The Tide of Victory

Very rarely, in times past, had Rana Sanga spoken to Narses at all, except in the presence of Lord Damodara. And those occasions had been in daytime, in military headquarters, while on campaign. To summon him for a private audience in his own chambers . . .

* * *

After Narses entered the Rajput king's quarters, a servant led him to the private audience room and then departed. Courteously, his face showing nothing of the grief and rage which must have lain beneath, Rana Sanga invited him to sit. The Rajput was even courteous enough to offer the Roman a chair, knowing that the old eunuch's bones did not adjust well to the Indian custom of sitting cross-legged on cushions.

After taking his own seat on some cushions nearby, Rana Sanga leaned over and spoke softly. "The news of my family's murder has caused me to ponder great questions of philosophy, Narses. Especially the relationship of truth to illusion. That is why I requested your presence. I thought you might be of assistance to me, in my hour of sorrow. My hour of great need."

Narses frowned. "I'm not even conversant with Greek philosophy, Rana Sanga, much less Hindu. Something to do with what you call Maya, the `veil of illusion,' as I understand it. Don't see what help I could be."

The Rajput nodded. "So I understand. But I was not intending to ask your help with such profound questions, Narses. I had something much simpler in mind. The nature of onions, to be precise."

"Onions?" Narses' wrinkled face was deeply creased with puzzlement. The expression made him look even more reptilian than usual. "Onions?

"

"Onions." Sanga leaned over and picked up a thick sheaf of documents lying next to him. He held them up before Narses and waggled them a bit. "This is the official report of the ambush and killing of my family. Nanda Lal, as you may know, oversaw the investigation himself."

The Rajput king laid the mass of documents on the carpet before him. "It is a very thorough and complete report, as you would expect from Nanda Lal and his top investigators. Exhaustive, actually. No detail was left unmentioned, except the precise nature of the wounds, insofar as they could be determined."

For a moment, his face grew pinched. "I imagine those details exist in a separate addendum, which Nanda Lal thought it would be more merciful not to include in this copy of the report. As if"—almost snarling, here—"I would not understand the inevitable fate of my wife and children in the hands of such creatures."

The Rajput straightened his back. For all that he was sitting on cushions, and Narses on a chair, he seemed to tower over the old eunuch. "But there is one small detail which puzzles me. And I have now studied this report carefully, reading it from beginning to end over and over again. It involves onions."

Seeing Narses' face—onions?—Rana Sanga managed a smile. "You see, included in Nanda Lal's report is a detailed—exhaustive—list of every thing which was found. Among those items was the remains of a small chest which my wife always used to carry her cooking materials. Nothing fancy, that chest. No reason for bandits to steal the thing, so they didn't."

Narses was completely lost. A state of affairs which infuriated him. But he continued to listen to Sanga with no hint of protest, allowing no sign of his anger to show. He was no fool, was Narses. And he realized—though he had no idea from whence it was coming—that a terrible peril was looming over him. Like a tidal wave about to break over a blind man.

"Nor would bandits bother to steal anything in

that chest, Narses. Except, perhaps, the small packets of herbs and spices. Those might be of some value to them, I suppose. But, for the most part, that chest contained onions. My wife was very fond of using onions in her cooking."

Sanga glanced at the documents. "Apparently, judging from the charred remains, the bandits looted the onions also. Nanda Lal's report was so exhaustive that they measured the ashes and charred pieces which remained. There is no mention of onions. Which would not have burned up completely, after all. And something else is missing which should not have been missing at all, for it couldn't have burned—the knife which my wife always used to cut onions."

"Bandits," husked Narses. "They'll steal anything."

Rana Sanga shook his head. "I think I know more about the bandits of mountain and desert than you do, Narses. They're not likely to steal onions, much less a simple knife. The one thing such men—and their women—do not lack are blades. If they did, they couldn't be bandits in the first place."