by Rypel, T. C.
“So sorry. No insult was intended to the captain. But now to repeat the demonstration, with objects of greater substance.”
Gonji moved to the center of the square, swords still sashed. He stood motionless a second, stopping the breaths of the onlookers. Then his swords flashed from their scabbards with a sibilant rush from a cross-handed draw. He rapidly whirled the snaking blades with a deadly whit-wat, whit-wat sound....
Oohs and aahs from the women and children; a sporadic chorus of “hey-heys” from the fighting men.
Then with a piercing kiyai he lashed out at the melons—
A crossing X-blow with both blades, and the first melon fell in wedge-shaped quarters to splatter on the parquet floor. The return backward double-slash sliced cleanly through the melons at his left and right. The top half of the left slid and dropped off, but the right seemed not to have moved. Gonji leaped into the air in a flying turn that brought him facing the last melon. As his feet touched the floor, both arms arced horizontally across his chest, ripping through the melon, which sat unmoving in neat thirds.
He came to a double-guard position that made him appear as if carved from stone. He held both stance and breath, vaguely aware that he was dissatisfied with the performance but—
A chorus of cheers and applause rang out, and as he moved from the square to bow to Klann and the throng, he swelled with gratitude and pride to realize that his feat had been better received than had that of Julian.
He smiled thinly—and, he knew, insufferably—as he bowed to the captain.
Julian’s jaw muscles pulsed with the effort at controlling his anger as he brought up an assistant from the crowd for Round 2. The assistant was a green-clad mercenary of average height with a broad, flat face, humorously oversize scoop-shelled ears, and a big Cheshire grin that radiated over the audience in a nervous effort at dealing with the sudden attention. His hands rubbed at his sides apprehensively, and he kept chewing at a large wad of something, switching from one cheek to the other. He wore a warp-brimmed slouch hat; this Julian removed and placed under the soldier’s arm.
The mercenary’s grin faded and his eyes began to poach as he grasped the captain’s intent, placing, as he was, a chunk of oka cheese on each of the man’s shoulders and a third atop his head.
The crowd had been sputtering quizzically, but now a great burst of uproarious laughter greeted the mercenary’s trembling as the cheese quivered off his head and bounced away along the floor. Julian retrieved it and warned the soldier to hold still if he valued his skull. The man’s chewing stopped, and his trembling subsided.
Julian raised a hand to call for silence. Then he snapped his fingers, and by some prearranged signal, a drummer in the gallery began a long, tattering melodramatic roll. Julian postured in the “invitation” en garde stance—left arm cocked at his hip, bared saber angled down at the floor before the again quaking mercenary.
Then he sprang, his actions punctuated by emphatic drumbeats.
He slashed right—left—the cheese fell in halved chunks from the man’s shoulders—
A retreating step—a blistering lunge like a crossbow shot—the mercenary’s mouth gaped—and Julian skewered the third cheese off the top of his head. He withdrew, held up the pierced cheese, then with a flick of his wrist and an audible thwak! he split the chunk on the man’s skull without marking him.
The mercenary’s legs turned to pottage, and he dropped to his knees, his face ashen, a moist cluck issuing from his throat as he swallowed the wad he had been chewing.
Howls of laughter and heavy clapping rocked the hall. Some were already pointing to Gonji and chattering speculatively about how the samurai would top this exhibition.
Julian smiled coldly, and Gonji bowed, affecting a look of boredom. Then Gonji bowed again to the king in a more dignified fashion, while the captain saluted his liege lord.
Julian sat with two fawning courtesans as Gonji strode to the forefront. Servants worked swiftly to clean up the melons, candle bits, and cheese.
“I, too, will require a volunteer to assist me,” Gonji called out, hands resting casually on his re-sashed swords.
“How about Smyshlev?” someone yelled, and a chorus of laughter rang out, aimed at the ale-chugging mercenary who had been Julian’s accomplice.
“Nyet,” the soldier cried, “I’m through performing for the night.” More guffaws.
Gonji chuckled. “Someone else, then?” He had spoken first in Italian. He tried again in Spanish and German.
“I’ll do it.”
Yowls of currish delight and a spate of suggestive comments greeted Genya’s bold offer.
Gonji winced and scratched his head, eyeing her sidelong as she stepped up confidently, hands on rounded hips.
“I trust your skill—you did say you were Wilf’s friend—?” she added coyly.
Gonji had to admire her pluck. He turned around to see faces reflecting grave reservations about the girl’s participation. Flavio’s chin rested in one hand. When Gonji’s eyes met his, the Elder’s eyelids clamped shut with finality. Milorad was rubbing one temple and sipping mead like a half-drowned man gulping at air. Klann looked indecisive under beetling brows, as if about to call a halt to the proceedings rather than risk the safety of his favorite local servant. Even Garth leaned forward, palms gripping the table before him, in an anxious posture, although it was impossible to guess whether his hope was for Genya’s health or Gonji’s lack of skill.
Oh, well, if I don’t go through with it, none of them will be able to sleep, wondering....
“Tell me something,” Gonji said softly in German, “why are you obsessed with helping me show up this captain?”
“He’s a swinia—a pig!” she spat, curling her lip. “He pinched my behind the first day after the castle siege. Made some remarks—you know what I mean.”
“You mean you don’t find him irresistible,” Gonji asked, unable to resist baiting her, “like most of the women who stare when he passes?”
“If I weren’t such a lady I’d spit at the suggestion!”
And then the object of their discussion was standing with them.
“Don’t you think it’s rather ungallant to use a lady as an object in so vulgar a demonstration?” Julian said patronizingly.
Genya spoke up first. “I’ll be the judge of what’s gallant on my behalf.” Her small white-knuckled fists were clenched at her sides.
Julian shrugged. “Perhaps I was wrong about the...lady.” He turned on his heel and marched back to his table.
“Swinia!” Genya whispered at his back. “Jesu, Maria—forgive me!”
“Let’s get on with it, then,” Gonji said. “Lie down on your back there, and try to ignore these ‘gentlemen’s’ interest.”
She nodded and hopped onto the table at his direction, lying back to many a hoot and howl. Gonji commanded a servant to bring over the largest of the melons, this one with a girth larger than Genya’s slim waist. He wiped himself down with a scullion’s rag, taking special care to dry off his sweating palms.
The melon was placed on Genya’s belly, and the throng went wild, drunken soldiers pressing close and jockeying for a better view.
Gonji moved up to the table, leaned near the girl.
“You know,” he said with a cocked eyebrow, “this works best with the melon on one’s chest.”
“Well, obviously that’s a bad idea...here.” She stared straight overhead.
“Obviously,” Gonji agreed.
He scratched his neck, dimly aware that he was reluctant to attempt this trick he hadn’t tried in longer than he could recall.
“I’m going to have to allow for the curvature of your belly. Why don’t you eat more next time?”
“You’ve got a good thumb’s width of corset to play with.” She rolled her eyes toward him and fluttered her lashes demurely.
This, Gonji decided, was one hell of a strong-willed woman, whose like he had seldom seen in Europe. The thought crossed his mind that sho
uld Wilf ever be reunited with her his problems would only just be dawning.
He smiled and turned his back to her, facing the crowd, whose cheering rose to fever pitch. Respectful silence would have been nice, but....
Concentrate. Wash them from your mind. Feel the Sagami’s familiar hilt. Know the touch that would be required, even as you know the reach of your fingertips in the dark—
He drew the katana straight from the sheath high over his head in a mighty two-handed clench. The audience gasped and fell soundless as he shrieked a tremendous kiyai and whirled—
Every watcher would have sworn the girl was severed in two by the force of the vicious, whining blow that sheared the air, cleft through the melon, and...stopped. As if by an instantaneous mandate of the gods.
Gonji breathed, held his position. Short. He hadn’t cloven deep enough. Genya’s eyes bulged. She exhaled a choppy, tremulous breath and arched her back.
The melon fell from her belly in perfect halves.
The revelers screamed their approval, cheering madly, sloshing ale and wine over heads and tables and the greasy floor. Gonji bowed to king and crowd and smilingly helped the shaken but composed Genya from the table, then went in search of the cleanest linen or silk he could find with which to cleanse his blade.
“All right, samurai,” came Julian’s piercing voice at his back. “The time has come for the true test of fencing skills—a bout! My challenge—your weapons.”
Gonji turned ever so slowly, eyes narrowing. What’s this bastard trying to prove? The crowd noise diminished to expectant murmurs and hopeful jostling. There was nothing more they’d rather see.
“I must protest, sire!” Flavio said. “This is altogether uncalled for—”
“Wait a moment, Elder,” the king commanded, eyes flashing with curiosity. “Let’s hear him out.”
“I propose a fencing bout of the best of three touches, these to be determined by blooding—nicks only, Master Flavio, not to fear. Serious wounding would result in the disqualification of the offender. It’s a simple contest I’m sure the samurai has played many times before, n’est-ce pas?” Julian spoke in French now, the language of the country wherein he had learned the deadly little duelling game. Just one more decadent aspect of the French, for whom Gonji had no great love.
Gonji nodded sullenly. Cholera. Now what the hell? What was on Julian’s mind? Was he simply trying to pad his reputation at Gonji’s expense? He certainly had him in a fine position to do that. No wonder I have such difficulty finding honorable duty in Europe—with employers like Julian....
But he had to accept. And now they’d have some answers as to who was the better fencer. Neither had ever seen the other in a bout, only in exhibitions, but calculating from what he had seen of the swaggering captain’s control tonight—and in the lip-slitting incident at the Provender—coupled with the ominous buzzing he heard around him now, Gonji had to assume that his being challenged was quite an honor.
Gonji’s thoughts were a maelstrom. He would have to empty his mind, establish a free flow of being emanating from his wa. Thoughts were only a burden, and most dangerous among these was the passion for vengeance against this man who had done him grave insult.
Gonji removed his ko-dachi and the Sagami’s scabbard. They faced each other squarely with naked blades and torsos, each man unflinching, and bowed. Repeated the gesture to the king and the audience. Then they stared at each other for a space.
“Single blade or double?” Julian asked at length.
“Single,” Gonji replied without a pause. “Your wish is to test pure fencing styles. Double is best in combat.”
“Single is my forte, and my blade is more slender, lighter, more maneuverable. I fear the advantage is mine.”
“Advantage,” Gonji said evenly, smoothly assuming a two-handed middle guard position with the gleaming Sagami, “is seldom a property of steel. En garde.”
Julian sneered and brought his blade into engagement with Gonji’s. “A two-handed grip? Really, Sir Bodyguard,” he drawled.
The captain initiated a series of simple attacks at moderate speed: a disengage, a straight thrust, a cut-over. Each time Gonji defeated the attack with brisk flicks of his wrists, the movements scarcely seen, both blades whanging sharply, returning to engagement with disciplined economy.
Julian picked up speed. A lunge. A feint-a-disengage. A quick-stepping pattinando attack, saber point slicing for Gonji’s bare chest. Gonji easily parried each blow, swords clashing and clashing again, the audience heating up, crying out words of encouragement.
Gonji backed up a step, then another, watching, waiting, calculating unconsciously, practiced reflexes responding. He sized up the ever-swifter attacks of the captain, noting tendencies.
Opening up his attack, Julian added complexity to his movements, slashing right—left—feinting a slash and cutting over with a quick straight thrust, redoubling his attacks again and again as Gonji remained content, for the most part, to fence passively, occasionally offering a token riposte.
Then, when Julian was lulled into false confidence by virtue of his carrying the attack, Gonji made a quick circle with the Sagami, enveloping the captain’s blade, confusing him for an instant. The samurai’s lightning lunge and sharp kiyai drew a gasp from the audience as his sword point whickered past Julian’s left ear, bringing in response a wild parry that would have been ineffectual had Gonji aimed at the man’s face. Gonji had made his impression. No one watching would have believed his two-handed clench would have allowed so swift and deep a lunge. Julian’s eyes were an angry blue line as they returned to engagement. For the first time he had broken good form out of sheer desperation.
The battle was joined for fair.
Slashing, clashing, moving ever faster, the two combatants executed a marvelous series of strokes, parries, ripostes, counter-ripostes.... Each man’s eyes held the other’s center with admirable form and courage, ignoring the dancing, all-but-invisible sword-points. Every witness to the duel knew that something special was transpiring: the classic meeting of Eastern and Western technique, Gonji’s exotic ken-jutsu style holding the popular favor over the tyrannical captain’s, which was nonetheless the apotheosis of European fencing.
Julian backed Gonji near a tableful of shoving, shouting mercenaries, stamping feet vying with clanging steel and blustering voices. Gonji knew his danger even before he heard the outcry:
“Watch the table!”
Julian lunged deeply before the cry was through. Gonji stiffly slapped the thrust aside with the flat of his blade and executed a cunning undercut at Julian’s chin from an awkward position. The captain blinked and parried, sword arm bound up close to his chest.
And then Gonji vaulted the table using one arm for a pivot, landing in the midst of a staggering, laughing bunch of brigands, who parted at once before the shimmering katana. They poured out from between the tables to give the fencers room.
They eyed each other over the tabletop, stepping balletically like stalking predators toward the end of the table, blades circling tightly.
When they reached the end, Julian attacked at once—low-high—low-high—broad, then tight. Then a demonically fast lunge, parried by Gonji, followed immediately by another to a higher line.
Gonji missed his parry, deceived, slipped his head to the right and saw the saber slide by wickedly.
His teeth ground together as he leaped back, fury broiling in his innards—the thrust had been meant to relieve him of an eye. Julian was playing tough.
What the hell is he doing?
They reengaged, Julian sensing the turn, Gonji’s confusion. The samurai’s mind reeled with tumultuous thoughts, the enemies of reaction. They clashed, clashed again faster than the eye could follow. Gonji felt the ache in his healing shoulder—
And then the red-hot pain in his wrist. The phrase d’armes was ended. Blood ran down Gonji’s left arm, plinking to the floor.
“Touché,” he said sullenly, jaw tight with the effor
t at control. His lips had flared once with the pain, his face instantly returning to a composed set as Genya rushed up to bind his bleeding wrist with a dark scarf.
All right, so the phrase is done, forget it. Next phrase—cholera! This bastard is good....
Murmurs and shouts and scurrying bodies animated the hall, revelers hurrying to refill empty cups before the fencers could engage again.
They approached each other. Julian saluted; Gonji bowed. Both were breathing heavily, recovering. Sweat ran freely along both their bodies, its pungent smell thick about them. It burned Gonji’s wrapped wound, made his thick hair heavy and matted. Julian’s chest and neck were red with his exertion.
“Your defense is admirable, but your attack leaves something to be desired,” Julian appraised, cocky now with his one-touch lead.
“So desu ka?” Gonji countered. “Is that so? Very sorry, but attack must not be too impetuous before one knows the enemy.”
Julian showed his fine white teeth and confidently angled his blade out for a low engagement. And in the moment before he rejoined his maddening opponent, Gonji realized how wrong all this was for him, what a fool he’d been to accept the challenge out of a bloated sense of pride, his loathing for Julian, and his rigid adherence to the bushido code which, given the circumstances, was at best ill-advised. Paille had been right, at least partially: Compromise of principle was inevitable in this land, and the sense of guilt attendant on it was unwarranted. This contest was absurd. It negated the chief function of the katana, which was a killing sword, designed for slashing. In Japan such practice bouts were fought with wooden bokken. To fight a duel of cuts with so brilliant a swordsman as Julian stretched the demands on Gonji’s skillful control to unimaginable levels.
And what did you hope to do, dung-head? Disarm him, as you have so many other fencers? Shatter his thin, flexible saber as you would a heavier blade? Never have I seen such adroitness as his....
And then Julian renewed his attack with a vengeance, sensing his psychological advantage, closing for the finish. The mercenaries howled with excitement, heady drinks mixing with the fury of the bout to arouse the berserker in all of them.