It was over. The dance was done. A husband, taking his bride by the hand, led her into the chamber of Time. The people, watching them go, saw their own future approaching.
Once in the chamber, Rao's surety vanished. There was nothing left, now, of the superb dancer who had paced his certain steps. Stiff as a board, creaking his way to the bed, his eyes unfocused, Rao seemed like a man in a daze.
Shakuntala smiled and smiled. Smiling, she removed his clothes. Smiling, removed her own.
"Look at me, husband," she commanded.
Rao's eyes went to her. His breath stilled. He had never seen her nude. His mind groped, trying to wrap itself around such beauty. His body, rebelling against discipline, had no difficulty at all.
Shakuntala, still smiling, pressed herself against him, kissing, touching, stroking. His mind-locked tight by years of self-denial-was like a sheet of ice. His body, now in full and wild revolt, felt like pure magma.
"You made a pledge to my father, once," Shakuntala whispered. "Do you remember?"
He nodded, like a statue.
Shakuntala's smile became a grin. She moved away, undulating, and spread herself across the bed. Rao's eyes were locked onto the sight. But his mind, still, could not encompass the seeing.
"You have been neglectful in your duty, Rao," Shakuntala murmured, lying on the bed. " `Teach her everything you know.' That was my father's command."
She curled, coiled, flexed.
"I never taught youthat," Rao choked.
Arched, stretched. Liquid, smiling. Moisture, laughing.
"You taught me how to read," she countered. "I borrowed a book." Coiled, again; and arched; and stretched. Promise, open.
" `Hold backnothing,' " she said. "That is your duty."
Denial shattered; self-discipline vanished with the wind. Rao moved, like a panther to his mate.
In the corridors beyond the chamber, servant women waited. Older women, in the main; Marathas, all. When they heard Shakuntala's wordless voice, announcing her defloration, they grinned. In another virgin, there might have been some pain in that cry. But for their fierce empress, there had been nothing beyond ecstasy and eager desire.
The thing was done. The pledge fulfilled. The promise kept.
The women scurried through the halls, spreading the word. But their efforts were quite needless. Shakuntala had never been a bashful girl. Now, becoming a woman, she fairly screamed her triumph.
The young men heard, waiting in the streets below. They had mounted their horses before the servants reached the end of the first corridor. By the time Majarashtra's women emerged onto the streets to tell the news, Majarashtra's sons and nephews had already left. By the time the dancing resumed, and the revelry began, they were carrying the message out of the gates and pounding it, on flying horseborne feet, in every direction.
The land called Majarashtra had been created, millions of years earlier, when the earth's magma boiled to the surface. The Deccan Traps, geologists of a later age would call it; solemnly explaining, to solemn students, that it had been perhaps the greatest-and most violent-volcanic episode in the planet's history.
Now, while Deogiri danced its glee, the Great Country began its new eruption. Dancing, with swift and spreading steps, the new time for Malwa. The time of death, and terror, and desperate struggle.
Malwa's soldiers already detested service in Majarashtra. From that day forward, they would speak of it in hushed and dreading tones. Much like soldiers of a later army, watching evil spill its intestines, would speak of the Russian Front.
Belisarius had planned, and schemed, and maneuvered, and acted, guided by Aide's vision of the Peninsular War.
He already had his Peninsular War. Now, he got the Pripet Marshes, and the maquis, and the Warsaw Ghetto, and the mountains cupping Dien Bien Phu, and the streets of Budapest, and every other place in the history of the species where empires, full of their short-memoried arrogance, learned, again, the dance of Time.
Time, of course, contains all things. Among them is farce.
Shakuntala's eyes were very wide. The young woman's face, slack with surprise.
"I thought it would- I don't know. Take longer."
Looking down on that loving, confused face from a distance of inches, Rao flushed deep embarrassment.
"I can't believe it," he muttered. "I haven't done that since I was fourteen."
Awkwardly, he groped for words. "Well," he fumbled, "well. Well. Itshould have, actually. Much longer." He took a breath.How to explain? Halting words followed, speaking of self-discipline too suddenly vanished, excessive eagerness, a dream come true without sufficient emotional preparation, and-and When Shakuntala finally understood-which didn't take long, in truth; she was inexperienced but very intelligent; though it seemed like ages to Rao-she burst into laughter.
"So!" she cried.
He had trained her to wrestle, also. In an instant, she squirmed out from under him and had him flat on his back. Then, straddling him, she began her chastisement.
"So!"Playfully, she punched his chest. "The truth is out!"
Punch. "Champion-ha!Hero-ha!" Punch. "I have been defrauded! Cheated!"
Rao was laughing himself, now. The laughs grew louder and louder, as he heard his wife bestow upon him his new cognomens of ridicule and ignominy. The Pantof Majarashtra. The Gust of the Great Country-no! ThePuff of the Great Country.
Laughter drove out shame, and brought passion to fill the void. Soon enough-very soon-the empress ceased her complaints. And, by the end of a long night, allowed-regally magnanimous, for all the sweatthat her husband was still her champion.
Chapter 41
The Strait Of Hormuz
Autumn, 532 A.D.
A monster fled ruin and disaster. Licking its wounds, trailing blood, dragging its maimed limbs, the beast clawed back toward its lair. Silent, for all its agony; its cold mind preoccupied with plans for revenge. Revenge, and an eventual return to predation.
A different monster would have screamed, from fury and frustration as much as pain and fear. But that was not this monster's way. Not even when the hunter who had maimed it sprang, again, from ambush.
Though, for a moment, there might have been a gleam of hatred, somewhere deep inside those ancient eyes.
Chapter 42
Belisarius started to speak. Then, closed his mouth.
"Good, good," murmured Ousanas. The aqabe tsentsen glanced slyly at Antonina.
She returned the look with a sniff. "Myhusband is an experienced general," she proclaimed. "Myhusband is calm and cool on the eve of battle."
Ousanas chuckled. "So it seems. Though, for a moment there, I would have sworn he was about to tell experienced sea captains how to maneuver a fleet."
Belisarius never took his eyes off the approaching flotilla of Malwa vessels. But his crooked smile did make an appearance.
"What nonsense," he said firmly. "The idea's absurd." He turned his head, speaking to the man standing just behind him. "Isn't it, Maurice?"
Maurice scowled. "Of course it is. You'd spend ten minutes, before you got into it, telling Gersem which way the wind's blowing. After spending half an hour explaining what sails are for."
"It's the general's curse," muttered Belisarius. "Surly subordinates."
"After spending two hours describing what wind is in the first place," continued Maurice. "And three hours-" He stuck out a stubby finger, pointing to the sea around them. "Oh, Gersem-look! That stuff' s calledwater."
Ousanas and Antonina burst out laughing. Belisarius, for all his ferocious frown, was hard-pressed not to join them.
After a moment, however, the amusement faded. Theywere hunting a monster, after all. And they were no longer lurking in ambush, hidden in a blind.
Behind him, Belisarius heard Maurice sigh. "All right, all right," the chiliarch muttered. "Fair's fair. You were right again, general. But I still don't know how you figured it out."