In the Heart of Darkness

by Eric Flint

  His lieutenant winced, looked away. Sanga grated on:

  "Then he came as fast as possible to the first relay station. He was out-thinking us every step of the way. He had two problems: first, no horses; second, he knew couriers would be sent to alert the garrisons on the coast. He solved both problems at one stroke."

  "Killed the soldiers, ambushed the couriers, stole their horses," muttered Jaimal. "The best horses in India."

  "Five of them," added Pratap. "He has remounts, as many as he needs. He can drive the horses for as long as he can stay in the saddle. Switch whenever his mount gets tired."

  "How could he be sure the bodies wouldn't be found soon?" complained Udai. "Then the hunt would be up."

  Sanga frowned. "I don't know. The man's intelligence is uncanny—in the military sense of the term, as well. He seems to know everything about us. Outside of the Ganges plain, this trick wouldn't have worked. Because of banditry, all relay stations in the western provinces are manned by full platoons and checked by patrol. But here—"

  "These aren't even regular army troops," snorted Pratap. "Provincial soldiers. Unmarried men. They're stationed here for two year stretches. Even grow their own food."

  The Rajput stared down at the hideous mound.

  "Poor bastards," he said softly. "I stopped at one of these relay stations, once. The men—boys—were so ecstatic to see a new face they kept me talking all night." He glanced at the Pathan. "Like he says, sheep to the slaughter." Then, hissing fury: "Roman butcher."

  Sanga said nothing. He felt that rage himself. But, unlike Pratap, did not let the rage blind his memory. He had seen other men lying in such heaps. Men just like these—young, lonely, inattentive. Soldiers in name only. They, too, had been like sheep at the hands of a butcher.

  A butcher named Rana Sanga. Against whose experienced cunning and lightning sword they had stood no chance at all.

  "We'll never catch him now," groaned Udai.

  "We will try," stated Sanga. His tone was like steel.

  Then, with a bit of softness:

  "It is not impossible, comrades. Not for Rajputs. He is still only one man, with well over a thousand miles to travel. He will need to rest, to eat—to find food to eat."

  "One man alone," added Jaimal, "disguised as a Ye-tai, possibly. Leading several horses. People will notice him."

  "Yes. He will be able to travel faster than we can, on any single day. And he begins with many days headstart. But he cannot keep it up, day after day, the way an entire cavalry troop can do. We can requisition food and shelter. He cannot. He must scrounge it up. That takes time, every day. And there are many days ahead of him. Many days, before he reaches the coast. He may become injured, or sick. With no comrades to care for him. If nothing else, he will become very weary."

  "Where is he headed, do you think?" asked Pratap.

  Sanga shrugged.

  "Too soon to tell. He will probably head for Ajmer. In case he does not, we will split off smaller units to search for him in other towns. But I believe he will go to Ajmer, first. He needs to get out of the Ganges plain quickly, where there are a multitude of people watching. Into Rajputana, where there are not."

  "Ajmer," mused Jaimal, stroking his beard. "Ajmer. From there, he can go south or west. South, along the foot of the Aravallis, toward the Gulf of Khambat. Maybe even Bharakuccha, where he could hope to rejoin his men."

  "Or west," added Udai, "to Barbaricum."

  "We will know soon enough," stated Sanga. He began striding toward the door. "Once he is out of the plains, he will start leaving tracks. We will find his tracks before Ajmer."

  Less than a minute later, five hundred Rajputs set their horses into motion. Not a frenzied gallop; just the determined canter of expert horsemen, with a thousand and a half miles ahead of them.

  He had never been a handsome man, true. But now, for the first time in his life, he was an object of ridicule.

  Children's ridicule. Palace children.

  Flat-face, they called him, behind his back. Or thought they did, not realizing how impossible it was to talk behind his back. The Frog, they snickered, or The Fish, or, most often, The Nose. Always, of course, in secret whispers. Not understanding, not in the least. The man noted the children, noted their names. Someday their powerful fathers would be dead.

  Thinking of those distant days, the man smiled. Then, thinking of a day nearer still, the smile deepened.

  It was a new smile, for that man. In days gone by, his smile—his grin—had been hearty and cheerful-seeming. The weeks of painful recovery had distorted the smile, almost as much as they had distorted his face.

  A cold, savage smile. A snarl, really.

  The new smile fitted the man much better than the old one ever had, in all truth. It looked like what it was, now. The smile of a spymaster, after ensuring his revenge.

  Couriers had been dispatched, again. Not royal couriers, riding royal roads. No, these couriers were a different breed altogether. Almost as fine horsemen, and far more lethal men.

  The best agents in Malwa's superb espionage service. Three of them, all of whom were familiar with the road to Rome. The northern route, this, the land road—not the slow, roundabout, southern sea-going route taken by most. These men would ride their horses, all with remounts, through the Hindu Kush. Through central Asia. Across Persia, using the network of Malwa spies already in place. Into Anatolia, with the aid of a similar—if smaller—network. And finally, to Constantinople.

  In Constantinople, they would pass their message to the Malwa agent in charge of the Roman mission. Balban would not be pleased at that message. It would result in much work being cast aside.

  But he would obey. Wondering, perhaps, if the orders stemmed from sagacity or malice. But he would obey.

  In point of fact, sagacity and malice were both at work. For all his fury, the spymaster was still a rational man. A professional at his trade.

  He knew, even if Balban still fooled himself, that the Roman general's duplicity had a partner. He realized, even if they did not, that the Malwa agents in Constantinople had been fooled as badly as he himself had been in India.

  No longer. Sagacity demanded the orders anyway. The fact that the same orders would be an exquisite revenge was almost incidental.

  Almost, but not quite.

  The spymaster smiled again. He was a realist. He knew that Belisarius might manage his escape from India. But the spymaster would have the satisfaction of robbing all pleasure from that escape.

  If Belisarius made his way home, he would find the place empty. The orders would reach Rome before he did.

  She is deceiving you, as he deceived us.

  Kill the whore.

  Chapter 21

  A hundred miles east of Ajmer, once they reached the dry country, the Pathan finally picked up Belisarius' tracks.

  By the time they reached the city, he was a thoroughly disillusioned man.

  "Not adopt this one never," he grumbled. "Very stupid beast. See no thing."

  The tracker leaned from his horse, scanned the road, snorted, spat noisily.

  "Probably he fuck goat. Think it wife."

  Spat noisily.

  "Pay no attention to no thing."

  Spat noisily.

  "Idiot blind man."

  Riding beside him, Sanga smiled wrily. Like most men with a narrow field of vision, the Pathan tended to judge people by very limited criteria.

  True, Belisarius had finally made a mistake. But it was a small mistake, by any reasonable standard. So small, in fact, that only an expert tracker would have spotted it.

  Somewhere along the way—hardly surprising, in weeks of travel—one of the Roman general's horses had cut its hoof. Nothing serious, in itself. Barely more than a nick, caused by a sharp stone. The horse itself would have hardly noticed, even at the time, and the "wound" in no way discomfited it.

  But it was just enough to leave a distinctive track. No one else had spotted it, but the Pathan had seen it imm
ediately. Several of the Rajputs, after the tracker pointed it out, had expressed their delight.

  Henceforth, Belisarius would be easy to find!

  The Pathan had derided their enthusiasm. Such a very good quickquick man, he assured them, would soon enough spot the mark himself. He would then remove it by carving away more of the tissue, leaving a hoof whose print would be indistinguishable from most others. If worse came to worst, and the mark could not be removed, the Roman would simply abandon the horse. He had four others, after all.

  But, as the days went on, the mark remained. Day after day, the tracker followed the trail, with the ease of a man following a lantern at night. Day after day, his estimate of Belisarius plummeted.

  By now, so far as the Pathan was concerned, Belisarius ranked very low in the natural order of things. Above a sheep, perhaps. Beneath a bullfrog, for a certainty.

  The robbery of the merchant simply confirmed his viewpoint. Sealed his opinion like lead seals a jar.

  Three days before Ajmer, the Rajputs had overtaken a merchant trudging alongside the road. The merchant was accompanied by two servants, each of whom was staggering under a weight of bundled trade goods.

  All three men were stark naked.

  When the Rajputs pulled alongside, the merchant immediately erupted into a frenzy of recrimination, denunciation, accusation, and reproach.

  Outrage that such a thing could come to pass!

  Where had been the authorities?

  Robbed on a royal road! By a royal Ye-tai bodyguard!

  Oh, yes! There was no mistake! The merchant was a well-traveled man! A sophisticated man! He had been to Kausambi itself! Many times!

  A royal bodyguard!

  Outrage! Outrage!

  Where had been the authorities?

  He demanded justice! Retribution!

  Most of all—restitution!

  Robbed by a royal bodyguard!

  Restitution was owed by the authorities!

  In the event, once the merchant calmed down enough to tell the entire tale, restitution proved simplicity itself. The only thing which the Ye-tai bandit seemed to have actually stolen was the clothing worn by the merchant and his servants.

  Nothing else, oddly enough. Not the merchant's money, not his trade goods—which were spices, too; quite valuable—not even the gold chain around the merchant's neck or the rings adorning his fingers.

  The Pathan was livid.

  "What kind midget-brain bandit this man?" he demanded hotly. "Cretin idiot!"

  The tracker glared at the merchant.

  "I rob you, fat boy, you be lucky have skin left. Gold chain, cut off head. Rings, chop fingers. Quick, quick."

  The Pathan leaned over his horse's neck, squinting fiercely at the servants. The two men edged back, trembling.

  "Old one I kill. Other one I take. Sell him to Uighurs." He straightened up. Leaned over. Spat noisily. "Roman most idiot beast alive," he concluded. He had not budged from that conclusion since.

  Sanga, on the other hand, thought the robbery was very shrewd. He had been wondering how Belisarius planned to make his way through Rajputana, especially in a city like Ajmer, disguised as a Ye-tai. In the Gangetic plain, a single Ye-tai leading a small train of horses would not particularly be remarked.

  In Rajputana, however, his situation would be different. Rajputs had no love for Ye-tai, to put it mildly. A single Ye-tai in Rajput country would encounter any number of difficulties very quickly, especially in a populous place like Ajmer. Those difficulties would range from bands of belligerent youngsters to keen-eyed authorities who were not in the least intimidated by a Ye-tai's red-and-gold uniform. Not in Rajputana, where the Malwa writ ran very light.

  By stealing the merchant's clothes, and that of the servants, Belisarius had provided himself with a perfect disguise. Itinerant merchants, traders, tinkers—traveling alone or in a small party—were commonplace throughout the arid stretches of western India. Sanga suspected that Belisarius would combine part of the merchant's relatively fine apparel with pieces of the servants' more humble clothing. The resulting pastiche would give him the semblance of a hardscrabble trader, barely a cut above a peddler.

  It was shrewd, too, for the Roman to have ignored the merchant's coins, jewelry and trade goods. Bandits and thieves were as common as merchants, in that part of India, and everyone kept an eye out for them. If Belisarius tried to sell the merchant's jewelry or goods, or use the coin, he would run the real risk of drawing suspicion upon himself.

  Sanga had noted, during the weeks of their pursuit, that Belisarius seemed to have always foraged for his food, rather than buying it. Buying food would have been much quicker. The main reason the Rajputs had been able to shorten the Roman's lead—the Pathan estimated he was only five days ahead of them, now—was because of the time which Belisarius had spent every day searching for food. For the most part, the Roman had hunted his food, with the bow and arrows he had taken from the relay station's soldiers. Occasionally, he had stolen from a local granary or orchard. But never, so far as the Rajputs or their Pathan trackers had been able to determine, had he bought food.

  Sanga was certain that was by choice, not necessity. Belisarius could not, of course, be carrying the immense treasure which the Malwa had bestowed upon him. But the Rajput was quite sure that Belisarius had kept a small amount of that treasure with him at all times. Just in case. That sort of elementary precaution would be second nature to such a man.

  Yet he had never used it. Partly, Sanga thought, that was because Belisarius feared the suspicion which the use of royal coin and jewelry would bring down. But mostly, he suspected, it was because Belisarius was saving his money for the coast. To hire a ship—to buy a ship, for that matter, if he had kept with him any one of a number of the gems in those chests.

  So Sanga felt the Pathan was being quite unreasonable. But he did not remonstrate with the man. It would be as pointless as arguing with a stone.

  The Rajput kinglet's chief tracker had been in his service for years, now. Ever since Sanga had captured him, after a ferocious single combat, during one of the many punitive campaigns against the mountain barbarians. The Pathan had been deeply impressed by his victor's skill and courage. So deeply, in fact, that he had begged Sanga to make him his own slave, rather than sell him to some unworthy fool.

  Sanga had granted the request, and had never regretted doing so. The Pathan had served him faithfully for years, even after Sanga manumitted him. Served him extremely well, in fact. But Sanga knew the limits of that man's horizon, and had long since given up any hope of changing them.

  Two days later, as the walls of Ajmer rose above the horizon, the Pathan was still grousing.

  "Fucking idiot beast," Sanga heard him mutter. "I rob merchant, I do merchant good. Him no complain. Him no tongue."

  At Ajmer, of course, they lost the tracks. Even a hoofprint far more distinctive than the one left by that little nick would have been obliterated by the traffic through the city. But Sanga was not concerned.

  He sent half of his men, and all the Pathan trackers, circling around Ajmer. Keeping far enough away from the city to avoid routine traffic, those men would eventually find the direction Belisarius had taken. The distinctive track, by now, was as unmistakeable to the Rajputs as to the Pathans. In the meantime, Sanga and his remaining soldiers began a systematic search of the city itself.

  They were looking for horses. For the memory of horses, to be precise.

  Rajputana was a land of horsemen. A ragged merchant, by himself, might pass through Ajmer unremarked. But Sanga knew, as surely as he knew his own name, that his countrymen would have certainly noticed the horses. Those marvelous, splendid, imperial steeds.

  And, sure enough, tracking the horses proved as easy as tracking the distinctive hoofprint. The memory trail was only five days old, and it led directly to the southern gate of the city. By mid-afternoon of the same day they arrived, Sanga was already interviewing the guards.

  "Oh, yes!" one
of them exclaimed. "As fine as any horses you've ever seen! As fine as royal courier steeds!"

  Another guard pointed to the road leading south. "They went that way. Five days ago."

  "The man," said Sanga. "What did he look like?"

  The guards looked at each other, puzzled.

  "Don't remember," said one. "Trader, maybe peddler."

  "I think he was tall," said another, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I think. I'm not sure. I was watching the horses."

  Two miles south of Ajmer, they encountered the rest of Sanga's horsemen and the Pathan trackers. Coming north with the news:

  The tracks had been spotted. Five miles out, on the road to the Gulf of Khambat.

  "Probably Bharakuccha," stated Jaimal, as they cantered south. Sanga's lieutenant gazed ahead and to their right. The sun was beginning to set behind the peaks of the Aravallis.

  "But maybe not," he mused. "Once he gets south of the Aravallis, he could cut west across the Rann of Kutch and follow the coast back up to Barbaricum. Be roundabout, but—"

  "He'd play hell trying to drive horses through that stinking mess," disputed Pratap. "And why bother?"

  The argument raged until they made camp that night. Sanga took no part in it. Trying to outguess Belisarius in the absence of hard information was pure foolishness, in his opinion. They would know soon enough. The tracks would tell the tale.

  His last thoughts, that night, before falling asleep, were a meditation on irony. So strange—so sad—that such a great man could be brought down, in the end, by something as petty as a stone in the road.

  Two days later, the Pathan was almost beside himself with outrage. What shred of respect he retained for Belisarius was now discarded completely.

  He leaned over the saddle. Spat noisily.

  "Great idiot beast! Knew him stupid like sheep. Now him lazy like sheep too!"

  He pointed an accusing finger at the tracks.

  "Look him horse pace. My grandmother faster. And she carcass. Many years dead now."

  Spat noisily.