by T. C. Rypel
Jacques’ heart hammered in his breast. He began to think ragged-edged, panicky thoughts about who would care for Guy.
One of the gravediggers gasped and lurched backward. The townsfolk were afraid to approach the grave to see.
“Would someone sober care to explain this?” the captain asked peevishly.
At the bottom of the grave lay a large timber wolf. They’d switched corpses.
“It is simple, Captain,” Roman Farouche explained archly. “These misguided gentlemen have grown disenchanted with the administration of the province. In their hostility they’ve fashioned superstitious nonsense as a rallying point for their rebelliousness. Like as not, they got drunk one night and vented their spleen on this poor creature—which, by the way, is poaching in this province. This dying species is protected. Ah, well…” He shrugged as if assessing the work of delinquent children.
The captain wheeled his mount and led his escort away in an ill humor. The townsmen began to back away from the grave site. Moreau could feel the vindictive gazes of those who’d opposed this scheme. Even Wyatt and Darcy remounted slowly, despondently, seeing nothing left to gain by remaining here.
Moreau felt desperately alone.
“Magistrate—” Roman Farouche rode up beside him, his expression unfathomable.
“Oui?”
Roman sighed. “Why do people do such things? Look again.” He indicated the grave.
“Non.”
“I said look again.”
Moreau experienced a powerful thrust of psychic power that eroded his will. He turned and looked.
The rotting corpse of Rene Farouche now reposed where the wolf had been. Moreau’s hand went to his mouth to stifle an outcry. He glanced about. No one else seemed to have noticed. Instead, they looked from him to Roman questioningly.
When next he peered down, the wolf had again replaced the dead shape-shifter.
“Illusion, you see,” Roman said casually. “You must be careful of what you believe in.” He held out a hand, gesturing toward the road.
Moreau’s heart seized up for an instant. “Mon Dieu—you…bastard!”
He glared up at the thinly smiling Roman. For a second, Moreau had seen his dead wife—alive again and in the arms of Rene Farouche. Then the ghastly apparition had vanished.
“I would hold my temper in check if I were you, Moreau,” the fiend told him. “You’re in serious trouble as it is. You’ve either murdered the son of a great lord—but that’s silly, isn’t it? Non, we’ll call it the unlawful slaying of a wolf. One of my father’s private stock. But he’s in a generous mood, of late. You see, his prodigal son returneth—that’s an old biblical prophecy fulfilled, n’est-ce pas? At any rate, it’s happened. And he may spare you punishment beyond a stiff fine and a tax increase, if you’ll answer me truthfully one question—”
Moreau felt a vain hope, trusting now even in the word of a Farouche, if it meant escaping his looming fate.
“Oui, monsieur?”
“Tell me what you know about a woman named Claire Dejordy.”
Moreau’s lips quivered as he spoke in a low voice, relating the woman’s disappearance, telling a tale that was completely true…until a scant few days ago. And all the while he spoke, Moreau was forming a resolve born of fear.
Nothing mattered anymore. Not these people, not the town. Only the safety of his son.
* * * *
The Wunderknechten from the gravesite returned to Lamorisse to find the town in turmoil. Three Huguenots had been murdered during the day by unseen assassins. There’d been a reprisal. Two Catholics on their way to evening services were shot to death by pistol fire from a nearby alley. As usual, the garrison troops had seen nothing.
Moreau and his band brought the angry populace to order, then the magistrate called a meeting at Chabot’s inn. The auberge overflowed with a press of anxious citizens, dozens listening at the door and windows as Moreau tried to settle them by appealing to the toleration principles of the Wunderknechten without ever naming the forbidden movement.
A sudden cloudburst preceded the arrival of Serge Farouche and his terrifying retinue of surly mercenaries and obedient wolves. The latter creatures behaved like trained hunting dogs, heeling and assembling at Farouche’s spoken commands and curt gestures. The townsfolk gave them wide berth, clearing away from the front of the inn like an uncovered warren of rabbits.
The burly, bearded marshal dismounted along with two of his cutthroats. Bringing his wolves into an alert seated posture with a slap of his thigh, Serge cut a swath through the crowded inn with his piercing silvery eyes.
His resonant bass voice enjoined fearful silence, though it scarcely ever rose much above a whisper. His gaze fell on a table near the center of the floor, and the party seated thereat scrambled to clear it for him and his men.
“There’s been violence in Lamorisse,” he said slowly, like a father about to reluctantly punish wayward children. “Violence done to Huguenots. This is a Huguenot province, by the last decree of the Grand Seigneur…”
Wyatt Ault and Darcy Lavelle sat next to each other near the bar, staring at the floor.
“I forgot,” Darcy whispered. “It’s my turn to kill you again.” But he’d been heard by more than Wyatt.
“You have something to say?” Serge Farouche spoke without looking at Darcy; yet everyone in the auberge knew who was being addressed.
“Je suis fache—sorry, sir,” Darcy said. “I only said that you’ll no doubt discover the guilty parties.”
“Is that right?”
Moreau was overwhelmed by the tension in the inn. He feared for his friend but still was surprised to hear himself say, “I’m the magistrate here, sir. It seems the guilty parties have already been struck down in a vendetta.”
“Two for three, Magistrate?” Farouche smiled without humor. “You see, news reaches me wherever I might be in my jurisdiction. But two for three is not quite an eye for an eye, is it? You must trust in your leaders to deliver justice to—”
“If a third Catholic must suffer unjustly, then take me.”
Reynald Labossiere shambled toward him from the bar. Gabrielle Chabot whispered harshly behind him, but he paid her no heed. Serge Farouche raised a hand and pointed at him without looking.
“This can only be Monsieur…Labossiere. Turning yet another cheek. Come closer, Labossiere.”
Reynald swallowed and shuffled up to the table. Farouche grabbed his face in a huge hand and squeezed, gouging his cheeks and eyes. “You don’t have balls enough to murder anyone, Labossiere, but I like having you around. You’re a good example to these people—” He released his grip and crashed a backfist blow into Reynald’s nose, knocking him into a backward stumble.
“Stop it!” Gabrielle Chabot shrilled, catching up a bottle and hefting it menacingly. Her father grabbed her from behind.
Blood poured from Reynald’s nose. Serge Farouche rose from his seat with the slow-creeping portent of a black cloud enveloping the sun. He rotated his gaze till it riveted Gabrielle.
“Bring—her—here.”
Voices hissed. All through the inn, hands searched out pistol grips and blade hilts. Farouche and his men glanced around them, abruptly surprised to find themselves on the level of their subordinates now rather than lording over them.
Suddenly the wolves crowded at the door, emanating a chorus of growls. There was a long, hostile moment of stillness, full of the promise of imminent mayhem.
Then: “This town—Lamorisse,” Serge said. “It’s becoming bold. Your actions have been noted, and your lords even now consider your fate. If you’re looking for trouble, then look for Huns. There are Huns about. Highwaymen. I can smell them. You have my permission to kill them on sight, if it’s trouble you’re—”
There was a scre
am from outside. A man was stumbling about in a frenzy, clutching at his arm. He’d been bitten by a wolf.
“Someone must have stepped on one of my pets,” Serge said. Then he seemed to take note of the setting sun. There was more urgency to his movement as he walked his men through the parting crowd and remounted to ride off amidst pounding hooves and the howling of the wolves.
“Well, we’ve done it now,” someone fretted above the tense muttering.
“Well, I’m ready to have at these monsters,” another man stormed.
“Christ, Gaby, what’s wrong with you?” a woman called over to the concierge’s daughter, who ignored her to attend on Reynald with a linen cloth.
“What the hell did you do that for, Reynald? Are you crazy or just stupid?”
“Oh, leave him alone. We’ve one stout Christian spirit left among us anyway—”
“Nonsense—we’re free of the burden of self-flagellation. Christ suffered once for all—”
“Perhaps it’s a good thing,” a Catholic countered. “He’ll gain us all indulgences for Purgatory.”
“All right, stop it, everyone,” Jacques Moreau shouted. “We must be united in this business—Catholic and Huguenot alike. We are God’s children against an evil enemy. Reynald, are you fit enough?” Labossiere nodded into the blood-soaked rag as Gabrielle continued to chide him.
“Where’s that goddamn wife of yours? Probably riding with them—”
“Jacques, tell us what happened at the grave—”
“Did the field marshal come?”
But Moreau was searching out Henri Chabot, who was gesturing with reassurance as he cast his eyes up toward the rooms on the second floor.
* * * *
I can smell them…
Wilfred Gundersen and Claire Dejordy hid in a small storage room on the second floor of the Chabots’ inn during the unfolding of the events below. When Wilf had heard Farouche’s words, he’d experienced the eerie sensation of having been personally singled out. He’d gripped the hilt of Spine-cleaver, preparing for an attack that never came.
He exhaled a relieved breath now as the predatory band pounded away.
“Mon Dieu, I’m sorry we came here like this,” Claire whispered, clinging to Wilf’s arm for support. “Lamorisse has become an awful place. Worse than when I left. If only I knew what’s become of Simon. I know he came back. I’m so afraid for him.”
“All this will change,” Wilf said forcefully, nodding with an angry determination. For he’d seen what evil, rapacious powers could do to one’s homeland.
“What can we possibly do against them?” Claire asked forlornly.
Wilf’s jaw set with fierce pride. “I know what Gonji would do.”
* * * *
Young Guy Moreau heard Mme. Lavelle humming in the parlor as he watched the world go dark and the rain slant across the view the cracked-open shutter afforded him. He hoped his father would come home before night lay deep over the land. Mme. Lavelle was very nice to him, but he always preferred to sleep at home, near his pere, where he knew that nothing could frighten him.
Lightning flashed. The face that appeared at the bars beyond the shutter caused him to lose control of his bladder. But he didn’t scream. He just stared at those sharply pointed horns, at the wicked grin on that devil’s face.
The devil who had tried to get him at the bridge. The one from his nightmares.
“Do you know me, little garcon?” the satyr Belial whispered to the quaking child. “I know you do. Your papa did a very bad thing, and one day…soon…I’m going to get you for it.” The satyr emitted a laugh of hellish glee. The shutters slammed open. Guy staggered back with a shrill outcry.
But the satyr was gone.
Blanche Lavelle rushed into the bedchamber and closed the shutters against the rain that lashed in through the bars.
“Oh, my goodness, Guy! I’m so sorry. You’re going to get—Guy—” She hurried to the quaking boy’s side. “What is it?”
But the youth seemed not to notice her. Instead he just kept rapidly repeating the prayer his mother had taught him to chase away things that scared him in the night, looking for all the world as though he’d seen the Dark Deceiver himself:
“Heart of evil / Hie away / Choirs of angels / Thy power stay…”
CHAPTER NINE
“Jesus-Maria—the samurai himself!”
Anton the Gray Knight caught his breath and rushed into the stable to clasp Gonji’s hand warmly. Then, remembering the samurai custom, he drew back and bowed to Gonji, who replied in kind.
Gonji held up a staying hand. “I will speak with you at length about what’s become of me. But first—what is this business they say about Wilf and the others being off to France on some errand of violence? Speak German, bitte.”
“That’s about the whole of it,” Anton replied. “A young French woman came. Said she was Simon Sardonis’ lover. That he might need help against some usurpers of power there. Enemies of Simon, we gathered. It didn’t exactly wash with me, but—”
“Cholera,” Gonji breathed. “Wilf is mad. He has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.”
“That’s what Genya fears—uh, these are your sword-brothers?”
Gonji apologized and introduced Orozco, Buey, Leone, and Father Sebastio. Their mutual respect was instant, born of instinctual understanding that they had all accepted the most uncertain of destinies in throwing in with the ill-starred samurai.
“Hernando Salguero is with them?” Carlos Orozco asked, at length.
“Ja,” Anton agreed. “He often spoke of you two. Fond memories,” the knight added, smiling crookedly at Orozco and Buey before returning his complete attention to Gonji.
“What’s happened to Michael Benedetto?” Gonji was asking. “Galioto spoke strangely of him when we saw him on the road.”
Anton shook his head dismally. “Nothing but trouble here, friend samurai, ever since we arrived. And Michael seems more affected than most. He’s ill, for one thing. And his attitudes are twisted. I don’t know…” He held his hands palms up, then brightened. “But tell me how you’ve been! God, we’ve spoken of you so much. Wondered when you’d see fit to visit us—hell! What days those were in Vedun! God rest every blessed soul that fought and died there to free us from evil.”
“Hai. Tell me…do they still blame me for what happened there?” Gonji asked glumly.
“Of course not! It was you that helped us save ourselves from complete annihilation, for Christ’s sake. And we’ve heard you’ve added some mighty deeds since then, eh?”
“Not so mighty, maybe, but…arigato.” The samurai bowed.
“Well,” Anton responded, “then like the Italians say, Se non e vero, e molto ben trovato—if it’s not true, it’s a happy invention, eh?” He and Luigi Leone shared a laugh over the popular saying. Then: “Oh—perhaps you haven’t heard, but Jacob Neriah’s gone. Died in his sleep, God rest his Jew’s soul. And Milorad Vargo, almost the same time. His widow, Anna, still abides, sweet lady.”
“And…Helena?” Gonji inquired gingerly of the girl who’d fallen in love with him in Vedun.
“Gone away with her mother,” Anton said. “They didn’t stay here long. Six months or so, I’d say.”
No one who recalled that awkward romance from Vedun could eye Gonji squarely over its recall.
Not long after, Galioto, the dairy stockman from Vedun, arrived with Genya Gundersen. There was much ado amidst the animated introductions and Anton’s capsule reminiscences. Good cheer spread through the growing band in the stable near the Gundersen smithshop.
“We should have an impromptu feast, no?” Anton asked.
“Nein—just the opposite, my friend,” Gonji said. “The fewer who know we’re here, the better. We’re…on the run again, you see
.” His companions’ expressions remained fixed. He’d told them what to expect.
“Then you can make your stand here,” the perpetually excitable Galioto declared. “We’ll stand together. Just like in Vedun.”
“Nein. I’m afraid this is trouble I must deal with in my own way. I’ll be sailing for Dai Nihon soon. My homeland.”
“What about Wilfred?” Genya fretted, her brow darkening as she moved closer to confront the samurai. “You can’t leave him alone in France!”
“Hush, child,” Anton urged.
“Genya,” Galioto added, “not everybody knows where they’ve gone. Keep your voice down—please.” His dark eyes flickered intensely as he peered out to the street.
“Gonji?” Genya persisted. “Wilfred’s your friend. He risked his life for you before. He might die in that place. He believes he’s going there to help Simon and you. You can’t leave him there!”
Gonji folded his arms across his chest and sighed, staring into the dark recesses of the loft. “I’m afraid I must do…what I must. I’ll see that he is aided by the…Wunderknechten.”
Genya backed away from his steely gaze, aghast. She fled the stable in emotional turmoil. When the tension had settled in her wake, the conversation turned to news of the road. Kuma-san quietly glided up behind Gonji and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, eschewing Japanese dignity for European commiseration, sensing the samurai’s need.
* * *
“You weren’t able to keep your presence a secret for very long.”
Gonji felt the tingling of his spine that upset his harmony of spirit, his wa. He’d known the effect before in Lydia Benedetto’s presence. A benign smile enhanced her radiant beauty. He bowed shallowly to her and returned the smile. “It is good to see you well,” he said, forcing a casual serenity into the understatement. “And this must be…”
