The tide of victory

Chapter 23

The Deccan

Autumn, 533 A.D.

Rana Sanga kept his eyes firmly fixed on the ivory half-throne which supported the flaccid body of Lord Venandakatra. Not on the Goptri of the Deccan himself. Much like Venandakatra's face-with which Sanga had become all too familiar in the weeks since Damodara's army had arrived in the Deccan-the chair was carved into a multitude of complex and ornate folds and crevices.

But the Rajput king found it far easier to look at the chair than at the Malwa lord who sat in it. The piece of furniture, after all, had been shaped by the simple hand of a craftsman, not the vices and self-indulgences which had shaped Venandakatra's fat toad-lizard parody of a human face.

The Rajput king dwelled on that comparison, for a moment. He found it helped to restrain his fury. The more so since, whenever the rage threatened to overwhelm him, he could deflect it into a harmless fantasy of hacking the chair into splinters instead of.

Lord Venandakatra finally ceased his vituperative attack on the Rajput troops which formed the heart of Damodara's army. Lord Damodara began speaking. The sound of his commander's calm and even-tempered voice broke through the red-tinged anger which clouded Sanga's brain.

Sanga lifted his eyes and turned them to Damodara. The commander of the Malwa forces newly arrived in the Deccan was leaning back comfortably in his own chair, apparently relaxed and at ease.

"— are more than welcome to transmit your displeasure to the emperor and Nanda Lal," Damodara was saying. His tone was mild, almost serene. "Please, Lord Venandakatra! Do me the favor! Perhaps the emperor might heed your words-unlikely though that is-and send me and my army elsewhere. To fight a war instead of attempting to indulge a spoiled child."

Venandakatra hissed at the insult. He began gobbling incoherent outrage and indignation, but Damodara's still-calm voice slid through it like a knife.

"A stupid child, as well as a spoiled one. I told you from the beginning that not even Rajputs with Pathan trackers could hope to match Rao's Maratha hillfighters on their own terrain. The Panther has hillforts scattered throughout the Great Country. If we match him in the hills and valleys, he retreats to the hilltops. If we besiege the forts-which is easier said than done, Venandakatra-he fades down the slopes. Not without, each time, bleeding us further."

Gobble, gobble, gobble.

Damodara heaved a little half-snort, half-sigh. Derision mingled with exasperation. "From the day I arrived, I told you to cease your terror campaign. Butchering and torturing Maratha villagers does nothing beyond swell the ranks of Rao's army. By now, that army is at least as large as my own. Half again the size, I estimate."

The gobbling began producing coherent half-phrases. Have you impaled yourself. I am the emperor's first cousin. you only distantly related. insubordination and mutiny and treason. on a short stake.

"Be silent!" snarled Damodara. For once, the Malwa military commander's normal placidity was frayed. "Just exactly how do you propose to have me impaled, you foul creature?"

Damodara's round face twisted into a sneer. He waved a hand at Venandakatra's bodyguards. The five Ye-tai were standing against the rear of the audience chamber. They seemed a bit nervous.

"With them?" demanded Damodara, his sneer turning into a savage grin. Sitting next to him, Sanga casually placed a powerful hand on the hilt of his sword. That sword had been a minor legend throughout India even before the war began. Today, the legend was no longer minor.

The five Ye-tai bodyguards were definitely nervous.

Behind Sanga and Damodara, where they squatted on cushions, Sanga could sense the slight manner in which his two Rajput and one Ye-tai officers shifted their own stances. Without having to look, Sanga knew that all three men were now ready to leap to their feet in an instant, weapons in hand.

The Ye-tai bodyguards were very nervous. For all the outwardly respectful manner of their unmoving stance, the five men against the wall practically exuded fear and apprehension. Their eyes were no longer on their master, Venandakatra. They were riveted on the men sitting behind Sanga, even more than on Sanga himself.

One of those men, rather. Sanga knew-and suddenly had to fight down a cheerful laugh-that it was the Ye-tai officer squatting behind him who most thoroughly intimidated the bodyguards. Not so much because Toramana was a fearsome warrior, but simply because he was Ye-tai himself.

Ye-tai, yes-just like the bodyguards. But it was already known by all the Malwa forces in the Deccan that Rana Sanga, the greatest king of Rajputana, had promised one of his own half-sisters to Toramana as a wife. And had done so, because Toramana had requested marriage into the Chauhar dynasty.

The implications of that liaison had not escaped anyone. Certainly not Venandakatra.

The Goptri of the Deccan was now glaring past Sanga's shoulder. Past his hip, rather, where the face of Toramana would be visible to him. For all his fury and his self-indulgence, Venandakatra had not missed the subtleties of the matter at hand.

"This-this absurd marriage has not been agreed to by the emperor! All Ye-tai are still-"

He choked off whatever might have been the last words. As the pressure of the Roman-Persian campaign led by Belisarius mounted on the Malwa empire, the Malwa were being forced to relax the long-standing principles of their rigid system of caste, status and hierarchy. Venandakatra knew full well that Nanda Lal had already given his approval to the marriage. The emperor's approval was bound to follow.

In times past, of course, they would not have done so. Would, in all likelihood, have punished any Rajput or Ye-tai who even proposed it. High-ranking and meritorious Ye-tai, and occasionally Rajputs, had been allowed to marry into the Malwa clan as a means of cementing their allegiance to the ruling dynasty. But never had the two principal pillars of Malwa rule been allowed to marry each other. The threat of such liaisons was obvious.

In times past.

Damodara chuckled harshly. "Times past are times past, Venandakatra. In times past, Belisarius was not at our borders."

The Malwa army commander thrust himself abruptly to his feet. "There's no point in this," he said, again speaking calmly and evenly. "If you wish to do so, you may complain to the emperor. But, after all your complaints and failures over the past three years, I doubt he will give you an ear."

For a moment, Damodara studied his nominal superior. Then, still as calmly as ever:

"You are a military cretin as well a pustule, Venandakatra. 'Vile One' you are called, and never was a man more justly named. I will no longer subject my soldiers to casualties because of your asinine demands. Henceforth, my army will patrol the approaches to Bharakuccha and the line of the Narmada river. Let Rao have the hills and the rest of the Great Country."

He clasped his hands behind his back and stared down at Venandakatra. The Goptri of the Deccan returned the stare with a pale face, and eyes which seemed as wide as lilypads. People did not speak to the emperor's first cousin in such a manner!

"So long as Bharakuccha remains firmly in our grasp," continued Damodara, "we have our hands on the throat of Majarashtra. When the time comes, and we have once again the strength to do so, we shall squeeze that throat. But in the meantime-"

Again, he sneered. "Cretin, I named you, and named you well. Tomorrow is tomorrow, and today is today. Today the task at hand is beating down Belisarius. For that we need Bharakuccha intact-intact, along with the great fleet in its harbor."

Finally, Venandakatra found his voice. "I want you out of Bharakuccha!" he screeched. "Out-do you hear? Out! Out! You and every one of your stinking Rajputs!" For an instant, the Goptri glared at Toramana. "Every one of your soldiers! Out of the city! Live in camps along the river!"

The Goptri was shaking with rage. He began beating the armrests of his chair with his thin-boned, pudgy hands. "Out! Out! Out! This minute!"

Damodara shrugged. "So be it. Although you'd be wiser to keep at least a third of my army in the city itself. But"-another shrug-"I've long since given up any hope of teaching you wisdom."

Damodara's gaze moved to Sanga and, then, to the three officers squatting behind him. "Come," he commanded. "I want the army out of this city by tomorrow night."

"At once!" screamed Venandakatra. "Not tomorrow night! Now! Now!"

Damodara's ensuing laugh was one of genuine amusement. " 'Cretin,' didn't I say?" The next words were spoken as if to a child. A badly spoiled brat.

"You do not move an army of forty thousand men-and their horses, and their equipment, and their supplies-in the blink of an eye. Vile One."

He turned away and began walking toward the entry to the chamber. "As it is, I think we'll be working a miracle. By tomorrow night."

Shakuntala, Empress of Andhra, spent four hours searching her palace at Deogiri before she finally accepted the truth. It had been a waste of time, and she knew it. Not by accident, the search ended with her standing in her baby's room. She took the boy from his nurse's arms and cradled him in her own.

"He's gone, Namadev," she whispered, fighting back the tears. Then, slumping into a chair, she caressed the little head. "Once he knew his son was healthy. "

The baby smiled happily at his mother's face, and gurgled pleasure. Namadev was a cheerful boy. Cheerful and healthy. As good an assurance that the ancient Satavahana dynasty would continue as anyone could ask for.

Which, therefore, freed the father for a long-postponed task. Once again, the Wind of the Great Country was free to roam, and wreak its havoc.