Belisarius II-Storm at Noontide

by Eric Flint

  Yet, the crowd was pleased. At first, as she began her steps, they assumed that Shakuntala was simply taunting her enemy. Prancing, in all her youth and beauty, before the creature who had once dreamed of possessing her.

  Which, of course, she was. Dancing, by its nature, is a sensuous act. That is as true for an elderly man or a portly matron, creaking and waddling their way through sober paces, as it is for anyone. But there is nothing quite as sensuous, dancing, as a young woman as agile as she is beautiful.

  Shakuntala was both, and she took full advantage. It was well for Venandakatra that he never saw that dance. The Vile One would have ground his teeth to powder.

  But, as Shakuntala's dance went on, and transmuted, the crowd realized the truth. Taunting her enemy was a trivial thing. Amusing, but soon discarded.

  The Empress Shakuntala was not dancing for the Vile One. She was not, even, dancing for Andhra. She was dancing for her husband, now. The sensuousness of that dance, the sheer sexuality of it, was not a taunt. It was a promise, and a pledge, and, most of all, nothing but her own desire.

  They had wondered, the great crowd. Now, they knew the truth. Watching the bare quicksilver feet of their empress, flashing in the wine of her beloved's heart, they knew. Statecraft, political calculation—even duty and obligation—were gone, as if they had never existed.

  Andhra had married the Great Country, not because its own past required the doing, but because that was the future it had chosen freely. The future that it desired. When she finished—in defiance of all custom and tradition—the crowd burst into riotous applause. The applause went on for half an hour.

  It was Rao's turn, now, and the crowd fell silent. His reputation as a dancer was known to all Marathas. But most of them had never seen it with their own eyes.

  They saw him now, and never forgot. The tale would be passed on for generations.

  He began, as a husband. And if his dance was not as purely sensual as Shakuntala's had been, no one who saw it doubted his own heart.

  The dance went on, and on. And, as it went, slowly transformed a man's desire for a woman—the life she would give him, the children she would give him—into a people's desire for a future.

  It was Majarashtra's dance, now. The Great Country was pledging its own troth. Love was there, along with desire. But there was also courage, and faith, and hope, and trust, and determination. Majarashtra danced to its yet-unborn children, as much as it danced for its bride. It was a husband's dance, not a lover's. Every step, every gesture, every movement, carried the promise of fidelity.

  Then, the dance changed again. The crowd grew utterly still.

  This was the great dance. The terrible dance. The long-forbidden but never-forgotten dance. The dance of creation. The dance of destruction. The wheeling, whirling, dervish dance of time.

  There was nothing of hatred in the dance. No longer. Love, yes, always. But even love receded, taking its honored place. This was the ultimate dance, which spoke the ultimate truth.

  That truth, danced for all to see, held the crowd spellbound. Silent, but not abashed. No, not in the least. Every step, every gesture, every movement, carried the great promise. The crowd, understanding the promise, swelled with strength.

  Empires are mighty. Time is mightier still. Tyrants come, tyrants go. Despots tread the stage, declaiming their glory. And then Time shows them the exit. People, alone, endure and endure. Theirs, alone, is the final power. No army can stand against it; no battlements hold it at bay.

  * * *

  It was over. The dance was done. A husband, taking his bride by the hand, led her into the chamber of Time. The people, watching them go, saw their own future approaching.

  * * *

  Once in the chamber, Rao's surety vanished. There was nothing left, now, of the superb dancer who had paced his certain steps. Stiff as a board, creaking his way to the bed, his eyes unfocused, Rao seemed like a man in a daze.

  Shakuntala smiled and smiled. Smiling, she removed his clothes. Smiling, removed her own.

  "Look at me, husband," she commanded.

  Rao's eyes went to her. His breath stilled. He had never seen her nude. His mind groped, trying to wrap itself around such beauty. His body, rebelling against discipline, had no difficulty at all.

  Shakuntala, still smiling, pressed herself against him, kissing, touching, stroking. His mind—locked tight by years of self-denial—was like a sheet of ice. His body, now in full and wild revolt, felt like pure magma.

  "You made a pledge to my father, once," Shakuntala whispered. "Do you remember?"

  He nodded, like a statue.

  Shakuntala's smile became a grin. She moved away, undulating, and spread herself across the bed. Rao's eyes were locked onto the sight. But his mind, still, could not encompass the seeing.

  "You have been neglectful in your duty, Rao," Shakuntala murmured, lying on the bed. " 'Teach her everything you know.' That was my father's command."

  She curled, coiled, flexed.

  "I never taught you that," Rao choked.

  Arched, stretched. Liquid, smiling. Moisture, laughing.

  "You taught me how to read," she countered. "I borrowed a book." Coiled, again; and arched; and stretched. Promise, open.

  " 'Hold back nothing,' " she said. "That is your duty."

  Denial shattered; self-discipline vanished with the wind. Rao moved, like a panther to his mate.

  * * *

  In the corridors beyond the chamber, servant women waited. Older women, in the main; Marathas, all. When they heard Shakuntala's wordless voice, announcing her defloration, they grinned. In another virgin, there might have been some pain in that cry. But for their fierce empress, there had been nothing beyond ecstasy and eager desire.

  The thing was done. The pledge fulfilled. The promise kept.

  The women scurried through the halls, spreading the word. But their efforts were quite needless. Shakuntala had never been a bashful girl. Now, becoming a woman, she fairly screamed her triumph.

  The young men heard, waiting in the streets below. They had mounted their horses before the servants reached the end of the first corridor. By the time Majarashtra's women emerged onto the streets to tell the news, Majarashtra's sons and nephews had already left. By the time the dancing resumed, and the revelry began, they were carrying the message out of the gates and pounding it, on flying horseborne feet, in every direction.

  * * *

  The land called Majarashtra had been created, millions of years earlier, when the earth's magma boiled to the surface. The Deccan Traps, geologists of a later age would call it; solemnly explaining, to solemn students, that it had been perhaps the greatest—and most violent—volcanic episode in the planet's history.

  Now, while Deogiri danced its glee, the Great Country began its new eruption. Dancing, with swift and spreading steps, the new time for Malwa. The time of death, and terror, and desperate struggle.

  Malwa's soldiers already detested service in Majarashtra. From that day forward, they would speak of it in hushed and dreading tones. Much like soldiers of a later army, watching evil spill its intestines, would speak of the Russian Front.

  Belisarius had planned, and schemed, and maneuvered, and acted, guided by Aide's vision of the Peninsular War.

  He already had his Peninsular War. Now, he got the Pripet Marshes, and the maquis, and the Warsaw Ghetto, and the mountains cupping Dien Bien Phu, and the streets of Budapest, and every other place in the history of the species where empires, full of their short-memoried arrogance, learned, again, the dance of Time.

  * * *

  Time, of course, contains all things. Among them is farce.

  Shakuntala's eyes were very wide. The young woman's face, slack with surprise.

  "I thought it would— I don't know. Take longer."

  Looking down on that loving, confused face from a distance of inches, Rao flushed deep embarrassment.

  "I can't believe it," he muttered. "I haven't done that since I was fourteen.
"

  Awkwardly, he groped for words. "Well," he fumbled, "well. Well. It should have, actually. Much longer." He took a breath. How to explain? Halting words followed, speaking of self-discipline too suddenly vanished, excessive eagerness, a dream come true without sufficient emotional preparation, and—and—

  When Shakuntala finally understood—which didn't take long, in truth; she was inexperienced but very intelligent; though it seemed like ages to Rao—she burst into laughter.

  "So!" she cried.

  He had trained her to wrestle, also. In an instant, she squirmed out from under him and had him flat on his back. Then, straddling him, she began her chastisement.

  "So!" Playfully, she punched his chest. "The truth is out!"

  Punch. "Champion—ha! Hero—ha!" Punch. "I have been defrauded! Cheated!"

  Rao was laughing himself, now. The laughs grew louder and louder, as he heard his wife bestow upon him his new cognomens of ridicule and ignominy. The Pant of Majarashtra. The Gust of the Great Country—no! The Puff of the Great Country.

  Laughter drove out shame, and brought passion to fill the void. Soon enough—very soon—the empress ceased her complaints. And, by the end of a long night, allowed—regally magnanimous, for all the sweat—that her husband was still her champion.

  Chapter 41

  THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ

  Autumn, 532 a.d.

  A monster fled ruin and disaster. Licking its wounds, trailing blood, dragging its maimed limbs, the beast clawed back toward its lair. Silent, for all its agony; its cold mind preoccupied with plans for revenge. Revenge, and an eventual return to predation.

  A different monster would have screamed, from fury and frustration as much as pain and fear. But that was not this monster's way. Not even when the hunter who had maimed it sprang, again, from ambush.

  Though, for a moment, there might have been a gleam of hatred, somewhere deep inside those ancient eyes.

  Chapter 42

  Belisarius started to speak. Then, closed his mouth.

  "Good, good," murmured Ousanas. The aqabe tsentsen glanced slyly at Antonina.

  She returned the look with a sniff. "My husband is an experienced general," she proclaimed. "My husband is calm and cool on the eve of battle."

  Ousanas chuckled. "So it seems. Though, for a moment there, I would have sworn he was about to tell experienced sea captains how to maneuver a fleet."

  Belisarius never took his eyes off the approaching flotilla of Malwa vessels. But his crooked smile did make an appearance.

  "What nonsense," he said firmly. "The idea's absurd." He turned his head, speaking to the man standing just behind him. "Isn't it, Maurice?"

  Maurice scowled. "Of course it is. You'd spend ten minutes, before you got into it, telling Gersem which way the wind's blowing. After spending half an hour explaining what sails are for."

  "It's the general's curse," muttered Belisarius. "Surly subordinates."

  "After spending two hours describing what wind is in the first place," continued Maurice. "And three hours—" He stuck out a stubby finger, pointing to the sea around them. "Oh, Gersem—look! That stuff's called water."

  Ousanas and Antonina burst out laughing. Belisarius, for all his ferocious frown, was hard-pressed not to join them.

  After a moment, however, the amusement faded. They were hunting a monster, after all. And they were no longer lurking in ambush, hidden in a blind.

  Behind him, Belisarius heard Maurice sigh. "All right, all right," the chiliarch muttered. "Fair's fair. You were right again, general. But I still don't know how you figured it out."

  "I didn't 'figure it out,' exactly. It was a guess, that's all. But we had nothing to lose, except wasting a few days here in the Strait while the rest of the cargo ships carried the troops to Adulis."

  Belisarius pointed north, sweeping his finger in a little arc. They were well into the Strait of Hormuz, now. The Persian mainland was a dim presence looming beyond the bow of the huge cargo vessel.

  "That's about the worst terrain I can think of, to try to march an army through, without a reliable supply route. Any size army, much less that horde Link's got."

  Maurice snorted. "Not much of a horde now! Not after we got done with them."

  Belisarius shook his head. "Don't fool yourself, Maurice. We inflicted terrible casualties on them, true. And God knows how many died in the final destruction of the city. But I'm quite sure two thirds of the Malwa army is still intact." He grimaced, slightly. "Well—alive, anyway. 'Intact' is putting it too strongly."

  He paused, studying the oncoming Malwa vessels. There were six ships in that little flotilla. The five galleys which had avoided the Ethiopians in the delta were escorting a cargo ship. That vessel, though it was larger than the galleys, was far smaller than the huge ship Belisarius was standing upon.

  The general interrupted his own discourse. Leaning back from the rail, he shouted a question toward Gersem. The Axumite commander was perched in the very bow of the ship, bestowing his own intense scrutiny on the enemy.

  "Three hundred tons, Belisarius!" came the reply. "Probably the largest ship they had left."

  Belisarius chuckled, seeing Gersem's scowl. The Malwa vessel had been used as a supply ship on the Euphrates. The Ethiopian, a seaman, was half-outraged at the idea of using such a craft for a river barge. And he was already disgruntled, having been forced to captain this great, ugly, clumsy, ungainly Malwa vessel—instead of one of the Ethiopian warships which formed the rest of his fleet.

  Belisarius returned to the subject. "Link has to try to save as many of those soldiers as it can, Maurice. It can save a few of them—they'll be Ye-tai, to a man—by using what's left of the supply ships on the river. But the only way to salvage the main forces is to use the supply fleet at Bharakuccha, waiting for the westbound monsoon. Thirty ships, according to the report Antonina got from Irene. Irene wrote that report just before she left Suppara, not many days ago. The ships were already loading provisions."

  Mention of Irene's report brought a moment's silence, as the four people standing at the rail joined in a heartfelt smile of relief, delight, and bemusement. Relief, that they knew Irene was still alive to write reports. Delight, at the report itself. And bemusement, at the workings of fate.

  Irene had written that report more out of sentiment than anything else. The odds of getting it into Antonina's hands were well-nigh astronomical. But—why not? There were no secrets in the report, after all, to keep from Malwa. And the captain of the Ethiopian smuggling ship had sworn—scoffing—that he could get the message through the Malwa blockade and back to Axum. Whether it would ever reach Antonina, of course, he could not promise.

  In the event, that smuggler's ship had encountered the Ethiopian flotilla waiting at the Strait to ambush Link. The message had found its way into Antonina's hands the day before.

  "I'd like to have been at that wedding," mused Belisarius. "Just to finally see Rao dance, right before me."

  He closed his eyes, for a moment. He had seen Rao dance, but only in a vision. In another time, in another future, Belisarius had spent thirty years in Rao's company. He admired the Maratha chieftain—imperial consort, now—perhaps more than any other man he had ever known. And so, for a moment, he savored Rao's joy at being—finally, in this turn of the wheel—united with his soul's treasure.

  Antonina spent that moment savoring another's joy. Irene was her best friend. She had been able to discern a subtle message contained within the depiction of political and military developments. Kungas had figured a bit too prominently in those sober sentences. Quite a bit too prominently, measured in sheer number of words. And why in the world would Irene, glowingly, take the trouble to describe an illiterate's progress at his books?

  Uncertain, not knowing the man herself, Antonina had raised her suspicions with Belisarius. Her husband, once he realized what she was hinting at, had immediately burst into laughter.

  "Of course!" he'd exclaimed. "It's a match made in heaven.
" Then, seeing her doubting face: "Trust me, love. If there's a man in the world who wouldn't be intimidated by Irene, it's Kungas. As for her—?" Shrugging, laughing. "You know how much she loves a challenge!"

  * * *

  The moment passed, soon enough. Within an hour, they would be in battle again.

  "So what would Link do, Maurice? Would it send subordinates to organize the supply effort, while it led the march back to India?" Belisarius shook his head. "I didn't think that likely. No, I was almost sure Link would want to get to India itself, as fast as possible. Why else hold back the surviving galleys, at the last minute, in the battle of the delta? One of them, certainly; perhaps two. That would have been enough to send subordinates with a message."

  He pointed at the cargo ship nestled among the Malwa galleys. They were less than two miles away. He was smiling, not like a man, but like a wolf smiles, seeing a fat and crippled caribou.

  "That, my friends, is not a subordinate's ship. That is the best Link could do, replacing Great Lady Holi's luxury barge in Kausambi."

  The smile vanished completely. Nothing was left, beyond pure ferocity.

  "I own that monster, now. Finally."

  * * *

  Belisarius' quiet, seething rage brought hidden, half-conscious thoughts to the surface. For the first time, Aide realized Belisarius' full intentions. Sooner, perhaps, than Belisarius did himself.

  No! he cried. You must not! It will kill you!

  Belisarius started. There had been sheer panic in that crystalline voice.

  What is wrong, Aide? Forcefully: We're not going to have this argument again. I've led charges in battle, often enough.

  That was different! You were fighting men, not a cyborg. Men who wanted to live, as much as you. Life means nothing to Link—not even its own!

  Long minutes followed, while Belisarius waged a fierce argument with Aide. His companions, from experience, understood the meaning of his silence and his unfocused eyes. But, as the minutes passed, they grew concerned—none more so than Antonina. Not since they first encountered Aide, and he transported Belisarius into a vision of future horror, had she seen her husband spend so much time in that peculiar trance.