The Tide of Victory

Belisarius stooped and flipped the covering back over its grisly contents. "We'll send this to Constantinople. I'll include instructions—`recommendations,' I suppose I should say—to my son. Photius will see to it that John of Rhodes gets a solemn state funeral, by God. With all the pomp and splendor."

Even in the sorrow of the moment, that statement caused a little chuckle to emerge from the crowd of Roman officers standing nearby.

"I'd love to be there," murmured one of them. "Be worth it just to see the sour faces on all those senators John cuckolded."

Belisarius smiled, very crookedly. "John will answer to God for his failings." The smile vanished, and the next words rang like iron hammered on an anvil. "But there will be no man to say that he failed in his duty to the Empire. None."

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Framed

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Chapter 9

INDIA

Spring, 533 A.D.

"I've had enough," snarled Raghunath Rao. "Enough!"

He spent another few seconds glaring at the corpses impaled in the village square, before turning away and moving toward the horses. Some of the Maratha cavalrymen in Rao's company began removing the bodies from the stakes and preparing a funeral pyre.

Around them, scurrying to gather up their few possessions, the villagers made ready to join Rao's men in their march back to Deogiri. None would be foolish enough to remain behind, not after the Wind of the Great Country had scoured another Malwa garrison from the face of the earth. Malwa repercussions would be sure to follow. Lord Venandakatra, the Goptri of the Deccan, had long ago pronounced a simple policy. Any villagers found anywhere in the area where the Maratha rebellion struck a blow would pay the penalty. The Vile One's penalties began with impalement. "Ringleaders" would be taken to Bharakuccha for more severe measures.

Other soldiers in Rao's company had already finished executing the survivors of the little Malwa garrison they had overrun. Unlike the villagers who had been impaled—"rebels," by Malwa decree; and many of them were—Rao's men had satisfied themselves with quick decapitations. Some of the cavalrymen were piling the heads in a small mound at the center of the village. There would be no honorable funeral pyre for that carrion. Others were readying the horses for the march.

"Enough, Maloji," Rao murmured to his lieutenant. For all the softness of his tone, the sound of it was a panther's growl. "The time has come. Lord Venandakatra has outlived his welcome in this turn of the wheel."

Maloji eyed him skeptically. "The empress is already unhappy enough with you for participating in these raids. Do you seriously expect—"

"I am her husband!" barked Rao. But, a moment later, the stiffness in his face dissolved. Rao was too much the philosopher to place much credence in customary notions of a wife's proper place in the world. Any wife, much less his. Trying to browbeat the empress Shakuntala—wifely status be damned; age difference be damned—was as futile a project as he could imagine.

"I made her a promise," he said softly. "But once that promise is fulfilled, I am free. To that, she agreed. Soon, now."

Maloji was still skeptical. Or, perhaps, simply stoic. "It's a first pregnancy, old friend. There are often complications."

Finally, Rao's usual good humor came back. "With her? Be serious!" He gathered up the reins of his horse with one hand while making an imperious gesture with the other. "She will simply decree the thing: Child, be born—and don't give me any crap about it."

* * *

In her palace at Deogiri, Shakuntala was filled with quite a different sentiment. Staring down at her swollen belly, her face was full of apprehension.

"It will hurt, some," said Gautami. Dadaji Holkar's wife smiled reassuringly and placed a gentle hand on the empress' shoulder. "But even as small as you are, your hips are well-shaped. I really don't think—"

Shakuntala brushed the matter aside. "I'm not worried about that. It's these ugly stretch marks. Will they go away?"

Abruptly, with a heavy sigh, Shakuntala folded the robe back around herself. Gautami studied her carefully. She did not think the empress was really concerned about the matter of the stretch marks. If nothing else, Shakuntala was too supremely self-confident to worry much over such simple female vanities. And she certainly wasn't concerned about losing Rao's affections.

That left—

Shakuntala confirmed the suspicion. "Soon," she whispered, stroking her belly. "Soon the child will be born, and the dynasty assured. And Rao will demand his release. As I promised."

Gautami hesitated. Her husband was the peshwa of the empire of Andhra, reborn out of the ashes which Malwa had thought to leave it. As such, Gautami was privy to almost every imperial secret. But, still, she was the same woman who had been born and raised in a humble town in Majarashtra. She did not feel comfortable in these waters.