"Don't know. But from the clothes he's wearing, someone important, even though he's on foot. He's got a girl with him, and those weird little yellow assassins the witches keep around."

The captain frowned. He knew who the man was talking about, of course, even if none of the regular Malwa assassination teams ever had much contact with the witches and their entourage. But they'd always paid some attention to the Khmer assassins. Just keeping an eye on the competition, as it were.

"What in the world would... Let me see."

He slithered his way to the top of the knoll and carefully parted the grasses.

"It's theemperor, " he hissed.

"Are you sure?" asked his lieutenant.

"Come and look for yourself, if you don't believe me."

The lieutenant did so. Like the captain, though not the other three assassins, he'd been introduced to the emperor once. At a distance, of course, and as part of a small crowd. But it was something a man remembered.

"Damned if you're not right. But what wouldhe be doing... Oh. Stupid question."

The captain smiled, sardonically. "I guess we know who won the siege."

He took a deep breath and let it out. "Well, thank whatever gods there are. After eleven thousand wasted miles and I don't want to think how many wasted hours, we've finally got something to do."

Fortunately, they'd hauled their little bombard the whole way. For all their diminutive size, the Khmer assassins were deadly. But a blast of canister swept them away as neatly as you could ask for. The one who survived, unconscious and badly wounded, got his throat cut a few seconds later.

They hadn't intended to hit the emperor or the girl, but the group had been tightly bunched and canister just naturally spreads.

The girl wasn't too badly hurt. Just a single ball in the left arm. She might lose the arm, but it could have been worse.

There was no chance, however, that Skandagupta would survive.

"Gut-shot," the lieutenant grunted. "He'll die in agony, in a few days. Damodara might like that."

The captain shook his head. "Not by reputation, and all we really need is the head, anyway. Or doyou want to carry the fat little bastard?"

The lieutenant eyed the distant walls of Kausambi. Night was falling, but he could still hear the sounds of scattered fighting.

"Well... it's only a few miles. But after eleven thousand, I'm not in the mood for any extra effort." He knelt down, and with a few expert strokes, severed the imperial head.

The girl was still squawling at them, as she had been since the attack. It was a very strange sound, coming from such a small female. As if her voice emerged from a huge cavern of a chest.

Consciously and deliberately, the assassins had blocked the actual words from their minds You had to be careful, dealing with the witches. Which she obviously was, despite her youth. A witch-in-training, at least.

The captain struck her on the head with the pommel of his dagger. Carefully, just enough to daze the creature.

You never knew, with the witches and the imperial dynasty-of which Damodara was still a part, after all. The reward might be greater, if she were still alive.

Alive, however, was good enough.

"I'm sick of that squawling," said the captain. "Her eyes are creepy, too. Gag her and blindfold her, before she comes to."

They decided to wait until the next day, before entering the city to seek their reward. By then, the fighting should have ended.

Before long, however, the captain was regretting that decision. They were all very well-traveled, by now, and-alas-the lieutenant liked to read.

"You know," he said, "the story has it that when some Persians presented Alexander the Great with the body of Darius, he had them all executed. For regicide, even though he was hunting the former emperor himself."

Silently, the captain cursed all well-read men. Then, because maintaining morale was his duty, pointed out the obvious.

"Don't be silly. Alexander the Great was a maniac. Everybody says Damodara is a level-headed, practical fellow."

Lord Samudra learned the war was over that night, from a radio message sent from Kausambi.

FALSE EMPEROR OVERTHROWN STOP TRUE EMPEROR DAMODARA SITS ON.

THRONE IN KAUSAMBI STOP YOU WILL OBEY HIM LORD SAMUDRA STOP WAR IS.

OVER STOP ESTABLISH LIASON WITH MAURICE OF THRACE TO NEGOTIATE CEASE.

FIRE WITH ROMAN AND PERSIAN ARMIES IN PUNJAB STOP.

"What are you going to do?" asked one of his aides.

Samudra let the message fall to the table in the bunker. "What do you think? I'm going to do exactly as I'm told. The Romans will have received the same message. By now, they've got us outnumbered.

Between them and the Persians, we're facing something like two hundred thousand men."

"And we're losing soldiers by the droves every day," said a different aide, gloomily. "As much by desertion as disease."

There was silence, for a time. Then Samudra said: "You want to know the truth? I know Damodara pretty well. We're cousins, after all. He's about ten times more capable than Skandagupta and-best of all-he's even-tempered."

There was further silence, finally broken by one of the aides.

"Long live the new emperor, then."

"Idiot," said Samudra tonelessly. "Long live thetrue emperor. The greatest army of the Malwa empire does not obey rebels, after all."

It was several days before Belisarius learned the war was over. The news was brought to him by a special courier sent by Damodara.

A Rajput cavalryman, naturally. The man was exceptionally proud-as well he might be-that he'd made the ride as fast as he had, without killing a single horse.

"So, that's it," said Belisarius, rising from his squat across from Kungas.

The two of them emerged from the hut and studied the Malwa army they'd trapped on the Ganges.

There's been little fighting, and none at all for the past four days.

"You were right, I think," said Kungas. "The bitch did kill herself, days ago."

"Most likely. We'll know soon enough. That army's looking at starvation, before too long. They slaughtered their last horses two days ago."

"I'll send an envoy to them. Once they get the news, they'll surrender."

The Kushan king eyed Belisarius. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen that crooked a smile on your face. What amuses you so?"

"I've got a reputation to maintain. You do realize, don't you, that in the days when the final battle was fought and won in the greatest war in history, Belisarius spent his time doing nothing more than drinking lousy wine and gambling with dice?"

Kungas chuckled. "You lost, too. By now, you owe me a small chest of gold."

"Not all that small, really."

But Kungas had stopped chuckling. Another thought had come to him, that caused his notoriously expressionless face to twist into a grimace.

"Oh. You'll never stop crowing about it, will you?"

When Maurice heard, it put him in a foul mood for a full day.

Calopodius' mood was not much better. "How in the name of God am I supposed to putthat in my history? You can only do so much with classical allusions, you know. Grammar and rhetoric collapse under that crude a reality."

"Who gives a damn?" snarled Maurice. "You thinkyou've got problems? I'm still in good health, and I'm only twenty years older than the bastard. Years and years, I'll have to listen to him bragging."

"He's not really a boastful man," pointed out Calopodius.

"Not usually, no. But with something likethis? Ha! You watch, youngster. Years and years and years."

Chapter 40.

Kausambi.

The damage Kausambi had suffered in the fighting was minimal, considering the huge size of the city.

Belisarius had seen far worse before, any number of times. Damodara's forces had been able to breach the walls in two places, without having to suffer heavy casualties in the doing, because the gates had been opened from the inside. As a result, none of the three factors had been operating that, singly or in combination, usually produced horrible sacks.

First, the troops pouring into the city were still under the control of their officers, because the officers themselves had not suffered many casualties and led them through the gates.

Second, the soldiers were not burning with a desire for vengeance on those who had-often horribly, with the most ghastly weapons-butchered their mates while they were still fighting outside the walls.

So, the sort of spontaneously-erupting military riot-in-all-but-name that most "sacks" constituted, had never occured. Beyond, at least, a few isolated incidents-always involving liquor-that Damodara's officers had squelched immediately.

And, third, of course-not all sacks were spontaneous-the commander of the victorious besieging army had not ordered one, after his troops seized the city.

Skandagupta would have done so, of course. But Damodara ruled now, not Skandagupta, and he was a very different sort of man. The only thing of Skandagupta that remained was his head, perched on a spike at the entrance to the imperial palace.

It was the only head there. Damodara had ordered all the other corpses and heads removed.

After dismounting from his horse, Belisarius took a moment to admire the thing.

Pity, though, he said to Aide.Agathius swore he'd someday see Skandagupta lying dead in the dust.

I'm afraid there's not much chance of that, now.

In garam season? No chance at all. Unless he'd be satisfied with looking at a skull. That thing already stinks.

Aide, of course, was detecting the stench through Belisarius' own nostrils. As he had many times before, Belisarius wondered how the jewel perceived things on his own. Hecould do so, Belisarius knew, although the manner of it remained mysterious. Aide and the other crystal beings had none of the senses possessed by the protoplasmic branch of the human family.

But whatever those methods were, Aide had not used them in years. He'd told Belisarius that he found it much easier to do his work if he restricted himself to perceiving the world only through Belisarius' senses.

A courtier-no, a small pack of them-emerged from the palace entrance and hastened down the broad stone stairs at the bottom of which Belisarius was standing.

"General Belisarius!" one of them said. "The emperor awaits you!"

He managed to make that sound as if Damodara was bestowing an immense-no, divine-favor upon the Roman general. Which was laughable, really, since the same Rajput courier who had brought the news of Damodara's triumph had also brought a private message from the new Malwa emperor asking Belisarius to come to Kausambi immediately to "deal with a delicate and urgent matter." The tone of the message had been, if not pleading, certainly not peremptory or condescending.

Courtiers,Belisarius thought sarcastically, handing the reins of his horse to one of the Rajputs who had escorted him to Kausambi.However else people in different lands may vary in their customs, I think courtiers are the same everywhere.

Normally, Aide would have responded with a quip of his own. But the jewel seemed strangely subdued.

He had said very little since they entered the city.

Belisarius thought that was odd. Looked at in some ways-most ways, rather-this final triumph belonged to Aide more than it did to Belisarius or Damodara or anyone else. But he didn't press for an explanation. In the years that he and Aide had shared a mind, for all practical purposes, they'd both learned to respect the privacy of the other.

The Malwa imperial palace was the largest in the world. So far as Belisarius knew, anyway. There might be something equivalent in one of the many kingdoms in China that were vying for power. "Largest," at least, in the sense of being a single edifice. The Roman imperial complex at Constantinople covered more acreage, but much of it was gardens and open walkways.

He'd visited the palace before, a number of times, when he'd come to India years earlier in what amounted to the capacity of a spy. With the help of Aide's perfect memory, Belisarius knew the way to the imperial audience chamber. He could have gone there himself, without needing the guidance of the courtiers.

But, perhaps not. Soon, the courtiers were leading him down a hallway he'd never been in. Old, ingrained habit made him check the spatha in its scabbard, to see that it was loose and would come out easily.

Although the movement was subtle, he made no attempt at all to keep it surreptitious. The courtiers had irritated him enough that he felt no desire to accommodate them. Emperor Damodara had, after all, invitedGeneral Belisarius into his presence. Generals carried swords. Good generals with combat experience carried sharp swords, and made sure they weren't stuck in their scabbards.

One of the courtiers who observed seemed brighter than the rest. Or, at least, didn't suffer from the usual moronic state of the courtier mentality, whose defining characteristic was to think that power emanated from itself.

"The emperor is not waiting for you in the audience chamber, General," he explained quietly. "He awaits you in, ah..."