In the Heart of Darkness

chance at all.

'We'll never catch him now,' groaned Udai.

'We will try,' stated Sanga. His tone was like steel.

Then, with a bit of softness:

'It is not impossible, comrades. Not for Rajputs. He is still only one man, with well over a thousand miles to travel. He will need to rest, to eat-to find food to eat.'

'One man alone,' added Jaimal, 'disguised as a Ye-tai, possibly. Leading several horses. People will notice him.'

'Yes. He will be able to travel faster than we can, on any single day. And he begins with many days headstart. But he cannot keep it up, day after day, the way an entire cavalry troop can do. We can requisition food and shelter. He cannot. He must scrounge it up. That takes time, every day. And there are many days ahead of him. Many days, before he reaches the coast. He may become injured, or sick. With no comrades to care for him. If nothing else, he will become very weary.'

'Where is he headed, do you think?' asked Pratap.

Sanga shrugged.

'Too soon to tell. He will probably head for Ajmer. In case he does not, we will split off smaller units to search for him in other towns. But I believe he will go to Ajmer, first. He needs to get out of the Ganges plain quickly, where there are a multitude of people watching. Into Rajputana, where there are not.'

'Ajmer,' mused Jaimal, stroking his beard. 'Ajmer. From there, he can go south or west. South, along the foot of the Aravallis, toward the Gulf of Khambat. Maybe even Bharakuccha, where he could hope to rejoin his men.'

'Or west,' added Udai, 'to Barbaricum.'

'We will know soon enough,' stated Sanga. He began striding toward the door. 'Once he is out of the plains, he will start leaving tracks. We will find his tracks before Ajmer.'

Less than a minute later, five hundred Rajputs set their horses into motion. Not a frenzied gallop; just the determined canter of expert horsemen, with a thousand and a half miles ahead of them.

He had never been a handsome man, true. But now, for the first time in his life, he was an object of ridicule.

Children's ridicule. Palace children.

Flat-face, they called him, behind his back. Or thought they did, not realizing how impossible it was to talk behind his back. The Frog, they snickered, or The Fish, or, most often, The Nose. Always, of course, in secret whispers. Not understanding, not in the least. The man noted the children, noted their names. Someday their powerful fathers would be dead.

Thinking of those distant days, the man smiled. Then, thinking of a day nearer still, the smile deepened.

It was a new smile, for that man. In days gone by, his smile-his grin-had been hearty and cheerful-seeming. The weeks of painful recovery had distorted the smile, almost as much as they had distorted his face.

A cold, savage smile. A snarl, really.

The new smile fitted the man much better than the old one ever had, in all truth. It looked like what it was, now. The smile of a spymaster, after ensuring his revenge.

Couriers had been dispatched, again. Not royal couriers, riding royal roads. No, these couriers were a different breed altogether. Almost as fine horsemen, and far more lethal men.

The best agents in Malwa's superb espionage service. Three of them, all of whom were familiar with the road to Rome. The northern route, this, the land road-not the slow, roundabout, southern sea-going route taken by most. These men would ride their horses, all with remounts, through the Hindu Kush. Through central Asia. Across Persia, using the network of Malwa spies already in place. Into Anatolia, with the aid of a similar-if smaller-network. And finally, to Constantinople.

In Constantinople, they would pass their message to the Malwa agent in charge of the Roman mission. Balban would not be pleased at that message. It would result in much work being cast aside.

But he would obey. Wondering, perhaps, if the orders stemmed from sagacity or malice. But he would obey.

In point of fact, sagacity and malice were both at work. For all his fury, the spymaster was still a rational man. A professional at his trade.

He knew, even if Balban still fooled himself, that the Roman general's duplicity had a partner. He realized, even if they did not, that the Malwa agents in Constantinople had been fooled as badly as he himself had been in India.

No longer. Sagacity demanded the orders anyway. The fact that the same orders would be an exquisite revenge was almost incidental.

Almost, but not quite.

The spymaster smiled again. He was a realist. He knew that Belisarius might manage his escape from India. But the spymaster would have the satisfaction of robbing all pleasure from that escape.

If Belisarius made his way home, he would find the place empty. The orders would reach Rome before he did.

She is deceiving you, as he deceived us.

Kill the whore.

Chapter 21

A hundred miles east of Ajmer, once they reached the dry country, the Pathan finally picked up Belisarius' tracks.

By the time they reached the city, he was a thoroughly disillusioned man.

'Not adopt this one never,' he grumbled. 'Very stupid beast. See no thing.'

The tracker leaned from his horse, scanned the road, snorted, spat noisily.

'Probably he fuck goat. Think it wife.'

Spat noisily.

'Pay no attention to no thing.'

Spat noisily.

'Idiot blind man.'

Riding beside him, Sanga smiled wrily. Like most men with a narrow field of vision, the Pathan tended to judge people by very limited criteria.

True, Belisarius had finally made a mistake. But it was a small mistake, by any reasonable standard. So small, in fact, that only an expert tracker would have spotted it.

Somewhere along the way-hardly surprising, in weeks of travel-one of the Roman general's horses had cut its hoof. Nothing serious, in itself. Barely more than a nick, caused by a sharp stone. The horse itself would have hardly noticed, even at the time, and the 'wound' in no way discomfited it.

But it was just enough to leave a distinctive track. No one else had spotted it, but the Pathan had seen it immediately. Several of the Rajputs, after the tracker pointed it out, had expressed their delight.

Henceforth, Belisarius would be easy to find!

The Pathan had derided their enthusiasm. Such a very good quickquick man, he assured them, would soon enough spot the mark himself. He would then remove it by carving away more of the tissue, leaving a hoof whose print would be indistinguishable from most others. If worse came to worst, and the mark could not be removed, the Roman would simply abandon the horse. He had four others, after all.

But, as the days went on, the mark remained. Day after day, the tracker followed the trail, with the ease of a man following a lantern at night. Day after day, his estimate of Belisarius plummeted.

By now, so far as the Pathan was concerned, Belisarius ranked very low in the natural order of things. Above a sheep, perhaps. Beneath a bullfrog, for a certainty.

The robbery of the merchant simply confirmed his viewpoint. Sealed his opinion like lead seals a jar.

Three days before Ajmer, the Rajputs had overtaken a merchant trudging alongside the road. The merchant was accompanied by two servants, each of whom was staggering under a weight of bundled trade goods.

All three men were stark naked.