The Dance of Time b-6 Page 8

  Narses looked uncomfortable, for a moment. "Lord, I doubt if there is any man who is solely driven by ambition." His lips grew twisted. "Not even me."

  Ajatasutra spoke. "Toramana still has his clan ties, Lord. They wear lightly on him, true, but they exist. Beyond that. ."

  The assassin lifted his shoulders, in a movement too slight to be really considered a shrug. "If the Ye-tai are singled out for destruction, how long could a single Ye-tai general remain in favor? No matter what his formal post."

  "True." Damodara thought about the problem, for a time. The chamber was silent while he did so.

  "All right," he said finally. "It would be ridiculous to say that I'm happy with your plan. But. . it seems as good as any. That leaves Rao, and his Marathas."

  Now that the discussion had returned to the matter of war, a subject on which Damodara was an expert, the Malwa general sat up straight.

  "Three things are needed. First, I need to extract the army from Bharakuccha. It's one thing for me to begin the rebellion-"

  "Please, Lord!" Narses interrupted, raising his hand. "The restoration of the rightful emperor to his proper place." He waved the hand negligently. "I assure you that I have all the needed documentation-not here, of course-to satisfy any scholar on the matter."

  Damodara stared at him. The eunuch's face was serene, sure, certain. To all appearances, Narses thought he was speaking nothing but the solemn truth.

  The general barked a laugh. "So! Fine. As I was saying, it's one thing for me to begin the-ah-restoration with the army in the field. The men in their ranks, the officers at their head. Quite another to try to launch it here, with the men scattered all over the city in billets."

  Narses nodded. So did Ajatasutra.

  "Second-leading directly from that-I need to draw out Rao."

  Narses grimaced. "Lord, even if you could get Rao out of Deogiri. . the casualties. . you really need your army intact-"

  "Oh, be silent, you old schemer. Leave matters of war to me. I said 'draw him out.' I said nothing of fighting a battle. First, because I need that excuse to pull the entire army out of Bharakuccha. Second, because I will need to make a quick settlement with the Marathas. I can't start a new war without ending this one."

  Hearing a little cough from Ajatasutra, Damodara looked at him.

  The assassin waggled his hand. "A single combat. Rao against Rana Sanga. All of India has been waiting for years to see that match again."

  Narses frowned. "Why in the name of-"

  "Quiet, Narses." Damodara pondered the notion, for a moment.

  "Yes. . That might very well work." He eyed Ajatasutra intently. "With the right envoy, of course."

  Despite the command, Narses could no longer restrain himself. "Why in the name of God would Rao be so stupid as to accept such an idiotic proposal as-"

  The eunuch's jaws almost literally snapped shut. "Oh," he concluded.

  Ajatasutra's thin smile came. "No one has ever suggested that Raghunath Rao was stupid. Which is precisely the point."

  He gave Damodara a little nod. "I will take the message."

  "You understand-"

  "Yes, Lord. Nothing may be said directly. Rao will do as he will."

  Damodara nodded. "Good enough. If it doesn't work, so be it. Then, the third thing I need. We will have to secure Bharakuccha instantly, when the time comes. I can't afford a siege, either. Once the rebellion-ah, restoration-begins, I'll have to cross the Vindhyas and march on Kausambi immediately. If I can't reach and take the capital before Sati and whatever forces she brings arrives from the Punjab, there's no chance. Even for me, much less my family."

  Narses frowned. "Lord, I am sure I can get your family out of Kausambi before Emperor Skandagupta-ah, the false emperor-realizes they're gone. Why take the risk of a hasty assault on the city? Kausambi's defenses are the greatest in the world."

  "Do not teach me warfare, spymaster," Damodara stated flatly. "Do not. You think I should launch a rebellion-let's call things by their right name, shall we? — in one of the provinces. And then what? Years of civil war that shreds the empire, while the Romans and the Persians wait to pick up the pieces. Of which there won't be many."

  Damodara rubbed his face. "No. I have never been able to forget Ranapur. There are times I wake up in the middle of the night, shaking. I will not visit twenty Ranapurs upon India."

  "But. . Lord. ."

  "Enough!" Damodara rose to his feet. "Understand this, Narses. What a general can do, an emperor cannot. I will succeed or I will fail, but I will do so as an emperor. There will be no further discussion on the matter."

  "Be quiet, old man," Ajatasutra murmured coldly.

  He rose to his feet and gave Damodara a very deep bow. "Lord of Malwa. Let us do the thing like an assassin, not a torturer."

  Chapter 7

  Charax, on the Persian Gulf

  "I can't," said Dryopus firmly. Anna glared at him, but the Roman official in charge of the great port city of Charax was quite impervious to her anger. His next words were spoken in the patient tone of one addressing an unruly child.

  "Lady Saronites, if I allowed you to continue on this-" He paused, obviously groping for a term less impolite than insane. "-headstrong project of yours, it'd be worth my career."

  He picked up a letter lying on the great desk in his headquarters. "This is from your father, demanding that you be returned to Constantinople under guard."

  "My father has no authority over me!"

  "No, he doesn't." Dryopus shook his head. "But your husband Calopodius does. Without his authorization, I simply can't allow you to continue. I certainly can't detail a ship to take you to Barbaricum."

  Anna clenched her jaws. Her eyes went to the nearby window. She couldn't see the harbor from here, but she could visualize it easily enough. The Roman soldiers who had all-but-formally arrested her when she and her small party arrived in the great port city of Charax on the Persian Gulf had marched her past it on their way to Dryopus' palace.

  For a moment, wildly, she thought of appealing to the Persians who were now in official control of Charax. But the notion died as soon as it came. The Aryans were even more strict than Romans when it came to the independence of women. Besides-

  Dryopus seemed to read her thoughts. "I should note that all shipping in Charax is under Roman military law. So there's no point in your trying to go around me. No ship captain will take your money, anyway. Not without a permit issued by my office."

  He dropped her father's letter back onto the desk. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing else for it. If you wish to continue, you will have to get your husband's permission."

  "He's all the way up the Indus," she said angrily. "And there's no telegraph communication between here and there."

  Dryopus shrugged. "No, there isn't-and it'll be some time before the new radio system starts working. But there is a telegraph line between Barbaricum and the Iron Triangle. And by now the new line connecting Barbaricum and the harbor at Chabahari may be completed. You'll still have to wait until I can get a ship there-and another to bring back the answer. Which won't be quickly, now that the winter monsoon has started. I'll have to use a galley, whenever the first one leaves-and I'm not sending a galley just for this purpose."

  Anna's mind raced through the problem. On their way down the Euphrates, Illus had explained to her the logic of travel between Mesopotamia and India. He'd had plenty of time to do so. The river voyage through Mesopotamia down to the port at Charax had taken much longer than Anna had expected, mainly because of the endless delays caused by Persian officials. She'd expected to be in Charax by late October. Instead, they were now halfway into December.

  During the winter monsoon season, which began in November, it was impossible for sailing craft to make it to Barbaricum. Taking advantage of the relatively sheltered waters of the Gulf, on the other hand, they could make it as far as Chabahari-which was the reason the Roman forces in India had been working so hard to get a telegraph line connecting
Chabahari and the Indus.

  So if she could get as far as Chabahari. . She'd still have to wait, but if Calopodius' permission came she wouldn't be wasting weeks here in Mesopotamia.

  "Allow me to go as far as Chabahari then," she insisted.

  Dryopus started to frown. Anna had to fight to keep from screaming in frustration.

  "Put me under guard, if you will!"

  Dryopus sighed, lowered his head, and ran his fingers through thinning hair. "He's not likely to agree, you know," he said softly.

  "He's my husband, not yours," pointed out Anna. "You don't know how he thinks." She didn't see any reason to add: no more than I do.

  His head still lowered, Dryopus chuckled. "True enough. With that young man, it's always hard to tell."

  He raised his head and studied her carefully. "Are you that besotted with him? That you insist on going into the jaws of the greatest war in history?"

  "He's my husband," she replied, not knowing what else to say.

  Again, he chuckled. "You remind me of Antonina, a bit. Or Irene."

  Anna was confused for a moment, until she realized he was referring to Belisarius' wife and the Roman Empire's former head of espionage, Irene Macrembolitissa. Famous women, now, the both of them. One of them had even become a queen herself.

  "I don't know either one," she said quietly. Which was true enough, even though she'd read everything ever written by Macrembolitissa. "So I couldn't say."

  Dryopus studied her a bit longer. Then his eyes moved to her bodyguards, who had been standing as far back in a corner as possible.

  "You heard?"

  Illus nodded.

  "Can I trust you?" he asked.

  Illus' shoulders heaved a bit, as if he were suppressing a laugh. "No offense, sir-but if it's worth your career, just imagine the price we'd pay." His tone grew serious: "We'll see to it that she doesn't, ah, escape on her own."

  Dryopus nodded and looked back at Anna. "All right, then. As far as Chabahari."

  * * *

  On their way to the inn where Anna had secured lodgings, Illus shook his head. "If Calopodius says 'no,' you realize you'll have wasted a lot of time and money."

  "He's my husband," replied Anna firmly. Not knowing what else to say.

  The Iron Triangle

  After the general finished reading Anna's message, and the accompanying one from Dryopus, he invited Calopodius to sit down at the table in the command bunker.

  "I knew you were married," said Belisarius, "but I know none of the personal details. So tell me."

  Calopodius hesitated. He was deeply reluctant to involve the general in the petty minutiae of his own life. In the little silence that fell over them, within the bunker, Calopodius could hear the artillery barrages. As was true day and night, and had been for many weeks, the Malwa besiegers of the Iron Triangle were shelling the Roman fortifications-and the Roman gunners were responding with counter-battery fire. The fate of the world would be decided here in the Punjab, Calopodius thought, some time over the next year or so. That, and the whole future of the human race. It seemed absurd-grotesque, even-to waste the Roman commander's time. .

  "Tell me," repeated Belisarius. For all their softness, Calopodius could easily detect the tone of command in the words.

  Still, he hesitated.

  Belisarius chuckled. "Be at ease, young man. I can spare the time for this. In truth-" Calopodius could sense, if not see, the little gesture by which the general expressed a certain ironic weariness. "I would enjoy it, Calopodius. War is a means, not an end. It would do my soul good to talk about ends, for a change."

  That was enough to break Calopodius' resistance.

  "I really don't know her very well, sir. We'd only been married for a short time before I left to join your army. It was-"

  He fumbled for the words. Belisarius provided them.

  "A marriage of convenience. Your wife's from the Melisseni family."

  Calopodius nodded. With his acute hearing, he could detect the slight sound of the general scratching his chin, as he was prone to do when thinking.

  "An illustrious family," stated Belisarius. "One of the handful of senatorial families which can actually claim an ancient pedigree without paying scribes to fiddle with the historical records. But a family which has fallen on hard times financially."

  "My father said they wouldn't even have a pot to piss in if their creditors ever really descended on them." Calopodius sighed. "Yes, General. An illustrious family, but now short of means. Whereas my family, as you know. ."

  "The Saronites. Immensely wealthy, but with a pedigree that needs a lot of fiddling."

  Calopodius grinned. "Go back not more than three generations, and you're looking at nothing but commoners. Not in the official records, of course. My father can afford a lot of scribes."

  "That explains your incredible education," mused Belisarius. "I had wondered, a bit. Not many young noblemen have your command of language and the arts."

  Calopodius heard the scrape of a chair as the general stood up. Then, heard him begin to pace about. That was another of Belisarius' habits when he was deep in thought. Calopodius had heard him do it many times, over the past weeks. But he was a bit astonished that the general was giving the same attention to this problem as he would to a matter of strategy or tactics.

  "Makes sense, though," continued Belisarius. "For all the surface glitter-and don't think the Persians don't make plenty of sarcastic remarks about it-the Roman aristocracy will overlook a low pedigree as long as the 'nobleman' is wealthy and well educated. Especially-as you are-in grammar and rhetoric."

  "I can drop three Homeric and biblical allusions into any sentence," Calopodius said, chuckling.

  "I've noticed!" The general laughed. "That official history you're writing of my campaigns would serve as a Homeric and biblical commentary as well." He paused a moment. "Yet I notice that you don't do it in your Dispatches to the Army."

  "It'd be a waste," said Calopodius, shrugging. "Worse than that, really. I write those for the morale of the soldiers, most of whom would just find the allusions confusing. Besides, those are really your dispatches, not mine. And you don't talk that way, certainly not to your soldiers."

  "They're not my dispatches, young man. They're yours. I approve them, true, but you write them. And when they're read aloud by my son to the Senate, Photius presents them as Calopodius' dispatches, not mine."

  Calopodius was startled into silence.

  "You didn't know? My son is eleven years old, and quite literate. And since he is the Emperor of Rome, even if Theodora still wields the actual power, he insists on reading them to the Senate. He's very fond of your dispatches. Told me in his most recent letter that they're the only things he reads which don't bore him to tears. His tutors, of course, don't approve."

  Calopodius was still speechless. Again, Belisarius laughed. "You're quite famous, lad." Then, more softly, almost sadly: "I can't give you back your eyes, Calopodius. But I can give you the fame you wanted when you came to me. I promised you I would."

  The sound of his pacing resumed. "In fact, unless I miss my guess, those Dispatches of yours will someday-centuries from now-be more highly regarded than your official history of the war." Calopodius heard a very faint noise, and guessed the general was stroking his chest, where the jewel from the future named Aide lay nestled in his pouch. "I have it on good authority that historians of the future will prefer straight narrative to flowery rhetoric. And-in my opinion, at least-you write straightforward narrative even better than you toss off classical allusions."

  The chair scraped as the general resumed his seat. "But let's get back to the problem at hand. In essence, your marriage was arranged to lever your family into greater respectability, and to provide the Melisseni-discreetly, of course-a financial rescue. How did you handle the dowry, by the way?"

  Calopodius shrugged. "I'm not certain. My family's so wealthy that a dowry's not important. For the sake of appearances, the Melisseni provide
d a large one. But I suspect my father loaned them the dowry-and then made arrangements to improve the Melisseni's economic situation by linking their own fortunes to those of our family." He cleared his throat. "All very discreetly, of course."

  Belisarius chuckled dryly. "Very discreetly. And how did the Melisseni react to it all?"

  Calopodius shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Not well, as you'd expect. I met Anna for the first time three days after my father informed me of the prospective marriage. It was one of those carefully rehearsed 'casual visits.' She and her mother arrived at my family's villa near Nicodemia."

  "Accompanied by a small army of servants and retainers, I've no doubt."

  Calopodius smiled. "Not such a small army. A veritable host, it was." He cleared his throat. "They stayed for three days, that first time. It was very awkward for me. Anna's mother-her name's Athenais-barely even tried to disguise her contempt for me and my family. I think she was deeply bitter that their economic misfortunes were forcing them to seek a husband for their oldest daughter among less illustrious but much wealthier layers of the nobility."

  "And Anna herself?"

  "Who knows? During those three days, Anna said little. In the course of the various promenades which we took through the grounds of the Saronites estate-God, talk about chaperones! — she seemed distracted to the point of being almost rude. I couldn't really get much of a sense of her, General. She seemed distressed by something. Whether that was her pending marriage to me, or something else, I couldn't say."

  "And you didn't much care. Be honest."

  "True. I'd known for years that any marriage I entered would be purely one of convenience." He shrugged. "At least my bride-to-be was neither unmannerly nor uncomely. In fact, from what I could determine at the time-which wasn't much, given the heavy scaramangium and headdress and the elaborate cosmetics under which Anna labored-she seemed quite attractive."

  He shrugged again. "So be it. I was seventeen, General." For a moment, he hesitated, realizing how silly that sounded. He was only a year older than that now, after all, even if. .