by T. C. Rypel
A slow smile spread over the lead brigand’s face to see Gonji’s canny inspection of his men. It was a handsome face, in its way. Piercing dark eyes flashed over high cheekbones. His mouth was sharply delineated over a cleft chin, and his tall wiry frame sat proudly astride a nickering destrier. He swept off his burgonet and bowed to Gonji.
“There can be no mistaking your identity, monsieur…Red Blade of the East.”
“This man is a bandit, sir, a highwayman,” the lieutenant advised Gonji.
“Ah, so desu ka?” the samurai replied. “If so, he seems to have left his cunning on the trail.”
The bandit chuckled. “We are free companions. Something I think the samurai understands, if his legend be true. Like the others here at this…fashionable conference, we’ve been drawn by Gonji’s fame to discuss the prospect of becoming, eh—Wonder Knights, is it? As such, kind sirs, we had hoped to be granted temporary amnesty—in the name of Wunderknechten brotherhood, as it were. Now, have we a truce?”
The lieutenant scowled in disbelief. “You must be mad, scoundrel! Unbuckle your weapons and dismount—all of you.” He gestured to the French troopers, and they began to fan out, flanking the outnumbered highwaymen. Some of them drew pistols and leveled them at the brigands from behind their mounts’ crests.
Gonji dismounted and strode between the lines of horsemen, Orozco and Buey also dropping from horse to walk beside and slightly behind him.
“So sorry, lieutenant,” Gonji said, “but I would hear more of this…pilgrim’s appeal.”
The officer cast about indignantly, then raised a staying hand to his men. Gonji bowed to the lieutenant.
“Who are you?” he asked the bandit leader.
“I am Armand Perigor—” The name was echoed in whispers among the folk who had begun to crowd around now, all wondering whether Gonji was again threatened. “—swordsman, adventurer, and—” Perigor laughed softly “—fellow wonder-seeker, I believe, monsieur. You’ll pardon me if I speak bluntly. My men and I have grown weary of bowing to the winds of change, of serving questionable masters. We’ve killed Huguenots for papist gold and Catholics for Huguenot silver. Now we’ve heard that you say, ‘Spill only the blood of those who threaten the land.’ Some…mysterious powers who would control us, rob us of our humanity, from beyond our world. Makes a crazy kind of sense, I suppose, given certain things we’ve seen and scarcely believed. But I must know who we throw in our lot with. They say you dodged a lead ball this evening from a pistol fired by an unsteady hand. They say it didn’t miss by much. But that is the way of the gun, n’est-ce pas? It lacks surety, the proof of gallantry of both assailant and victim. Not so with the sword—”
Perigor snicked out his rapier. There was a shuffling in the French cavalry ranks, weapons hefted menacingly. But the nine rogues held their ground and glared back coldly at the troopers. Perigor grinned and bobbed his head.
“Think he could squeeze any more teeth into that smile of his?” Orozco whispered behind Gonji.
“I’d like to squeeze a few out,” Buey growled in reply.
Perigor dropped down from the saddle and faced Gonji.
“So, monsieur le samurai,” he said. “Escrimer—to fight with the sword—is the only test of a man’s mettle I can trust. If I am to ally myself with your noble cause, then I must know whether I can trust what I’ve heard of that formidable-looking blade of yours. A touch-duel, then, if it please you.”
He saluted Gonji with his blade and then brought it to en garde.
The samurai smiled thinly and bowed, the Sagami rasping out of its sheath as shouts and stamping hooves sounded all about them.
The clink of armament—the cocking of pistols—
Gonji blocked aside Buey’s clamping hand at his shoulder. Waving to the French knights to make room, he bowed shallowly to Perigor, brought up his katana in both hands, and came to middle guard.
They engaged blades for a long, motionless moment, eyes locked, gauging each other’s confidence. Clouds of icy breath issued from the tensely rapt crowd.
“No—it must be stopped!” a shrill male voice called from the ring of torches at the front edge of the encircling throng of citizens.
But at that instant Perigor sallied forth with his long, slim blade, and the fray was on. The adventurer shot a series of stinging lunges at the legendary samurai fencer, testing his defense of each quadrant, and each time Gonji batted the rapier aside with a tight circular parry.
Gonji backed two paces. Three. Then with a sudden burst of panther-quick motion, he turned the duel’s line of motion, assuming the attack with a blurring sequence of slashes and cuts, two-handed lunges too fast for the eyes of many onlookers to follow, abrupt one-handed releases ending in cobra-dart sword-licks issuing from strangely contorted positions.
Perigor slipped his blows and beat back attacks seemingly in instants of certain defeat. He riposted crisply, deeply, Gonji’s own wrist-twisting parries at the brink of being blooded tearing gasps from the crowd. None save their closest companions had ever seen such a matched pair of fencers as these.
Sweating faces, gaping with excitement, shone in the firelight as the ring of torches altered its shape like some amorphous night-dwelling thing, to afford the combatants room along the street. The shifting eye of the communal mass twinkled with the glinting blades at its center. As the tense minutes passed, the entire spectacle slowly drifted fifty feet down the lane. The duelists were given ready space, their eyes seeing nothing but each other. Their blades clashed and clacked, sparks showering in the keening din.
Perigor’s classic European style was economical, tight, severe in its lines of attack. Snakelike. Gonji’s ken-jutsu appeared more flamboyant—now a dervish, now a crane; then, without warning, a sensational series of whirling slashes—the raking fury of an aroused bear—
But his control—the sudden seizing stops, the impossible upward, backward, and under-arm twisting maneuvers—evinced itself just as surely.
An eternity of anxious moments. Then—Perigor opened the first cut, grazing Gonji’s left cheek. The match was stopped, the blood stanched, and they came to engagement again.
A shorter time until the next blood-touch—once more the samurai was cut, this time in the upper left arm. The shallow wound was bound by a growling Buey, who whispered harshly that Gonji have done with this game. Buey urged him to complete his blows with full power, to slice the arrogant Frenchman to ribbons.
The samurai paid him no heed. En garde…
Another blinding sequence of clashes, breath hissing out of the stunned spectators to witness the strength that yet remained in arms that should have gone numb.
Gonji’s splendid beat-attack against a feint-a-disengage—the wrist-snapping riposte making a harrowing pass at the brigand’s chin—a magnificent flurry of sharp parries in all four quadrants—
And Gonji dropped to one knee, ripped a scything slash under the Frenchman’s guard, and sheared through his brigandine, broken lames flying off in all directions. A thin line of blood leaked from the edges of the cut fabric.
Two of Perigor’s men rushed forward to his aid. Waving them off and wincing a bit, he stepped back a pace and saluted Gonji.
“Touche,” Perigor pronounced loudly. “And concession of defeat.”
“Non! That’s but one touch!”
The thick-chested axe-wielder from Perigor’s band had stamped up beside him, scowling and shaking a fist.
Perigor shook his head. “You haven’t been watching closely enough, Brett. True, that was the first bloodletting—fortunately,” he said, gingerly bringing up a reddened hand from the superficial belly wound. “But that was the third—or was it the fourth, monsieur?—of his wounding blows. The samurai is equal to his legend as a fencer. He struck me repeatedly, Brett, with the edgeless forte of his lithe blade. If y
our intention, monsieur, was to serve up a lesson, the point was well taken. I yield to your superior ability, eh, this time.” He grinned his broad grin and put up his rapier, moving forward to clasp Gonji’s hand.
“You are right, monsieur,” Gonji told him. “Escrimer is a good test indeed. You are a premier fencer and a man of considerable honor, Monsieur Perigor.”
He bowed to the highwayman, and a cheer-filled, spontaneous outburst of appreciation sprang from the crowd, their tension subsiding. The French knights, however, remained wary, their commander uncertain as to whether to pursue his accusations against the strangers.
“My men and I ride with you on your quest—provisionally,” Perigor told Gonji, tipping his head and scratching his cheek thoughtfully. “We must speak.”
“Hai, that seems necessary.”
But the warrior named Brett strode up beside him again and regarded Gonji’s companions with hostility, “I have no wish to talk, unless it be with my axe. I have no desire to join this…mutual admiration fellowship. You didn’t say anything about siding with goddamn Spaniards.”
He spat audibly on the ground between them, and Buey took a threatening step forward, teeth and fists clenched, eyes visored to shining slits beneath his beetling brows. The pair seemed well matched, for although the Ox was a few inches taller, Brett had a chest like the prow of a galleon and arms like mortar barrels.
Perigor made a mollifying gesture, and the young cavalry officer clopped up to the volatile, jaw-jutting parties. “Have a care, monsieur,” he told Gonji. “I wouldn’t trust these bandits beside me if they rode head down over their saddles.”
“Be at ease, Lieutenant Noyes,” the samurai replied. “I think Monsieur Perigor knows that his pledge of fellowship must necessarily come under narrow scrutiny. Survival demands caution in these times, neh?”
Perigor mopped his brow and bowed. “No man would be a worthy ally who did not take such pains. Corbeau—the wine—the Moselle—”
A cadaverously thin mounted adventurer nodded and removed his burgonet, then dismounted and brought a sack whose contents—three bottles—clinked as he shifted it to his bony shoulder. Corbeau then donned a roundly beaten slouch hat and presented Perigor with another, a more foppish example, sleek and unmarred and topped with a long gray feather.
“Here’s a vintage they’ll not have graced you with, I’d wager,” Perigor said, uncorking a bottle and passing it to Gonji, the samurai declining out of his sense of decorum.
“A vintage the merchant who carried it can no longer boast of either,” one of the French brigands added archly, too softly for the soldiers to hear.
Perigor chuckled. “This is Normand Gareau, a welcome blithe spirit when the road grows long and wearisome. The burly fellow is Brett Jarret—mind his grip.”
Gonji bowed shallowly to Brett and dutifully took his extended hand, though he was still disposed against such European displays of greeting. It was like making the acquaintance of a grinding millstone, but the samurai’s unwavering black marble eyes held fast on the strong man’s. Jarret’s respect was won over.
“—and the undertaker here we call Le Corbeau—The Crow. Once long ago, he tells us, he was a high-priced solicitor in Paris. The position paled eventually due to its lack of adventure and challenge. Now he makes nearly as much money,” Perigor continued in a near whisper to confound the ears of the listeners on the fringe, “for work only a tad more unscrupulous. But he seems happy.”
They shared a smile, and Gonji similarly introduced Buey and Sergeant Orozco. The Ox-man and Brett Jarret grudgingly locked mighty grips, breaking off at last with a shared look of defiant satisfaction.
Orozco eyed the Frenchmen sidelong as he swigged from the proffered bottle. “Well, it’s not Madeira.” He wiped his mouth on a sleeve.
“In truth,” the Crow responded, “what wine could be?”
The sergeant cocked an eye at him, then half-smiled crookedly.
“One thing, though, about our match,” Perigor said, hooking his thumbs carefully into his broad belt at the spot where a crude bandage had been applied to his wound. “My conceit forces me to advise you that I didn’t show you all my tricks.”
Gonji suppressed a smile and scratched at an itch under his topknot. “Hai, I assumed as much. Nor I…you.”
Perigor’s chortle became a rousing laugh.
A whining, nasal voice they had heard during the bout cried out suddenly from the slowly dispersing crowd.
“Gentils! We are all at your service. Ready to die in Burgundy, if necessary! For such worthy leaders we Wonder Knights would storm the keep of Satan himself!”
The zealous young man raised an ornately carven but clumsy-looking broadsword for emphasis, then tipped his head back to pour the contents of a flagon down his throat, after declaring, “Dalbert is yours to command!”
“Friend of yours?” Perigor inquired, cocking a thumb over his shoulder as they began to walk toward the hostel’s entrance.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Gonji replied, rubbing his beard stubble.
“I wonder if he knows he might be close to the truth.”
“Eh?”
“Storming the keep of the Devil.”
Gonji made a wry face and glanced back at the blaring young poseur militaire. “Perhaps he’ll go away once he’s sober.”
“Mmm. Or breed a whole warren just like him.”
They entered the hostel. Perigor’s five remaining mounted men led their horses quietly toward the livery under the suspicious gaze of Lieutenant Noyes.
* * * *
Darkness. And stifling heat. Lashing out now in blind frenzy against enemies that could not be grasped or skewered or banished despite might of arms, cunning sorcery, or fervor of heart and spirit. Changing shapes—none can be trusted (remember Theresa…Theresa) none can be trusted none—can—be—trusted—
* * * *
“The wound leaks again—”
* * * *
“Burgundy…”
Perigor fingered his goblet pensively. His mouth twisted, and he shook his head morosely.
“Burgundy has always been trouble,” the highwayman went on. “Ever-changing allegiances. Always last among the king’s holdings to fall into line, to accept any new edict. Like some…headstrong stallion. Not that it matters to me, of course. Kings, aristocrats, politicians—they’re all alike. Not a one worth bending the knee to. But Burgundy is different. It’s…too easily swayed, too willingly controlled. It would be best ceded to the Empire were it not for all the worthy Frenchmen there. Two of my men hail from there. Brett, eh?”
They sat in counsel in the tight confines of the upper room, passing food and drink among them. Gonji sat with hands on thighs, his swords leaning near his left side—the place of easy draw. He faced Perigor and Le Corbeau. Brett Jarret stared glumly into his wine at one end of the table. Buey slumped against a low windowsill behind him, alternately looking from his companions to the lamplit streets below. Curfew had fallen, and the lamps were extinguished, one by one, the crier’s alert preceding their snuffing. Sergeant Orozco and Normand Gareau sat at the far end of the oaken table, absently pursuing a card game as they considered what was said.
“Please—bitte—let us continue in German,” Gonji requested. “One of the high dialects will do fine, if possible.”
“Ja, if you wish.”
“I must insist, arigato.”
Perigor smiled. “Do itashimashite,” he replied haltingly. “You’re welcome—nicht wahr?” He looked to Corbeau, who nodded paternally. Gonji arched an eyebrow inquisitively.
“Your exploits are becoming too well known,” the Crow explained. “Snatches of your native tongue are fashionable argot in some mercenary camps. Such celebrity…does not aid your purpose, I’m afraid.” He began fishing about i
n a pouch at his side, producing and riffling through a sheaf of papers of assorted shapes and sizes.
“I know that,” Gonji agreed sadly. “How things have changed over the years…”
“You can trust Corbeau’s judgment,” Perigor added. “He’s our prodigy, an attested genius in military tactics, a clever planner, and with a memory like the jaws of…well, name your favorite predatory beast.”
Buey snorted. “We’ve seen our share of things you’d swallow your tongue to see. I’ve sat to dinner with a giant—we all have here. We’ve fought the dead who walk and their demon familiars. Cats, they were, with eyes like the cooking fires in Hell and—”
“We have no doubt of it,” Perigor said, brusquely waving him to silence. “Your company’s good fortune at uncovering and subduing the haunters of darkness is well served in story and song. Perhaps more so than our own. We are duly impressed.”
He turned back to the others, leaving a speechless Buey to ponder his arrogant frankness.
“Corbeau has everything recorded in that tattered journal of his. Every worthwhile observance, every penetrating thought. I believe that even you, mon ami Japonais, are entered therein. Corbeau?”
The Crow nodded absently and shuffled through the notes. He spoke brokenly a moment, as if gathering his thoughts, then propped his chin on his fists and launched into a desultory, almost rhapsodic discourse, eyes focused on the far wall. Even Orozco and Gareau stopped their game to pick at their food and pay him heed.