Fortune's stroke

Vasudeva heard the remark. His smile returned. It was a very thin smile.

'Nobody does,' he said. 'The fact remains that Kushans have been skilled artisans for centuries. Appearances to the contrary, we aren't barbarian nomads.' He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. 'My father was a very good jeweler. I wanted to follow in his footsteps. But the Malwa had other plans for me.'

Belisarius felt a sudden rush of empathy for the stocky Kushan mercenary. He, as a boy, had wanted to be a blacksmith rather than a soldier. Until the demands of his class, and Rome, decreed otherwise.

'Damodara is smart enough,' he mused. He leaned back from the table. 'More than smart enough.'

Belisarius began slowly pacing around. His softly spoken words were those of a man thinking aloud. 'If he had good enough intelligence, that is. The Malwa spymaster, Nanda Lal, is a capable man-very capable-but I never got the sense, in the many days I spent in his company, that he thought much about manufacturing and artisanry. His orientation seemed entirely political and military. So where would Damodara have learned-?'

Narses!

'Narses,' snarled Maurice. 'He's got that stinking traitor working for him.'

Belisarius stopped his pacing and stared at the Thracian chiliarch. His own eyes held nothing of Maurice's angry glare. They were simply calm. Calm, and thoughtful.

'That's possible,' he said, after a few seconds. 'I've never spotted him, through the telescope. But if he's with Damodara's army, Narses would be sure to stay out of sight.'

Belisarius scratched his chin. 'Possible, possible,' he mused. 'Narses was an expert on central Asia.' He gave Kurush a half-rueful, half-apologetic glance. 'We always let him handle that side of our affairs with the Aryans. He was-well, I've got to be honest: superb-when it came to bribing and maneuvering barbarians into harassing Persia's eastern provinces.'

For a moment, Kurush began to glower. But, within a couple of seconds, the glower turned into a little laugh.

'I know!' he exclaimed. 'The grief that man caused us! It wasn't just barbarians, either. He was also a master at keeping those damned eastern noblemen stirred up against imperial authority.'

Kurush took four quick strides to the entrance. He stared out and up, toward the crest of the pass. To all appearance, he was listening to the sound of the Malwa barrage. But Belisarius knew that the man's thoughts were really directed elsewhere, both in time and space.

Kurush turned his head. 'Assuming that you're right, Belisarius, what's the significance of it?'

'The significance, Kurush, is that it means this Malwa army is even more dangerous that we thought.' The Roman general moved toward the entrance, stopping a few feet behind Kurush. 'What it means is that this army could ravage Mesopotamia on its own, regardless of what happens to the main Malwa army in the delta.'

Startled, Kurush spun around.

'They're not big enough!' he exclaimed. 'If Emperor Khusrau wasn't tied up keeping the Malwa in Charax-' He stumbled to a halt; then, glumly: 'And if we didn't have the traitor Ormazd to deal with in upper Mesopotamia-' His words trailed off again. Stubbornly, Kurush shook his head.

'They're still not big enough,' he insisted.

'They are, Kurush,' countered Belisarius. 'If they have their own armament center-and I'm now convinced they do-then they are more than big enough.'

He stepped up to the entrance, standing right next to Kurush. His next words the general pitched very low, so that only the Persian nobleman could hear.

'That's as good an army as any in the world, sahrdaran. Trust me. I've been fighting them for weeks, now.' He hesitated, knowing Kurush's touchy Aryan pride, but pushed on. 'And they've defeated every Persian army that was sent against them.'

Kurush tightened his jaws. But, touchy or not, the Persian was also honest. He nodded his head curtly.

Belisarius continued. 'I thought they'd be limited by the fact that Emperor Skandagupta sent Damodara and Sanga into eastern Persia with very little in the way of gunpowder weapons. But if that's not true-if they've created their own weapons industry along the way-then we are looking at a very different kind of animal. A tiger instead of a leopard.'

Kurush frowned. 'Would Skandagupta permit Damodara such freedom? I always got the impression, from what you told me of your trip to India, that the Malwa gunpowder industry was kept exclusively in their capital city of Kausambi-right under the emperor's nose.'

Belisarius stared at the pass above them, as if he were trying to peer through the rock of the mountains and study the enemy on the other side.

'Interesting question,' he murmured. 'Offhand, I'd say-no. But what does Skandagupta know of things in far-off Marv?' Belisarius smiled himself, now-a smile every bit as thin as Vasudeva's had been.

'Narses,' he said softly, almost lingering over the name. 'If Damodara does have Narses working for him, then he's got one of the world's supreme politicians-and spymasters-helping to plan his moves. Narses is not famous, to put it mildly, for his slavish respect for established authority. And he worships no god but Ambition.'

Kurush stared at Belisarius, wide-eyed. 'You think-'

Belisarius' shoulders moved in a tiny shrug. 'Who knows? Except this: if Narses is on the other side of that pass, then I can guarantee that he is spinning plans within plans. Never underestimate that old eunuch, Kurush. He doesn't think simply of the next two steps. He always thinks of the twenty steps beyond those.'

Kurush's smile was not thin. 'That description reminds me of someone else I know.'

Belisarius did not smile in return. He simply nodded, once. 'Well, yes. It does.'

For a few seconds, the two men were silent. Then, after a quick glance into the interior of the tent to make sure no one could overhear, Kurush whispered: 'What does this mean-in terms of your strategy?'

Again, Belisarius made that tiny shrug. 'I don't know. At the moment, I don't see where it changes anything.' He thrust out his chin, pointing at the enemy hidden from their sight by the pass above. 'I can delay that army, Kurush, but I can't stop it. So I don't see that I have any choice but to continue with the plan we are already agreed on.'

Belisarius gave his own quick glance backward, to make sure no one was within hearing range. Kurush was familiar with his plans, as were Belisarius' own chief subordinates, but he knew that none of the other Persian officers were privy to them. So far as they knew, Belisarius and his Roman army were in the Zagros simply to fend off Damodara's advance. He wanted to keep them in that happy state of ignorance.

'I do know this much,' he continued, turning his eyes back to Kurush. 'The rebellion in south India is now more important than ever. If our strategy works, here, and we drive the main Malwa army out of the delta-and if the rebellion in Majarashtra swells to gigantic proportions-then the Malwa will have no choice.' Again, he pointed with his chin to the pass. 'They will have to pull that magnificent army out of Persia. And use it, instead of Venandakatra's torturers, to crush the Deccan.'

Kurush eyed him. He knew how much Belisarius liked and admired the Marathas and their Empress Shakuntala. 'That'll be very tough on the rebels.'

Belisarius winced, but only briefly. 'Yes-and then again, maybe not.'

He paused, staring at the mountains. 'Those men are far better soldiers than anything Venandakatra has. And there's no comparison at all between their leaders and the Vile One. But that army is Rajput, now, at its core. And Damodara has welded himself to them. Rajputs have their own hard sense of honor, which fits their Malwa masters about as well as a glove fits a fish tail. I'm not sure how good they'll be, when the time comes for murder instead of war.'

Kurush scowled. The expression made clear his own opinion. Malwa was Malwa.

Belisarius did not argue the point. He was not at all sure that Kurush was wrong. But, inwardly, he made another shrug. As much as Belisarius prided himself on his ability to plan ahead, he had never forgotten that the heart of war is chaos and confusion. Between the moment-now-and the future, lay the maelstrom. Who could foresee what combinations, and what contradictions, that vortex would produce? In the months-years-ahead?