Damodara scowled. "Faked some of the evidence, you mean. There were plenty of dead Ye-tai on the scene."

Sanga shrugged. "How else would Narses fake something? He is as dangerous as a cobra. A very old and wise cobra."

"So he is," agreed Damodara. "I've often thought that employing him was as perilous a business as using a cobra for a guard in my own chambers."

Again, he rubbed his neck. "On the other hand, I need such a guard. I think."

"Oh, yes. You do." Sanga left off his pointless scrutiny of the Vindhyas and twisted his head to the west, looking toward Bharakuccha. "You're far more likely to be ambushed back there, by Nanda Lal, than you are here by Raghunath Rao."

Since Damodara had long ago come to that same conclusion, he said nothing. No need to, really. There were no longer many secrets between he and Rana Sanga. They had campaigned together across central Asia and into Mesopotamia, winning every battle along the way, even against Belisarius. And had still lost the campaign, not through any fault of theirs but because Malwa had failed them.

In the upside-down world of the Malwa empire, his accomplishments placed him in greater peril than defeat would have done. Malwa feared excellent generals, in many ways, more than it did bad ones.

"We will return to Bharakuccha," Damodara announced. "This patrol is pointless, and I'd just as soon reach the city before nightfall."

Sanga nodded. He started to rein his horse around, but paused. "Lord. Remember. I swore an oath."

After Sanga was gone, Damodara stared sourly at the river. Rajputs and their damned sacred oaths.

But the thought came more from habit, than anything else. Damodara knew how to circumvent the oath that the Rajputs had given to the emperor of Malwa, swearing their eternal fealty. He'd figured it out long ago-and hadn't need any of Narses' hints to do so.

The thing was quite obvious, really, if a man was prepared to gamble everything on a single daring maneuver. The problem was that, military tactics aside, Damodara was by nature a cautious and conservative man.

Damn Narses!

That thought, too, after a moment, Damodara dismissed as simply old habit. True enough, the Roman eunuch was maneuvering Damodara, and doing so ruthlessly-and entirely for Narses' own purposes. The fact remained that he was probably wiser in doing so, than Damodara had been in hesitating. Could you curse a man who manipulated you in your own best interests?

Of course, you could-and Damodara did it again. Damn Narses!

But… Malwa remained. Malwa and its secret ruler. The greatest, the most powerful-and certainly the most venomous-cobra in the world. Next to which, even Narses was a small menace.

So, finally, on a dirt road next to the Narmada river, Malwa's greatest general made the decision that had been long years in the making.

Many things went into that decision.

First, that he knew himself to be caught in a trap, if he did nothing. If Malwa won the war, it was Damodara's assessment that he himself would be eliminated as too dangerously capable. Most likely, however-another assessment, and one that he was growing ever more sure about-the war would not be won. In which case, Damodara would join in the general destruction of the dynasty.

Second, his fears for his family. Either of those two outcomes-certainly the first-would result in their destruction also. In the event of a Roman victory, Damodara did not think that the victors would target his family. But that meant nothing. In the chaos of a collapsing Malwa empire, rebellions were sure to erupt all over India-and all of them would be murderous toward anyone associated with the Malwa dynasty. The odds that Damodara's wife and children would survive that carnage was almost nil.

Third, and finally-and in some ways, most of all-Damodara was sick and tired of Malwa's secret overlord. Looking back over the years of his life, he could see now that the superhuman intelligence from the future was…

An idiot. A beast and a monster, too. But most of all, just an arrogant, blithering, drooling idiot.

Damodara remembered the one conversation he'd had with Belisarius, and the Roman general's musings on the folly of seeking perfection. He'd thought, at the time, that he agreed with the Roman. Now, he was certain of it.

So, he came to his decision.

Damn all new gods and their schemes.

He might have added: Damn Malwa. But, given his future prospects-if he had any-that would be quite absurd. From this moment forward, Damodara and his family would only survive insofar as he was Malwa.

He spent the rest of the ride back to the city convincing himself of that notion. It was not easy. The inner core of Damodara which had kept him sane since he was a boy was laughing at himself all the way.

Once the patrol returned to Bharakuccha, just after sunset, Damodara went immediately to Narses' chambers. The Malwa general made no attempt to hide his movements. Nanda Lal would surely have spies watching him, but so what? Damodara regularly consulted with Narses, and always did so openly. To have begun creeping about would raise suspicions.

"Yes, Lord?" Narses asked, after politely ushering Damodara into the inner chamber where they always discussed their affairs. In that chamber-for a certainty-Nanda Lal's spies could overhear nothing. "Some wine? Food?"

The old eunuch indicated a nearby chair, the most luxurious in the chamber. "Please, be seated."

Damodara ignored him. He was carefully studying the third man in the room, the hawk-faced assassin named Ajatasutra who had been Narses' chief associate since the failure of the Nika revolt in Constantinople.

"Do I want to ask him to leave, Narses?" Damodara asked abruptly.

The question brought a sudden stillness to the room. Along with a tightness to Narses' expression, and-perhaps oddly-a little smile to the face of the assassin.

Damodara waited. And waited.

Finally, Narses replied. "No, Lord, I think not. Ajatasutra can answer all your questions. Better than I can, actually, because…"

"He's been there. Yes." Damodara's eyes had never left the assassin. "My next question. Do I need to ask him to leave?"

For the first time since he entered the room, he glanced at Narses. "Or would it be wiser for me to summon Rana Sanga? For my protection."

Seeing Narses' little wince, Damodara issued a curt little laugh. "Not looking forward to that, are you? I thought not." He turned his gaze back to the assassin. "Well, then. Perhaps three other Rajputs."

Ajatasutra's thin smile widened. "Unless one of them is Jaimal or Udai, I'd recommend four. Five would be wiser. However…"

Gracefully, Ajatasutra slid off his chair. Then, to the Malwa general's surprise, went down on one knee. From nowhere, a dagger appeared. Flipped easily and now held by the tip, Ajatasutra laid the blade across his extended left forearm, offering the weapon's hilt to Damodara.

"There is no need for Rajputs, Lord of Malwa." There was not a trace of humor in the assassin's tone of voice, and the smile was gone. "This blade is at your service. I have served Malwa faithfully since I was a boy. Never more so than now."

Damodara studied the man, for a moment. A quick decision was needed here.

He made it. Then, reached out and barely touched the dagger hilt with the tip of his fingers.

"Keep the weapon. And now, Ajatasutra, tell me of my family. And Rana Sanga's."

Narses was fidgeting a bit. Smiling as thinly as the assassin had done, Damodara murmured to him: "I shall stand, I think. But perhaps you should be seated. Have some food. Some wine. Now that the assassin's blade is sworn to me, it may be your last meal."