by Eric Flint
So, held faultless for the defeat, Narses had been assigned by Emperor Skandagupta to serve Lord Damodara as an adviser. The eunuch, from his long experience as one of the Roman Empire's chief officials, possessed a wide knowledge of the intricate politics of the steppe barbarians and the semibarbarian feudal lords who ruled Persia's easternmost provinces. He had been a great help to the campaign, as Damodara and Sanga fought their way into the Persian plateau.
Ajatasutra had accompanied Narses. He served the Roman traitor as his chief lieutenant—and as his legs and eyes. The old eunuch was still spry and active—amazingly so, given his years. But for things like this sudden twenty-mile ride to investigate a failed ambush, Ajatasutra usually served in his stead. The assassin would observe, and assess, and report.
Sanga relaxed. In truth, he had found Ajatasutra guiltless of the self-serving "reports" for which Malwa spies were notorious among their Rajput vassals. He would never be fond of Ajatasutra—he had no more liking for assassins than he did for traitors, even ones on his side—but he could not honestly find any other fault in the man.
"You're lucky, in fact," remarked Ajatasutra, "that you didn't suffer worse casualties."
"Four of my men were killed!" snarled Pratap. "Two others wounded, and yet another half-crushed when the farmhouse blew up. He will lose both his legs."
Ajatasutra shrugged. The gesture was not callous so much as one of philosophical resignation. "Could have been a lot worse. Most of the stonework collapsed inward, when Belisarius blew the walls. Fortunately, he was just trying to cover his escape. If he'd been forced to make a last stand, I guarantee that half your men would be dead. And precious few of the survivors uninjured."
Pratap's eyes smoldered resentfully. "I didn't realize you were well acquainted with the man." Then, with a sneer: "Other than suffering a defeat at his hands in Constantinople."
Ajatasutra studied Pratap's angry face. His own expression was relaxed, almost bland.
"Actually, I'm not. My own contact with Belisarius came at a distance. But I am quite well-acquainted with his wife, Antonina. Balban set a trap for her, too, you know—in Constantinople, right at the end."
The anger faded from Pratap's features, replaced by curiosity.
"I never heard about that," he stated.
"Neither did I!" snapped Sanga. The Rajput king glared at the Malwa assassin. "You tried to take revenge on Belisarius by murdering his wife?"
Sanga's famous temper was surfacing, now. Again, Ajatasutra made the placating gesture with his hands. "Please, Rana Sanga! It was Balban's doing, not mine. And you can't even blame him—the orders came directly from Nanda Lal."
Far from placating Sanga, mention of Nanda Lal brought his outrage to the surface. But at least, Ajatasutra saw, the tall and fearsome Rajput's fury was no longer directed at him. There was no love lost, he knew, between Rana Sanga and the Malwa Empire's spymaster.
The assassin spread his hands wide. "I thought it was a bad idea, myself. And I warned Balban that he was underestimating the woman."
The hot glare in Sanga's eyes faded, as the implication registered. "The ambush failed," he stated. "Belisarius' wife survived."
Ajatasutra laughed harshly. " 'Survived'? That's one way of putting it. It'd be more accurate to say that she set her own ambush and butchered most of Balban's thugs."
By now, all of the Rajputs at the scene were clustering about—Sanga's own contingent as well as Pratap's cavalry troop. Like warriors everywhere, they enjoyed a good tale. Ajatasutra, seeing his audience—and the easing fury in Sanga's face—relaxed. He held out his hand, perhaps five feet above the ground.
"She's quite small, you know. This tall, no more. Gorgeous woman. Beautiful, voluptuous—" He paused dramatically.
"But—" He grinned. "Her father was a charioteer. He was reputed to have taught her how to use a blade. And I'm quite certain her husband trained her also. Probably had that man of his—that killer Valentinian—polish her skills."
Ajatasutra paused, to make sure he had his audience's rapt attention. Then: "When she realized Balban had set a pack of street thugs after her, she forted herself up in the kitchen of a pastry shop. I wasn't there, myself—I watched from outside—but she apparently poured meat broth over the lot and began hacking them with a cleaver. Killed several herself, before one of Belisarius' cataphracts came to her rescue. After that—"
He shrugged. "One cataphract—against a handful of street toughs."
The Rajput cavalrymen surrounding him, veterans all, grunted deep satisfaction. Roman cataphracts were their enemy, of course, but—
Street toughs—against a soldier?
"A woman did all that?" queried one of the Rajputs. The air of satisfaction was absent, now. He seemed almost aggrieved. "A woman?"
Ajatasutra smiled. Nodded. Held out his hand again. "A little bitty woman," he said cheerfully. "No taller than this."
The assassin glanced at Rana Sanga. He saw that the anger in the Rajput king's face had completely faded. Replaced by something which almost seemed sadness, thought Ajatasutra.
Odd.
Abruptly, Sanga turned away and began striding toward his horse. "Let's go," he commanded. "There's nothing more to be done here. I want to make it back to the army by nightfall."
Once astride his horse, he gave the scene a last quick survey. "The ambush failed," he announced. "That's all."
* * *
That night, standing before his tent in the giant camp of Damodara's army, Rana Sanga studied the mountains looming to the west. The full moon bathed them in a silvery beauty. But there was something ominous about that pale shimmer. Liquid, almost, those mountains seemed. As difficult to pin down as the man who lurked somewhere within them.
"I wish we had killed you," whispered Sanga. "It would have made things so much easier for us. And then again—"
He sighed, turned away, pulled back the flap to his tent. He gave a last glance at the moon, high and silvery, before stooping into the darkness. He remembered another night he had done the same, after the massacre of rebel Ranapur. Remembered his thoughts on that night. The same thoughts he had now.
I wish you were not my enemy. But—
I swore an oath.
* * *
That same moment, staring down onto the plateau from the mountain pass, Belisarius studied the flickering fires of the far-distant Malwa army camp. It was the day after the ambush, and his own army had arrived. The Roman troops were camped just half a mile below the crest of the mountains.
He was no longer estimating the size of the enemy army. He was done with that. He was simply contemplating one of the men he knew was among that huge host.
It was very nicely done, Sanga. Sorry to have disappointed you.
The thought was whimsical, not angry. Had he been in Sanga's place, he would have done the same. And he mused, once again, on the irony of the situation. There were few men in the world he dreaded as much as Rana Sanga. A tiger in human flesh.
And yet—
He sighed and turned away. He would meet Sanga again.
Picking his way down the trail in the semidarkness, he remembered the message which the Great Ones had once given Aide and his race. The secret—part of it, at least—which those awesome beings of the future imparted to the crystals they had created, when those crystals found themselves threatened by the "new gods."
Guided by that message, the crystals had sent Aide back in time to find "the general who is not a warrior." But the Great Ones had understood the entirety of the thing. Descended from human flesh—though there was no trace of that flesh remaining in them—they understood all the secrets of the human soul, and its contradictions.
Aide, in a soft mental message, spoke the words: See the enemy in the mirror.
A sudden deep sadness engulfed Belisarius.
The friend across the field.
Chapter 4
AXUM
Spring, 532 a.d.
Antonina shook her head, partly in
awe, partly in disbelief. "Was anyone killed when it fell?" she asked.
Next to her, Eon lifted his massive shoulders in a small shrug.
"Nobody knows, Antonina." For a moment, the Prince of Axum's dark face was twisted into a grimace of embarrassment. "We were still pagans, at the time. And the workmen would have all been slaves. We Ethiopians kept many slaves, back then"—his next words came in a bit of a rush—"before we adopted the teachings of Jesus Christ."
Antonina fought down a smile. The semi-apology in Eon's response was quite unnecessary, after all. It was not as if Roman rulers—
"Please, Eon! You don't need to apologize for the barbarity of your pagan ancestors. At least your old kings didn't stage gladiatorial contests, or feed Christians to lions."
Alas. She could tell immediately, from Eon's expression, that her attempt at reassurance had failed of its mark.
"Not Christians, no," mumbled Eon. "But—" Another shrug of those incredible shoulders. "Well . . . There are a lot of big animals here in Africa. Lions, elephants. And it seems that the old kings—"
There came yet another shrug. But the gesture, this time, contained neither apology nor embarrassment. It was the movement of the powerful shoulders of a young prince who, when all was said and done, was not really given to self-effacement.
"It's over, now," he stated. "We instituted Christian principles of rule two hundred years ago." He pointed to the enormous thing in front of them. "We keep that here as a reminder to our kings. Of the pagan folly of royal grandiosity."
Antonina's eyes returned to the object in question. Eon had brought her here, from the royal compound a mile to the southwest—the Ta'akha Maryam, it was called—as part of his sight-seeing tour of Ethiopia's capital city. He had started off, in the morning, by showing her the magnificent churches which adorned the city. The churches, especially the cathedral which the Ethiopians had named the Maryam Tsion, were the pride of Axum. But then, in mid-afternoon, the prince had insisted on showing her this as well.
It was an obelisk, lying on its side, broken into several pieces. The huge sections were crumpled over the tombs of pre-Christian kings, leaving the obelisk a rippling monument to ancient folly. More than anything else, to Antonina, it resembled an enormous stone snake, making its serpentine way across the landscape of the Ethiopian highlands.
The obelisk had fallen, Eon explained, as it was being erected. Staring at it, Antonina could well believe the tale. It was difficult to judge, because of its position, but she thought the obelisk was far larger than any created even by the ancient Egyptians. Only a king possessed by delusions of grandeur could have thought of ordering mortal men to erect such a preposterous structure.
She shivered slightly, thinking of the men who must have been trapped by the obelisk in its ruin. When the thing fell, it crushed several of the tombs beneath it. The blood and mangled flesh of slaves, for a time, would have decorated the sepulchres where royal bones lay buried.
Eon misinterpreted the motion. "You are cold!" he exclaimed. "I have been thoughtless. I forgot that you are not accustomed—"
She waved down the apology. "No, no, Eon. I'm not really cold. I was just thinking—"
She stopped, shivering again. She was cold, she suddenly realized. She had always thought of Africa as the quintessential land of warmth. But the heartland of Axum lay in the Ethiopian highlands. True, the capital city was situated in the broad, fertile plain called Hatsebo, well below the mountains which towered all about in stark majesty. But it was still over a mile above sea level.
"Perhaps we should return to the Ta'akha Maryam," she admitted. A bit hurriedly, to stave off another apology: "Your father will be growing impatient with our long absence."
Actually, she knew, Eon's father—the negusa nagast, "King of Kings," as he was titled—would not be in the slightest bit impatient. She was quite certain that King Kaleb had welcomed her daylong absence from the royal compound. It gave him time to consult with his advisers, before making a response to the Roman Empire's proposals.
Antonina and her entourage had arrived in the Ethiopian city of Axum a week earlier. Axum—the capital had given its name to the Ethiopian kingdom, just as had Rome—had never received such a high-level delegation from the Roman Empire. Since Ethiopia's conversion to Christianity under the tutelage of the missionaries who were revered as the "Nine Saints," the Axumites had maintained cordial relations with the great empire to their north. But, except for trade matters, there had been very little in the way of official diplomatic exchange. Until Antonina came, at the head of a small army, armed not only with the strange new gunpowder weapons but with a barrage of proposals from the Emperor of Rome.
As they began picking their way through the broken stones of ancient kings, Antonina found herself, once again, fighting down a smile. She could well understand how King Kaleb would have wanted a day—at least!—to mull over the Roman Empire's proposals.
Those proposals were, after all, hardly what you'd call vague and meaningless diplomatic phrasery.
Rome accepts Axum's offer of an alliance against the Malwa Empire. To further our joint aim of crushing that monstrous realm, we propose:
Rome will supply Axum with gunpowder weapons, and the technicians to train you in their use and manufacture.
Axum will provide the fleet necessary to keep the rebellion in southern India alive. Axumite ships will run the Malwa blockade of the Majarashtra coast, carrying arms and supplies provided by Rome.
Axum will also provide the fleet necessary to—
Her thoughts broke off. She and Eon were almost out of the ruins. As they picked their way around yet another half-crumbled structure, she caught sight of the figure lounging against one of the tombs at the very edge of the field of monuments.
Ousanas, for once, was not grinning. Indeed, he looked positively disgruntled.
Antonina made no attempt to fight down her smile, now. "What's the matter, Ousanas?" she called out. "Has your philosophical composure abandoned you, for the moment? Shame, shame! What would the Stoics say?"
Ousanas shook his head. "The Stoics advocated serenity in the face of life's tragedies and great misfortunes." Scowling: "They did not intend their precious teachings to be wasted on petty annoyances. Such as having to waste half a day while a fool boy prince shows a frivolous woman with too much time on her hands the inevitable results of self-aggrandizement, a lesson which"—deep scowl—"any child learns the first time they sass their elders."
Antonina and Eon reached the edge of the field. Ousanas thrust himself erect from his semi-reclined posture. There was nothing of a lurch in that movement, as there would have been for most men. On one of his powerful forearms, Ousanas bore the scar left by a panther he had slain years earlier. The tall African had triumphed in that encounter, as he had in so many others, because he shared the sinuous grace and power of the great feline hunters of the continent. For all that Ousanas derided royalty—which, as Prince Eon's dawazz, was his duty and obligation—the man was a majestic figure in his own right.
Antonina's grin was still on her face. She pointed over her shoulder with a thumb to the great field of monuments behind her.
"I would have thought you'd approve of this display," she said. "An aid to your task, showing the results of excessive royal self-esteem."
Ousanas cast a sour look at the stone ruins in question. "Nonsense," he replied forcefully. "Maintaining this grotesque and useless field is itself a testament to royal idiocy. Who but cretin kings would need to waste so much good land for such a trivial purpose? A child requires no more than the memory of his last set of bruises."
He began stalking off, headed toward the Ta'akha Maryam. "We'd do better just to haul the negusa nagast out of his palace, once or twice a year, and thrash him soundly." He repeated Antonina's gesture, pointing with his thumb at the ruins over his shoulder. "Then we could turn this into good farmland. Raise crops for needy children. Feed poor dawazz, weak from his endless labor like Sisyphus."
Antonina glanced at Eon, walking alongside her. She was expecting to see the prince's face twisted into a scowl, hearing Ousanas' outrageous proposals. But, to her surprise, Eon's expression was one of sly amusement.
The dawazz, it seemed, had done his work well.
"And just who would do all that work, Ousanas?" asked the prince. "Hauling great stones, thousands of them, out of that field. Backbreaking work, day after day after day. Take years, probably. You?"
Ousanas' snort was answer enough.
"Thought not," mused Eon. "No sane man would. No free man, that is. So we'd have to reinstitute mass slavery. Give the King of Kings a whole army of slaves—again—just like in the old days."
Eon's grin did not quite match those which his dawazz usually employed, but it came close.
"So," he concluded cheerfully, "in order to accomplish your goal of abasing royalty, we'd have to elevate royalty to its grandiose status of old. Good thinking, Ousanas!" The prince shook his head in a gesture of exaggerated chagrin. "I'm ashamed of myself! All these years, I thought your obsession with philosophy was a waste of time. But now, I see—"
Ousanas interrupted: "Enough!" He stopped abruptly, and stared at the distant mountains which surrounded the Hatsebo plain. His expression, from a scowl of irritation, faded into one of thoughtfulness.
"You see those mountains?" he asked softly. "Impossible to reach, the greatest of them. Just so do men stare at justice and righteousness. An unattainable goal, but one which we must always keep in our sight. Or we will drown in the madness of the pit."
