She moved over to her own great regal bed and sat down on the edge. "Come here, girls," she commanded, patting the bedding. "Sit, and I will tell you who you are."
The sisters-now completely confused, and again fearful-moved toward the bed. On the way, the youngest clutched to the only certainty which their universe had possessed for years. "We are the daughters of Dadaji Holkar."
Lady Damodara laughed. Softly, with gentle humor. "Indeed so!"
And then, in the minutes which followed, she told them who their father was. Told them that the humble small town scribe from whom they had been torn had since become the peshwa of mighty Andhra. An Andhra growing mightier by the day.
By the time she finished, both girls were weeping. From joy, because they knew their father-and mother, too-were still alive. From grief, hearing of the death of their brother.
But, mostly, from fear and heartbreak.
"You are holding us hostage, then," whispered the youngest.
"Our father will never want us back, anyway," sobbed the older, clutching her child to her breast. "Not now. Not so great a man, with such polluted daughters."
Lady Damodara studied them for a moment. Then, rose and went to the window of her bedchamber. Once at the window, she stared out over great Kausambi.
"Hostages?" The question seemed posed as much to herself as anyone. "Yes. It is true. On the other hand. "
She studied the sleeping city. It reminded her of a giant beast, washing on the waves of a deep and black ocean.
"Let us rather think of it as a pledge. Malwa has much to answer for. Many fathers struck childless, and children orphaned." She turned her head away from the window and gazed on the sisters. "So perhaps the day may come when a family reunited will serve as an offering. And so a father grown powerful might be moved to hold his hand from vengeance, and counsel others to do the same. Because the sight of his living children might remind him of the cost of more dead ones."
The sisters stared at her, their eyes still wet with tears. "We will mean nothing to him now," repeated the oldest. "No longer. Not after everything which has passed."
Lady Damodara issued another soft, gentle laugh. "Oh, I think not." She turned her face back to the window, this time studying not the city so much as the land it sat upon. As if she were pondering the nature of the great, dark ocean through which the beast swam.
"Whatever happens," she said quietly, "India will never be the same. So I would not be so sure, children, that your father will think as he might have once. A man does not go from such obscurity to such power, you know, if he is incapable of handling new truths. And besides-"
Again, the laugh. "He is said to be a philosopher. Let us all hope it is true!"
When she turned back from the window this time, the movement had an air of finality. She came to stand before the two sisters on her bed, and planted her hands on her hips.
"And now, I think, it is time for us to start anew as well. You will continue in your duties, of course, for that is necessary. Ask no questions. Say nothing to anyone. But, for the rest. what are your names?"
That simple question seemed to steady the girls, and bring them back from the precipice of fear and sorrow.
"I am called Lata," said the youngest, smiling a bit timidly. "My sister is named Dhruva."
"And my little boy is Baji," concluded her sister. "Who is as dear to me as the sunrise, regardless of whence he came."
Lady Damodara nodded. "A good start. Especially that last. We will all need your wisdom, child, before this is through."
* * *
No one took any notice of the beggar squatting outside Venandakatra's palace. He was simply one among many beggars. The old man had been plying his trade there for several weeks, and had long since become a familiar part of the landscape. Few people paid any attention to him at all, in truth-and certainly not the arrogant Ye-tai who guarded the Goptri.
Some of the other denizens of the city's slums noticed him, of course. For all the old man's apparent poverty, his garments were a bit unusual. Not in their finery-they were rags, and filthy at that-but simply in their extent. Most beggars wore nothing more than a loincloth. This old man's entire body was shrouded, as if by a winding sheet.
There was a reason for that, which was discovered by a small band of street toughs when they assaulted the old beggar. The attack occurred a few days after he first began plying his trade, in the crooked alley where the old beggar slept at night. The toughs had noticed that the beggar's bowl had been particularly well-endowed that day, and saw no reason such a miserable creature should enjoy that largesse.
The first thug who seized the old beggar by the arm was almost paralyzed with shock. Beneath the filthy garment, that arm was not the withered limb he had been expecting to feel. It was thick, and muscled so powerfully that the thug thought for a moment that he had seized a bar of iron.
The impression was reinforced an instant later-very briefly-when the elbow attached to the arm swept back and crushed the thug's throat. And that first attacker's new wisdom was shared, within a matter of a few seconds, by his three comrades. A very brief enlightenment, it was.
A few days later, another gang of toughs made the same discovery. Thereafter, the old beggar was left alone. The word spread, as it always did in such crowded and fetid slums, that the new beggar who lived in that alley was guarded by a demon. How else explain the mangled and battered corpses which had appeared of a morning-twice, now-in the mouth of that alley? While the beggar himself emerged unharmed, at the break of day, to resume plying his pathetic trade.
No word of this, of course, ever came to the ears of the authorities. Nor, if it had, would they have paid any attention. The slums of any city-especially a great metropolis like Bharakuccha-are full of superstition and rumor.
And so, day after day, the old beggar plied his trade against the wall of the palace. And so, day after day, the Ye-tai who guarded the entrance gave him no more than a casual glance.
Venandakatra himself did not give the beggar so much as a glance, in his own comings and goings. Such creatures were simply beneath the Goptri's notice. So he was completely oblivious to the way in which, without seeming to, the beggar's eyes followed his every movement while the beggar's head remained slumped in abject misery. Showing, in their hidden depths, a gleam which would have seemed odd in such a man. Almost yellow eyes, they were, like those of a watchful predator.
Chapter 27
The Sind
Autumn, 533 A.D.
Belisarius and his army encountered the first Malwa force shortly after rounding the southern slopes of the Kot Diji hills and crossing the Nara. Fortunately, the Romans had received forewarning that enemy troops were in the vicinity-not from any spies or scouts, but from the stream of refugees coming south from the Indus.
Abbu and his scouts captured a small group of the refugees, what appeared to be an entire extended family. Not knowing their language, he brought the group to the general. Belisarius' fluency in foreign tongues was a byword among his troops. The Talisman of God allowed him to understand any language-even, some said, the speech of animals.
The truth, of course, fell far short of that legend. Aide did provide Belisarius with a great facility for learning foreign languages. But it was not magic, and did not allow Belisarius to understand and speak a language in an instant.
So the group of peasants huddling on the ground before him, with their few belongings strapped to their backs and their one precious cow "guarded" in the center, were unable to communicate with him. In truth, the people were so terrified that Belisarius doubted they would have been able to speak in any event. The eyes of the men and women were downcast. They stared at the soil before them as if, by ignoring the armed and armored men who surrounded them, they could change reality itself.