At the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers

Less than a week after his thirteenth birthday, Rajiv knew the worst despair and the two greatest epiphanies of his short life. One coming right after the other.

Gasping for breath, he lowered himself onto a stool in one of the cellars beneath Lady Damodara's palace. He could barely keep the wooden sword in his hand, his grip was so weak.

"I'll never match my father," he whispered, despairingly.

"Don't be an idiot," came the harsh voice of his trainer, the man he called the Mongoose. "Of course, you won't. A man as powerful as Rana Sanga doesn't come to a nation or tribe more than once a century."

" Listen to him, Rajiv," said his mother. She had watched this training session, as she had watched all of them, from her stool in a corner. With, as always, the stool surrounded by baskets into which she placed the prepared onions. Cutting onions relaxed the woman, for reasons no one else had ever been able to determine.

The epiphany came, then.

" You couldn't match him, either."

The narrow, weasel face of the Mongoose twisted with humor. "Of course I couldn't! Never thought to try-except, like a damn fool, at the very end."

Casually-not a trace of weakness in that grip-the Mongoose leaned his own imitation sword against a wall of the cellar. Then, with the same lean right hand, reached up and parted his coarse black hair. The scar beneath was quite visible. "Got that for trying."

Rajiv was as disturbed as he was exhilarated by his new-found wisdom. "I should stop…"

Almost angrily, his mother snapped: "Yes! Stop trying to imitate your father!" She pointed to the Mongoose with the short knife she used to cut onions. "Learn from him. "

She went back to cutting onions. "You're not big enough. Never will be. Not so tall, not so strong. Maybe as fast, maybe not." The onion seemed to fly apart in her hand. "So what?"

Again, the knife, pointing like a finger. "Neither is he. But the Mongoose is still a legend."

The man so named chuckled. Harshly, as he did most things. "My name is Valentinian, and I'm just a soldier of Rome. I leave legends to those who believe in them. What I know, boy, is this. Learn from me instead of resisting me, and you'll soon enough gain your own fame. You're very good, actually. Especially for one so young."

Valentinian took the wooden sword back in his hand. "And now, you've rested enough. Back at it. And remember, this time- small strokes. Stop trying to fight as if you were a king of Rajputana. Fight like a miser hoarding his coins. Fight like me."

It was difficult. But Rajiv thought he made some progress, by the end of the session. He was finally beginning to understand-really understand-what made the Mongoose so dangerous. No wasted effort, no flamboyance, nothing beyond the bare minimum needed. But that -done perfectly.

The session finally over, the second epiphany came.

Rajiv stared at his mother. She was almost the opposite of his father. Where Rana Sanga was tall and mighty, she was short and plump. Where the father was still black-haired and handsome-had been, at least, until the Mongoose scarred his face in their famous duel-the mother was gray-haired and plain.

But he saw her. For the first time, really. As always, the baskets were now full-those to her right, of the prepared onions; those to her left, of the discarded peelings.

"This is how you cut onions."

"My boy too," she said calmly. "Yes. This is how I cut onions. And men are easier to cut than onions. If you don't think like a fool."

"Listen to your mother," said the Mongoose.

Later, in the evening, in the chamber they all used as a central salon, Valentinian complained with the same words. "Listen to your mother, you little brat!"

Baji gaped up at him cheerfully, in the manner of infants the world over. He said something more-or-less like: "Goo." Whatever the word meant, it was clearly not an indication that the infant intended to obey his mother's instructions to stop pestering the Roman soldier. In fact, Baji was tugging even more insistently on his sleeve.

"What does he want, anyway?" Valentinian demanded.

" Goo," Baji explained.

Dhruva laughed. "You spoil him, Valentinian! That's why he won't pay attention to me." She rose from her stool and came over to pluck her infant son out of Valentinian's lap.

Baji started wailing instantly.

"Spoil him, I say."

Perched on his own stool in the chamber, and looking much like a rhinoceros on the small item of furniture, Anastasius started laughing. The sound came out of his huge chest like so many rumbles.

Valentinian glared at his fellow Roman cataphract. "What's so damn funny?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

Lady Damodara came into the room. After taking in the scene, she smiled.

Valentinian transferred his glare to her. "You realize we're almost certainly doomed? All of us." He pointed a stiff finger at Baji, who was still wailing. "If we're lucky, they'll cut the brat's throat first."

"Valentinian!" Dhruva exclaimed. "You'll scare him!"

"No such luck," the Roman cataphract muttered. "Might shut him up. But the brat doesn't understand a word I'm saying."

He glared at Lady Damodara again. "Doomed," he repeated.

She shrugged. "There's a good chance, yes. But it's still a better chance than my husband would have had-and me and the children-if we'd done nothing. Either you Romans would have killed him because he wasn't a good enough general, or the Emperor of Malwa would have killed him because he was. This way there's at least a chance. A pretty good one, I think."

Valentinian wasn't mollified. "Narses and his damned schemes. If I survive this, remind me to cut his throat." As piously as he could, he added: "He's under a death sentence in Rome, you know. The rotten traitor. Just be doing my duty."

Anastasius had never quite stopped rumbling little laughs. Now, the rumbles picked up their pace. "Should have thought of that sooner!"

There was no answer to that, of course. So Valentinian went back to glaring at the infant.

"And besides," Lady Damodara said, still smiling, "this way we have some entertainment. Dhruva, let your child go."

As pleasantly as the words were said, Lady Damodara was one of the great noblewomen of the Malwa empire. More closely related to the Emperor, in fact, than her husband. So, whatever her misgivings, Dhruva obeyed.

Set back on the floor, Baji immediately began crawling toward Valentinian.

"Goo!" he said happily.

Still later, in the chamber they shared as a bedroom, Anastasius started rumbling again.

Not laughs, though. Worse. Philosophical musings.

"You know, Valentinian, if you'd stop being annoyed by these minor problems-"

"I kind of like the brat, actually," Valentinian admitted. He was lying on his bed, his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

"It'd be better to say you dote on the little creature," Anastasius chuckled. "But that's not even a minor problem. I was talking about the other things. You know-the danger of being discovered-hiding out the way we are here in their own capital city-swarmed by hordes of Ye-tai barbarians and other Malwa soldiers, flayed and impaled and God knows what else by mahamimamsa torturers. Those problems."

Valentinian lifted his head. "You call those minor problems?"

"Philosophically speaking, yes."

"I don't want to hear-"

"Oh, stop whining." Anastasius sat up on his bed across the chamber and spread his huge hands. "If you refuse to consider the ontology of the situation, at least consider the practical aspect."