Gonji: Red Blade from the East (35 page)

“What?”

“Let’s go running out in the hills.”

They stripped to the waist and went shuffling off into the streets, headed toward the west gate. The city was coming to life late this morning; the cows were not alone in their fear of what the previous night’s activities portended. But as commerce perked up out of necessity, the buzz of daily life in Vedun resumed its normal levels.

Gonji and Wilf jogged easily out the gate and along the west road, the main commerce track, cut through the mountains centuries ago by an empire long crumbled. They passed travelers on horseback and merchants in wagons; peasants leading pannier-laden mules and soldiers displaying the crest of Klann and suspicious frowns; grumbling hunters whose bows now had to be drawn from the garrison armory under security conditions. They exchanged choppy dialogue as they puffed and panted, speaking of love and revolt, of Wilf’s heavy heart for his Genya, of his division over many issues with his father, and of Gonji’s life in Japan and similar father-son enmity.

Klann’s soldiers were outposted along the road, and they discovered that the southern trails into the valley were forbidden unless travelers’ business was first cleared through the Exchequer. Lorenz must be busy this morning. Reaching the trail Gonji had ascended out of the valley, they turned back, slowed to a walk for a span. Then they found a cool, damp shadow-crouched glade, silent now for the presence of men.

Selecting two pieces of stout lumber, Gonji taunted Wilf into a fencing lesson. They slashed, lunged, parried. Leaping and feinting, Gonji fought a defensive posture, testing the strong young smith, finding him well schooled in European saber fencing. Wilf proved a willing student, and because Gonji loved the performance of the magnificent fighting skills of the Land of the Gods, he began to teach Wilf rudimentary
bugei
—martial arts. Wilf worked at the first simple skills of
ken-jutsu
and
iai-jutsu
—offensive and defensive swordsmanship; and
karumi-jutsu
—the practiced litheness required for leaping and dodging.

“Good—good—excellent!” Gonji was able to shout at length. They dropped to their knees in the streaked sunlight and dried their faces. Satisfaction suffused the glade, the warm surety of men keenly apperceptive of the wholeness of their being.

But Wilf frowned. “It’s harder against men, though.”

“Eh?
Hai
, till you’ve first been blooded, I suppose. But you don’t flinch. I’d venture you’re a match for most ratty mercenaries. One day you’ll even handle the good ones.” He rose.

“What did you do last night?”

The question took Gonji by surprise. He scratched his head, undid his topknot and shook out his long hair, sighing. He told Wilf of his tilt with the wyvern.

“The flying monster....” Wilf breathed almost reverently. “But that’s—
why
?”

“I had my reasons, personal reasons.”

Wilf s brow creased. “Who are you that you can allow your personal feelings to put the whole city in danger? What about the captives at the castle? Maybe Klann will make it tougher on them now.”

Gonji remained silent as he redid the topknot, knowing the truth of what the smith accused.

“We’d all like to have that kind of freedom from responsibility,” Wilf continued. He grew wistful. “I know I would. I’d like to be the warrior who can lash out at things that make him mad.
Ja...
someday I will be. Someday I’ll—”

“Be as good a soldier as your father,” Gonji finished, eyeing him impishly. Wilf looked confused.

“I heard,” Gonji clarified, motioning that they should start back, “last night in the stable.”

Wilf moved into step with Gonji as they trudged over the spongy pine carpet. “He hates it when I bring up soldiering. Won’t even discuss it.”

“What kind of soldier was he? Where?”

“A good one, I guess. A cavalry captain somewhere up north. My mother died while the three of us were very young—I can’t remember her. It was while he was away on campaign. He blamed himself, I suppose, for not being with her, and he said he lost his taste for soldiering—”

“The will to fight.”

“Ja.”

“Mmmm,” Gonji said, nodding, his lips pursed.

“He gave me a sword on my twelfth birthday. We used to train together, like this.” Wilf smiled at the memory. “Then one day I made the mistake of telling him I’d be a soldier, not a smith....”

They paused on a squatty knoll overlooking the main road. Three wagons bearing boxed goods rumbled past below, making for Vedun.

“Will you be staying in Vedun awhile?”

“Hmm? Oh—awhile,
hai
, I have unfinished business here and there.” Gonji smiled away Wilf’s worried look. “Nothing that will increase your Genya’s burden! I still seek the Deathwind. I’ve a destiny to fulfill, you see, and I’ve been told it’s here. And I want to meet this Klann for myself—
and
his cowardly sorcerer who kills men from afar.”

“The Deathwind....”

“You’ve heard the legend—the man-beast who prowls the night wind?”

“Something. Strom could tell you better, probably more than you’d care to hear.”

The wagon clatter dwindled in the distance. Gonji slapped his thigh, and they started down the hill.

Wilf grabbed his arm, halted him. “Will you stay and help us if we need to fight Klann?”

The question struck Gonji hard, and it took him a long time to gather his feelings and answer. He was thinking how easily he might yet be on the side that held the reins; Vedun was the rich prize, the plump sheep, secured by Klann and ready for slaughter. And how nice to be on the winning side, if only for the rarity of the pleasure!

He gazed into the deep dark pools of Wilf’s pleading eyes and found himself playing the game of testing.

“No. It can’t be done. It’s all over.”

He turned to go, but Wilf’s grip tightened and Gonji’s eyes narrowed at the affront. “I thought you said last night that we should fight,” Wilf said, impassioned.

“I said
I’d
fight,” Gonji replied, easing out of the grasp. “These people couldn’t do it. They had their chance before Klann’s army entered the gates. Right now this city is the perfect plump hen, ready to be plucked and slaughtered. And Sabatake Gonji-no-Sadowara is not about to become chicken stuffing.”

Tears of anger and frustration welled in Wilf’s eyes, and he spun away from Gonji, choked back the lump in his throat. Gonji knew his pain, and his sense of
bushi no nasake
—the warrior’s tenderness—told him that his feelings were justified toward Wilf and that there was no shame or weakness attendant on them. He drew away a few paces for a time to allow Wilf space to vent his anguish.

Plucking at a butter-and-eggs blossom for a moment, admiring its fragile loveliness, Gonji asked, “Are you a Christian?”

“Ja,”
Wilf answered.

“I’ve seen Christians refuse to kill under such circumstances,” Gonji observed gently.

Wilf held his gaze firmly. His eyes had dried. “Klann has attacked our faith. I’m willing to die for it.”

Gonji studied his face, nodded gravely. “That’s...all any way of life can ask of its adherents.” He sighed breathily. “Ah, Wilfred-san, you must learn to understand me. I’m a creature of duty. I need duty—
crave
it—like the ministrations of the bedchamber from time to time, you know? Well...perhaps you don’t. Forget it, bad joke. At any rate without duty a samurai is nothing, a fruitless tree. Yet for the past few years—I go out and commit myself wholeheartedly, then proceed to follow it up in my typical half-assed way, compromising one principle after another as I go. I don’t know. It’s my mother’s restless spirit within me, I suppose. Or maybe there’s nothing worth committing oneself to on this mad continent. Who knows, eh?”

Bereft of comforting words, Gonji loped down the hill and onto the road, heading for Vedun at a slow shuffle. Wilf shortly fell into place beside him. “We’ll do what we must,” he said matter-of-factly, and Gonji bobbed his head in agreement.

They jogged through the west gate under a noonday sun that baked the stones of Vedun into a shimmering curtain of rising heat waves.

Washed and dressed—Gonji in a borrowed tunic from Wilf and invigorated by the heft of his sashed swords—they took a ride through the city. Vedun’s teeming life was in midday bloom. Children tore through the lanes with yapping dogs leaping at their sides for a nip from a fresh roll. Market stalls sang with sales pitches and cries of dissatisfaction over bruised produce. The fishmonger’s stall was the favorite of Vedun’s population of stray cats, who brushed against the pavilion struts and patrons’ legs and gathered on the wall behind the open stall.

Merchants and craftsmen hawked their wares to clucking, head-shaking buyers. Fullers’ dry goods were stretched and caressed and fluttered over by whispering and tittering young women. Fosters held out their saddle traces to passing riders. Coopers sat behind tables stacked with casks.

Myriad scents stirring their digestive juices, Wilf and Gonji bounced along the broad avenue of central Vedun toward the prepared food stalls. These were crowded by citizens, wayfarers, and soldiers alike, the desires of the belly rendering men equal for the nonce. Hot meats and poultry beckoned from their skewered positions over belching flame pits and ovens: There were chicken and capon, mutton and pig, hare and goose. Cooks, bakers, and wine keepers danced to the tune of the clinking coin. Children in their elders’ employ sloshed water from leather budgets over the greasy hands of the full-bellied.

Wilf treated Gonji to broiled fish and steaming buns, washed down with flagons of ale. As they sat on a rail wolfing down their meal, the samurai watched the bright, cheerful faces, the merry unconcern of Vedun’s daily life. To see it one could scarcely guess at the perilous times that had befallen the city. The thought made him glance into the sun-bleached sky, but no monstrous batwings blackened the glaring azure.

They finished, washed, and rode past the noisy open-air market to find the tailor and cobbler shops. Gonji commissioned from the tailor a sleeveless tunic, a pair of breeches, and a new pair of spun-wool
tabi.
From the cobbler he ordered a pair of soft leather riding boots. He found that he would have money left, but not enough to cover the balance of his next purchase when the goods were ready: The tanner shared his shop with a barker, and from these rather sullen souls, who fancied Gonji a Klann hireling, the samurai ordered a leather cuirass and backplate, plus a pair of pauldrons and vambraces. Gonji placed the balance of his money down on account and strode out of the tanner shop with a sigh of satisfaction, confident as always that when the order was ready he would somehow find the money to pay for it.

Karma.

Wilf was glad to be done with the marketplace when they trotted off. Although Gonji paid it no heed, the young smith was discomfited by the succession of hateful stares he was drawing from people he had known all his life; annoyed and ashamed of all the multilingual people in town who suddenly knew only Slavic tongues when his new friend spoke to them.

“You know, Wilf,” Gonji said, “I’m becoming more intrigued by this place all the time.”

“Why is that?”

“I’ve inquired of everyone we’ve dealt with today about this Simon Sardonis I have a message for. He ought to be pretty important in Vedun, judging by what I know.... Where does this prophetess Tralayn live?”

“Not far from where I live—why?”

“Later.”

A vibrating rumble of rushing water told Gonji the sluice gates were being cranked open. As they watched the befouled torrent blast along a culvert, Gonji recalled with a shudder how narrowly he had missed being one with its filth the night before.

They rode toward the square. The chapel spire could be seen spindling up the backdropping slope of a snow-capped mountain. Wilf wished to pay his respects to the boy Mark and the others killed the previous day, whose bodies lay on view.

They passed the garrison that had housed Rorka’s city guards, now commandeered by the Llorm troop. Farther along, as they moved west, stood the imposing Chancellery of the Exchequer, abuzz with activity.

“My brother works there,” Wilf said. “The smart one.”

Gonji smiled at the sarcasm. Ah, sibling rivalry....

Three young women they passed at the Chancellery greeted Wilf enthusiastically, but he only nodded, looking uncomfortable.

“Popular fellow,” Gonji teased.

“Friends of Genya.” His face reddened.

“Mm-hmm,” Gonji agreed archly, needling him. But the pang he felt reminded him that it had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. And how long since he’d truly been in love? The girl last night—how like Reiko she’d looked in the darkness, with her flowing black hair, those large fathomless eyes. Reiko...
(pledged to kill her husband’s slayer)

The chapel stood across the street from the bell tower and fountain at the square, a stone’s throw from the postern gate. A steady flow of mournful visitants coursed the chapel stairway. They dismounted and tethered their horses. Gonji stretched out his saddle kinks and adjusted his swords, tightening his sash. Wilf again complained of his chronic backache. Then Gonji saw them.