by David Drake
Both women were shrouded in rich saris, and both women's faces were obscured by veils. From a distance, Belisarius could discern little about them. But he thought, from the slight subtleties of their posture, that the one on his right was much older than the other.
Directly in front of the dais, kneeling, was a line of six men. Eunuchs, Belisarius suspected, from what he had learned of Malwa customs with high-born women. The men were all wearing baggy trousers tied off at the ankles. They were barefoot and barechested.
Racially, the men were of a type unfamiliar to Belisarius. Oriental, clearly, but quite unlike any of the Asiatic peoples with which Belisarius was familiar. Their skin tone was yellowish, quite unlike the brown hues of the various Indian peoples. And while Belisarius had often seen that yellowish color on the skins of steppe nomads—Ye-tai, and especially Kushans, were often that tint, or close to it—these men had none of the lean, hard-featured characteristics of Asians from the steppes. Like Kushans—though not Ye-tai, who were often called "white" Huns—these men also had a slanted look to their eyes. If anything, their epicanthic folds were even more pronounced. But their features were soft-looking, without a trace of steppe starkness. And their faces were so round as to be almost moon-shaped.
Their most striking characteristic, however, was sheer size. All of them were enormous. Belisarius estimated their height at well over six feet—closer to seven—and he thought that none of them weighed less than three hundred pounds. Some of that size was fat, true. All six of the men had bellies which bulged forward noticeably. But Belisarius did not fail to note their huge arms and their great, sloping shoulders. The muscles there, coiled beneath the fat, were like so many pythons.
Nor, of course, did the general miss the bared tulwars which each man held across his knees. Those tulwars were the biggest swords Belisarius had ever seen in his life. None but giants such as these could have possibly wielded them.
Nanda Lal, standing a few feet ahead of him, bowed deeply to the two women. He then turned to Belisarius, and, with an apologetic grimace, whispered:
"I am afraid we must search you for weapons, general. As I told you, Great Lady Holi is extremely sensitive concerning her personal safety."
Belisarius stiffened. Nanda Lal's demand was discourteous in the extreme. As the spymaster well knew, Belisarius was already unarmed—had been, for days. As a matter of course, he did not carry weapons with him in the presence of Malwa royalty. He had left his arms behind in the mansion that morning, as he did every day he went to the Grand Palace. The act had come naturally to him. His own emperor, Justinian, would have been apoplectic if anyone other than his bodyguards carried weapons into the imperial presence.
But he saw no point in protest. If, as Aide suspected, he was truly in the presence of Link, the Malwa paranoia was understandable.
"Of course," he said. He spread his arms, inviting Nanda Lal to search his person. Then, hearing a slight cough behind him, turned around.
Four men were standing there. Belisarius had not heard a whisper of their coming. Despite the thick carpeting, he was impressed. Quickly, he gauged them. The men were clearly of the same race as the giant eunuchs, but, unlike them, were of average size. Nor were any of them bearing those huge tulwars. Instead, each of the four men was armed with nothing Belisarius could see beyond long knives scabbarded to their waists.
Their size did not mislead the general. Belisarius thought they were probably twice as dangerous as the giant eunuchs. And he was certain—from the silent manner of their arrival even more than their sure-footed stance—that all four were expert assassins.
Still with his arms raised, he allowed the foremost of those men to search him. The assassin's search was quick and expert. When the man was finished, he stepped back and said a few phrases in a language Belisarius did not know.
Nanda Lal frowned.
"He says you are carrying a small knife. In that pouch, on your belt."
Startled, Belisarius looked down at the pouch in question. He began to reach for it, but froze when he sensed the sudden stillness in the four assassins watching him.
Belisarius turned his head toward Nanda Lal.
"I did not even think of it, Nanda Lal. It is not a weapon. It's simply a little knife I carry with me to sharpen my ink quills."
With a wry smile:
"I imagine I could kill a chicken with it, after a desperate struggle." He shrugged. "You're quite welcome to take the thing, if it makes you nervous."
Nanda Lal stared at him for a moment. Then, without taking his eyes from the general, asked the assassin a question in that same unknown tongue.
The assassin spoke a few phrases. Nanda Lal smiled.
"Never mind, general. Great Lady Holi's chief bodyguard confirms your depiction of the—ah, device."
Now the image of cordiality, Nanda Lal took Belisarius by the arm and began leading him toward the women at the far end of the salon. The spymaster leaned over and whispered:
"The bodyguard says the chicken would win."
Belisarius smiled crookedly. "He underestimates my prowess. But I'm quite certain I would carry the scars to my grave."
Ten feet from the line of kneeling eunuchs, Nanda Lal brought himself and Belisarius to a halt. Nanda Lal—Belisarius following the spymaster's example—bowed deeply, but did not prostrate himself. Two servants appeared from a small door in the corner of the room behind the seated women. The servants carried cushions, which they set on the floor just in front of Belisarius and Nanda Lal. That done, each man stepped away. They did not leave, however, but remained standing, one on either side. As he squatted down on his cushion, Belisarius gave them both a quick, searching, sidelong scrutiny.
Servants, I think. Nothing more.
A feminine voice drew his attention forward. The voice had the timber of a young woman, and it came—just as he had surmised—from the woman seated to his left.
"We are very pleased to meet you at last, General Belisarius. We have heard so much about you."
Belisarius could discern nothing of the woman's face, because of her veil. But he did not miss the sharp intelligence in that voice, lurking beneath the platitudes. Nor the fact that the Greek in which it spoke was perfect. Without a trace of an accent.
He nodded his head in acknowledgment, but said nothing.
The young woman continued.
"My name is Sati. I have the honor of being one of Emperor Skandagupta's daughters. This—" a slight gesture of the hand to the woman seated next to her "—is the Great Lady Holi. The Emperor's aunt, as I imagine you have already been told."
The Great Lady Holi's head bobbed, minutely. Beyond that, the woman was as still as a statue. The veil completely disguised her face also.
Again, Belisarius nodded.
"My aunt asked to meet you because she has heard that you desire to give your allegiance to the destiny of Malwa. And she has heard that you have proposed the most ingenious plan to further our great cause."
Belisarius decided that this last remark required a reply.
"I thank you—and her—for your kind words. I would not go so far as to describe my plan as ingenious. Though it is, I think, shrewd. The Roman Emperor Justinian is planning to invade the western Mediterranean anyway. I simply intend to encourage him in the endeavour. In that manner, without drawing suspicion upon myself, I can keep Rome's armies from interfering with your coming conquest of Persia."
He stopped, hoping that would be enough. But the Lady Sati pressed him further.
"Are you not concerned that the reunification of the Roman Empire will pose a long-term danger to Malwa?"
Belisarius shook his head, very firmly.
"No, Lady Sati. Justinian's project is sheer folly."
"You are saying that the eastern Roman Empire cannot reconquer the west?"
There was a lurking danger in that question, Belisarius sensed, though he could not tell exactly where it lay. After a slight hesitation, he decided that truth was the best option
.
"I did not say that. In my opinion, the conquest is possible. In fact—" Here, another pause, but this one for calculated effect "—if you will allow me the immodesty, I am convinced that it can be done. So long as Justinian gives me the command of the enterprise. But it will be a fruitless victory."
"Why so?"
He shrugged. "We can reconquer the west, but not easily. The wars will be long and difficult. At the end, Justinian will rule over a war-ravaged west. Which he will try to administer from a bankrupted east. Rome will be larger in size, and much smaller in strength."
"Ah." That was all Lady Sati said, but Belisarius instantly knew that he had passed some kind of test.
The knowledge brought a slight relief to the tension which tightened his neck. But, a moment later, the tension returned in full force.
For the first time, Great Lady Holi spoke.
"Come closer, young man. My eyes are old and poor. I wish to see your face better."
Her Greek was also perfect, and unaccented.
Belisarius did not hesitate, not, at least, any longer than necessary to gauge the proper distance to maintain. He arose from his cross-legged position on the cushion—he, too, had learned the "lotus"—and took two steps forward. Just before the line of tulwars, he knelt on one knee, bringing his eyes approximately level to those of the old woman seated a few feet away.
The Great Lady Holi leaned forward. A hand veined with age reached up and lifted her veil. Dark eyes gazed directly into the brown eyes of Belisarius.
Empty eyes. Dark, not from color, but from the absence of anything within.
"Is it true that you plan to betray Rome?"
There was something strange about those words, he sensed dimly. An odd, penetrating quality to their tone. He could feel the words racing down pathways in his body—nerves, arteries, veins, muscle tissue, ligaments.
"Do you plan to betray Rome?"
He was giving himself away, he realized. (Dimly, vaguely, at a distance.) The—intelligence?—behind those words was inhuman. It was reading his minute, involuntary reactions in a way no human could. No man alive could lie well enough to fool that—thing.
But it was the eyes, not the voice, which held him paralyzed. Not from fear, but horror. He knew, now, the true nature of hell. It was not fire, and damnation. It was simply—
Empty. Nothing.
As so often before in his life, it was Valentinian who saved him. Valentinian, and Anastasius, and Maurice, and countless other such veterans. Coarse men, crude men, lewd men, rude men. Brutal men, often. Even cruel men, on occasion.
But always men. Never empty, and never nothing.
General Belisarius smiled his crooked smile, and said, quite pleasantly:
"Fuck Malwa."
Then, still kneeling, drove his right bootheel straight back into the face of Nanda Lal. He was a powerful man, and it was a bootheel which had trampled battlefields underfoot. It flattened the spymaster and obliterated his nose.
Chapter 13
Belisarius used the impac t to lunge upright. Ahead of him, the six eunuchs also began uncoiling. Grunting with the effort, they gathered their haunches and started to rise. The tulwars were already drawing back for the death strokes.
Belisarius ignored them. The eunuchs formed an impassable barrier—well over a ton of sword-wielding meat stood between him and any chance of killing Link. But they were much too ponderous to pose an immediate threat to his escape.
He could not hear the assassins, but he knew they were coming. Belisarius took two quick steps to his left. The servant standing there was paralyzed with shock. The general seized the man by his throat and hip, pivoted violently, and hurled him into the oncoming assassins.
The servant, wailing, piled into three of the assassins charging forward. His wail was cut short abruptly. The fourth assassin dealt with the obstacle by the simple expedient of slashing him down. As he raced toward the nearest window, Belisarius caught a glimpse of the servant's dying body, still entangling three of the assassins. The knife which ended his life, though lacking the mass of a sword, had still managed to hack halfway through the servant's neck. The edge of that blade was as razor sharp as the man who wielded it.
Belisarius reached the window. There was no time for anything but a blind plunge. He dove straight through the silk-mesh screen, fists clenched before him. The silk shredded under the impact. Belisarius sailed cleanly through the window. He found himself plunging through the night air toward the surface of the Jamuna. The assassin's hurled knife missed him by an inch. Belisarius watched the knife splash into the river. Less than a second later, he followed it in.
Ousanas rose from the shrubbery in the alley, took two quick steps, uncoiled. Quick shift, javelin from left hand to right. Uncoiled.
The sounds coming from the barge had not been loud, but they had been unmistakable. Unmistakable, at least, to men like Ousanas and the four Ye-tai gambling on the wharf. The Ye-tai were already scrambling to their feet, drawing swords.
The two Malwa kshatriyas standing guard at the top of the ramp, however, were a more sheltered breed. They, too, heard the sounds. But their only immediate response was to frown and turn away from the side of the barge. They stood still, staring at the doorway leading into the interior.
Ousanas' javelins caught them squarely between the shoulder blades. Both men were slain instantly, their spines severed. The impact sent one of the kshatriya hurtling through the doorway into the barge. The other Malwa struck the doorframe itself. There he remained. The javelin, passing a full foot through his body, pinned him like a butterfly.
The Ye-tai, though far more alert than the Malwa kshatriyas, were not alert enough. As ever, barbarous arrogance was their undoing. Heads down with the grunting exertion of their race up the ramp, the Ye-tai never noticed the two javelins sailing overhead. They were so intent on their own murderous purpose that it did not occur to them they had no monopoly on mayhem. Not, at least, until the barbarian leading the charge up the ramp spotted the dead kshatriya skewered on the doorframe.
Caution came, then, much too late. The Ye-tai stopped his charge. His three comrades piled into him from behind. For a moment, the four shouting barbarians were a confused tangle of thrashing limbs.
A moment was all Ousanas needed. He was already at the foot of the ramp. Four leaping strides, and the terrible spear began its work.
Three Ye-tai fell aside, collapsing off the ramp onto the wharf below. Two were dead before they struck the wooden planks. The third died seconds later, from the same huge wound rupturing his back.
The fourth Ye-tai had time to turn around. Time, even, for a furious swordstroke.
The great leaf-blade of the spear batted the stroke aside. Then, reversed, the iron ferrule of the spearbutt shattered the Ye-tai's knee. Reversed again, sweeping, the spear blade cut short the Ye-tai's wail of pain, passing through his throat as easily as it whistled through the air.
Ousanas sprang over the Ye-tai's slumped corpse. He was on the barge itself, now, standing at the top of the ramp. For a moment, the hunter stood still.
Listening. Listening.
Thinking.
He had heard the dull splash of a body striking the water. On the other side of the barge, the side facing the wide reach of the river and the shore two hundred yards opposite. Now, listening intently to the noises coming from within the barge—cries of fury and outrage, shouts of command—Ousanas grinned.
The general had made good his escape. His immediate escape, at least, from the barge itself.
Ousanas, briefly, pondered his options.
For a moment—very brief—he thought of waiting for Belisarius to appear. But he dismissed the idea almost instantly. He knew the general. Swimming around or under the barge to reach the nearby wharf was the obvious move for a man on the run. Naturally, therefore, Belisarius would do otherwise.
Ousanas' task, then, was not to help Belisarius escape directly. It remained, diversion.
Now, Ous
anas drew a grenade. For a moment—again, very brief—he considered hurling it into the barge itself.
No. The havoc would be gratifying, but the sound of the explosion would be muffled.
Follow the plan. The main purpose of the grenades was to signal his comrades.
Ousanas turned and raced back down the ramp. A moment later, standing again on the wharf, he laid down his spear. From a small pouch at his waist, he withdrew the striking mechanism.
He even took a moment—very brief—to admire the clever Malwa device, before he struck the flint and lit the fuse to the first grenade.
The fuse was short. He lobbed the grenade onto the deck of the barge. Drew the second grenade. Lit the fuse. This fuse was even shorter.