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 from 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,
