The Dance of Time b-6 Read online

  "You were a boy then; a man, now," filled in Belisarius. "The world looks very different after a year spent in the carnage. I know. But then-"

  Calopodius heard the general's soft sigh. "Seventeen years old. With the war against Malwa looming ever larger in the life of the Roman Empire, the thoughts of a vigorous boy like yourself were fixed on feats of martial prowess, not domestic bliss."

  "Yes. I'd already made up my mind. As soon as the wedding was done-well, and the marriage consummated-I'd be joining your army. I didn't even see any reason to wait to make sure that I'd provided an heir. I've got three younger brothers, after all, every one of them in good health."

  Again, silence filled the bunker and Calopodius could hear the muffled sounds of the artillery exchange. "Do you think that's why she was so angry at me when I told her I was leaving? I didn't really think she'd care."

  "Actually, no. I think. ." Calopodius heard another faint noise, as if the general were picking up the letters lying on the table. "There's this to consider. A wife outraged by abandonment-or glad to see an unwanted husband's back-would hardly be taking these risks to find him again."

  "Then why is she doing it?"

  "I doubt if she knows. Which is really what this is all about, I suspect." He paused; then: "She's only a year older than you, I believe."

  Calopodius nodded. The general continued. "Did you ever wonder what an eighteen-year-old girl wants from life? Assuming she's high-spirited, of course-but judging from the evidence, your Anna is certainly that. Timid girls, after all, don't race off on their own to find a husband in the middle of a war zone."

  Calopodius said nothing. After a moment, Belisarius chuckled. "Never gave it a moment's thought, did you? Well, young man, I suggest the time has come to do so. And not just for your own sake."

  The chair scraped again as the general rose. "When I said I knew nothing about the details of your marriage, I was fudging a bit. I didn't know anything about what you might call the 'inside' of the thing. But I knew quite a bit about the 'outside' of it. This marriage is important to the Empire, Calopodius."

  "Why?"

  The general clucked his tongue reprovingly. "There's more to winning a war than tactics on the battlefield, lad. You've also got to keep an eye-always-on what a future day will call the 'home front.' " Calopodius heard him resume his pacing. "You can't be that naive. You must know that the Roman aristocracy is not very fond of the dynasty."

  "My family is," protested Calopodius.

  "Yes. Yours-and most of the newer rich families. That's because their wealth comes mainly from trade and commerce. The war-all the new technology Aide's given us-has been a blessing to you. But it looks very different from the standpoint of the old landed families. You know as well as I do-you must know-that it was those families who supported the Nika insurrection a few years ago. Fortunately, most of them had enough sense to do it at a distance."

  Calopodius couldn't help wincing. And what he wasn't willing to say, the general was. Chuckling, oddly enough.

  "The Melisseni came that close to being arrested, Calopodius. Arrested-the whole family-and all their property seized. If Anna's father Nicephorus had been even slightly less discreet. . The truth? His head would have been on a spike on the wall of the Hippodrome, right next to that of John of Cappadocia's. The only thing that saved him was that he was discreet enough-barely-and the Melisseni are one of the half-dozen most illustrious families of the Empire."

  "I didn't know they were that closely tied. ."

  Calopodius sensed Belisarius' shrug. "We were able to keep it quiet. And since then, the Melisseni seem to have retreated from any open opposition. But we were delighted-I'm speaking of Theodora and Justinian and myself, and Antonina for that matter-when we heard about your marriage. Being tied closely to the Saronites will inevitably pull the Melisseni into the orbit of the dynasty. Especially since-as canny as your father is-they'll start getting rich themselves from the new trade and manufacture."

  "Don't tell them that!" barked Calopodius. "Such work is for plebeians."

  "They'll change their tune, soon enough. And the Melisseni are very influential among the older layers of the aristocracy."

  "I understand your point, General." Calopodius gestured toward the unseen table, and the letters atop it. "So what do you want me to do? Tell Anna to come to the Iron Triangle?"

  Calopodius was startled by the sound of Belisarius' hand slapping the table. "Damn fool! It's time you put that splendid mind of yours to work on this, Calopodius. A marriage-if it's to work-needs grammar and rhetoric also."

  "I don't understand," said Calopodius timidly.

  "I know you don't. So will you follow my advice?"

  "Always, General."

  Belisarius chuckled. "You're more confident than I am! But. ." After a moment's pause: "Don't tell her to do anything, Calopodius. Send Dryopus a letter explaining that your wife has your permission to make her own decision. And send Anna a letter saying the same thing. I'd suggest. ."

  Another pause. Then: "Never mind. That's for you to decide."

  In the silence that followed, the sound of artillery came to fill the bunker again. It seemed louder, perhaps. "And that's enough for the moment, young man. I'd better get in touch with Maurice. From the sound of things, I'd say the Malwa are getting ready for another probe."

  * * *

  Calopodius wrote the letters immediately thereafter, dictating them to his scribe. The letter to Dryopus took no time at all. Neither did the one to Anna, at first. But Calopodius, for reasons he could not determine, found it difficult to find the right words to conclude. Grammar and rhetoric seemed of no use at all.

  In the end, moved by an impulse which confused him, he simply wrote:

  Do as you will, Anna. For myself, I would like to see you again.

  Chapter 8

  Bharakuccha

  The day after his meeting with Narses, Damodara went to the chambers occupied by Nanda Lal, in a different wing of the great palace. Politely, he waited outside for permission to enter. Politely, because Damodara was now officially the Goptri of the Deccan; and thus, in a certain sense, the entire palace might be said to be his personal property.

  But there was no point in being rude. Soon enough, the chief spymaster of the Malwa empire emerged from his private chambers.

  "Yes, Damodara?" he asked. Not bothering, as usual, to preface the curt remark with the general's honorifics.

  Nanda Lal seemed to treasure such little snubs. It was the only sign of outright stupidity Damodara had ever seen him exhibit.

  "I have decided to take the field against Rao and his rebels," Damodara announced. "Within a month, I think."

  "At last! I am glad to hear it. But why move now, after. .?" He left the rest unstated. After you have resisted my advice to do so for so long?

  "The army is ready, well enough. I see no reason to wait until we are well into garam season. As it is, we'll be campaigning through the heat anyway. But I'd like to end the business, if possible, before the southwest monsoon comes."

  Above the lumpy, broken nose that Belisarius had given him, years ago, Nanda Lal's dark eyes were fixed on Damodara. The gaze was not quite suspicious, but very close.

  "You still lack the heavy siege guns-that you have insisted for months are essential to reducing Deogiri."

  Damodara shrugged again. "I don't intend to besiege Deogiri. It is my belief that Rao will come forth from the city to meet me on the field of battle. I sense that he has grown arrogant."

  Nanda Lal turned his head, peering at Damodara from the side of his eyes. The suspicion had come to the surface now. "You 'sense'? Why? I have gotten no such indications from my spies."

  Damodara decided it was time to put an end to courtesy. He returned the spymaster's sideways look with a flat, cold stare of his own. "Neither you nor your spies are warriors. I am. So it is my sense-not yours-which will guide me in this matter."

  He looked away, as if indifferent. "And I am also the
Goptri of the Deccan. Not you, and certainly not your spies. The decision is made, Nanda Lal." Casually, he added: "I presume you will wish to accompany the expedition."

  Tightly, Nanda Lal replied: "You presume incorrectly. I shall remain here in Bharakuccha. And I will insist that you leave Toramana and his Ye-tais here with me." After a brief pause, in a slightly more conciliatory tone, he added, "To maintain the city's security."

  Damodara's eyes continued to rove casually about the corridors of the palace, as if he were looking for security threats-and finding none.

  "You may have half the Ye-tai force," he said at length, dismissively. "That's more than enough to maintain security. But I will leave you Toramana in command, even though I could certainly use him myself."

  * * *

  That night, as soon as it was dark, Ajatasutra slipped out of the city. He had no great difficulty with the task, as many times as he'd done it. Would have had no difficulty at all, except that he was also smuggling out the fastest horse in Bharakuccha.

  The horse was too good to risk breaking one of its legs riding on rough Deccan roads with only a sliver of a crescent moon to see by. So, once far enough from the city, Ajatasutra made camp for the night.

  It was a comfortable camp. As it should have been, since he'd long used the site for the purpose and had a cache already supplied.

  He slept well, too. Woke very early, and was on his way south to Deogiri before the sun rose.

  By mid-morning, he was in excellent spirits. There still remained the not-so-minor problem of avoiding a Maratha ambush, of course. But Ajatasutra was sanguine with regard to that matter, for the good and simple reason that he had no intention of attempting that difficult feat in the first place.

  All he had to do was not get killed when the Maratha caught him by surprise. Which, they probably would. With the possible-no, probable-exception of Raghunath Rao, Ajatasutra thought he was the best assassin in India. But the skills of an assassin, though manifold, do not automatically include expertise at laying or avoiding ambushes in broken country like Majarashtra.

  No matter. He thought it unlikely that the Marathas would kill a single man outright. It was much more likely they would try to capture him-a task which they would find supremely easy since he intended to put up no resistance at all.

  Thereafter, the letter he carried should do the rest.

  Well. . It would certainly get him an audience with the Empress of Andhra and her consort. It was also possible, of course, that the audience would be followed by his execution.

  Ajatasutra was not unduly concerned over that matter either, however. A man who manages to become the second best assassin in India is not, in the nature of things, given to fretfulness.

  * * *

  The ambush came later than he expected, a full three days after he left Bharakuccha and long after he'd penetrated into the highlands of the Great Country. On the other hand, it did indeed come as a complete surprise.

  "That was very well done," he complimented his ambushers, seeing a dozen of them popping up around him. "I wouldn't have thought a lizard could have hidden in those rocks."

  He complimented them again after four of them seized him and hauled him off the horse, albeit a bit more acerbically. The lads went about the task with excessive enthusiasm.

  "No need for all that, I assure you!"

  He's got a dagger, Captain!

  "Three, actually. There's another in my right boot and a small one tucked between my shoulder blades. If you'll permit to rise just a bit-no? — then you'll have to roll me over to get it."

  He's got three daggers, Captain! One of them's a throwing knife! He's an assassin!

  A flurry of harsh questions followed.

  "Well, yes, of course I'm an assassin. Who else would be idiotic enough to ride alone and openly through Maratha territory? But you may rest assured that I was not on my way to make an attempt on Rao's life. I have a letter for him. For the empress, actually."

  A flurry of harsher accusations followed.

  "Oh, that's nonsense. If I wanted to assassinate the empress, I'd hardly use a blade for the purpose. With Rao himself to guard her? No, no, poison's the thing. I've studied Shakuntala's habits, from many spy reports, and her great weakness is that she refuses to use a food-taster."

  A flurry of still harsher proposals followed. They began with impalement and worked their way down from there.

  Fortunately, by the time they got to the prospect of flaying the assassin alive, the captain of the Maratha squad had finally taken Ajatasutra's advice to look in his left boot.

  "See? I told you I was carrying a letter for the empress."

  * * *

  There came, then, the only awkward moment of the day.

  None of them could read.

  "And here I took the time and effort to provide a Marathi translation, along with the Hindi," sighed Ajatasutra. "I'm an idiot. Too much time spent in palaces. Ah. . I don't suppose you'd just take my word for it?"

  A very long flurry of very harsh ridicule followed. But, in the end, the Maratha hillmen agreed that they'd accept the letter as good coin-provided that Ajatasutra read it aloud to them so they could be sure it said what he claimed it did.

  Peshawar

  Capital city of the Kushan Kingdom

  Kungas, also, found that the first Malwa assassination attempt came later than he'd expected.

  He was not, however, caught by surprise. In fact, he wasn't caught at all.

  Kungas was certainly not one of the best assassins in India. Not even close. He was, however, most likely the best assassin-catcher. For years, the Malwa had used him as a security specialist. After he broke from them to join Shakuntala's rebellion, she'd made him the commander of her imperial bodyguard.

  "They're in that building," Kujulo murmured, pointing with his chin out of the window. He was too far away from the window to be seen from the outside, but he was also too experienced to run the risk that a large gesture like a pointing finger might be spotted. The human eye can detect motion easier than it can detect a still figure. "One of the two you predicted they'd use."

  "It was fairly obvious," said Kungas. "They're the only two buildings fronting the square that have both a good angle for a shot and a good rear exit to make an escape from."

  Next to him, also carefully standing back from the window so as not to be spotted, Vima chuckled softly. "It helps, of course, that we prepared the sites well. Like bait for rats."

  Kungas nodded. The gesture, like Kujulo's chin-pointing, was minimal. Something that couldn't possibly be spotted even fifty feet away, much less across an entire city square.

  Bait, indeed. The king of the Kushans-his queen, rather, acting on his instructions-had bought the two buildings outright. Then, placed her own agents in the position of "landlords," with clear and explicit instructions to rent any of the rooms to anyone, no questions asked-and make sure that their reputation for doing so became well known in Peshawar.

  Inevitably, of course, that quickly made both buildings havens for prostitution and gambling. All the better, as far as Kungas was concerned. Within a week, all of the prostitutes were cheerfully supplementing their income as informers for the queen.

  Irene had known the Malwa assassins were there within half an hour of their arrival.

  Piss-poor assassins, in Kungas' opinion, when she told him. They'd started by annoying the whores with a brusque refusal of their services.

  "All right," he said. "I see no reason to waste time."

  "How do you want to do it?" asked Kujulo. "You don't want to use the charges, I assume."

  In the unlikely event he might need it a last resort, Kungas had had all the rooms in the buildings that would be suitable for assassination attempts fitted with demolitions. Shaped charges, basically, that would spray the interior with shrapnel without-hopefully-collapsing the walls.

  Still, with the ubiquitous mudbrick construction in Peshawar, Kungas saw no reason to take the risk. There was always th
e chance the building might collapse, killing dozens of people. Even if that didn't happen, the expense of repairing the damage would be considerable, and the work itself disruptive. Such an extreme measure might aggravate the residents of Peshawar.

  Irene's spies had reported that Kungas was now very popular in the city, even among the non-Kushan inhabitants, and he saw no reason to undermine that happy state of affairs.

  The new king's popularity was not surprising, of course. Kungas had maintained at least as much stability as the Malwa had. More, really, since the Pathan hillmen had completely ceased their periodic harassment of the city-dwellers. He'd also lowered the taxes and levies, eliminated the most egregious of the Malwa regulations, and, most of all, abolished all of the harsh Malwa laws regarding religion. The enforced Malwa cult of mahaveda Hinduism had never sat well in the mountains. The moment Kungas issued his decrees, the region's underlying Buddhist faith had surged back to the surface.

  No, there was no reason to risk undermining all that by blowing up parts of the city. Especially such visible parts, fronting on the main square.

  "I've got my men ready," Kujulo added.

  "What are they armed with? The assassins, I mean. Guns?"

  "No. Bows. Probably be using poisoned arrowheads."

  Kungas shook his head. "In that case, no. Keep your men ready, but let's try the Sarmatian girls."

  Kujulo looked skeptical. Vima looked downright appalled.

  "Kungas-ah, Sire-there isn't a one of them-"

  "Enough," Kungas said. "I know they have no experience. Neither did you or I, once. How else do you get it?"

  He shook his head again. "If the Malwa were armed with guns, it might be different. But bows will be awkward in the confines of those rooms. The girls will have a good chance. Some of them will die. But. . That's what they wanted. To be real warriors. Dying comes with it."

  The crack of a smile reappeared. "Besides, it's only fair-since we're using one of them as the decoy."

  * * *