In the Heart of Darkness

outlanders arrived at the coast, Bharakuccha and the smaller ports would be sealed off. The foreign escapees would be trapped inside India, with the enormous manpower of the Malwa army available to bring them down.

That had been the Malwa plan from the beginning of the chase. The Emperor and his high officials had hoped, of course, that the army would catch the fugitives before they reached the coast. But they knew the odds were against that, and so they had immediately sent out the couriers.

It was an excellent plan, taking advantage of the excellent Malwa courier corps. A plan adopted by men who were as intelligent as they were arrogant. And, like many such plans, collapsed of its own arrogance.

Haughty men, swollen with their own self-importance, have a tendency to forget about the enemy.

Enemies, in this case. The man they were pursuing, the general Belisarius, was something quite foreign to their experience. He, like them, also made plans. He, like them, also followed those plans. But he-quite unlike them-also knew that plans are fickle things. And, that being so, it always pays to make plans within plans, and to keep an eye out for every unexpected opportunity. Every new angle.

Months earlier, Belisarius had seen such an opportunity. He had seized it with both hands. The Empress Shakuntala had been delivered from captivity, and Majarashtra's greatest warrior set free from that task.

Raghunath Rao had been free for months, now. Free to set the Great Country afire.

Months, of course, are not enough to create a great popular rebellion. Certainly not in a recently conquered land, whose people are still licking their wounds. But months are enough, for such a man as Rao, to assemble the nucleus of his future army. To gather rebellious young men-almost a thousand, by now-in the isolated hillforts which pocked the Great Country's badlands.

Rao was not only an experienced commander, he had the natural aptitude of a guerrilla fighter. So, almost from the day he returned to Majarashtra, he had set the young men rallying to his banner to the first, simplest, and most essential task of the would-be rebel.

Intelligence.

Watch. Observe. Nothing moves south of the Vindhyas without our knowledge.

The fastest of all the Malwa couriers finally made his way through the Gangetic plain, and through the Vindhya mountains which were the traditional boundary between north India and the Deccan. Bharakuccha was not far away, now.

He did not get thirty miles before he was ambushed. Brought down by five arrows.

Rao, as it happened, was camped not far away, in a hillfort some twenty miles distant. Within hours, the young Maratha ambushers brought him the courier's message case. Rao had no fear of the royal seal, and he was quite literate. A very fast reader, in fact.

Immediately after reading the message, he issued his own set of rapid commands. Within minutes, the hillfort was emptied of all but Rao himself and his two chief lieutenants. All the others-all three hundred or so-were racing to spread the news.

Malwa couriers are coming. All of them must be stopped. Kill them. Take their message cases. Rao himself commands.

After the young warriors were gone, Rao and his lieutenants enjoyed a simple meal. Over the meal, they discussed the significance of this latest event.

'Can we aid the Romans in some other way?' asked Maloji.

Rao shrugged. 'Perhaps. We will see when they arrive. I do not know their plans, although I suspect the Malwa are right. The Romans and the Africans will try to take ship in Bharakuccha. If so, it will be enough for us to stop the couriers.' He smiled grimly. 'Those men are very capable. They will manage, if we can keep the garrisons from being alerted.'

'What if the Empress is with them?' asked his other lieutenant, Ramchandra.

Rao shook his head firmly. 'She will not be.'

'How do you know?'

Rao's smile, now, was not grim at all. Quite gay, in fact.

'I know the mind of Belisarius, Ramchandra. That man will never do the obvious. Remember how he rescued Shakuntala! In fact-' Rao looked down at the message scroll, still in his hand. 'I wonder. .' he mused.

He rolled up the scroll and slapped it back into the case. The motion had a finality to it.

'We will know soon enough.' His smile, now, was a veritable grin. 'Expect to be surprised, comrades. When you deal with Belisarius, that is the one thing you can be sure of. The only thing.'

With a single lithe movement, Rao came to his feet. He strode to the nearest battlement and stood for a moment gazing across the Great Country. The stone wall of the hillfort rose directly from an almost perpendicular cliff over a hundred yards in height. The view was magnificent.

His two lieutenants joined him. They were both struck by the serenity in the Panther's face.

'We will see the Empress, soon enough,' he murmured. 'She will arrive, comrades-be sure of it. From the most unexpected direction, and in the most unexpected way.'

That same day-that same hour-the young officer in command of a guardpost just south of Pataliputra found himself in a quandary.

On the one hand, the party seeking passage through his post lacked the proper documentation. This lack weighed the heavier in the officer's mind for the fact that he was of brahmin ancestry, with all the veneration which that priest/scholar class had for the written word. Brahmin ancestry was uncommon for a military officer. Such men were normally kshatriya. He had chosen that career due to his ambition. He was not Malwa, but Bihari. As a member of a subject nation, he could expect to rise higher in the military than in the more status-conscious civilian hierarchy.

Still, he retained the instincts of a pettifogging bureaucrat, and the simple fact was that these people had no documents. Scandalous.

On the other hand-

The nobleman was obviously of very high caste. Not Malwa, no-some western nation. But no low-ranking officer is eager to offend a high-caste dignitary of the Empire, Malwa or otherwise.

The officer could hear his men grumbling in the background. They had seen the size of the bribe offered by the nobleman, and were seething at their commander's idiotic obsession with petty rules and regulations.

The officer hesitated, vacillated, rattled back and forth within the narrow confines of his mind.

The nobleman's wife ended that dance of indecision.

The officer heard her sharp yelps of command. Watched, as she clambered down from the howdah, assisted by her fierce looking soldiers. Watched her stalk over to him.

Small, she was, and obviously young. Pretty, too, from what little he could see of her face. Beautiful black eyes.

Whatever pleasure those facts brought the officer vanished as soon as she began to speak.

In good Hindi, but with a heavy southern accent. A Keralan accent, he thought.

After I inform the Emperor of Kerala of your insolence your remaining days in this world will be brief. He is my father and he will demand your death of the Malwa. Base cur! You will-

Her husband tried to calm her down.

— be impaled. I will demand a short stake. My father the Emperor will-

Her husband tried to calm her down.

— allow a long stake in the interests of diplomacy but he will not-

Her husband tried to calm her down.

— settle for less than your death by torture. I will demand that your carcass be fed to dogs. Small dogs, who will tear at it rather than devour it whole. My father the Emperor will-

Her husband tried to calm her down.

— not insist on the dogs, in the interests of diplomacy, but he will demand-

Finally, finally, the nobleman managed to usher his wife away. Over her shoulder, shrieking:

— your stinking corpse be denied the rites. You will spend five yugas as a worm, five more as a spider. You will-

As the party passed through the post, the officer's mangled dignity was partially restored by the large bribe which the nobleman handed him. Partially, no more. The young officer did not miss the smirks which were exchanged between his own soldiers and those of the nobleman's escort. The smirks which common troops