The Dance of Time: Chapter Twenty Eight

Kausambi

    “They’ll be doing another search of the city,” Anastasius said. “For sure and certain.”

    Lady Damodara looked around the stall in the stable that had been turned into her personal chamber. Then, she smiled very crookedly.

    “Who would have thought the day would come that I’d regard a stable stall as luxurious surroundings?”

    Lady Sanga was smiling just as crookedly. “Living in a tunnel gives you a sense of proportion. Anything is better than that. Still, Anastasius is right. We can’t take the risk.”

    Lady Damodara sighed. “Yes. I know. The next search might be more thorough. There’s really no way to keep soldiers out of this stable if they insist on coming in. As it is”—she gave Valentinian a sly glance—“we’ll have to work hard and fast to remove any traces that we were here.”

    Valentinian returned the glance with a scowl. He’d argued against moving into the stable at all, preferring to remain the whole time in the enlarged tunnel below. Eventually, he’d given in, for the sole reason that providing the hideaways with enough edible food was too difficult if they stayed for very long in the tunnels.

    The problem wasn’t money. Lady Damodara had a fortune in coins and jewels, and had brought all of it with her into the tunnels. She had more than enough money to feed them all with the world’s finest delicacies for years.

    The problem was that large purchases of anything beyond simple foodstuffs would eventually be noticed by the city’s authorities. And, unfortunately, the sort of cheap and readily available food that the stable-keeper’s family could purchase without notice needed to be cooked.

    Cooking in a stable was easy. Cooking in a tunnel was not.

    Valentinian had then had to wage a mighty struggle to keep the Indians from decorating the stable so much that it would be impossible to disguise their occupancy.

    Anastasius was more sanguine. “No problem. One full day of horse shit will disguise anything.”

    Both women laughed. The horses who’d formerly occupied that stable had been moved into adjoining ones, of course, but they could be moved back quickly and easily.

    The stable-keeper had explained to the one customer who’d inquired that the move was due to his doubts regarding the structural soundness of the stable. Doubts which, truth be told, weren’t entirely faked. The stable that the refugees were using as a hiding place was the most wretched and rickety building in the compound. Of course, that meant it was also the one it was impossible to see into, because of the extra bracing and shoring.

    “No help for it,” Lady Damodara stated firmly, when she was done laughing. “We’ll make the move back into the tunnel this evening. And stop scowling, Valentinian! If we tried to move immediately, we’d be too careless in covering up all the signs that we’ve been here for weeks.”

    That was true enough, but it didn’t stop Valentinian from scowling.

    “Something will go wrong,” he predicted.

    In the event, nothing did go wrong. Skandagupta ordered another major search of the city. But, as with the initial search, the effort was undone by its very ambition.

    “Scour Kausambi” was an easy order to give, from the imperial palace. From the viewpoint of the mass of soldiers on the ground who had to carry it out, the task looked very different. All the more so because they were never given any clear instructions or explanations as to exactly what they were looking for, beyond “the Lady Damodara and her entourage.” Most of the soldiers who conducted the search were peasants, other than the Ye-tai, who were usually semi-barbarians and almost as likely to be illiterate. Their assumptions concerning where a “great lady” could expect to be found hiding simply didn’t include stables.

    A squad of soldiers searched the stables, to be sure. But their investigation was perfunctory. They didn’t even enter the stall where the entrance to the tunnels below was located, much less give it the kind of search that might have uncovered the well-hidden trapdoor.

    Not surprising, of course. That stall had more manure in it than any of them.

    Still, Valentinian insisted that everyone stay below for three days following the search. Only after Tarun, the stable-keeper’s oldest son, reported that the search seemed to have ended all over the city, did Valentinian let the people from the palace come up to enjoy the relative comforts of the stable.

    “See?” demanded Anastasius, grinning.

    Valentinian’s scowl was just as dark as ever. “Don’t be an idiot. This isn’t going as well as we’d thought it would.”

    “What are you talking about?” Still grinning, Anastasius waved a huge hand in the direction of the imperial palace. “Tarun says they added four more heads to Skandagupta’s collection, perched on pikes outside the palace gates. He thinks one of them was even a member of the dynasty.”

    “All that philosophy has rotted your brains. What do you think will happen next, Anastasius? I’ll tell you what’ll happen. Whoever the new batch of officers are in charge of the search, they’ll throw still more men at digging out the rubble. Put enough hands to the work, and they could dig up the whole city. We’re only a few hundred yards from the Lady’s palace, you know. That’s really not that far, no matter how much we confused them with the doglegs.”

    The grin faded from Anastasius’ face. “You think?”

    “You’re damn right ‘I think.’ I didn’t worry about it, before, when we first came up with this scheme. Most of the tunnel passes under other buildings. To find out which direction it goes, once we collapsed the beginning of it, they can’t just dig up soil. They have to level whole city blocks, in their own capital. Who’s going to do that?”

    Valentinian was literally chewing on his beard. “But I never expected Skandagupta to carry out this kind of reign of terror. I figured he’d be satisfied with one or two searches, and then give it up, figuring the Lady had somehow managed to get out of the city altogether.”

    “Stop chewing on your beard. It’s disgusting.” As if to give his fellow cataphract a better example, Anastasius started tugging on his own beard. “How soon do you think Damodara and Sanga can get here?”

    Valentinian shrugged. At least the gesture dislodged the beard from his mouth. “Who knows? Be at least another month. And even when they do get here, so what? They still have to get into the city. There’s no way to break down these walls without siege guns—and there’s no way Damodara could have brought them with him from the Deccan.”

    “I’m sure he has a plan,” said Anastasius. Uncertainly.

    “Sure he does,” sneered Valentinian. “Use his new imperial semi-divine aura to overawe the garrison.”

    Again, he shrugged. “It might even work, actually. But not quickly enough to save our necks. We’ve got to come up with a new plan.”

    “What?”

    “I don’t know. I’m thinking.”

    By the next morning, he had his plan. Such as it was.

    Everyone agreed with the first part of the plan. The Bihari miners were sent back underground to prepare new false tunnels—with charges in them, naturally—at the two remaining doglegs.

    They made no protest, other than technical ones. Even leaving aside the fact that they were intimidated by Valentinian, the miners knew full well that their lives were now completely bound up with that of Lady Damodara and her entourage. If the Malwa caught them, they’d be staked alongside the others.

    “Where will we get the wood?” asked the chief miner. “There’s no way to shore tunnels without wood. Even flimsy tunnels we’re planning to blow up.”

    “Don’t be stupid.” Valentinian swept his head in a little half-circle. “We’re in a stable, if you hadn’t noticed. Several stables, in fact. Take the wood from the stalls. Just use every other board, so the horses can’t get out.”

    The stable-keeper protested, but that was more a matter of form than anything heartfelt. He, too, knew what would happen to himself and his entire family if the Malwa found them.

    It was the second part of Valentinian’s plan that stirred up the ruckus. Especially the part about Rajiv.

    Rajiv himself, of course, was thrilled by the plan.

    His mother was not.

    “He’s only thirteen!”

    “That’s the whole point,” stated Valentinian. “Nobody notices kids. Especially if they’re scruffy enough.” He gave Rajiv a pointed look, to which the youngster responded with a grin.

    “I can do ‘scruffy.’ Tarun will help.”

    The fourteen-year-old Tarun smiled shyly. He wasn’t quite as thrilled by the plan as Rajiv, being a Bengali stable-keeper’s son rather than a Rajput prince. But he had the natural adventurousness of a teenage boy, to which had been added something close to idol worship. Despite being a year older than Rajiv, Tarun was rather in awe of him—and delighted beyond measure that the Rajput prince had adopted him as a boon companion in time of trouble.

    His parents, naturally, shared Lady Sanga’s opinion.

    “He’s only fourteen!” wailed Tarun’s mother.

    “And small for his age,” added his father.

    “He’s only a little bit small for his age,” countered Rajiv. “But he’s stronger than he looks—and, what’s more important, he’s very quick-witted. I don’t have any hesitation at all about Tarun’s part in the plan.”

    Tarun positively beamed.

    Before the argument could spin around in another circle, Lady Damodara spoke. Hers was ultimately the authoritative voice, after all.

    “Let’s remember that there are two parts to Valentinian’s plan, and it’s the second part that everyone’s arguing about. But we may never have to deal with that, anyway. So let’s concentrate today on the first part, which is the only part that involves the two boys. Does anybody really have any strong objection to Rajiv joining Tarun in his expeditions into the city?”

    Lady Sanga took a deep breath. “No.” But the hostile look she gave Valentinian made her sentiments clear. Like all mothers since the dawn of time, Lady Sanga knew perfectly well that the difference between “part of the way” and “all of the way,” when dealing with a teenage son, could not be measured by the world’s greatest mathematicians. Or sorcerers, for that matter.

    No more than Valentinian, did she think that we may never have to deal with that was an accurate prediction of the future.

    Neither did Rajiv.

    “It can be done,” he told Valentinian four days later, after he and Tarun had finished their first round of scouting. “By you, at least. But not easily.”

    “I didn’t think it would be easy.” Valentinian and Anastasius exchanged a glance. Than, turned to stare at Khandik and the other two Ye-tai mercenaries.

    Khandik grinned, rather humorlessly. “Why not? Five against a hundred.”

    “More like eighty,” qualified Rajiv.

    “Eighty-three,” specified Tarun.

    Everyone stared at him. “I can count!” protested the Bengali boy. “You have to be able to count, running a stable.”

    Anastasius grunted. “Still, it’s odds of sixteen or seventeen to one. All garrison troops, of course.” He spit on the floor of the stable, as if to emphasize his low opinion of garrison soldiers.

    “It’s not that bad,” said Valentinian. “At least half of them will be off duty.”

    “On that day?” demanded Khandik. “With tens of thousands of Rajputs howling at the gates? I don’t think so.”

    Valentinian grimaced. “Well... true.” He tugged at his beard. “But the way Rajiv and Tarun report the layout of the gate, we’d only have to deal with some of them.”

    “If we move fast enough,” agreed Rajiv.

    Now, it was everyone’s turn to stare at Rajiv.

    “What’s this ‘we’ business?” demanded Anastasius.

    Rajiv squared his shoulders. “It’ll go easier if I’m already inside.”

    “Me too!” said Tarun proudly. “Rajiv and me already figured it out.”

    Valentinian slanted his head skeptically. “And just why would you be invited in? Other than to be a catamite, which I don’t recommend as a way to augment your princely status.”

    Rajiv made a face. So did Tarun, who stuck out his tongue in the bargain. “Uck!”

    “It’s not that,” said Rajiv. For a moment, he had an uncertain expression on his face. An uncomfortable one, actually. “The soldiers are pretty friendly, to tell you the truth. Even their leaders, except for the captain. He’s a kshatriya, but the rest are just peasants, including the four sergeants. Most of them Bengalis, just like Tarun. They’ve got their wives and kids in the barracks with them, too, remember. Lots of kids, and all ages—and the barracks are almost part of the gate itself. After a while, if Tarun and I spend enough time there, nobody will notice us coming or going.”

    “On that day?” asked Khandik skeptically.

    Rajiv shrugged. “I think especially on that day. Who’s going to pay any attention to me—when my father is on the other side of the gate, making threats and issuing promises?”

    That brought a round of soft laughter to the small group of soldiers clustered in a corner of the stable.

    “Well,” said Khandik. “That’s true.”

    Hearing the laughter, Lady Sanga scowled. She and Lady Damodara were perched on cushions in another part of the stable.

    “See?” she demanded.

    Her companion made a wry face. “I’m glad my son is only seven.”

    Lady Sanga sniffed. “Guard him carefully. Or the next thing you know, Valentinian will have him practicing with sticks.”

    Lady Damodara looked startled. Just the other day, she’d noticed...

    “He wouldn’t!”

    “He would.”

    But even the two ladies were in a better mood, nine days later.

    Ajatasutra showed up. At last!

    “Wasn’t hard,” he said cheerfully. “They’re still not screening anyone at the city’s gates very thoroughly. Skandagupta’s an idiot, trying to suppress the news of the rebellion the way he is. The rumors are flying all over already—ten times more so, once the emperor reaches the Yamuna, which he should be doing pretty soon. But since nothing is officially confirmed by Skandagupta and his officials, and no clear orders are being given, the soldiers are still going about their business as usual. They’re mostly peasants, after all. None of their business, the doings of the high and mighty.”

    “You look tired,” said Dhruva. Hearing the concern in her voice, Valentinian frowned. Seeing the frown, Anastasius had to fight down a grin.

    Valentinian, jealous. Would wonders never cease?

    Smiling—tiredly—Ajatasutra shrugged. “Well, yes. I’ve come something like seven hundred miles in less than two weeks, since I left the emperor. Even as much time as I’ve spent in the saddle in my life, my legs feel like they’re about to fall off. Best we not discuss at all the state of my buttocks.”

    Once the emperor reaches the Yamuna. Since I left the emperor.

    Lady Damodara’s almost shivered, at the casual and matter-of-fact manner of those statements. When she’d last seen her husband, he’d been simply the man she’d known and come to love since their wedding. They’d been but teenagers, at the time. He, sixteen; and she, a year younger.

    Now, today...

    “Oh, forgot.” Ajatasutra started digging in his tunic. “Rana Sanga—the emperor also, once he saw—asked me to bring you gifts. Nothing fancy, of course, traveling as lightly as I was.”

    His hand emerged, holding two small onions. One, he gave to Lady Sanga; the other, to Lady Damodara.

    Rana Sanga’s wife burst into tears. Lady Damodara just smiled.

    She even managed to keep the smile on her face a minute later. Ajatasutra had addressed her as “Your Majesty” from the moment he arrived, and had done so throughout the long report he’d given them. But she hadn’t really thought much of it. That just seemed part of the project of disguise and deception she’d been involved with for over a year, now. Hearing him—so casually, so matter-of-factly!—refer to her as the Empress to Lady Sanga, was a different thing altogether.

    After Ajatasutra left her part of the stable, to confer with the soldiers in their own corner, Lady Damodara gave vent to her confusion and uncertainty.

    “I don’t feel any different.”

    Her companion smiled. Rana Sanga’s wife had become Lady Damodara’s close friend, over the past months. The closest friend she’d ever had, in fact.

    “Oh, but you are. Your semi-divine aura is quite noticeable now.”

    “Even when I shit?” Lady Damodara pointed to a chamber pot not more than five feet away. “Damn this stable, anyway.”

    Sanga’s wife grimaced. “Well. Maybe you need to work on that part. On the other hand, why bother? Before too long, you’ll either be dead or be crapping in the biggest palace in the world. With fifty chambermaids to carry out the results, and twenty spies and three executioners to make sure they keep their mouths shut about the contents.”

    Lady Damodara laughed.

    A few minutes later, hearing the soft laughter coming from the knot of soldiers in the corner of the stable, she frowned.

    “My son’s not over there, is he?” But, looking around, she spotted him playing with two of the other small boys in a different part of the stable. So, her frown faded.

    Lady Sanga’s frown, on the other hand, had deepened into a full scowl.

    “No. But my son is.”

    “Only fifteen-to-one odds,” said Khandik with satisfaction, “now that Ajatasutra’s here.”

    Young Tarun shook his head. “Thirteen-to-one. Well. A bit more.”

    The glare bestowed upon him by the Ye-tai mercenary was a half-and-half business. On the one hand, it was unseemly for a mere stable-boy—a wretched Bengali, to boot—to correct his superior and elder. On the other hand...

    “Thirteen-to-one,” he said, with still greater satisfaction.

    His two mates weren’t even half-glaring. In fact, they were almost smiling.

    Under normal circumstances, of course, thirteen-to-one odds would have been horrible. But those Ye-tai mercenaries were all veterans. The kind of fighting they were considering would not be the clash of huge armies on a great battlefield, where individual prowess usually got lost in the sheer mass of the conflict. No, this would be the sort of small-scale action out of which legends were made, because legends mattered.

    The Mongoose was already a legend. His huge Roman companion wasn’t, but they had no difficulty imagining him as such. “Bending horseshoes,” with Anastasius in the vicinity, was not a phrase to express the impossible.

    As for Ajatasutra...

    “Some people think you’re the best assassin in India,” said one of the Ye-tai.

    “Not any Marathas,” came the immediate rejoinder. Smiling, Ajatasutra added: “But I think even Marathas might allow me the honor of second-best.”