(No—the tone was not cold. Cold is a temperature. Ice is a substance. That tone had no temperature at all. No substance at all.)
But he was struck even more by the Emperor’s sudden start of surprise.
She just commanded the Emperor to leave this room, he realized. Then, watching the Emperor’s slight shrug: And he’s going to obey—without so much as a protest! What gives this old woman such power?
Nanda Lal spoke. “What, exactly, do you propose to do, Rana Sanga?”
The Rajput shook off the mental shock caused by Great Lady Holi’s words. Almost with relief, he turned to the spymaster.
“First, I will need the assistance of your spies, and your records. Belisarius—not even Belisarius—can have managed to escape Kausambi without leaving a trace. It will be there, if we search. Then, if I am right, and we find that he went west rather than south, I will go after him with my cavalry.”
“Your troop? That’s only five hundred men.”
Sanga repressed a snort of derision.
“That will be more than enough. He is only one man, Nanda Lal, not an asura. The problem is finding him, not capturing him once we do. For that, five hundred good cavalrymen are enough.”
He decided to throw caution to the winds.
“They are not simply enough—they are the best soldiers for the job. That huge mob floundering about in the south”—he made no attempt to conceal the derision in his gesture—“are just getting in each other’s way. If Belisarius can be caught—if, Nanda Lal; I make no promises, not with that man having a week’s lead on us—my Rajputs and Pathan trackers will catch him.”
“And if you fail?” demanded the Emperor.
Sanga looked at Skandagupta, hesitated, and then threw all caution to the winds.
“If I fail, Your Majesty, I fail. In war, you sometimes lose. Not because you are incompetent, but simply because the enemy is better.”
“And is—this foul Roman—better than you?”
All caution to the winds.
“He is not a ‘foul Roman,’ Your Majesty. That has been our mistake all along. He is a true Roman, and that is what makes him dangerous. That, and his own great skill.”
The Emperor’s corpulent face was flushed with anger but, like Lord Tathagata before him, that flush was erased by the Great Lady Holi.
“Stop, Skandagupta,” she commanded. “Link has no more time for Malwa vanity.”
Sanga was shocked to see the Emperor’s face turn pale. There was something odd, he realized, about the Great Lady Holi’s voice. It was somehow changing, transmuting. Emotionless before, it was now beginning to sound utterly inhuman.
And who is “Link”? he wondered.
The strangeness deepened, and deepened. Great Lady Holi’s voice:
“NANDA LAL, DO AS RANA SANGA ASKS. QUERY YOUR SPIES. CHECK ALL RECORDS.”
There was nothing at all human in the tone of that voice, any more. It sounded like—
Rana Sanga froze. He had heard tales, now and then, but had paid them no mind. Years ago, bowing to the collective decision of Rajputana’s assembled kings in council, Rana Sanga had also given his oath to the Malwa Emperor. He had ignored, then and thereafter—with all the dignity of a Rajput Hindu—the whispered rumors of Malwa’s new gods.
—like the voice of a goddess. Cold, not like ice, but like the vastness of time itself.
In a half-daze, he heard the voice continue:
“LEAVE US, SKANDAGUPTA. LINK WISHES TO SPEAK TO RANA SANGA.”
The Rajput heard the Emperor’s protesting words, but understood not a one of them. Only the reply:
“LEAVE, MALWA. YOU ARE OUR INSTRUMENT, NOTHING MORE. IF YOU DISPLEASE US, WE SHALL FIND ANOTHER. LEAVE NOW.”
The Emperor left—scurried from the room, in fact, with little more dignity than Tathagata had scurried not long before. Sanga was alone, now, with the two women.
At first, he expected to see the young princess leave as well. Instead, Sati spoke to him:
“I realize that this must come as a shock to you, Rana Sanga,” she said in a very polite tone. Her voice, Sanga was relieved to discover, was still that of a young woman. A cold, distant, aloof voice, true. But unmistakeably human.
The Rajput glanced at Great Lady Holi. The old woman, he was even more relieved to discover, seemed to have retreated into a trance. It was almost as if she were not there. Only a statue of her, unmoving, rigid.