In the Heart of Darkness

"Through the guardhouse, then," he commanded. Kungas began loping up the street toward the side-door where the two Ye-tai had been standing earlier. His men followed, with that same ground-eating lope. Quick, quick. Shakuntala was struck by the almost total absence of noise as they ran. Some of that silence was due to the soft shoes which the Kushans favored over heavy sandals. But most of it, she thought, was the product of skill and training.

Shakuntala and the Maratha women followed. More slowly, however, much more slowly. Saris complimented the female figure, but they did not lend themselves well to speedy movement. Frustrated, Shakuntala made a solemn vow to herself. In the days to come, among her many other responsibilities, she would inaugurate a radical change in feminine fashion.

She had time, in that endless shuffle up the street, to settle on a style. Pantaloons, she decided, modeled on those of Cholan dancers she had seen. More subdued, of course, and tastefully dyed, to mollify propriety and sentiment. But pantaloons, nonetheless, which did not impede a woman's legs.

She saw, ahead of her, the Kushans charge into the guardhouse. The sounds of violent battle erupted instantly. A harsh clangor of steel and fury, flesh-shredding and terror. The quiet street seemed to howl with the noise.

Cursing bitterly, she sped up her shuffle. The battle sounds reached a crescendo.

Shuffle, curse. Shuffle, curse. Shuffle, curse.

The guardhouse was still ten yards distant. The sounds coming through the open door suddenly ceased.

Finally, finally, she reached the door. Shuffled into the guardhouse.

Stopped. Very abruptly. Behind her, the Maratha women bumped into her back. Tarabai and Ahilyabai peeked over the shorter shoulders of their Empress. Gasped. Gagged.

Shakuntala did not gasp, or gag. She made no sound at all.

Hers was a fierce, fierce heart. The ferocity of that heart, in the decades to come, would be a part of the legacy which she would leave behind her. A legacy so powerful that historians of the future, with a unanimity of opinion rare to that fractious breed, would call her Shakuntala the Great. But even that heart, at that moment, quailed.

The Kushans had gone through the Ye-tai like wolves through a flock of sheep. Like werewolves.

The floor was literally awash in blood. Not a single Ye-tai, so far as she could see, was still bodily intact. The barbarians were not simply dead. Their corpses were gutted, beheaded, amputated, cloven, gashed, sliced, ribboned. The room looked like the interior of a slaughterhouse. A slaughterhouse owned and operated by the world's sloppiest, hastiest, most maniacal butcher.

Her eyes met those of Kungas across the room. The commander of her bodyguard had a few bloodstains on his tunic and light armor, but not many. He was down on one knee, wiping his sword on a Ye-tai's tunic. His face, as always, showed nothing. Neither horror, nor fury, nor even satisfaction in a job well done. So might a mask of iron, suspended on a wall of brimstone, survey damnation and hellfire.

Strangely, then, the emotion which swept through Shakuntala's soul was love. Love, and forgiveness.

Not for Kungas, but for Rao. She had never, quite—not in the innermost recesses of what was still, in some ways, a child's heart—forgiven Rao. Forgiven him, for the months she had remained in captivity before he finally rescued her. Weeks, at the end, in Venandakatra's palace at Gwalior, while she paced the battlements and halls, guarded by Kungas and his Kushans, knowing—sensing—that Rao was lurking in the forest beyond. Lurking, but never coming. Watching, but never striking.

She had cursed him, then—somewhere in that child's innermost heart—for a coward. Cursed him for his fear of Kungas.

Now, finally, the curse was repudiated. Now, finally, she understood.

Understanding brought the Empress back. The child vanished, along with its quailing heart.

"Excellent," she said. "Very excellent."

Kungas nodded. His men smiled. None of them, she was relieved to see, was badly hurt. Only two were binding up wounds, and those were obviously minor.

Kungas jerked his head toward a door at the far end of the guardhouse.

"That leads into the armory itself. It is not barred."

"We must hurry," said Shakuntala. She eyed the floor, trying to find a way to cross without leaving her feet soaked with blood.

Two of the Kushan soldiers—grinning, now—solved the problem in the simplest way possible. They grabbed Ye-tai corpses and dumped them on the floor, forming a corduroy road of dead flesh.

Shakuntala, never hesitating, marched across that grisly path. More gingerly, her women followed.