The Dance of Time

'We're going with you,' Agathius announced gruffly, as soon as the gangplank was lowered and he hobbled across.

He looked at Ousanas. 'I hear you have a new title. No longer the keeper of the fly whisks.'

'Indeed, not! My new title is far more august. 'Angabo,' no less. That signifies-'

'The keeper of the crutches. Splendid, you can hold mine for a moment.' Agathius leaned his weight against the rail and handed his crutches to Ousanas. Then, started digging in his tunic. 'I've got the orders here.'

By the time Antonina stopped giggling at the startled expression on Ousanas' face, Agathius was handing her a sheaf of official-looking documents.

'Right there,' he said, tapping a finger on the name at the bottom. 'It's not a signature, of course. Not in these modern times, with telegraph.'

He seemed to be avoiding her eyes. Antonina didn't bother looking at the documents. Instead, she looked at Agathius' wife, who was still on the dock and peering at her suspiciously.

'I'll bet my husband's orders don't say anything about Sudaba.'

Agathius seemed to shrink a little. 'Well, no. But if you want to argue the matter with her, you do it.'

'Oh, I wouldn't think of doing so.' Honey dripped from the words. 'The children?'

'They'll stay here. Sudaba's family will take them in, until we get back.' The burly Roman general's shoulders swelled again. 'I insisted. Made it stick, too.'

Antonina was trying very hard not to laugh. Sudaba had become something of a legend in the Roman army. What saved Agathius from being ridiculed behind his back was that the soldiery was too envious. Sudaba never henpecked Agathius about anything else-and precious few of them had a young and very good-looking wife who insisted on accompanying her husband everywhere he went. The fact that Agathius had lost his legs in battle and had to hobble around on crutches and wooden legs only augmented that amatory prestige.

Ousanas grinned and handed back the crutches. ' 'Angabo' does not mean keeper of the crutches. It also doesn't mean 'nursemaid,' so don't ask me to take in your brats when you return. They'll be spoiled rotten.'

In a cheerier mood, now that he knew Antonina wouldn't object to Sudaba's presence, Agathius took back the crutches. 'True. So what? They're already spoiled rotten. And we'll see how long that grin lasts. The Persians insist on a huge festival to honor your arrival. Well-Photius' arrival, formally speaking. But you'll have to attend also.'

The grin vanished.

* * *

There had never been a grin on the face of the Malwa assassination commander, or any of his men. Not even a smile, since they'd arrived at Charax.

Any assassination attempt in Egypt had proven impossible, as they'd surmised it would be. Unfortunately, the situation in Charax was no better. The docks were still under Roman authority, and the security there was even more ferocious than it had been in Alexandria.

True, for the day and half the festival lasted, their targets were under Persian protection. But if the Aryans were slacker and less well-organized than the Romans, they made up for it by sheer numbers. Worst of all, by that invariant Persian snobbery, only Roman officials and Persian grandees and azadan-'men of noble birth'-were allowed anywhere in the vicinity of the Roman and Axumite visitors.

With the resources available, in the time they had, there was no way for the assassins to forge documents good enough to pass Roman inspection. As for trying to claim noble Aryan lineage. .

Impossible. Persian documents were fairly easy to forge, and it would be as easy for some of the assassins to pass themselves off as Persians as polyglot Romans. But if Persian bureaucrats were easy to fool, Persian retainers were not. Tightly knit together by kinship as the great Persian families were, they relied on personal recognition to separate the wheat from the chaff-and to those keen eyes, the Malwa assassins were clearly chaff. If nothing else, they'd certainly insist on searching their luggage, and they'd find the bombard-a weapon that had no conceivable use except assassination.

'No help for it,' the commander said, as he watched the Axumite war fleet leaving the harbor, with their target safely aboard the largest vessel. 'We'll have to try again at Barbaricum. No point even thinking about Chabahari.'

His men nodded, looking no more pleased than he did. Leaving aside the fact that this mission had been frustrating from the very start, they now had the distinctly unpleasant prospect of voyaging down the Gulf in an oared galley. It was unlikely they'd be able to use sails, traveling eastbound, with monsoon season still so far away. And-worst of all-while they'd had enough money to afford a galley, they hadn't been able to afford a crew beyond a pilot.

Malwa assassins were expert at many things. Rowing was not one of them.

'Our hands'll be too badly blistered to hold a knife,' one of them predicted gloomily.

'Shut up,' his commander responded, every bit as gloomily.

Chapter 17

The Indus

The attack came as a complete surprise. Not to Anna, who simply didn't know enough about war to understand what could be expected and what not, but to her military escort.

'What in the name of God do they think they're doing?' demanded Menander angrily.

He studied the fleet of small boats-skiffs, really-pushing out from the southern shore. The skiffs were loaded with Malwa soldiers, along with more than the usual complement of Mahaveda priests and their mahamimamsa 'enforcers.' The presence of the latter was a sure sign that the Malwa considered this project so near-suicidal that the soldiers needed to be held in a tight rein.

'It's an ambush,' explained his pilot, saying aloud the conclusion Menander had already reached. The man pointed to the thick reeds. 'The Malwa must have hauled those boats across the desert, hidden them in the reeds, waited for us. We don't keep regular patrols on the south bank, since there's really nothing there to watch for.'

Menander's face was tight with exasperation. 'But what's the point of it?' For a moment, his eyes moved forward, toward the heavily shielded bow of the ship where the Victrix's fire-cannon was situated. 'We'll burn them up like so many piles of kindling.'

But even before he finished the last words, even before he saw the target of the oncoming boats, Menander understood the truth. The fact of it, at least, if not the reasoning.

'Why? They're all dead men, no matter what happens. In the name of God, she's just a woman!'

He didn't wait for an answer, however, before starting to issue his commands. The Victrix began shuddering to a halt. The skiffs were coming swiftly, driven by almost frenzied rowing. It would take the Victrix time to come to a halt and turn around; time to make its way back to protect the barge it was towing.

Time, Menander feared, that he might not have.

'What should we do?' asked Anna. For all the strain in her voice, she was relieved that her words came without stammering. A Melisseni girl could afford to scream with terror; she couldn't. Not any longer.

Grim-faced, Illus glanced around the barge. Other than he and Cottomenes and Abdul, there were only five Roman soldiers on the barge-and only two of those were armed with muskets. Since Belisarius and Khusrau had driven the Malwa out of the Sind, and established Roman naval supremacy on the Indus with the new steam- powered gunboats, there had been no Malwa attempt to threaten shipping south of the Iron Triangle.

Then his eyes came to rest on the vessel's new feature, and his tight lips creased into something like a smile.

'God bless good officers,' he muttered.