Destiny's shield

'Malwa,' he said softly. The word was not condemning, nor accusatory. It was simply a term of explanation. Self-evident. His eyes returned to Shakuntala. 'What did you expect, girl?' he repeated. 'You threaten his kingdom with Malwa's gaze, and Malwa's fury. You organize a private army in his largest seaport. You disrupt his streets with riot and tumult.'

'I did not! It was Malwa provocateurs who stirred up the Keralan mob against the refugees from Andhra!'

Holkar stroked his beard, smiling. 'True. But it was your Maratha cavalrymen who sabred the mob and spit them on their lances.'

'As well they should!' came her hot reply. 'Many of those refugees were Maratha themselves!'

Holkar chuckled. 'I am not arguing the merits of the thing, girl. I am simply pointing out that you have become a major-embarrassment-to the King of Kerala. That old man is no doting village grandfather, Shakuntala. He is as cold-blooded as any ruler needs to be. With the Malwa Empire now at war with Persia, he thinks he is safe from their ambitions-as long as he can avoid drawing their attention. The last thing he wants is his granddaughter forging a rebellion in the Deccan from a base in his own kingdom.'

Holkar stepped into the room, avoiding the bodies which littered the floor. When he came up to the Empress, he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. He was the only member of her entourage who ever took that liberty. He was the only one who dared.

'He is my grandfather,' whispered Shakuntala. Her voice throbbed with pain. 'I can remember sitting on his knee, when I was a little girl.' She stared out the window, blinking away tears. 'I did not really expect him to help me. But I still didn't think-'

'He may not have given the orders, Your Majesty,' said Kungas. 'Probably didn't, in fact.' The Kushan commander gestured at the dead assassins. 'These are Malwa, not Keralan.'

Shakuntala's black eyes grew hard.

'So what? You predicted it yourself, Kungas. A Malwa assassination attempt, with the tacit approval of the Keralan authorities.' She turned away, shaking her shoulders angrily. 'The viceroy would not have done this on his own. He would not dare.'

'Why not? He can deny everything.' Again, Kungas gestured to the dead assassins. 'Malwa, not Keralan.'

Shakuntala stalked toward the door.

'He would not dare,' she repeated. At the door, she cast a final glance at the dead family. 'This was my grandfather's work,' she hissed. 'I will not forget.'

A moment later, she was gone. The stamping sounds of her slippered feet going down the stairs came through the door. Dadaji Holkar and Kungas exchanged a glance. The adviser's expression was rueful. That of Kungas' was sympathetic, insofar as a mask of iron can be said to have an expression.

Kanishka had finished tying a tourniquet around the maimed arm of the Malwa assassin leader. He stooped and hauled the man to his feet. The Malwa began to moan. Kanishka silenced him with a savage blow.

'Glad I'm not her imperial adviser,' he muttered. 'Be like advising a tigress to eat rice.' He draped the unconscious assassin over his shoulder and made for the door.

Then he said cheerfully, 'A small tigress, true. For all the good that'll do her grandpa.'

Within a minute, the Kushans had cleared the bodies from the small apartment-including, at Kungas' command, the bodies of the dead family. They would find a priest to give them the rites. The two dead Malwa assassins would be tossed into a dung-heap. After their interrogation, the two still alive would follow them.

Kungas and Holkar were left alone in the room.

'That was very close,' commented Holkar. The statement was not a criticism, simply an observation.

'There will be another,' replied the Kushan commander. 'And another after that. It's obvious that the Keralan authorities will turn a blind eye to Malwa spies and assassins coming after her. We must get the Empress to a place of safety, Dadaji-and soon. After today, she will no longer let me use Jijabai as her double.'

Kungas' shoulders twitched. Coming from another man, the gesture would have been called a shrug. 'I can only protect her for so long, here in Muziris.'

Holkar broke into a little smile. 'How about Deogiri?' he asked. Then, laughed outright, seeing Kungas' face. For once-just for an instant-there had been an expression on that iron mask. Kungas' eyes had actually widened. In another man, the gesture would have been called a goggle.

'Deogiri?' he choked. 'Are you mad? The place is a Malwa stronghold! It's the largest city in Majarasthra, except for Bharakuccha. The Malwa have a garrison of-'

He broke off. The iron face was back. 'You know something,' he stated.

Dadaji nodded. 'We just got word this morning, from a courier sent by Rao. Rao believes he can seize Deogiri. He has apparently managed to infiltrate thousands of his fighters into the city. The garrison is big, but-so he says, and he is a man who knows-sloppy and unprepared.'

Kungas paced to the window. Stared out, as if he were gauging the Maratha cavalrymen in the street below.

Which, as a matter of fact, he was.

'Over three thousand of them, we've got now,' he mused, 'with more coming in every day as the word spreads.'

'You've got more Kushans, too,' pointed out Holkar.

'Six hundred,' agreed Kungas. 'Most of them are my own kinfolk, who deserted the Malwa once they heard the news of my change of allegiance. But a good third of them are from other clans. Odd, that.'

From behind, unobserved by Kungas' sharp eyes, Holkar studied the stocky figure standing at the window. His face softened.

He had come to love Kungas, as he had few other men in his life.

Belisarius, of course, who had freed him from slavery and breathed new life into his soul. His son, still laboring in captivity somewhere in India along with the rest of Holkar's shattered family. Rao, the national hero of the Maratha people, whom he had idolized all his life. A brother, killed long ago, in battle against the Malwa. A few others.

But Kungas occupied a special place on that short list. He and Holkar were comrades-in-arms, united in a purpose and welded to a young Empress' destiny. Close friends, they had become-two men who would otherwise have been like total strangers, each to the other.

Dadaji Holkar, the former slave; low-caste by birth, and a scribe and scholar by profession. A man whose approach to the world was intrinsically philosophical, but whose soft and kindly soul had a rod of iron at its center.

Kungas, the former Malwa mercenary; a Kushan vassal by birth, a soldier by trade. A man whose view of the world was as pragmatic as a tiger's, and whose hard soul was much like his iron-masked face.

The one was now an imperial adviser-no, more. Shakuntala had named Holkar the peshwa of Andhra-in-exile, the premier of a people laboring in Malwa chains. The other, Kungas, was her chief bodyguard as well as one of her central military leaders.

The girl's own soul was like a lodestone for such men. Others had been drawn by that magnet in the months since she set herself up in exile at Muziris. Men like Shahji and Kondev, cavalry commanders-and those who followed them, Maratha horsemen burning to strike a blow at the Malwa.

Most were Maratha, of course, like Holkar himself. But not all. By no means. Men had come from all over the subcontinent, as soon as they heard that India's most ancient dynasty still lived, and roared defiance at the Malwa behemoth. Fighters, in the main-or simply men who wanted to be-from many Malwa subject nations. There were Bengali peasants in her small little army taking shape in the refugee camps at Muziris; not many, but a few. And Biharis, and Orissans, and Gujaratis.

Nor were all of them warriors. Hindu priests had come, too. Sadhus like Bindusara, who would hurl their own defiance at the Mahaveda abomination to their faith. And Buddhist monks, and Jains, seeking refuge in the shelter which the Satavahana dynasty had always given their own creeds.

In the few months since she had arrived in Muziris, Shakuntala's court-in-exile had become something of a small splendor. Modest, measured by formal standards; luminous, measured by its quality.

But of all those men who had come, Holkar treasured one sort above all others.