So let the rude, crude, lewd and uncouth Kushan barbarian take the responsibility. A low profile suited them just fine.
The forces now under Kungas' command were huge and motley. Deogiri was as crowded, that day, as any city in teeming Bengal. Under different circumstances, Kungas might have been driven half-mad by the chaos. But, probably not, given the man's unshakably phlegmatic disposition.
Andcertainly not, under the circumstances which actually prevailed.
His opponent, Lord Venandakatra, commander of the forces besieging Deogiri, was not called the Vile One by accident. A different man might have been called Venandakatra the Cruel, or Venandakatra the Terrible; or, simply, the Beast. But all of those cognomens carry a certain connotation of unbridled force and fury. They are the names given to a man who is feared as well as hated.
A vile man, on the other hand, is simply despised. A figure of contempt, when all is said and done.
On that day-thatday-the Vile One was as thoroughly cowed as any commander of an army could be. And everybody knew it.
Venandakatra's own soldiers knew it. Throughout the day-long festivities in Deogiri, the Vile One never emerged once from his pavilion. His soldiers, from his top commanders down to the newest recruit, were as familiar as any Indian with what had now become a staple of the storyteller's trade. The tale of how a great Malwa lord' s lust for a new concubine slave had been frustrated by a champion. Unrequited lust, no less, to make the story sweeter.
Today, that beautiful girl-once a slave and now an empress-would give herself to the man who had rescued her from Venandakatra. Right in front of the Vile One, dancing her wedding in his face. Taunting him with the virgin body that would never be his. Not now, not ever.
The Vile One, in his pavilion, gnashed his teeth with rage. Rage, seasoned with heavy doses of shame and humiliation. His soldiers, who despised the man not much less than his enemies, found it difficult not to laugh. They managed that task, of course. None of them were so foolish as to even smile-not with Venandakatra's spies and mahamimamsa prowling the camps and fieldworks. But they were about as likely to launch an assault on Deogiri, that day, as so many giggling mice would attack a lion's den in order to assuage Lord Rat's wounded vanity.
Kungas spent a pleasant day rubbing salt into the wound. He rotated all the various troops under his command across the northern battlements facing Venandakatra's pavilion and the bulk of his forces. Allowing Malwa's soldiery, if not the pavilion-enclosed Vile One himself, to see the full panoply of forces which were now arrayed against them.
By popular acclaim, the four hundred spearmen of the Dakuen sarwe were rotated through no less than three times. Partly, that was due to the exotic and splendid appearance of the Ethiopians. Black men from a far-off and fabled land-blacker than any Dravidian-sporting savagelooking spears and jaunty ostrich-feather headdresses. Mostly, however, it was due to the crowd's glee at the sight of four hundred bare asses, at Ezana's lead and command, hanging over the battlements in Malwa's face.
Better was still to come. By mid-afternoon, the wedding ceremony itself was finished and the bride and groom began to dance.
Shakuntala danced first. By custom, the husband should have done so. But the empress had decreed otherwise. Shakuntala was a wonderful dancer, in her own right, but she was not Rao's equal. No one was. So, she went first. Not because she was ashamed of her own skill, but simply because she wanted the people watching-and the world which would learn from their telling, in the years to come-to remember Rao in all his glory.
Her dance, in truth, was glorious itself. Shakuntala did not dance in the center square of the city, where the wedding had taken place. She did so on the top battlements of the northern wall, on a platform erected the day before, after hurriedly changing her costume.
When she appeared on the platform, the crowd gasped. Shakuntala had shed her elaborate imperial costume in favor of a dancer's garb. Her pantaloons, for all that they were tastefully dyed, bordered on scandal.
Yet, the crowd was pleased. At first, as she began her steps, they assumed that Shakuntala was simply taunting her enemy. Prancing, in all her youth and beauty, before the creature who had once dreamed of possessing her.
Which, of course, she was. Dancing, by its nature, is a sensuous act. That is as true for an elderly man or a portly matron, creaking and waddling their way through sober paces, as it is for anyone. But there is nothing quite as sensuous, dancing, as a young woman as agile as she is beautiful.
Shakuntala was both, and she took full advantage. It was well for Venandakatra that he never saw that dance. The Vile One would have ground his teeth to powder.
But, as Shakuntala's dance went on, and transmuted, the crowd realized the truth. Taunting her enemy was a trivial thing. Amusing, but soon discarded.
The Empress Shakuntala was not dancing for the Vile One. She was not, even, dancing for Andhra. She was dancing for her husband, now. The sensuousness of that dance, the sheer sexuality of it, was not a taunt. It was a promise, and a pledge, and, most of all, nothing but her own desire.
They had wondered, the great crowd. Now, they knew the truth. Watching the bare quicksilver feet of their empress, flashing in the wine of her beloved's heart, they knew. Statecraft, political calculation-even duty and obligation-were gone, as if they had never existed.
Andhra had married the Great Country, not because its own past required the doing, but because that was the future it had chosen freely. The future that itdesired. When she finished-in defiance of all custom and tradition-the crowd burst into riotous applause. The applause went on for half an hour.
It was Rao's turn, now, and the crowd fell silent. His reputation as a dancer was known to all Marathas. But most of them had never seen it with their own eyes.
They saw him now, and never forgot. The tale would be passed on for generations.
He began, as a husband. And if his dance was not as purely sensual as Shakuntala's had been, no one who saw it doubted his own heart.
The dance went on, and on. And, as it went, slowly transformed a man's desire for a woman-the life she would give him, the children she would give him-into a people's desire for a future.
It was Majarashtra's dance, now. The Great Country was pledging its own troth. Love was there, along with desire. But there was also courage, and faith, and hope, and trust, and determination. Majarashtra danced to its yet-unborn children, as much as it danced for its bride. It was a husband's dance, not a lover's. Every step, every gesture, every movement, carried the promise of fidelity.
Then, the dance changed again. The crowd grew utterly still.
This was the great dance. The terrible dance. The long-forbidden but never-forgotten dance. The dance of creation. The dance of destruction. The wheeling, whirling, dervish dance of time.
There was nothing of hatred in the dance. No longer. Love, yes, always. But even love receded, taking its honored place. This was the ultimate dance, which spoke the ultimate truth.
That truth, danced for all to see, held the crowd spellbound. Silent, but not abashed. No, not in the least. Every step, every gesture, every movement, carried the great promise. The crowd, understanding the promise, swelled with strength.
Empires are mighty. Time is mightier still. Tyrants come, tyrants go. Despots tread the stage, declaiming their glory. And then Time shows them the exit. People, alone, endure and endure. Theirs, alone, is the final power. No army can stand against it; no battlements hold it at bay.