Halfway across the stable, his wife emerged from the door to the adjoining house. She scurried to meet him.
'Are they gone?' she asked worriedly. Then, seeing the closed and barred gates, asked:
'Why did you shut the gates? Customers will think we are closed.'
'We
His wife began to protest, but the stablekeeper silenced her with the coins in his hand.
'The nobleman was very generous. We will have more than enough.'
His wife argued no further. She was relieved, herself, at the prospect of hiding from the madness.
Later that night, as they prepared for bed, the stablekeeper said to his wife:
'Should anyone inquire about the nobleman, in the future, say nothing.'
His wife turned a startled face to him.
'Why?'
The stablekeeper glared. 'Just do as I say! For once, woman, obey your husband!'
His wife shrugged her thick shoulders with irritation, but she nodded. (Not so much from obedience, as simple practicality. Poor men are known, now and then, to speak freely to the authorities. Poor women, almost never.)
Much later that night, sleepless, the stablekeeper arose from his bed. He moved softly to the small window and opened the shutter. Just a bit-there was no glass in that modest frame to keep out the weather.
He stood there, for a time, staring to the east. There was nothing to see, beyond the blackness of the night and the glimmering of the rain.
When he returned to his bed, he fell asleep quickly, easily. Resolution often has that effect.
Chapter 15
After an hour, Belisarius finally found what he was looking for.
It had been a thoroughly frustrating hour. On the one hand, he had found plenty of lone soldiers. But all of them had been common Malwa troops, shirking their duty by hiding in alleys and out-of-the-way nooks and crannies of the city. None of these men had been big enough for their uniforms to fit him. Nor, for that matter, did he think he could pass himself off as an Indian from the Gangetic plain.
Ye-tai was what he wanted. The Ye-tai, in the west, were often called White Huns. The word 'white,' actually, was misleading. The Ye-tai were not 'white' in the sense that Goths or Franks were. The complexion of Ye-tai was not really much different than that of any other Asian steppe-dwellers. But their facial features were much closer to the western norm than were those of Huns proper, or, for that matter, Kushans. And, since Belisarius himself was dark-complected for a Thracian-as dark as an Armenian-he thought he could pass himself off as Ye-tai well enough. Especially since he could speak the language fluently.
Ye-tai tended to be big, too. He was quite sure he could find one whose size matched his own.
Ye-tai he found aplenty. Big Ye-tai, as well. But the Ye-tai always traveled in squads, and they tended to be much more alert than common troops.
Fortunately for him, the alertness of the Ye-tai was directed inward rather than outward-toward the common soldiers they were rounding up and driving into the streets. Scouring the streets and alleys was beneath the dignity of Ye-tai. That was dog work, for common troops. Their job was to whip the dogs.
At first, as he watched the massive search operation which began unfolding in the capital, Belisarius was concerned that he would be spotted before he could make his escape from Kausambi. But, soon enough, his fears ebbed. After a half an hour, in fact-a half hour spent darting from one alley to another, heading west by a circuitous route-Belisarius decided that the whole situation was almost comical.
The explosion of the armory had roused every soldier in the Malwa capital, of every type and variety. And since there were a huge number of troops stationed in Kausambi, the streets of the city were soon thronged with a mass of soldiers. But the soldiers were utterly confused, and largely leaderless. Leaderless, not from lack of officers, but because the officers themselves had little notion what, exactly, they were supposed to do. But they didn't want to seem to be doing nothing-especially under the hard eyes of Ye-tai-so the officers sent their men scurrying about aimlessly. Soon enough, the masses of troops charging and counter-charging about the city had become so hopelessly intermingled that any semblance of disciplined formation vanished.
Watching the scene, Belisarius realized that he was witnessing one of the military weaknesses of the Malwa Empire. The Malwa, because of their social and political structure, had no real elite shock troops. The Malwa kshatriya, who had a monopoly of the gunpowder weapons, functioned more as privileged artillery units than elite soldiers. The Ye-tai, for all their martial prowess, were not really an elite corps either. Their position in the Malwa army was essentially that of security battalions overseeing the common troops, rather than a spearhead. And the Rajputs, or Kushans-who could easily have served the Malwa as elite troops-were too distrusted.
The end result was that the Malwa had no body of soldiers equivalent to his own Thracian bucellarii. And for the task of hunting down a foreign fugitive in the streets of a great city like Kausambi-especially at night, in pouring rain-a relatively small body of disciplined, seasoned men would have done much better than the hordes of common troops whom the Malwa had sent floundering into action.
So, with relatively little difficulty, Belisarius managed to get almost to the outskirts of Kausambi within that first hour. Three times, during the course of his journey, he encountered platoons of Malwa soldiers. Each time, he handled the situation by the simple expedient of commanding them to search a different alley.
The Malwa troops, hearing authoritative words from an authoritative figure, never thought to question his right to issue the orders. True, they did not recognize his uniform. But, between the darkness and the rainstorm, it was hard to make out the details of uniforms anyway. Every soldier in the streets of Kausambi that night looked more like a half-drowned rat than anything else. And besides, the Malwa empire was a gigantic conglomeration of subject nations and peoples. No doubt the man was an officer of some kind. His Hindi was fluent-better than that of the soldiers in two of those platoons, in fact-and only an officer would conduct himself in that arrogant, overbearing manner. Malwa troops had long since been hammered into obedience, and they reacted to Belisarius like well- trained nails.
Then, finally, he found his lone Ye-tai. Hiding in some shrubbery near the mouth of an alley, Belisarius watched a squad of Ye-tai hounding a mob of soldiers down one of the large streets which formed a perimeter for the outskirts of Kausambi. As they passed the alley, one of the barbarians split off from his comrades and stepped into it. Belisarius drew back further into the shadows, until, watching the man, he realized that his moment had arrived. The Ye-tai was big-big enough, at least-and, best of all, he was about to provide Belisarius with the perfect opportunity. The Ye-tai moved ten feet into the alley, turned to face one of the mudbrick hovels which formed the alley's walls, and began preparing to urinate.
The operation took a bit of time, since the Ye-tai had to unlace his armor as well as undo his breeches. Belisarius waited until the Ye-tai finally began to urinate. Then he lunged out of the shrubbery and drove the barbarian face first into the wall of the hovel. The Ye-tai, stunned, bounced back from the wall. Belisarius hammered his fist into the man's kidney, once, twice, thrice. Moaning, the Ye-tai fell to his knees. Belisarius drew his knife, cut the strap holding the barbarian's helmet, cuffed the helmet aside. Then, dropping his knife, he seized the Ye-tai by his hair and slammed his skull into the wall. Once, twice, thrice.
Quickly, he glanced at the alley mouth. Belisarius gave silent thanks, again, for the darkness and the monsoon downpour. The Ye-tai's comrades had heard and seen nothing. After returning the knife to its sheath, and placing the helmet on his own head, Belisarius hoisted the unconscious barbarian over his shoulder and moved quickly back down the alley.
Thirty yards down, well out of sight, he set the man down and begin stripping his uniform. Within five minutes, the barbarian was as naked as the day he was born, and Belisarius was the perfect image of a Ye- tai.
Now, he hesitated, facing a quandary.
