Gonji: Red Blade from the East (37 page)

A circus atmosphere prevailed as Wilf and Gonji dismounted at the chapel across from the rostrum-turned-tilting ground.

So the boys are out to have some fun
, Gonji thought.

They moved across the road amid the gathering people, all drawn by concern and curiosity. Inhabitants, wayfarers, and soldiers alike crowded around the platform. Dogs yapped nervously. Children puled and clung to their mothers’ skirts. Flocks of bleating sheep crossed the path of a cattle herd, blocking much of the street. Llorm dragoons on skittish mounts brushed dangerously close to pedestrians. Around the rostrum free companions lounged on steps, rails, stone benches, and the fountain wall, calling out insults and braying aggressively. A dragoon color guard sat stiffly on horseback, flying Klann’s arms on a flaccidly waving pennon. The sticky air carried a multilingual buzzing.

Gonji and Wilf pushed their way near to the front of the crowd on the rostrum’s left. Already the local profiteers had hastily erected concession tables offering a variety of foods and beverages. Flavio stood nearby, shaking his bearded head in displeasure. With him were Michael Benedetto and his wife, Lydia, a hand on her husband’s shoulder. She seemed to be speaking reproachfully in his ear as he gazed up at the stage with hate-filled eyes. Near them was Roric Amsgard, heading up a contingent of provisioners wearing bloodied aprons. At the farther side was a party of craftsmen, carrying the tools of their trades.

A man hawking hot potage grabbed Gonji’s arm. He brushed it away with a scowl and moved a step closer as Ben-Draba strode to the front of the rostrum. A rolling of “oohs” and “aahs” as the field commander shed his cloak to stand before them in only a loincloth. Some of the women turned away out of modesty.

Jocko had said Ben-Draba was formidable. If anything, Gonji reflected, the old man had understated the case. Ben-Draba was six-and-a-half feet tall if he was a span. His muscles bespoke rigorous conditioning. His hands were large and corded, and he habitually flexed them as if eager for an arm or leg to rend.

“Quite a brute, eh?” Wilf observed in a low voice.

Gonji nodded. The man was a killing machine, powerful and cruel.

Excited people continued to crowd into the square as Ben-Draba waved off the crier and addressed the milling audience as he strutted.

“Well, then,” he said in Italian, “where are the valiant among you? Where are those bold souls who ambushed our men in the night? In the darkness—with masks on to hide their identities, eh?” He made a swirling gesture around his head.

Gonji felt Wilf’s sidelong glance but kept staring straight ahead, his stomach fluttering. Why had he been so stupidly audacious the night before? How many people had Strom mentioned the masking to?
Gonji-san, you asinine....

Time was growing short for him here.

“No one comes forward then, eh?” Ben-Draba said, flexing his brawny arms. “I thought as much. It’s easy to be brave in the dark. Much harder for a coward to step up and fight in the light of day.”

The crowd rumbled with the gurgle of translations.

Gonji stared at the tunic of the man in front of him. Maybe this would end quickly and thoughts of last night would pass away.

“Well, we have our suspicions,” Ben-Draba declared as he walked, eyeing the men in the crowd, whose looks dropped earthward as his angry gaze passed over them. “And when the guilty are arrested you can be sure they’ll suffer much before dying. I’ll see to that.” He raised his arms and bellowed: “So who among you has a grievance? Who will come up and fight me? Is there a man anywhere in this town?”

There was no response, although in spots it seemed that men on the verge of complying were being held back by friends.

Ben-Draba was losing patience, his entertainment spoiled. “Let’s go—someone up here—
now
, or we start choosing opponents! No band of cowards kills my men and then laughs at me from their hiding places—
you there
, stop those rabbits!” At this last pronouncement several people had begun to break from the crowd and head for home, but the mounted mercenaries herded them back to the square with swords and polearms.

Cholera...
Gonji’s guilt harped in his ear. Now what the hell to do? A fine situation you’ve created, idiot! And just when things were looking up. Karma. Anyway, no one’s going to go up there. Anyone can see it’s a setup, a can’t-win situation. The first man who does well against Ben-Draba will be dead in—
I wish
the kid would stop looking at me like that....

“What has your king to say of this?” Flavio demanded, rising up the rostrum steps at the far side. “This is a travesty! No grievance can be solved like this. Show us to the king!”

There were gasps from the crowd at Flavio’s display of anger.

“What’s this?” Ben-Draba said archly. “One old man come to do me violence?”

Laughter broke out among the soldiers.

“You have your murderers,” Flavio shouted, pointing to the swaying corpses on the gibbet nearby.

“I have only your word for that, councilman,” Ben-Draba answered, “and I happen to know there are others. In any case the king has placed
me
in command of the city’s occupation. Get back down there with the other cowards!”

“How dare you address the Elder in such a tone!” a voice demanded.

“Who challenges me? Come up here!”

The milling crowd jostled more violently. Something was going to break. Frightened mothers clutched their children to their bosoms. Some sped their young ones away through the mewling livestock. A growling, snapping dog startled a horse, and a free companion was thrown to the ground.

“Vedun is a free city,” came a heraldic voice, “and a free people shall never submit to tyranny!” The speaker leaped up on the shoulders of the taller men in front of him. Gonji recognized him as the paint-stained artist from the chapel ceiling and then abruptly realized where he had seen him before that, now that the scarf was out of his hair: This was the dagger-wielder he had tripped over last night. From his stentorian voice he could only be—

“Shut up, Paille!” men in the crowd urged.

“Ah, the drunken poet,” Ben-Draba said. “Will
you
do me battle, word-monger?”

“I’m a philosopher, not a fighter,” Paille replied. “My job is to inspire these people with the passion to live and die as free people should—but if I need to, I can fight as well as any man!” He produced the same dagger that had threatened Gonji the night before, and several citizens sucked him down like human quicksand.

“The best man among them is a drunken ar-
teest
,” Ben-Draba taunted.

Someone thrust a sausage and roll under Gonji’s nose and he slapped it out of the reaching hand. Wilf was looking at him with mixed anger and disappointment.

“It’s no good, Wilf,” Gonji whispered. “Don’t you see that? It’s a setup. Nobody’s going to—”

“Well,
I’m
a man,” said a voice in Polish, just off to their right. A big farmer handed his companions the scythe he carried and pushed through the crowd to clamber up onto the rostrum. There issued from the crowd sporadic applause and shouts of encouragement.

“Peter Foristek,” Wilf said. “He’s tough.”

Carefully gauging the reactions of the soldiers at the square, Gonji noted spreading grins and “watch-this” nudges, but no menacing weapons. Maybe it wasn’t a setup. If it was simply a muscle-stretch for Ben-Draba, then it would be good for these people to take part. The commander could be doing them a favor if just one of them could prove him less than immortal.

On the rostrum Ben-Draba and Foristek locked eyes while a mercenary interpreted.

“So you killed one of my men last night?”

“No,” Foristek replied with a snarl, “but if I had caught one of them, I
would
have.” There were whoops and spirited shouts. The crowd was warming to the confrontation now. “They tried to treat my sister shamefully. And you talk about cowards—you should have seen
them
run when we came after them!”

“Hear-hear—
Ja!—da!—sí!—
”

Ben-Draba raised a quieting hand. “So you fight for your sister’s honor. Judging by the women I’ve seen, there’s little enough of that around here.”

Foristek received the translation, and his face telegraphed his charge.

Gonji winced.
Give ’im hell, Pete..
..

Foristek lunged and went flying past the commander’s calm sidestep. Ben-Draba smiled confidently and tightened into a crouch, fists clenched. The burly farmer, nearly the size of the commander, threw his weight into a huge right-hand lead. Ben-Draba ducked and kneed the hurtling man so hard in the stomach that the whole crowd had its wind knocked out.

There were gasps and grimaces all around as Ben-Draba kicked the fallen farmer hard in the face, snapping his head and spilling him on his side on the boards. Blood rimmed Foristek’s mouth.

Ben-Draba helped the dazed farmer slowly to his feet. Smiling fox-like, patting Foristek once on the shoulder, the commander punched him in the forehead with a hard right hand that wrenched screams from the women in the throng. The slack body of the farmer sailed off the edge of the stage and into the front rows, tumbling people to the sides and knocking over a pastry hawker’s cart.

Lights out. End of fight.
Finis.

Gonji blew a whistling breath and rubbed the perspiration from his brow and bristling beard.
Well...
Jocko didn’t know the half of it.

* * * *

Michael saw red.

When the vicious field commander delivered the crushing blow to Peter Foristek, the Council Elder’s protege could see only his dead brother in the farmer’s place. Had the bastard hit little Mark so hard? Lydia, clutching his arm, her face turned away from the fight, could sense his rage. She tightened her grip in warning, but he pushed her off and plunged into the crowd ahead.

Flavio heard Lydia’s cry, called out to Michael futilely. Then the young councilman, pride of the city and their future leader, was on the rostrum steps, his vaunted temper in full sway.

“You dare to call
us
murderers?” Michael yelled, slapping away the hands that strove to hold him back.

Lydia called after him twice, her lips quivering, a short prayer on them. She couldn’t watch. Her eyes closed tight in an effort at composure, she pushed her way out of the arena and stalked off for her home.

Please, God,
she prayed fervently,
don’t let him join his brother so soon.
...

* * * *

“Oh no, not Michael,” Wilf breathed at Gonji’s side.

“Eh?” Gonji’s jaw worked with indecision.

“Aren’t you going to do something—
anything
?”

“I do and I’m finished here,” Gonji said gravely. “He’s a grown man. He saw what he’s getting himself into.” But deep within, Gonji’s spirit ached to be loosed on these brigands, his sense of duty stirring.

The crowd grew more hostile now to see an important city leader on the platform. A few sharp-edged tools were raised over their heads in threat. Some of the mercenaries rose from their perches and squeezed sword hilts and pistol grips. A few crossbows were un-slung among the dragoons.

Michael approached Ben-Draba slowly, eyes brimming with hate.

“Stop this!” came Flavio’s pleading voice. “I implore all of you to leave now. Offer no resistance but go to your homes. Michael—please!”

“Let them fight!”

There were shouts of disagreement from strangers in the crowd who swigged ale and were just beginning to have a good time. Some citizens obeyed their Elder’s wishes and headed for home, but more people continued to arrive, compelled by morbid fascination.

Ben-Draba casually addressed Michael. “And what’s your complaint with me, little man?”

But Michael surged forward, screamed, “Murderer!” and slammed the surprised field commander hard in the chest with a wild punch. The crowd roared its approval, but Ben-Draba seemed hardly affected by the blow, and a shining tinge of fear crept into Michael’s angry eyes that even Gonji could see from his distance.

Gonji gritted his teeth and watched the inevitable. The two men sparred across the platform, Michael throwing errant blows and trying to keep his distance; Ben-Draba clearly in control, advancing, tossing out short punches, now and again hitting Michael and knocking him back.

The protege was giving up nearly a head’s height and a side of beef in weight, yet he showed remarkable instinct for self-preservation, avoiding the most punishing punches, deflecting others at the last instant. Once Ben-Draba caught his arm and flung him the length of the rostrum, to the delight of the cheering soldiers. Michael resumed his feet almost immediately, a bit dazed, began weaving and throwing his too timid, too short blows.