Damodara-almost-took Aide in his hand when Belisarius made the offer. But, at the end, the Malwa lord shied away from the glittering splendor. Partly, his refusal was based on simple, automatic distrust. But not much. He didn't really think Belisarius was trying to poison him with some mysterious magical jewel. He believed, in his heart of hearts, that Belisarius was telling the truth about the incrediblegem?-nestled in his hand.
No, the real reason Damodara could not bring himself to take the thing, was that he finally realized that he did not want to know the future. He would rather make it himself. Poorly, perhaps; blindly, perhaps; but in his own hands. Pudgy, unprepossessing hands, to be sure. Nothing like the well-formed sinewy hands of a Roman general or a Rajput king. But they werehis hands, and he was sure of them.
Sanga was not even tempted.
"I have seen the future, Belisarius," he stated solemnly. "Link has shown it to me." The Rajput pointed to Aide. "Will that show me anything different?"
Belisarius shook his head. "Not at all. The future-unless Link and the new gods change it, with Malwa as their instrument-is just as I'm sure Link showed it to you. A place of chaos and disorder. A world where men are no longer men, but monsters. A universe where nothing is pure, and everything polluted."
Belisarius lifted his hand, his fingers spread wide. Aide glistened and coruscated, like the world's most perfect jewel.
"This, too, is a thing of pollution. A monster. An intelligent being created from disease. The worst disease which ever stalked the universe. And yet-"
Belisarius gazed down at Aide. "Is he not beautiful? Just like a diamond, forged out of rotting waste."
Belisarius closed his fingers. Aide's glowing light no longer illuminated the pavilion. And a Roman general, watching the faces of his enemies, knew that he was not the only one who missed the splendor.
He turned to Damodara. "Do you have children?"
The Malwa lord nodded. "Three. Two boys and a girl."
"Were they born perfectly? Or were they born in blood, and your wife's pain and sweat, and your own fear?"
A shadow crossed the Roman's face. "I have no children of my own. My wife Antonina can bear them no longer. In her days as a courtesan, after she bore one son, she was cut by a man seeking to become her pimp."
Those coarse truths, spoken by a man about his own wife, did not seem odd to his enemies in the pavilion. They knew the story-Narses had told them what few details the Malwa espionage service had not already ferreted out. Yet they knew as well, as surely as they knew the sunrise, that the Roman was oblivious to any shame or disgrace. Not because he was ignorant of his wife's past, but simply because he didn't care. Any more than a diamond, nestled with a pearl, cares that the pearl was also shaped from waste.
The shadow passed, and sunlight returned. "Yet that boy-that bastard, sired by a prostitute's customer-has become my own son in truth. As dear to me as if he were born of my own flesh. Why is that, do you think?"
Belisarius stared down at the beauty hidden in his fist. "This too-this monster-has become like a son to me. And why isthat, do you think?" When he raised his head, the face of the Roman general was as serene as the moon. "The reason, Lord of Malwa and King of Rajputana, was explained to me by Raghunath Rao. In a vision I had of him, once, dancing to the glory of time.Only the soul matters, in the end. All else is dross."
Belisarius turned to Rana Sanga. "My wife is a very beautiful woman. Is yours, King of Rajputana?"
Sanga stared at the Roman. Belisarius had never met Sanga's wife. For a moment, angrily, Sanga wondered if Rome's spies had He shook off the suspicion. Belisarius, he realized, was simply making a shrewd guess. Looking for any angle from which to drive home the lance.
"She is plump and plain-faced," he said harshly. "Her hair was already gray by the time she was thirty."
Belisarius nodded. He opened his hand. Beauty reentered the pavilion.
"Would you trade her, then, for my own?"
Sanga's powerful fingers closed around the hilt of his sword. But, after an instant, the gesture of anger became a simple caress. A man comforted by the feel of an old, familiar, trusted thing. The finest steel in the world was made in India. That steel had saved him, times beyond counting.
"She is my life," he said softly. "The mother of my children. The joy of my youth and the certainty of my manhood. Just as she will be the comfort of my old age."
Sanga's left hand reached up, gingerly stroking the new scar which Valentinian had put on his cheek. The scar was still angry-looking, in its freshness, but even after it faded Sanga's face would remain disfigured. He had been a handsome man, once. No longer.
"Assuming, of course, that I reach old age," he said, smiling ruefully. "And that my wife doesn't flee in terror, when she sees the ogre coming through her door."
