Eric Flint: In the Heart of Darkness

His son had actually seen him. In Bihar, rearing from his toil in the fields, his son had rested for a moment. Idly watching a nobleman's caravan pass on the road nearby. He had caught but a glimpse of the nobleman himself, riding haughtily in his howdah on the lead elephant. The man's face was indistinguishable, at that distance. But there was no mistaking his identity. A Malwa potentate, trampling the world.

The overseer's angry shout sent him back to work. The shout, combined with the sight of that arrogant lord, burned through his soul. From months and months of hard labor, the boy's body had grown tough enough to survive. But he had feared, sometimes, that he himself was too weak. Now, feeling the hardening flame, he knew otherwise.

Stooping, he cursed that unknown Malwa, and made a solemn vow. Whoever that stinking lord was, Dadaji Holkar's son would outlive him.

Holkar had not come as close to his daughters. As planned, Shakuntala and her companions had taken a side road before reaching Pataliputra. They had no desire to risk the swarming officialdom in that huge city, and so they had bypassed it altogether.

Still, they had passed less than fifteen miles to the south. Thirteen miles, only, from the slave brothel where his daughters were held.

In a way, Dadaji had even touched them. And his touch had been a blessing.

The soldiers at the guardpost where Shakuntala had browbeaten the commanding officer, had contributed to his humiliation later. The bribe had been very large, and their officer was a weakling. An arrogant little snot, whom they had browbeaten themselves into a bigger cut than common soldiers usually received. With their share of the bribe, they had enjoyed a pleasant visit to the nearest brothel, on the southern outskirts of the city. They had had money to burn.

Money to burn, and they spent it all. Gold coin from the hand of Dadaji Holkar had found its way into the hands of his daughters' pimps. The girls were popular with the soldiers, and they had paid handsomely.

It cannot be said that the soldiers were popular with the girls. None of their customers were. But, in truth, Holkar's daughters had been relieved to spend two days in their exclusive company. The soldiers were not rough with them; and, young men, unjaded, were not given to the bizarre quirks that some of the local merchants and tradesmen preferred.

After the soldiers left, their pimps informed the girls that they had decided to turn down the various offers which had come in for their purchase, from other brothels. Holkar's daughters had known of those offers, and dreaded them, for they would result in separation.

But the pimps had decided to keep them. They were popular with the soldiers. Steady business.

The brothel-keeper even tossed them one of the coins. A bonus, he said, for good work.

That coin, in the endless time which followed, was his daughters' secret treasure. They never spent it. Sometimes, late at night, in the crib they shared, the girls would bring the coin from its hiding place and admire it, holding hands.

It was their lucky coin, they decided. So long as they had it, they would be together. The family of Dadaji Holkar would still survive.

An Empress and Her Decision

As she watched Dadaji's tears soak her royal skin, the Empress Shakuntala made her own decision. And reaffirmed a vow.

She had never thought much about purity and pollution, in her short life. She had resented the caste system, half-consciously, for the many ways it constrained her. Had even hated it, half-consciously, for the inseparable barrier which it placed between her and her most precious desire. But she had never really thought about it, before. It had simply been there. A fact of life, like the three seasons of India.

She began to think about it, now. Her thoughts, unlike her heart, were very unclear. She was young. Rao, in times past, had tried to teach her some aspects of philosophy, and devotion. But the girl she had been had not taken to those lessons kindly. His soft words had met none of the enthusiastic attention which had greeted his training in other, much harder, fields.

Now, she began to think, and learn.

She had learned this much, already. Watching a foreign general, she had seen Rao's forgotten lessons come to life. Hard fists, and harder steel, were like snow at the foot of mountains. Mountains called minds, which produced that snow, and then melted it when they so desired. Only the soul matters, in the end. It towers over creation like the Himalayas.

She made her decision. As she rebuilt Andhra, she would gather what there was of human learning and wisdom around her throne. She would not only rebuild the stupas, the viharas. She would not simply recall the philosophers, and the sadhus, and the monks. She would set them to work-mercilessly-driving them one against the other. Clashing idea against idea like great cymbals, until truth finally emerged.

That doing, of course, required another. And so, watching her purity imperilled by the racking tears of the low-born man in her arms, and drawing strength from that pollution, she reaffirmed her vow.

I will make Malwa howl.

An Empire and Its Howl

Malwa was howling. As yet, however, only in the privacy of the Emperor's chambers. And only, as yet, howling with rage. Fear was still to come.

The rage blew inward, centered on Malwa itself. The fate of Lord Venandakatra hung in the balance.

"I always told you he was a fool," snarled Nanda Lal. "He's smart enough, I admit. But no man's intelligence is worth a toad's croak if he cannot restrain his lusts and vanities."

"You can no longer protect him, Skandagupta," stated Sati. "You have coddled him enough. He-not the underlings he blames-is responsible for Belisarius. For Shakuntala. Recall him. Discipline him harshly."

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.