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.
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.
"Not Christians, no," mumbled Eon. "But-" Another shrug of those incredible shoulders. "Well. . There are a lot of big animals here in Africa. Lions, elephants. And it seems that the old kings-"
There came yet another shrug. But the gesture, this time, contained neither apology nor embarrassment. It was the movement of the powerful shoulders of a young prince who, when all was said and done, was not really given to self-effacement.
"It's over, now," he stated. "We instituted Christian principles of rule two hundred years ago." He pointed to the enormous thing in front of them. "We keep that here as a reminder to our kings. Of the pagan folly of royal grandiosity."
Antonina's eyes returned to the object in question. Eon had brought her here, from the royal compound a mile to the southwest-the Ta'akha Maryam, it was called-as part of his sight-seeing tour of Ethiopia's capital city. He had started off, in the morning, by showing her the magnificent churches which adorned the city. The churches, especially the cathedral which the Ethiopians had named the Maryam Tsion, were the pride of Axum. But then, in mid-afternoon, the prince had insisted on showing her this as well.
It was an obelisk, lying on its side, broken into several pieces. The huge sections were crumpled over the tombs of pre-Christian kings, leaving the obelisk a rippling monument to ancient folly. More than anything else, to Antonina, it resembled an enormous stone snake, making its serpentine way across the landscape of the Ethiopian highlands.
The obelisk had fallen, Eon explained, as it was being erected. Staring at it, Antonina could well believe the tale. It was difficult to judge, because of its position, but she thought the obelisk was far larger than any created even by the ancient Egyptians. Only a king possessed by delusions of grandeur could have thought of ordering mortal men to erect such a preposterous structure.
She shivered slightly, thinking of the men who must have been trapped by the obelisk in its ruin. When the thing fell, it crushed several of the tombs beneath it. The blood and mangled flesh of slaves, for a time, would have decorated the sepulchres where royal bones lay buried.
Eon misinterpreted the motion. "You are cold!" he exclaimed. "I have been thoughtless. I forgot that you are not accustomed-"
She waved down the apology. "No, no, Eon. I'm not really cold. I was just thinking-"
She stopped, shivering again. She was cold, she suddenly realized. She had always thought of Africa as the quintessential land of warmth. But the heartland of Axum lay in the Ethiopian highlands. True, the capital city was situated in the broad, fertile plain called Hatsebo, well below the mountains which towered all about in stark majesty. But it was still over a mile above sea level.
"Perhaps we should return to the Ta'akha Maryam," she admitted. A bit hurriedly, to stave off another apology: "Your father will be growing impatient with our long absence."
Actually, she knew, Eon's father-the negusa nagast, "King of Kings," as he was titled-would not be in the slightest bit impatient. She was quite certain that King Kaleb had welcomed her daylong absence from the royal compound. It gave him time to consult with his advisers, before making a response to the Roman Empire's proposals.
Antonina and her entourage had arrived in the Ethiopian city of Axum a week earlier. Axum-the capital had given its name to the Ethiopian kingdom, just as had Rome-had never received such a high-level delegation from the Roman Empire. Since Ethiopia's conversion to Christianity under the tutelage of the missionaries who were revered as the "Nine Saints," the Axumites had maintained cordial relations with the great empire to their north. But, except for trade matters, there had been very little in the way of official diplomatic exchange. Until Antonina came, at the head of a small army, armed not only with the strange new gunpowder weapons but with a barrage of proposals from the Emperor of Rome.