Fortune's stroke

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 youthat," 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 backnothing,' " 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.