

  The independent kingdoms of the Hindu world, finally, had shed their hesitation. They feared Malwa, still-were petrified by the monster, in fact-but Shakuntala had shown that the beast could be bloodied. Not beaten, perhaps. That remained to be seen. But even the vacillating, timid, fretful kingdoms of south India and southeast Asia had finally understood the truth.

  Andhra had returned. Great Satavahana, the noblest dynasty in their world, was still alive. That empire, and that dynasty, had shielded south India and the Hindu lands beyond for centuries. Perhaps it could do so yet.

  All of them had come, and all of them were bidding for the dynastic marriage. And the bidding had been fierce. In the weeks leading up to the council, the canny peshwa Dadaji Holkar had matched one proposal against another, scraping quibble against reservation, until nothing was left but solid offers of alliance. At the council meeting itself, in the course of the hours, Dadaji had compressed those solid offers into so many bars of iron.

  Irene repressed a grin. Dadaji Holkar, low-born son of polluted Majarashtra, had outwitted and outmaneuvered and outnegotiated the Hindu world's most prestigious brahmin diplomats. Had any of them been told, now, that Dadaji himself was nothing but a low-caste vaisya-a mere sudra, in truth, in any land of India outside the Great Country-they would have been shocked from the tops of their aristocratic heads to the soles of their pure brahmin feet. Distressed also, of course, at the thought of the pollution they had suffered from their many hours of intimate contact with the man. For the most part, however, they would have simply been stunned.

  It is not possible! He is one of the most learned men in India! A scholar, as well a statesman!

  She could picture them gobbling their disbelief. It is not possible! He is the peshwa of Andhra! How could great Satavahana-India's purest kshatriya-have been fooled by such a man? Not possible!

  Irene's fight to restrain her humor became transformed into something much grimmer. Something cold, and calculating, and-in its own way-utterly ruthless. She, too, could be an executioner.

  Studying the brahmin diplomats seated before the empress, Irene's eyes began to glint. I will show you what is possible. Fools!

  It was time. The envoys had presented their offers. Dadaji had summarized the situation. It only remained for the empress to make her decision.

  Irene could not have explained the little movements she made, of head and hands and eyes, which drew Shakuntala's attention. Neither could the young empress herself. But the two women had spent many hours in private and public discourse. Irene knew how to signal the empress, just as surely as the empress understood how to interpret those signals.

  Shakuntala's head turned to Irene. The empress' eyes seemed as bright as ever, probably, to most observers. But Irene could sense the dull resignation in that imperial gaze.

  "I would like to hear from the envoy of Rome," stated Shakuntala. As always in public council, the empress' voice was a thing to marvel at. Youthful, true, in its timbre. But a fresh-forged blade is still a sword.

  A faint murmur arose from the diplomats.

  Shakuntala's eyes snapped back to them. "Do I hear a protest?" she demanded. "Is there one among you who cares to speak?"

  The murmurs fled. Shakuntala's eyes were like iron balls. The Black-Eyed Pearl of the Satavahanas, she was often called. But black, for all its beauty, can be a terrifying color.

  Black iron smote clay. "You would protest?" she hissed. "You?" The statue moved, slightly. A goddess, with a little gesture of the hand, dismissing insects. "After Malwa conquered Andhra, and flayed my father's skin for Skandagupta's trophy, what did you do?"

  The statue sneered. "You trembled, and quailed, and whimpered, and tried to hide in your palaces." The goddess spoke. "Rome-only Rome-did not cower from the beast."

  Shakuntala's next words were spoken through tight teeth. "Doubt me not in this, you diplomats. If Malwa is slain, the lance which brings the monster down will be held in Roman hands. Not ours. Alone-not if all of us united-could we do the deed. Our task is to shield the Deccan, and do what w
e can to lame the beast."

  The diplomats bowed their heads. Those brahmins, for all their learning, were insular and self-absorbed to a degree which Irene, accustomed to Roman cosmopolitanism, often found amazing. But even they, by now, knew the name of Belisarius. A bizarre name, an outlandish name, but a name of legend nonetheless. Even in south India-even in southeast Asia-they had heard of Anatha. And the Nehar Malka, where Belisarius drowned Malwa's minions.

  Shakuntala kept her eyes on their bowed heads, not relenting for a full minute. Black iron is as heavy as it is hard.

  During that long minute, while Indian diplomats-again-quailed and hid their heads, Irene sent a mental message to a man across the sea. He would not receive it, of course, but she knew he would have enjoyed the whimsy. That man had spent hours and hours with her, in Constantinople-days, rather-counseling Irene on her great task. Explaining, to a woman of the present, the future he wanted her to help create.

  Well, Belisarius, you wanted your Peninsular War. I do believe you've got it. And if we don't have Wellington, and the Lines of Torres Vedras, we have something just as good. We have Rao, and the hillforts of the Great Country, and-

  Her eyes fell on a hard, harsh, brutal face.

  — and we've got my man, too. Mine.

  She gathered the comfort in that possessive thought, and transformed softness into hard purpose.

  "Speak, envoy of Rome," commanded Shakuntala.

  Irene rose from her chair and stepped into the center of the large chamber. Dozens of eyes were fixed upon her.

  She had learned that from Theodora. The Empress Regent of Rome had also counseled Irene, before she left for India. Explaining, to a spymaster accustomed to shadows, how to work in the light of day.

  "Always sit, in counsel and judgement," Theodora had told her. "But always stand, when you truly want to lead."

  Irene, as was her way, began with humor.

  "Consider these robes, men of India." She plucked at a heavy sleeve. "Preposterous, are they not? A device for torture, almost, in this land of heat and swelter."