An oblique approach b-1

by David Drake

  He tore his eyes away from the thing and looked back at Venandakatra. He even managed a leer of his own.

  The memory still burned, of the time he had sent the hostel proprietor into the girl’s room, on some trumped-up pretext. He had instructed the Maratha woman tending her to allow the proprietor to enter (which she had done, reluctantly-she was a slave, after all). But he hadn’t warned Eon in advance, because he knew the prince would have barred the way.

  It worked, of course. The proprietor saw the girl, and judging from the contempt on his face as he left, knew what he saw. Or thought he did. Venandakatra obviously placed the interpretation I hoped for on it, after he had the man interrogated.

  But I thought the prince was going to attack me, afterward, when he found out. He would have, I think, if Ezana and Wahsi hadn’t restrained him.

  It was even harder to control another emotion.

  God, how I’ve grown to love that boy. He didn’t care in the least about his own injured royal pride, or what the hostel owner thought of him. Only that I’d caused the poor girl to be terrified again. May my son Photius grow up to be like him.

  But Belisarius was a general, a great general-a breed of men among whose qualities ruthlessness is never absent. And so he managed to keep the leer on his face. And another drooling trickle of wine down his chin, thrown in for good measure.

  Venandakatra refilled his cup personally. Unlike every other visit Belisarius had made, the Malwa lord had dismissed all the servants after the meal was finished.

  “I notice the prince does not seem to mind sharing his women with his own soldiers,” commented Venandakatra. “Not what you normally expect from royalty.”

  Belisarius belched. “I don’t see why. It’s not as if they were wives, or even concubines. The bitches are just whores and slaves.” Another belch. “I share the Kushan sluts with my own soldiers, for that matter. I’ve done it often enough before, on campaign.”

  Belisarius gave Venandakatra a knowing smirk-one experienced old soldier to another (which the Malwa lord certainly was not, but liked to pretend he was).

  “Helps keep your popularity with the troops, you know. The common touch. And there’s always plenty to go around. Especially after sacking a town.” The general’s smirk became a savage grin. “God, how I love a sack. Sieges are pure shit, but afterward-oh, yes!”

  Venandakatra giggled. “So do I!” he cried.

  Vile One, indeed. I doubt he’s ever come within bow range of a besieged city in his life. But I’m sure he was the first to line up afterward, selecting the prizes from the captured women.

  Again, Belisarius fought down his gorge. He hated sacks. Would do anything he possibly could to avoid one, short of losing a campaign. It was almost impossible to keep troops under control in a captured city after a hard-fought siege, except for elite units like his own cataphracts. There was nothing so horrible as a city being sacked. It was hell on earth, Satan’s maw itself. The most brutal and bestial crimes of which men were capable were committed then. Committed with a gleeful savagery that would shame the very demons of the Pit.

  But he kept his gorge well under control. He was a general, a great general, whose ruthlessness always had a purpose. The edge to the blade, when it came time for the cutting.

  “You, on the other hand, seem to have a liking for Kushan women,” remarked Venandakatra idly. “And your cataphracts also, I hear.”

  Time for the cutting.

  “Oh God, yes!” cried Belisarius. “When I discovered there were Kushan whores in Bharakuccha, I sent Valentinian and Anastasius straight off to round up a few.” Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. “They raced like the wind, let me tell you-and that’s something to see, with a man built like Anastasius!”

  Giggle. “I can imagine! He’s the large one, isn’t he?” Giggle.

  Belisarius waited. Timing was the key to a trap. Timing.

  He waited until the puzzled frown had almost taken shape on the Vile One’s brow. Then remarked casually, “Most lascivious women in the world, Kushans. Most lascivious people, for that matter. The men even more than the women.” He coughed on a gulp of wine. “Don’t misunderstand!” he exclaimed, waving off a disreputable notion. “I’m not interested in men that way. But it’s true, believe me. It’s why I got rid of all my Kushan mercenaries. Good men in a battle, no question about it. But they’re just too much of a bother. Can’t keep their hands off any woman in the vicinity. Even started sniffing around my own wife!”

  The frown on the Vile One’s brow thickened. The scaly wrinkles collected around his deep-set eyes.

  “Really?” he asked. “I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with the folk.”

  “Kushans? To the contrary. Find them all over the Roman Empire. Soldiers and whores, mostly. It’s the only things they’re good at. Fighting and fucking. Especially fucking.”

  Venandakatra sipped at his wine, thoughtfully.

  “I had heard, now that you mention it, that you yourself spoke excellent Kushan.” He shrugged. “I assumed it was just a false rumor, of course. There seemed no way you-”

  He fell away from completing the sentence. Venandakatra had enjoyed some wine, but he was not inebriated. (Quite unlike the Roman sot.) The Malwa lord realized that he was on the verge of revealing too much of his spying operations.

  You arrogant idiot, thought Belisarius, reading the sudden silence correctly. I always assumed you knew everything, and planned accordingly.

  Belisarius filled the silence, then, with a bevy of amusing tales, one after the other. The sort of tales with which one veteran lecher entertains another. A less egotistical man than Venandakatra might have wondered why the tales exclusively concerned Kushans. And might have wondered, especially, why so many of the tales concerned the sexual exploits of Kushan men.

  Oh, such exploits! Their unbridled lust. Their strangely seductive ways. Their uncanny ability to weedle open the legs of women-young women, especially. And virgins! Lambs to the slaughter, lambs to the slaughter. Didn’t matter who they were, where they were, what they were. If the girl was a virgin, no Kushan could resist the challenge. And rise to it! Oh, yes! No men on earth were more skilled at defloration than Kushans. Especially the older men, the middle-aged veteran types. Uncanny, absolutely uncanny.

  Throughout the tales, Venandakatra said not a word. But he did not seem bored. No, not at all. Very attentive, in fact.

  Every good blade has two edges. Time for the backstroke.

  “Enough of that!” exclaimed the general. He held out his cup. “Would you be so good?”

  Venandakatra refilled the cup. Belisarius held it high.

  “But I’m being a poor guest. And you are much too modest a host. I hear rumors myself, you know, now and then. And I hear you have come into a particularly good piece of fortune.” Here, a wild guffaw. “A great piece, if you’ll pardon the expression. A royal piece!”

  He quaffed down the wine in a single gulp.

  “My congratulations!”

  Venandakatra struggled to maintain his own composure. Anger at the crude foreigner’s insolent familiarity warred with pride in his new possession.

  Pride won, of course. Trap the prey by reading its soul.

  “So I have!” he exclaimed. “The Princess Shakuntala. Of the noblest blood, and a great beauty. The black-eyed pearl of the Satavahana, they call her.”

  “You’ve not seen her yourself?”

  Venandakatra shook his head.

  “No. But I’ve heard excellent descriptions.”

  Here, Venandakatra launched into his own lengthy recital, extolling the qualities of the Princess Shakuntala. As he saw them.

  Belisarius listened attentively. Partly, of course, for the sake of his stratagem. But partly, also, because he was undergoing the strangest experience. Like a sort of mental-spiritual, it might be better to say-double vision. The general had never laid eyes on the girl in his life. But he had seen her once, in a vision, through the eyes of another man. A man as different f
rom the one sitting across the table from him as day from night. As different as a panther from a cobra.

  Once Venandakatra was finished, Belisarius saluted him again with his cup and poured himself another full goblet. Venandakatra, he noticed, had stopped drinking some time ago.

  The general found it a bit hard not to laugh. Then, thinking it over, he did laugh-a drunken, besotted kind of laugh. Meaningless. He drained his cup and poured himself yet another. From the corner of his eye he caught the Vile One’s faint smile.

  I’m from Thrace, you jackass. A simple farm boy, at bottom. Raised in the countryside, where there’s not much to do but drink. I could have drunk you under the table when I was ten.

  “You’ll be seeing her soon, then,” he exclaimed. “Lucky man!”

  He fell back into his seat, hastily grabbing the table to keep from falling. Half the wine sloshed out of his cup, most of it onto the gorgeous rug covering the floor. The candelabra in the center of the table teetered. Venandakatra steadied it hastily with a hand, but not in time to prevent one of the candles from falling.

  “Sorry,” muttered Belisarius. Venandakatra’s expression, for just a fleeting instant, was savage. But he said nothing. He simply placed the candle back in its holder and waved off the mishap with a casual flutter of the fingers.

  Belisarius drained what was left in his cup. Venandakatra instantly poured him another.

  Blearily, Belisarius grinned at the Malwa lord. Then, leering:

  “She’ll be a virgin, of course. Bound to be, a princess!” Guffaw, guffaw. “God, there’s nothing like a virgin! Love the way they squeal when you stick ’em!”

  He shook a sage, cautioning finger in Venandakatra’s direction. A solemn look fell on his face-one experienced pedophile advising another.

  “Make sure you watch her well, mind! A prize like that? Ha! Surround her with eunuchs, I would, or priests sworn to celibacy. Better yet-eunuch priests.” Guffaw, guffaw. “And then I’d check under their robes!”

  He half-choked on another swallow of wine, then added: “We have an old saying in Rome, you know: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ”

  Venandakatra frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t speak Latin.”

  “Ah. I assumed-my apologies-your Greek is excellent.” Belch. “Well, it basically translates as: Who will guard the guardians? What it means is, how shall I-”

  “I understand perfectly well what it means!” snapped Venandakatra.

  Oh, my. Isn’t he testy? Time to extract the blade.

  And nick him elsewhere, so he doesn’t notice that he’s bleeding to death.

  “But that’s enough talk of women!” roared Belisarius. “Worthless cunts, all of ’em. Beneath our notice, except when we’re in the mood for humping. We’re men of affairs, you and I. Important men.”

  He reached over the table for the wine, lost his balance, fell to the floor. “Bitches, all of them,” he muttered, staggering to his feet. “Treacherous sluts.” He groped his way back into his chair.

  “Good for fucking, and that’s it,” grumbled the general, glaring at the table. Venandakatra poured him another cup. From the corner of his eye, again, Belisarius caught Venandakatra’s expression. Contempt, overlaying worry.

  Now I have but to lay opportunity over contempt, and the worry will work its way to the heart, free of suspicion.

  “Men of affairs, I say,” he repeated, slurring the words. “Important men.” He grit his teeth. “Important men.”

  Venandakatra slid in his own blade.

  “So we are, my friend. Although”-slight hesitation, discreet pause-“not always appreciated, perhaps.”

  Belisarius’ jaws tightened. “Isn’t that the fucking truth? Isn’t it just? My own-”

  Careful. He’s not stupid.

  Belisarius waved his hand. “Never mind,” he mumbled.

  The Vile One struck again.

  First, he took a sip from his own cup. The first sip in an hour, by Belisarius’ estimation. (Never underestimate the foe, of course. Who knows? The Roman might not be quite as drunk as he looks.)

  “I am fortunate in that regard,” remarked Venandakatra idly. “The Emperor Skandagupta is always appreciative of my efforts on his behalf. Always fair, in his criticisms. Mild criticisms, never more than that. And he gives me his full trust, unstintingly.”

  Belisarius peered at him suspiciously. But it was obvious the suspicion was directed toward the statement, not the speaker of it.

  “Oh, no-it’s quite true, I assure you.”

  “Hard to believe,” muttered Belisarius resentfully. “In my experience-”

  He fell silent, again. “Ah, what’s the use?” he mumbled. “Emperors are emperors, and that’s that.” He seemed lost in his own thoughts. Bleak, bitter thoughts. Black thoughts, drunken thoughts.

  Time. As Valentinian says, be economical with the blade.

  He lurched to his feet; planted his hands on the table to steady himself.

  “I must be off,” he announced. Belch. “ ’Scuse me. Afraid I’ve had too much to drink. You’ll forgive me, I trust?”

  Venandakatra nodded graciously. “I’ve been known to do it myself, friend.” A happy thought: “Men of affairs, you know. Much on our minds. Much to deal with. Bound to drink a bit, now and then.”

  “The truth, that!” Belisarius smiled at the Vile One. Never, in the history of the world, did a drunk bestow such a cheerful smile of camaraderie on a fellow sot.

  “You are most pleasant company, Venandakatra,” he said, carefully enunciating the words. A man deep in his cups, determined to project sincerity.

  “Most pleasant. Sorry we got off to a bit of a bad start, back there-” The general waved his hand vaguely, more or less in the direction of the sea. Belch. “Back there, in the beginning. On the ship.”

  “Think nothing of it! Long forgotten, I assure you.” Venandakatra rose to his feet. “May I call one of my servants? To assist you back-”

  Belisarius waved off the offer.

  “Not necessary!” he barked. “Can make it mack, byself-back, myself. Not a problem.”

  He bowed at Venandakatra, with exaggerated, careful stiffness, and reeled to the entrance. He pulled back the heavily embroidered drapery which served the Malwa lord’s pavilion for a tent flap. By the studied care of his movements, he was obviously trying not to inflict damage on the precious fabric. As he was about to pass through into the darkness beyond, he paused, steadying himself with one hand on a tent pole. Then, he looked back at the Malwa lord.

  For a few seconds, Venandakatra and Belisarius exchanged a stare. The expression on the Malwa’s face registered a subtle invitation. The face of the Roman general was that of a man consumed by old grievances, brought to the surface by hours of heavy carousing.

  Bleak, bitter thoughts. Black thoughts. Drunken thoughts.

  Belisarius turned away, shook his head, and stumbled into the night.

  He did not need to look back again. He knew what he would see on the Vile One’s face. Calculation, overlaying contempt. Contempt, overlaying worry. Worry, buried, freed of suspicion, worming its way into a maggotty soul.

  He managed to keep from smiling all the way back to his own tent. Spies, everywhere. He even managed to keep from glancing into the forest which surrounded the caravan. Spies, everywhere. And it would be pointless, anyway, for he would see nothing. In that darkness, there would be nothing to see except a grin. And the hunter never grins, when he is stalking the prey.

  When he reached his own tent, he staggered within, and then straightened up. Good Roman leather, that tent. Impossible to see through.

  “Well?” asked Garmat.

  His next words, the general regretted for years, for he was a man who despised boasting. But he didn’t regret them much. They were, after all, irresistible:

  “Deadly with a blade, is Belisarius.”

  Early the next morning-even before daybreak-a party of Mahaveda priests and mahamimamsa “purifiers” left the caravan on horseba
ck, escorted by a Rajput cavalry troop. They were being sent to the palace ahead of the caravan, on a special mission ordered by Lord Venandakatra.

  In the heart of mighty Malwa, it did not occur to them to look back on the trail, to see if anyone followed. It would have made no difference if they had. The one who tracked them had been taught his skills by lionesses and pygmies, the greatest hunters in the world.

  Chapter 22

  Insofar as that term could ever be applied to that man, he was frantic.

  An observer watching him would not have realized his state of mind, however. For the man seemed utterly calm and still, crouching in the thick foliage of the brush and trees which came within a few feet of the walls of Venandakatra’s palace.

  True, an observer might have wondered what he was doing there. A man of average height; black-haired; black-bearded, with a few grey hairs to indicate approaching middle age; barefoot; wearing nothing but a dirty loincloth. But, even there, the conclusion was obvious: a menial, from one of the lower sudra castes, relieving himself in the woods.

  No thought of danger would have crossed such an observer’s mind. The man was obviously poor, stoop-shouldered from years of drudgery, and quite unarmed. There was no room in that soiled, torn, scanty loincloth to conceal any weapon.

  Had such an observer approached, however, he might have begun to question his assumption. For, up close, there were certain things about the man crouching in the woods which did not quite jibe with his appearance.

  He was too still, for one thing. Motionless, in fact. No dim-witted menial can prevent himself from idle twitching and scratching.

  His musculature, on closer examination, was puzzling. True, the shoulders were stooped-but that can result from deliberate posture. And, while the man was not heavily muscled, the muscles themselves were extraordinarily well-defined. Iron-hard, to all appearance. Not the sort of physique which results from menial toil.

  Then, there were the arms and the hands. Very long arms, for a man of his size. Long and powerful. And the hands, in proportion to his build, were huge. Sinewy hands. Scarred, callused hands also-but those scars and calluses were not, quite, the scars produced by years of simple toil.