An Oblique Approach

by David Drake

  The princess did not understand the phrases they were exchanging back and forth, but the leering grins on their faces made the meaning clear enough. She turned slightly, pretended to slump, cowering. One of the Ye-tai pounced on her. Her sidekick took the warrior straight in the diaphragm, knocking him flat on his back. Her fist took a second warrior in the exact same location. He coughed, began to double up—then slumped to the floor as Shakuntala's forearm strike smashed into his jaw.

  The third Ye-tai leapt onto her back, wrapping his arms around her. She snapped her head back into his face, stamped on his instep, broke loose from his grip, and slammed her elbow into his stomach.

  The warrior staggered. Shakuntala spun and drove her foot into his groin. The Ye-tai sprawled on the floor, groaning.

  Shakuntala sprang away and raced toward the other corner, where Jijabai was being held down on the floor. The maid was half-naked now. Her arms were being held by one Ye-tai, while each of her legs were spread apart by others. The fourth Ye-tai had untied his trousers and was dropping to his knees between the screaming girl's legs.

  His kneel turned into a headlong plunge as Shakuntala's flying kick smashed between his shoulder blades. The princess delivered the kick perfectly, without the impetuous excess which was her usual mistake. She rebounded and landed lightly on her feet. The Ye-tai who was holding Jijabai's right leg gaped up at her. Shakuntala kicked out his teeth. Again, the kick was perfect. The follow-on kick broke the warrior's neck.

  But that kick was too powerful, by far. Instead of rebounding, the princess staggered and fell onto her back. Fortunately, the thick carpet softened her fall. A moment later, the Ye-tai who had been holding Jijabai's other leg landed on top of her, grappling for her wrists. He was roaring with rage. His roars were not enough, however, to drown the sound of other Ye-tai warriors pouring into the room. Jijabai began screaming again.

  Shakuntala wrestled with her assailant furiously. For her size, she was very strong. But the Ye-tai outmassed her considerably, and was no weakling himself. Then the princess found her legs suddenly seized by other barbarians. Ye-tai howls of glee filled the room, almost deafening in their cacophony.

  The Ye-tai lying atop the princess now had her wrists firmly in his grip. He brought his legs up and straddled her chest. His face was not more than inches from hers. He began to say something to her, grinning fiercely. Shakuntala lunged her head forward and bit off the tip of his nose.

  The Ye-tai howled and jerked his head. Blood flew from his severed nose. He stared down at her, his eyes wide with rage. Shakuntala spit the tip of his nose into his face. The warrior bellowed fury. He released her left wrist, drew back his right hand, made a fist, and began to strike her in the jaw.

  The fist went flying out of sight. The warrior's arm had been chopped off just below the wrist. The Ye-tai gaped at the stump. Blood gushed everywhere, much of it on the princess. A moment later, Shakuntala was practically drowned in blood. The Ye-tai's head had vanished also.

  Now, all was chaos and confusion. Shakuntala was almost blinded by the blood covering her face. Then she was blinded, by the Ye-tai's headless body collapsing on her.

  She felt the hands holding her legs release their grip. Her lower body was suddenly covered with wetness. Blood. Not hers. Howls and shouts of fury. Clash of swords and shields. Cries of pain. Choking death coughs.

  Now a bellowing roar of command. The sounds of more warriors filling the room. Roar of command. A cessation to the sounds of fighting. Roar of command.

  Suddenly, silence. Except for Jijabai's sobbing.

  Silence, except—

  Outside the room, through the windows, Shakuntala could hear screams and shrieks in the distance. A vast, world-filling howl of pain and anguish.

  Amavarati was taken. The palace was captured. All was lost. All. All.

  The headless body atop her was suddenly removed. She was free again. She sat up and tried to wipe the blood from her face. Someone handed her a cloth. With it, she was able to remove enough blood to see.

  The room was now absolutely filled with warriors. A few Ye-tai were still alive, huddled in the corner next to the sobbing figure of Jijabai. More Ye-tai were lying dead, scattered here and there over the floor.

  The other warriors in the room were also Malwa enemies, but not Ye-tai. Shakuntala recognized them. Kushans. And one Mahaveda priest.

  The priest was scowling back and forth between the Ye-tai in the corner and one of the Kushans. The Kushan commander, Shakuntala guessed.

  The Kushan commander was a short man, very stocky. Barrel-chested and thick-shouldered. In his right hand he held a sword, covered with blood. Shakuntala was certain, without knowing exactly how, that that was the sword which had removed her assailant's fist and then his head.

  But what struck her most about the Kushan was his face. It was not the features. Those were typical Kushan: coarse black hair tied back in a topknot, brown eyes, flat nose, high cheeks, thin lips, a slight fold in the corners of the eyes. No, it was the face itself. It didn't seem made of human flesh. It looked like a mask of iron.

  The priest snarled something at the Kushan commander. The commander's reply was curt, unyielding. He pointed to Shakuntala and said something else. The priest frowned. The Mahaveda turned toward the Ye-tai in the corner and snarled something at them. The Ye-tai began saying something—half angrily, half fearfully—but the priest shouted them down.

  The priest pointed to Jijabai, barked something; made a dismissive gesture. The Ye-tai grinned and stooped over the maid. A moment later they were spreading her legs again and unbuckling their trousers.

  Shakuntala lurched to her feet, but the Kushan commander was suddenly standing behind her. The man moved much more quickly than the princess would have thought possible. She felt him twisting her arm up behind her back. She drove her foot down, but struck only the floor, painfully. The Kushan had moved his instep aside—effortlessly, and without losing either his balance or his grip on her arm.

  Shakuntala felt her arm twisted up, immobilized. She recognized the grip, and the expertise behind it, and despaired. Still—

  Her elbow strike was blocked almost before it began. Her head snap was met with a cuff. Not a brutal cuff, just an expert one.

  Jijabai started screaming. A blow. Screaming. Another blow. Blow. Silence. Except for coarse Ye-tai laughs.

  "There's nothing you can do for her, girl," whispered the Kushan commander in good Hindi. "Nothing."

  He propelled Shakuntala toward the door. He was strong. Very strong. The other Kushans moved with him. Several moved in front. Others strode on either side, still others behind. All with swords drawn. Blood-covered swords, without exception.

  As she went through the door, Shakuntala heard Jijabai begin to wail again. Then: blow; blow; silence.

  "Nothing, girl, nothing," whispered the Kushan.

  The trip through the palace was sheer nightmare. The princess was covered with blood and half-dazed, but could still see. And hear. The entire palace was a raging madhouse of butchery, looting, torture and gang rape. The Ye-tai barbarians were like maddened wolves. The common Malwa troops were even worse, like crazed hyenas. Completely out of control. More than once, her Kushan escort was forced to strike down Malwa soldiers lunging for the princess. ("Forced" was perhaps not the right word. The Kushans slaughtered common Malwa troops who moved toward them instantly and without compunction; Ye-tai were butchered for even looking at them the wrong way.)

  After a while, Shakuntala felt herself grow weak with horror. She tried to fight against the weakness, but it was almost impossible. Utter despair was overwhelming her.

  The iron grip holding her became, as the trip progressed, more of a comforting embrace. Some part of her mind tried to seize the opportunity, but her will was buried beneath hopelessness. And always, every minute, the voice:

  "Nothing, girl, nothing."

  A gentle voice. If iron can ever be gentle.

  Finally, they were leaving the pa
lace, entering the great courtyard.

  She caught a glimpse—

  The iron hand turned her head into an iron shoulder. Guided her away.

  Shakuntala summoned the last reserve of her will.

  "No," she said. "No. I must see."

  Iron hesitated. An iron sigh.

  "You are certain?"

  "I must see." A moment later: "Please. I must."

  Iron hesitation. Another iron sigh.

  "Nothing, girl, noth—"

  "I must—please!"

  The iron grip yielded, turned her back.

  She saw. They were dead now, at least. The cluster of mahamimamsa around them were already well into the flaying. Soon enough, the skin sacks would be ready for hanging in the Malwa emperor's great hall.

  Her father. Her mother. All of her brothers except the youngest, who had died in her room. His body would be brought down soon, for the flayers.

  The iron grip turned her away again. She did not resist. A minute later, she began to shake. Then, seconds later, weep.

  "Nothing, girl, nothing."

  She did not speak for three hours. Not until the last faint screams of Amaravati died away, lost in the distance. The Kushans pushed their horses hard, and the Rajput cavalry troop which escorted them did not object.

  For three hours, she was lost in anguished memories of Andhra. Great Andhra, destroyed Andhra. For five centuries, under the Satavahana dynasty, Andhra had ruled central India. And ruled it well. Themselves Telugu speakers of Dravidian stock, the Satavahana had shielded Dravidia from the depredations of the northern Aryan conquerors; shielded Dravidia, while at the same time absorbing and transmitting throughout the Deccan all the genuine glories of Vedic culture. The very name satavahana referred to the seven-horse chariot of Vishnu. The name had been adopted by the dynasty upon its conversion to Hinduism—adopted, by choice, not by force.

  So had the Satavahanas ruled. They had never shied from war, but had always preferred gentler methods of conquest and rule. Few, if any, of their subject peoples had found their overlordship oppressive. Even the stiff-necked and quarrelsome Marathas, after a time, had become reconciled to Andhra rule. Reconciled, and then, become Andhra's strong right arm.

  Under the Satavahanas, Andhra had become one of the major trade centers of the world. Trade with Rome to the west, Ceylon to the south, Champa and Funan to the east. The great city Amavarati, now in flames, had been the most prosperous and peaceful city in all India.

  With peace, prosperity and trade, had come knowledge, wisdom, and art. Encouraged and patronized by the Satavahanas, scholars and mystics and artists had flocked to Amavarati.

  The bhakti movement had grown under Andhra's tolerance, revitalizing Hinduism. Buddhists and Jains, often persecuted in other Hindu realms, were unmolested in Andhra. Even the great rock-cut temples had been allowed to incorporate images of the Buddha.

  Shakuntala remembered the beauty of those temples, and the monastic viharas, and the chaitya prayer halls, and the stupas. She fought back the tears. Then she remembered the glorious frescoes at the viharas at Ajanta, and could fight them back no longer.

  Gone. All gone. Destroyed forever.

  Her first words were: "Why not me?"

  The Kushan commander explained. Gently. As gently, at least, as the truth allowed.

  She spit on the ground. For a moment, it almost seemed as if the commander's face had developed a crack. A flaw in the iron, perhaps.

  Her next words were:

  "Raghunath Rao?"

  The Kushan commander explained. This time, the voice was not gentle. There was no need to be. Then, the commander predicted. Now, gentle again; insofar as iron can be gentle.

  Shakuntala laughed. Flaming glory burst through her soul, like a river washing out all hopelessness and despair.

  The princess spoke her last word, on that day of destruction:

  "Fools."

  * * *

  When night fell, the Kushans and Rajputs made camp. Guards were set up all around, within and without the camp perimeter. The Rajputs guarded the camp from outside attack. The Kushans guarded the camp from Shakuntala.

  It was an odd sort of guard. The Kushans kept their distance from her. Regaled each other—in Hindi, which she could understand—with tales of startled Ye-tai. Girl-startled Ye-tai, with a spear-blade in their armpits and throats and legs and mouths; with a foot in their guts and their teeth and their necks. They particularly relished the tale of a Ye-tai nose.

  Beyond, in the flickering light of the campfires, haughty Rajput beards were seen to move. Smiles, perhaps, brought on by charming tales.

  That same night, in a pond not far from the palace at Amavarati, a frog croaked and jumped aside. As if startled by a sudden motion nearby.

  An alert guard might have spotted the slow, crawling figure which eased its way out of the reeds and onto the bank. But there were no alert guards at Amavarati that night. The Malwa army had disintegrated completely in its triumph. There was nothing at Amavarati that night but a horde of drunken, butchering thieves and rapists, and what few of their victims still survived. And a cluster of mahamimamsa, overseen by priests, who, though sober and on duty, were much too preoccupied with the task of properly flaying a fourteen-year-old boy to be watching any ponds.

  Once ashore, the man began to tear his tunic and bind up his wounds. They were many, those wounds, but none were either fatal or crippling. In time, they would become simply more scars added to an already extensive collection.

  The wounds dressed, the man rested a bit. Then, still moving silently and almost invisibly, he faded away from the vicinity of the palace. Once in the forest, his pace quickened. Silent, still, and almost invisible. Like a wounded panther.

  Chapter 14

  DARAS

  Spring, 529 AD

  The good news, thought Belisarius, was that John of Rhodes was an extremely intelligent man.

  That was also the bad news.

  "Why are you lying to me?" demanded the retired naval officer. "How in the name of Christ do you expect me to accomplish whatever it is you want me to accomplish, when you are obviously keeping everything essential a secret from me?"

  Belisarius gazed down at the man calmly.

  John of Rhodes scowled. "Save the sphinx for someone else, Belisarius!" He stumped over to the worktable and made a disgusted gesture toward the various substances and implements strewn upon it.

  "Look at this clutter! Trash and toys, that's all they are. I might as well be looking for the philosopher's stone, or the elixir of eternal life." His glare left the table and roamed about the room, encompassing the entire workshop in its condemnation.

  Belisarius scratched his chin.

  "Stop scratching your chin!" The naval officer flung himself into a nearby chair, exuding the quintessence of disgruntlement in his slumped posture. "Damn all mannerisms, anyway," he grumbled. He looked up, eyeing Belisarius balefully. "And there's another thing," he continued. "What's this nonsense you and your wife are trying to pull with me and that jackal Procopius?"

  Before Belisarius could dredge up something suitable to put the man at ease, John of Rhodes was back on his feet, stumping about and gesticulating angrily.

  "Don't bother! Please! Do I look like a cretin?"

  Belisarius decided that, under the circumstances, straightforwardness was probably the only suitable tactic.

  "Explain," he commanded. "And stop stumping about."

  "I'm not stumping. I'm pacing, from vexation."

  "Stop pacing from vexation. And explain."

  John stood still. Somehow, despite his much shorter stature, the naval officer seemed to be glaring down at the general.

  "Have you heard my reputation?" he demanded. "That I am a master of seduction?"

  Belisarius nodded. John of Rhodes blew out his cheeks and then flung himself again into the chair.

  "Well, the reputation's exaggerated. But not by much. The fact is, I've enjoyed considerable success with the la
dies, over the years. Do you know my secret?"

  Belisarius waited. For the first time since meeting John of Rhodes, not two hours earlier, the naval officer smiled.

  "The secret to success in seduction, Belisarius, is the same as the secret to success in warfare. Never fight a battle you can't win."

  "Your point?"

  "My point's obvious. I hadn't spent more than an hour in Antonina's company before it was clear as day that she was quite unseducible. While you were off thrashing the Medes, she and I were often alone. At such times, she's all business and work. That's all. So why is it, the moment that foul creature Procopius hoves into view, that she suddenly acts as if she's smitten by me?"

  Even sitting, he seemed to be glaring down at Belisarius. "What are you up to?"

  Belisarius sighed and pulled up another chair. After sitting, he smiled crookedly. "We're engaged in a deep and dark conspiracy, John."

  The naval officer's foul mood vanished. He grinned like a wolf—which, thought Belisarius, he rather resembled. A short, sinewy, handsome, blue-eyed, black-haired, grey-bearded, well-groomed wolf.

  "Well!" he exclaimed. "That's more like it!" He leaned forward in his chair, rubbing his hands together cheerfully.

  "Tell me all about it."

  When Belisarius finished, John eyed him askance.

  "You're still keeping something from me," he announced. "I don't believe for a minute that these—visions, to use your term—simply came to you out of nowhere. Someone, or something, is behind them."

  Belisarius nodded.

  "And you're not going to tell me who it is? Not now, at any rate."

  Belisarius nodded again.

  John looked away, frowning. A few seconds later, his face cleared.

  "I can live with that," he said. "For a time, at least."

  He stroked his beard. "But there's one other question I must have answered. Now. Is this conspiracy aimed at the throne? Against the Emperor?"

  Belisarius shook his head firmly. John stared at him.