Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two

by Rypel, T. C.

  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!

  She folded her hands in her lap, drew in her soft red lips, and stared at the ground a second. “Good,” she said simply, a trace of uncommon nervousness in her voice. “You deserve it as much as anyone—more.”

  What’s on your mind, lady?

  “Domo arigato, signora, you flatter me too much. I do only my duty.”

  “Oh no—I—we—” she stammered, then looked at the flagstones again, arranging her skirts self-consciously. Gonji was beginning to enjoy her rare discomfiture, puzzled though he was.

  “I think you’ve made a conquest.”

  Her simple statement struck like a hammer blow. His heart was pounding now, and his ears felt hot.

  “Ahh, so desu ka? Is that so? What do you mean?” The words had come out in a breathy whisper that he regretted.

  “Helena—”

  Oh.

  “—she’s...quite taken with you, Gonji. I—I only hope you understand, she’s...she’s just a child...you see, and—”

  “And oriental brigands are well-known for their lusts,” he growled low between gritted teeth, “for their intemperate—”

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed, rising and hurrying off.

  By all the Seven Devils.... Gonji felt like a spitted calf. He downed his wine in a single gulp. Careful, Gonji-san. Glancing around him, he saw that only Jiri and Greta had taken note of Lydia’s hasty departure. They looked at each other curiously and soon also took their leave. Now only Wilf and the girl remained.

  You can certainly clear away a crowd, samurai....

  He lurched to his feet, having had enough of this night. He took up his swords, a bit unsteady. Got to clear my head....

  “Vive le samurai!”

  Paille trooped up behind him, a young woman in tow, and called for a wine cask. He clapped Gonji on the shoulder, already quite drunk.

  “Sit, mon frère! I’ve been looking for you.” Paille pushed the girl down onto the bench next to Gonji and spoke behind his hand. “Remember the nubile Torok daughters?” He winked with some effort and pointed down unsubtly. The girl looked up at Gonji and smirked coyly.

  Of course, he thought, the foster’s daughters. The girl with Wilf was her sister.

  Paille annoyingly slapped him on the back again.

  “My friend the poet manqué,” Gonji slurred in the artist’s beloved French. “And what can I do for you?”

  “Manqué?” Paille shouted. “Why—Your diction is terrible, monsieur! Use langue d’oc or langue d’oil—don’t mix dialects! Where are those wine stewards?” He stumbled off in search of them, bumping into one and nearly knocking him down without noticing who it was, then kept going, grumbling all the while. The steward came and filled two goblets.

  “What was that all about?” the girl asked, smiling. “You do speak German, don’t you, Gonji?”

  “Ja—nothing much. Your friend has quite a temper,” he replied, sipping, his eyeballs beginning to sting.

  “Ja...and the hands of an artist.”

  Gonji did a double-take, wincing, then raising his eyebrows as he looked at her. He wasn’t sure what she had meant, nor for that matter, whether it was even she who had said what he thought he had just heard.

  She laughed. “You can call me Jana. My full name is a bore, my dear mother’s idea.”

  Gonji smiled and nodded, his mood shifting again. She was very pretty, and the wine was very good.

  “My sister’s trying to pry Wilf away from Genya again.” She shook her head knowingly. “It will never happen. Genya’s a sorceress.”

  “I’ve seen that for myself. She’s quite a woman,” he added, grinning crookedly. Then he was presently appalled at his pride and familiarity in the silly statement. He was playing at Intimate Acquaintance with the Fashionable Youth—a game he hadn’t played in years. He rubbed his face and blew out breath. Inhaled deeply.

  Lorenz Gundersen came up to the other Torok girl and bowed elegantly. The musicians had begun a stately dance much favored in the French courts those days.

  “I do believe I’m going to purloin your woman, brother Wilfred,” Gonji heard him say.

  The girl went along reluctantly, and Wilf grunted something at his brother, but Gonji had seen none of it. He was staring at Lydia again as she danced with Michael.

  “Nein,” Jana said curtly, sipping.

  “Eh?”

  “She’s not for you. Not for anyone but her husband.” She stared into her cup as she spoke.

  “It shows?” Gonji asked rather painfully, knowing he’d drunk too much.

  “Ja.”

  Paille clumped back to the table, carrying three goblets of wine. The two he set before Gonji and Jana had been splattered about so much that they were practically empty.

  “Ah, finally found them,” Paille declared.

  Gonji rose to leave, sashing his swords, weaving just a bit. “I’ll be turning in, I think.”

  “But you haven’t finished your wine!”

  Gonji looked down into the goblet the artist had brought. About a thumb’s worth of wine remained. He drained it off.

  “Merci,” he said, “and sayonara.” He bowed to them and stalked off, his mind a mulch
of confused thoughts, anger and frustration stirring them to a boil. That was a bad sign after drinking, a clear one that he’d passed his reasonable limit. A samurai always knew his limit with drink, and that limit was always tightened when the mood it engendered was a dark one.

  Too bad Paille had returned. He had begun to entertain an idea or two about the Torok girl. He snickered to himself mirthlessly as he untethered Tora in front of the Ministry and mounted, dimly aware that he was courting a confrontation with Julian’s minions if he was caught riding alone.

  Then two sharp claps attracted him to a shadowed doorway on the west side of the Ministry building. Helena stood there alone, her hands darting to her mouth to see how her bold gesture had startled him. Half in deep night shadow, the hood of her cloak billowing about her lustrous black hair, she looked ethereal, radiant, an apparition.

  “What are you doing out here alone? Where’s your mother?”

  He had momentarily forgotten that she could not hear his words of concern. He smiled and motioned her to come closer. Her hands dropped from her face, revealing her own undisguised smile of affection. She seemed breathless as she approached Tora, her large eyes filled with longing, with a deep defenselessness that bared her soul.

  Gonji’s lower jaw worked nervously. Something wild and defiant stirred inside him. He tried to inquire after her mother, using halting signs that suggested her broad girth and matronly bosom. Helena laughed impishly once she understood and taught him her sign for “mother,” indicating that Sophia had gone home to bed, where, apparently, Helena was also presumed to be. She appended a gesture that meant she was either in trouble or being very bad—perhaps both.

  The samurai gazed about them, saw no one watching. The flambeaux across the street threw the festival activities into stark illumination, but this side was shrouded in gloom. He reached down a hand and drew her up onto the saddle before him. Their eyes met in a moment of deep longing, their breaths mingling, Gonji noting a trace of wine on hers. He wrapped his arms around her and took up the reins, spurring Tora into a walk. The charger snorted his disapproval of the increased burden but clopped off at the easy gait.

  Gonji turned into a side lane that wended south toward the stables. The high rear walls of stone buildings dwarfed them on one side; a crumbling wall, raised in antiquity, on the other. Tora’s hoofbeats resounded, halting in a confused clatter about halfway through the dark tunnel.

  Gonji pulled her close to him, too hungrily at first, and in modesty she stiffened slightly and drew away. But his caress became more gentle, even as his insistence increased, and she yielded at last with a desire that matched his own. Her lips moistened, parted. They kissed desperately, yearningly, drawing from each other, giving of themselves. Tora nickered and tossed his head at the heat of the unfamiliar emotion. There was warmth and sweetness in the dreamlike air they wrought of their commingled passion.

  At length they broke the embrace, and Gonji signed his shame to have so disadvantaged her with a hand over his heart and his head bowed. But she perhaps perceived the gesture to mean something else, and with her fingertips she raised his chin. He saw the liquid gleam of acquiescence, innocent surrender in her eloquent eyes, and he squeezed her hand firmly and swallowed back the voices of wisdom and caution that rose to his throat.

  They clopped out of the lane, rode past the stables and wagonage, continued westward to the gate. Llorm bowmen spotted them coming from the ramparts, slowed in their paces and regarded the samurai warily. Two mercenaries stationed at the gate snapped out of their boredom at their approach, seemed about to question them, but moved out of the way grudgingly to see Gonji’s narrow-eyed challenge. When they had passed out of the city and onto the road upon which he had first entered Vedun, Gonji heard them sputtering. They hadn’t even snickered suggestively to see him with the girl, and when the reason presently struck him, he laughed inwardly at their ironic confounding: They were perhaps under orders to convey to him Julian’s displeasure, if they could catch him alone. And now, though his were the only ears that could have heard, Helena’s presence had thwarted them.

  Before they reached the first sentry outpost, Gonji turned them north, off the road and onto a trail into the foothills. Helena made no inquiry but only leaned back against him and sighed. They dismounted in the same glade where he and Wilf had practiced the sword many days ago. Then, light-headed and exhilarated by her presence, he set her down on the trunk of a downed tree and began to speak to her in Japanese, gesticulating broadly like a stage player to enhance his meaning. And he told her the story of a samurai’s life, a life filled with pain and sorrow, but also with happiness and love of life in its strengths and frailties and impermanence.

  It seemed that Gonji and Helena shared an enchanted nonverbal lingua franca, for the woman was amazingly attuned to the turnings of his tale, smiling at the indiscretions of a wayward young half-breed; tensing over a warrior’s moments of life-suspending peril; sensitively, empathically shedding large rolling tears when the nostalgic tang glistened in Gonji’s own eyes.

  And at the end, when the tale was done, whether by the mood, the wine, or Helena’s own intoxicating presence, the samurai stood over her, drew her up and against him in a firm embrace. They kissed hard and longingly, reeling gently in their tracks so that they tipped almost off balance at the last and broke the embrace to stave a fall, laughing and clutching each other’s arms, locking their fervent gazes as if they feared the enchantment would end should they look away.

  Then they were reclining against the trunk, their passions inflamed anew, more urgent now as they mingled their touch with the luxuriant caress of the soft grass, the cloying scents of wildflowers and pine-tinged mountain breeze. They probed each other intimately, desperately, breaths quickening and hearts racing. Soon the moment of ultimate decision was reached. They broke the embrace by mutual consent, the stars above the glade twinkling their apprehension. Helena lay with a hand on Gonji’s bare chest, her huge trusting eyes soft and moist, inviting.

  She broke the eye contact and made a sign over her heart that could only mean a pledge of her love. Meeting his eyes again, she repeated the sign, more surely this time. And over the pang of guilt he felt, responding to his reckless desire, he deceived her, offering the same gesture in reply.

  They lay back on Gonji’s kimono, commingling their desires and their flesh, and for a time all else was subordinate to ecstasy.

  * * * *

  Helena lay asleep in the crook of Gonji’s left arm, the sonority of her even breathing at his ear. A tingling mountain breeze soughed through the stillness of the glade. His other arm supporting his head, the samurai stared at the sky. He was mildly disquieted, now that the surfeit of their lovemaking had passed. The elements had withdrawn their translucent approval; the night was deep and hard-edged. Reality came to him, stern and implacable.

  The aftermath was bittersweet. Gonji sadly realized that he didn’t love this woman, regretted his lie to the contrary. There would be, he knew, a price to pay for his deceit. He couldn’t fathom the guilt he felt. He resented it. There should have been no reason for it. They had simply satisfied a natural need, both of them. But it was never that simple among these Christian people. His spirit grew restive.

  He was confused by his strange lot: having a woman he didn’t want, wanting a woman he couldn’t have.... But one positive thought did occur—the spell of Reiko had been broken. Reiko. His first love, the woman he could never have, pledged to kill him despite their one-time mutual love. For the first time a woman he had been with hadn’t assumed the dream-face of Reiko while in his embrace.

  Helena’s face shone with childlike innocence as she slept.

  Plucked the little lotus....

  He sighed restlessly. Something dug into his side. Feeling under him, he found the lump in the sewn-in kimono pocket. Curious, he fumbled out two objects: the crucifix of the late Hawkes, the mercenary who had befriended him while they rode with the 3rd Free Company; and the folded par
chment containing the foul “faith chant” of Mord. Gooseflesh erupted on his arms when he beheld the paper—the crucifix had seared its shape cleanly through its folds.

  Throwing both objects onto the ground, he lay Helena down gently and dressed. From Tora’s saddle he obtained a blanket with which he covered the girl and flint and tinder he used to build a fire. When the blaze was strong, he unfolded the hated parchment and lay it on the fire.

  It refused to burn.

  He poked it with a stick, turned it, plucked it out and replaced it—It seemed impervious to the cleansing flames.

  Then on an impulse he dropped the crucifix of his dead friend onto the magically-endowed parchment. A loud whuff! and an orange burst of flame that nearly singed his hair—

  Both objects instantly disintegrated into the kindling. And Gonji was left to ponder the eerie event’s portent.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A traveling oblate arrived in Vedun the next day, and the city leaders prevailed upon him to stay for a time and minister to their spiritual needs in the absence of the visitants from Holy Word Monastery. By now the fate of the monks was suspected by all but the very young, and there was no more discussion of it among the grim populace. They took confession and communion gratefully at the chapel, Mass being celebrated there for the first time in a month, and those needing the last sacrament were attended by the itinerant priest.

  When Gonji saw the sincerity of their faith and the depth of their spiritual need, he recognized the centrality of worship as the rallying point for the vast majority of the militia. Thus, to reconcile their spirituality with the militant thinking they would need to oust the invaders from Vedun, and to indicate his respect for their mode of worship, he gave them the following prayer of his own composition:

  “From all manner of wretched death and savage wound, Lord, protect me; but most of all suffer me not the death of a coward.”

  They recited the prayer thereafter at the beginning and end of each training session, though there were those who cared little for its content and some who would not say it at all.