Eric Flint - An Oblique Approach

But Belisarius was a general, a great general—a breed of men among whose qualities ruthlessness is never absent. And so he managed to keep the leer on his face. And another drooling trickle of wine down his chin, thrown in for good measure.

Venandakatra refilled his cup personally. Unlike every other visit Belisarius had made, the Malwa lord had dismissed all the servants after the meal was finished.

"I notice the prince does not seem to mind sharing his women with his own soldiers," commented Venandakatra. "Not what you normally expect from royalty."

Belisarius belched. "I don't see why. It's not as if they were wives, or even concubines. The bitches are just whores and slaves." Another belch. "I share the Kushan sluts with my own soldiers, for that matter. I've done it often enough before, on campaign."

Belisarius gave Venandakatra a knowing smirk—one experienced old soldier to another (which the Malwa lord certainly was not , but liked to pretend he was).

"Helps keep your popularity with the troops, you know. The common touch. And there's always plenty to go around. Especially after sacking a town." The general's smirk became a savage grin. "God, how I love a sack. Sieges are pure shit, but afterward—oh, yes!"

Venandakatra giggled. "So do I!" he cried.

Vile One, indeed. I doubt he's ever come within bow range of a besieged city in his life. But I'm sure he was the first to line up afterward, selecting the prizes from the captured women.

Again, Belisarius fought down his gorge. He hated sacks. Would do anything he possibly could to avoid one, short of losing a campaign. It was almost impossible to keep troops under control in a captured city after a hard-fought siege, except for elite units like his own cataphracts. There was nothing so horrible as a city being sacked. It was hell on earth, Satan's maw itself. The most brutal and bestial crimes of which men were capable were committed then. Committed with a gleeful savagery that would shame the very demons of the Pit.

But he kept his gorge well under control. He was a general, a great general, whose ruthlessness always had a purpose. The edge to the blade, when it came time for the cutting.

"You, on the other hand, seem to have a liking for Kushan women," remarked Venandakatra idly. "And your cataphracts also, I hear."

Time for the cutting.

"Oh God, yes!" cried Belisarius. "When I discovered there were Kushan whores in Bharakuccha, I sent Valentinian and Anastasius straight off to round up a few." Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. "They raced like the wind, let me tell you—and that's something to see, with a man built like Anastasius!"

Giggle. "I can imagine! He's the large one, isn't he?" Giggle.

Belisarius waited. Timing was the key to a trap. Timing.

He waited until the puzzled frown had almost taken shape on the Vile One's brow. Then remarked casually, "Most lascivious women in the world, Kushans. Most lascivious people , for that matter. The men even more than the women." He coughed on a gulp of wine. "Don't misunderstand!" he exclaimed, waving off a disreputable notion. "I'm not interested in men that way. But it's true, believe me. It's why I got rid of all my Kushan mercenaries. Good men in a battle, no question about it. But they're just too much of a bother. Can't keep their hands off any woman in the vicinity. Even started sniffing around my own wife!"

The frown on the Vile One's brow thickened. The scaly wrinkles collected around his deep-set eyes.

"Really?" he asked. "I wasn't aware you were acquainted with the folk."

"Kushans? To the contrary. Find them all over the Roman Empire. Soldiers and whores, mostly. It's the only things they're good at. Fighting and fucking. Especially fucking."

Venandakatra sipped at his wine, thoughtfully.

"I had heard, now that you mention it, that you yourself spoke excellent Kushan." He shrugged. "I assumed it was just a false rumor, of course. There seemed no way you—"

He fell away from completing the sentence. Venandakatra had enjoyed some wine, but he was not inebriated. (Quite unlike the Roman sot.) The Malwa lord realized that he was on the verge of revealing too much of his spying operations.

You arrogant idiot , thought Belisarius, reading the sudden silence correctly. I always assumed you knew everything, and planned accordingly.

Belisarius filled the silence, then, with a bevy of amusing tales, one after the other. The sort of tales with which one veteran lecher entertains another. A less egotistical man than Venandakatra might have wondered why the tales exclusively concerned Kushans. And might have wondered, especially, why so many of the tales concerned the sexual exploits of Kushan men .

Oh, such exploits! Their unbridled lust. Their strangely seductive ways. Their uncanny ability to weedle open the legs of women—young women, especially. And virgins! Lambs to the slaughter, lambs to the slaughter. Didn't matter who they were, where they were, what they were. If the girl was a virgin, no Kushan could resist the challenge. And rise to it! Oh, yes! No men on earth were more skilled at defloration than Kushans. Especially the older men, the middle-aged veteran types. Uncanny, absolutely uncanny.

Throughout the tales, Venandakatra said not a word. But he did not seem bored. No, not at all. Very attentive, in fact.

Every good blade has two edges. Time for the backstroke.

"Enough of that!" exclaimed the general. He held out his cup. "Would you be so good?"

Venandakatra refilled the cup. Belisarius held it high.

"But I'm being a poor guest. And you are much too modest a host. I hear rumors myself, you know, now and then. And I hear you have come into a particularly good piece of fortune." Here, a wild guffaw. "A great piece, if you'll pardon the expression. A royal piece!"

He quaffed down the wine in a single gulp.

"My congratulations!"

Venandakatra struggled to maintain his own composure. Anger at the crude foreigner's insolent familiarity warred with pride in his new possession.

Pride won, of course. Trap the prey by reading its soul.

"So I have!" he exclaimed. "The Princess Shakuntala. Of the noblest blood, and a great beauty. The black-eyed pearl of the Satavahana, they call her."

"You've not seen her yourself?"

Venandakatra shook his head.

"No. But I've heard excellent descriptions."

Here, Venandakatra launched into his own lengthy recital, extolling the qualities of the Princess Shakuntala. As he saw them.

Belisarius listened attentively. Partly, of course, for the sake of his stratagem. But partly, also, because he was undergoing the strangest experience. Like a sort of mental—spiritual, it might be better to say—double vision. The general had never laid eyes on the girl in his life. But he had seen her once, in a vision, through the eyes of another man. A man as different from the one sitting across the table from him as day from night. As different as a panther from a cobra.

Once Venandakatra was finished, Belisarius saluted him again with his cup and poured himself another full goblet. Venandakatra, he noticed, had stopped drinking some time ago.

The general found it a bit hard not to laugh. Then, thinking it over, he did laugh—a drunken, besotted kind of laugh. Meaningless. He drained his cup and poured himself yet another. From the corner of his eye he caught the Vile One's faint smile.

I'm from Thrace, you jackass. A simple farm boy, at bottom. Raised in the countryside, where there's not much to do but drink. I could have drunk you under the table when I was ten.

"You'll be seeing her soon, then," he exclaimed. "Lucky man!"

He fell back into his seat, hastily grabbing the table to keep from falling. Half the wine sloshed out of his cup, most of it onto the gorgeous rug covering the floor. The candelabra in the center of the table teetered. Venandakatra steadied it hastily with a hand, but not in time to prevent one of the candles from falling.