by Rypel, T. C.
“Amigo, everything I do is special.”
With that he turned slowly—body first, head last—and ambled easily toward the remains of dinner.
“I can get the rest later,” Esteban called after him weakly in an effort to salvage some pride. But Gonji was already busy choosing the cleanest of the bug-smeared pewter plates from a stack atop a tree stump.
“Braggadocio,” Esteban muttered to himself and entered the word in the “Special Qualifications” section.
Gonji’s annoyance dissolved as he took in deep draughts of the cooking aroma. Jocko cackled and blustered behind the serving line, shouting imprecations at those who had declined his stew, which had ceased erupting and now simply resembled a murky swamp. A few good-natured insults were tossed back at him.
The deer meat overhung two greasy platters in limp slabs. As Gonji probed through one pile of meat in search of the right chunk, he was dimly aware of someone lurking at his shoulder. He paid it no heed. Then as he decided on one particularly succulent piece of venison, poking at it to pry it from the platter, a curved dagger knifed past his hand and impaled the meat.
His head snapped around, and he found himself staring sidelong into the rheumy eyes of a leering Mongol.
The camp fell silent. Breathless.
“Ain’t nobody eatin’ this healthy stew?” Jocko yelled over their heads. No one heard him.
The Mongol yammered a long sentence in a mincing inflection. It made the sing-song nasality of his language even more pronounced. Gonji understood little Chinese but did manage to make out one term: “dung-face.” The barb stung deeply. It was funny how one quickly acquired and long retained the less agreeable vocabulary of an alien tongue.
Gonji drew on reserves of steadiness, strove to calm the prickling tension that pervaded his body. He breathed evenly and deeply, tried to slow the pounding of his heart. He was oblivious to the oppressive stillness that had fallen: no one chewed or slogged or belched; not a whisper was heard save for the sibilant rush of tight, heavy breathing. A thin smile pulled at the corners of Gonji’s lips as he eyed the curve-handled dagger, the swarthy yellow grasp and gritty black fingernails.
“Nice thrust,” Gonji ventured in Spanish. Disappointed “awwws” and coarse laughter broke in reaction to the declined combat.
Moving to the more picked-over platter, Gonji peered over at Jocko, who squinted a warning. And to no one’s surprise, as the samurai again flipped through the slices of meat, the brutish Mongol skewered half the overturned stack. But this time Gonji had timed the maneuver and adroitly speared a thick chunk of meat while the other’s point was engaged.
He moved off with a sly grin.
The Mongol came up close behind Gonji and jabbered a string of scalding insults—clear enough from the inflection alone. He caught something that might have been “whore-son,” and a seething anger roiled in his gut. He was facing the Mongol’s cronies, about a dozen paces distant. The second sneering Chinese glowered at him under a fur-brimmed helmet. He had risen to one knee and with a rhythmic snick! was lifting and dropping his sword portentously in its scabbard.
Gonji’s mind filled with wrathful voices as he tried to plan the best way to handle the confrontation, all the while keeping his reflexes relaxed and free. He calculated his chances for an instant. He could feel the threateningly angled dagger at his back, heard the Mongol call out a challenge.
Then he gambled on the unexpected.
“Por favor, a cup of wine, amigo,” he called to Jocko in a loud, affable voice. The old man sidled over to a keg and drew off a half-cup of the ruby liquid, all the while eyeing Gonji quizzically.
Then Gonji began moving about in a broad theatrical manner full of elaborate gestures and cocky tosses of his head. Menacing grins plummeted into puzzled frowns, like the unfurling of tapestries, as he flourished his plate and dirk and spoke in a resonant monologue—in Japanese:
“Do you know something? A long time ago my father, the great daimyo Sabatake Todohiro, instilled in me the understanding that no man can affront another, such as you have done to me here, without being challenged for it. Hai, that is so. By rights I should kill you—all of you!”
He picked up the wine goblet with a smiling nod to Jocko and sipped, set it down. Took up the dirk again and waved it suddenly in the direction of the kneeling Mongol and his seated cohorts. All gaped at him in slack-jawed bewilderment.
“But I’m not going to. No. You are very lucky, and do you know why?”
Still carrying the plate of deer meat, Gonji ambled toward the perplexed watchers, head tilted to the majestic heavens.
“You see, when he, told me that, he was referring to intelligent, civilized men. You are obviously not, neh?” He pointed the dirk at one of the seated men, who jerked back in surprise and offered a wide-eyed sheepish smile and a vapid nod.
“True, quite true, I thought so! Very good. You see, by your fat, puffy faces—”
He skillfully sliced off a bite of meat and speared it.
“—I can see that you’re pigs, not men. And as such you’re no doubt equipped with pigs’ brains. That’s right, you and you and you—this wretch back here—”
He had stopped in his tracks to point out various mercenaries, ending by cocking his blade back at the simmering Mongol. He passed the brigand a scornful look and shoved the morsel into his mouth, chewing it noisily in the charged silence.
“My father was right, you know, but only as far as the Land of the Gods is concerned. I’ve come to believe that in a land of dregs, one must make allowances for ignorance. Hai, very necessary. The world does that to you,” he sighed resignedly. “Compromise. Always the crumbling of time-honored principles....
“But that’s very good for you, you ugly toads, because I won’t have to kill you!” He made an open-armed gesture that took in the whole audience. A rolling night-breeze leaned into the camp, mingled with Gonji’s adrenaline rush to produce in him an odd sense of euphoria.
“And so now, as I’ve granted you a reprieve, by all means, go back to your mindless banter. But first...be sure to thank your gods, won’t you?”
Spellbound, the mercenaries whispered and chuckled cautiously as the samurai breezily strode back to the casks for his wine.
But the dagger-wielding Mongol charged forward and seized Gonji’s reaching arm. He froze. Sibilant hushes sprouted all about them.
He had lost the gamble.
Gonji faced the Mongol squarely, holding his plate before him, the dirk dangling limply at his side. Their eyes locked stonily. The wind tufted the fur on the Mongol’s peaked helm, and the drooping tendrils of his mustache wriggled as he whined something plainly venomous.
Gonji spoke gravely in Spanish. “Look—why don’t you let this drop, you stupid savage?” By now Gonji only half cared to himself; in Japan, to grab another out of malice was an insufferable insult.
The Mongol hawked and spat onto his plate.
Gonji breathed deeply, his heart hammering. He heard the scuffle of men rising behind him, the soft whine of steel. In his mind: the cold black door of the end. There came fleetingly the words of an old teacher:
The mighty guard their faces
While the small make off with their toes
He heard Navárez’ shout, but it came too late.
Gonji tossed the dirk sideways into the air. The Mongol instinctively followed its harmless course. In that instant Gonji splatted him in the face with the plate.
The Mongol cried out and lunged awkwardly with his dagger. Batting it free with a sharp knife-hand blow that snapped back the snaking arm, Gonji pulled the Sagami and slammed the pommel hard into the Mongol’s belly. He thudded to his knees, groaning and heaving, as Gonji coiled into a striking stance.
Sporadic shouts, as men scrambled to their feet and produced steel. Gonji stared along a horizontal crop of circling blades. Down the barrels of half-hammered pistols.
So it ends....
Navárez was roaring, holding the Mongo
l’s friends at their tethers for a moment that seemed endless. Then something else happened.
A tall, gaunt highwayman in subdued attire and a moth-eaten slouch hat drew up beside Gonji. The oriental’s eyes flared a threat, but the other turned and faced the opposing contingent. He drew a pistol and aimed it at the second Mongol’s head. Uneasy looks betrayed faltering resolve.
Navárez and Esteban sensed the opportunity to bound between the mismatched sides in the stand-off, and a great relief swelled Gonji’s insides.
Reprieve. Again. But the perverse traces of bushido training chafed inside, only half appeased.
Gonji replaced his sword and bowed to his unforeseen benefactor, smiling slightly but gratefully. One was properly curt and respectful, never fawning. The tall man wiped his brow with the slate-gray slouch, pursed his lips and nodded in quiet satisfaction.
Navárez was pushing men back, calming them, the sycophant Esteban dogging his steps. The captain advised with snarling arrogance that if any blood was to be spilled in this camp, he would do the spilling. Gonji cast him a scornful glance, then sauntered back to the serving line to refill a plate.
“How ‘bout some o’ this stew fer that bugger—that’ll bring ‘im around!” Jocko was calling to the two men who were helping the injured Mongol to his feet. They paid him no heed, and the mule packer’s raucous laughter rose to the skies. He leapt about and clapped his hands like a drunken gnome, kicking at the casks in his mirth.
Gonji found a quiet spot under the pines fringing the camp and sat down to his meal. Night had fallen, layer upon layer, during the course of the incident, and he found the thickening gloom of the camp’s perimeter somehow more comforting than the bonfire near which most of the men drew. He was glad for Jocko’s churlish good humor, which cut through the sinister muting of the campfire banter.
He knew he was being discussed.
The tall man who had sided with Gonji sat alone under the trees at the far end of the glade, his back to the camp as he sipped his ale. Gonji hadn’t noticed the warrior before, but he wasn’t surprised: Loners who drifted into mercenary camps generally made themselves scarce. One simply steered clear of them out of respect for whatever private misery they suffered. And although Gonji ached for pleasant conversation, he left him to his solitude.
Gonji turned away from his view of the unfortunate belly-wound victim, who had begun to moan pathetically. He thought melancholy thoughts, his spirit at low ebb.
Another compromise. Again I let a man walk away from me after insulting me to my face. Hai, but he’s not walking very well, as far as I can see! He’ll think of me whenever he feels his belly in the next few days, that’s sure. I should have lopped off the fool’s head. Him and all his gibbering ape friends. I wish they’d start something right now—Come on, you bastards, I’ll drop you like.... No, fool, you’ll do nothing. Just like before, just like in Spain and France. You’ll let them squat on your honor and you’ll strut away with a great show of manliness because it isn’t worth dying for, isn’t that what they say here? Honor means nothing, does it? Bushido is a joke to you, neh, samurai? Neh? Samurai—Hah! You’re nothing. Nothing but a dung-eating ronin, a landless insect, a dishonored beast who can’t even stay duty-bound to himself, so he plays at duty for every scum who tosses him a filthy bag of gold! My spirit is crushed by karma. What will become of me? I’m just like the rest of the dregs on this squalid continent, a filthy barbarian—why why why? I preach bushido and pretend to live by it but it’s a lie, all a lie. I’m nothing but a half-breed ronin in whom the ugly half holds full sway—Mother, did you birth me for this? Why? I hate my heritage here and yet.... Yet it’s all I have left, isn’t it? Funny. I kill a man I felt honor-bound to kill (her sword arcs) and it was right and fitting at the time and—gods!—it destroyed my life (I’m bleeding) in the land I love (she raises it again) and then I come to this land of pestilence and monsters and hunger and (she is samurai) death where they perversely believe the life of every louse-ridden beggar has value (she weeps) and I let a man spit in my food and walk away (she guards his body) because there will be consequences to pay for killing him—what honor is there in this land? What is my lot here? I spurn the things that should have meaning to me and seek meaning in the meaningless (she hates me now, hates me). Oh, you’re a fine samurai, you are, Gonji-san! Old Todo, if you’re dead, I pray your restless spirit wanders elsewhere! Or if you’ve become a viper in rebirth, as your enemies swore you would, then tonight I’ll be swelling up with venom! I’m just like them, like all of them. The good are dead, and I live on so I must be one of the bad, neh? Wonderful, splendid—the majestic poet-warrior from the shimmering paradise has come to save you from yourself, O Europe! When they’ve seen enough of my sword they’ll no doubt make me field commander of this grand army. I’m probably lucky for these bastard Mongols; at least the others have seen orientals in this camp. Oh yes, it’s made things very easy for me here, hasn’t it? More enemies and more dung-filled duty and—aahhhh! Who cares anymore? Karma, neh? Karma and karma and karma, all is karma. I live for myself and if I try hard enough I’ll learn to accept it. There. Finish. Cholera-pox on all of it! Navárez, you bastard, I offer you my worthless duty; O King Klann, my liege, I tip my now empty goblet—which will soon be refilled, not to fear!—I tip it to your idiotic plans; and to you, O Mord, Sorcerer Most Sublime, I pledge my blistered backside. May yours ache you as mine does me.
Gonji spat noisily. He pushed himself up and stretched easily from side to side. Ambling over to the wine casks, he was glad for the velvet blackness and bonfire glare that hid the sullen eyes watching as he refilled his cup. Seeing the pregnant moon’s glowing ring in the sky, he judged that it probably meant rain; he hoped so for no particular reason.
Making his way over to his saddle, he noticed that the tall man now reclined near Gonji’s bundled belongings. He brightened a bit. Certainly he at least owed the man a word of gratitude; failing his bold entry into the confrontation, Gonji might be a tad heavier now from the weight of the pistol balls in his carcass.
He nodded a greeting, and the lanky highwayman tipped his hat in response. Gonji made himself comfortable and sipped his dark wine awhile, gazing at the angry stars that glowered at a gently swaying pine ballet.
Gonji grew wistful. He thought of sake and cherry blossoms, of his noble parents and his favorite horse in the Province, of friends whose faces were forgotten, of Reiko....
“Have you been with this bunch long?” Gonji asked suddenly without thinking or facing the tall man. He had hoped the other would speak first and felt vaguely as if he had lost a game in breaking the silence. He didn’t realize for a long moment that he had spoken in Japanese.
He tried again in Spanish. No reply.
He was a trifle piqued as he looked over to the gaunt warrior. The man pushed up the brim of his slouch with one finger, and something—sadness, Gonji thought—softened his eyes. He had been tugging absently at a small wooden crucifix that depended from a leather thong around his neck. He placed it inside his shirt.
“No Español.”
Gonji considered something but then snorted and shook his head when he remembered his bad manners.
“Gonji Sabatake,” he said with a thumb jerk.
“Hawkes,” the man replied. “Hawkes.” Gonji grinned. An Englishman. Of course. He looked and dressed like one. Gonji tried out his execrable French. Hawkes shook his head. He tried Latin, High German. No luck. Frustrated, Gonji motioned for Hawkes to take a stab at communication.
“English,” he said.
Uh-oh.
Gonji grew languid, sank resignedly into his bedroll. Most of the few English words he knew were not addressed to a friend. Hawkes made another half-hearted try at a strange language—he supposed it was Dutch, from the sound. Gonji sighed and shook his head. Hawkes nestled back and pulled his hat brim low.
A nighthawk shrilled, and somewhere a wolf howled long and plaintively. Gonji tossed off the rest of the wine and felt
his eyeballs begin to swim from the spreading warmth.
It took him a long time to summon the courage and sincerity, but finally Gonji found what he was sure were the right English words and took a deep breath.
“Thank...you,” he said haltingly, lifting himself up on an elbow. But Hawkes was already asleep. And Gonji’s words echoed in his ears mockingly, mingling with the Englishman’s snoring.
It took a long time for Gonji to drift off into fitful slumber.
CHAPTER FOUR
Pistols exploded in a ragged volley that thundered through the pass.
Soldiers and mounts, spilled by the impact, threw the rest of the troop into rearing and screaming chaos. The commander bolted free of the pack and shouted orders, reassembling the stunned party as the bellowing line of bandits descended upon them. The brigands’ line was spread thin but bunched at the ends to deny retreat. The ambush had been well planned.
Hemmed into the mountain cleft as they were, the outnumbered soldiers could only stand their ground. The commander urged courage. He saw that only two men had been felled by the gunfire and made a swift decision. Howling their battle cry and drawing steel, he waved to his doughty troops and charged the blockading bunch at the southern end of the pass.
These devils would know they’d been in a fight.
* * * *
Navárez closed the adventurers’ charge with a shout and massed his men from the north end to swarm down in pursuit of the madly rushing soldiers.
The mercenaries hooted and growled with bloodlust, swords whirling above their heads. Navárez rode with gritted teeth, and as he neared the soldiers’ backs he scanned them closely: light half-armor; gray surcoats and breeches; and, unmistakably, they were flying the colors he had been alerted to.
No quarter for these—the way Navárez liked it.
At the southern end of the pass sat the Japanese barbarian, hand on sword hilt, reeking confidence. He was flanked by half a dozen men who had been plainly impressed by him since his arrival. They were arranged in a V, the Japanese boldly at the point. Already he was assuming a position of command. That was bad; the captain didn’t like owing his life to any man, less still to a conceited bastard like this barbarian.