With peace, prosperity and trade, had come knowledge, wisdom, and art. Encouraged and patronized by the Satavahanas, scholars and mystics and artists had flocked to Amavarati.
The bhakti movement had grown under Andhra’s tolerance, revitalizing Hinduism. Buddhists and Jains, often persecuted in other Hindu realms, were unmolested in Andhra. Even the great rock-cut temples had been allowed to incorporate images of the Buddha.
Shakuntala remembered the beauty of those temples, and the monastic viharas, and the chaitya prayer halls, and the stupas. She fought back the tears. Then she remembered the glorious frescoes at the viharas at Ajanta, and could fight them back no longer.
Gone. All gone. Destroyed forever.
Her first words were: “Why not me?”
The Kushan commander explained. Gently. As gently, at least, as the truth allowed.
She spit on the ground. For a moment, it almost seemed as if the commander’s face had developed a crack. A flaw in the iron, perhaps.
Her next words were:
“Raghunath Rao?”
The Kushan commander explained. This time, the voice was not gentle. There was no need to be. Then, the commander predicted. Now, gentle again; insofar as iron can be gentle.
Shakuntala laughed. Flaming glory burst through her soul, like a river washing out all hopelessness and despair.
The princess spoke her last word, on that day of destruction:
“Fools.”
* * *
When night fell, the Kushans and Rajputs made camp. Guards were set up all around, within and without the camp perimeter. The Rajputs guarded the camp from outside attack. The Kushans guarded the camp from Shakuntala.
It was an odd sort of guard. The Kushans kept their distance from her. Regaled each other—in Hindi, which she could understand—with tales of startled Ye-tai. Girl-startled Ye-tai, with a spear-blade in their armpits and throats and legs and mouths; with a foot in their guts and their teeth and their necks. They particularly relished the tale of a Ye-tai nose.
Beyond, in the flickering light of the campfires, haughty Rajput beards were seen to move. Smiles, perhaps, brought on by charming tales.
That same night, in a pond not far from the palace at Amavarati, a frog croaked and jumped aside. As if startled by a sudden motion nearby.
An alert guard might have spotted the slow, crawling figure which eased its way out of the reeds and onto the bank. But there were no alert guards at Amavarati that night. The Malwa army had disintegrated completely in its triumph. There was nothing at Amavarati that night but a horde of drunken, butchering thieves and rapists, and what few of their victims still survived. And a cluster of mahamimamsa, overseen by priests, who, though sober and on duty, were much too preoccupied with the task of properly flaying a fourteen-year-old boy to be watching any ponds.
Once ashore, the man began to tear his tunic and bind up his wounds. They were many, those wounds, but none were either fatal or crippling. In time, they would become simply more scars added to an already extensive collection.
The wounds dressed, the man rested a bit. Then, still moving silently and almost invisibly, he faded away from the vicinity of the palace. Once in the forest, his pace quickened. Silent, still, and almost invisible. Like a wounded panther.
Chapter 14
DARAS
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The good news, thought Belisarius, was that John of Rhodes was an extremely intelligent man.
That was also the bad news.
“Why are you lying to me?” demanded the retired naval officer. “How in the name of Christ do you expect me to accomplish whatever it is you want me to accomplish, when you are obviously keeping everything essential a secret from me?”
Belisarius gazed down at the man calmly.
John of Rhodes scowled. “Save the sphinx for someone else, Belisarius!” He stumped over to the worktable and made a disgusted gesture toward the various substances and implements strewn upon it.
“Look at this clutter! Trash and toys, that’s all they are. I might as well be looking for the philosopher’s stone, or the elixir of eternal life.” His glare left the table and roamed about the room, encompassing the entire workshop in its condemnation.
Belisarius scratched his chin.