Eric Flint: The Dance of Time

"Where. .?"

"Don't ask," said Damodara. "Ever."

Sanga was a bit more forthcoming. "Just a personal errand, for Belisarius."

"Ah."

He said nothing more, since doing so would be stupid. Almost as stupid as Damodara thinking Narses wouldn't figure it out anyway.

But once he reached the safety of the corridors, Narses sneered. As if he'd care!

An assassin and his whims

"Not the customers?"

"The customers don't matter. Neither do the whores. But not a single pimp leaves that brothel alive."

"Easy, then," said the captain of the assassination team. Killing the customers and whores would have been easy, too, except there'd be enough of them that one or two were bound to escape.

After all, five assassins-no, six, since Ajatasutra was joining them in the assignment-can only do so much. Especially since Ajatasutra had instructed them to leave the bombard behind.

Thankfully. Hauling the heavy damn thing from Bharakuccha to Pataliputra would have been a monstrous pain.

Bad enough he'd made them haul it to Bharakuccha from Kausambi. They couldn't refuse, of course. Ajatasutra was the only reason they were still alive.

That had been an awkward moment, when they presented themselves before the new emperor and asked for the reward. Only to find that Ajatasutra-of all people! — was now in Damodara's service.

He recognized the captain and the lieutenant just as readily as they recognized him. Hardly surprising, since they'd all been officers in Malwa's elite assassination unit.

"You're grinning, Ajatasutra," the emperor said, after he took his eyes from the severed head of Skandagupta. "Why?"

"Your Majesty, these five men have approximately the same kinship to a trade delegation as I have to a cow."

Damodara's eyes went back to the head, sitting on a leather apron to protect the floor. "It struck me I'd never seen a head severed that neatly, except in a butcher shop."

He lifted his eyes and stared at the assassins. "Give me one reason I shouldn't have them executed. After paying them the reward, of course. I'm not dishonest."

"I can use them, Your Majesty. They're not bad fellows. For Malwa assassins."

"That's like saying a crocodile isn't a bad animal. For a voracious man-eating reptile."

"True. But cows make inferior assassins."

"A point. All right, Ajatasutra. But if they disobey you-if anything-"

The rest of the emperor's speech would have been tediously repetitious, except that men whose lives hang by a thread are not subject to tedium of any sort.

* * *

Still, it hadn't worked out badly. The work wasn't much of a challenge, any longer. So far, at least. Killing all the slavers in a slave emporium in Bharakuccha had been almost laughable. The worst part of their current assignment was simply the long journey to Pataliputra, which would be followed by a long journey back. Hundreds of miles added to thousands.

There was no rhyme or reason to the assignment, either. But they'd found there often wasn't, with Ajatasutra as their boss. He seemed to be a man much given to whimsy.

So it never occurred to them to press him for a reason. They just did the job, as instructed. When it was over, which didn't take long, India was shorter by a brothel. With all of its pimps dead, the whores would drift elsewhere, and the customers would simply find another one.

They returned to Bharakuccha just in time to witness-from a considerable distance, of course-the wedding of the daughters of Andhra's peshwa to two Roman noblemen.

It was a grand affair, attended by royalty from half the world. The city practically vibrated with gossip. Incredible stories. The two young noble ladies, rescued from imperial captivity by daring Roman knights-or dukes, or senators, nobody was quite sure since Roman ranks were mysterious anyway-some sort of connection with Rajput royalty-apparently the Roman nobles were also kshatriya, as strange as that seemed but who could doubt it since one of them was the famous Mongoose and both of them had also rescued Sanga's wife at the same time-even the empress, it was said-

On and on and on. The five assassins participated in the gossip just as cheerfully as everyone else, in the city's inns and taverns. By then, they'd half-forgotten the brothel hundreds of miles to the east. It had been erased from their memories almost as thoroughly as they had erased it from the world.

Alas, all good things come to an end. A week later, Ajatasutra informed them that they were to accompany him on a new assignment.

There was good news, and there was bad news, and there was terrible news.

"An ambassadorial guard?" The captain and the lieutenant looked at each other, then at their men. The chests of all five swelled. What a promotion!

"China? How far is China?"

"Some considerable miles," Ajatasutra informed them.

It was all they could do not to groan. By now, they knew Ajatasutra well enough to translate "considerable" into more precise terms. At least two thousand miles, that meant.

"Look on the bright side," he told them. "The Kushans have also decided to set up an embassy in China, so we'll be accompanying their party. It's a big party. Several hundred soldiers."

That did brighten them up. No fear of being harassed by bandits. Still a horrible lot of miles, but easy miles.

But their spirits were only lifted for a moment. The terrible news crashed down.

"Of course, we're bringing the bombard. In fact, I'm having several others made up."

A friend and his quandaries

Belisarius finally got to see Rao dance, at the wedding. Not the dance of time, unfortunately, since that wouldn't have been appropriate for this occasion. But it was a magnificent dance, nonetheless.

It was an unsettling experience, in a way, just as meeting Rao had been unsettling. Through Aide, and the memories of another universe he'd given him, Belisarius knew Rao as well as he knew any man in the world. He'd lived with him-officially as master and slave, but in reality as close friends-for decades, after all. And he'd seen him dance, many times.

Had even, through Aide's mind, seen Rao's great dance after he'd sent Belisarius himself to his death.

Yet. .

In this universe, he'd never actually met him before.

What did you say to a man, who'd once-as an act of supreme friendship-pushed you into a vat of molten metal?

Fortunately, Belisarius had been coached by Antonina, who'd faced the same quandary earlier. So he managed to avoid the inane words nice to finally meet you.

Instead, feeling clever, he said: "Please don't do it again."

He felt less clever after a blank-faced Rao replied: "Do what?"

* * *

"It's not fair," he complained to Antonina later. "I can-usually-keep my own memories separated from the ones Aide gave me. But it's a bit much to expect me to remember that nobody else remembers what I remember when I remember what Aide remembered."

By the time he was done, Antonina was looking cross-eyed. But since they'd just entered their bedroom, she was also looking cross-eyed at the bed.

"I hope you haven't forgotten everything."

"Well. Not that."

An emperor and his queries

The next morning, it was his son Photius who was complaining.

"Theodora's going to have a fit, when we get back. She always appoints my bodyguards. Well, not Julian and his men. But they're real bodyguards. Not, you know, fancy imperial appointments."

"Stop squirming," his wife hissed at him. "People are coming in. The audience is about to begin."

"I hate these stupid imperial robes," Photius muttered. "You know that."

"I hate mine, too," Tahmina whispered in return. "So what? It's part of the job. And so what if Theodora has a fit? It won't be worse than a Sour Beta."