Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (33 page)

* * * *

Clear, brilliant skies and the happy chirping of birds greeted them as the people who had just finished the night training session streamed from the chapel, earnestly praying that their effort at washing from the trough in the catacombs had laved away the sweat and dirt and tiredness from their drawn faces. That their limps and aches would be sufficiently concealed behind their bright early-morning smiles and greetings, and that the Llorm dragoons they passed wouldn’t be moved to curiosity. So to chase their winces and smother their aches, they sang on the way to their jobs. They sang folk songs and patriotic anthems, each ethnic group singing in its native language, competing with the others in volume and feeling in a great cacophony that was the war song of Vedun.

William Eddings walked alone from the chapel, his brother having stayed back to speak with the tanners. The tanners...Danko had lost an eye, and now listen to them all—singing! That was how the bloody fools would all go to the gallows one day—singing. Slavs and Huns and Italians—peasants and barbarians, all! He hated them, all of them. But most of all he hated the Jappo.

He marched grimly toward his tiny sundrier’s shop, pulling his three-cornered hat low over his eyes so that the soldiers might not see their redness, then notice the weariness that weighted his arms and back and shoulders. His ribs ached with every step from the blow he’d suffered while fencing.

Damn fools. They’d even brainwashed his father and brother. He’d tried to talk with them about leaving this place, but neither his father, nor John, nor even John’s gentle wife, would hear of it. Wasn’t this what they’d fled England to escape? Couldn’t they simply flee again to some other, safer, saner place? But no, his father had said, they’d set themselves up here and would stay, come what may, even if it meant dying with these people.

He reached the shop and shuffled inside, breathing a sigh of relief that no soldier had stopped to question him. If they had, he was sure, he would have told them all, put an end to this madness. How many lives would be saved if the Jappo were strung up now, before he could do any more harm?

Throwing his hat into a corner, Eddings slammed over a table full of the gaudy trinkets and fake jewelry the mercenaries were so fond of bestowing on their strumpets. Table and contents crashed into a jangling, tinkling heap. He slammed the door and drew the shade. Then he dropped onto a stool with a heavy thud, rubbed at his pinched face, and all at once began to sob uncontrollably.

* * * *

There was one birth and one natural death during the first week of training. Neither the christening nor the funeral was well attended.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The dancers whirled and gamboled and clapped their hands merrily in a great circle, the musicians driving them faster and faster until they had themselves reached a fever pitch, barely able to play in time. Flavio was pushed into the middle of the circle with Anna Vargo, whose arthritic joints caused her considerable suffering, but she made no complaint, so glad was she to see Flavio laugh and dance. A great cheer drowned out the strains of music as Flavio plunged into the dance with a spryness that belied his years.

Gonji cheered as loud as anyone, warmed by the company of so many new friends. He danced and clapped lustily, the social ritual appealing to his gregarious nature. The dance finished with a frenzied flourish, the dancers on their knees applauding themselves, exhausted but ready for more.

It was the annual feast of St. Stephen, a one-time king of Hungary, which coincided with the harvest. And despite the mysterious selective crop failure, the yield had been good, though there would be shortages. Bunting and banners proclaiming the event festooned the square. Gloaming shadows spread their cool tendrils over the city, and the moon, a bright ungular disc, rose early, racing after the first star of evening. Florid dresses swished by, their wearers chattering and laughing. Aromas of food and drink teased and beckoned, made one wish for the stomach capacity of a ruminant.

Gonji was in his glory, his kinship with these people growing. He stood mopping his brow in a group that included Jiri and Greta—who had dragged Gonji into the dance, Monetto and his wife, and several others, who were listening to Flavio relate how the tarantella was believed to cure the madness brought on by the bite of the wolf spider. Michael stood behind the Elder, smiling with arms folded, supporting the legend with stories of his own. The protege appeared relaxed, darkly handsome in a corn-hued damask shirt and elegantly tailored breeches. His eyes had nearly returned to normal, but now in social garb it was more apparent than ever that his nose had sustained a permanent crook from the breaking.

Lydia stood with him, hand in hand, smiling the smile of a benign, all-knowing goddess; lovely in her swaying skirts, bonnet and bow; interjecting her quiet wit at just the right moments. Gonji stole glimpses of her in the course of long, casual pans of the festival crowd, determined not to stare. Their eyes never once met. She was the mistress of social grace, at once coolly discouraging prolonged male attention and reaping the homage of its ubiquitous presence. She knew well her attraction and had long since learned to deal with it to her favor. Her elan was annoying, and Gonji had always refused to compete on the terms such women set. But she was difficult to ignore, and he found himself fighting the well-known internal battle of the samurai, that of
giri
—duty vs.
ninjo
—natural impulse.

He suddenly felt awkward with this group, but Greta was a great help. Jiri sat while the bubbly girl took Gonji for her partner as the musicians broke into a rousing mazurka. Gonji and Greta became one of eight couples, and the samurai learned the step readily. When the dance was done they sat at a long table cluttered with food and drink, facing the marketplace on the Street of Hope.

The Festival of St. Stephen very nearly had been canceled by the city leaders for fear of trouble with the occupation force. But the traditional-minded and those who felt the tension-release was needed—Gonji among the latter—urged that it be held as usual. Captain Sianno had been alerted to the potential for mercenary bullying, and he had readily agreed to double-up the normal Llorm dragoon street patrols. Drunken, leering mercenaries had, in fact, been drawn irresistibly to the celebration, but they had been forewarned against aggression and remained on the perimeter of the square, leaning and sitting in surly bands who called out lewd comments and empty threats but proffered no physical menace.

Gonji saw a group of them exchange words with a few citizens—Phlegor and his craft guildsmen—across the square. A Llorm patrol clopped by and quickly put an end to it, dispersing the rowdy bunch.

He reached down to the bench for his swords. But they were not beside him. He remembered, smiling slightly, and then saw them. Wilfred had taken custody of the
daisho
, wrapping them in a silk cloth. They were being handed along the table from the end where Wilf sat sulking. Jiri held them out, bowing, but then he withdrew them from Gonji’s grasp at the last instant.

“Wait,” Jiri said, “let me place them.” He walked around uncertainly to Gonji’s left, started to lay them down, but stopped.
“Iye,”
he said, remembering the significance of their position. Then he laid them on the bench at Gonji’s right.

“Peace,
sensei,
” he said, grinning. They all laughed.

Gonji bowed. “
Hai, arigato
, Jiri-san. No trouble tonight!”

A new dance began. Karl Gerhard took Sylva Monetto by the arm, leaving Aldo with the couple’s three children.

“Hey!” Aldo shouted. “You dance with my wife, you better behave yourself,
sí?
” He closed one eye and fixed the other on Gerhard, shaking a fist.

Karl made a face and pawed the air in return threat.

“Somebody watch that sneaky Hun,” Monetto declared as he took the children to the food stalls. Gonji chuckled with the others and tossed off the last of his wine. His head began to swim as he moved gently with the music. It was a grand time of sharing, and he felt warmed all over by the good cheer of friends, the smiles of pretty faces.

Nick and Magda Nagy dropped in at the table with Stefan Berenyi and the girl he escorted. Soon the two hostlers were carrying on a spirited argument regarding whether the corral at the Provender had been locked and who had been responsible for it. It culminated in the pair leaving their women and storming off to check, cursing and pointing accusing fingers at each other. The women sighed and spoke in Hungarian, exasperated.

Another woman came by with a small cask and refilled the empty goblets. Gonji accepted his refill with a grateful smile.

“When are you going to marry him already?” she said in German when she stood beside Gonji. She had spoken to Berenyi’s girl, who tittered and whispered something in reply.

Marry.
Gonji smiled hollowly and drummed his fingers on the table in time to the music. He began to feel bored, tense—something he couldn’t quite define—as he sat surrounded by other men’s women, wishing for some lively conversation.

Too bad Wilf had taken to brooding over Genya again. The young Gundersen sat swirling his wine at one end of the table, a pretty girl Gonji had seen somewhere before seated behind him, speaking to him over his shoulder. Wilf kept repeating the story of last year’s Festival of St. Stephen, when he and Hawk Dobroczy had fought over Genya. The girl made sounds of sultry-sweet sympathy while she twined her hair seductively.

At the next table most of the men, including Flavio, Roric, Milorad, and Michael, rose to visit the stalls. The women remained. Gonji played a game of discipline: he resolved not to look over at Lydia even once during her husband’s absence.

He looked across the grounds to where Phlegor and his trade brothers had begun shouting drunken insults at passing soldiers. A strange reversal of the norm in Vedun. Those fools were going to create real trouble soon. Shaking his head and scowling, he panned around the grounds, stopped when his eyes fell on Helena.

The deaf-mute girl was staring back, her eyes widening in greeting when she saw him look. She was with her mother, who chatted with a group near the chapel. He felt a pang of desire to see her dusky beauty, deepened by the richly sensual hues of twilight. He waved to her and bowed, and she returned the wave discreetly. Then he felt abruptly foolish at the futility of the meaningless flirtation and broke the contact.

Jiri leaned across Greta and whispered to Gonji: “There’s your friend.”

Gonji looked to where Jiri pointed. Julian clopped past on a black roncin, whose color matched that of the captain’s polished cuirass and ebony slouch hat. He cut an impressive figure, the midnight display counterpointed sharply by the gleam of his saber and the silver-handled pistol he now carried. Behind him rode the Armorer, his ubiquitous new companion, who still sported enough armament to sink a galleon. The way they arrogantly parted the crowd as they rode by made him mindful of the swaggering Navarez and Esteban.

He saw Julian glare when he had singled him out in the festival crowd, and in his ire and contempt for the man, now fueled by his amusement over Julian’s frustration with Gonji’s failure to report, the samurai brayed suddenly, “Hail, Captain!”

Those at the table became alert, following Gonji’s wave.

Julian and his companion slowed, the Armorer making as if he would steer his mount their way. But the captain dissuaded him with a head toss, and they went on their way.

Shithead
, Gonji thought. Just keep looking back at me like that and riding east till you drop into the river. And take that armored porcupine with you....

A few fretful looks were tipped Gonji’s way, but his friends soon resumed their merrymaking. Gonji knew he had been boorish, but his mood had taken an abrasive turn. All he could think was how Julian had tried to insult him, to pad his own reputation, at the castle banquet. Now that score was even.

Nagy and Berenyi’s women excused themselves from the table. Gonji nodded to them, saw past them the smoky eyes of Paolo Sauvini, who sat alone on the fountain wall with his wife. Hell, even
that
sullen lout has a woman. Never thought
he’d
be married. She’s not much, though, is she?

He rubbed his face vigorously, scratched under his topknot.
Straighten up, Gonji-san. Pointless to try to share your
karma, neh?
Your bitterness is—

The rustle of skirts and rush of perfume had preceded her, but he was still not prepared for her abrupt appearance.

“May I?” Lydia asked, indicating the bench.

“
Hai
, of course,” he replied, leaning forward and clutching the comforting solidity of his wine cup.
Cholera....
He took a sip. It went down hard.

“Enjoying yourself?” she asked, smiling gently. A smile that he would have described as...motherly. His insides churned.

“
Hai
, why not?” Go away, lady—
iye
, stay!