Gonji: Red Blade from the East (25 page)

As he clattered over the cobblestones and through the west gate, Michael made no effort to conceal his revulsion for the soldiers who policed his passage from the ramparts. He paid no heed to the late pedestrians and carts and scampering animals nearly crushed under hoof as he made his way through the winding lanes to the square. He halted at the chapel, angrily wiping back the brimming tears.

Lydia intercepted him in the vestibule, her look uneasy.

“Michael?” she advanced in a tentative whisper, laying a hand on his shoulder.

He stepped past her, saw the handful of mourners who knelt in prayer before his brother’s corpse, which reposed between the two other victims of the day’s violence on the dais before the altar. His knees swayed and his vision began to waver. He leaned an arm against the archway into the nave.

“He’ll come,” he said aloud. “He’ll come, and we’ll drive these monsters out!” His voice rose at the end, turning heads in the pews.

“Michael, for God’s sake!” Lydia whispered harshly. “This is your brother’s wake. Have you no decency?”

“I don’t care—”

“Well then care for
him
, for what’s left of our dignity.”

He turned to face her. In the pale red glow cast by the votive candles she seemed unreal, like some spiritual visitant. If anything, the play of light added depth to her golden loveliness.

“Do you want to embarrass us? You’re supposed to be a leader to these people. They look to you for strength. Where has all your training gone?”

“What good does that do now?” he replied bitterly, the tears coming again. As usual,
her
aristocratic mien held doggedly; what tears she had shed had long since dried. In the light of her strength and composure Michael felt a pang of shame.

“Foolish talk,” Lydia said, low but firm. She glanced around airily, as if nothing was wrong. No eyes were on them. “These are the times that truly prove a man’s mettle. Be strong, Michael. Remember what your father wanted you to be. Look at Flavio—Garth—don’t you think they’re as upset as you are? Yet look at how they act—”

“
They
didn’t lose a brother today,” Michael shot back.

“Shhh! You’re acting like a child!”

“What about Tralayn?” Michael asked coyly, arching an eyebrow. “You heard what she’s saying about this.”

Lydia’s large blue eyes flashed icily. “Michael, she’s a dried-up old woman—God forgive me!” She drew her hands over her face, instantly wiping away her irritation. She again spoke with measured calm. “Tralayn...and her visions...they’re valuable to our spiritual lives, that’s true. But she has little touch with the problems of daily living. This is a political matter, Michael. It can only be handled by rational thinking—
think
! You learned from the finest minds in Italy. What would
they
urge now?”

Michael stared at the worn tiles, withdrawing into private thoughts with a long sigh.

She gazed hard into his dark swollen eyes. “Tell me what you’ve done—out there, today.” There was a trembling edge to her whisper.

Michael drew himself up tall and ran his fingers through his black locks. He smiled a bit in insolent triumph to see the discomfiture in his wife’s cool blue eyes. “He’s coming here, Lydia. He told me so.”

“Oh, God, Michael—”

“Listen to me—”

“No,
you
listen!” she demanded. “We could have had a wonderful, meaningful life in Milano, or in Florence. We didn’t have to come back here. You spurned Count Faluso’s offer and came back here to these peasant mountains because that’s what your father wished, he and Flavio. I love you, Michael, so I came with you, as any dutiful wife would. But now you’re here, and it’s your duty to make the best of it. Your duty to them—and to me.” Her brow wrinkled, and she laid her hands on his chest imploringly. “
Forget
this mad desire for vengeance. Have you no shame before God? By all that we count holy,
send him away
!”

Michael looked deeply into her eyes. He gently clasped her hands and drew them down, his mouth working at words that wouldn’t come. Then he turned to face the empty street, saw the soldiers pacing the wall in the distance at the postern gate.

“There’s nothing I can do now,” he said, as if to disclaim any guilt in the matter. “He’s coming—
Simon’s coming
!” This last he said aloud into the street. There was a bustle in the nave as the mourners turned at the disturbance.

Lydia spun on her heel and stalked off, down the steps and through the twilight streets, toward their house. She rubbed her arms against the chill. It was no use talking to him when he was like this. But it was less his childish stubbornness that bothered her right now than the portentous alarm that clutched at her spine like an icy fiend.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The ancient stone skeleton of the city had shrugged off the last of the day’s heat, supplanted it with a taut skin of mountain chill. The night felt eager. Waiting, Gonji thought. Waiting as if it would spring. It seemed that this dreadful day was loath to end until it had spent its ugly fullness.

“Garth,” Gonji began, recalling something, “who is...Tralayn?”

They all peered at him quizzically, surprised that he should have heard the name so soon after his arrival. For all the respect and fear tendered her, Tralayn was frequently treated like the eccentric aunt who was seldom spoken of.

Garth settled into a chair and began carefully, “She’s a—a spiritual guide—”

“Our resident soothsayer,” Lorenz advanced.

“She’s a holy woman,” Strom said from the far end of the table, where he was flipping through an etched deck of cards Lorenz had brought back for him. “You shouldn’t make fun of her.”

“She’s a prophetess,” Garth said. “She’s gifted with visions that are said to be from God Himself. Our spiritual leader between visits by the monks from Holy Word Monastery. But surely you saw her at the square today—?”

Gonji looked puzzled. Then he remembered. “You mean the woman in the green robes? The one with the piercing eyes?”

“Ja.”

Gonji’s fingers drummed on the table top. Still another holy person....

“Why do you ask?” Lorenz plied Gonji.

“I’m seeking a man named Simon Sardonis,” Gonji replied insouciantly, stretching his arms behind his head. “I was told she might tell me where to find him. I bear a message for him.”

He cast glances around at each of them to gauge his words’ effect, then added gravely, “I suppose I’ll have to seek her out, presently.”

Only Garth seemed affected by the somber statement. “Your message,” he said, smiling shakily, “must be one of some importance.”

“I suppose it’s important enough,” Gonji said airily.
And oh, yes
, he reflected, it’s certainly important enough to
you.
Sooner or later I’ll find out what you know, friend smith. And if you’re frightened by it so, then it must be interesting,
neh
? What’s so special about this Sardonis that a dying priest’s last words should be a message of forbearance to him? Priests and monks and hermits and prophetesses—aieeee! These holy people are possessed of more mysteries than there are stars in the heavens! And how does a blacksmith gain privity to their magicks, eh? Ah, well, while the Deathwind continues to elude me at least I have another puzzle to unravel. Unusual for good
kami
to smile on me so.

Gonji found himself shrugging back a chill. He drew a deep whistling breath through his nostrils. Strom yawned and looked around the table, hoping someone else would suggest sleep. Wilf mumbled to himself incoherently.

Garth shuddered and rubbed his burly forearms, Gonji’s chill seemingly contagious. The smith plodded to the fireplace with a weary step and a muttered apology. As he brought the failing hearth to blazing, Gonji slid from his chair and cleared a space in the center of the room.

“Mind?” he asked. The sons looked from one to the other quizzically and shrugged. Gonji grinned. “Must keep this fine repast from going straight to fat.”

Then he was bending and twisting in a light round of stretching. Tiny sweat beads glistened on his brow as he felt the lingering ache of the illness protesting in his bones.

Wilf, weaving slightly, studied him with watery eyes.

Strom gazed at him hollowly for a space, then became self-conscious and rose with a clatter. “Well, I’m for bed,” he announced. But Garth cast him a meaningful glance, and the youngest son set to clearing the dinner table at a lazy pace.

“You’ll all pardon me,” Lorenz said, “if I pass on the exercise.” With a curt smile to Gonji and a nod, the courtly son moved to a basin in the corner and began to wash.

“Herr Gundersen,” Gonji said, head bent down to his right knee, “what will your Flavio do about these usurpers, this...Klann the Invincible and his circus of dregs?”

“What can he do?” Garth replied with a gesture of helplessness. “We had peace, protection, a good system under the kindly Baron Rorka. He was a fine administrator, a good soldier in his time. Now that time seems to have passed. A new power is in control. Their ways may take some getting used to, but....” Garth’s words stumbled off toward the compartment wherein lay his true feelings.

“I wonder,” Gonji thought aloud, working his sore shoulder, “how so great a castle was breached so easily. Surely the Castle Lenska I’ve heard about has massive defensive outworks—”

“Some say the mightiest on the whole continent!” Wilf declared, lurching toward him and waving an arm awkwardly.

“—shot through with arrow loops, and mangonels, or even mortars—”

“
Ja!
I’ve seen them! Four of them, great-mouthed, tall, thick as pines.”

“—with a full garrison of knights, perhaps armed with pistols and muskets—”

Garth spoke up: “
Nein
, not a full complement of troops. Maybe two hundred at most. And few guns. Powder and shot are rare and costly.”

“Hey,” Strom piped in, “Klann’s army is big. There were lots of soldiers here—true, Papa?” He clattered an armload of pewter and cutlery into an oaken barrel. No one paid him any heed.

Shaking his head to chase his reverie, Gonji palmed aside Garth’s corrections. “Ah, no matter. It could’ve been done only two ways: treachery or sorcery...or both.” His eyes seemed to mist over. “Sorcery...Mord....”

This last was scarcely more than a breath, but Garth had heard him. The smith eyed him askance.

“You know of Mord?”

Fool
, Gonji thought in sudden alarm.
That was very stupid.
No one here had yet mentioned the sorcerer; indeed, he hadn’t seen the magician during his glimpse of the uprising at the square and hadn’t even considered that he might have come to Vedun, especially inasmuch as Klann himself hadn’t. He mentally cursed the slip. It wouldn’t do to link himself with Klann’s army in these people’s minds. He had a creeping feeling that he was on the verge of alienating the Gundersens’ tenuous acceptance of him. But the mention of Mord intrigued him. He fought back the tautness working into his facial muscles.

“His reputation precedes him,” Gonji covered. “And the soldiers at the inn—they....”

“Ah, of course, they spoke of him. All the people must be whispering about him by now.” And for the benefit of all, Garth recounted the sorcerer’s dramatic appearance, his threatening words, and the icy conflict between Mord and Tralayn. So discreetly did he choose his words, so adroitly did he structure his retelling of the episode, that only by the merest trembling of his lips did Garth mark the juncture at which he omitted the business of the mysterious key.

“Mmmm.” The samurai waxed pensive at the conclusion of Garth’s story. “Not good. Not good for you people at all. Tell me—does your Baron Rorka have any allies who might come to his aid? Has he Hapsburg ties?”

A look passed between Garth and Lorenz.

“His family is Magyar,” Strom observed tentatively. Then, more sure of himself, moving closer to the group: “
Ja,
that’s right—Magyars! They’ll come and help us. True, Lorenz? Am I right?”

“Not precisely, little brother,” Lorenz replied, his tone patronizing. Then, to Gonji: “That’s...just the sort of information Klann would be interested in,
nicht wahr
? Isn’t it?”

Gonji laughed. “
Ja
. And
nein
, once again, I’m
not
a spy from Klann’s camp. And let’s leave it at that,
neh
? Besides,” he continued, a bit irked, “there’d be more subtle means of obtaining that kind of intelligence, don’t you think?”

Lorenz raised a finger and an eyebrow in unison in a gesture of concession.