In the Heart of Darkness

Chapter 7

"I'm not sure that was wise, Belisarius," said Eon.

The Axumite royal was seated on the carpeted floor of his pavilion. From his long weeks in close promiximity to Shakuntala, Eon had come to adopt the lotus position as his preferred posture when discussing serious affairs. He had even begun practicing the peculiar Indian yoga rituals which she had taught him. He claimed the posture, and the yoga, aided his concentration.

Belisarius glanced at the sarwen. Proper Africans, still, Ezana and Wahsi sat firmly perched on the little stools which their own culture preferred. These stools, true, were lavishly upholstered in the Indian matter; not proper wood stools. But they were the best that the Axumite soldiers could manage under the circumstances.

Belisarius knew that the sarwen looked askance at their Prince's enthusiasm for some of the weird customs of India. But they did not protest, so long as their Prince refrained from adopting the outrageous Indian notion that royalty were divine, instead of the mere instrument for their people's well-being.

There was no danger of Eon adopting that particular notion. It would have cut against the Prince's own grain, anyway, even if-

Belisarius smiled, glancing at Ousanas. The dawazz, like his Prince, had also adopted the lotus position. The old expression-"when in Rome, do as the Romans do"-was second nature to Ousanas. Were he ever to find himself in a pride of lions, Belisarius had no doubt that Ousanas would immediately adopt their own feline traditions. Right down to eating raw meat, and killing off the established male lion. Though he might-might-refrain from copulating with the lionesses.

Ousanas was seated close to his Prince. Behind him, from respect. But not very far behind him, in case some fool notion required him to smack his Prince sharply on the head.

Belisarius saw the dawazz's hand twitch.

"Not wise at all, I think," repeated Eon.

There was no reproach in the Prince's voice, simply the concentration of a young man with a great responsibility, trying to determine the best course without the benefit of long experience.

"Nonsense," stated Shakuntala firmly. "It was perfect."

As always, when the Satavahana heir spoke on political matters, her tone was hard as steel. She was even younger than Eon, and bore on her small shoulders an even greater responsibility, but-

Belisarius suppressed his smile, gazing at Shakuntala. If she spotted it, he knew the young Empress would be offended. She was not an arrogant monarch-not, at least, by Indian standards. But she had been shaped by a culture which had none of the Roman, much less Ethiopian, informality with royalty. She was still, even after the many weeks since she had been incorporated into the frequent councils of war which they held in Eon's pavilion, obviously taken aback by the freewheeling manner in which Roman and Ethiopian underlings offered their opinions-even their criticisms! — to their superiors.

The smiling impulse faded. Belisarius, still watching Shakuntala, knew that the girl's imperial manner stemmed from something much deeper than custom. He had come to like Shakuntala, in a distant sort of way. And he had also, as had everyone in the small Roman and Ethiopian contingent, found himself inexorably drawn by her magnetic personality. He did not adore the girl, as did her own entourage of Maratha women. But he had no difficulty understanding that adoration.

Months ago, explaining to his skeptical allies the reasons for taking the great risk they had in rescuing the Empress from her captors, Belisarius had told them that she would become India's greatest ruler. She will make Malwa howl, he had told them.

From weeks-months, now-in her company, they were skeptical no longer.

Shakuntala looked squarely at Eon.

"What would you have had him do, Eon?"

This was a concession, thought Belisarius, to the customs of her allies-explaining herself, rather than simply decreeing. Then, thinking further, he decided otherwise. The girl, in her own way, was genuinely accepting the best aspects of those odd foreign ways. She was extremely intelligent, and had seen for herself the disaster which had befallen her own dynasty, too rigid to respond adequately to the new Malwa challenge. And, besides, she had been trained by Raghunath Rao, the quintessential Maratha.

"What else could he have done?" she repeated. "If he had refused to execute them, he would have given the lie to our carefully crafted image of a man contemplating treason. All that careful work-your work too, Eon, pretending to be a vicious brute with no thought for anything beyond gratifying your lusts-gone for nothing. Months of work-a year's work, now. And for what?"

Her voice was filled with cold, imperial scorn.

"For what? Mercy? Do you think Skandagupta would have permitted the survival of Ranapur's potentate and his family? Nonsense! They would simply have been taken away and tortured to death. As it was, they died as quickly as possible. Painlessly, from what you described."

The Empress bestowed a quick, approving glance on Valentinian. The cataphract was standing to one side of the little command circle, along with Anastasius and Menander. They had been offered stools, but had politely refused them. Belisarius' bucellarii had their own ingrained customs, drilled into them by their leader Maurice. Casual they might be, in the company of their lord, and ready enough to offer their opinions. But they did not sit, in the presence of their general, when matters of state were being discussed.

Eon shrugged his shoulders, irritably.

"I know that, Shakuntala!" he snapped. "I am not a-" He bit off the hot words, took a quick breath, calmed himself. But when he turned and faced the Empress, his eyes were still hot.

"We Axumites are not as quick to decree executions as you Indians," he growled, "but neither are we bleating lambs."

The two young people exchanged glares, matching royal will to royal will. Belisarius found it very difficult, now, not to smile. Especially when it became obvious the contest was going to be protracted.

He eyed Garmat surreptitiously, and saw that the adviser was waging his own struggle against visible amusement. For a moment, his glance met that of Ousanas. The dawazz, his face invisible to the young royals seated in front of him, grinned hugely.

Eon and Shakuntala had shared the closest of all company, during the weeks since Belisarius and his allies had rescued the Satavahana heir. The very closest.

Belisarius had devised the entire plan. After Raghunath Rao had butchered her mahamimamsa guards in Venandakatra's palace, he had hidden Shakuntala away in a closet in the guest quarters before drawing off pursuit into a chase across India's forests and mountains. The Ethiopians, arriving at the palace with the Romans not two days later, had taken possession of the guest quarters and smuggled Shakuntala into their entourage. She had been disguised as one of Eon's many concubines, and had spent all her time since in his howdah and his pavilion. At night, always, she slept nestled in Eon's arms-lest some Malwa spy manage, against all odds, to peek into the Prince's pavilion.

Belisarius had wondered, idly, whether that close proximity would transform itself into passion. The two people were young, healthy-immensely vigorous, in fact, both of them-and each, in their own way, extremely attractive. It was a situation which, at first glance, seemed to have only one likely outcome.

Reality, he knew from Ousanas and Garmat, had been more complex. There was no question that Eon and Shakuntala felt a genuine-indeed, quite intense-mutual attraction. On the other hand, each had a well developed (if somewhat different) sense of their royal honor. Shakuntala, though she restrained herself from expressing it, obviously detested her position of dependence; Eon, for his part, was even more rigid in refusing to do anything which he thought might take advantage of that dependence.

Then, too, they each had loyalties to others. Before he met Shakuntala, Eon had already developed an attachment to Tarabai, one of the Maratha women whom the Ethiopians had met in Bharakuccha. Until Shakuntala's arrival, it had been Tarabai who spent every night nestled in his arms-and not, unlike Shakuntala, in a platonic manner. Since then, though Shakuntala had often indicated her willingness to look the other way, Eon and Tarabai had remained chaste. Eon, from a sense of royal propriety; Tarabai, from the inevitable timidity of a low-caste woman in the presence of her own Empress.

Eon was thus caught in an exquisite trap: a young and healthy man, surrounded by beautiful women almost every hour of the day and night, living the life of a monk. To say that he was frustrated was to put it mildly.

For her part, Shakuntala was torn in a different way. Garmat and Ousanas were not certain, for the empress spoke of the man only rarely, but they suspected that Shakuntala's feelings for Raghunath Rao went well beyond the admiration of a child for her mentor. She had been in Rao's keeping since the age of seven, and the Maratha chieftain had practically served as her surrogate father-uncle, say better. But-for all the difference in age, Shakuntala was now a woman, and Rao was as attractive as any man in early middle age could possibly be. And since he was not, in actual fact, related to her in any way, there was no real reason for their relationship not to develop into romance.

Except-those rigid, hard, ingrained Indian customs. Especially that bizarre (to Roman and Ethiopian eyes alike) insistence on purity of blood and avoidance of pollution. Shakuntala was of the most ancient lineage, the purest of kshatriya ancestry. Whereas Rao, for all his fame, was nothing but a chieftain-of the Maratha, to boot, a frontier people who could not trace their ancestry beyond two generations.

So she, like Eon, was also trapped between sentiment and honor. It was a different trap, but its jaws were not less steely.

In the end, Belisarius knew, the two youngsters had managed to carve out a relationship which was a bit like that of brother to sister. Very close, very intimate-and much given to quarrel.

The glares, he saw, were not softening. He decided to intervene.

"Explain yourself further, Eon, if you would."

The Prince tore his eyes away from Shakuntala. Looking at Belisarius, the glare faded.

"I am not criticizing your ruthlessness, Belisarius. Quite the opposite, in fact." A quick angry glance at the Empress; then: "I wonder if you were ruthless enough."

Belisarius shrugged. "What should I have done? Tortured them? I would have had to do it myself, you know. Valentinian would have refused. So would Anastasius or Menander. They are cataphracts. Torture is beneath them."

That was not, precisely, correct. Neither Valentinian nor Anastasius was squeamish, in the least, and they had both had occasion, in times past, to subject captured soldiers to methods of interrogation which were referred to by more delicate souls as "rigorous." But the spirit of the statement was true enough. Belisarius was not sure, actually, what Valentinian would have done had he commanded him to torture a family for the amusement of Malwa. It was quite possible that the cataphract would have done so, if in a quick and crude way which would have left the Malwa appetite unsatisfied. But Belisarius had not the slightest doubt that it would be the last service the cataphract would ever do him.

Eon clenched his jaws, waved his hand in a gesture dismissing a preposterous proposal.

But Belisarius did not relent.

"What, then? Those were my choices. My only choices."

Eon sighed. His shoulders slumped.

"I know. I was there. But-" He sighed more deeply. "I'm afraid you may have given our plot away in any event, Belisarius. Or, at least, so offended the Malwa that they will no longer pursue their courtship of you."

Belisarius began to reply, but Ousanas interrupted.

"You are quite wrong, Eon. You misread the Malwa badly."

The dawazz rose lazily and came to stand where he could be seen.

"You were watching Venandakatra, boy. That was your mistake."

His huge grin erupted.

"Natural mistake, of course! Such a comical sight he was, prancing around like a fat hen covered with her own broken eggs! I, myself, found it hard not to savor that delicious spectacle."

Everyone who had been at the scene chuckled. Ousanas continued:

"But still a mistake. You should have watched the Emperor. And-most important-his other advisers. As I did." He grinned down at Belisarius. "The Emperor was paralyzed, of course. By Belisarius' gaze more than the bloodshed. Which is good. For the first time, now, he will fear Belisarius-just as Venandakatra does."

"Why is that good?" demanded Eon. "That fear will lead him-"

"To what? To avoid the Roman personally? Oh, to be sure. The Emperor has underlings to do that work. But do you think he will avoid the Roman politically? Quite the contrary, Eon. Once the Emperor settles his nerves, you can be sure he will raise suborning Belisarius to the highest priority."

Eon frowned. "Why?"

Garmat answered: "It's simple, Prince. A potential traitor is attractive in direct proportion to his stature. Until now, I suspect, none of the high Malwa beyond Venandakatra have seen Belisarius as anything other than an insignificant foreigner. For all their sophistication, Indians as a rule-and Malwa in particular-are a rather provincial people. Or, it might be better to say, so taken by their own grandeur that they tend to underestimate outlanders."

Shakuntala nodded firmly. Garmat continued:

"I cannot be sure, of course-I am hardly privy to the Malwa's high councils-but I suspect that Venandakatra has found it heavy going to convince the imperial court that this"-a contemptuous flutter of the fingers-"bizarre barbarian is worth much attention. It cannot have escaped your notice that the Emperor has kept us at a great distance ever since we arrived. To the point of gross rudeness."

Garmat spread his arms, smiling. "I can assure you that is no longer true. The reason for that little charade today was that the Emperor finally decided to let Venandakatra prove his argument. Which Venandakatra did, if to his own great personal chagrin."

Another collective chuckle. Ousanas added:

"Listen to your adviser, boy. You think too much of Venandakatra, that is your mistake. Venandakatra is furious, yes, with all the lividity of an embarrassed egomaniac. But even he-once he calms himself-will realize that the debacle can serve his interests. After all, he was right, wasn't he? Is not this grotesque semisavage foreign general-impressive?" The dawazz laughed gaily. "Oh, yes-the Emperor was quite impressed! But, what is even more important, so were his other advisers. As I said, I watched them very closely. Once they recovered from the surprise"-another laugh-"and made sure their precious slippers were safe, their eyes were riveted on Belisarius. With great interest, boy. Oh, very great. The kind of interest that a miser shows, when he discovers that a pebble is actually a nugget."

Eon was still frowning. Garmat sighed, tried again.

"Listen to me, Eon. I speak with the experience of an Arab nomad, who was haggling over trade goods from the time I was four. If you want to get the best price for your commodity-which is treason, in the case of Belisarius-you must do more than indicate that you simply have a price. That, Belisarius had already done, in the hints he's given to Venankatra these past months, and in his acceptance of the Emperor's gold. But then-then-you must show that your price is very high. Because the higher the price, the more valuable must be the commodity."

Still frowning.

"Fool boy!" snapped Ousanas. "The Emperor thought to buy himself another torturer-of which he has myriads already. Belisarius showed him the truth, when he ordered that execution. If the Emperor wants him, he can have him-so long as he is prepared to pay the price for a general. Of which, judging from the evidence, he has precious few."

Again, the beaming grin.

"Oh, yes, boy-be sure of it. This very night, even as we speak, others are speaking in the Emperor's pavilion. Urging him to pay the price."