Empire Of The Eagle

  Eyes and lewd hands had followed her at Virata's court when she had been disguised as a serving girl and her husbands as a cook, a dancing teacher, a gambler... and Kitchaka the general, most of all, had pursued her. He had even caught her and held her, a knife to her throat. She had pleaded with him for a later assignation, which he had granted.

  Then she had realized how, stripped of power, stripped of rank, separated from the others with whom she had come down the ages, she was powerless. Then, she had run to seek help.

  Now, she cried out wordlessly in anger and slapped him.

  And was surprised by the rage that flashed in his green eyes, like a predator caught in torchlight.

  "You dare strike me, a patrician of the Lucilian gens.... I suppose you prefer that ploughboy who's got the stink of the armies on top of the stink of the fields...."

  Again, he had her by the arm but her own rage, just as much as his grip, was making her shake. She tried to breathe deeply, to wish calm on herself, and to look into this one's eyes seeking understanding. "

  She saw pride of family without obligation; greed—a desire to possess, never mind how, and especially if his own possession meant that his enemies went without; anger at being checked by anyone, anything—since he truly considered only those in a position to help him or to order him to be human—whom he had not considered as more than a convenience. She saw contrivance for its own sake, with little guile and less skill; worse yet, she saw the potential that might have made him a man and a warrior, but had, for reasons she could not understand, gone sour. Worse yet, she perceived that he knew he had failed, somehow, of that considerable promise.

  How could he live with the horror he was becoming? If they were in the sanctuary, she would not lack for water to form a mirror sufficient to show himself to himself. She could manage without. She raised a hand to gesture, to begin the first of the illusion spells that might tell him what he was becoming.

  "You would claw my eyes, would you?" He shoved her to the ground. "I should mark you."

  It was Virata's court all over again. Submit or be marked. Fight, or accept the self-contempt that yielding brought. Die nobly, perhaps, when every nerve in her body cried out to live until better times came.

  He was bending over her, had a knee between her legs. She cried out and struggled furiously. Nails scratched and gritted in the rocky ground, the hobnails of the footgear that Quintus/Arjuna wore in this guise.

  "Don't we have enough trouble, Lucilius, without you trying to hurt one of our guides? With the Ch'in watching. They already think we're barbarians."

  "Native women, ploughboy. They don't know their place."

  "Draupadi's no camp follower, tribune. It's not your place to teach her anything."

  Behind Quintus she could hear other footsteps. She wanted to shout with embarrassment. She should have foreseen this. And Quintus had told her not to go by herself: Had he foreseen?

  "You don't order me, ploughboy. Why don't you bow? Scrape for me like the client you are. Call me 'Dominus'—as you called my uncle when you licked his feet on the Palatine!"

  The dark-haired tribune pushed Lucilius away from Draupadi, gave him one shrewd shove; the lighter man went sprawling. There was satisfaction on Quintus's face as he faced a man who had been his enemy for years.

  Lucilius sprang to his feet in a fighting crouch.

  Draupadi saw Quintus begin to lurch forward—she had seen Arjuna throw his brothers in practice thus a thousand times. But this was not practice. Their people were strangers here. That they were not prisoners was only by the grace of the Ch'in, who guarded them. Let them fight, and they would lose all that they had gained.

  And so would she and Ganesha, who required their aid.

  "Sir, sirs! Stop it! Break it up!"

  It was the older one, the one with hair like burning coals, angry red frosted with gray. He seized Quintus/Arjuna and held him.

  "You want them to see the two of you brawling?" he warned. "What do you think they'll do if they see you at each other's throats? Might as well—both of you fools— turn in your weapons now to the yellow-skins. Go ahead. Yes, I know. You're tribunes. I'm just a centurion. Spent my life in the Legions. Call out the men. Tell them to get ready. Go ahead and punish me."

  He looked upslope. The Ch'in commander had come out, drawn by the shouts and the scuffle. Shaking his head no danger, Quintus reassured the man.

  Did he lie, though?

  The three men glared at each other. Let them all fight, and they all would lose everything. Draupadi shook her head, remembering the last time. She had run to Bhima, burliest and fiercest of the brothers. Working, incongruously, as a cook. He had scented and silked himself and taken her place in the General's bed. When Kitchaka attempted to embrace what he thought was a frightened woman, Bhima had taken him in a wrestler's hold and squeezed until only a ball of flesh, wrapped in sagging, gaudy, and ruined silks, was left.

  How shocked Virata's court had been. And how she had laughed!

  Once again, Draupadi laughed. She scrambled to her feet and gestured—and the crushed ball that had been her assailant materialized before Lucilius's eyes.

  "Is that what you want?" she demanded. "It was the fate of the last man who touched me."

  Lucilius backed up a step, but only one: She would give him credit for that.

  But for nothing else.

  "You do not want me. You want power to enforce your will. And you take power as you see it—like this!"

  Another gesture, and her hands filled with gold... ringing metal rounds that she hurled at the Roman aristocrat's feet. He was scrabbling in the dust for them when she clapped her hands; the coins changed from cold hard metal into chips of scarce-dried dung.

  The tribune flung the chips from him, his mouth twisting in revulsion. Rufus roared with laughter. Quintus took the opportunity to break loose from his grasp. His mouth worked, and then he too laughed. A moment later, the Ch'in soldiers had neared. Draupadi heard Ganesha speaking to them in their own language—some version of the truth, she assumed. They too laughed, and the echoes spread out across the horizon until it seemed that they would reverberate off the Stone Tower far below.

  She herself, however, kept face and voice severe. "I am not some follower of camp and soldiers, to be taken up, used, and cast away. Do you need another lesson?" she demanded.

  Quintus smiled at her. "Lady, you need no man's protection."

  Then he turned to Lucilius. "Maybe we can't roll you into a ball, but I promise you, if you ever again approach Draupadi or any woman in this caravan, I will try. Is that clear?"

  Cleaning his hands, his face scarlet at the laughter that welled up around him, echoing, as it seemed, almost as far as the Stone Tower, Lucilius nodded, then left. Though he took care to keep his back straight and his steps measured, almost as if he marched, it had the impact of a rout.

  "There will be consequences of this action, daughter," Ganesha told Draupadi. Bending laboriously, he picked up something from the ground. It was a gold coin.

  "As always now," Ganesha added, "you wrought better than you knew."

  She had meant those coins as illusions, shifting form and aspect for the sake of confusing her enemy. She had wrought better than she knew. The young girl who had been a scholar woke in her once more. She lifted her hand to take the coin...

  ...and from down in the valley, as if borne in response to their laughter, came the chanting of a mantra. Each tone in the incantation quivered with menace. And replying to it came a wail of pure fear.

  14

  MISTS ROSE AS if upborne by the force of mantra chanting and screams—mists in a land so seldom touched by moisture that even the white glint of salt mimicked natural rock. The coils of thickened moisture filled the valley, concealing the Stone Tower. Lazily, they wafted upward, licking at the higher rocks. Though they cloaked now what lay below, they did not deaden the clatter of falling stones, first singly, then in a cascade. The ground trembled in a dreadful warning. br />
  "We have to get down!"

  Romans and Ch'in soldiers alike grabbed for handholds. Then, they fought to harness frightened, plunging beasts, to snatch up baggage....

  "You cannot reach them in time!" Quintus shouted at Ssu-ma Chao in Parthian.

  "Those are our people down there! We have to try!"

  Quintus surveyed the mists. He had survived demon storms, but this was no such thing. Not sand, but vapor rose to engulf them. In his boyhood, he had seen such mists rise from the Tiber, bearing fevers with them. Almost he thought that he could smell water—not a river, but a sea: wet, cold, alien in this land of deserts.

  Again, the earth shuddered underfoot. Now came the wild screams of panicking animals. The Romans, blessed—or cursed—with pride, cloaked their fear with curses as they fought to pack (but a few prayers rose with the oaths). The Ch'in pleas for protection were as shrill as the cries of the beasts.

  Like his men, Quintus swore. Damn all cumbersome Ch'in armies to the cross or the fires of Acheron! So much easier with Marius's mules, to pack up and—ahhhhh, there went Rufus, taking a much-needed part in making those crying barbarians move!

  "Load up, you mules! Do Marius proud—who knows, maybe he's watching you! We're getting out of here." Legionaries bore their kit, too much lightened now, but still a burden, on their backs. It let them break camp quickly and move without the complex impediment of baggage trains (unless, gods look kindly on him, you were Crassus) such as these easterners had dragged across mountains and desert. It would not help, Quintus thought, if the mountainside peeled away and they were sent hurtling. He had a sudden, nightmare vision of a Roman lying broken on his back in the shattered frame of his pack, kicking feebly, briefly, like a beetle before sandals crushed the life from it.

  No time for that, man. Take Draupadi, be sure of her safety—if he could. He grabbed her by the elbow, pushed her roughly toward Ganesha. "You two! Join the others. Keep up and keep safe!"

  A foolish command, and he knew it.

  The woman clung to the old" sage, her eyes wide, but not with fear. Why should she fear? After all, hadn't she lived through worse... many times, if he could believe the tales she told? To his astonishment, he realized what shone in her eyes was courage and reassurance for him. He wanted—gods, he wanted—to promise her she would never again face such an ordeal, to hold her and touch her face.

  Once again, the earth shuddered. Not far from where they were working their way down, a chunk fell off the ledge.

  "Get back! Now!"

  Quintus ran with the others. And as his breath sobbed and stabbed in his chest, memory overtook him.

  ...In Virata's court, he had been useless. Worse than that, he had been a laughingstock, and his brother the king, the hapless player of dice, had been a gambler who couldn't lose. But he, Arjuna, the champion of that Yuga or any other age, had been a dancing master. No, worse: dressed as a woman, cossetted by the royal ladies, and consulted about brocades and paints as well as the placement of hands and feet in the ancient dances. He had not been able to shield Draupadi then either....

  He ran toward his own kit, propelling the woman and the old man before him. Shouldering into his gear with the ease of long practice, he jogged toward where the others had formed up. Even Lucilius was ready, his gambler's eyes glistening with appreciation of the danger.

  "They're screaming down there," someone remarked. "The wind brings up the sound."

  "You think there's enough of us to take them?" Lucilius asked.

  Quintus's eyes flickered from the Romans to the Ch'in soldiers. Were they all ready? Could they finally move, please all the gods? Damn all, why not abandon that stupid chariot!

  Because it is like an Eagle to the Ch'in, the answer came swiftly to his mind.

  Those of the Legion were ready. Rufus had barely had to use his vinestaff. The Ch'in, though... Ssu-ma Chao, heedless of his dignity, was harnessing his own beasts. His eyes swept over the Romans and his sallow face sagged.

  Easy enough for those now to abandon the Ch'in. Lighter armed, lighter equipped, they could flee, leaving the men they had marched with to whatever hazards the mountains threatened as the earth threatened to burst asunder. Maybe they could double back later and, if the Ch'in were not already dead, prepare an ambush....

  "Let's move," Lucilius muttered, his fingers tapping against his sword.

  "We wait for our comrades."

  Rufus swore under his breath, but he had been swearing steadily since the first tremors: Quintus ignored him.

  "We are ready," came Draupadi's voice. Ganesha, steadier than the rock that still upheld them, eyed the Romans and the Ch'in.

  If he was deciding with whom to cast his lot, Quintus thought, he might die right there from the betrayal.

  He caught just such a speculative gleam in Lucilius's face. The Romans were ready; let them claim their Eagle and flee west. Assuming the mountains did not rise and crush them for their betrayal—as well as their cowardice in surviving Carrhae. And the abandonment of their Eagle.

  For an instant, Quintus felt the weight of an Eagle against arm and shoulder. Go without winning that, and they were no Legion—but a rabble of defeated men. True, it wasn't as if the Ch'in really were federates, allies. They had bought them, imprisoned them, and Ssu-ma Chao was taking them as captives to his Emperor as if they were strange beasts intended to deck a Triumph—if they lived that long.

  But the Easterner had treated them as comrades, had returned some of their battered dignity to them with their weapons. He had let them—let Quintus—redeem some of the honor he felt he had forfeited by their defeat.

  "The Eagle ahead—where—we cannot get it!" Lucilius whispered it, intent as he had been moments before on the pursuit of Draupadi. His hands flexed and cupped as if closing on a woman's breast.

  "Are we men or runaway slaves?" Quintus spat.

  Lucilius spared him a twisted grin.

  Surely, he wanted the Eagle, yes, and his freedom. Well, Quintus wanted his freedom, even if he wasted it in a vain bid to return to Rome.

  But not at the cost of betrayal. Not after he himself had been betrayed so many times. The Eagle itself would lift from its bronze perch above the SPQR and stoop to rend a man guilty of that disloyalty.

  "Help them! We go together or no one moves at all!"

  Ssu-ma Chao's weary face lit with a relief that had nothing to do with temporary freedom from the racking earth tremors. Rufus headed toward the plunging beasts. Sweat from their fear lathered them despite the cold and the high altitudes and the swearing men attempting to manhandle the chariot down the side of a shaky hill. But he paused to clap Quintus on the shoulder—a liberty Quintus took as an honor. Ganesha, before gliding down the path with more composure than any of the younger men showed, nodded gravely in tribute.

  The horse Ssu-ma Chao had saddled plunged and reared. Quintus moved to reassure it with words and actions he had used a thousand times on his farm. This decision would cut him off once again from his home, his grandfather's bones, and everything he had dreamed of winning back.

  Except himself. He felt warm despite the heights, sure despite the fear of the earth tremors and whatever damnable slaughter was going on far below. He had seldom felt such confidence, except of course the rare times his grandsire had praised him.

  He and the Ch'in officer slammed a packsaddle onto the last beast, trying simultaneously to soothe and subdue it. Once more, the earth shook. Rocks shivered loose from the peaks and rained down among them as if shot from some Titan's catapult. Two men screamed, but their screams were cut sharply as rock blotted them from sight.

  "Forgive, forgive this turtle's pace.... They are dying down there and I fail them, I fail my brothers...." Ssu-ma Chao would be weeping in a moment, and then there really would be Charon to pay.

  All day they stood in the hot sun with no water. The lucky ones were those who had died early, a Parthian arrow in their eyes or hearts.

  But now they were ready. Perhaps t
hey could stop this slaughter.

  "MARCH!" Rufus shouted, a cracked shout that surely cost him lung pain in these heights. Roman and Ch'in picked their way down the trembling path. The mountain labored, as that old Greek slave had said, and gave birth to a mouse. But not here. Not here. For what prodigy did this rumbling serve as the midwife?

  Probably Orcus himself, Quintus thought. They would all be cast down into Hades without coin enough to pay the ferryman. At least, with the rocks tumbling about, they would not have to worry about burial.

  Do not speak to me of death, a voice whispered in his head. It hissed like wind across sand. They are dead on the road below. You may come there if you can. You may bury their bodies, if you choose, just as you have the choice to waste your lives.... These are not your people... not your land... not your battle.... Why do you fear a brutish death when you face life as a slave? In Roma the slaves themselves rebelled against their lives.