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

by Rypel, T. C.

  “Keep fighting, Vedun!” the guild leader cried. “Fight the invaders until not one of them is left alive! Their king is dead!” A Llorm footman slapped him sharply across the face. He was brought to the ominous black barouche in which Mord sat with arms folded. Even in his fury and resignation to death, Phlegor paled to see the giant Tumo, seated in the fountain laving his wounds, his long red tongue running over blubbery lips as a low rumbling growl evinced his pain. Mercenaries bandaged Tumo’s wounds as he glared at Phlegor.

  “So, you think King Klann is dead, do you?” Mord said. “Since you don’t believe in the Invincible, you shall have to see him for yourself. First you may enjoy witnessing the fate of your brave followers.” The sorcerer pointed to where soldiers dealt with the arrested rebels all over the square. Some had been hanged and shot; others beaten; still more huddled together somberly to await the punishment for their crimes. So far, seventy citizens were known to be dead, along with twenty-six troops from the occupation force. No one could even guess how many more were injured.

  “Bring him, when you’re finished with him,” Mord told Julian, “along with the witch.” He indicated Tralayn, who stood nearby in shackles, head held up proudly, her flashing jade eyes fixed on Mord accusingly. Julian nodded, and Mord rode off in the coach under mercenary escort, his monstrous familiars following. Tumo carried his pot helmet in one hand, the now splintered truncheon in the other. He lurched behind the barouche, apelike, while the wyvern flapped down from the north, aiming a last keening cry at Vedun.

  “Where is the one called Gonji?” Julian asked Phlegor, walking around him arrogantly, saber in hand.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Phlegor grated.

  “You ought to care—he sold you out.” Julian leered at him, bringing his face close to the guildsman’s. “He’s the one who told me you were the leader of this...abortive action.”

  Phlegor hawked and spat, catching himself short of directing the shot at Julian. “Don’t speak to me of that yellow monkey-man. All he ever did was talk. He’s probably running halfway to Vienna by now with the city’s money.”

  Julian thought about the man’s words. He felt sure Gonji was still in the city somewhere but was fairly convinced that he wasn’t thought of fondly in Vedun any longer. No backbone for a real fight.... Thirty against three was his kind of odds. Julian’s first assessment of the barbarian had been correct: he was merely a self-serving rogue who made a living playing both sides against each other.

  Phlegor and Tralayn were led away in irons to the castle. Julian passed along his order that Gonji be found and brought to him alive: “Shoot him, if need be. But bring him to me with life left in him. I want the privilege of bleeding him dry.”

  And as Phlegor disappeared, under guard, through the postern gatehouse, Boris Kamarovsky moved out from the shadows and into the open, unbothered by the soldiers—for it was he who had revealed where they would find the guild leader hiding.

  One less troublemaker, he thought. And next the filthy barbarian.... A smug smile curled his lips.

  * * * *

  “Hang him,” Julian ordered calmly, “on the cross he loves so much.”

  So the great cross at the square in the shadow of the chapel’s comforting spire became a gibbet on which Council Elder Flavio last beheld his beloved Vedun, now the shattered relic of the dreams and work of a lifetime. He gave no complaint but only offered up a last prayer for peace and placed his neck in the noose, almost with relief to be departing so troubled a world.

  The shouting, rock-throwing mob’s action was brief. Little harm resulted, as Captain Sianno and the Llorm dragoon company that took charge exercised great effort to contain them with a minimum of violence. At the last the veteran captain looked on the body of the kindly Elder and realized with a great ache in his heart that the final bastion of peaceful coexistence had been breached.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When life has taken a lamentable turn and the dawning promise of a new day’s rising shifts to imminent threat, one’s entire being rushes to his defense. Thus it was that, deep in the night, Gonji’s sleep parted in successive curtains, each only gently revealing a vague new shape of guilt, or despair, or dread....

  “...it seems quiet now....”

  The headache manifested itself, so that he clamped his eyes shut tighter, grimacing at the pounding in the back of his head and neck. Certain foul odors began to penetrate the screen of sleep....

  “...no, milady, he won’t lose the leg....”

  Who won’t lose the leg? What leg are we talking about? Kami, what the devil happened to me today...yesterday?

  “Look—he’s coming around.”

  Shuffling.

  “Gonji—” Wilf’s voice.

  With a groan the samurai rolled into an upright position on the cot, hands on knees, wincing back the pain. He breathed deeply and stretched, then blinked awake.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, looking around the small damp room, framing the several people there in turn. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Milorad’s cellar,” Wilf answered. “We had to hide you here.”

  “You’re to be arrested,” Gerhard clarified.

  Gonji stood up, bemused by it all, steadying himself against a wave of dizziness. “What? Wait a—” Then he saw Michael lying on the cot across the cellar, his leg thickly bandaged. Lydia sat beside him, weeping softly. He seemed in pain. Dr. Verrico rose from his side, casting a critical eye Gonji’s way.

  “That’s all I can do for now,” the surgeon said. “He won’t be walking with that cocky Italian strut for some time, I dare say—if at all.” He peered at Gonji. “Now I must go. I’ve already neglected many others who need me more.” The doctor collected his things and climbed the stairs wearily.

  Gonji blinked away the muzziness, his eyes focusing on a somber Garth Gundersen.

  “What’s going on, Garth?” Gonji asked, picking up and sashing his swords.

  “Gonji...,” the burly smith began in his childlike voice, “there’s been a revolt. A terrible mistake—”

  “A revolt? On whose order? Why wasn’t I alerted?” But the taunting voice in the back of his mind, coupled with the sudden downcast looks all around, answered his last question with shame-filled certainty.

  “What matter who began it?” Garth replied. “It’s over. Crushed. Mord came with his beasts—”

  “Here in the city?” Gonji grated, scowling.

  “Ja. I’m afraid there were...many casualties. Hundreds, maybe. No one is sure yet.”

  “Tell him the worst, Garth,” Lydia said with hostile trembling, her eyes on her feverish husband as she mopped his brow.

  “Tralayn’s been arrested...taken to the castle. And Phlegor.” But even these words sounded evasive.

  “He started it, they say,” Wilf added. He seemed as bemused as Gonji.

  Gonji’s eyes narrowed, suddenly seeing nothing in the room. “And the bushi?”

  “Forget your bushi,” Lydia spat. “They’re probably all slaughtered by—”

  Roric cut her off. “I was there, Gonji. I don’t think many became involved. Mostly craftsmen—it was all over...so fast....”

  “Spirits of my fathers,” Gonji breathed, the terrible apprehension of having done something dreadful coming to fruition, “all while I lay in a stupor—”

  “To hell with your self-pity,” Lydia shouted. “Tell him the worst, Garth. Tell him how well he discharged his famous duty.” She crumpled into sobbing despair, her face buried in Michael’s chest.

  Gonji felt sick again. “Garth—? What is she saying?”

  They looked at one another, all fearing to speak.

  Wilf inhaled a deep breath. “Flavio’s been hanged, Gonji. At the square, on the big crucifix.” His eyes bulged as he watched the sensei swoon.

  Gonji’s mouth gaped as he fell slowly back onto the cot, head hammering. His face twisted, his inscrutable dark eyes mirroring a terror none of them had ever seen
before. Running a hand through his hair, the samurai began to breathe in short gasps. “Iye,” he said, shaking his head, “it cannot be....”

  For a time no one spoke. Then Lydia raised herself from beside her husband’s cot. Michael’s breathing was labored.

  “I’m going upstairs,” she announced. “Does anyone need anything?” No response. “I’ll bring water and a little food....” She paused halfway up the stairs. “All the male swaggering and fight talk of the past month have come to this—death and horror.”

  A dreadful silence fell for a space after she ascended into the house, and then Gonji looked up. There was a calm on his countenance now that seemed somehow more ominous than the frown he wore in battle.

  “Wilfred-san, get me writing materials.”

  Wilf complied at once, the others espying him curiously.

  “What are you...going to do?” Gerhard asked from the corner where he sat, curled up and despondent. But Gonji said nothing in reply, watching Lydia descend with a tray.

  Finding a ewer and basin at hand, the samurai wordlessly washed his upper body and dried with solemnity. Then he took the paper and quill from Wilf with a grateful bow and gave the young smith his soiled tunic. Cleansed and shirtless, he began to inscribe Japanese ideograms on the paper. They all watched him with silent expectation, even Lydia. Michael, too, was conscious now, absorbing the apprehension in the gloomy cellar.

  At length Gonji finished in the heavy, breathless atmosphere of the cellar.

  “Wilfred-san, see that Paille gets this, dozo.”

  “What is it?”

  “My death poem. He will understand. I wish it inscribed on my grave, and I’m to be buried with the Sagami.”

  Shock gripped them. Gerhard rose slowly from the floor.

  “Are you going out there?” Lydia asked, not without concern. “Giving yourself up?”

  He smiled without humor. “Iye, that is not my way.” Then he drew a mat to the center of the floor and laid the Sagami on it, scabbarded. He sat in the lotus position, the ko-dachi, his short sword, carefully set on the mat before him, meditating.

  “Oh, my God,” Garth whispered.

  Lydia looked from one to the other of them, but none would meet her gaze. “What’s he going to do?” she spoke with widening eyes. “Merciful Mother, what does this mean?”

  Gonji at length pulled himself into a kneeling position. “Wilfred-san, I will need your assistance.”

  Wilf gulped and looked at his father.

  “Wilfred, I forbid it!” the smith cried.

  “Oh, dear God—no!” Lydia screamed. “Are you mad?”

  Ignoring her outcry, Gonji spoke in a ritual tone: “For failing in my duty to my Master and the city, for numerous failures in upholding the code of bushido, by which I live, I offer my life in seppuku—”

  “Are you crazy?” Lydia persisted. “You—you—here, in Milorad’s house? This is barbaric savagery!”

  “Here it must be,” Gonji replied calmly. “If I could perform it at the square beneath my Master’s body, I would. But, gomen nasai—so sorry—I would never get that far. Please do not deny me this final dignity in my wayward life. Wilfred?” he appealed to the hesitant smith. “Are you my best friend among the bushi?”

  “J-ja,” Wilf responded shakily, moving forward.

  “I will not let you do this,” Garth growled, imposing himself between them. But he seemed uncertain, and Wilf slowly edged around him, looking at Gonji alone.

  “Then someone else must assist me,” Gonji said. “Who is loyal to me? Take the sword from Wilfred. Stand behind me. Should I cry out, or fail to complete the cut, then you must strike my head off immediately. Do you understand? Who will honorably assist me?”

  “Jesu Christi,” someone prayed.

  “Gonji, you can’t ask this of any of us,” Roric advanced.

  The samurai withdrew the seppuku sword from its sheath and gripped it in both hands, the point angled at his left lower abdomen for the plunge and the subsequent cut, upward and across, which would spill his bowels in the time-honored manner of the ritual suicide.

  “No!” Lydia shrieked, her cry drawing Anna Vargo halfway down the stairs. Milorad’s wife began to shake at the vision in her cellar, her face set in abject horror.

  Gonji saw Wilf, bearing Spine-cleaver, in his peripheral vision. The samurai’s eyes closed languidly.

  “Stand behind me, Wilfred-san,” Gonji ordered.

  Then Garth grabbed his son, holding him back. They began to struggle. “Gonji, I’ll never permit this!” Garth roared as they wrestled. The smith twisted his son to the floor. Wilf struck his head on the edge of a cot and, enraged, surged up and slammed a fist against the side of his father’s head. Garth drew away from him at once, and Wilf, seeing what he had done, sucked in a breath, slumping back against the cot.

  Garth lifted himself from the floor, glaring at his apprentice son. For the first time in his life, Wilf saw loathing in his father’s expression. It frightened him in a way he had never felt before. Wilf lay back, unmoving.

  “Es tut mir leid, Papa,” Wilf offered in quaking apology, eyes shining.

  “Shut up, you young fool,” Garth replied spitefully. “How did it feel to strike your father?” He turned his angry gaze on Gonji. “Why don’t you just leave us? It’s finished, all this madness about peace-loving people fighting to the death over—over arrogant principle. I once fought because I believed it would lead to dreams fulfilled, and it ruined my life. Now I’ve given myself over to helping train frightened men to be fodder for violence again, and what has it brought me? My son raises his hand against me—my other two sons I haven’t seen all night. They’re probably dead. And how many other fathers are grieving for lost sons this day?

  “You’ve never truly understood us. Just tried to make the city over into your strange vision of what it should be. You can’t change the world to make it your...lost Land of the Gods. Why don’t you go back to it...instead....” He turned away, seeming to regret the words, rubbing his face in a nervous effort at calming himself.

  Lydia moved past him. “Perhaps it’s best,” she said gently, “that you leave us now. It...isn’t necessary to—to take your own life, to show us how deep is your shame. We do appreciate it, and we understand. You needn’t feel guilty—” She stopped when she saw the disgust that caused Gonji’s lips to quiver. He rose with clenched teeth.

  “You understand how I feel?” he said with barely controlled rage. “You know nothing of how I feel. None of you. You won’t even allow me the dignity of finishing my miserable life in the way I’ve been taught from birth. Have I ever reviled your ways? your beliefs? Yet you deny me the peace I seek. You demand that I continue living with this intolerable shame—”

  But he broke off, sensing the futility and unfairness of trying to make them understand. A fleeting thought came, something spoken by the mad artist-poet. Something about the mitigating of cultural responsibility when one moved amidst a strange population. He seized upon it, dearly hoping that his ancestors would allow for such adaptive compromise....

  Externally, Gonji was soon composed. But now, in the face of denied honor, what was he to do? There was only one thing: He must leave, as he had been asked. Only Wilf would meet his glance among those in the cellar, and the young smith’s actions betrayed his emotional trauma, his grave misgivings over what had just happened and, perhaps worse, over what was about to happen. For Gonji’s manner was now subtly different. For the first time in nearly a month, he walked among them as a stranger.

  Gonji bowed solemnly to the group. Garth muttered a half-heard apology, then grasped him by the shoulders as if he would embrace him, but Gonji’s icy exterior put him off. Garth stepped back and bowed uneasily. From the cot, Michael offered a weak salute. Gonji shambled up the stairs, all of them following in gloomy procession, save for Lydia, who remained with her wounded husband.

  Paille had been sleeping in a chair by the front door. The commotion caused him to sta
rt, wild-eyed. He raised his dagger in bleary threat. “Qui va la? Who goes there?” he burst at them but then settled back at once, groaning with his hangover.

  “A fine sentinel,” Gerhard grumbled at him.

  Anna fluttered about them, relieved, offering the light meal she had prepared—which Gonji surprised himself by accepting gratefully. But he felt famished and might well need the nourishment for what came next. He fended off their endeavors at conversation with monosyllabic replies. Milorad was absent, having gone out to aid with the sorting of the wounded and the dead, the assessment of the night’s carnage. About the time the meal was done, Helena unexpectedly arrived with a bundle under her arm: Someone had sent her to fetch Gonji’s kimono and the Italian riding boots he had bought, retrieved now from the Gundersens’ home. Her eyes began to well with concern to see Gonji glum and taciturn, still bedraggled from his ordeal, some intuition conveying to her his inner torment.

  “She was here almost all night,” Anna whispered to Gonji. “Helena—such a chance, you took....” She ignored the girl’s inability to hear, as she always did, guiding her to a seat at the table and taking the bundle from her. Gonji nodded to her, his steely gaze mellowing ever so slightly.

  “You’re not really going,” Wilf said, desperately hoping for reassurance.

  “I must,” Gonji replied. “What time is it?”

  “Four bells of morning was the last I heard, I think,” Roric responded.

  “I’ll want to see the body of my Master before I go down and turn the shambles of the militia over to Rorka.”

  “You can’t go out there,” Garth said in mild caution, “the chapel area is like a beehive.”

  “I must,” Gonji said again. “If they’re picking up the dead, then there will be many citizens about, too. I’ll mingle with them, if only briefly....”

  Gonji washed his hands and face again and donned his kimono, sashing his daisho ominously.

  “You’re going out there to die, aren’t you?” Wilf said, low and ominous, an edge of hostility in his voice. “You’re going to take as many of them with you as you can, and then you’re going to die with a big show of courage—a fat lot of good that’s going to do anyone! The soldiers will shoot you to pieces and then spit on your corpse, and what will you have left behind?”