The Tide of Victory

You can't say the Malwa empire is "coming apart at the seams" until the heartland erupts in rebellion. The Ganges valley where the tens of millions of Malwa subjects are concentrated. And not just rebels in the forests of Bihar and Bengal, either. Peasants in the plain, and townsmen in the great cities. That's what it will take. And they won't risk rebellion—not after the massacre of Ranapur—unless they see a real chance of winning. Of which there is none, so long as the Malwa dynasty stays intact and commands the allegiance of the Ye-tai and Rajputs.

Again, a moment's silence. Then, in a thought filled with satisfaction: Still . . . I think it's fair to say that cracks are showing. Big ones.

Belisarius said nothing in response. In the minutes that followed, as one great explosion after another announced the rolling destruction of Barbaricum, he never even bothered to watch. He was turned in the saddle, staring to the northeast. There, somewhere beyond the horizon, lay Rajputana. That harsh and arid hill country was the forge in which the Rajputs had been created.

And if they begin to crack . . .

The Malwa will still have the Ye-tai,

cautioned Aide. The Ye-tai have nowhere else to go. Especially if Kungas succeeds in reconquering the lands of the former Kushan empire, where the Ye-tai once had their stronghold. Before they accepted the Malwa offer to become the most privileged class in India after the Malwa themselves.

Belisarius smiled crookedly. "Nowhere else to go?" Don't be too sure of that, Aide. Enterprising men—especially ones who can see the handwriting on the wall—can find avenues of escape in many places. What was it that fellow said? The one you told me about in the future that would have been, who made so many fine quips.

Dr. Samuel Johnson. "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

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Framed

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Chapter 23

THE DECCAN

Autumn, 533 A.D.

Rana Sanga kept his eyes firmly fixed on the ivory half-throne which supported the flaccid body of Lord Venandakatra. Not on the Goptri of the Deccan himself. Much like Venandakatra's face—with which Sanga had become all too familiar in the weeks since Damodara's army had arrived in the Deccan—the chair was carved into a multitude of complex and ornate folds and crevices.

But the Rajput king found it far easier to look at the chair than at the Malwa lord who sat in it. The piece of furniture, after all, had been shaped by the simple hand of a craftsman, not the vices and self-indulgences which had shaped Venandakatra's fat toad-lizard parody of a human face.

The Rajput king dwelled on that comparison, for a moment. He found it helped to restrain his fury. The more so since, whenever the rage threatened to overwhelm him, he could deflect it into a harmless fantasy of hacking the chair into splinters instead of . . .

Lord Venandakatra finally ceased his vituperative attack on the Rajput troops which formed the heart of Damodara's army. Lord Damodara began speaking. The sound of his commander's calm and even-tempered voice broke through the red-tinged anger which clouded Sanga's brain.

Sanga lifted his eyes and turned them to Damodara. The commander of the Malwa forces newly arrived in the Deccan was leaning back comfortably in his own chair, apparently relaxed and at ease.