The Dance of Time

Ajatasutra waved his hand. "What does it matter? I won't be one of the poor fellows sweating and bleeding in this desperate endeavor."

Easily, gracefully, he came to his feet. "I'm just a messenger boy, remember?"

The two Roman soldiers looked at each other. Anastasius seemed reasonably philosophical about the matter. Valentinian didn't.

But Valentinian wasn't inclined to argue the point, any more than Anastasius. They'd miss the assassin's skills—miss them mightily—when the time came. But long hours of discussion and argument had led all of them to the same conclusion:

Nothing would matter, if Sanga wasn't there at the right time. That meant someone had to get word to him, across a north Indian plain that was turning into a giant, sprawling, chaotic, confused battlefield.

A simple courier's job—but one that would require the skills of an assassin.

"You don't have to gloat about it!" snapped Valentinian.

Ajatasutra just smiled.

* * *

"You don't have to gloat!" complained Photius.

Tahmina gave him that half-serene, half-pitying look that was the single habit of his wife's that the eleven-year-old emperor of Rome positively hated. Especially because she always did it looking down at him. Even while they were sitting.

"Stop whining," she said. "It's not my fault if you make elephants nervous. They seem to like me."

Gingerly, Photius leaned out over the edge of the howdah and gazed at the Bharakucchan street passing below.

Very, very far below.

"It's not natural," he insisted.

Tahmina just smiled.

* * *

"Tempting, isn't it?" said Maloji.

From their position on the very crest of the Vindhyas, Rao and Maloji gazed out over the landscape of northern India, fading below them into the distance. Visibility was excellent, since they were still some weeks from the monsoon season.

Rao glanced at Maloji, then at the hill fortress his Maratha soldiers were building some dozens of yards away.

"I won't deny it. We'd still be fools to accept that temptation."

He looked back to the north, pointing with his chin. "For the first few hundred miles, everything would go well. By now, between them, Damodara and Belisarius will have turned half the Ganges plain into a whirlpool of war. Easy pickings for us, on the edges. But then?"

He shook his head. "There are too many north Indians. And regardless of who wins this civil war, soon enough there will be another empire solidly in place. Then what?"

"Yes, I know. But at least we'd get some of our own back, after all the killing and plundering the bastards did in the Deccan. For that matter, they've still got a huge garrison in Amaravati."

"Not for long, they won't. Shakuntala got the word a few days ago. All of our south Indian allies have agreed to join us in our expedition to Amaravati, once we've finished this line of hill forts. The Cholas and Keralans even look to be sending large armies. Within two months—perhaps three—that garrison will be gone. One way or the other. So will all the others, in the smaller towns and cities. They'll march their bodies out of the Deccan, or we'll scatter their ashes across it."

"'Allies,'" Maloji muttered.

In truth, the other realms of south India had played no role at all in the actual fighting, up till now. As important as the alliance was for the Andhran empire for diplomatic reasons, most of Shakuntala's subjects—especially the Marathas—were contemptuous of the other Deccan powers.

"Patience, Maloji, patience. They were disunited, and the Malwa terrified them for decades. Now that we've shown they can be beaten, even if Damodara's rebellion fails and Skandagupta keeps the throne, the rest of the Deccan will cleave to us. They'll have no choice, anyway. But with our foreign allies—all the aid we can expect through Bharakuccha, if we need it—they'll even be sanguine about it."

"Bharakuccha," Maloji muttered.

Rao laughed. "Oh, leave off! As great an empire as Andhra has now become, we can well afford to give up one city. Two cities, if you count the Axumite presence in Chowpatty. What do we care? There are other ports we can expand, if we desire it. And having the Ethiopians with their own interests in the Indian trade, we'll automatically have their support also, in the event the Malwa start the war up again."

"They're not that big."

"No—which is exactly why we agreed to let them have Bharakuccha. They're no threat to us. But they probably have the most powerful navy in the Erythrean Sea, today. That means the Malwa won't be able to prevent the Romans from sending us all the material support we need."

Judging from the expression on his face, Maloji was still not entirely mollified. "But would they?"

"As long as Belisarius is alive, yes," replied Rao serenely. "And he's still a young man."

"A young man leading an army into the middle of the Gangetic plain. Who's to say he's even still alive?"

Rao just smiled.

* * *

Belisarius himself was scowling.