It took a minute or so for the room to clear. As they waited, Shakuntala leaned over and whispered: "I wouldn't have thought you'd want Bindusara."

Rao smiled thinly. "You are the treasure of my soul. But you are also sometimes still very young. You are over your head here, girl. I wanted the sadhu because he isalso a philosopher."

Shakuntala hissed, like an angry snake. She had a disquieting feeling, though, that she sounded like an angryyoung snake.

Certainly, the sound didn't seem to have any effect on Rao's smile. "You never pay enough attention to those lessons. Still! After all my pleading." The smile widened, considerably. The last courtier was passing through the door and there was no one left to see but the inner council.

"Philosophy has form as well as substance, girl. No one can be as good at it as Bindusara unless he is also a master oflogic."

Shakuntala began the debate. Her arguments took not much time, since they were simplicity itself.

We have been winning the war by patience. Why should we accept this challenge to a clash of great armies on the open field, where we would be over-matched?

Because one old man challenges another to a duel? Because both of the fools still think they're young?

Nonsense!

When it came his turn, Rao's smile was back in place. Very wide, now, that smile.

"Not so old as allthat, I think," he protested mildly. "Neither me nor Rana Sanga. Still, my beloved wife has penetrated to the heart of thing. Itis ridiculous for two men, now well past the age of forty-"

"Almost fifty!" Shakuntala snapped.

"-and, perhaps more to the point, both of them now very experienced commanders of armies, not young warriors seeking fame and glory, to suddenly be gripped by a desire to fight a personal duel."

To Shakuntala's dismay, the faces of the three generals had that horridlook on them. That half-dreamy, half-stern expression that men got when their brains oozed out of their skulls and they started babbling like boys again.

"Be a match of legend," murmured Kondev.

The Empress almost screamed from sheer frustration. The day-long single combat that Rao and Rana Sanga had fought once, long ago, was famous all across India. Every mindless warrior in India would drool over the notion of a rematch.

"You were twenty years old, then!"

Rao nodded. "Indeed, we were. But you are not asking the right question, Shakuntala. Have you-ever once-heard me so much as mention any desire for another duel with Sanga? Even in my sleep."

"No," she said, tight-jawed.

"I think not. I can assure you-everyone here-that the thought has not once crossed my mind for at least... oh, fifteen years. More likely, twenty."

He leaned forward a bit, gripping the armrests of the throne in his powerful, out-sized hands. "So why does anyone think that Rana Sangawould think of it, either? Have I aged, and he, not? True, he is a Rajput. But, even for Rajputs, there is a difference between a husband and a father of children and a man still twenty and unattached. A difference not simply in the number of lines on their faces, but in how they think."

Shahji cleared his throat. "He has lost his family, Rao. Perhaps that has driven him to fury."

"Buthas he lost them?" Rao looked to Dadaji Holkar. Not to his surprise, the empire's peshwa still had one of the letters brought by the Malwa assassin held in his hand. Almost clutched, in fact.

"What do you make of it, Dadaji?"

Holkar's face bore an odd expression. An unlikely combination of deep worry and even deeper exultation. "Oh, it's from my daughters. There are little signs-a couple of things mentioned no one else could have known-"

"Torture," suggested Kondev.

"-that make me certain of it." He glanced at Kondev and shook his head. "Torture seems unlikely. For one thing, although the handwriting is poor-my daughters' education was limited, of course, in the short time I had before they were taken from me-it is not shaky at all. I recognized it quite easily. I can even tell you which portion was written by Dhruva, and which by Lata, from that alone. Could I do so, were the hands holding the pen trembling with pain and fear as well as inexperience? Besides..."

He looked at the door through which the courtiers had left-and, a bit earlier, an assassin. "I do not think that man is a torturer."

"Neither do I," said Rao firmly. "And I believe, at my advanced age"-here, a sly little smile at Shakuntala-"I can tell the difference."

Shakuntala scowled, but said nothing. Rao gestured at Holkar. "Continue, please."

"The letter tells me nothing, naturally, of the girls' location. But it does depict, in far more detail than I would have expected, the comfort of their lives now. And there are so many references to the mysterious 'ladies' to whom they have-this is blindingly obvious-grown very attached."

"You conclude from this?"

Dadaji studied the letter in his hand, for a moment. "I conclude from this that someone-not my daughters, someone else-is sending me a message here. Us, rather, a message."

Rao leaned back in his throne. "So I think, also. You will all remember the message sent to us last year from Dadaji's daughters, with the coin?"

Several heads nodded, Shakuntala's among them.

"And how Irene Macrembolitissa convinced us it was not a trap, but the first step in a complex maneuver by Narses?"

All heads nodded.

Rao pointed to the letter. "I think that is the second step. Inviting us to take a third-or, rather, allow someone else to do so."

That statement was met by frowns of puzzlement on most faces. But, from the corner of her eye, Shakuntala saw Bindusara nodding.

She could sense that she was losing the argument. For a moment, she had to struggle desperately not to collapse into sheer girlish pleading-which would end, inevitably, with her blurting out before the council news she had not yet even given to Rao. Of the new child that was coming.

Suddenly, Rao's large hand reached over and gave her little one a squeeze. "Oh, be still, girl. I can assure you that I have no intention whatsoever of fighting Rana Sanga again."

His smile was simply cheerful now. "Ever again, in fact. And that is precisely why I will accept the challenge."

In the few seconds those two sentences required, Shakuntala swung from despair to elation and back.

"You don't need to do this!"

"Of course, I don't. But Rana Sangadoes. "

Chapter 10.

Axum.

"What, no elephants?" Antonina asked sarcastically.

Ousanas shook his head. "They won't fit in the corridors, not even in the Ta'akha Maryam. We tried.

Too bad, though. It would have made a nice flourish. Instead-"

He gestured before them, down the long hallway leading to the throne room. "-we must walk."

Antonina tried to picture war elephants inside the Ta'akha Maryam, her mind boggling a little. Even if the huge beasts could have been inserted into the halls...

She looked down the long rows of guards and officials, flanking both sides. "They'd have crushed everybody," she muttered.

"Oh, not the soldiers. Most of them would have scampered aside in time, and the ones who didn't had no business being sarwen anyway. In fact, Ezana thought it would be a useful test."

Ezana was the senior commander of the three royal regiments. Antonina thought he was probably cold-blooded enough to have said that. There was something downright scary about Ezana. Fortunately, he was not hot-tempered, nor impulsive. Even more fortunately, his devotion to the dynasty was unquestioned by anyone, including Antonina.

Ezana had been one of Eon's two bodyguards while he'd still been a prince. That was a very prestigious position for the soldiers who made up Ethiopia's regiments-the "sarwen," as they called themselves.

When Eon had assumed the throne, Ezana had become the commander of the royal regiments-and the other bodyguard, Wahsi, had been appointed the military commander of the Ethiopian naval expedition that Antonina had used to rescue Belisarius and his army from the siege of Charax.

Wahsi had died in battle in the course of that expedition. Eon's son, the new Axumite King of Kings, had been named after him.

So, Antonina had no doubt at all of Ezana's loyalty to the infant negusa nagast, sired by the prince he'd guarded and named after his best friend. Still, he was... scary.

"The slaughter among the officials, of course, would have been immense," Ousanas continued cheerfully.

"seeing how half of them are as fat as elephants, and eight out of ten have brains that move more ponderously. But it was my assessment that the loss of one-third would be a blessing for the kingdom.

Ezana was hoping that half would be crushed."

Antonina thought the aqabe tsentsen was joking, but she wasn't sure. There were ways in which Ousanas was even scarier than Ezana. But since they were nearing the entrance to the throne room, she decided she'd simply pretend she hadn't heard.

One-third of Ethiopia's officials, slain in a few minutes! Half, according to Ezana!

Bloodthirsty African maniacs. Antonina would have been quite satisfied with a simple, unostentatious Roman decimation.

"All be silent!"

As if his booming commander's voice wasn't enough, Ezana slammed the iron-capped ferrule of his spear onto the stone floor."Be silent!"

The throne room had become perfectly quiet even before the ferrule hit the floor. Leaving aside the fact that no one in their right mind was going to disobey Ezana under these circumstances, the crowd packed into the huge chamber was waiting to hear Antonina's decrees. Eagerly, in some cases; anxiously, in others; fearfully, in some. But not one person there was indifferent, or inclined to keep chattering.

Actually, there hadn't been much chatter anyway. Antonina had noticed the unusual quiet the moment she entered the room. Ethiopians had informal habits, when it came to royalty, certainly compared to Roman or Persian custom. As a rule, even during an official session, the royal audience chamber had a constant little hubbub of conversation in the background. Nothing boisterous or intrusive, to be sure. But neither Ethiopian soldier-seamen nor Arab merchants saw any reason not to conduct quiet business in the back of the chamber while the negusa nagast and his officials made their various judgments and rulings around the throne.

Not today. The chamber had been subdued when Antonina entered, and now it was utterly silent.

Well... not quite. Softly and contentedly, the baby ruler of the kingdom was suckling his mother's breast, as she sat on the throne.

That was being done on Antonina's instructions. Normally, for such a session, Rukaiya would have used a wet nurse just as readily as any Roman empress. But Antonina had thought the sight of the baby feeding would help remind everyone of the cold and hard facts that surrounded that softest of realities.

On one side, the cold and hard facts that thiswas the son of Eon the Great and his successor-and this was the woman he had chosen to be his queen. On the other, the colder and harder facts that the successor was a babe, and the queen a teenager. The same cold and hard facts that had existed when Alexander the Great died-and, within a few short years, had led to civil war, the eventual division of the empire between the Diadochi, and the murder of Alexander's widow and child.

Ezana waited until Antonina had climbed the steps that led up to the royal dais. The steps were wide, but shallow. Wide enough to give the guards positioned just behind the throne time to intercept any would-be assassin. Shallow enough, that the ruler was not so elevated above his subjects that a normal conversation couldn't be held with those seeking an audience.

There was a chair waiting for her there, to the right of the queen's. A throne, really, though not as large or elaborate as the one in which Rukaiya sat with the infant negusa nagast. But Antonina had already decided she'd make her decrees while standing. She'd learned that trick from watching her friend Theodora rule Rome.

Sit, when you're judging and negotiating-but always stand, when you're really laying down the law.

As soon as Antonina had reached her position and given him a little nod-she'd already told Ezana she wouldn't be using the chair for this-the regimental commander's voice boomed out again.

"As decreed by Eon the Great on his deathbed, the Roman woman Antonina will rule on the measures to be taken to ensure the royal succession. Eon gave her complete authority for the task. I was there, I heard, I bear witness. Her decrees are final. Her decrees are absolute. They will not be questioned."

That was... not entirely true. No decrees laid down by anyone other than God could cover all the details and complexities. Antonina knew full well that, starting on the morrow, she'd be sitting in that chair and dickering over the fine points. Still, for the moment- In case anyone had any lingering doubts, Ezana slammed the spear butt on the stones again. "Not by anyone!"

Before she began, she glanced around the room. All the principals were there. Ousanas was standing on the lowest step of the dais, to her right, as was customary for the aqabe tsentsen. Ezana occupied the equivalent position to the left, as befit the commander of the royal regiments. Just to his left, on the stone floor, were the rest of the commanders of the regiments stationed in Axum.

Directly front of the dais were assembled the kingdom's officials, with old Garmat at the center.

Officially, he was the viceroy of the Axum-controlled portions of Arabia. In reality, he also served as one of the ruler's closest advisers. Garmat had served Eon's father Kaleb in the same posts that Ousanas had later served Eon himself-first, as the dawazz for the prince; then, as the aqabe tsentsen for the king. The half-Arab one-time bandit was cunning and shrewd, and much respected by everyone in the kingdom.

Spread out to either side of the officials, and ranging beyond throughout the throne room, was the elite of the realm. The majority were Ethiopians, but perhaps a third were Arabs. All of the latter were either tribal or clan chiefs, or experienced and wealthy merchants and traders-or, more often than not, both together.

There was one Arab standing next to Garmat, in the small group of officials at the center. That was Rukaiya's father, who was one of the wealthiest of the Quraysh merchants in Mecca-and had been appointed by Eon himself as the viceroy for Arabia's west coast. The Hijaz, as it was called, the area north of Yemen that was dominated by the Quraysh tribe.

"You all understand the problem we face," Antonina began. She saw no reason to bore everyone with a recitation of the obvious. Everyone there had had months to consider the situation, and by now everyone understand it perfectly well.

"The future for Axum is splendid, provided the kingdom can pass through the next twenty years without strife and turmoil. To do so, in my judgment, the throne needs an additional bulwark."

Since Axumites were expert sailors as well as stone masons, she added another image. "An outrigger, if you will, to keep the craft from overturning in heavy seas."

She had to fight down a smile, seeing Ousanas and Garmat wince slightly. Both men were fond of poetry-Garmat more than Ousanas-and she knew she'd be hearing wisecracks later concerning her pedestrian use of simile and metaphor.

Ezana's expression, on the other hand, was simply intent. And it was ultimately Ezana who mattered here. Not simply because he commanded the spears of the regiment, but because he-unlike Ousanas and Garmat, each outsiders in their different ways-was Ethiopian through and through. If Ezana accepted her ruling, with no hesitations or doubts, she was confident the rest would follow.

"So, I have decided to create a new post for the kingdom. The name of this official will be theangabo. "

She paused, knowing that the little murmur which swept the room was both inevitable and worked to her advantage.

The term "angabo" was well known to those people, especially the Ethiopians. The kingdom of Axum had several legends concerning its origins. The predominant one, contained in theBook of Aksum, held that the founder of the city of Axum was Aksumawi, son of Ethiopis and grandson of the Noah of the Bible. A related legend had it that the kings of Axum were descendants of Solomon and Makeda, the queen of Sheba. Those were the officially favored legends, of course, since they gave the now-Christian kingdom an impeccably Biblical lineage for their rulers.

But Axum had only converted to Christianity two centuries earlier, and there still existed a third and older legend. This legend had no formal sanction, but it was well-respected by the populace-and neither the kings of Ethiopia nor its Christian bishops had ever made any attempt to suppress it. Axumites were not much given to doctrinal asperity, certainly by the standards of Rome's contentious bishops and patriarchs. All the more so since the legend, however pagan it might be, was hardly derisive toward the monarchy.

According to that older legend, Ethiopia had once been ruled by a great and evil serpent named Arwe or Waynaba. Once a year, the serpent-king demanded the tribute of a young girl. This continued until a stranger named Angabo arrived, slew the serpent, saved the girl, and was then elected king by the people. His descendant, it was said, was the Makeda who was the queen of Sheba of the Solomon story-although still another version of the legend claimed Makeda was the girl he rescued.