An Oblique Approach Read online

  The Great Palace was meaningless. The Empire which had lasted a millenium would be finished by nightfall. Never to return, in all the countless years of the gorgon future. But the soul was everlasting, and the Emperor's only concern now was for eternity. To save his own soul, if possible. (Although he was not confident, and rather thought hellfire awaited him.) But, at the least, to do his best to save the souls of those who had served him for so long, and so faithfully, and so uncomplainingly, and with so little reason to have done so.

  The eyes of the Emperor gazed upon his general. The eyes were old, and weak, and weary, and filled with pain both of the body and the spirit. But they had lost not a trace of their extraordinary intelligence. That great, blinding intelligence. That intelligence which had been so great it had blinded the very man who possessed it.

  "It is I, in truth, who should prostrate myself to you," said Justinian. His voice was harsh. He had spoken the truth and knew it. And knew that his general knew it. But he found no liking for the truth. No, none at all. He never had.

  A figure advanced from the shadows. Belisarius had known he would be there, but had not seen him. The Maratha was capable of utter stillness and silence.

  "Let me clean them, master," said the slave, extending his arms. They were very old, those arms, but had lost little of their iron strength.

  Belisarius hesitated.

  "There is time," said the slave. "The cataphracts will hold the asura's dogs long enough." He smiled faintly. "They do not fight for the Empire now. Not even for your God. They fight for your Christ, and his Mary Magdelene. Whom they betrayed often enough in life, but will not in death. They will hold. Long enough."

  He extended his arms in a forceful gesture.

  "I insist, master. It may mean little to you, but it does to me. I have a different faith, and I would not have these precious souls go unclean to their destiny."

  He took the horrid parcels from Belisarius' unresisting arms and carried them to a cistern. Into the water he thrust the skins and began cleaning them. Gently, for all that he moved in haste.

  Emperor and general watched, silently. It seemed fitting to both, each in their own way, that a slave should command at the end of all time.

  Soon enough, the slave was done. He led the way through the cavernous darkness. The myriad candles which would normally have illuminated the wondrous mosaics of the cathedral were extinguished. Only in the room at the far recesses in the rear did a few tapers still burn.

  They were not needed, however. The great vat resting in the center, bubbling with molten gold and silver, was more than enough to light the room. Light it almost like day, so fiercely did the precious metals blaze.

  Justinian pondered the vat. He had ordered it constructed many months ago, foreseeing this end. He was quite proud of the device, actually. As proud of it as he had been of the many other marvelous contrivances which adorned his palaces. Whatever else of his youth the Thracian peasant had lost, in his bloody climb to the throne, and his bloodier rule, he had never lost his simple childish delight in clever gadgets. Greek and Armenian craftsmen had constructed the device, with their usual skill.

  Justinian reached out and pulled the lever which started the intricate timing device. In an hour, the vat would disgorge its contents. The accumulated treasure of Rome's millenium would pour out the bottom, down through the multitude of channels which would scatter it into the labyrinthine sewers of Constantinople. There, it would be buried for all time by the captured dragon-flasks in their eruption. The Greeks had never learned the secret of the dragon-weapons, but they knew how to use captured ones to good effect.

  In an hour, it would be done. But the vat had a more important use to which it would now be put. Nothing of Rome's greatness would be left to adorn the walls and rafters of the Malwa palace.

  "Let us be done with it," commanded the Emperor. He shuffled over to a bier and stooped. With difficulty, for he was weak with age, he withdrew its burden. The slave moved to assist him, but the Emperor waved him back.

  "I will carry her myself." As always, his voice was harsh. But, when the Emperor gazed down upon the face of the mummy in his arms, his face grew soft.

  "In this one thing, I was always true. In this, if nothing else."

  "Yes," said Belisarius. He looked down at the face of the mummy and thought the embalmers had done their work well. Long years had it been since the Empress Theodora had died of cancer. Long years, resting in her bier. But her waxen face still bore the beauty which had marked it in life.

  More so, perhaps, thought Belisarius. In death, Theodora's face showed peace and gentle repose. There was nothing in it, now, of the fierce ambition which had so often hardened it in life.

  Laboriously, the Emperor took his place on the ledge adjoining the vat. Then he stepped back. Not from fear, but simply from the heat. It could not be borne for more than a moment, and he still had words which had to be said.

  Had to be, not wanted to be. The Emperor wished it were otherwise, for if ever had lived a man who begrudged apology, it was Justinian. Justinian the Great, he had wanted to be called, and so remembered by all posterity. Instead, he would be known as Justinian the Fool. At best. Attila had been called the Scourge of God. He suspected he would be known as the Catastrophe of God.

  He opened his mouth to speak. Clamped it shut.

  "There is no need, Justinian," said Belisarius, for the first and only time in his life calling the Emperor by his simple name. "There is no need." An old, familiar, crooked smile. "And no time, for that matter. The last cataphract will be falling soon. It would take you hours to say what you are trying to say. It will not come easily to you, if at all."

  "Why did you never betray me?" whispered the Emperor. "I repaid your loyalty with nothing but foul distrust."

  "I swore an oath."

  Disbelief came naturally to the Emperor's face.

  "And look what it led to," he muttered. "You should have betrayed me. You should have murdered me and taken the throne yourself. For years now, all Romans would have supported you—nobles and common alike. You are all that kept me in power, since Theodora died."

  "I swore an oath. To God, not to Romans."

  The Emperor gestured with his head at the faint sounds of battle.

  "And that? Does your oath to God encompass that? Had you been emperor, instead of I, the anti-Christ might not have triumphed."

  Belisarius shrugged. "Who is to know the future? Not I, my lord. Nor does it matter. Even had I known the course of the future, down to the last particular, I would not have betrayed you. I swore an oath."

  Pain, finally, came to the Emperor's face.

  "I do not understand."

  "I know, lord."

  The sounds of battle were faint now. Belisarius glanced at the entrance to the chamber.

  The slave stepped forward and handed him the skin of Sittas. Belisarius gazed upon the face of his friend, kissed it, and tossed it into the vat. A brief burst of flame, and the trophy was lost to Satan. He gazed longer upon the face of his stepson, but not much, before it followed into destruction. He knew Photius would understand. He, too, had commanded armies, and knew the value of time.

  Finally, he took the remains of Antonina into his arms and stepped upon the ledge. A moment later Justinian joined him, bearing the mummy of the Empress.

  The slave thought it was fitting that the Emperor, who had always preceded his general in life, should precede him in death. So he pushed Justinian first. He had guessed the Emperor would scream, at the end. But the old tyrant was made of sterner stuff. Sensing the approach of the slave behind him, Justinian had simply said:

  "Come, Belisarius. Let us carry our whores to heaven. We may be denied entrance, but never they."

  Belisarius had said nothing. Nor, of course, had he screamed. As he turned away from the vat, the old slave grinned.

  The general, for all the suppleness of his mind, had always been absurdly stiff-necked about his duty. The Christian faith forb
ade suicide, and so the slave had performed this last service. But it had been a pure formality. At the end, the slave knew, as soon as he felt the first touch of the powerful hands at his back, Belisarius had leapt.

  But he would be able to tell his god that he had been pushed. His god would not believe him, of course. Even the Christian god was not that stupid. But the Christian god would accept the lie. And if not he, then certainly his son. Why should he not?

  The slave, all the duties of a long lifetime finally done, moved slowly over to the one chair in the chamber and took his seat. It was a marvelous chair, as was everything made for the Emperor. He looked around the chamber, enjoying the beauty of the intricate mosaics, and thought it was a good place to die.

  Such a strange people, these Christians. The slave had lived among them for decades, but he had never been able to fathom them. They were so irrational and given to obsessiveness. Yet, he knew, not ignoble. They, too, in their own superstitious way, accepted bhakti. And if their way of bhakti seemed often ridiculous to the slave, there was this much to be said for it: they had stood by their faith, most of them, and fought to the end for it. More than that, no reasonable man could ask.

  No reasonable god, so much was certain. And the slave's god was a reasonable being. Capricious, perhaps, and prone to whimsy. But always reasonable.

  Those people whom the slave had cast into the molten metal had nothing to fear from God. Not even the Emperor. True, the fierce old tyrant would spend many lifetimes shedding the weight of his folly. Many lifetimes, for he had committed a great sin. He had taken the phenomenal intelligence God gave him and used it to crush wisdom.

  Many lifetimes. As an insect, the slave thought. Perhaps even as a worm. But, for the all the evil he had done, Justinian had not been a truly evil man. And so, the slave thought, the time would come when God would allow the Emperor to return, as a poor peasant again, somewhere in the world. Perhaps, then, he would have learned a bit of wisdom.

  But perhaps not. Time was vast beyond human comprehension, and who was to know how long it might take a soul to find moksha?

  The old slave took out the dagger from his cloak.

  Belisarius had given that dagger to him, many years before, on the day he told the slave he was manumitting him. The slave had refused the freedom. He had no use for it any longer, and he preferred to remain of service to the general. True, he no longer hoped, by then, that Belisarius was Kalkin. He had, once. But as the years passed in the general's service, the slave had finally accepted the truth. Great was Belisarius, but merely human. He was not the tenth avatara who was promised. The slave had bowed to the reality, sadly, knowing the world was thereby condemned to many more turns of the wheel under the claws of the great asura who had seized it. But, truth was what it was. His dharma still remained.

  Belisarius had not understood his refusal, not really, but he had acquiesced and kept the slave. Yet, that same day he had pressed the dagger into his slave's hand, that the slave might know that the master could also refuse freedom. The slave had appreciated the gesture. Just so should mortals dance in the eyes of God.

  He weighed the weapon in his hand. It was an excellent dagger.

  In his day, the old slave had been a deadly assassin, among many other things. He had not used a dagger in decades, but he had not forgotten the feel of it. Warm, and trusting, like a favorite pet.

  He lowered it. He would wait awhile.

  All was silent, beyond the walls of the Hagia Sophia. The cataphracts who had stood with Belisarius for one final battle were dead now.

  They had died well. Oh, very well.

  In his day, the old slave had been a feared and famous warrior, among many other things. He had not fought a battle in decades, but he knew the feel of them. A great battle they had waged, the cataphracts. All the greater, that there had been no purpose in it save dharma.

  And, perhaps, the slave admitted, the small joy of a delicious revenge. But revenge would not weigh too heavily on their destiny, the slave thought. No, the cataphracts had shed much karma from their souls.

  The slave was glad of it. He had never cared much for the cataphracts, it was true. Crude and boastful, they were. Coarse and unrefined, compared to the kshatriya the slave had once been. But no kshatriya could ever claim more than the dead cataphracts outside the walls of the Hagia Sophia. Arjuna himself would adopt their souls and call them kinfolk.

  Again, he thought about the dagger and knew that his own karma would be the better for its use. But, again, he thrust the thought aside.

  No, he would wait awhile.

  It was not that he feared the sin of suicide. His faith did not share the bizarre Christian notion that acts carried moral consequences separate from their purpose. No, it was that he, too, could not bear to leave this turn of eternity's wheel without a small, delicious revenge.

  The asura's vermin would need time to find the chamber where the old slave sat. Time, while the Ye-tai dogs and their Rajput fleas slunk fearfully through the great cavern of the cathedral, dreading another strike of the Mongoose.

  The old slave would give them the time. He would add considerable karma to his soul, he knew, but he could not resist.

  He would taunt the tormentors.

  So had Shakuntala taunted them, so long ago, before opening her veins. And now, at the end of his life, the old slave found great joy in the fact that he could finally remember the girl without pain.

  How he had loved that treasure of the world, that jewel of creation! From the first day her father had brought her to him, and handed her into his safe-keeping.

  "Teach her everything you know," the emperor of great Andhra had instructed. "Hold back nothing."

  Seven years old, she had been. Dark-skinned, for her mother was Keralan. Her eyes, even then, had been the purest black beauty.

  As she aged, other men were drawn to the beauty of her body. But never the man who was, years later, to become the slave of Belisarius. He had loved the beauty of the girl herself. And had taught her well, he thought. Had held back nothing.

  He laughed, then, as he had not laughed in decades. At the sound of that laugh, the Ye-tai and Rajput warriors who were creeping beyond froze in their tracks, like paralyzed deer. For the sound of the slave's joy had rung the walls of the cathedral like the scream of a panther.

  And, indeed, so had the slave been called, in his own day. The Panther of Maharashtra. The Wind of the Great Country.

  Oh, how the Wind had loved the Princess Shakuntala!

  The daughter of the great Andhra's loins, it might be. Who was to know? Paternity of the body was always a favorite subject of God's humor. Yet this much was certain: her soul had truly been the cub of the Panther.

  She alone of the Satavahana dynasty they had spared, the asura's dogs, when they finally conquered Andhra. She alone, for the beauty of her body. A prize which the Emperor Skandagupta would bestow on his faithful servant, Venandakatra. Venandakatra the Vile. The vermin of vermin, was Venandakatra, for the Malwa emperor himself was nothing but the asura's beast.

  The Panther had been unable to prevent her capture. He had lain hidden in the reeds, almost dead from the wounds of that last battle before the palace at Amavarati. But, after he recovered, he had tracked the dogs back to their lair. North, across the Vindhyas, to the very palace of the Vile One.

  Shakuntala was there. She had been imprisoned for months, held for Venandakatra's pleasure upon his return from the mission whence the emperor had sent him the year before. Unharmed, but safely guarded. The Panther had studied the guards carefully, and decided he could not overcome them. Kushans, under the command of a shrewd and canny veteran, who took no chances and left no entry unguarded.

  The Panther inquired. Among many other things, he had been a master spy in his time, and so he discovered much. But the outstanding fact discovered was that the Kushan commander was, indeed, not to be underestimated. Kungas, his name was, and it was a name the Panther had heard. No, best to bide his time.
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  Then, time had run out. Venandakatra had returned and had entered his new concubine's chamber at once, a horde of Ye-tai guards clustering outside. The Vile One was eager to taste the pleasure of her flesh, and the greater pleasure of her defilement.

  Remembering that day, the old slave's sinewy fingers closed about the haft of the dagger. But he released his grip. He could hear the shuffling feet of the vermin beyond. He would bide awhile. Not much longer now, he thought.

  Just long enough to torture the torturers.

  On the last day of the girl's life, the Panther had knelt in the woods below Venandakatra's palace. Knelt in fervent prayer. A prayer that Shakuntala would remember all that he had taught her, and not just those lessons which come easily to youth.

  The old slave had been a noted philosopher, in his day, among many other things. And so, long years before, he had prayed that the treasure of his soul would remember that only the soul mattered, in the end. All else was dross.

  But, as he had feared, she had not remembered. Everything else, but not that. And so, when he heard the Vile One's first scream, he had wept the most bitter tears of a bitter lifetime.

  Years later, he heard the tale from Kungas himself. Odd, how time's wheel turns. He had met the one-time commander of Shakuntala's guard on the same slave ship which bore him to the market at Antioch. The Panther had finally been captured in one of the last desperate struggles before all of India was brought beneath the asura's talons. But his captors had not recognized the Wind of the Great Country in their weary, much-scarred captive, and so they had simply sold him as a slave.

  Kungas, he discovered, had long been a slave. His hands were missing now, cut off by the Ye-tai guards who had blamed him for Shakuntala's deed. Cut off by the same guards who had shouldered him and his Kushans aside, avid to watch their master at his sport. (And hopeful, of course, that the Vile One might invite them to mount the child after he had satiated himself.)

  Kungas was missing his eyes and his nose, as well. But the mahamimamsa had left him his ears and his mouth, so that he might hear the taunts of children and be able to wail in misery.