Читать книгу Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel - T. C. Rypel - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

Local musicians had gathered in the square, and drumbeats counterpointed their lilting refrain as the banquet escort party was mounted.

A short column of Llorm dragoons, hefting lances and flying Klann’s colors on crisply snapping pennons, awaited the delegation in front of the rostrum. Council Elder Flavio already was there, seated astride a roan of sixteen hands which had been carefully groomed and caparisoned. Flavio himself sat tall and smiling in a long, colorful capote that looked too uncomfortable for the day’s heat but would be needed on the return ride that night. Flavio returned the well-wishes of the gathered populace with repeated nods and waves.

Beside the Elder, aboard a gray gelding, sat Milorad, the paunchy ex-statesman, happily affecting a courtly dignity he had little occasion to employ these days.

On Flavio’s right sat Gonji, erect and dignified, calm but expectant as he stroked Tora’s withers, trying hard to mask his excitement and curiosity over at last visiting Castle Lenska. Clean and polished cap-à-pie, he had even oiled his scabbards so that they glistened impressively.

Women and children spread flowers on the roadway to the postern gate. The city’s collective hope for peaceful coexistence with the invaders and the redress of grievances would ride with the delegates. The musicians played on, wilting in the midday heat. A muggy breeze lapped the city. More rain seemed in the offing.

A rumble and clink of mounted troops approached from down Alwin Street in the German quarter of the city, and a column of mercenaries wheeled out of the lane and trotted to the square, the richly adorned Captain Julian Kel’Tekeli at their head. It was the 1st Free Company, grinning and chattering in the ranks at the prospect of the castle banquet.

Julian passed close to Gonji and cast him the merest glance. This was the nearest they had been to each other since Gonji had hired on with the captain as an operative for Klann. Gonji suppressed a smirk as he observed the captain’s proud bearing, the preciseness of his every movement. Julian spoke briefly to the free companions, admonishing them to good behavior, then appointed his second-in-command to lead the column and himself clumped to the head of the leading Llorm squad.

Gonji looked the mercenaries over. They carried the usual array of mismatched weapons—swords, axes, and a few short bows—but it took him a while to notice today’s difference: there were no firearms in their ranks. Not a pistol in sight.

Then he spotted Luba, the big ugly trooper with the bald, shining bullet of a head whom he had knocked cold in the boxing match. Luba spat and worked his jaws in a silent insult as their eyes met. The samurai’s mouth twisted with wry unconcern, and he languidly turned from the man’s view.

They’d have their time of rematch, he knew, and when it happened, it happened. He dispersed all thoughts of Luba, then, relaxing and establishing a sense of inner harmony. He would need control and a keen mind today.

Garth Gundersen, the last of the delegates, arrived and lipped a quiet apology to Flavio for his tardiness. At his side rode Wilf, looking bright-eyed and anxious and, quite frankly, more like a delegate than his blacksmith sire. The young smith was scrubbed and scented and wore clean riding boots, shining breeches, and a new tunic. He eyed the delegates—especially Flavio—breathlessly as if still fostering the hope that he’d be invited along.

Garth, on the other hand, though tolerably presentable aside from the purpling eye and a bruise or two left over from his bout with the ill-fated Ben-Draba, wore a working-class jerkin and faded waistcoat, plus his favorite floppy cap; he seemed sulky and withdrawn, his speech monosyllabic.

Wilf rode up to Gonji and bowed, extending a hand, which the samurai took reluctantly. The young smith pressed into Gonji’s hand a blossom of a wildflower.

“Give that to Genya,” Wilf said in a strained whisper. “Tell her...tell her I’ll be coming for her soon.”

And with that he yanked his white steed around and lurched off through the parting crowd. Gonji half-smiled and nodded, pocketing the token. He repositioned his swords more comfortably and waited.

Upon Julian’s flashy command, echoed by the subordinate behind them, the delegates joined with the soldiers in the long double column that clattered over the paving stones to the gate. A cheer rose from the crowd as they started off, and Gonji recognized several faces among them: Paolo Sauvini, Aldo Monetto and Karl Gerhard, Lorenz Gundersen on the steps of the Ministry; then he saw Lydia Benedetto, and felt the smile that crinkled the corners of his mouth, and only realized that he had been staring when he saw the smoky eyes of her husband, Michael, over her shoulder. Then he squared his shoulders and set his face in grim dignity, snorting to chase his mild embarrassment and nodding to the waving crowd on both sides of him.

And in an effort at employing the crowd’s positive energy, he imagined that it was for him that they were cheering, for their champion.

* * * *

The farmer Vlad Dobroczy stared hard at Gonji as the delegation party pounded past with clumping hooves and jangling traces and armament.

“I still can’t believe Flavio took him along. As if he meant anything to Vedun. That horse’s ass Wilf Gundersen probably had something to do with it, through his old man.” Dobroczy scowled after the long column as they rode through the gatehouse, where Old Gort waved them through, smiling toothlessly.

Peter Foristek towered at Vlad’s side, shifting his scythe from one shoulder to the other. His face was just returning to normal, the lumps shrinking, the bruises fading, from the savage beating he had received at the hands of Ben-Draba.

“You still think he’s one of them, Hawk? He’s a good fighter, that’s for sure.”

“He’s a stranger,” the hook-nosed Dobroczy growled. “And no stranger can be trusted, not anymore. Don’t forget it. Remember what they tried to do to your sister.”

Foristek’s face darkened. He shifted the scythe again and nodded solemnly.

* * * *

“So say it already,” Michael whispered to Lydia as he gazed at the departing column over her shoulder.

She half-turned. “Say what, Michael?”

“Whatever’s on your mind.”

A studied calm crept into her large blue eyes, and she smiled sweetly. “There’s nothing on my mind right now—really.”

Michael pursed his lips and pushed off through the crowd, Lydia watching him go for a moment and then peering back toward the postern gate, a puzzled frown creasing her soft features.

* * * *

Tralayn the prophetess stood on the northern rampart, the Llorm sentry casting her a sidewise glance as he passed. Her arms were folded into the ample sleeves of her long jade robes. Her green eyes were sullen slits, heavy-lidded and dreamy, as if she were about to doze off even as she stood. But her thoughts were of dreams that could never be, of the vain and misfit hope of peaceful coexistence with the minions of evil.

* * * *

Strom Gundersen and Boris Kamarovsky sat with the former’s flock on a hilltop northwest of Vedun’s encircling walls, gazing down at the delegation and its military escort.

“There goes Papa. He’s not too happy about this,” Strom observed. “What a grouch this morning.”

“Look at that monkey-man,” Boris sneered, “riding like he’s the cock of the yard.”

They shared a laugh, and Strom piped a merry little tune on his reed pipe in accompaniment of the trotting hoofbeats.

“Monkey-man,” Strom said then. “Where’d you get that?”

“That’s what Phlegor calls him.”

“Well, he better not let Gonji hear it.”

“Gonji,” Boris spat. “What the hell kind of name is that?”

“He’s pretty tough.”

“Aw, hell, that’s just when he fights with his feet like a rooster. Know what the soldiers’ll do if he starts any more trouble?”

Strom looked at him questioningly.

Boris sighted along his hand, which he shaped like a pistol.

“Boom.”

* * * *

The north road out of Vedun was paved only as far as the old Roman road it intersected about half a kilometer from the walls. At this point the plateau melded into the foothills of the Carpathians, and the north road continued as a broad, packed-earth track that meandered through the timbered hills toward Castle Lenska, whose tallest spires and towers could barely be made out from the flatlands.

The banquet delegation rode past the hillock on the left, where Strom’s sheep scurried like windblown down. On the right began the checkerboard expanse of cultivation and orchards that fed the province. Beyond, the distant roar of the river that swept past the city to the cataract that emptied into the southern valley.

The road swung left into the hills, and for a time the castle towers were lost to view among the bristling forested woods. The road coursed ever upward, the horses laboring with the increasing strain. The party emerged from a delve in the hills, and suddenly the facade of Castle Lenska lay open to view.

Gonji was momentarily breathless. This was the closest he had ever been to the storied fortress, and its legends seemed indeed warranted. It rose imposingly atop a pine-crowded peak, shimmering in the mist against the jagged gray-white caps in the northern mountain fastness. Men on horseback were dwarfed by even its outer bailey wall, and that one, crowded with soldiers, crouched before a still taller inner curtain, which was also dotted with moving figures.

“Whew,” Gonji breathed. “Marvelous.” It was not so sprawling a place as Japan’s incredibly complex fortresses, which were composed of acres of mazelike walls. But here in Europe there were none so formidable as this one. The thought struck him again that Lenska should have proven impregnable to so small a command as Klann led. And he was stirred with an eagerness to get a look inside.

A lark cried in the treetops nearby, and the bird’s call mingled with the memories of Japan to raise up the long-buried details of an occasion he had thought of earlier that day.

The song of the lark, and his death poem. The waka he had recited to Paille, which hadn’t passed his lips in many a year....

He was twelve, charged with tending a garden at the teahouse of a cousin. The cousin’s wife, a lusty, voluptuous woman of about seventeen, was alone within for the afternoon. Gonji’s awakening sexuality and spirit of mischief had caused him to sneak a look at her through a shoji screen while she undressed. But then she had spotted him. And had smiled. He had been seized by fear of discovery and the certainty that his cousin would surely dispatch him upon his return later that day. At the moment of discovery a lark began to sing in a nearby tree. It had remained with him the rest of the afternoon, trilling its song incessantly as he composed his death poem and completed his work in the garden, which he had been sure would be the last duty of his short life. His cousin had returned, but when he had called Gonji inside, it was merely to commend him on the fine work he had done. The matter of his voyeurism was never brought up....

A nostalgic smile impishly perked Gonji’s lips.

The beating rush of great batwings surged up behind them, shattering Gonji’s reverie. All in the party craned their necks and fought their panicked steeds into control as the wyvern soared by. Its shrill cry echoed through the foothills as it flapped toward the castle on its monstrous leathery wings, then orbited the walls in a slow, wide arc.

“Welcome, delegates,” Gonji said to the others, grinning nervously. The old fear was rekindled, the hatred for the beast and the fear of the loathsome death it carried in its glands and bowels. Gonji ground his teeth at the fleeting memory of his mad ride from its first strafing attack at the monastery.

Then he noticed that it still carried the broken shaft of his arrow in its belly, and his eyes narrowed. He nodded and patted Tora to calm him. Round one was the wyvern’s; round two had been his. He wondered again why it hadn’t fried him when it had alighted behind him with devilish stealth that night and only hoped that it wouldn’t recognize him today and finish the job.

“All right, the king awaits,” Julian called back to them. “Let’s go!”

The road steepened and the surrounding terrain grew rockier as they neared the castle. They swung left and right through hillocks and delves and craggy outcrops of granite or shale, now and again losing sight of all but the tallest towers of the fortress.

Then they emerged onto a flat table of land, the castle yet a kilometer distant, and took in a sight that set their stomachs churning:

“Misericordia!” Milorad cried.

“Great God in heaven!” Flavio gasped, reining in.

The stench was stultifying.

Bodies of Baron Rorka’s soldiers, the castle defenders, had been heaped into a shallow common grave to the east of the road. The grave was rimmed by crucified forms hanging on leaning gibbets. A party of mercenaries, their faces covered by bandannas so that only their eyes could be seen squinting out from under chapeaus and helms, was toppling the crucified corpses into the grave. Oil was hauled to the grave in buckets and sloshed over the piled liches, while one man readied a torch for the funeral pyre. Judging by the condition of the bodies—some already bursting with corruption—they were none too soon in getting around to the grisly task.

They pushed on, each man casting a last ambivalent glance at the wretched charnel scene.

Just before the final rise to the outer bailey, the castle road became paved again with cobblestones, and they clattered up a sparsely-treed tor to be greeted by the spectacle of Castle Lenska’s dwarfing facade.

Gonji’s eyes were alight with anticipation, and he clenched his teeth to suppress his undignified thrill. “An aerie on a wind-lashed precipice,” he had heard it called, and it lived up to its reputation. Swirling mountain winds churned about the jagged peak they had surmounted, tugging at their clothes and flapping the column’s pennons. Atop the central keep’s spires, Klann’s banners fluttered wildly. But for the road they traversed, the castle was unapproachable to horses or siege engines. It rose from a depression in the crag on the south and west and backed against a steep incline on the east and north sides. Attack via the latter two directions was out of the question: The slopes were all shale and scrub and bramble, the rushing river rapids at their base, and foot-soldiers scrabbling up their uncertain purchase were target game for the archers on the battlements. On the south and west sides, rocks had been heaped so that besiegers would be forced to mount them, again becoming easy targets, the prize for survival being a plunge into the wide moat that gleamed with oily scum from the southeast corner to the northwest.

They rode past lines of wagons and staring troopers and finally rumbled over the drawbridge and through the raised portcullis of the barbican, the outer gate. A squad of Llorm saluted Julian and the Llorm captain at the head of the column. Gonji began calculating troop strength and committing the castle’s defensive deployment to memory when the bellowing roar echoed from around the corner on their left.

Gonji’s hand shot to the hilt of the Sagami in reaction to the flaring of his spine. From beyond the southwest drum tower in the outer ward came another awesome bellow of rage, this time mixed with hoofbeats and slapping footfalls—then laughter, both from the approaching clamor and from the escort.

Three mercenaries with pole-arms, only one on horseback, tore around the base of the tower toward them, peering back over their shoulders with a curious mixture of terror and mirth. The hulking shadow came fast behind them, then the monstrous bulk that tumbled head over heels with a resounding thud that boomed dully in the ward. Soldiers on the ramparts laughed and pointed, but the delegation from Vedun could only stare in shock. For here was their first glimpse of Tumo, Mord’s cretin giant.

“Cholera,” Gonji whispered hoarsely, still gripping the Sagami’s hilt.

The giant pushed himself aright on short stubby legs the thickness of barrels at the thighs. At full height he must have been nearly a rod, but it was difficult to judge because of his stooped, apelike posture. Hairy arms like cannon barrels hung to his knobby knees, which were coarse and callused like the knuckles on his ale-cask fists.

He leaned forward on a fist and peered around him dimly with a face out of a child’s nightmare. Then he lurched toward the mounted party on all fours like a gorilla. The horses that were unused to the bestial apparition began at once to demivolte and sidestep, some curvetting and jostling their riders, neighing and snorting nervously. The three mercenaries who had tormented the giant had split up, one rider and one footman now angling toward Julian soberly and penitently, while the other foot-soldier crept backwards along the middle bailey wall. Tumo caught sight of him and made an idiotic caterwauling cry, pushing toward him with a vengeance.

The mercenary screamed as Tumo cornered him, roaring through his yawning, flaccid mouth. The man broke from the wall, but the giant batted him back with a gnarled hand. He hit the wall, breath gushing from his lungs. Tumo tapped him again with a short open-handed blow that knocked him on his side.

“Tumo!” Julian cried out, then said something to the giant in an unknown language. The great beast looked to the captain, bellowed once more at the mercenary, then lumbered over to the delegation party.

A free companion’s horse bucked and threw its rider over. It was all the Vedunian party could do to keep their mounts in line. Even Tora, who had seen his share of the unnatural, tossed fretfully under Gonji.

Tumo stopped a short distance from them upon Julian’s command. The cretin giant stood erect on his massive bowed legs and regarded them vapidly.

“This is Tumo,” Julian said with amusement over the noise of the whinnying steeds. “Tumo is one of our...deterrents.”

Gonji relaxed his grip on the Sagami as the captain remonstrated with the soldiers who had been prodding the giant into his rage. The samurai could see the disheartening effect Tumo had on the others. The chord it struck in the human heart was difficult to define in all its terrifying complexity, for its appearance had been well designed by whatever dark power had formed it: Slavering lips and grinding splay teeth were continually worked at by an overlong red tongue. The face was broad and squat at the base, the skull so small as to be almost pointed. The giant’s brow lay low and heavy over dim, angular eyes. His nose was no more than a tiny stub with pinpoint nostrils. The mouth was the focus of the monster’s face. Its body was a great mass of rolling layers of blubber; its weight beggared the imagination. It was naked and hairless, but for knotty tufts on its head and arms and genitals. The overall impression was of some unholy mutation of an idiot child, a perverse mockery of human misery that caused one to flinch in terror and repugnance.

Gonji recalled that Jocko and Jacob Neriah both had spoken of a giant traveling with this army. He had been hoping the tales were exaggerated. Then he remembered the words of the drunken soldier at the inn: Hey, Cap’n, he reminds me o’ Tumo.... He felt the anger over the insult working up inside him.

“Tumo will be feasting tonight, too, only he likes his meat raw, don’t you, Tumo?” Julian said portentously. The giant ground out a few subhuman syllables that sounded like reproductions of the captain’s speech. Milorad shuddered and whispered something to Flavio.

On Julian’s command the cretin giant turned and waddled away toward the drum tower, issuing a final warning bark to the prostrate soldier.

“Pathetic creature,” Flavio said as they clopped to the middle bailey gatehouse.

“Indeed so,” Milorad agreed.

“I hope that’s not the king’s brother,” Gonji jested, leaning toward them. But no one had found it amusing, save Garth, who tsked and cast him a sidelong glance. Gonji shrugged and looked once more after the departing giant, wondering what other marvels, strange and sinister, this day might unveil.

The gatehouse was a heavily guarded checkpoint at the entrance to a long tunnel cut completely through the central keep’s lower level. Its flanking towers were enormous defensive outworks of the middle bailey wall, which rose like a mighty curtain of stone twice the height of the outer wall and rendering the outer ward a broad killing ground for any besieging party that might breech the outermost obstacles. The towers were cut through with arrow loops and croslets. Archers manning these and walking the ramparts above peered down lazily. At the southeast drum tower far down the wall, Gonji could make out the barrel of a bombard or mortar.

Gatehouse guards saluted the captains and admitted the party. Gonji had just passed through when he was halted by a fierce command at his left hand. He pulled up.

“Remove your weapons and leave them here.”

The Llorm guard had spoken in German. His white-knuckled fist gripped the hilt of his sheathed broadsword. Hot eyes glared up at Gonji from under a burgonet helm.

“I’m the Council Elder’s bodyguard,” Gonji replied evenly. “My weapons go where I go.”

“You heard the commander of the guard!”

A pole-arm probed dangerously close to Gonji’s ribs.

Gonji turned slowly to face the soldier on his right. His eyes narrowed menacingly. The Llorm lancer was an ugly man whose bulbous nose looked as if elven troops had late used it as a training prop.

“Careful with that pike, fig-nose,” Gonji said.

Flavio, sensing imminent trouble, began to intercede. Gonji and the pikeman glared at each other. The samurai, remembering his promise to Flavio, felt the dull pang of helpless capitulation rising. But Captain Kel’Tekeli dismounted and strode back to the hold-up.

After a brief explanation, he said to the guard, “I think we can trust the Elder’s bodyguard to behave himself, can’t we?”

Gonji bridled at the other’s patronizing tone but smiled thinly and nodded.

They continued through into the central ward, which was a frenzy of activity, last-minute preparations being attended to by scurrying servants and scullions. The ward was large enough for cavalry practice to be pursued simultaneously with archery and swordsmanship, and Gonji admiringly appraised the training facilities. Only a handful of troops, mostly Llorm, plied their weapons on the grounds now, and the samurai observed their techniques with great interest.

They dismounted, hostlers attending at once to their horses. Garth paused to speak with them awhile. Flavio approached Gonji, an admonishing set to his pursed lips.

“Remember your promise now—no trouble,” the Elder said affably, smiling and waving to anxious servants who rushed by in their duties.

“Not unless I’m provoked, of course.”

Flavio’s concern creased his brow. “Gonji, I would be more at ease if you told me you could extend the limits of your tolerance somewhat...at least for this important occasion.”

They walked across the ward, Milorad and Garth following.

Gonji sighed. “I am sometimes too easily provoked by effrontery, I suppose. And you are my master.” He smiled at the Elder. “As you would have it.”

“Good!” Flavio grinned and picked up his step toward the great hall across the ward. “Now let us meet with our new liege lord and find out precisely where we stand—hello, Frantisek!” He greeted a bubbling servant who nearly tripped over himself as he bobbed his head and walked backward with a heavy ewer.

Gonji was not surprised to find himself a popular attraction. Soldiers and civilians alike scanned him closely as he passed. He wondered what most fascinated them: his fighting reputation? Or had Julian spread the word so quickly that Gonji had become his secret operative?

He took careful note of the Llorm regulars and their people. The Akryllonian nationals were a dark, pale folk who looked drawn, worn by their nomadic life. Lean and hungry. Desperate. Such qualities translated into ferociousness in battle, he well knew. The children, especially, seemed a pathetic lot; scrawny and hollow-eyed, weak and sickly. But the men, the Llorm regulars, were hardy enough, and if their will to live, to preserve their people and ease the burden of their families, ran deep enough, they’d not be leaving the province after the winter. Not this winter, nor many winters hence.

It was all absurd. Could this really be the remnant of some lost island kingdom and not simply the camp following of a bandit chieftain? Perhaps they’d have answers soon.

The delegates were led through the portals of the great hall and into a massive groin vault with egresses into three corridors. They turned left, armed guards before and behind them, passed noisy chambers and anterooms, and entered through a broad archway into the hall proper.

It was a cavernous place, richly appointed, alive with the chatter and laughter of soldiers and civilians, servants and animals. Dogs barked and begged, scurried underfoot, awaiting handouts to come. Roistering mercenaries bellowed and clanked their armament, called out ribald jokes; some, already drunk, grabbed at scampering, yelping servant girls.

Gonji sniffed distastefully. He had been expecting a more sedate and august display, something akin to courtly decorum. But this was the epitome of decadence, a scene freshly cut from the Judgment Day perdition paintings he had seen.

Oil lamps and cresset torches blazed in the hall. The only windows were tall, slender affairs set high up on the walls, which admitted a network of murky gray twilight swirling with smoke and dust motes. Halfway up the walls, running its course around them, a canopied gallery bulged out over the hall, supported by ornate ivory columns. Dozens of chamber doors gave egress from the gallery, and at one side sat a group of musicians. Lute and recorder, flute and cymbal valiantly strove against the babble and din.

Stately and heraldic arras hung about the walls, gazing down somberly on the wassail. The long oaken tables already were in disarray, the parquet floor a quagmire of mud and beverage spills. The banquet had yet to be served.

They were led to a solitary table set before the raised dais where several of Klann’s advisers had already assumed their places. The four were seated at the end before the dais, Flavio and Gonji facing Milorad and Garth. Several other places at their table were set but untenanted. Servants crisscrossed the room, darting about with pitchers and kegs in a failing effort to keep flagons and goblets full. The air reeked of mead and ale, wine and kvas. Some servants fairly tripped over each other in their effusive efforts to greet the smiling Flavio, Milorad, and Garth. One scullery maid knelt and kissed Flavio’s hand, pleading for him to secure her release.

They sat back and observed the orgiastic proceedings as their beverages were served, Gonji and Flavio selecting wine; Garth having an ale; and Milorad, mead. No one spoke for a time, each man content to observe, to ponder the promise of the night’s meeting, to seek a comfortable niche for himself in the surroundings.

Gonji saw that the adjacent tables were reserved for the Llorm’s women and children and decided that was good. He was beginning to take his ease in this magnificent structure of huge ashlar blocks and sturdy beams which massed beasts of burden might strain at in vain. He worked at a stoic detachment from the nods and chuckles cast in his direction by tactless soldiers. Their childish threat was distant and impotent; it couldn’t disturb his harmony. He even met Julian’s occasional haughty glances with calm, impassive stares of his own, breaking them off at his leisure. Dignity will be mine tonight, he thought with supreme self-satisfaction.

Then the Great Dane sidled up between Gonji and Flavio and began sniffing at the samurai’s swords.

“Damn you, mangy cur!” Gonji grated in his throat, shooing the animal away in not altogether dignified fashion. “Lift your leg on my swords and someone will be feasting on your carcass tonight!”

When his companions’ laughter had subsided, he reestablished his lost harmony and rubbed his reddening face. But he couldn’t help laughing himself and was pleased to see that he had lifted them from their timid sipping. Removing his daisho—his matched set of swords—from his obi, Gonji set them at his right side against the bench seat. He ran his hands under the slack left in the sash by their removal.

“Now I’ve got room,” he said, sniffing deeply with eyes closed at the tempting whiffs of meaty aroma seeping from the kitchens. “Looks like no monsters were invited tonight, anyway,” he added.

The others’ snickers subsided quickly, their memory of the cretin giant still poignant.

“Wonder who’s going to be seated at our table,” Gonji thought aloud. “Oh, Garth—did the hostlers tell you why you were invited?”

Garth shook his head glumly. “No, I don’t know.... It isn’t for smith work,” he added haltingly.

Tumo will be feasting tonight, too.... Gonji shook his head and cleared his throat, was about to say something pleasant when the shriek came from a nearby table of mercenaries.

“How dare you!” a woman shouted. “I’m a personal servant of the king!” She raised a silver serving tray over her head like a bludgeon.

The man who had given her offense raised his eyebrows and leaned back in surprise, his companions roaring their mirth.

“She’s a fiery one, eh?”

“Draw on her, Merwyn!”

The woman launched into a tirade, berating the soldier’s impropriety, shaking a petite fist in his face all the while. A Llorm regular finally rose from his table and interposed himself between them, dismissing the girl and bending low to admonish the drunken wastrel.

“There’s the hoyden,” Garth said sullenly.

Gonji looked to him questioningly.

“Wilfred’s Genya,” Flavio clarified.

“Ah, so desu—so that’s the lady fair!” Gonji said amusedly.

And then she was heading for their table, adjusting her hair and skirts primly as she pattered over with restored dignity. They all rose to greet her. She looked to be in her late teens, her short stature emphasizing a ripe figure. Her hair was curly, soft and dark, and it frolicked about her shoulders as she moved pertly, calling attention to a cherubic face and sparkling dark eyes. A set of baby-fat dimples framed full red lips that were formed in a tempting pucker. It should not have been surprising that she was much pursued by the young men of Vedun, for nature had fashioned her for allure. But it seemed to Gonji, as the men rose from their table to greet her, that her charm was not without guile and artifice.

“Oh, they’re such animals, these soldiers,” she said primly. Then she at once melted into wide-eyed innocence. “Oh, Papa Flavio, thank God you’re here! We’ve been simply dying inside, all of us, to know what’s become of Vedun.”

She bent and kissed his hand lightly, her own small white hand fluttering at her bodice modestly. “How are my parents?” She spoke to the Elder in his native Italian.

“They’re in good health,” Flavio replied, smiling benignly, “and they asked me to convey their love, as have all the servants’ families. My heart is heavy, though, for Lottie Kovacs. I’m afraid her father....”

“Yes, we’ve heard—oh, Blessed Mother, what a terrible, terrible thing! Lottie’s crushed, absolutely crushed. But at least Richard is here to comfort her. But dear Signore Flavio, you will try to gain us our freedom tonight, won’t you—?”

And Flavio offered his cautiously optimistic assurances that he would seek the hostages’ release. But almost before he had finished Genya had shifted her attention to Garth.

“Herr Gundersen, how is Wilfred? I miss him so—oh my!” Quickly dismissing her startled expression at Garth’s bruises, she stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and after a moment’s hesitation the burly smith self-consciously bent to oblige her.

“He’s fine,” Garth said. “Stubborn as always.” He averted his eyes from hers, rather rudely, it seemed to the others.

“Bitte, tell him to have a care. It’s so dreadful around here these days. The castle is full of dangers. The soldiers are everywhere. Monsters and giants roam the grounds freely. Have you seen them?” She was whispering with awe now.

The delegates all muttered their agreement. And then, before their voices had ceased to echo, Genya was speaking with Milorad, making a show of interest in his and Anna’s well being in the new social circumstances.

All the while Gonji could feel the girl’s consuming curiosity about him, though she never once regarded him directly.

She was an operator, of that he was sure. Good fortune with this one, friend Wilfred.... He watched with keen interest how adroitly Genya shifted from dignity to respect to affection to anxiety, coyly affected innocence lubricating the transitions.

Then she was through with Milorad and looking just past Gonji, eyes dropping diffidently floorward. He decided to accept the invitation.

“I’m Gonji Sabatake, a friend of Wilfred.” He bowed slightly, and she curtsied, eyelids fluttering closed. “He asked me to give this to you, a token of his undying affection.” He handed her the blossom from Wilf.

Her lips parted silently, and for the first time she seemed touched by genuine emotion.

“Danke—thank you,” she whispered.

And then her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes had suddenly outgrown her face, fear rimming them as she looked over Gonji’s shoulder. The others were all staring.

Gonji turned, and a chill shot through his spine. He was gazing into the masked face of Mord. The sorcerer’s diamond-hard black eyes appeared to be smiling with private amusement.

Gonji bowed, and a long moment later the magician returned the gesture, bending forward slowly and dreamily, like a reed under water.

“We’ve...met?” Mord asked in his murky basso profundo voice.

Gonji’s nape prickled with fine pinpoints of tension. His palms were cold and moist, but his face betrayed nothing of it.

“Not unless you’ve been to Honshu,” he replied evenly.

The sorcerer’s gleaming filigreed mask tilted almost imperceptibly, as if the arch reply had thrown him off guard. Then his piercing ophidian eyes appeared to shift, to cloud over with a dull film, to pulsate hideously as if about to burst their sockets.

And an instant later Gonji was gazing with barely disguised shock into the fiery red orbs of the wyvern.

Cholera.

Gonji’s face grew hot; his senses reeled with an instant’s indecision. He could feel his companions’ breathless anticipation. Against his leg—the solid comfort of his sword hilts where they leaned. Then—

“All kneel!”

Gonji slowly joined the jostling, clinking throng in dropping to one knee, striving to control his bewilderment, to plan, to reestablish his wa, his harmony of spirit....

“Know ye the righteous liege lord of the Isle of Akryllon and all its possessions, Successor to its throne, Preserver of its heritage, Supreme Commander of the Akryllonian Royalist Forces.... Know ye King Klann, Him Who Is Called the Invincible!”

And in the reverent silence that had fallen during the heraldic pronouncement, it seemed that nothing had moved or stirred the air.

And then the legendary King Klann was among them, and all eyes were on him. All eyes save Gonji’s.

Gonji peered furtively over his shoulder.

But Mord was gone.

* * * *

They sat alone over dinner in the stillness of the house, Michael Benedetto missing his murdered brother’s bright chatter more than ever. Two tapers cast their cold glow over the meal. The silence became unbearable, Lydia’s smug indulgence insufferable as she served him.

“So say it already, vixen!” Michael growled. “They didn’t want me along because of my temper, and I’ve trodden on the graven image of your lofty ambition.” The words were spat more than spoken.

Lydia blinked, but her composure was otherwise unshaken.

“A broken nose and blackened eyes ill befit a statesman.”

“Really? I can think of a few statesmen whose noses warrant rearrangement.”

“Stop being a child. You’re making a shambles of your career—”

“I’m the same child you wanted to keep in Count Faluso’s employ in...Mi-lahn-o,” he drawled sarcastically.

“You needn’t have stopped there. With a bit of string-pulling by your mother, the de’Medicis might have—”

“The de’Medicis—the corrupt de’Medicis—fie on the de’Medicis!”

“Hush! You’ve chosen your position. You’d prefer to administer to peasants. But that’s no reason to slander the de’Medicis.”

“And then where after Florence, my love?” Michael sneered. “Back to your homeland? To Krakow in triumphant return?”

“Your Polish isn’t up to it.”

“How very like my courtly mother you are. So thoroughly seduced by the appearances of state and the fripperies of court life.”

Lydia spoke softly. “You still don’t understand me, Michael. I’m not your mother, I’m your wife. I believe that God has designated leaders and followers. You possess the talent and the education for leadership, but your cardinal humor is choler, and you make no effort to resist it. To fail to live up to your potential is a great sin.”

Their meal half-eaten but appetite gone, Michael fell to brooding. Lydia approached him with a wet cloth and touched his shoulder gently.

“Lie back and let me lay this on your battered face.”

He shrugged off her hand. “Leave me alone.”

She left the room with a soft rustle, the faintest wisp of her perfume trailing behind her. A moment later a servant came and cleared the table, careful not to intrude on her employer’s sullen introspection. And then Michael was alone with the hypnotic flicker of the candle flames.

She was right. He was failing miserably in his charge. Even his rightful place in the castle delegation had been usurped by a stranger—and an infidel, yet! And from an angry cell in the dungeons of his mind came the shrill warning that this bold mercenary was going to be real trouble if he went unchecked. In more ways than one....

For he had seen how the oriental had looked at his wife.

Michael rose and donned a capote and toque. Lydia stopped him just as he was slipping out through the narrow vaulted foyer.

“Where are you going at this hour?” she asked, eyes flashing with a trace of suspicion or fear.

“Out,” he replied without looking back. “To think.”

She watched him go through the window grating, then wrapped a shawl about her and stepped out into a crisp breeze that tumbled down from the mountain fastness.