Destiny's Shield

"Not much of an alternative, that. The King of Tamraparni is not going to be pleased when he hears how Shakuntala used his name in vain. His own son in marriage, no less!"

Holkar made no reply. For a few minutes, the two men simply stared out at nothing. Nothing but beautiful, blinding, concealing, sheets of rain.

Eventually, Kungas cleared his throat.

"Speaking of marriage," he stated.

Holkar grimaced. "She refuses to even discuss it," he said softly. "Believe me, my friend, I have tried to broach the subject on many occasions. Each time, she says the question is premature."

Kungas twitched his shoulders. "That's not the point. For her to marry anyone now would be premature. She has nothing to offer, at the moment, in exchange for an alliance with real forces. But after we take Suppara—after we demonstrate to India, and all the world, that Andhra intends to hold southern Majarashtra—then the question of a dynastic marriage will pose itself. She must start thinking about it, Dadaji. Or else she will be paralyzed when the time comes."

The Empress' adviser sighed. "You know the problem, my friend."

Kungas stared out to sea. Nodded once, twice. "She is in love with Rao."

Holkar blew out his cheeks. "Please," he growled. "It is the infatuation of a young girl with a man she knew only as a child. She has not seen him—hardly at all—in two years."

"She has seen him for a few hours only, during that time," agreed Kungas. His voice rumbled like stones: "After he gutted the Vile One's palace in order to rescue her. Quite a reunion, that must have been."

Holkar said nothing. Kungas turned his head away, as if something had caught his eye.

In truth, he simply didn't want Holkar to see his face. Not even Kungas, at that moment, could keep from smiling.

Excellent. The thought was full of satisfaction. Excellent—"child"! Poor Holkar. Even he—even he—is blind on this point.

For a moment, as he had many times before, Kungas found himself bemused by that peculiarly Indian obsession with purity and pollution. Even his friend Dadaji could not entirely escape its clutches.

So blind, these Indians. When the truth is so obvious.

He turned away from the rail.

"Enough rain," he announced. "I'm going below. The action's going to start soon, anyway. I have to get ready, in case I'm needed."

As he walked across the deck toward the hatch, Kungas' face was invisible to anyone. Now, finally, he allowed his grin to emerge.

Stay stubborn, Shakuntala. Dig in your heels, girl, refuse to discuss it. When the question of marriage is finally posed, you will know what to do. Then, you will know.

He shook his head, slightly.

So obvious!

An hour later, the fleet changed its course. The change was slow—erratic, confused, haphazard. Part of that fumbling was due to the simple fact that the troop commanders on every ship had a different estimate of the right moment to give the command. The only time-keeping devices available to them were hour-glasses and sundials. Sundials were useless in the pouring monsoon. Hourglasses, under these circumstances, just as much so. It would have been impossible to provide each commander with an identical hourglass, much less have them turned over simultaneously.

So, each commander simply gave the order when he thought the time was right.

Most of the confusion, however, was due to the fact that the crews and captains of the merchant ships were bitterly opposed to the change of course. They had been hired to transport the Empress and her people to Tamraparni. They were not, to put it mildly, pleased to hear that the destination had been changed—especially when they discovered the new one.

Suppara? Are you mad? The Malwa hold Suppara!

But the captains of the ships were not the commanders. The commanders were a very different breed altogether. Kushans and Maratha cavalrymen, in the main, who cheerfully accepted the berating abuse of the Keralan ship captains.

For about one minute. Then the steel was drawn.

Thereafter, Keralan captains and seamen scurried about their new-found task. Grumbling, to be sure. But they had no illusions that they could overpower the squads of soldiers placed on each ship. Not those soldiers.

One crew tried. Led by a particularly belligerent captain, the Keralan seamen dug out their own weapons and launched a mutiny. They outnumbered the soldiers two-to-one, after all. Perhaps they thought their numbers would make the difference.