In the Heart of Darkness

by Eric Flint

  The lieutenant grimaced. "Well—"

  The commander brushed the idea aside, as a man might brush away flies.

  "Forget it. Murshid wouldn't thank us afterward, believe me. And what would our cut be—a barrel of guts? Two barrels?"

  Looking back at them from the stern of his vessel, the captain of the merchant ship decided he was reading the posture of the Malwa officers properly. The distance was great, but he had very good eyes. And much experience.

  Satisfied, he turned away. "We can relax," he said to his own lieutenant. "There'll be no problem."

  His lieutenant heaved a sigh of relief. He had thought his captain mad, to accept such a cargo in these waters. They normally hauled nothing but bulk goods in the Bay of Bengal, infested as it was by pirates. The type of goods which no brigand finds attractive.

  But, his captain had decided to take the chance. The nobleman's offered price had been too good to pass up. A small fortune to transport him, his wife, and their retinue to Muziris, the principal port of the south Indian kingdom of Kerala.

  Besides—

  The lieutenant glanced at the nearest of the nobleman's soldiers. He was not certain, but he thought the man was the officer commanding the nobleman's escort.

  The officer was leaning against the rail, watching the receding harbor, idly honing his sword with a small whetstone. It seemed a pointless exercise. The blade was already like a razor.

  His eyes met the lieutenant's.

  "Trouble?" The whetstone never ceased its motion.

  The lieutenant shook his head.

  "We don't think so."

  No expression at all crossed the officer's face. It seemed, in its rigid immobility, like an iron mask.

  "Too bad," he murmured. He held the blade up to the sunlight, inspecting its edge. "My men are a little rusty. Could use a bit of honing."

  A month later, Rana Sanga returned to his home near Jaipur. He had not seen his family in a year, and he had decided he must do so before he went on to Kausambi. He might never have the chance again. When he reported his failure to capture Belisarius, he would be punished. Possibly even executed.

  To Sanga's surprise, Lord Damodara was waiting for him at the Rajput king's residence. He had arrived two weeks earlier, sure that Sanga would come there first, whether the news was good or foul.

  As eager as he was to greet his family—Lord Damodara politely offered to wait until he had done so—Sanga insisted on giving his report first. He and Damodara met in a small room adjoining the great hall which served Sanga as his royal audience chamber. They sat on cushions across from each other at a low table. Alone, after servants had placed tea and pastries for their refreshment.

  Sanga's report was full, precise, and unsparing. But as he came to the final episodes of their pursuit of Belisarius, Damodara cut him short.

  "Never mind the rest, Sanga. The gist, I assume, is that you found no sign of him in Barbaricum or any of the other small ports?"

  Sanga shook his head. "None, Lord Damodara. I am convinced he took ship there, somewhere, but he disguised his traces perfectly. If they investigate—long enough—Nanda Lal's spies can probably discover the truth. But—"

  "What is the point?" asked Damodara. He waved a pudgy little hand in dismissal. "If they find any evidence, it will be far too late to do any good."

  He sipped at his tea. Munched on a pastry.

  "Such an investigation would do nothing but harm," he stated. "Great harm, in fact."

  Sanga sat stiffly, silent. Damodara eyed him for a moment. Then, surprisingly, smiled. "You are, indeed, the true Rajput. Honor above all."

  Sanga, if such were possible, stiffened further.

  "I am not Rajput," rasped Damodara. "I respect your view of things, Rana Sanga—I even believe that I understand that view—but I do not share it." Harshly: "I am Malwa. And, thus, am a practical man. I was sent here to meet you, and assess the results of your search. I have now done so."

  Another sip of tea.

  "Here are my findings. Rana Sanga, acting on the possibility that Belisarius might have made his escape to the west, led a long, rigorous, and most diligent search—all the way to Barbaricum, no less!"

  Another sip of tea.

  "No trace of Belisarius was found. For a time, it appeared that the Rajputs were on his trail. But, in the end, it proved a false lead. The only things actually found were a ragged peddler and the bloody trail of a Ye-tai deserter from the royal bodyguard, who fled the Empire after viciously murdering several soldiers and royal couriers and robbing a merchant."

  Sanga began to protest. Damodara drove him down.

  "Nothing proves otherwise, Rana Sanga. Your suspicions were simply groundless. That is all." Another wave of his hand. The gesture done, the hand reached for a pastry.

  "There is no evidence," concluded Damodara. "Nothing solid. Nothing concrete."

  Satisfied—self-satisfied—Damodara popped the pastry into his mouth.

  "There is," grated Sanga. He reached into his tunic, brought forth a small pouch, opened it, and spilled its contents onto the table between them.

  An emerald. Small, but dazzling.

  Damodara choked on his pastry. Coughing, he reached for his tea and hastily washed his throat clear.

  "Rajput," he muttered, setting down the tea cup. He glared at the emerald.

  The glare was brief. When he looked up, Damodara was smiling again.

  "This, I presume, is the emerald which you say Belisarius gave the peddler? One of the emeralds from the Emperor's gift?"

  Sanga nodded stiffly.

  Damodara laughed. "What nonsense!" Shaking his head: "Any Rajput in the world can gauge a sword or a horse at a glance, but show them a jewel—"

  For all its plumpness, Damodara's hand moved like a lizard on a hot rock snatching an insect. The emerald disappeared into his own tunic. Sternly: "These counterfeiters! Shameless criminals! I shall report this latest outrage to the appropriate bureau in Kausambi upon my return." Again, the waving hand. "Whichever it is. I believe the Ranabhandagaradhikara's office in the treasury handles counterfeiting. Perhaps the police Bhukti. One of those small departments, buried somewhere in the Grand Palace. Staffed by somnolent dullards."

  The Rajput King's protest was cut short.

  "It is done, Rana Sanga! Finished. That is all."

  He rose. Sanga rose with him. The short Malwa commander stared up at the Rajput. He did not flinch in the least from the taller man's anger.

  "My name is Lord Damodara," he said softly. "And I have reached my conclusion."

  Still without moving his eyes from Sanga's hot gaze, Damodara leaned over and scooped up another pastry. Popped it in his mouth.

  "These are truly excellent," he mumbled. "Please give my compliments to your baker."

  Sanga was still glaring. Damodara sighed.

  "Rana Sanga, so far as Malwa is concerned, the truth is clear. Belisarius escaped—with his men—to the south. The royal couriers who were to have alerted the port garrisons were all ambushed along the way by savage Maratha brigands. So the wicked foreign general and his accomplices were able to make their escape on an Axumite ship waiting in the harbor. By predesign, undoubtedly. We have—had—a clear description of one of those accomplices from a naval officer who failed to stop the ship. A vivid description." Coldly: "For his failure to capture that ship, the naval officer has been executed. Along with the commander of Bharakuccha's garrison."

  Sanga snorted. Damodara, expressionless:

  "Impaled, both of them. At Lord Venandakatra's command, as soon as the Goptri arrived in Bharakuccha."

  Damodara, his face as blank as ice:

  "Upon my return, upon my demand, the officer in charge of the unit from which the Ye-tai murderer deserted will also be executed. For dereliction of his duty."

  He looked away. "I will not demand impalement. Beheading will suffice."

  Sanga's face twisted.

  Damodara murmured, "It has been done, and it will b
e done. Do not make those—sacrifices—vain exercises in murder, Rana Sanga. Please. Let it be."

  He laid a hand on Sanga's arm.

  "Now, I have news myself. I have been appointed head of the northern army for the upcoming Persian campaign. Lord Jivita, of course, will be in overall command."

  The Rajput glanced at him, stonily. Looked away.

  "I have requested—and my request has been approved—that most of the Rajput forces be assigned to my army. You—and your cavalry—in particular."

  Now, Sanga's eyes came back. Fixed.

  Damodara's lips quirked. "My official argument was that my army will be operating, more than any other, in broken country. Hence—so I argued—I require the bulk of our best cavalry units." He shrugged. "The argument is valid enough, of course. And it spared me the embarassment of explaining to Lord Jivita that I do not share his faith in the invincibility of gunpowder. Personally, I want good Rajput steel guarding my flanks, on the backs of good Rajput steeds."

  Sanga almost smiled. Not quite.

  Damodara's hand gave Sanga's arm a little shake. "I need you, Rana Sanga. Alive, healthy, and in command of your troops." He dropped the hand and turned away. "I will leave now. I have kept you from your family long enough."

  Rana Sanga escorted Damodara all the way to the courtyard. As he waited for his horse to be brought around, Damodara murmured his last words:

  "Do not fret over Belisarius' escape, Rana Sanga. Let it go. Leave it be. We will be seeing him again, anyway. Soon enough—too soon, for my taste. Of that I am as sure as the sunrise."

  "So am I," muttered Sanga, after Damodara left. "As sure as the sunrise." A rueful smile came to his face. "But, unfortunately, not as predictable."

  He turned back to his home. His wife and children were already rushing out the door, arms spread wide. All other emotions vanished, beyond simple joy in their loving embrace.

  A week later, on his way back to Kausambi, Lord Damodara and his escort came to the Jamuna River.

  Lord Damodara ordered a halt, and dismounted.

  "I have to piss," he announced to his soldiers. "Wait here," he commanded, waving his hand casually. "I can manage the task quite well myself."

  Once he reached the river, he paced a few feet along the bank, looking for a suitable spot. Having found it, Damodara went about his business.

  He was a practical man, Damodara. Malwa. He saw no reason not to complete two necessary chores simultaneously.

  He did have to piss, after all. While, in the middle of his urination, tossing a small emerald into a deep spot in the river.

  At the very moment when that emerald nestled into the mud of a riverbed, a ship nestled against a dock an ocean's width away. Sailors began to lay the gangplank.

  "There's your father," announced Garmat. The adviser pointed up the slope overlooking the harbor of Adulis. At the top of a steep stone stairway, a regal figure loomed.

  Axumites did not favor the grandiose imperial regalia of other realms. The negusa nagast wore a simple linen kilt, albeit embellished with gold thread. His massive chest was covered by nothing more than crossed leather straps sewn with pearls. A heavy gold collar circled his thick neck and five gold armbands adorned each of his muscular arms. On his head was a plain silver tiara, studded with carnelians, signifying his status as a king of kings. The tiara held in place the traditional phakhiolin, the four-streamered headdress which announced his more important position as king of the Axumites. In his right hand, Kaleb held the great spear of his office, with its Christian cross surmounted on the shaft; in his left, a fly-whisk. The spear, symbolizing his piety and power; the fly-whisk, his service to his people.

  Nothing more. Other than, of course, the gravity of his own figure—thick-shouldered, heavy-thewed, majestically-bellied—and the dignity of his own face. Glowering brow over powerful nose; tight lips; heavy, clenched jaws.

  "He looks grumpy," surmised Menander.

  "He looks downright pissed," opined Anastasius. "You'd think he already heard the bad news. His headstrong youngest son just got him in a war with the world's mightiest empire."

  "Of course he's heard!" cried Ousanas happily. "Look at his companion—the world's fastest bringer of bad news. Crooked Mercury himself!"

  Belisarius. Standing, now, next to the King. Smiling his crooked smile.

  "Damn," muttered Valentinian. "Rather face the King's glare than that smile, any day." Sigh: "Exciting adventures, coming up."

  Chapter 23

  CONSTANTINOPLE

  Winter 530 AD

  Five minutes into her meeting with Balban, Antonina knew that something was not right. The Malwa spymaster was not listening to her carefully enough.

  He seemed to be, true. To almost anyone but Antonina, Balban would have appeared to be the very model of attentiveness. He was sitting on the edge of his chair—almost perched, in fact—leaning forward, hands clasped between his knees. His eyes were riveted on the woman sitting across the small room from him. He was utterly silent, apparently engrossed in the information which Antonina was giving him.

  The information alone should have guaranteed his interest, even if it wasn't being imparted by a beautiful woman. The Malwa spymaster was learning every single detail of every current or planned troop movement of every Roman military unit of any consequence in Syria, the Levant and Egypt. For a man who stood at the very center of a plot to overthrow the Roman Emperor—a plot which was finally coming to fruition—such information was literally priceless.

  Wonderful information, too—in every respect. Wonderful, not just in the fact that he had it, but wonderful in its own right. The gist of Antonina's report was that no Roman military unit from the great southern and eastern provinces could possibly arrive in Constantinople in time to prevent the planned coup d'etat.

  But he was not paying any attention. Not to the information, at least.

  For a moment, Antonina wondered if Balban's indifference stemmed from his knowledge that everything she was telling him was a lie. In actual fact, Theodora had sent word to Daras weeks before that the plot was coming to a head. Antonina's grenadiers had been in Constantinople for ten days, disguised as pilgrim families. They, along with all the Thracian cataphracts, had been transported aboard a small fleet of swift transports. The units from Sittas and Hermogenes' armies, carried on slower grain ships, had just arrived the day before. They were still hidden in the holds of those ships, anchored in the Portus Caesarii.

  But Antonina dismissed that possibility almost instantly. She detected no hostility from Balban, not a trace—which she surely would have, did the spymaster suspect her duplicity.

  No, it was simply that Balban was not interested in the information, one way or the other. He did not disbelieve; but he did not believe, either. He simply didn't care.

  He was interested in her—in the same way that almost every man was, who found himself in her company. Few men of her acquaintance were able to ignore Antonina's beauty. That was just a simple fact of life.

  But, beyond that—nothing.

  Antonina was chilled to the bone. She realized exactly what was happening. And what was planned.

  They are going to kill me.

  Had Balban known how perfectly Antonina was reading him, he would have been absolutely shocked. The Malwa was a master of his trade. He would have sworn that no one could have detected a trace of murderous intent in his perfectly maintained composure.

  And, in truth, almost no one in the world could have done so. With the exception of a woman who, in her earlier days, had been one of the most exclusive and sought-after courtesans in the entire Roman empire.

  Antonina, unlike Balban, was not an expert in the subjects of espionage, and assassination. But she was an expert—one of the world's greatest experts, in fact—on the subject of men, and their moods. Her success as a courtesan had been partly due to her physical beauty, of course. But many women were beautiful. Antonina's great skill had been her ability to keep men interested. Not si
mply in her beauty, but in the pleasure of her company.

  Over the years, she had learned to detect the danger signs. Sooner or later—until she met Belisarius—the men who sought her company would lose interest. Not in her, necessarily. They might well retain a powerful desire for her body. But they would lose interest in her company.

  She had always been able to tell when that moment came. And she had always broken off such relationships immediately. Or, at least, as soon as she could do so gracefully.

  Her relationship with Balban had never been sexual in the least. But, with him too, that moment had come.

  In the brief time that it took to finish her report, she quickly assessed her options.

  They would not kill her in Balban's own villa. Of that, she was certain. The Malwa had always taken great pains to maintain a low profile in Constantinople. Even Irene, with all her expertise and the vast resources which Theodora had placed at her disposal, had only discovered the whereabouts of the Malwa military base a few days before. Balban had managed to smuggle several hundred elite Indian soldiers into the Roman capital—and keep them hidden, for weeks—without being spotted.

  Such a man would not risk drawing attention to himself at this penultimate hour.

  Nor, she thought, would he employ the services of Ajatasutra or any other Malwa agent. There was always the risk, should her assassination fail, that such agents might be captured and traced back to him.

  She would be murdered by Roman thugs, hired for the occasion through intermediaries.

  The streets of Constantinople had become increasingly rowdy over the past few days. The Hippodrome factions which had been bribed by the Malwa grew more assertive and self-confident by the hour. Gangs of Blue and Green thugs roamed freely, disrupting the capital's tranquillity with impunity. The military units stationed in Constantinople had withdrawn to their barracks—just as Irene had predicted months earlier. The officers in command of those units could sense the coming coup, and they intended to sit on the sidelines until the outcome was clear.