The Dance of Time: Chapter Twenty Five

Kausambi

    Lady Damodara came into the chamber that served Dhruva and Lata as something in the way of a modest salon. There was no expression on her face, but her features seemed taut.

    “Valentinian? I’m not certain—neither is Rajiv—but...”

    Even after all these months, Dhruva could still be surprised at how quickly Valentinian moved when he wanted to. Before she quite knew what was happening, he’d plopped the baby he’d been playing with into her lap and was at the side of the one window in the room.

    His finger moved the curtain. Just slightly, and very briefly, as if a breeze had fluttered it.

    “It’s starting,” he said, turning away from the window.

    Lady Damodara was startled. “But you only glanced—”

    Then, seeing the look on Valentinian’s face, she smiled wryly. “Yes, I know. Stupid to question an expert.”

    Valentinian waved at Dhruva and Lata, who was perched on another settee. “Out, now. Into the tunnel. Lata, you make sure all the other maids and servants on this floor are moving. Don’t let them dilly-dally to pack anything, either. They’re supposed to be packed already.”

    Anastasius came into the room, scowling. “If you can tear yourself away from—oh. You know, I take it?”

    Valentinian scowled right back at him. “Why is it that philosophy never seems to help you with anything useful? Of course, I know. What’s the major domo up to?”

    “He’s getting everyone out of the kitchens. Rajiv and Khandik are rousting the rest of the servants on the floor above.”

    Valentinian nodded, and turned to Lady Damodara. “It will help if you and Lady Sanga take charge of the evacuation. Anastasius and I and the Ye-tai—and Rajiv—need to concentrate on the delaying action.”

    The tautness came back to Lady Damodara’s face. “Rajiv, too?”

    “Especially Rajiv,” said Valentinian. He gave her what he probably thought was a reassuring look. Even in the tension of the moment, Dhruva had to fight down a laugh. On his face, it didn’t look reassuring so much as simply sanguine.

    “We need him, Lady,” added Anastasius. “Rajiv’s more cool-headed than the Ye-tai. We’ve been training him to handle the charges.”

    “Oh.” The tautness faded. “You won’t have him in the front?”

    Valentinian started to say something that Dhruva was pretty sure would come out as a snarl, but Anastasius hastily interrupted.

    “That’d be silly, wouldn’t it? What I mean is, those tunnels aren’t wide enough for more than two men at the front, and what with me and Valentinian—” He waved a huge hand at his glowering comrade. “No room for Rajiv there, anyway.”

    “We’re wasting time,” snarled Valentinian. “The boy goes with us, Lady Damodara. No way I want some damn Ye-tai deciding when to blow the charges.”

 

---

 

    By the time Dhruva and Lata got all the servants and maids chivvied into the cellars, some order had been brought to the initial chaos.

    Quite a bit, actually. Between them, the wives of Damodara and Rana Sanga practically oozed authority, and the major domo was always there to handle the little details. Most of the cooks and servants and maids were now being guided into the tunnel by the Bihari miners.

    That, too, had been planned long before. One miner for every four servants. True, they were now short the two murdered miners—and shorter still, in terms of the Ye-tai mercenaries who were supposed to oversee the whole operation. Still, there was no trouble. Khandik and one of the other two remaining mercenaries were staying in the cellars to help with the evacuation. The third one was upstairs with the two Roman cataphracts and Rajiv.

    Things were even orderly enough for Lata to do a quick count.

    “We’re missing one of the maids, I think. That one—I can’t remember her name—who helps with the washing.”

    Dhruva scanned the faces, trying to place her. The two sisters hadn’t had much contact with the servants on the upper floors, as a rule. But because Lady Damodara insisted that all clothes washing had to be done indoors, they did encounter the ones who came to the laundry.

    “I don’t know her name either, but I know you who mean. The one... Well. She’s pretty stupid, from what I could tell.”

    They saw the major-domo walking quickly toward Lady Damodara and Sanga’s wife, who were standing in the center of the big cellar watching over everything. From the frown on his face, Dhruva was pretty sure he’d just finished his own head count and had come to the same conclusion.

    A moment later, he and the two ladies were talking. All of them were now frowning. The two sisters couldn’t hear the words, but the subject was fairly obvious.

    “I better help,” Lata said. “Will you be all right with the baby?”

    “Yes. I’ll wait till the last. Be careful.”

    Lata hurried over. Sanga’s wife spotted her coming almost instantly. A faint look of relief came to her face.

    As Lata neared, Lady Sanga interrupted the major domo. “Yes, fine.” She pointed at Lata. “We can send her upstairs to find out what happened to the girl.”

    Lady Damodara looked at Lata and gave her a quick nod. An instant later, she was scampering up the stairs.

 

---

 

    Even before she got to the main floor, she could hear the dull booming. The Malwa soldiery must be trying to batter down the main entrance door. Over the months, as discreetly as possible, Lady Damodara had had iron bars placed over all the windows on the palace’s ground floor. To stymie thieves, she’d claimed, the one time a Malwa city official had investigated. He’d probably thought the explanation was silly, since that wealthy part of Kausambi with its frequent military patrols was hardly a place that any sensible thief would ply his trade. But he hadn’t pursued the matter.

    Now, that official would probably lose his head for negligence. Or be impaled on a stake, if the secret police decided that more than negligence was involved. The only way into the palace for troops trying to storm it quickly was through the main entrance. And that wasn’t going to be quick, even with battering rams, as heavy and well-braced and barred as it now was.

    Lata reached the landing and scampered toward the sound of the booming. The cataphracts would be there, of course.

 

---

 

---

 

    So, indeed, they were. Along with Rajiv and the third Ye-tai mercenary, they were standing in a small alcove at the far end of the great entry vestibule. The same alcove that Lata entered, since it was the one that led to the basement floor and the cellars below.

    “One of the maids is—”

    Anastasius waved her down, without turning his head. “We know, Lata. She’s over there.”

    Lata looked past him. Sure enough, the missing maid was cowering against a far wall of the vestibule.

    “Come here, girl!” Rajiv shouted. “There’s still time!”

    There was plenty of time, in fact. The main door shook again, booming fiercely as whatever battering ram the soldiery had smashed into it. But, beyond loosening one of the hinges, the blow seemed to have no impact. The door would stand for at least another minute or two. More than enough time for the maid to saunter across to the alcove and the safety beyond, much less run.

    But it didn’t matter. The girl was obviously too petrified to think at all, even if she weren’t dim-witted to begin with. She’d been overlooked in the initial evacuation, and now...

    “Step aside, Rajiv,” Valentinian said harshly.

    Lata could see the shoulders of the young Rajput prince tighten. He didn’t move from his position at the front of the alcove.

    “Obey me, boy.”

    Rajiv took a shuddering little breath; then, moved aside and flattened himself against the wall.

    Valentinian already had an arrow notched. The bow came up quickly, easily; the draw, likewise. Lata wasn’t astonished, even though Valentinian had once let her draw that bow when she’d expressed curiosity.

    Try to draw it, rather. She might as well have tried to lift an ox.

    She never really saw the arrow’s flight. Just stared, as the poor stupid maid was pinned to the far wall like a butterfly. Only a foot or so of the arrow protruded from her chest. The arrowhead had passed right through her and sunk into the thick wood of the wall.

    Valentinian had no expression on his face at all. Another arrow was already out of the quiver and notched.

    “It was quick, Rajiv,” said Anastasius quietly. “In the heart. We can’t leave anyone behind who might talk, you know that. And we need you now on the detonator.”

    Tight-faced, Rajiv nodded and came toward Lata. Looking down, Lata saw an odd-looking contraption on the floor not more than three feet away from her. It was a small wooden box with a wire leading from it into the wall of the alcove, and a knobbed handle sticking up from the middle. A plunger of some kind, she thought.

    Rajiv didn’t look at Valentinian as he passed him. He seemed surprised to see Lata. And, from the look on his face, a bit frightened.

    “You have to go below!” He glanced back, as if to look at Valentinian. “Quickly.”

    “I just came up to see what happened to her. We took a count and...”

    Turning his head slightly, Valentinian said over his shoulder: “Get below, Lata. Now.”

 

---

 

    Once she was back in the cellar, she just shook her head in response to the question in Lady Damodara’s raised eyebrows.

    The lady seemed to understand. She nodded and looked away.

    “What happened?” Dhruva hissed.

    “Never mind. She’s dead.” Lata half-pushed her sister toward the tunnel. “We’re almost the last ones. Let’s get in there. We’re just in the way, now.”

    There were two Bihari miners left, still standing by the entrance. One of them came to escort them.

    “This way, ladies. You’ll have to stoop a little. Do you need help with the baby?”

    “Don’t be silly,” Dhruva replied.

 

---

 

    The upper hinge gave first. Once the integrity of the door was breached, three more blows from the battering ram were enough to knock it complete aside.

    By the time those blows were finished, Valentinian had already fired four arrows through the widening gap. Each one of them killed a Malwa soldier in the huge mass of soldiery Rajiv could see on the street beyond.

    Anastasius fired only once. His arrow, even more powerfully shot, took a Malwa in the shoulder. Hitting the armor there, it spun him into the mob.

    The Ye-tai mercenary fired also. Twice, Rajiv thought, but he wasn’t paying him any attention. He was settling his nerves from the killing of the maid by coldly gauging the archery skill of the two cataphracts against his father’s.

    Anastasius was more powerful, but much slower; Valentinian, faster than his father—and as accurate—but not as powerful.

    So, a Rajput prince concluded, his father remained the greatest archer in the world. In India, at least.

    That was some satisfaction. Rajput notions concerning the responsibility of a lord to his retainers were just as stiff as all their notions. Even if, technically, the maid was simply a servant and not one of Rajiv’s anyway, her casual murder had raised his hackles.

    Don’t be silly, part of his mind said to him. Your father would have done the same.

    Rajiv shook his head. Not so quickly! he protested. Not so—so—

    The voice came again. Uncaringly? Probably true. And so what? She’d have been just as dead. Don’t ever think otherwise. To you, he’s a father and a great warrior. To his enemies, he’s never been anything but a cold and deadly killer.

    And you are his son—and do you intend to flinch when the time comes to push that plunger? Most of the men you’ll destroy when you do so are peasants, and some of them none too intelligent. Does a stupid maid have a right to live, and they, not?

    The door finally came off the hinges altogether and smashed—what was left of it—onto the tiles of the huge vestibule. Malwa soldiers came pouring in.

    Valentinian fired three more times, faster than Rajiv could really follow. Valentinian, once; the Ye-tai, once. Four Malwa soldier fell dead. One—the Ye-tai’s target—was merely wounded.

    Valentinian stepped back quickly into the shelter of the alcove. Anastasius and the Ye-tai followed, an instant later.

    “Now,” commanded Valentinian.

    Rajiv’s hand struck down the plunger.

    The charges carefully implanted in the walls of the vestibule turned the whole room into an abattoir. In the months they’d had to prepare, the major domo had even been able to secretly buy good drop shot on the black market. So it was real bullets that the mines sent flying into the room, not haphazard pieces of metal.

    Rajiv supposed that some of the soldiers in the room must have survived. One or two, perhaps not even injured.

    But not many. In a split second, he’d killed more men than most seasoned warriors would kill in a lifetime.

 

---

 

    Somewhere on the stairs leading to the cellars, Rajiv uttered his one and only protest.

    “I didn’t hesitate. Not at all.”

    Anastasius smiled. “Well, of course not.”

    Valentinian shook his head. “Don’t get melancholy and philosophical on me, boy. You’ve still got to do it twice more. Today.”

    For some reason, that didn’t bother Rajiv.

    Maybe that was because his enemies now had fair warning.

    He said as much.

    Anastasius smiled again, more broadly. At the foot of the stairs, now in the cellar, Valentinian turned around and glared at him.

    “Who cares about ‘fair warnings’? Dead is dead and we all die anyway. Just do it.”

    Anastasius, now also at the bottom of the stairs, cleared his throat. “If I may put Valentinian’s viewpoint in proper Stoic terms, what he means to say—”

    “Is exactly what the fuck I said,” Valentinian hissed. “Just do it.”

    He glanced up the stairs. “In about ten minutes, at a guess.”

 

---

 

    His guess was off, a bit. Rajiv didn’t blow the next charges for at least a quarter of an hour.

    Whether because he’d satisfied himself concerning the ethics of the issue, or simply because Valentinian’s cold-blooded murderousness was infectious, he wasn’t sure. For whatever reason, Rajiv had no trouble waiting until the cellars were full of Malwa soldiery, probing uncertainly in the torch-lit darkness to find whatever hole their quarry had scurried into.

    From the still greater darkness of the tunnel, Rajiv gauged the moment. He even out-waited Valentinian.

    “Now, boy.”

    “Not yet.”

    Two minutes later, he drove in the next plunger. The same type of shaped-charge mines implanted in the walls of the cellars turned those underground chambers into more abattoirs.

    “Quickly, now!” urged Anastasius, already lumbering at a half-crouch down the tunnel. “We’ve got to get to the shelter as soon as possible. Before they can figure out—”

    He continued in that vein, explaining the self-evident to people who already knew the plan by heart. Rajiv ignored him. Looking ahead, down the tunnel, he could see the figure of the Ye-tai already vanishing in the half-gloom thrown out by the few oil lamps still in place. Valentinian was close on his heels.

    “You’re doing good, boy,” said the Mongoose. “Really, really good.”

    All things considered, Rajiv decided the Roman cataphract was right.

    To be sure, this was not something he’d ever brag about. On the other hand...

    When did you ever hear your father brag? came that little, back-of-the-mind voice.

    The answer was: Never.

    Rajiv had noticed that, in times past. Now, finally, he thought he understood it. And, for the first time in his life, came to feel something for his father beyond love, admiration and respect.

    Simple affection. Nothing fancy. Just the sort of fondness that a man—a woman too, he supposed—feels when he thinks about someone who has shared a task and a hardship.

 

---

 

    When they reached the shelter, even Valentinian took a deep breath.

    “Well,” he muttered, “this is where we find out. God damn all Biharis—miners down to newborn babes—if it doesn’t.”

    The Ye-tai just looked blank-faced. Anastasius’ eyes flicked about the small chamber, with its massive bracing. “Looks good, anyway.”

    It seemed fitting, somehow, for Rajiv to finally take charge. “Place the barrier.” It seemed silly to call that great heavy thing a “door.”

    He pointed to it, propped against the entrance they’d just come through. “Anastasius, you’re the only one strong enough to hold it in place. Valentinian, you set the braces. You”—this to the Ye-tai—“help him.”

    The work was done quickly. The last of it was setting the angled braces that supplemented the great cross-bars and strengthened the door by propping it against the floor.

    There was no point in waiting. The shelter would either hold, or they’d all be crushed. But there’d be no point to any of it if Rajiv didn’t blow the last charges before the surviving Malwa in the palace that was now over a hundred yards distant as well as many feet above them had time to realize what had happened.

    “I guess you’d better—” Valentinian started to say, but Rajiv’s hand had already driven home the plunger.

    “Well, shit,” he added, before the earthquake made it impossible to talk at all.

 

---

 

    The Malwa general in command of the entire operation had remained outside the palace. After he was knocked off his feet, he stared dumbfounded as the walls of the palace seemed to erupt all around the base.

    The palace came down, like a stone avalanche.

    Some of those stones were large, others were really pieces of wall that had somehow remained intact.

    Some were blown a considerable distance by the explosion. Others bounced, after they fell.

    Scrambling frantically, the general managed to avoid all the ones sent sailing by the blast. But as close as he’d been standing, he didn’t escape one section of wall—a very big section—as it disintegrated.

 

---

 

    A few minutes later, his second-in-command and now successor was able to finally piece together the few coherent reports he could get.

    There weren’t many, and they weren’t all that coherent. Only three of the soldiers who had gone into the palace were still alive, and one of them was too badly injured to talk. None of the soldiers who’d gone into the cellar had survived, of course.

    But he was pretty sure he knew what had happened, and hastened to make his report to Emperor Skandagupta.

 

---

 

    In his own far greater palace, the Emperor waited impatiently for the officer to finish.

    When he was done, Skandagupta shook his head. “They all committed suicide? That’s nonsense.”

    He pointed at the officer. “Execute this incompetent.”

    Once that was done, the Emperor gave his orders. They were not complicated.

    “Dig. Remove all the rubble. There’s an escape tunnel there somewhere. I want it found.”

    Carefully—very carefully—none of his advisers allowed any of their dismay to show. Not with the Emperor in such a foul and murderous mood.

    Not one of them wanted to draw his attention. It would take days to clear away all that rubble. Long, long days, in which the Emperor would probably have at least one or two more men executed for incompetence.

    At least. As the advisers assigned to the task of excavation started filing out of the imperial audience chamber, Skandagupta was already giving orders to discover which incompetent—no, which traitor—in charge of the capital’s munitions supply had been so corrupt or careless—no, treasonous—to allow such a huge quantity of gunpowder to slip through his fingers.

 

---

 

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    After the advisers reached the relative safety of the streets outside the palace, they went their separate ways to begin organizing the excavation project.

    All but one of them, that is. That one, after he was certain no one was watching him, headed for Kausambi’s northern gate.

    The city was still in a state of semi-chaos, so soon after the word of Damodara’s rebellion had spread everywhere from the telegraph stations, despite the secret police’s attempts to suppress the news. The destruction of Lady Damodara’s palace, right in the middle of the imperial quarter, would simply add to it.

    The adviser thought he had a good chance of slipping out of the city unnoticed, if he moved immediately. He had no choice, in any event, if he had any hope of staying alive himself or keeping his wife and children alive.

    True, the adviser had no connection to Kausambi’s munitions depot. But one of his first cousins was in charge of it, and the adviser knew perfectly well the man was not only corrupt but careless. He had no doubt at all that an investigation would soon discover that Lady Damodara’s agents had simply bought the gunpowder. Probably had it delivered to the palace in the munitions depot’s own wagons.

    Fortunately, his wife and two children had remained in their home town farther down the Ganges. With luck he could get there in time to get them out. He had enough money on his person to bribe the guards at the gate and even hire transport. There was considerably more money in their mansion. With that, they might be able to escape into Bengal somewhere...

    Beyond that, he thought no further. There was no point in it. He could feel the Malwa Empire cracking and breaking under his feet. With that greatest of all the world’s certainties shaking, what man could possibly foresee the future?

 

---

 

    He made it out of the city. But, within a day, was captured by a cavalry patrol. The Emperor had soon considered that possibility also, and had placed a ban on any officials leaving Kausambi without written orders. By then, his savage punitive actions had terrified the city’s soldiery enough that the guards at the gate whom the adviser had bribed prattled freely to the secret police.

    Before noon of the next day, the adviser’s body was on a stake outside Skandagupta’s palace. Four days later, the bodies of his wife and two children joined him. The soldiers had some trouble fitting the boy, since he was only three.

    Not much, however. By then, Skandagupta’s fury was cutting through the imperial elite like a scythe, and small stakes were being prepared. Plenty of them.

 

---

 

    “He’s hysterical,” Lady Damodara said, pinched-faced, after getting the latest news from one of the stable-keeper’s sons. “Even for Skandagupta, this is insane.”

    Sanga’s wife shifted a bit on her cushions. The cushions were thinner than she was used to, and—worse—their quarters were extremely crowded. The entire staff from the palace was crammed into the last stretch of the tunnel while they waited for the first search of the city to run its course. So were over a dozen miners. But she knew that even after they were able to move into the stables, in a few days, the conditions wouldn’t improve all that much.

    As places of exile went, the stables would be utterly wretched. As a place of refuge from the Malwa madness sweeping the city and leaving hundreds of people staked outside the imperial palace, however, it would be superb.

    She gave the stable-keeper’s son a level look. “Are you frightened, Tarun?”

    The twelve-year-old boy swallowed. “Some, Lady. Not too much, though. The soldiers who searched the stables this morning were irritated, but they didn’t take it out on us, and they didn’t search all that seriously. They didn’t really search at all in the stable that has the hidden door leading to this tunnel. Since then, our parents and our sisters stay out of sight, but my brother and I can move around on the streets easily enough. The soldiers even answer our questions, usually. They really aren’t paying much attention to... Well. People like us.”

    Lady Damodara chuckled, humorlessly. “So Narses predicted. ‘You’ll be lost in Kausambi’s ocean of poverty,’ were his exact words. I remember. Damn his soul.”

    “No,” said Rajiv forcefully. “Damn Malwa’s soul.”

    Both ladies gave him a level look.

    “The false Malwa, I mean,” added Rajiv hastily.

    Lady Damodara’s chuckle, this time, had a bit of humor in it. “Look at it this way, Rajiv. When it’s all over, if we survive, we can look at Skandagupta on a stake.”

    “You think so?” asked Rajiv.

    “Oh, yes,” said the lady serenely.

    Lady Sanga sniffed. “Maybe. By the time he gets here, Rajiv, your father’s temper will be up. They’ll need toothpicks. I doubt if even Lord Damodara will be able to restrain him enough to keep some portion of Skandagupta’s body suitably sized for a stake.”

    “He probably won’t even try,” allowed Lady Damodara. “Now that I think about it.”