Holkar did not bother to turn his head. He simply gazed upon the cheering crowds lining the road and smiled beatifically. “No doubt they are recognizing their error, and vowing to reapply themselves to their philosophical studies.”
Irene, her eyes still to the rear, shook her head in wonder. “If Ganapati doesn’t close his mouth a little, the first strong breeze that comes along will sweep him right out of his howdah.”
She craned her neck a bit, trying to get a better glimpse of the elephants plodding up the road behind the Keralans. “Same goes for the Cholan envoys. And the Funanese, from what I can see.” Again, she shook her head—not in wonder, this time, but cheerful condemnation. “O ye of little faith,” she murmured.
She removed her elbow and turned back into her own howdah. For a moment, Irene’s eyes met those of the woman sitting across from her, nestled into Holkar’s arm. Dadaji’s wife smiled at her. The expression was so shy—timid, really—that it was almost painful to see.
Irene immediately responded with her own smile, putting as much reassurance into the expression as she possibly could. Dadaji’s wife lowered her gaze almost instantly.
Poor Gautami! She’s still in shock. But at least I finally got a smile from her.
Irene moved her eyes away from the small, gray-haired woman tucked under Holkar’s shoulder. She felt a deep sympathy for her, but knew that any further scrutiny would just make Holkar’s wife even more withdrawn. The problem was not that Gautami was still suffering any symptoms from her long captivity. Quite the opposite, in truth. Gautami had gone from being the spouse of a modest scribe in a Maratha town to a Malwa kitchen slave, and then from a slave to the wife of ancient Satavahana’s peshwa. The latter leap, Irene thought, had been in some ways even more stressful than the first plunge. The poor woman, suddenly discovering herself in India’s most rarified heights, was still gasping for breath.
Looking away, Irene caught sight of yet another column of Marathas approaching the road along which Shakuntala was making her triumphant procession toward Deogiri. The gentle smile she had bestowed on Gautami was transformed into something vastly more sanguine—a grin that bordered on pure savagery.
“Column,” actually, was an inappropriate word. “Motley horde” better caught the reality. At the forefront, whooping and hollering, came perhaps two dozen young men. Five of them were on horseback, prancing forward and then back again—the self-appointed “cavalry” of whatever village had produced them. The rest were marching—half-charging, say better—on foot. All of them were bearing weapons; although, in most cases, the martial implements still bore the signs of recent conversion. Hoes, mostly, hammered into makeshift polearms by the local blacksmith. But Irene could see, here and there, a handful of real spears and swords.
Coming behind the rambunctious young men were other, older men—ranging through late middle age. They, too, were all carrying weapons of one sort or another. Some among them, astride horses, even had armor and well-made bows and swords. Those would be what passed for kshatriyas in that village, nestled somewhere in the Great Country’s volcanic reaches. Behind them, marching more slowly, came perhaps two or three hundred people. Women, children, graybeards, the sick and infirm, priests—Irene did not doubt for an instant that the mob comprised every person in that village, wherever it was, who could move on their feet.
The column reached the road and began merging into the throng spilling along both sides, as far as the eye could see. Irene did not look back again, but she knew that many of those people, once Shakuntala’s procession had passed, would join the enormous crowd following the empress toward Deogiri. The Greek noblewoman had stopped even trying to estimate their numbers.
I had no idea the Great Country held this many people. It seems like such a barren land.
Dadaji must have sensed something of her thoughts. “Many of us, aren’t there?” he remarked. Holkar swiveled his head, examining the scene. “I had not realized, myself. Nor, I think, had anyone. And that too will give them courage, when they go back to their villages.”
A sudden roar drifted back from the crowd ahead. Moments later, the procession staggered to a halt. Dadaji leaned over the side of the howdah and peered forward.