If Krishna was hoping for a voice in his mind to contradict him, telling him he could not possibly think of everything, that he already had so much else on his mind, that there was nothing anybody could have done, he did not hear it. The truth was that Krishna had not factored in Kalyavan’s lust for glory. He thought back to the day of the Weighing Ceremony, when Niarkatt had insulted Kalyavan; the way his face had darkened. Krishna should have known then that the boy would do something hasty and stupid. Well, hasty at least, for so far Kalyavan’s moves had been ingenious. If only I could slay Niarkatt and hang his head on the ramparts! But the fool had been one of the first on the carts to Dvarka.

But he could punish himself for what he failed to predict, later. For now, Krishna was grateful the storm over the Yamuna had given him a chance. When, past midnight, the storm had struck and turned the blue flames back in the direction of the Greeks, Krishna could have kissed the page who had brought the news. It had not only bought him time, but a message of parley from the Mlecchá. Time for talking. Talking was something he was good at. He could do it for hours. There had to be something Kalyavan wanted, which he could give him. All he had to do was figure out what it was. And so here he was, waiting beside Balram for Kalyavan to grace them with his presence.

On the horizon, between farms and villages, on the cart roads, in the patchwork of damp fields, Greek troops swarmed in their thousands. Not a huge army. Not a small one either, considering half the Mathuran troops were away. Mathura was, without doubt, vastly outnumbered.

Krishna saw no Pragjyotishan flags however, which meant Bhagadatt was not present. Bless Yami. Another voice added: He doesn’t need to be, the bastard. Though he could not count them, the airavats looked like hillocks. Great lumbering monsters with tusks that looked like they could gore through walls. The ones Bhagadatt had brought to Panchal had been scary enough, but the ones Kalyavan had here had legs like tree trunks. Blades were strapped to their long snouts. Mathurans possessed no war elephants, but it would not have mattered against these leviathans even if they had. Through his eyeglass, Krishna spotted many of the airavats dragging the siege towers which the Greeks had used to launch blazebane on the Third Sister. Others carried armoured placements on their backs, from where no doubt Eastern spearmen and archers would rain down steel and wood.

Since the land sloped down from the Third Sister, Krishna could not see beyond the immediate encampments, but he could swear there were no long lines of red tents, as he had seen on countless Magadhan sieges. A few pavilions, yes, but nothing to mark any preparations for a long stay. No smoke rose from cook-fires. No ditches had been dug to prevent supplies and reinforcements, meagre as they were, from reaching the beleaguered city. Kalyavan does not intend to make this a long siege, Krishna realised with dread.