The Dance of Time

"My great pleasure, Lord of Malwa."

And, so, India was given a new legend, after all. Whatever regrets the warriors who watched might have had, that the great duel between Sanga and Rao never happened, they were mollified by the bow shot.

The greatest ever, all would swear, since Krishna the charioteer drove Arjuna and his great bow onto the ancient battlefield of Kurukshetra. Hundreds of yards, that arrow flew, to strike like a thunderbolt.

For one of the few times in his life, Ajatasutra was quite amazed. The arrow went right through the chief priest, striking the perfect bowman's target-just above the breastbone-and severing the great arteries as it passed. The chief priest collapsed on the wagon like a puppet with cut strings, blood gushing as if from a fountain. The arrow might even have severed the spine, from the way the priest was still thrashing.

"You see?" he demanded.

But the assassin was already onto the wagon, cutting the first mahamimansa.

Ajatasutra saw no reason to follow. The assassins he'd assembled, over the months, were very good. Not as good as he was, of course. But quite good enough-any one of them-to be more than a match for twice their number of torturers.

Besides, he had other duties. Sanga was coming, driving his horse like another thunderbolt, and with his lance in hand. The Ye-tai were paralyzed, for the moment, but the Rajputs were not hesitating at all.

There were twenty thousand Rajput cavalrymen on that field, now curling from the flanks onto the munitions train like two great waves. Even with the best of discipline, they were likely to shatter the wagons unless Ajatasutra had them clearly under control.

A small disaster, that. There was still a war to be fought and won.

He put away his dagger and drew the sword. If the scabbard that sword had been concealed in was shabby, the sword was that of a commander.

"Guard the wagons!" he shouted at the infantrymen, standing around, their mouths agape. "Swing them into a circle. Now, you idiots!"

They obeyed, almost instantly. Even those illiterate and provincial peasants could figure out the equation.

The mahaveda and mahamimansa were all dead or dying.

Ajatasutra seemed to know what he was doing.

Twenty thousand Rajputs were on the way. The hooves of their horses seem to make the very ground shake.

By the time the Rajputs arrived, Ajatasutra had the wagons in a rough circle. With, in a still wider circle around them, the corpses of priests and torturers tossed out. As if they were so many sacrificial offerings.

Which… they were. Even the Rajputs were satisfied.

Throughout, neither the Ye-tai nor the kshatriya artillerymen moved at all. This was Rajput business, even if Damodara had obviously given it his blessing.

Good enough. No doubt an explanation would be forthcoming. For the moment, wisdom and sagacity both called for the tactics of mice in the presence of predators.

Stillness and silence, lest one be noticed. Let the hawks feed on the priests and torturers. True, they were already carrion, but raptors are not fussy.

And who cared, anyway?

After the years of victory with Damodara, the years of battles and maneuvers in the course of which their commander had showed himself worthy of his men, who cared?

When the a

Of course he was the emperor. Stupid of them, really, not to have realized it sooner. All that wasted time.

Still worse, the endless miles of pointless marching back and forth across central Asia-when Kausambi was so close.

That came later, however. For the moment, Damodara had more pressing business.

After Sanga was gone, thundering off, Damodara trotted over to Rao.

The grin was gone, at least.

"I am the new Emperor of Malwa. I did not start this war, I would now finish it."

Rao nodded. "I want the border set on the crest of the Vindhyas. And we get the crest-with the right to build forts on it."

Damodara thought about it, for a minute.

That was reasonable, he decided. In the nature of things, it would always be northern India with its teeming population in the Ganges valley that posed a threat to the realms of southern India. Forts along the crest of the Vindhyas in the hands of Marathas could serve to defend the Deccan. There was really no way they could ever serve as invasion routes onto the Gangetic plain.

"Agreed," he said. "In return, I want Bharakuccha to be an open city. I will need a large seaport on the west coast."

It was Rao's turn to consider.

"The population is mostly Maratha," he pointed out.

"It was once. Not any longer. It's twice the size it was at the conquest, and as polyglot as any city in the world. No more than a third of the populace is Maratha, these days."

Rao grunted. "Still."

"I do not insist on a Malwa garrison. But I don't want it garrisoned by Andhra, either. Or Persians."

"On that last, we are agreed," Rao said, scowling. "There'll be no way to keep the greedy arrogant bastards out of the Sind, of course, thanks to you idiots. Not now. But that's as close as I want them, and closer than I imagine you do."

"Yes. And I don't want Romans, either. They're too powerful."

Rao scratched his jaw. "Well, that's true. Friends now-ours, if not yours-but who knows what the future will bring?"

Damodara made the final move. "An Axumite garrison, then, just big enough to maintain order. Axum is powerful at sea but too small to pose a military threat to any major realm of India. But not Axumite territory. An open city, with its own government-we'll thrash that out later-and neutral to all parties."

"You understand they'll insist on the right to collect the tolls? To maintain the garrison."

"For Axum, that matters. For us, it does not. Let them skim the trade. The trade itself flows in and out of India. North as well as south."

Rao nodded. "Agreed, then. That leaves the Malwa armies in the Deccan outside of the Great Country. There's still a huge garrison in Amaravati, and large ones elsewhere. Since you're the Goptri of the Deccan, they're officially under your command. What happens, now that you're the Emperor?"

Damodara shrugged. "Ask me in a few months. If I take Kausambi and depose Skandagupta, they will obey me. I will then order them to come home. Until then, however, I'd just as soon they stayed where they are. I've never had much dealings with them, and I don't know which way they'd go so long as things are unsettled."

Rao studied the Malwa army. It was collapsing inward, leaving units of Ye-tai and kshatriya in place while the Rajputs came in to slaughter the priests. If they weren't already slaughtered, which…

Rao now studied the new Malwa emperor.

They probably were. If Damodara had none of the overweening ambition of Malwa's previous dynasts, Rao was quite sure he concentrated in his short person more capability than any of them-and at least as much in the way of ruthlessness.

But it was a very intelligent ruthlessness, the sort that didn't confuse means with ends and didn't prize ruthlessness for its own sake.