The Dance of Time

The whimper that came out now was considerably louder. "You didn't explain exactly what you were doing," he protested.

"You didn't ask either, did you? Like I said, too greedy."

The weasel-faced Roman fell silent, his eyes idly wandering about the gloom of the stable.

The stable-keeper was hoping he wouldn't continue with the explanation.

But, of course, he did.

"The fourth and final reason is that if you don't do what we tell you to do, I'll kill you. Then I'll kill every member of your family after raping your wife and daughters and nieces. Your mother's too old and your sister has bad breath. I'll save the baby for last. He looks pretty tender and I'm sick of lamb."

The giant rolled his eyes. "Oh, for the love of God, Valentinian!"

He squatted down next to the stable-keeper and placed a huge hand on his ski

"He's lying," he assured the stable-keeper. "Valentinian won't rape the women before he kills them. And all he'll do to the baby is just cut his throat."

The stable-keeper believed him. Most insane of all was that he did find that a relief.

"How is that last reason my fault?" he whined.

Valentinian gave him that horrible weasel smile. "You weren't born big enough and tough enough and mean enough to fight back against the likes of me, and not rich enough to hire a small army to do it for you. Maybe in your next life, you won't be so careless."

Valentinian and Anastasius spent several hours in the tu

More precisely, Anastasius pretended to check the timbers and shoring, while Valentinian gave the Bihari miners and their remaining Ye-tai guards that level and dark-eyed stare that could intimidate a demon. Neither Valentinian nor Anastasius were miners, after all, so they really had no good idea what to look for. True, they had considerable experience at siege work-as both defenders and attackers-but neither of them had ever been used as sappers. That was specialty work, and not something that cataphracts generally got involved in.

"Ignore him," Anastasius assured the miners. "He just likes to stay in practice."

In a half-crouch due to the low ceiling, Anastasius planted his hands on his knees and smiled at the chief of the miners. "It looks good to me. But we don't want it to be too good. There are three doglegs we might need to use, and all three of them have to collapse if we set off the charges. Collapse for dozens of yards, too. Won't do us any good just to cave in a few feet. The Malwa can dig too."

After giving Valentinian a quick, nervous glance, the Bihari nodded vigorously. "Not a problem! Not a problem! Look here!" He scurried over to one of the nearby wood pillars that held up the roof and began jabbing with his finger. Here, there-everywhere, it seemed.

"See how the wedges are set? The charges will blow them all loose. Without the wedges, everything will come down. We put all the doglegs deep, too. Deeper than the rest of the tu

Anastasius swiveled a bit, to be able to look at Valentinian. "Looks good to me. You have a problem with anything?"

Valentinian was in a half-crouch also, although in his case he was leaning his rump against one of the pillars to support his weight rather than using hands on knees. He wasn't as tall as Anastasius, but he was still much too tall to stand upright in the low tu

"Not really," he said, "beyond the general principle that something's bound to get fucked up." He gave the miner a little nod of the head. "It's not as if I really distrust him and his men. If it doesn't work, they're dead meat along with the rest of us."

The miner nodded his head, maybe a dozen times. "Yes! Yes! And if it works, we get our freedom and a big bonus. The Lady promised. And-ah-"

He left off the rest, since it was a bit awkward. What was more to the point was that Valentinian had agreed to the Lady's promise, and done so to their faces. For all that he frightened the miners-and frightened the Ye-tai even more, probably-there was an odd way in which they all trusted Valentinian. A man that murderous simply didn't need to stoop to petty treachery, when all was said and done.

Rajiv's fight with the three traitors had cemented Valentinian's reputation with those men. Especially the Ye-tai, who were experienced warriors themselves. "The Mongoose" might be a legend, inflated and overblown as legends often are. A man so deadly he could train a thirteen-year-old boy to kill three mercenaries-with jury-rigged weapons, to boot-was a living, breathing human cobra in their midst.

They were scared of Anastasius, also. But for all his size and strength and the fact they knew him to be an experienced fighter, he just didn't have the same dark aura about him. If anything, like the stable-keeper, they found his presence alongside Valentinian something of a relief.

Besides, there was hope as well as fear. Freedom and enough money to set themselves up well, for the slave miners. For the Ye-tai who had remained loyal, the chance to join an imperial bodyguard, with all its perks and privileges.

That presumed, of course, that the scheme worked. By now, all of them knew the gist of the thing, since there was no point in trying to keep any of it a secret any longer. But if it didn't work, they were all dead anyway. So why not dream?

When the two cataphracts got back to the palace late in the afternoon and reported to Lady Damodara, she expressed some doubts.

"This is all so risky. We're depending on the loyalty of a man we don't know at all, simply because of a message sent by a man who is our enemy."

Anastasius shrugged. "I've met Holkar. Know him pretty well, actually. I really don't think this is the sort of thing he'd get tricky about. If he vouches for the character of the stable-keeper, I think we can trust him. Don't forget that the life of Holkar's daughters is at stake, too."

Valentinian started to spit on the floor. Then, remembering where he was, swallowed the phlegm. "Besides, we're not trusting the stable-keeper. I'm threatening him. Big difference."

Lady Damodara shook her head disapprovingly. "You shouldn't bully him so. He does seem like a nice man, after all."

"So? When this is all over, he's still a nice man. Except he's a nice man with the favor of the new emperor instead of a dirt-poor stable-keeper with no friends worth talking about. He'll have the fanciest stable in India. His biggest problem will be keeping the help from stealing the jewels encrusting the imperial saddles and howdahs."

Lady Damodara laughed softly. "I'm not sure I've ever met anyone with quite your view of life, Valentinian. I don't know how to describe it, exactly."

"Stripped to the bone," Valentinian supplied. He jerked a thumb at his huge companion. "This one can prattle about Plato and Aristotle all he wants. My philosophy is simple. Moralize like a miser."

Still later that evening, it was Dhruva's turn to chide Valentinian.

"You're spoiling him again!"

Valentinian studied the infant in his arms. Baji was gri

"Goo!"

"I know." He was silent for a while, playing tug-of-war with Baji over his finger. "Terrific grip. I've got hopes for the kid."