Fortune's Stroke

Ajatasutra paused, to make sure he had his audience's rapt attention. Then: "When she realized Balban had set a pack of street thugs after her, she forted herself up in the kitchen of a pastry shop. I wasn't there, myself—I watched from outside—but she apparently poured meat broth over the lot and began hacking them with a cleaver. Killed several herself, before one of Belisarius' cataphracts came to her rescue. After that—"

He shrugged. "One cataphract—against a handful of street toughs."

The Rajput cavalrymen surrounding him, veterans all, grunted deep satisfaction. Roman cataphracts were their enemy, of course, but—

Street toughs—against a soldier?

"A woman did all that?" queried one of the Rajputs. The air of satisfaction was absent, now. He seemed almost aggrieved. "A woman?"

Ajatasutra smiled. Nodded. Held out his hand again. "A little bitty woman," he said cheerfully. "No taller than this."

The assassin glanced at Rana Sanga. He saw that the anger in the Rajput king's face had completely faded. Replaced by something which almost seemed sadness, thought Ajatasutra.

Odd.

Abruptly, Sanga turned away and began striding toward his horse. "Let's go," he commanded. "There's nothing more to be done here. I want to make it back to the army by nightfall."

Once astride his horse, he gave the scene a last quick survey. "The ambush failed," he announced. "That's all."

* * *

That night, standing before his tent in the giant camp of Damodara's army, Rana Sanga studied the mountains looming to the west. The full moon bathed them in a silvery beauty. But there was something ominous about that pale shimmer. Liquid, almost, those mountains seemed. As difficult to pin down as the man who lurked somewhere within them.

"I wish we had killed you," whispered Sanga. "It would have made things so much easier for us. And then again—"

He sighed, turned away, pulled back the flap to his tent. He gave a last glance at the moon, high and silvery, before stooping into the darkness. He remembered another night he had done the same, after the massacre of rebel Ranapur. Remembered his thoughts on that night. The same thoughts he had now.

I wish you were not my enemy. But—

I swore an oath.

* * *

That same moment, staring down onto the plateau from the mountain pass, Belisarius studied the flickering fires of the far-distant Malwa army camp. It was the day after the ambush, and his own army had arrived. The Roman troops were camped just half a mile below the crest of the mountains.

He was no longer estimating the size of the enemy army. He was done with that. He was simply contemplating one of the men he knew was among that huge host.

It was very nicely done, Sanga. Sorry to have disappointed you.

The thought was whimsical, not angry. Had he been in Sanga's place, he would have done the same. And he mused, once again, on the irony of the situation. There were few men in the world he dreaded as much as Rana Sanga. A tiger in human flesh.

And yet—

He sighed and turned away. He would meet Sanga again.

Picking his way down the trail in the semidarkness, he remembered the message which the Great Ones had once given Aide and his race. The secret—part of it, at least—which those awesome beings of the future imparted to the crystals they had created, when those crystals found themselves threatened by the "new gods."

Guided by that message, the crystals had sent Aide back in time to find "the general who is not a warrior." But the Great Ones had understood the entirety of the thing. Descended from human flesh—though there was no trace of that flesh remaining in them—they understood all the secrets of the human soul, and its contradictions.

Aide, in a soft mental message, spoke the words: See the enemy in the mirror.

A sudden deep sadness engulfed Belisarius.

The friend across the field.

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Framed

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Chapter 4

AXUM

Spring, 532 A.D.

Antonina shook her head, partly in awe, partly in disbelief. "Was anyone killed when it fell?" she asked.

Next to her, Eon lifted his massive shoulders in a small shrug.

"Nobody knows, Antonina." For a moment, the Prince of Axum's dark face was twisted into a grimace of embarrassment. "We were still pagans, at the time. And the workmen would have all been slaves. We Ethiopians kept many slaves, back then"—his next words came in a bit of a rush—"before we adopted the teachings of Jesus Christ."

Antonina fought down a smile. The semi-apology in Eon's response was quite unnecessary, after all. It was not as if Roman rulers—

"Please, Eon! You don't need to apologize for the barbarity of your pagan ancestors. At least your old kings didn't stage gladiatorial contests, or feed Christians to lions."

Alas. She could tell immediately, from Eon's expression, that her attempt at reassurance had failed of its mark.