by Rypel, T. C.
“Indeed? I think I saw him earlier today.”
The prophetess stiffened. Wariness crept into her eyes for an instant, then was supplanted by an impenetrable blankness.
Lydia had come in from the kitchen again, the cook in tow. She said something to the others in the Rumanian tongue, then excused herself to Tralayn coldly—there seemed to be no great affection between the two women. Lydia motioned for Gonji to follow her into the kitchen. Her eyes were narrowed to accusing slits as he complied, bewildered.
In the kitchen stood the slim dark girl into whose chamber Gonji had hurtled the night before. She held a tall bundle wrapped in a blanket. By its outline it could only be his bow and quiver. The hair on the back of his neck bristled. The girl smiled under sparkling eyes.
“I—” Gonji stammered, “why do you take such a chance? These weapons are forbidden in Vedun now. You must have heard.”
“She heard nothing,” Lydia said matter-of-factly. “She’s a deaf-mute.”
Gonji felt his face flaring hotly. “Oh...spirits of my fathers—now I understand.” He made no effort to disguise the embarrassment he now wore at the recollection of his frantic efforts to keep the girl quiet. “I’m so sorry.”
She only smiled, more compassionately now, to see Gonji’s concern. Then she unwrapped the bow and quiver. Gonji felt like a helpless clown on display. He could feel Lydia’s disapproving stare.
The bow was unstrung, and with an adroit move and a considerable effort, the girl strung it. Quite a show of strength for her size. She made a series of signs to Gonji. He glanced to Lydia self-consciously for an interpretation.
“Her name is Helena,” Lydia said. “She’s telling you that her father was a famous Polish archer in the king’s dragoons. That he taught her to string the bow. After her father’s death in a battle, she came here with her mother because superstitious peasants said she was possessed by demons who blocked her ears and tongue.”
Lydia eyed them both speculatively, then turned and left the room after a space, arms crossed over her bosom. Gonji and Helena were alone in the kitchen.
Gonji spent some time clumsily conveying his gratitude in crudely extemporized sign language that, more often than not, simply made Helena smile at his awkwardness. She taught him a few rudimentary signs, and they shared a quiet jest over his difficulty. Then it became more strained, as Gonji found it increasingly less advisable to show her the things he was feeling.
She was beautiful in an unspoiled, unstudied way. Her skin was of an unblemished creamy whiteness. Her fragile form, the soft curve of her shoulders, beckoned the gentle caress. Her gracefully sculpted lips quivered slightly, parted as if to speak words that were denied her. Long nightwing tresses fell over one shoulder to her breast, where Gonji could trace the almost imperceptible heaving of her quickening breath.
Then the stirring he felt within was mirrored in his eyes and the girl became unnerved, shamed to be with him. She spun on her heel and departed through the rear door.
Gonji felt at once unclean and lead-footed. He shook himself and strode proudly into the parlor, reestablishing control of his center.
Jacob Neriah had been discussing his firm hope that Vedun would still be standing on the plateau on his return visit. He fell silent when Gonji entered the room. Most of the strangers had been cleared out, he was comforted to see. Those who remained stared self-consciously at anything but Gonji. Only Tralayn watched him closely.
She was looking at the bow he carried.
“So...disclosure,” he said, raising the bow and quiver. “And I am sorry. But I’ve a personal grudge against that flying monster. Something you couldn’t understand. I am samurai, and my code of honor was involved. Master Flavio, will you still consider my request if I swear my word that I’ll provoke no further violence?”
Flavio looked agonized. “I don’t know. I just don’t know what to tell you tonight. I’ll think on it.”
“It will be taken under advisement,” Tralayn added.
Resentment lay heavy in the room, and it aroused Gonji’s indignance. “Please bear in mind that bringing in the boy’s body was done at great personal risk.” With that he took the bow and, with a quick movement evincing his wiry power, snapped it in two over his knee. The symbolic gesture had made no impression, so he wrapped the broken bow and quiver in the blanket, sashed his swords, bowed curtly, and excused himself. He strode into the gloaming street, miffed at what he unreasonably perceived as cold lack of appreciation for a warrior’s work.
Without a word, Wilf rose and followed him.
* * * *
Tralayn and Flavio sat in a tight knot with Michael and Lydia. A single taper lit the parlor.
“You’re going to need him, Flavio,” Tralayn said. “He’s been made part of this by powers beyond our control.”
Flavio mulled it over. “What do you think, Michael? Soon such decisions will be in your hands.”
Michael touched his swollen nose gingerly. “I don’t know. I don’t like him, yet...he’s smart. And he can certainly fight.”
Lydia snorted primly. “He’s not so smart as he thinks, and fighting skill is no measure of a man.”
Something was troubling Flavio. “Michael, did you ask that Mark be avenged?”
“I didn’t have to—”
“Why doesn’t he just go away,” Lydia said, looking through the window to the street beyond.
Tralayn smiled and halted them. “Whom are we speaking of here, gentlefolk—the samurai, or—”
“Why don’t all such beings go away,” Lydia clarified.
There was silence for a long time in the shadows cast by the guttering candle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Wilf caught up with Gonji as he clopped eastward along the Via Fidei.
“They’ll see it your way,” Wilf said assuringly. “Flavio will hire you.”
“Sure they will,” Gonji said abruptly. “Listen, why don’t you leave me now? I want to be alone for a time.”
They halted at an intersection near the eastern sector of the bailey wall.
Wilf was mildly offended. “Sure, if you want me to.”
“I want you to.” And with that Gonji spurred off, turning right onto the crossing street, heading toward the Provender.
Begone with you, then, Gonji thought testily. I don’t need any wide-eyed Wunderkind yapping at my heels. Not tonight. His mood had taken a turn for the spiteful. He was miffed at the unexpected arrival of Helena, which had cost him control of the situation at the Benedettos’ home.
It was cool in the city, but the partial cloud cover had held back a portion of the day’s heat. The breeze lacked the bite it had possessed during the previous night’s wyvern battle. Through the broken patches of cloud above, Gonji could make out the constellation some men called the Great Broad-axe.
He passed one group of three mercenaries on horseback, then came upon the small barracks formerly housing Rorka’s city guards, now occupied by Llorm regulars. The soldiers were more subdued tonight than they had been since their arrival, less anxious to serve up insults on Gonji’s passing. They merely stared and whispered.
The Provender, too, seemed rather less raucous, if still more crowded. The savage beating death of Ben-Draba by the unearthly stranger—and Gonji’s own evinced fighting skill, he liked to think—had caused the occupying force to rethink its aggressive approach. That was good for the citizens, true; but once the soldiers had recovered from the shock of the field commander’s death and set aside their superstitious fears, new problems would arise. They’d be irrationally suspicious of any strangers, especially those carrying weapons. Perhaps all weapons would soon be forbidden inside the city. And an arrow or pistol ball in the back was always a possibility.
So Gonji did what he knew he must, if he was to remain healthy enough to pursue his business.
As he stopped across the street from the Provender, two mercenaries appeared in the doorway, dragging the acrimonious Alain Paille between them. P
aille was typically slug-drunk, and they tossed him out into the street amid his railing about being “verse-maker to kings....”
Then the painter-poet disappeared down an alley, still complaining at the top of his voice.
Seated aboard Tora in the shadows of a closed woodcraft shop, Gonji called suspicious soldiers over to him. After a bit of verbal jousting, he succeeded in obtaining the whereabouts of Captain Julian Kel’Tekeli.
The captain of free companions had commandeered lodgings for himself in one of the vacant stone dwellings in the southeast corner of Vedun. It proved easy enough to find, the houses on either side also billeting soldiers, some of whom lounged out front. Torches in wall cressets lit the yards with lambent glow. A standard bearing Klann’s coat-of-arms fluttered above Julian’s dwelling.
Two posted guards halted Gonji. He stated his desire to see the captain, and one of them reluctantly moved off to fetch him.
Gonji waited astride Tora. There was a scuffling disturbance at the doorway of the house next door. Out through the arch shouldered Luba, the mercenary Gonji had knocked cold on the rostrum. A cohort strove to hold him back. Gonji espied him and returned Luba’s grumbling glare with a dispassionate one of his own.
But then Julian emerged from the slope-roofed headquarters building, strapping on his saber as he walked, and everyone fell to watching the encounter.
Julian stood before the mounted samurai in shirt and breeches. His hard blue eyes fixed on Gonji speculatively, fine white teeth gleaming in firelight as he spoke.
“So...you’ve saved me one annoyance tomorrow. I’ve certain questions for you, barbarian.”
Gonji’s stomach muscles tautened. Revolting memories welled up inside: his mother’s broken sword, the taunts at the inn. His hatred of this man was kindled anew. Voices of his ancestors cried out for satisfaction of honor. (strike him dead!)
None of it showed on his blank face. “And I’d like to speak with you, Captain—privately. Inside?” He gestured at the house.
The guards looked to Julian with wary scowls, but the captain waved to the door and strode inside. Gonji leapt down off Tora and removed his swords from the sash. The guards fisted sword hilts at his movement but relaxed to see him carry the weapons scabbarded.
Gonji bowed to the captain at the doorway, then declined a proffered stool and sat cross-legged on the floor—to Julian’s amusement—taking some small comfort in conducting himself as he would have in Japan at such a meeting. He laid his swords along his left side, the place of easy draw, a threat and an insult to the host. And it warmed him in a private chamber of his innards to see Julian smile in his ignorance of the gesture.
One gleaned satisfaction in whatever wild places it grew.
“Now, foot-fighter—who was that maniac who killed Ben-Draba today?” Julian asked without preamble, sitting down.
“I can’t tell you,” Gonji replied. “I’d also like to know. These people won’t tell me—if they know themselves.”
Julian’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t expected such a frankly conspiratorial response. “What have they told you?”
Mentally calculating the distance between them while he considered his response, Gonji recalled the flashing saber at the inn, Julian’s slitting of a brigand’s lip in almost a single motion straight from the sheath.
“That’s precisely what I’ve come to speak about,” he said. “I’ve managed to gain their confidence. Curried the favor of the right people. And I’ve hired on as the bodyguard to the old man—Flavio, the Council Elder. Amazing, neh? But the pay is poor, and before I push on I’d like to be better heeled. Tell me,” he said pensively, scratching the chronically achey shoulder inside his kimono, “would your king be interested in a seller of intelligence?”
Julian drew back. “If you aren’t the most audacious rogue! Planning on playing both sides in favor of the middle—you?”
“No-no,” Gonji assured, “I’ve hired on with Flavio personally as only a bodyguard. Besides, I know nothing of your plans here, nor do I wish to.”
Julian rubbed his sleek chin, fingering the cleft at the point. “So you want to spy for me?”
“Ah, that’s so crass a term—‘spy’.”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” Gonji said, shrugging puckishly.
Julian waxed thoughtful, reflected aloud, “The king is anxious to preserve peace while we’re here....” Then his eyes sharpened into liquid lances aimed at Gonji. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
Gonji spoke rapidly. “The city leaders want peace. I can assure the king of that. But there’s an undercurrent of rebellion, hotbloods stumping for revolt if no redress is made for the murdered and conscripted. I don’t know who yet, but there are self-styled assassins afoot. I’ve heard whispers about them. I think the townsmen also expect some kind of secret help against you; it may not be coming from the city itself. They talk very guardedly about it—like this Deathwind legend. They don’t trust me enough yet. But I’ll try to find out what’s happening under the crust, that is, if....” He turned a palm up to Julian, hoping his fast-paced blather had been considered useful.
Julian pondered it all a moment. “Why did you want to fight the field commander today?”
The question took Gonji off guard, but he recovered swiftly. “I needed to win their confidence, to get the job with Flavio. And as I told the commander, I really do enjoy empty-hand combat.”
“So we saw. Do you think you’d have beaten him?”
Gonji only smiled.
Julian grunted, a sulkiness penetrating his composure when he spoke of the late field commander. Gonji read it as jealousy. “Ben-Draba was too impulsive. It was one of his faults,” came Julian’s cold appraisal, the air in the room hanging thick and syrupy with the words left unspoken: that Julian had no faults at all.
“I’ve still never seen you use that,” the captain said, indicating the Sagami. “Are you as good with it as you are with your feet?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Well, don’t use the short one until I’ve seen you use the long one,” Julian urged smugly, referring to his humor over the concept of seppuku. The further implication was clear to Gonji: They’d have their day of crossing.
But it also meant that he’d won the job.
“I can work for you, then?”
“If you please me with your information. What will you require in payment?”
Gonji named his figure. Julian nodded deliberately, rose and procured an advance payment from a pouch set in an alcove beside a flickering oil lamp. He dropped the coins singly into Gonji’s outstretched palm.
“You’ll keep your people off my ass?” Gonji asked. “You can trust them not to compromise me to the townsmen?”
Julian looked askance at him. “My men know fear. And it keeps them obedient,” he said arrogantly. Then he glowered down at Gonji. “If you cross me, barbarian, you end up like those bandits in the square—without the mercy stroke of a bullet first.”
Gonji stood up slowly. They shared a moment of naked mutual hatred. Then Gonji bowed and smiled thinly.
“Oh, yes,” Gonji said as he sashed his swords, “one more thing: It will be useful for you to suggest to the king a conclave with the city leaders. They’re worried and confused, and I think it would go a long way toward keeping things quiet around here.”
Julian nodded resolutely. “I’ll suggest it.”
Gonji turned and headed for the door.
“Bodyguard, did you say?” Julian called.
Gonji froze before the timbered arch, nodded and looked back over his shoulder at the captain, who regarded him with a cocked eyebrow.
“Suppose I came for the Elder, to arrest him. How would you dispense your duties? A conflict of interests, wouldn’t you say?”
“I see no conflict,” Gonji replied evenly. “My duty to him is personal protection. To you, it’s helping keep the peace.”
“Somehow I feel I’ve received no answer to my
question.”
Gonji grinned broadly and left the house.
Julian watched him go, angered by the samurai’s insolence, unused to the lack of respect. He hadn’t even dismissed him—barbarian swine! But with the Field Commander post vacant, this idiot’s information might be just what he needed to win the king’s favor....
* * * *
Luba watched him go, hating him deeply for the embarrassing defeat he’d inflicted before all Luba’s sword-brothers, who’d taunted him incessantly about it until he’d pounded a couple of them insensible. They wouldn’t forget it until he’d proven himself against the slant-eyes. Damn him and his animal fighting style! Soon, you bastard....
* * * *
The silent observer watched him the longest, crouched in the shadow of the rooftops, the pain of his wound firing him with vengeful anger, but his steely eyes betraying the subtler pain of disappointment, confusion.
He watched Gonji pass within a lance-length, saw him tense with warrior’s readiness as his horse nickered and bucked anxiously. Watched him and weighed his life on the balances....
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The day of the funeral dawned bleak and heavy with leaden skies and intermittent rains of a most appropriate, mournful sort.
Following a long, dreary procession past the catafalque that displayed the bodies of Mark Benedetto, Witold Koski, and Stavro Kovacs, the sopping mourners crowded about for the brief service conducted by Tralayn in the absence of clergymen from Holy Word Monastery.
Had they known the current circumstances of the monastery, Gonji thought, they might have found the present service cheery by comparison. As it was they were growing suspicious, fearing the extent of Klann’s influence.
When Tralayn had finished delivering her eulogy and leading the congregation in prayer, the bodies were sealed into their caskets and loaded onto wagons. The blind wagon master Ignace Obradek lent what Gonji thought was a bizarre touch by supervising the loading and leading the wagon cortege himself.