In the Heart of Darkness

The next morning, after the rich nobleman and his retinue departed, the innkeeper told his family they would close the inn for a few days. They had not been able to afford a vacation for years. They would do so now, after bathing in the sacred Ganges.

The innkeeper and his wife remembered the few days which followed as a time of rare and blessed rest from toil. Their brood of children remembered it as the happiest days of their happy childhood.

Happy, too, was the innkeeper and his wife, after their return. When their neighbors told them, hushed and fearful, of the soldiers who had terrorized the village the day before. Shouting at folk-even beating them. Demanding to know if anyone had seen a young, dark-skinned woman accompanied by Kushan soldiers.

Something stirred, vaguely, in the innkeeper's mind. But he pushed it down resolutely.

None of his business. He had not been here to answer any questions, after all. And he certainly had no intention of looking for the authorities.

So, in the end, Nanda Lal would fail again.

Partly, because he continued to make assumptions even when he thought he wasn't. He assumed, without thinking about it, that a fleeing princess and her soldiers would seek the fastest way out of the Malwa empire. So he sent a host of soldiers scouring north India in all directions, looking for a young woman and Kushans on horseback.

Neither a pious innkeeper on vacation, nor a young officer hiding his humiliation, nor any of the other folk who might have guided the Malwa to Shakuntala, made the connection.

And the one man who could, and did, kept silent.

When Malwa soldiers rousted the stablekeeper in Kausambi, and questioned him, he said nothing. The soldiers did not question him for very long. They were bored and inattentive, having already visited five stables in the great city that morning, and with more to come. So the stablekeeper was able to satisfy them soon enough.

No, he had not seen any young noblewoman-or soldiers-leaving on horseback.

He could not tell the difference between Kushans and any other steppe barbarians, anyway. The savages all looked alike to him.

The soldiers, peasants from the Gangetic plain, smiled. Nodded.

He had seen nothing. Heard nothing. Knew nothing.

The soldiers, satisfied, went on their way.

The plans and schemes of tyrants are broken by many things. They shatter against cliffs of heroic struggle. They rupture on reefs of open resistance. And they are slowly eroded, bit by little bit, on the very beaches where they measure triumph, by countless grains of sand. By the stubborn little decencies of humble little men.

Chapter 20

On his way through the Panther Gate, just as he had promised Lord Jivita, Rana Sanga disciplined the soldiers who had allowed Belisarius to leave the city. 'Give them lashes,' Jivita had demanded, specifying the plural.

Sanga's word, as always, was good.

Two lashes, each. From his own quirt, wielded by Rajputana's mightiest hand. It is conceivable that a fly might have been slain by those strokes. It is conceivable.

Once he and his cavalry unit were outside the walls of the capital, Sanga conferred with his lieutenants and his chief Pathan tracker as they rode westward. The conference was very brief, since the fundamental problem of their pursuit was obvious to anyone who even glanced at the countryside.

The Gangetic plain, after a week of heavy rainfall, was a sea of mud. Any tracks-tracks even a day old, much less eight-had been obliterated. The only portion of the plain which was reasonably dry was the road itself. A good road, the road to Mathura, but the fact brought no comfort to the Rajputs. Many fine things have been said about stone-paved roads, but none of them has ever been said by Pathan trackers.

'No horse even leave tracks this fucking idiot stone,' groused the Pathan. 'No man on his foot.'

Sanga nodded. 'I know. We will not be able to track him until we reach Rajputana. Not this time of year.'

The Rajput glanced up, gauging. The sky was clear, and he hoped they had reached the end of the kharif, India's wet season. The kharif was brought by the monsoon in May, and lasted into September. It would be succeeded by the cool, dry season which Indians called rabi. In February, then, the blistering dry heat of garam season would scorch India until the monsoon.

Jaimal echoed his own thoughts:

'Rabi is almost here. Thank God.'

Sanga grunted approvingly. Like most Indians, rabi was his favorite season.

'There is no point in looking for tracks,' he announced. 'But we have one advantage, here in the plain-there are many travelers on the road. They will probably have noticed a single Ye-tai. Anyone Belisarius encountered in his first days of travel will be long gone, by now. But we can hope, in two or three days, to start encountering people who saw him.'

'The soldiers in the courier relay stations may have spotted him,' commented Udai. 'They have nothing else to do except watch the road.'

'True,' said Sanga. 'We can make it to the first relay station by mid-afternoon. Udai may well be right-the soldiers may have spotted him. Let's go!'

'Are you sure it is them?' asked the crouching young warrior, peering down into the ravine.

'Oh, yes,' said Rao. 'Quite sure. I only met one of them, but he is not the sort of man you forget.'

The Maratha chieftain rose from his hiding place behind a boulder. The armored horseman leading the small party through the trail below immediately reined in his horse. Rao was impressed by the speed with which the man unlimbered his bow.

He probably shoots well, too. Let's not find out.

'Ho-Ousanas!' he bellowed. 'Do you still maintain the preposterous claim that all appearance is but the manifestation of eternal and everlasting Forms?'

The reply came instantly:

'Of course! You are the living proof yourself, Raghunath Rao, even where you stand. The very Platonic Form of a sight for sore eyes.'

The young guerrillas lining the ravine where Rao had set his ambush-friendly ambush, to be sure; but Rao never lost the chance for training his young followers-were goggling.

They were provincials, almost without exception. Poor young villagers, most of whom had never seen any of the world beyond the hills and ridges of the Great Country. The Romans were odd enough, with their ugly bony faces and sick-looking pallid complexions. The Ethiopians and Kushans were even more outlandish. But the other one! A tall half-naked man, black as a cellar in night-time-arguing philosophy with Rao himself!

A maniac. Obvious.

'Oh, Christ,' muttered Valentinian, replacing his bow. 'Another philosopher. Maniacs, the lot of 'em.'

In truth, Valentinian was finding it hard not to goggle himself. Finally, after all these months, he had met the legendary Raghunath Rao. And-

The man was the most ordinary looking fellow he had ever seen! Valentinian had been expecting an Indian version of Achilles.

He studied Rao, now standing atop the boulder some thirty feet away and ten feet up the side of the ravine.

Shortish-by Roman standards, anyway. Average size for a Maratha. Getting a little long in the tooth, too. Must be in his early forties. Well-built, true-no fat on those muscles-but he's no Hercules like Eon. I wonder-

Rao sprang off the boulder and landed lithely on the floor of the ravine ten feet below. Two more quick, bounding steps, and he was standing next to Valentinian's horse. Smiling up at him, extending a hand in