In the Heart of Darkness

Link, then, was all that saved Venandakatra from disgrace. Or worse.

"NO. YOU MISS THE GREAT FRAMEWORK. VENANDAKATRA WAS JUST APPOINTED GOPTRI OF THE DECCAN. TO RECALL HIM IN DISGRACE WOULD HEARTEN THE MARATHA. SHAKUNTALA IS IMPORTANT, BUT SHE IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS HER PEOPLE. BREAK THAT PEOPLE, YOU BREAK HER."

The Malwa bowed to their overlord.

"BREAK MAJARASHTRA. TERRORIZE THE MARATHA MONGRELS, TILL THEIR BASTARDS WHISPER FEAR FOR A MILLENIUM. PULVERIZE THAT POLLUTED FOLK."

"FOR THAT, VENANDAKATRA WILL DO. PERFECTLY."

A Husband and His Thoughts.

The day before his departure to join Lord Damodara's army, Rana Sanga spent entirely with his wife. Late that night, exhausted from love-making, he stroked his wife's hair.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, smiling. "All of a sudden, you've got this serious look on your face."

"Hard to explain," he grunted.

His wife reared up in the bed, the coverings falling away from her plump figure.

"Talk," she commanded, wriggling her fingers threateningly. "Or I tickle!"

Sanga laughed. "Not that! Please! I'd rather face Belisarius himself, with an army at his back."

His wife's amusement died away. "That's what you were thinking about? Him?"

Her face tightened. The Persian campaign was about to begin. She knew Sanga would, soon enough, be facing that—terrible Roman—on the battlefield. And that, for all her husband's incredible prowess at war, this enemy was one he truly respected. Even, she thought, feared.

Sanga shook his head. "Actually, no. Not directly, at least."

He reached up his hand and gently caressed her face. Plain it was, that face, very plain. Round, like her body.

He had not married her for her beauty. He had never even seen her face, before she lifted the veil in his sleeping chamber, after their wedding. Theirs, in the way of Rajput royalty, had been a marriage of state. Dictated by the stern necessities of dynasty, class, and caste. Of maintaining the true Rajput lineage; protecting purity from pollution.

He had said nothing, on the night he first saw his wife's face, and then her body, to indicate his disappointment. She had been very fearful, she told him years later, of what he would say, or do—or not do—when he saw how plain she was. But he had been pleasant, even kind; had gone about his duty. And, by the end of the night, had found a surprising pleasure in that eager, round body; excitement, in those quick and clever fingers; gaiety and warmth, lurking behind the shyness in her eyes. And, in the morning, had seen the happiness in a still-sleeping, round face. Happiness which he had put there, he knew, from kindness far more than manhood.

Young, then, filled with the vainglory of a Rajput prince already famous for his martial prowess, he had made an unexpected discovery. Pride could be found in kindness, too. Deep pride, in the sight of a wife's face glowing with the morning. Even a plain face. Perhaps especially a plain face.

The day had come, years later, when he came upon his wife in the kitchen. She was often to be found there. Despite their many cooks and servants, his wife enjoyed preparing food. Hearing him come, recognizing his footsteps, she had turned from the table where she was cutting onions. Turned, smiled—laughed, wiping the tears from her eyes—brushed the hair (all grey, now—no black left at all) away from her face, knife still in her hand, laughing at her preposterous appearance. Laughing with her mouth, laughing with her eyes.

Twice only, in his life, had the greatest of Rajputana's kings been stunned. Struck down, off his feet, by sudden shock.

Once, sprawling on a famous field of battle, when Raghunath Rao split his helmet with a dervish blow of his sword.

Once, collapsing on a bench in his own kitchen, when he realized that he loved his wife.

"You are my life," he whispered.

"Yes," she replied. And gave him a fresh sweet onion, as if it were another child.

"I was thinking of your face," he said. "And another's. The face of a young woman. Very beautiful, she was."

His wife's lips tightened, slightly, but she never looked away.

"I have always told you I would not object to concubines, husband," she said softly. "I am not—"

"Hush, wife!" he commanded. Then, laughing: "The farthest thing from my mind! Even if the woman in question was not the Emperor's own daughter—hardly a woman for a Rajput's concubine."

His wife giggled. Sanga shook his head.

"I was not matching the two faces that way, dearest one. I was—ah! It is too difficult to explain!"

"The tickle, then!"

She was as good as her word. But, for all the gleeful torment, Sanga never did explain his thoughts to her. Not that night. Not for many nights to come.

They were too hard to explain. Too new. Too bound up with new secrets. Too twisted into the misty coils of the far distant future which he had glimpsed, in the chamber of Great Lady Holi and the being for which she was a mere vessel.