In the Heart of Darkness(131)

Dead.



Ajatasutra sprang to the door of the salon and stared down the corridor leading to the villa's main entrance. A moment later, there came a splintering crash.



He leapt back into the room and slammed shut the door.



"That," he announced, "was a lance driving through the main door."



Balban hesitated no longer. He scrambled down the ladder after Narses. Before his head sank below the level of the floor he heard a rolling series of thunderous noises. Doors and windows being shattered. By the time he reached the small tunnel fifteen feet down, he could already hear the screams echoing through the entire villa. The rest of the Malwa mission resident in the villa were being butchered.



Ajatasutra took the time to close the closet door before he started down the ladder. As best he could, feeling his way in the darkness, he tried to position the rug so that it would cover the trapdoor after he lowered it.



When he reached the tunnel below, he found the two other men waiting for him. Balban had lit the small lamp which was kept in a cubby.



"I don't know the way," whispered the spymaster. "I've never been down here."



Ajatasutra took the lamp from his hand.



"Follow me," he ordered. "And watch your step. We never bothered to grade the tunnel floor. I didn't really think we'd need it."



After the three men had inched their way down the narrow tunnel for hundred feet or so, Narses asked:



"How much farther, Ajatasutra? My shoes aren't designed for this kind of travel. And—damnation—they're silk! Expensive."



Ajatasutra chuckled, grimly.



"Forget about your shoes, Narses. We've another two hundred feet to go. Before we reach the sewer."



"Marvelous," muttered Narses. "Just marvelous."



Fifty feet down, he sneered: "What other brilliant ideas did you have today, Balban? Did you jump into the Bosporus to see if it was wet? Did you swallow a live coal to see if it would burn your throat? Did you—"



"Shut up," snarled the spymaster. "I received orders—from Nanda Lal himself."



Narses was silent, thereafter, until they had reached the sewer and slogged their way down its stinking length for at least two hundred feet. He began lagging further and further behind. Eventually, Ajatasutra handed Balban the lamp and went back to help the old eunuch.



"Are you all right?" he asked.



"I could use your shoulder," grunted Narses. "This damned sewer's so low I have to stoop. My back hurts."



Ajatasutra leaned his right shoulder under Narses' left arm and helped him along. The eunuch turned his head until his lips were but inches from Ajatasutra's ear and whispered:



"You do realize what those orders from Nanda Lal mean, don't you?"



Ajatasutra nodded, very slightly.



"Yes," he replied, also in a whisper. He glanced up. Balban's dim form was visible thirty feet ahead of them, backlit by the lamp he was carrying.



"It means you were right about Belisarius," whispered the assassin. "He must have escaped from India."



They progressed another fifty feet. By now, all of them were soaked with filthy water up to their mid-thighs.



Again, Narses turned his lips to Ajatasutra's ear.



"There'll be a boat, waiting. At the Neorion harbor in the Golden Horn. Do you know where it is?"



"Yes," whispered Ajatasutra. "Why me?"



"You're the best of a sorry lot. And if I have to flee to India I'll need someone to vouch for my credentials."



Ajatasutra smiled, thinly.



"You don't sound entirely confident in the certain success of our plans."



Narses sneered. "Nothing in this world is certain, Ajatasutra. Except this—better to have loosed the demon from his pit than to have loosed Belisarius. Especially after murdering his wife."



"She wasn't murdered," muttered Ajatasutra. Seeing the frown on the eunuch's face, the assassin chuckled.



"I followed. At a distance, of course. And I stayed well out of the fray. Quite a set-to, judging from the racket coming out of that cookshop—even before the cataphract arrived. I waited until he brought Antonina out. The woman was covered with blood, but none of it was hers."



Narses sighed. "Well, that's something. Belisarius will just be his usual extraordinarily competent and brilliantly capable deadly self. Instead of vengeance personified."



They slogged on, and on. Eventually, now well ahead of them, they saw Balban rise from his stoop and stand up straight. He had finally reached the exit from the sewer.



"Come on!" they heard the spymaster's hissing voice. "Time is short!"