The Dance of Time

Chapter 39

Kausambi

The first thing Rana Sanga saw, after he charged through the gate into the square beyond, was his son. Rajiv, holding a bow but not wearing armor, standing in front of perhaps a hundred soldiers assembled in ranks in front of the gate's barracks.

It was one of the great moments of his life. Greater, even, than the first time he held his first-born child in his hands.

A tiny thing, Rajiv had been then, in Sanga's very large hands.

He would never be as big as Sanga. In that, Rajiv took after his mother. But, at that moment, he seemed to stand as tall as Sanga himself, sitting on his great warhorse.

"My soldiers, father!" Rajiv spread his hands, the left still holding the bow, as if to shelter the soldiers behind him. "My soldiers! Loyal and sworn to me! They are not to be harmed!"

Sanga had brought his horse to a halt, ten yards from Rajiv. A small clot of his lieutenants swirled around him.

He pointed his lance into the city. "To the imperial palace! I want Skandagupta's head! I will follow in a moment!"

The lieutenants wheeled their horses and resumed leading the charge. Hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of Rajputs followed them. Slowed greatly, of course, as they squeezed through the gate. But resuming the gallop immediately thereafter.

Finally, Sanga was able to move his gaze from his son's face, to examine the soldiers behind him.

He almost laughed. If there was one of them not trembling, Sanga could not spot him.

Abhay was certainly trembling. He had never in his life seen anything so fearsome as the Rajput king astride his horse a few yards away.

The horse alone would have been terrifying. Several hands taller than any horse Abhay had ever seen, clad in its own armor, the beast had eyes that seemed to be filled with fury and its huge nostrils breathed rage.

But the king atop it! Steel helmet, steel chain and plate armor, steel-headed lance-even the shaft of the lance seemed like steel.

Not to mention being far larger than any lance Abhay could have held easily, even with both hands. In the huge, gauntleted hand of the Rajput king, it seemed as light as a wand.

The king was glaring, too. Or had some sort of scary expression on his face.

Just to make things complete, he had a name.

Rana Sanga. Every soldier in India had heard of Rana Sanga. The stories were endless.

And each and every one of them was true. Abhay didn't doubt it for a moment. Not any longer.

Sanga wasn't exactly glaring. He was simply, in his austere manner, trying to disguise both great pride and great amusement.

Sworn to his son's service, no less! The most wretched pack of garrison troops Sanga had ever seen!

But there was no contempt in the thoughts. Not even for the soldiers, and certainly not for Rajiv.

Sanga understood full well, what had happened here. He would not have done it himself. But he understood it.

"My wife's son, too," he murmured. "My great and glorious wife."

A movement caught his attention. Turning his head, he saw the Mongoose emerging from the gatehouse.

He slid the lance into its scabbard, and swung down gracefully from the saddle. Then, strode toward him.

As he neared, he saw that the Mongoose was scowling. Half-anger and half. .

Embarrassment? That seemed odd.

"Look," the Mongoose rasped. "I tried my level best. It's not my fault your son is crazy."

Abhay was astonished to see the Rajput king-so tall he was! even standing! — burst into laughter.

More astonished, still, to see him kneel before the foreign soldier.

Kneel, and extend his sword, hilt-first.

The words he spoke were clear to Abhay, who was standing not that far away. But they were simply meaningless.

"I am forever in your debt, Valentinian of Rome."

The Roman soldier named Valentinian cleared his throat.

"Yes, well," he said.

"Name the service, and I will do it," insisted the Rajput king.

"Yes, well," Valentinian repeated.

The ogre had emerged from the gatehouse in time to hear the exchange.

"Valentinian, you're a fucking idiot," Abhay heard him growl. Much more loudly: "As it happens, Rana Sanga, there is one small little favor you could do us. A family matter, you might say. But later! Later! There's still a battle to be won."

Sanga rose, sheathing his sword. "As you say. The favor is yours, whatever it is. For the moment, I will trust you to keep my family safe."

"Well, sure," said Valentinian.

Then he was back to scowling. Rajiv stepped forward and insisted on accompanying his father.

Abhay felt fear return, in full force. He did not want to fight a battle. Any battle, anywhere-much less the great, swirling chaos that Kausambi had become.

"You are not armored, Rajiv," his father pointed out, mildly. "And your only weapons are a bow and a dagger."

Rajiv turned to face Abhay, who was a small man.

"You're about my size. Give me your armor. Your spear and sword, also."

Hastily-eagerly-ecstatically, Abhay did as he was commanded.

"Stay here-you and all the others," Rajiv told him quietly. "Protect your families, that's all. You wouldn't be-well. That'll be good enough. Just keep your wife and children safe. Especially your daughter. Ah, I mean, daughters."

Sanga still seemed hesitant.

He turned to Valentinian. "Is he ready for this? He's only thirteen."

Scowling seemed to come naturally to the Roman soldier. "You mean, other than being crazy? Yeah, he's ready. The truth is, he's probably better than most of your Rajputs. Already."

The Rajput king seemed, somehow, to grow taller still.

"The Mongoose says this?"

"Well, yeah. The Mongoose says so. What the hell. I trained him, didn't I?"

A few minutes later, they were gone. The Rajput king and his son, toward the imperial palace. The ogre-who turned out to be another Roman soldier-and the narrow-faced one who was almost as frightening, went somewhere else. The Ye-tai went with them, thankfully.

Where they went, exactly, Abhay didn't know. Wherever Sanga's family was hidden, he assumed.

He wasn't about to ask. He was not a crazy Rajput prince.

Fortunately, Sanga had left one of his Rajput soldiers behind. An older man; too much the veteran to find any great glory in the last battle of a war. Enough glory, anyway, to offset the risk of not being around to enjoy the fruits of victory afterward.

Somebody had to lend Rajiv a horse, after all. Who better than a grizzled oldster?

He was a cheerful fellow. Who, to the great relief of Abhay and the other garrison soldiers, just waved on the Rajputs who kept coming through the gate. There was never a moment when any real threat emerged.

Coming, and coming, and coming. It took an hour, it seemed-perhaps longer-before they all passed through. "Storming the gate," when the soldiers numbered in the thousands and the gate was not really all that wide, turned out to be mostly a poetic expression.

Abhay found that somehow reassuring. He didn't like poetry, all that much. But he liked it a lot better than he liked horses.

Toramana personally slew the commander of Kausambi, in the battle that erupted in the narrow streets less than two minutes after he and his Ye-tai started passing through the north gate.

He made a point of it, deliberately seeking out the man once he spotted the plumed helmet.

Idiot affectation, that was. Toramana's own helmet was as utilitarian and unadorned as that of any of his soldiers.

It didn't take much, really. The city's commander was leading garrison troops who hadn't seen a battle since Ranapur. Toramana and his Ye-tai had spent years fighting Belisarius and Rao.

So, a tiger met a mongrel cur in the streets of Kausambi. The outcome was to be expected. Would have been the same, even if the fact they were outnumbered didn't matter. In those narrow streets, only a few hundred men on each side could fight at one time, anyway.

When he saw Toramana coming, hacking his way through the commander's bodyguard, the Malwa general tried to flee.

But, couldn't. The packed streets made everything impossible, except the sort of close-in brutal swordwork that the Ye-tai excelled in and his own men didn't.

Neither did their general. Toramana's first strike disarmed him; the second cut off his hand; the third, his head.

"Save the head," Toramana commanded, after the garrison troops were routed.

His lieutenant held it up by the hair, still dripping blood.

"Why?" he asked skeptically. Toramana's Ye-tai, following their commander's example, were not much given to military protocol. "Getting divorced and remarried, already?"

Toramana laughed. "I don't need it for more than a day. Just long enough so those damned Rajputs don't get all the credit."

The lieutenant nodded, sagely. "Ah. Good idea."

Even with the partial data at its disposal-even working through the still-awkward sheath of a girl much too young for the purpose-Link knew what to do.

It still didn't know the exact nature of the disaster that had befallen it, while ensconced in the sheath named Sati. As always, Link's memories only went as far as Sati's last communion with the machines in the cellars.

It didn't really matter.

Belisarius, obviously. As before.

The great plan of the new gods lay in shattered ruin. India was now lost. If Link had been in an adult sheath, it might have tried to rally the city's soldiers. But trapped in a girl's body, and with an emperor who had never been very competent and was now half-hysterical, such an attempt would be hopeless.

True, Damodara's forces were still outnumbered by Kausambi's garrison. Link knew that, within a ninety-three percent probability, despite the prattle of panicked courtiers and officers.

But that, too, didn't matter. There was no comparison at all between the morale and cohesion of the opposing sides. Damodara's army had the wind in its sails, now that it had breached the city's walls. Worse still, it had commanders who knew how to use that wind, beginning with Damodara himself.

The only really seasoned army Link had was in the Punjab. A huge army, but it might as well have been on the moon. That army had been paralyzed by Belisarius, it was much too far away for Link to control any longer-and none of the garrisons in any of the cities in the Ganges plain could serve as a rallying point. Not after Kausambi fell, as it surely would by nightfall.

All that remained-all that could remain-was to salvage what pieces it could and begin anew.

Start from the very beginning, all over again. Worse than that, actually. Link would lose the machinery in the imperial cellars. Without that machinery, it could not be transferred once its current sheath died or became too old or ill to be of use. Link would die with it.

Perhaps it was fortunate, after all, that the sheath was only eight years old.

Not that Link really thought in terms like "fate" or "fortune." Still, it was a peculiar twist in probabilities. It would take at least half a century for Link to re-create that machinery, even after it made its way to the Khmer lands.

The work could not be done there, in the first place. In this world, only the Romans and the Chinese had the technical wherewithal, with Link to guide the slave artisans.

Fortunately, the new gods had planned for such an unlikely outcome. Link held the designs in its mind for much cruder machines that would still accomplish the same basic task.

Half a century, at least. Hopefully, the sheath would prove to be long-lived. They normally weren't, simply because Link made no effort to keep them alive, if doing so was at all inconvenient. But it knew how to do so, if it chose, assuming the genetic material was not hopeless. The regimen was very strict, but-obviously-that posed no problem at all. Food meant nothing at all to Link, and the time spent in mindless exercise could still be used for calculations.

"Where are we going?" whispered Skandagupta. His voice was still hoarse, from the earlier screaming.

"BE SILENT OR YOU WILL DIE."

The threat was not an idle one. An eight-year-old girl's body could not have overwhelmed Skandagupta, even as pudgy and unfit as he was. But Link had kept its special assassins, after ordering them to kill all the women in the cellars. Any one of the assassins-much less all three-could have slain Skandagupta instantly.

The specially trained women would have been useful, later. But they were simply not trained, nor physically conditioned after years living in cellars, for the rigors of the journey that lay ahead. And Link could not afford to leave them alive. Under torture, they might say too much about their origins.

It was questionable whether Skandagupta would survive those rigors. Link's sheath was small enough that it could be carried by the assassins, when necessary. Skandagupta was not, even after he lost his fat, as he surely would. Link could not afford to wear out its assassins.

As it was, Link had almost ordered the emperor killed anyway. The probabilities teetered on a knife's edge. On the one hand, Skandagupta was an obvious impediment in the immediate future. On the other hand. .

It was hard to calculate. There were still too many variables involved. But there were enough of them to indicate that, given many factors, having the legitimate emperor of India ready at hand might prove useful.

No matter. Link could always have Skandagupta murdered later, after all.

The tunnel they were passing through was poorly lit. Skandagupta stumbled and fell again.

The shock was enough to jar the creature out of its fear. "Where are we going? And what will happen to my wife and children?"

Link decided that answering was more efficient than another threat.

"We are going to the Khmer lands. I prepared this escape route decades ago. Your wife and daughters are irrelevant, since they are outside the succession. Your only son, also. By the end of the day he will have either renounced his heritage and publicly admitted Damodara's forgeries to be the truth, or he will be dead."

Skandagupta moaned.

"IF HE SPEAKS AGAIN WITHOUT PERMISSION," Link instructed the assassins, "BEAT HIM."

"How badly, Mistress?"

"LEAVE HIS LEGS UNDAMAGED. HIS BRAIN ALSO, SUCH AS IT IS. SO LONG AS HE CAN STILL WALK."

Damodara entered the palace just as the sun was setting. There was still some fighting in the city, here and there, but not much.

It was all over. His great gamble had worked.

"Skandagupta's son says he will agree to the-ah-new documents," Narses said.

Damodara considered the matter. "Not good enough. He has to swear he's a bastard, also. His real father was. . whoever. Pick one of the courtiers whose heads decorate the walls outside. Someone known to be foul as well as incompetent."

Narses sneered. "Hard to choose among them, given those qualifications."

"Don't take long." Damodara's lips twisted into something that was perhaps less of a sneer, but every bit as contemptuous. "I want those heads off the walls and buried or burnt by tomorrow afternoon. The impaled bodies, by mid-morning. What a stench!"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"My wife? Children?"

"They should be here within an hour. They're all safe and well."

Damodara nodded. "See to it that stable-keeper is rewarded. Lavishly. In addition to being made the new royal stable-master."

"Yes, Your Majesty. What about-"

"The two Roman soldiers?" Damodara shook his head, wonderingly. "What sort of reward would be suitable, for such service as that?"

Narses' sneer returned. "Oh, they'll think of something."

"Someone's coming," said one of the members of the assassination team. He spoke softly. Just as softly as he let the grasses sway back, hiding their position alongside the road to the Bay of Bengal.

"Who?"

"Don't know. But from the clothes he's wearing, someone important, even though he's on foot. He's got a girl with him, and those weird little yellow assassins the witches keep around."

The captain frowned. He knew who the man was talking about, of course, even if none of the regular Malwa assassination teams ever had much contact with the witches and their entourage. But they'd always paid some attention to the Khmer assassins. Just keeping an eye on the competition, as it were.

"What in the world would. . Let me see."

He slithered his way to the top of the knoll and carefully parted the grasses.

"It's the emperor," he hissed.

"Are you sure?" asked his lieutenant.

"Come and look for yourself, if you don't believe me."

The lieutenant did so. Like the captain, though not the other three assassins, he'd been introduced to the emperor once. At a distance, of course, and as part of a small crowd. But it was something a man remembered.

"Damned if you're not right. But what would he be doing- Oh. Stupid question."

The captain smiled, sardonically. "I guess we know who won the siege."

He took a deep breath and let it out. "Well, thank whatever gods there are. After eleven thousand wasted miles and I don't want to think how many wasted hours, we've finally got something to do."

Fortunately, they'd hauled their little bombard the whole way. For all their diminutive size, the Khmer assassins were deadly. But a blast of canister swept them away as neatly as you could ask for. The one who survived, unconscious and badly wounded, got his throat cut a few seconds later.

They hadn't intended to hit the emperor or the girl, but the group had been tightly bunched and canister just naturally spreads.

The girl wasn't too badly hurt. Just a single ball in the left arm. She might lose the arm, but it could have been worse.

There was no chance, however, that Skandagupta would survive.

"Gut-shot," the lieutenant grunted. "He'll die in agony, in a few days. Damodara might like that."

The captain shook his head. "Not by reputation, and all we really need is the head, anyway. Or do you want to carry the fat little bastard?"

The lieutenant eyed the distant walls of Kausambi. Night was falling, but he could still hear the sounds of scattered fighting.

"Well. . it's only a few miles. But after eleven thousand, I'm not in the mood for any extra effort." He knelt down, and with a few expert strokes, severed the imperial head.

The girl was still squalling at them, as she had been since the attack. It was a very strange sound, coming from such a small female. As if her voice emerged from a huge cavern of a chest.

Consciously and deliberately, the assassins had blocked the actual words from their minds. You had to be careful, dealing with the witches. Which she obviously was, despite her youth. A witch-in-training, at least.

The captain struck her on the head with the pommel of his dagger. Carefully, just enough to daze the creature.

You never knew, with the witches and the imperial dynasty-of which Damodara was still a part, after all. The reward might be greater, if she were still alive.

Alive, however, was good enough.

"I'm sick of that squalling," said the captain. "Her eyes are creepy, too. Gag her and blindfold her, before she comes to."

They decided to wait until the next day, before entering the city to seek their reward. By then, the fighting should have ended.

Before long, however, the captain was regretting that decision. They were all very well-traveled, by now, and-alas-the lieutenant liked to read.

"You know," he said, "the story has it that when some Persians presented Alexander the Great with the body of Darius, he had them all executed. For regicide, even though he was hunting the former emperor himself."

Silently, the captain cursed all well-read men. Then, because maintaining morale was his duty, pointed out the obvious.

"Don't be silly. Alexander the Great was a maniac. Everybody says Damodara is a level-headed, practical fellow."

Lord Samudra learned the war was over that night, from a radio message sent from Kausambi.

FALSE EMPEROR OVERTHROWN STOP TRUE EMPEROR DAMODARA SITS ON THRONE IN KAUSAMBI STOP YOU WILL OBEY HIM LORD SAMUDRA STOP WAR IS OVER STOP ESTABLISH LIAISON WITH MAURICE OF THRACE TO NEGOTIATE CEASE FIRE WITH ROMAN AND PERSIAN ARMIES IN PUNJAB STOP

"What are you going to do?" asked one of his aides.

Samudra let the message fall to the table in the bunker. "What do you think? I'm going to do exactly as I'm told. The Romans will have received the same message. By now, they've got us outnumbered. Between them and the Persians, we're facing something like two hundred thousand men."

"And we're losing soldiers by the droves every day," said a different aide, gloomily. "As much by desertion as disease."

There was silence, for a time. Then Samudra said: "You want to know the truth? I know Damodara pretty well. We're cousins, after all. He's about ten times more capable than Skandagupta and-best of all-he's even-tempered."

There was further silence, finally broken by one of the aides.

"Long live the new emperor, then."

"Idiot," said Samudra tonelessly. "Long live the true emperor. The greatest army of the Malwa empire does not obey rebels, after all."

It was several days before Belisarius learned the war was over. The news was brought to him by a special courier sent by Damodara.

A Rajput cavalryman, naturally. The man was exceptionally proud-as well he might be-that he'd made the ride as fast as he had, without killing a single horse.

"So, that's it," said Belisarius, rising from his squat across from Kungas.

The two of them emerged from the hut and studied the Malwa army they'd trapped on the Ganges.

There'd been little fighting, and none at all for the past four days.

"You were right, I think," said Kungas. "The bitch did kill herself, days ago."

"Most likely. We'll know soon enough. That army's looking at starvation, before too long. They slaughtered their last horses two days ago."

"I'll send an envoy to them. Once they get the news, they'll surrender."

The Kushan king eyed Belisarius. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen that crooked a smile on your face. What amuses you so?"

"I've got a reputation to maintain. You do realize, don't you, that in the days when the final battle was fought and won in the greatest war in history, Belisarius spent his time doing nothing more than drinking lousy wine and gambling with dice?"

Kungas chuckled. "You lost, too. By now, you owe me a small chest of gold."

"Not all that small, really."

But Kungas had stopped chuckling. Another thought had come to him, that caused his notoriously expressionless face to twist into a grimace.

"Oh. You'll never stop crowing about it, will you?"

When Maurice heard, it put him in a foul mood for a full day.

Calopodius' mood was not much better. "How in the name of God am I supposed to put that in my history? You can only do so much with classical allusions, you know. Grammar and rhetoric collapse under that crude a reality."

"Who gives a damn?" snarled Maurice. "You think you've got problems? I'm still in good health, and I'm only twenty years older than the bastard. Years and years, I'll have to listen to him bragging."

"He's not really a boastful man," pointed out Calopodius.

"Not usually, no. But with something like this? Ha! You watch, youngster. Years and years and years."