The tide of victory

Chapter 39

India

Autumn, 533 A.D.

As the great vessel which Eon had used for his flagship sailed out of Chowpatty's harbor, Antonina and Ousanas remained on the stern of the ship. That position gave them the best possible view of the long, steep-sided promontory which overlooked the harbor. The fortress where Eon had met his end was atop that promontory. Malabar Hill, as the natives called it. And so was his tomb.

Antonina had thought the Ethiopians would want to return Eon's body to Axum. But, leaving aside the practical difficulties of transporting a corpse across an ocean, the sarawit commanders-with Ousanas and Ezana agreeing-had decided it would be more fitting to bury him on Malabar Hill. So, like Alexander, Eon would be laid to rest in the land he had conquered rather than the land of his origins.

Conquered, yes, not simply occupied. At a great ceremony three days earlier, Empress Shakuntala had formally bestowed ownership of Chowpatty and the immediate region surrounding it onto the kingdom of Axum. That area would become a piece of Ethiopia on Indian soil, an enclave where Axumite traders and merchants and factors could establish an anchor for the Erythrean trade which everyone expected to blossom after the war.

"It is only just and fitting," Shakuntala had told the crowd of Andhran and Maratha notables who had assembled in her palace for the ceremony. "Our debt to Axum is obvious. And I have a debt of my own to pay."

Then, for the first time to any Maratha except her husband, Shakuntala told the tale of how she first met the prince of Ethiopia, in the days when she was still a princess, and of the manner in which Eon had rescued her from Malwa captivity.

It was lively tale. The more so because the empress made no attempt, as she normally did in imperial audience, to restrain her own lively sense of humor. And if the tale bordered on salaciousness-Shakuntala depicted in lavish detail the episode where Eon kept her out of sight from Malwa soldiers searching his quarters by tossing the princess into his bed and pretending to mount her-himself, if not she, stark naked-none of the assembled notables reacted with anything but laughter. For all their obsession with ritual purity, Indians were not prudes. Anyone had but to walk a short distance from the palace to see a temple whose exterior carvings depicted-in even greater detail than the empress' story-copulations which were real and not simulated.

"I thought, once," she concluded, "that a day might come when I would marry Eon. For the sake of advancing Andhra's cause, of course. But the thought itself was not unpleasing to me."

Her little hand reached out and squeezed the large hand of her husband. Unusually, for such an affair, Shakuntala had insisted that Rao stand by her side throughout the audience.

"Destiny decreed otherwise, and I am glad of it. But there will always remain a part of me which is still that young princess, sheltered from harm by the noblest prince in the world. And so, I think, it is fitting that Andhra should give Axum the dowry which would have come in a different turn of the wheel. I would not be here-none of us would be here-except for Eon bisi Dakuen."

She rose and stepped down from the throne, then presented it to Saizana, the commander of the Hadefan regiment, whom Ousanas had appointed the Axumite viceroy of the new territory.

Watching the feverish work of the Axumites and the Marathas they had hired atop Malabar Hill, Antonina began to laugh softly. Not satisfied with simply rebuilding those portions of the Malwa fortress which they had destroyed in the assault, the Ethiopians were dismantling it still further. Antonina had heard, from Ousanas himself, the plans which the Ethiopians had developed for the new great fortress they would build. A fortress within whose fastnesses the body of Eon was buried, and which they intended to serve as his monument.

"I was just remembering," she said, in response to Ousanas' quizzical expression, "the time Eon took me on a tour of the royal ruins at Axum. So sarcastic, you were, on the subject of royal aggrandizement congealed in stone."

She pointed to the fortress under construction. "And now-look! By the time you're finished, that thing will make any monument in Axum seem like a child's pile of pebbles."

Ousanas grinned. "Not the same thing at all, Antonina!" He clucked his tongue. "Women. Never practical. That thing is not a monument of any kind. True, it will be gigantic and grandiose and-between us, in private-rather grotesque. But it is really a fortress, Antonina. Living proof of Axum's real power, not"-here, he waved his hand in a regal gesture of dismissal-"some silly curio recalling a long-dead and half-forgotten petty monarch."

Antonina stared at him, her eyebrows arched in a skeptical curve.

"It is true! We Ethiopians are a practical folk, as all men know. Very economical. We saw no reason to waste all that space, and so why not use a small corner of it to serve double duty as a modest grave? Rather than require some poor grave digger to do unneeded and additional work?"

A very arched curve, those eyebrows made. "I have seen a sketch of that 'modest grave,' Ousanas. Saizana showed it to me, bragging fiercely all the while. He told me, furthermore, that the design originally came from none other than you. Some dawazz you turned out to be!"

Ousanas' grin never wavered, never flinched. "True, true. Actually, I got it from Belisarius. Long ago, during one of those evenings when he was passing along Aide's secrets of the future to me. I've forgotten how we got onto the subject. But we starting talking about great conquerors of the future that would have been and Aide wound up describing a monument which rather caught my fancy. Mainly because it was perhaps the most garish and tasteless one imaginable. And what better, I ask you, for a nation to remind all skeptics that what it did once it might still do again, if it is crossed?"

His grin was now positively serene. "Indeed, it seemed fitting." He pointed to the gigantic fortress under construction, within which a "modest grave" was being placed. As if it were the heart of the thing.

"Napoleon's Tomb, that is. A replica of it. Except"-he spread his hands wide-"I decreed that it should be much bigger."

The expression on Antonina's face was still quizzical, but all traces of sarcasm had vanished. "That's the first time I've ever heard you say that," she murmured. " 'We Ethiopians.' "

Ousanas shrugged, a bit uncomfortably. "A man cannot be a hunter and a rover forever, it seems. Not even me."

Antonina nodded, very serenely. "I had come to the same conclusion."

"You're thinking again," accused Ousanas, frowning worriedly. Then, when she made no attempt to deny the charge, the worry deepened.

"A demon," he muttered. "Same thing."

"Make way! Make way!" bellowed the Ye-tai officer trotting down the road which paralleled the Jamuna river. Here, in the Malwa heartland of the Ganges valley not far from the capital at Kausambi, the road was very wide and well-made. The small party of petty merchants hastily moved aside, barely managing to get the cart which held two sick men off the paved road and into the weeds before the Ye-tai soldiers who followed the officer stormed past.

The red and gold colors they were wearing, which matched those of the great banners streaming from their lances, indicated that these soldiers were part of the imperial troops which served the Malwa dynasty for an equivalent to the old Roman Praetorian Guard. And, as more and more soldiers thundered past the party of merchants-hundreds and hundreds of them-it became apparent that a very large portion of the elite unit was traveling down that road.

Mixed in with the soldiers were many Malwa officials, of one sort or another. From the pained look on most of their faces, it was obvious that those splendidly garbed men were unaccustomed to riding a horse instead of traveling in a palanquin or howdah.

There were some exceptions, however. One of them was a very large and barrel-chested man, who apparently served as some kind of herald. He had a herald's ease in the saddle, and certainly had the voice for the job.

"Make way! Make way!" he boomed. "Prostrate yourselves before the Great Lady Sati!"

Seeing the enormous wagon which was lurching behind the soldiers, almost careening in the train of twenty horses drawing it, the merchants hastily prostrated themselves. No grudging formality, either. It was noticeable-had any bothered to notice, which none did-that all of the men, as well as the woman and even the children, kept their faces firmly planted to the soil. Not even daring so much as a peek, lest a haughty imperial dynast be offended in her passage by the sight of polluted faces.

The wagon flashed past, its gems and gold inlay and silk accouterments gleaming in the sunlight. It was followed by still more Malwa elite bodyguards. Hundreds and hundreds of them.

When the imperial expedition had finally gone, the merchants rose to their feet and began slapping off the dust of their passage. Despite the dust and the prospect of hard labor to haul the hand-drawn cart back onto the road, one of the merchants was grinning from ear to ear. On the man's narrow visage, the expression was far more predatory than one would have expected to see on the face of such a man.

"I'd say all hell has broken loose," he announced cheerfully. "Imagine that! The Great Lady Sati herself, racing toward the Punjab. As if some disaster were taking place. Dear me, I wonder what it could be?"

"Shut up," growled his enormous companion. "And will you please wipe that grin off your face. You look like a weasel in a henhouse. Merchants, we're supposed to be, and piss-poor ones at that."

The faces of the unarmed Malwa soldiers who marched out of the fortress in the Khyber Pass were not grinning. Although a few of them, obeying ancient instinct, did attempt to smile at the Kushan troops who were accepting their surrender, in that sickly manner in which men try to appease their masters.

"Look at 'em," snorted Vima. "Like a bunch of puppies, flat on their backs and waving their little paws in the air. Please don't hurt me."

"Enough of that," commanded Kungas. His mask of a face was just that-an iron mask. Even the men who surrounded him, who had come to know the man well in the months of their great march of conquest, could not detect a trace of humor lurking beneath.

He turned his head and gazed upon them, his eyes like two pieces of amber. "There will be no cruelties inflicted on those men. No disrespect, even. Such was my word, given to their commander. And that word-the word of King Kungas-must become as certain in these mountains as the stones themselves. Or the avalanche which buries the unwary. Do you understand?"

All of his commanders bowed their heads. The obedience was instant, total. Nor was it brought by any idle humor concerning a queen in Begram, weaving her cunning webs. The king himself was enough to command that allegiance. More than enough, after the months which had passed.

King Kungas he was, and did no man doubt it. Not Malwa, not Persian, not Pathan-not Kushan. The mask, which a man had once made of his face to conceal the man himself, was no longer a mask at all. Not of the king, at least, whatever warmth might remain in the man's heart.

"See to their well-being," the king of the Kushans commanded. "Set them to work building the new fortifications, but do not allow the labor to cripple or exhaust them. See that they are fed well enough. Some wine, on days they have done well."

He did not have to add the words: obey me. Such an addendum would have been quite pointless.

Toramana first caught sight of his bride-to-be when the girl and her entourage came into the palace where Lord Damodara made his headquarters. It was a different palace than the one which Venandakatra had inhabited. That palace had been designated as the residence of the Goptri, not the military commander of the Malwa forces in the Deccan. Lord Damodara, as all men knew, was not given to self-aggrandizement. He would not presume to inhabit the Goptri's palace without the emperor's permission.

On the morrow, as it happened, he would be moving into the palace. Nanda Lal had arrived three days before the Rajputs bringing Toramana's bride, as an official envoy from the emperor. Skandagupta had decided to bestow the title of Goptri upon Damodara, in recognition of his great services to the dynasty.

Toramana was pleased by the sight of the girl's face, as any groom would be seeing such a face on his bride. Nanda Lal, standing next to him, leaned over and whispered in his ear.

"I had heard Indira was comely. My congratulations."

Solemnly, Toramana nodded. His face, composed as faces should be at formal ceremonies, indicated nothing of his amusement at Nanda Lal's words. The spymaster had quite mistaken the source of his pleasure.

For the most part, at least. True, some portion of Toramana was delighted with the girl's face. But the real source of his pleasure lay in the simple fact that the face was exposed at all. Most Rajput women, at such an event, would have been wearing a veil. The fact that his bride-to-be did not told him two things. First, she was spirited, just as Rana Sanga had depicted his half-sister. Second, she saw no need to hide herself behind a disguise.

Which, since Toramana himself thought a disguise generally defeated its own purpose, boded well for the future. He had high hopes for the girl moving slowly through the palace, exchanging greetings with her Rajput kinsmen as she made her way toward Rana Sanga. Even more as a wife than a bride.

Indira had now reached her half-brother. From the distance where he was standing, Toramana could not hear the words which passed between them. But he had little doubt, from the anguish so evident on both faces, of the subject they were discussing.

"Such a tragedy," murmured Nanda Lal. "His entire family, you know."

Toramana cocked his head slightly. "Was it truly just a band of brigands? You conducted the investigation yourself, I understand."

Nanda Lal's thick lips tightened. "Yes, I did. A horrible scene. Fortunately, the bodies were so badly burned that I could, in good conscience, tell Rana Sanga that there had been no signs of torture or abuse. That much relief, at least, I was able to give him."

The Malwa empire's chief spymaster sighed heavily. "Just bandits, Toramana. A particularly bold and daring group, to be sure. Kushans, according to the few surviving eyewitnesses. By now, I'm sorry to say, the monsters have undoubtedly found refuge with the other Kushan brigands in the Hindu Kush."

Nanda Lal's lips were very thin, now. "Brigands, no more. Remember that, Toramana. All who oppose Malwa are but brigands. Which we will deal with soon enough, have no doubt of it."

Both men fell silent, watching the Rajput king leading his half-sister out of the audience chamber toward his own quarters in the palace. When all the Rajputs in the chamber were gone, Nanda Lal leaned over and whispered again.

"My best wishes on your marriage, Toramana. The emperor asked me to pass along his own, as well. We are quite sure, should it ever prove necessary, that you will do whatever is needed to protect Malwa from its enemies. All of its enemies, whomever they might be."

Again, Toramana nodded solemnly. "You may be sure of it, Lord. I am not given to subterfuge and disguise."

Late that night, Narses was summoned to the private chambers of Rana Sanga. The eunuch obeyed the summons, of course, though not with any pleasure. It was not that he objected to the lateness of the hour. Narses was usually awake through half the night. It was simply that the old intriguer hated to be surprised by anything, and he could think of no logical reason why the Rajput king would wish to see him.

Narses moved furtively through the dark corridors of the palace. That was simply old habit, more than anything else. Narses was not in the least bit worried of being overseen by Nanda Lal's spies. Here, in his own territory, Narses' webs of intrigue and espionage were far superior to those of the Malwa spymaster.

Very rarely, in times past, had Rana Sanga spoken to Narses at all, except in the presence of Lord Damodara. And those occasions had been in daytime, in military headquarters, while on campaign. To summon him for a private audience in his own chambers.

After Narses entered the Rajput king's quarters, a servant led him to the private audience room and then departed. Courteously, his face showing nothing of the grief and rage which must have lain beneath, Rana Sanga invited him to sit. The Rajput was even courteous enough to offer the Roman a chair, knowing that the old eunuch's bones did not adjust well to the Indian custom of sitting cross-legged on cushions.

After taking his own seat on some cushions nearby, Rana Sanga leaned over and spoke softly. "The news of my family's murder has caused me to ponder great questions of philosophy, Narses. Especially the relationship of truth to illusion. That is why I requested your presence. I thought you might be of assistance to me, in my hour of sorrow. My hour of great need."

Narses frowned. "I'm not even conversant with Greek philosophy, Rana Sanga, much less Hindu. Something to do with what you call Maya, the 'veil of illusion,' as I understand it. Don't see what help I could be."

The Rajput nodded. "So I understand. But I was not intending to ask your help with such profound questions, Narses. I had something much simpler in mind. The nature of onions, to be precise."

"Onions?" Narses' wrinkled face was deeply creased with puzzlement. The expression made him look even more reptilian than usual. "Onions?"

"Onions." Sanga leaned over and picked up a thick sheaf of documents lying next to him. He held them up before Narses and waggled them a bit. "This is the official report of the ambush and killing of my family. Nanda Lal, as you may know, oversaw the investigation himself."

The Rajput king laid the mass of documents on the carpet before him. "It is a very thorough and complete report, as you would expect from Nanda Lal and his top investigators. Exhaustive, actually. No detail was left unmentioned, except the precise nature of the wounds, insofar as they could be determined."

For a moment, his face grew pinched. "I imagine those details exist in a separate addendum, which Nanda Lal thought it would be more merciful not to include in this copy of the report. As if"-almost snarling, here-"I would not understand the inevitable fate of my wife and children in the hands of such creatures."

The Rajput straightened his back. For all that he was sitting on cushions, and Narses on a chair, he seemed to tower over the old eunuch. "But there is one small detail which puzzles me. And I have now studied this report carefully, reading it from beginning to end over and over again. It involves onions."

Seeing Narses' face-onions? — Rana Sanga managed a smile. "You see, included in Nanda Lal's report is a detailed-exhaustive-list of every thing which was found. Among those items was the remains of a small chest which my wife always used to carry her cooking materials. Nothing fancy, that chest. No reason for bandits to steal the thing, so they didn't."

Narses was completely lost. A state of affairs which infuriated him. But he continued to listen to Sanga with no hint of protest, allowing no sign of his anger to show. He was no fool, was Narses. And he realized-though he had no idea from whence it was coming-that a terrible peril was looming over him. Like a tidal wave about to break over a blind man.

"Nor would bandits bother to steal anything in that chest, Narses. Except, perhaps, the small packets of herbs and spices. Those might be of some value to them, I suppose. But, for the most part, that chest contained onions. My wife was very fond of using onions in her cooking."

Sanga glanced at the documents. "Apparently, judging from the charred remains, the bandits looted the onions also. Nanda Lal's report was so exhaustive that they measured the ashes and charred pieces which remained. There is no mention of onions. Which would not have burned up completely, after all. And something else is missing which should not have been missing at all, for it couldn't have burned-the knife which my wife always used to cut onions."

"Bandits," husked Narses. "They'll steal anything."

Rana Sanga shook his head. "I think I know more about the bandits of mountain and desert than you do, Narses. They're not likely to steal onions, much less a simple knife. The one thing such men-and their women-do not lack are blades. If they did, they couldn't be bandits in the first place."

The Rajput king placed his large and powerful hand atop the documents. "It is not there, Narses. Nanda Lal and his men could not have possibly overlooked it, in the course of such a thorough report. The knife was a small and simple one, to be sure, but not that small-and very sturdy. The blade would have survived the fire, at the very least. The thing was made by a Rajput peasant as a gift to my wife on her wedding. She adored it, despite its simplicity. Refused, time after time, to allow me to replace it with a finer one." He took a deep breath, as if controlling grief. "She always said that knife-that knife alone-enabled her to laugh at onions."

Seeing the stiffness of Narses' posture-the old eunuch looked, for all the water, as if he were carved from stone-Sanga emitted a dry chuckle. "Oh, to be sure, Nanda Lal himself would never have noticed the absence of onions or the knife. How could he or his spies know anything of that? The thing was just a private joke between my wife and me. To everyone else, even our own servants, it was just one of many knives in the kitchen."

"Undoubtedly, he failed to notice its absence." Narses' words were not so much husked, as croaked. "Undoubtedly." As a frog might pray for deliverance.

"Undoubtedly," said Sanga firmly. "Nor did I see any reason to raise the matter with him, of course. What would such a great spymaster and dynast as Nanda Lal know about onions, and the knives used to cut them?"

"Nothing," croaked Narses.

"Indeed." And now, for the first time, the severe control left Rana Sanga's face. His eyes, staring at Narses, were like dark pools of sheer agony, begging for relief.

Narses rubbed his face with a hand. "I am sworn to tell nothing but the truth, king of Rajputana. Even to such as Great Lady Sati. As you know."

Sanga nodded deeply. The gesture reminded Narses of a man placing his neck on a headsman's block. "Give me illusion, then," he whispered, "if you cannot give me the truth."

Abruptly, Narses rose. "I can do neither, Rana Sanga. I know nothing of philosophy. Nothing of onions or the knives needed to cut them. Send for your servant, please, to show me the way out of these chambers."

Sanga's head was still bent. "Please," he whispered. "I feel as if I am dying."

"Nothing," insisted Narses. "Nothing which cannot bear the scrutiny of the world's greatest ferret for the truth. Great Lady Sati, Rana Sanga."

"Please." The whisper could barely be heard.

Narses turned his head to the door, scowling. "Where is that servant? I can assure you, king of Rajputana, that I would not tolerate such slackness in my own. My problem, as a matter of fact, is the exact opposite. I am plagued with servants who are given to excess. Especially sentimentality. One of them, in particular. I shall have very harsh words to say to him, I can assure you, when next I see the fellow."

And with those words, Narses left the chamber. He found his way through Sanga's quarters easily enough. Indeed, it might be said he passed through them like an old antelope, fleeing a tiger.

Behind, in the chamber, Sanga slowly raised his head. Had there been anyone to see, they would have said the dark eyes were glowing. With growing relief-and fury-more than ebbing fear. As if a tiger, thinking himself caught in a cage, had discovered the trapper had been so careless as to leave it unlocked.

A state of affairs which, as all men know, does not bode well for the trapper.