"Do you really need to ask?"

Lady Damodara came into the room. After taking in the scene, she smiled.

Valentinian transferred his glare to her. "You realize we're almost certainly doomed? All of us." He pointed a stiff finger at Baji, who was still wailing. "If we're lucky, they'll cut the brat's throat first."

"Valentinian!" Dhruva exclaimed. "You'll scare him!"

"No such luck," the Roman cataphract muttered. "Might shut him up. But the brat doesn't understand a word I'm saying."

He glared at Lady Damodara again. "Doomed," he repeated.

She shrugged. "There's a good chance, yes. But it's still a better chance than my husband would have had-and me and the children-if we'd done nothing. Either you Romans would have killed him because he wasn't a good enough general, or the Emperor of Malwa would have killed him because he was. This way there's at least a chance. A pretty good one, I think."

Valentinian wasn't mollified. "Narses and his damned schemes. If I survive this, remind me to cut his throat." As piously as he could, he added: "He's under a death sentence in Rome, you know. The rotten traitor. Just be doing my duty."

Anastasius had never quite stopped rumbling little laughs. Now, the rumbles picked up their pace.

"Should have thought of that sooner!"

There was no answer to that, of course. So Valentinian went back to glaring at the infant.

"And besides," Lady Damodara said, still smiling, "this way we have some entertainment. Dhruva, let your child go."

As pleasantly as the words were said, Lady Damodara wasone of the great noblewomen of the Malwa empire. More closely related to the Emperor, in fact, than her husband. So, whatever her misgivings, Dhruva obeyed.

Set back on the floor, Baji immediately began crawling toward Valentinian.

"Goo!" he said happily.

Still later, in the chamber they shared as a bedroom, Anastasius started rumbling again.

Not laughs, though. Worse. Philosophical musings.

"You know, Valentinian, if you'd stop being annoyed by these minor problems-"

"I kind of like the brat, actually," Valentinian admitted. He was lying on his bed, his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

"It'd be better to say you dote on the little creature," Anastasius chuckled. "But that's not even a minor problem. I was talking about the other things. You know-the danger of being discovered-hiding out the way we are here in their own capital city-swarmed by hordes of Ye-tai barbarians and other Malwa soldiers, flayed and impaled and God knows what else by mahamimamsa torturers. Those problems."

Valentinian lifted his head. "You call thoseminor problems?"

"Philosophically speaking, yes."

"Idon't want to hear-"

"Oh, stop whining." Anastasius sat up on his bed across the chamber and spread his huge hands. "If you refuse to consider the ontology of the situation, at least consider the practical aspect."

"What in God's name are you talking about?"

"It's obvious. One of two things happens. We fall prey to a minor problem, in which case we're flayed and impaled and gutted and God knows what else-but, for sure, we're dead. Follow me so far?"

Valentinian lowered his head, grunting. "An idiot can follow you so far. What's the point?"

"Or wedon't fall prey to a minor problem. In which case, we survive the war. Andthen what? That's the real problem-the major problem-because that's the one that takes real thinking and years to solve."

Valentinian grunted again. "We retire on a pension, what else? If the general's still alive, he'll give us a good bonus, too. Enough for each of us to set up on a farm somewhere in..."

"InThrace? "

Anastasius rumbled another laugh. "Not even you, Valentinian! Much less me, half-Greek like I am and given to higher thoughts. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life raising pigs?"

Silence came from the other bed.

"What's so fascinating about that ceiling, anyway?" One of the huge hands waved about the chamber.

"Look at therest of it. We're in the servant quarters-theold servant quarters, in the rear of the palace-and it's still fancier than the house of the richest peasant in Thrace."

"So?"

"So why settle for a hut when we can retire to something like this?"

Anastasius watched Valentinian carefully, now. Saw how the eyes never left the ceiling, and the whipcord chest rose and fell with each breath.

"All right," Valentinian said finally. "All right. I've thought about it. But..."

"Why not? Who better than us? You know how these Hindus will look at it. The ones from a suitable class, anyway. The girls were rescued from a brothel. Nobody knows who the toddler's father is.

Hopelessly polluted, both of them. The kid, too."

Valentinian scowled, at the last sentence.

More cheerfully still, seeing that scowl, Anastasius continued. "But we're just Thracian soldiers. What do we care about that crap? And-more to the point-who better for a father-in-law than the peshwa of Andhra?"

Valentinian's scowl only seemed to deepen. "What makes you thinkhe'd be willing? The way they look at things, we're about as polluted as the girls."

"Exactly! That's what I meant, when I said you had to consider the ontological aspects of the matter.

More to the point, consider this: who's going to insult the girls-or the kid-with him for a father and us for the husbands?"

Anastasius waited, serenely. It didn't take more than a minute or so before Valentinian's scowl faded away and, in its place, came the smile that had terrified so many men over the years. That lean, utterly murderous, weasel grin.

"Not too many. And they'll be dead. Right quick."

"You see?"

As easily and quickly as he could when he wanted to, Valentinian was sitting up straight. "All right. We'll do it."

Anastasius cocked his head a little. "Any problems with the philosophy of the matter?"

"What the hell does that-"

"The kid's a bastard and the girl's a former whore with a face scarred by a pimp. If any of that's a problem for you, I'll take her and you can have the other sister, Lata."

Valentinian hissed. "You stay the hell away from Dhruva."

"Guess not," said Anastasius placidly. "We have a deal. See how easy it is, when you apply philosophical reasoning?"

Chapter 6.

The Narmada river, in the northern Deccan.

Lord Damodara reined in his horse and sat a little straighter in the saddle. Then, casually, swiveled his head back and forth as if he were working out the kinks in his neck. The gesture would seem natural enough, to anyone watching. They'd been riding along the Narmada river for hours, watching carefully for any sign of a Maratha ambush.

In fact, his neckwas stiff, and the movement was pleasant. But the real reason Damodara did it was to make sure that no one else was within hearing range.

They weren't. Not even the twenty Rajputs serving as his immediate bodyguard, who were now halting their mounts also, and certainly not the thousand or so cavalrymen who followed them. More to the point, the three Mahaveda priests whom Nanda Lal had instructed to accompany Damodara today were at least a hundred yards back. When the patrol started, the priests had ridden just behind Damodara and Sanga. But the long ride-it was now early afternoon-had wearied them. They were not Rajput cavalrymen, accustomed to spending days in the saddle.

"Tell me, Rana Sanga," he said quietly.

The Rajput king sitting on a horse next to him frowned. "Tell you what, Lord? If you refer to the possibility of a Maratha ambush, there is none. I predicted as much before we even left Bharakuccha.

Rao is playing a waiting game. As I would, in his position."

The Malwa general rubbed his neck. "I'm not talking about that, and you know it. I told you this morning that I knew perfectly well this patrol was a waste of time and effort. I ordered it-as you know perfectly well-to keep Nanda Lal from pestering me. Again."

Sanga smiled, thinly. "Nice to be away from him, isn't it?" He reached down and stroked his mount. As long as his arm was, that was an easy gesture. "I admit I prefer the company of horses to spymasters, myself."

Damodara would have chuckled, except the sight of that long and very powerful arm stroking a Rajput horse brought home certain realities. About Rajputs, and their horses-and the Malwa dynasty, and its spymasters.

"It istime , Sanga," he said, quietly but forcefully. "Tell me."

The Rajput kept stroking the horse, frowning again. "Lord, I don't..."

"You know what I'm talking about. I've raised it before, several times." Damodara sighed. "Perhaps a bit too subtly, I admit."

That brought a flicker of a smile to the Rajput's stern face. After a moment, Sanga sighed himself.

"You want to know why I have not seemed to be grieving much, these past months." The flickering smile came and went again. "And my references to philosophical consolations no longer satisfy you."

"Meaning no offense, king of Rajputana, but you are about as philosophically inclined as a tiger."

Damodara snorted. "It might be better to say, have a tiger's philosophy. And you arenot acting like a tiger. Certainly not an enraged one."

Sanga said nothing. Still stroking the horse, his eyes ranged across the Vindhya mountains that paralleled the river on its northern side. As if he were looking for any signs of ambush.

"Luckily," Damodara continued, "I don't think Nanda Lal suspects anything. He doesn't know you well enough. But I do-and I need to know. I... cannot wait, much longer. It is becoming too dangerous for me. I can sense it."

The Rajput king's face still had no expression beyond that thoughtful frown, but Damodara was quite certain he understood. Sanga kept as great a distance as possible from the inner workings of the Malwa empire, beyond its military affairs. But he was no fool; and, a king himself, knew the realities of political maneuver. He was also one of the very few people, outside of the Malwa dynasty, who had communed directly with Malwa's hidden master. Or mistress, if one took the outer shell for what it was.

"I do not think my family is dead," Sanga said finally, speaking very softly. "I am not certain, but..."

Damodara closed his eyes. "As I suspected."

He almost added:as I feared. But did not, because Rana Sanga had become as close to him as Damodara had ever let a man become, and he would not wish that terrible grief on the Rajput.

Even if, most likely, that absence of grief meant that Damodara would soon enough be grieving the loss of his own family.

"Narses," he murmured, almost hissing the word.

He opened his eyes. "Yes?"

Sanga nodded. "I am not certain, you understand. But... yes, Lord. I think Narses spirited them away.

Then faked the evidence of the massacre."

Damodara scowled. "Fakedsome of the evidence, you mean. There were plenty of dead Ye-tai on the scene."

Sanga shrugged. "How else would Narses fake something? He is as dangerous as a cobra. A very old and wise cobra."

"So he is," agreed Damodara. "I've often thought that employing him was as perilous a business as using a cobra for a guard in my own chambers."

Again, he rubbed his neck. "On the other hand, I need such a guard. I think."

"Oh, yes. You do." Sanga left off his pointless scrutiny of the Vindhyas and twisted his head to the west, looking toward Bharakuccha. "You're far more likely to be ambushed back there, by Nanda Lal, than you are here by Raghunath Rao."

Since Damodara had long ago come to that same conclusion, he said nothing. No need to, really. There were no longer many secrets between he and Rana Sanga. They had campaigned together across central Asia and into Mesopotamia, winning every battle along the way, even against Belisarius. And had still lost the campaign, not through any fault of theirs but because Malwa had failed them.

In the upside-down world of the Malwa empire, his accomplishments placed him in greater peril than defeat would have done. Malwa feared excellent generals, in many ways, more than it did bad ones.

"We will return to Bharakuccha," Damodara announced. "This patrol is pointless, and I'd just as soon reach the city before nightfall."

Sanga nodded. He started to rein his horse around, but paused. "Lord. Remember. I swore an oath."

After Sanga was gone, Damodara stared sourly at the river.Rajputs and their damned sacred oaths.

But the thought came more from habit, than anything else. Damodara knew how to circumvent the oath that the Rajputs had given to the emperor of Malwa, swearing their eternal fealty. He'd figured it out long ago-and hadn't need any of Narses' hints to do so.

The thing was quite obvious, really, if a man was prepared to gamble everything on a single daring maneuver. The problem was that, military tactics aside, Damodara was by nature a cautious and conservative man.