The tide of victory

Anastasius grunted. 'Not if you're right, and Narses is behind it all.' He shrugged his massive shoulders. 'Speaking for myself, I hope he is. Information's valuable, but I'd rather trust my life to Narses' fine and subtle hand.'

Valentinian glared at him. Clearly enough, the weasel-thin cataphract did not share his giant companion's equanimity.

'Speak for yourself,' he snarled. 'I'd rather trust a scorpion than Narses.' The glare shifted to Belisarius. 'And don't repeat Irene's fancy phrases to me. Fine for her to talk about trusting Narses' so- called 'craftsmanship.' She'll be on the other side of the Hindu Kush from the bastard, with thirteen thousand Kushan bodyguards.'

The last occupant of the room spoke up. 'Ah, but you forget. She'll be without me. And since I'll be coming with you, I think that fairly evens the odds.'

Valentinian was now glaring at Kujulo. But, even for Valentinian, the glare was hard to maintain. After Belisarius' rescue of then-princess Shakuntala from her captivity at Venandakatra's palace in Gwalior, Valentinian had fought his way out of India with Kushans at his side-Kujulo among them. He had then spent two years fighting against Kushans and, after Vasudeva and his men took service with Belisarius, with them at his side. There were perhaps no soldiers in the world, beyond the general's own Thracian bucellarii to whom Valentinian belonged, that he respected and trusted more than he did Kushans. And, of them, more than Kujulo himself.

Still-

'I'm not complaining,' he complained. He took his own quaff of wine, and then squinted bitterly at the Persian vintage as if all the sourness of the universe were contained therein. 'If it can be done, we'll get the girls out. Although I still don't understand why Narses would go to all this trouble-not to mention huge risks for himself-just to get Dadaji's daughters back to their father.'

Belisarius shrugged. 'That part doesn't make sense to any of us, Valentinian. Irene no more than me. But-'

His crooked smile made its appearance. 'That's all the more reason to investigate. There's got to be more involved.'

'What do you think?' asked Anastasius.

Belisarius scratched his chin. 'I have no idea.' He glanced at Valentinian. 'But I can't help remembering the last words Lord Damodara said to you, before he released you from captivity.'

Valentinian scowled. 'That silly business about you having a proper respect for grammar?'

Belisarius nodded. 'Yes, that.' His chin-scratching went into high gear. 'I can't help but wondering if what we're seeing here isn't a master grammarian at work. Parsing a very long sentence, so to speak.'

Valentinian threw up his hands with exasperation. 'I still say it's silly!' He planted his hands firmly on the table and leaned forward.

'We'll do it, General. If it can be done at all. But I'm giving you fair warning-'

He pushed himself back and took a deep breath. 'If we run into Rana Sanga, I'm surrendering right off! No way in hell am I going to fight that monster again!'

Chapter 5

Bihar

Spring, 533 A.D.

The knuckles on Rana Sanga's right hand, gripping the tent pole, were as white as bone. For a moment, Lord Damodara wondered if the pole would snap. The thought was only half-whimsical. The Malwa commander had once seen the leader of his Rajput troops cut an armored man in half-Vertically. Sanga's sword had come down through the shoulder, split the sternum and the ribs, and only come to a halt when the sword broke against the baldric's buckle.

True, his opponent had been a lightly armored rebel, and as small as Bengalis usually were. Still-

'I'm glad I'm using bamboo to hold up my tent,' he remarked casually.

Startled, Rana Sanga's eyes came to his master. Then, moved to his hand. Slowly, with an obvious effort, the tall Rajput king released his grip.

The hand became a fist and the fist slammed into his left palm. Damodara winced at the noise. That punch would have broken the hands of most men. Sanga didn't even seem to notice. There were times when Damodara wondered if the Rajput was entirely human. For all Sanga's courtesy and stiff honor, there was something about the Rajput king-something that went beyond his towering stature and tigerish frame-that made the Malwa general think of the asuras of the ancient chronicles and legends. Demons.

Lord Damodara shook the thought away, as he had so often before. The asuras had been evil creatures. However ferocious in combat, Rana Sanga could not be accused of the same. Not by any sane man, at least; and whatever else Damodara was, he was most certainly sane.

The Malwa general heaved a very faint, very controlled sigh. And that is perhaps all I am. Sane. He turned away from the sight of his silent, seething, enraged subordinate and studied the new maps which had been brought to the command tent. Damodara's keen mind found comfort in those maps. The lines drawn upon them were clean and precise. Quite unlike the human territory which they so glibly claimed to represent.

Honor. Morality. Those are for others. For me, there is only sanity.

'There is no leeway in the orders, Rana Sanga,' he said harshly. 'None whatsoever.'

Sanga was now glaring at an idol perched on a small pedestal next to the tent's entrance. The very expensive ivory carving was a miniature statue of the four-armed, three-headed and three-eyed god called Virabhadra. In each of his hands, the god bore a bow, an arrow, a shield and a sword. The weapons were all made of pure gold. A necklace of sapphire skulls adorned his bare chest, and each cyclops eye was a ruby. The scarlet color of the gems seemed to reflect Sanga's rage with blithe indifference.

Virabhadra had once been a minor god, one of Siva's variations. But the Mahaveda cult which dominated the Malwa empire's new version of Hinduism had elevated him to much higher status. Damodara rather loathed the statue, himself, despite its value. But it helped to keep the ever-suspicious priests of Malwa from prying too closely into his affairs.

'I have already come under criticism for my methods of suppressing rebellion here in eastern India,' he added softly. He gestured at one of the scrolls on his large desk. 'I received that from Nanda Lal just two days ago. The emperor's spymaster is wondering why we have made such infrequent use of impalement.'

Sanga tore his eyes away from the statue. 'That idiot,' he snarled, utterly oblivious to the fact that he was insulting one of the emperor's close kinsmen in front of another. For some reason-or, rather, a reason he chose not to examine closely-Damodara found that unthinking trust something of a small treasure in its own right.

Sanga began pacing back and forth in the command tent. His steps, as always, were as light and powerful as a tiger's. And his voice carried the rumbling undertones of the same predator of the forest.

'We have spilled a river of blood across this land,' he growled. 'Here, and in half of Bengal also. Stacked heads in small piles at the center of a hundred villages. And then burned the villages. And for what?'

He paused, for a moment, and glared at the closed flap of the tent as if he could see the ravaged countryside beyond. 'To be sure, the rebellion is suppressed. But it will flare up again, soon enough, once we are gone. Does that-that-' Teeth clenched: '-spymaster really think that impaling a rebel instead of decapitating him will serve us for magic?'

Damodara shrugged. 'In a word: yes. Nanda Lal has always been a firm believer in the value of terror. As much as Venandakatra, the truth be told, even if he does not take Venandakatra's personal pleasure in the doing.'

Mention of Venandakatra's name, inevitably, stoked the Rajput's rage. But Damodara did not regret the doing of it. Rana Sanga, in the privacy of Damodara's tent, could afford to rage. Lord Damodara had no such luxury himself. There was no superior in front of whom he could pace like a tiger, snarling his fury at bestial cruelty. Damodara had no superiors, beyond Nanda Lal and the emperor himself. And the being from