Valentinian squinted at him, as if he were seeing double. His hand, again, touched his helmet gingerly.
"Christ," he muttered. "How can you stand to think all crooked like that? My head hurts, just trying to follow." He made a little hiss. "And Istill don't understand why Damodara would do it. He can't really think you'd fall for it."
Belisarius shrugged. "Probably not. But you never know. It's worth a try." He scratched his chin. "The man's a lot like me, I believe. In some ways, at least. He likes an oblique approach, and he keeps his eye on all the angles."
Another hiss came from Valentinian. "God, my head hurts."
Belisarius took Valentinian by the arm and began leading him toward the pavilion. As they neared, walking slowly, Valentinian remembered something else.
"Oh, yeah. Maurice was right about Narses, too. He's-"
Belisarius nodded. He had already spotted the small figure of the old eunuch in the shade of the pavilion.
He smiled crookedly. "I imagine, by now, that Narses is running the whole show for Damodara."
Valentinian grinned. It was an utterly murderous expression.
"Would you believe how successful that raid was? You know-the cavalry raid against the Malwa camp that you must have ordered, even though I never knew about it and I was right by your side the whole time."
Belisarius grinned himself. "A brilliant stroke, that was. So brilliant that my own memory is blinded."
Mine too, concurred Aide. Firmly:But I'm sure you must have ordered it. And I'mquite sure the raid was a roaring success.
"Killed every one of Damodara's top spies," murmured Valentinian. They were almost at the pavilion. "Vicious Romans slit their throats, neat as you could ask for."
They were entering the pavilion, now. Valentinian moved aside and Belisarius strode to the low table at the center. Damodara and Sanga nodded a greeting. Damodara was smiling; Sanga, stiff and solemn. Narses, sitting far back from the table, was glaring. But he, too, managed a nod.
Gracefully, with the practiced ease of his time in India, Belisarius folded himself into a lotus and took a seat on one of the cushions.
He saw no reason to waste time on meaningless diplomatic phrasery.
"What is the purpose of this parley?" he asked. The statement, for all the brusqueness of the words, was not so much a demand as a simple inquiry. "I can't see where there's any military business to discuss." He waved at Valentinian. "Unless you've changed your mind about his ransom."
Damodara chuckled. Belisarius continued.
"So what's the point of talking? You're trying to get into Mesopotamia, and I'm trying to stop you. Slow you down, more precisely. You've managed to drive me almost out of the Zagros-we're not so many miles from the floodplains, now-but I kept you tied up for months in the doing. That's bought time for Emperor Khusrau, and time for my general Agathius to build up the Roman forces in Mesopotamia."
Belisarius shrugged. "I'm going to keep doing it, and you're going to keep doing it. Sooner or later-sooner, probably-I'll give up the effort and retreat to Peroz-Shapur. Maybe Ctesiphon. Maybe somewhere else. Then we'll fight it out in the open. I imagine you're looking forward to that. But you won't enjoy it, when the time comes. So much, I can promise."
Damodara shook his head, still smiling. "I did not ask for this parley in order to discuss military affairs. As you say, the matter is moot."
Still smiling; very cheerfully, in fact: "And I don't doubt for a minute that you'll make it just as tough for us on flat ground as you have in the mountains."
Sanga snorted, as a man does when he hears another man announce that the sun rises in the east.
"I asked for this parley, Belisarius, simply because I wanted to meet you. Finally, after all these months. And also-"
The Malwa lord hesitated. "And, also, because I thought we might discuss the future. Thefar future, I mean, not the immediate present."
Bull's-eye.Am I a genius, Aide?
A true and certain genius, came the immediate response.But I still don't understand how you figured it out.
Belisarius leaned forward, preparing to discuss the future.Because Lord Damodara is a man. The best man of the Malwa, because he's the only one who doesn't dream of being a god. He follows the Malwa gods, true. But he is beginning to wonder, I think, how well his feet of clay will stand the march.
"Lord Damodara-" began Belisarius. The general reached up and began unlacing his tunic. Beneath the cloth, nestled in a leather pouch, the future lay waiting. Like a tiger, hidden in ambush.
You're on, Aide.
There was no uncertainty in the response. Neither doubt, nor puzzlement.
I'll clean their clocks. Scornfully:Polish their sundials, rather.
Damodara-almost-took Aide in his hand when Belisarius made the offer. But, at the end, the Malwa lord shied away from the glittering splendor. Partly, his refusal was based on simple, automatic distrust. But not much. He didn't really think Belisarius was trying to poison him with some mysterious magical jewel. He believed, in his heart of hearts, that Belisarius was telling the truth about the incrediblegem?-nestled in his hand.
No, the real reason Damodara could not bring himself to take the thing, was that he finally realized that he did not want to know the future. He would rather make it himself. Poorly, perhaps; blindly, perhaps; but in his own hands. Pudgy, unprepossessing hands, to be sure. Nothing like the well-formed sinewy hands of a Roman general or a Rajput king. But they werehis hands, and he was sure of them.
Sanga was not even tempted.
"I have seen the future, Belisarius," he stated solemnly. "Link has shown it to me." The Rajput pointed to Aide. "Will that show me anything different?"
Belisarius shook his head. "Not at all. The future-unless Link and the new gods change it, with Malwa as their instrument-is just as I'm sure Link showed it to you. A place of chaos and disorder. A world where men are no longer men, but monsters. A universe where nothing is pure, and everything polluted."
Belisarius lifted his hand, his fingers spread wide. Aide glistened and coruscated, like the world's most perfect jewel.
"This, too, is a thing of pollution. A monster. An intelligent being created from disease. The worst disease which ever stalked the universe. And yet-"
Belisarius gazed down at Aide. "Is he not beautiful? Just like a diamond, forged out of rotting waste."
Belisarius closed his fingers. Aide's glowing light no longer illuminated the pavilion. And a Roman general, watching the faces of his enemies, knew that he was not the only one who missed the splendor.
He turned to Damodara. "Do you have children?"
The Malwa lord nodded. "Three. Two boys and a girl."
"Were they born perfectly? Or were they born in blood, and your wife's pain and sweat, and your own fear?"
A shadow crossed the Roman's face. "I have no children of my own. My wife Antonina can bear them no longer. In her days as a courtesan, after she bore one son, she was cut by a man seeking to become her pimp."
Those coarse truths, spoken by a man about his own wife, did not seem odd to his enemies in the pavilion. They knew the story-Narses had told them what few details the Malwa espionage service had not already ferreted out. Yet they knew as well, as surely as they knew the sunrise, that the Roman was oblivious to any shame or disgrace. Not because he was ignorant of his wife's past, but simply because he didn't care. Any more than a diamond, nestled with a pearl, cares that the pearl was also shaped from waste.
The shadow passed, and sunlight returned. "Yet that boy-that bastard, sired by a prostitute's customer-has become my own son in truth. As dear to me as if he were born of my own flesh. Why is that, do you think?"
Belisarius stared down at the beauty hidden in his fist. "This too-this monster-has become like a son to me. And why isthat, do you think?" When he raised his head, the face of the Roman general was as serene as the moon. "The reason, Lord of Malwa and King of Rajputana, was explained to me by Raghunath Rao. In a vision I had of him, once, dancing to the glory of time.Only the soul matters, in the end. All else is dross."