The Dance of Time b-6

by Eric Flint

  "I didn't hesitate. Not at all."

  Anastasius smiled. "Well, of course not."

  Valentinian shook his head. "Don't get melancholy and philosophical on me, boy. You've still got to do it twice more. Today."

  For some reason, that didn't bother Rajiv.

  Maybe that was because his enemies now had fair warning.

  He said as much.

  Anastasius smiled again, more broadly. At the foot of the stairs, now in the cellar, Valentinian turned around and glared at him.

  "Who cares about 'fair warnings'? Dead is dead and we all die anyway. Just do it."

  Anastasius, now also at the bottom of the stairs, cleared his throat. "If I may put Valentinian's viewpoint in proper Stoic terms, what he means to say-"

  "Is exactly what the fuck I said," Valentinian hissed. "Just do it."

  He glanced up the stairs. "In about ten minutes, at a guess."

  * * *

  His guess was off, a bit. Rajiv didn't blow the next charges for at least a quarter of an hour.

  Whether because he'd satisfied himself concerning the ethics of the issue, or simply because Valentinian's cold-blooded murderousness was infectious, he wasn't sure. For whatever reason, Rajiv had no trouble waiting until the cellars were full of Malwa soldiery, probing uncertainly in the torch-lit darkness to find whatever hole their quarry had scurried into.

  From the still greater darkness of the tunnel, Rajiv gauged the moment. He even out-waited Valentinian.

  "Now, boy."

  "Not yet."

  Two minutes later, he drove in the next plunger. The same type of shaped-charge mines implanted in the walls of the cellars turned those underground chambers into more abattoirs.

  "Quickly, now!" urged Anastasius, already lumbering at a half-crouch down the tunnel. "We've got to get to the shelter as soon as possible. Before they can figure out-"

  He continued in that vein, explaining the self-evident to people who already knew the plan by heart. Rajiv ignored him. Looking ahead, down the tunnel, he could see the figure of the Ye-tai already vanishing in the half-gloom thrown out by the few oil lamps still in place. Valentinian was close on his heels.

  "You're doing good, boy," said the Mongoose. "Really, really good."

  All things considered, Rajiv decided the Roman cataphract was right.

  To be sure, this was not something he'd ever brag about. On the other hand. .

  When did you ever hear your father brag? came that little, back-of-the-mind voice.

  The answer was: Never.

  Rajiv had noticed that, in times past. Now, finally, he thought he understood it. And, for the first time in his life, came to feel something for his father beyond love, admiration and respect.

  Simple affection. Nothing fancy. Just the sort of fondness that a man-a woman too, he supposed-feels when he thinks about someone who has shared a task and a hardship.

  * * *

  When they reached the shelter, even Valentinian took a deep breath.

  "Well," he muttered, "this is where we find out. God damn all Biharis-miners down to newborn babes-if it doesn't."

  The Ye-tai just looked blank-faced. Anastasius' eyes flicked about the small chamber, with its massive bracing. "Looks good, anyway."

  It seemed fitting, somehow, for Rajiv to finally take charge. "Place the barrier." It seemed silly to call that great heavy thing a "door."

  He pointed to it, propped against the entrance they'd just come through. "Anastasius, you're the only one strong enough to hold it in place. Valentinian, you set the braces. You"-this to the Ye-tai-"help him."

  The work was done quickly. The last of it was setting the angled braces that supplemented the great cross-bars and strengthened the door by propping it against the floor.

  There was no point in waiting. The shelter would either hold, or they'd all be crushed. But there'd be no point to any of it if Rajiv didn't blow the last charges before the surviving Malwa in the palace that was now over a hundred yards distant as well as many feet above them had time to realize what had happened.

  "I guess you'd better-" Valentinian started to say, but Rajiv's hand had already driven home the plunger.

  "Well, shit," he added, before the earthquake made it impossible to talk at all.

  * * *

  The Malwa general in command of the entire operation had remained outside the palace. After he was knocked off his feet, he stared dumbfounded as the walls of the palace seemed to erupt all around the base.

  The palace came down, like a stone avalanche.

  Some of those stones were large, others were really pieces of wall that had somehow remained intact.

  Some were blown a considerable distance by the explosion. Others bounced, after they fell.

  Scrambling frantically, the general managed to avoid all the ones sent sailing by the blast. But as close as he'd been standing, he didn't escape one section of wall-a very big section-as it disintegrated.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, his second-in-command and now successor was able to finally piece together the few coherent reports he could get.

  There weren't many, and they weren't all that coherent. Only three of the soldiers who had gone into the palace were still alive, and one of them was too badly injured to talk. None of the soldiers who'd gone into the cellar had survived, of course.

  But he was pretty sure he knew what had happened, and hastened to make his report to Emperor Skandagupta.

  * * *

  In his own far greater palace, the emperor waited impatiently for the officer to finish.

  When he was done, Skandagupta shook his head. "They all committed suicide? That's nonsense."

  He pointed at the officer. "Execute this incompetent."

  Once that was done, the emperor gave his orders. They were not complicated.

  "Dig. Remove all the rubble. There's an escape tunnel there somewhere. I want it found."

  Carefully-very carefully-none of his advisers allowed any of their dismay to show. Not with the emperor in such a foul and murderous mood.

  Not one of them wanted to draw his attention. It would take days to clear away all that rubble. Long, long days, in which the emperor would probably have at least one or two more men executed for incompetence.

  At least. As the advisers assigned to the task of excavation started filing out of the imperial audience chamber, Skandagupta was already giving orders to discover which incompetent-no, which traitor-in charge of the capital's munitions supply had been so corrupt or careless-no, treasonous-to allow such a huge quantity of gunpowder to slip through his fingers.

  * * *

  After the advisers reached the relative safety of the streets outside the palace, they went their separate ways to begin organizing the excavation project.

  All but one of them, that is. That one, after he was certain no one was watching him, headed for Kausambi's northern gate.

  The city was still in a state of semi-chaos, so soon after the word of Damodara's rebellion had spread everywhere from the telegraph stations, despite the secret police's attempts to suppress the news. The destruction of Lady Damodara's palace, right in the middle of the imperial quarter, would simply add to it.

  The adviser thought he had a good chance of slipping out of the city unnoticed, if he moved immediately. He had no choice, in any event, if he had any hope of staying alive himself or keeping his wife and children alive.

  True, the adviser had no connection to Kausambi's munitions depot. But one of his first cousins was in charge of it, and the adviser knew perfectly well the man was not only corrupt but careless. He had no doubt at all that an investigation would soon discover that Lady Damodara's agents had simply bought the gunpowder. Probably had it delivered to the palace in the munitions depot's own wagons.

  Fortunately, his wife and two children had remained in their home town farther down the Ganges. With luck he could get there in time to get them out. He had enough money on his person to bribe the guards at the g
ate and even hire transport. There was considerably more money in their mansion. With that, they might be able to escape into Bengal somewhere. .

  Beyond that, he thought no further. There was no point in it. He could feel the Malwa Empire cracking and breaking under his feet. With that greatest of all the world's certainties shaking, what man could possibly foresee the future?

  * * *

  He made it out of the city. But, within a day, was captured by a cavalry patrol. The emperor had soon considered that possibility also, and had placed a ban on any officials leaving Kausambi without written orders. By then, his savage punitive actions had terrified the city's soldiery enough that the guards at the gate whom the adviser had bribed prattled freely to the secret police.

  Before noon of the next day, the adviser's body was on a stake outside Skandagupta's palace. Four days later, the bodies of his wife and two children joined him. The soldiers had some trouble fitting the boy, since he was only three.

  Not much, however. By then, Skandagupta's fury was cutting through the imperial elite like a scythe, and small stakes were being prepared. Plenty of them.

  * * *

  "He's hysterical," Lady Damodara said, pinched-faced, after getting the latest news from one of the stable-keeper's sons. "Even for Skandagupta, this is insane."

  Sanga's wife shifted a bit on her cushions. The cushions were thinner than she was used to, and-worse-their quarters were extremely crowded. The entire staff from the palace was crammed into the last stretch of the tunnel while they waited for the first search of the city to run its course. So were over a dozen miners. But she knew that even after they were able to move into the stables, in a few days, the conditions wouldn't improve all that much.

  As places of exile went, the stables would be utterly wretched. As a place of refuge from the Malwa madness sweeping the city and leaving hundreds of people staked outside the imperial palace, however, it would be superb.

  She gave the stable-keeper's son a level look. "Are you frightened, Tarun?"

  The twelve-year-old boy swallowed. "Some, Lady. Not too much, though. The soldiers who searched the stables this morning were irritated, but they didn't take it out on us, and they didn't search all that seriously. They didn't really search at all in the stable that has the hidden door leading to this tunnel. Since then, our parents and our sisters stay out of sight, but my brother and I can move around on the streets easily enough. The soldiers even answer our questions, usually. They really aren't paying much attention to. . Well. People like us."

  Lady Damodara chuckled, humorlessly. "So Narses predicted. 'You'll be lost in Kausambi's ocean of poverty,' were his exact words. I remember. Damn his soul."

  "No," said Rajiv forcefully. "Damn Malwa's soul."

  Both ladies gave him a level look.

  "The false Malwa, I mean," added Rajiv hastily.

  Lady Damodara's chuckle, this time, had a bit of humor in it. "Look at it this way, Rajiv. When it's all over, if we survive, we can look at Skandagupta on a stake."

  "You think so?" asked Rajiv.

  "Oh, yes," said the lady serenely.

  Lady Sanga sniffed. "Maybe. By the time he gets here, Rajiv, your father's temper will be up. They'll need toothpicks. I doubt if even Lord Damodara will be able to restrain him enough to keep some portion of Skandagupta's body suitably sized for a stake."

  "He probably won't even try," allowed Lady Damodara. "Now that I think about it."

  Chapter 26

  The Punjab

  "I am leaving you in charge, General Samudra," said Great Lady Sati. To the general's relief, the tone and timber of the voice was that of the young woman Sati appeared to be, not. .

  The thing for which it was really just a vessel.

  The god-or goddess-he should say. But Samudra was beginning to have his doubts on that issue. Desperately, he hoped that the thing inside Great Lady Sati could detect none of his reservations.

  Apparently not, since she said nothing to the special assassins positioned against the walls of her caravan. Perhaps that was simply because Samudra's general anxiety overrode anything specific.

  He didn't want to be left in charge of the Malwa army in the Punjab. That was not due to any hesitations concerning his own military abilities, it was simply because the situation was obviously beginning to crumble for political reasons, and Samudra was wary of the repercussions.

  Samudra had always stayed as far away as he could from political matters. Insofar as possible, at least, within the inevitable limits of the Malwa dynastic system of which he was himself a member. He was one of the emperor's distant cousins, after all. Still, he'd done his very best throughout his life to remain a purely military figure in the dynasty.

  But all he said was: "Yes, Great Lady."

  "I will take thirty thousand troops with me, from here, and another ten from Multan. No artillery units, however. They will slow me down too much and I can acquire artillery once I reach the Ganges plain. Have them ready by early morning, the day after tomorrow. You may select them, but I want good units with Ye-tai security battalions. Full battalions, Samudra."

  He managed not to wince. The problem wasn't the total number of soldiers Sati wanted to take back to Kausambi with her. Thirty thousand was actually lower than he'd expected. The problem would be filling out the ranks of the Ye-tai. Few of the security battalions were still up to strength. The defection of so many Kushans to Kungas and his new kingdom had forced the Malwa to use Ye-tai as spearhead assault troops. As brave as they were, the Ye-tai had little of the Kushan experience with that role. Their casualties had been very heavy, this past two years.

  Samudra knew he'd have no choice but to strip the needed reinforcements out of all the other security battalions. And with only one full day to do the work, it would be done hastily and haphazardly, to boot, with not much more in the way of rhyme or reason than what he might accomplish with a lottery.

  Gloomily, Samudra contemplated the months of fighting ahead of him here in the Punjab. The morale of the great mass of the soldiery was already low. The departure of Great Lady Sati, forty thousand troops-and a disproportionate percentage of the Ye-tai security forces-would leave it shakier still.

  On the brighter side, the Romans seemed content to simply fight a siege. If Great Lady Sati. .

  Her next words brought considerable relief.

  "I do not expect you to make any headway in my absence," she said. "Nor is it needed. Simply keep Belisarius pinned here while I attend to suppressing Damodara's rebellion. We will resume offensive operations next year."

  "Yes, Great Lady." Samudra hesitated. The next subject was delicate.

  "No artillery units, understood. But of the thirty thousand, how many. . ah. ."

  "Cavalry? Not more than three thousand. Enough to provide me with a screen, that's all. You understand that none of the cavalry may be Rajputs, I assume?"

  Samudra nodded. Although there'd been no open mutinies among the Rajputs yet-aside from the huge number already with Rana Sanga-no Malwa top commander could place much reliance on them until Damodara's rebellion was crushed.

  Sati shrugged, in an oddly human gesture. "Without using Rajputs, we cannot assemble a large force of cavalry that I could depend upon. Since I'll need to use mostly infantry, I may as well make it a strong infantry unit with only enough cavalrymen to serve as scouts and a screen. It shouldn't matter, anyway. I don't expect to encounter any opposition until I've almost reached Kausambi. Damodara will probably reach the capital before I do, but he'll be stymied by the fortifications until I arrive. By then, after I've reached the plain, I'll have been able to assemble a huge army from the garrisons in all the major cities along the Ganges. With me as the hammer and the walls of Kausambi as the anvil, Damodara will be crushed."

  "Yes, Great Lady."

  * * *

  "Here?" exclaimed Dasal. The oldest of the Rajput kings in the chamber rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

  "All it needed," he muttered. From
the expressions on their faces, it was obvious the other six kings present in the chamber-they were all elderly, if none quite so old as Dasal-shared his gloomy sentiments.

  His younger brother Jaisal rose from his cushion and moved to a nearby window, walking with the creaky tread of a man well into his seventies. Once at the window, he stared out over the city of Ajmer.

  The capital of the Rajputs, that was-insofar as that fractious nation could be said to have a "capital" at all. Dasal found himself wondering whether it would still be standing, a year from now.

  "Where are they being kept?" he asked.

  The Rajput officer who'd brought the news to the council shook his head. "I was not given that information. Nor will I be, I think. They may not even be in Ajmer, at all."

  Dasal lowered his eyes. "They're here somewhere," he snorted. "Be sure of it."

  "We could find them. ." ventured one of the other kings. Chachu was his name, and his normally cautious manner was fully evident in the questioning tone of the remark.

  Simultaneously, one sitting and one still standing at the window, the brothers Dasal and Jaisal shook their heads.

  "What would be the point of that?" demanded Jaisal. "Better if we can claim we never knew the location of Damodara's parents."

  Gloomy silence filled the chamber again. The seven kings in that room formed what passed for a Rajput ruling council. None of them, singly or together, had any illusion that if Damodara's rebellion was crushed, Rajputana would retain even a shred of its semi-autonomy. Direct Malwa rule would be imposed-harshly-and each and every one of them would be questioned under torture.

  Still, it was easier to deny something under torture that was a false accusation. Very narrowly defined, of course-but these were men grasping at straws.

  "That madman Rana Sanga," Chachu hissed. But even that remark sounded as if it were punctuated by a question mark.

  * * *

  "It's not much," said one of their kidnappers apologetically. "The problem isn't even money, since we were given plenty. But Ajat-ah, our chief-told us to remain inconspicuous."

  Damodara's father finished his inspection of the room. That hadn't taken long, as sparsely furnished as it was. It would be one of many such rooms in many such buildings in Ajmer. The city was a center for trade routes, and needed to provide simple accommodations for passing merchants, traders and tinkers.