No, he had not seen any young noblewoman—or soldiers—leaving on horseback.
He could not tell the difference between Kushans and any other steppe barbarians, anyway. The savages all looked alike to him.
The soldiers, peasants from the Gangetic plain, smiled. Nodded.
He had seen nothing. Heard nothing. Knew nothing.
The soldiers, satisfied, went on their way.
The plans and schemes of tyrants are broken by many things. They shatter against cliffs of heroic struggle. They rupture on reefs of open resistance. And they are slowly eroded, bit by little bit, on the very beaches where they measure triumph, by countless grains of sand. By the stubborn little decencies of humble little men.
Chapter 20
On his way through the Panther Gate, just as he had promised Lord Jivita, Rana Sanga disciplined the soldiers who had allowed Belisarius to leave the city. "Give them lashes," Jivita had demanded, specifying the plural.
Sanga's word, as always, was good.
Two lashes, each. From his own quirt, wielded by Rajputana's mightiest hand. It is conceivable that a fly might have been slain by those strokes. It is conceivable.
Once he and his cavalry unit were outside the walls of the capital, Sanga conferred with his lieutenants and his chief Pathan tracker as they rode westward. The conference was very brief, since the fundamental problem of their pursuit was obvious to anyone who even glanced at the countryside.
The Gangetic plain, after a week of heavy rainfall, was a sea of mud. Any tracks—tracks even a day old, much less eight—had been obliterated. The only portion of the plain which was reasonably dry was the road itself. A good road, the road to Mathura, but the fact brought no comfort to the Rajputs. Many fine things have been said about stone-paved roads, but none of them has ever been said by Pathan trackers.
"No horse even leave tracks this fucking idiot stone," groused the Pathan. "No man on his foot."
Sanga nodded. "I know. We will not be able to track him until we reach Rajputana. Not this time of year."
The Rajput glanced up, gauging. The sky was clear, and he hoped they had reached the end of the kharif, India's wet season. The kharif was brought by the monsoon in May, and lasted into September. It would be succeeded by the cool, dry season which Indians called rabi. In February, then, the blistering dry heat of garam season would scorch India until the monsoon.
Jaimal echoed his own thoughts:
"Rabi is almost here. Thank God."
Sanga grunted approvingly. Like most Indians, rabi was his favorite season.
"There is no point in looking for tracks," he announced. "But we have one advantage, here in the plain—there are many travelers on the road. They will probably have noticed a single Ye-tai. Anyone Belisarius encountered in his first days of travel will be long gone, by now. But we can hope, in two or three days, to start encountering people who saw him."
"The soldiers in the courier relay stations may have spotted him," commented Udai. "They have nothing else to do except watch the road."
"True," said Sanga. "We can make it to the first relay station by mid-afternoon. Udai may well be right—the soldiers may have spotted him. Let's go!"
"Are you sure it is them?" asked the crouching young warrior, peering down into the ravine.
"Oh, yes," said Rao. "Quite sure. I only met one of them, but he is not the sort of man you forget."
The Maratha chieftain rose from his hiding place behind a boulder. The armored horseman leading the small party through the trail below immediately reined in his horse. Rao was impressed by the speed with which the man unlimbered his bow.
He probably shoots well, too. Let's not find out.
"Ho—Ousanas!" he bellowed. "Do you still maintain the preposterous claim that all appearance is but the manifestation of eternal and everlasting Forms?"
The reply came instantly:
"Of course! You are the living proof yourself, Raghunath Rao, even where you stand. The very Platonic Form of a sight for sore eyes."
The young guerrillas lining the ravine where Rao had set his ambush—friendly ambush, to be sure; but Rao never lost the chance for training his young followers—were goggling.
They were provincials, almost without exception. Poor young villagers, most of whom had never seen any of the world beyond the hills and ridges of the Great Country. The Romans were odd enough, with their ugly bony faces and sick-looking pallid complexions. The Ethiopians and Kushans were even more outlandish. But the other one! A tall half-naked man, black as a cellar in night-time—arguing philosophy with Rao himself!