Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (8 page)

On Julian’s command the cretin giant turned and waddled away toward the drum tower, issuing a final warning bark to the prostrate soldier.

“Pathetic creature,” Flavio said as they clopped to the middle bailey gatehouse.

“Indeed so,” Milorad agreed.

“I hope that’s not the king’s brother,” Gonji jested, leaning toward them. But no one had found it amusing, save Garth, who
tsked
and cast him a sidelong glance. Gonji shrugged and looked once more after the departing giant, wondering what other marvels, strange and sinister, this day might unveil.

The gatehouse was a heavily guarded checkpoint at the entrance to a long tunnel cut completely through the central keep’s lower level. Its flanking towers were enormous defensive outworks of the middle bailey wall, which rose like a mighty curtain of stone twice the height of the outer wall and rendering the outer ward a broad killing ground for any besieging party that might breech the outermost obstacles. The towers were cut through with arrow loops and croslets. Archers manning these and walking the ramparts above peered down lazily. At the southeast drum tower far down the wall, Gonji could make out the barrel of a bombard or mortar.

Gatehouse guards saluted the captains and admitted the party. Gonji had just passed through when he was halted by a fierce command at his left hand. He pulled up.

“Remove your weapons and leave them here.”

The Llorm guard had spoken in German. His white-knuckled fist gripped the hilt of his sheathed broadsword. Hot eyes glared up at Gonji from under a burgonet helm.

“I’m the Council Elder’s bodyguard,” Gonji replied evenly. “My weapons go where I go.”

“You heard the commander of the guard!”

A pole-arm probed dangerously close to Gonji’s ribs.

Gonji turned slowly to face the soldier on his right. His eyes narrowed menacingly. The Llorm lancer was an ugly man whose bulbous nose looked as if elven troops had late used it as a training prop.

“Careful with that pike, fig-nose,” Gonji said.

Flavio, sensing imminent trouble, began to intercede. Gonji and the pikeman glared at each other. The samurai, remembering his promise to Flavio, felt the dull pang of helpless capitulation rising. But Captain Kel’Tekeli dismounted and strode back to the hold-up.

After a brief explanation, he said to the guard, “I think we can trust the Elder’s bodyguard to behave himself, can’t we?”

Gonji bridled at the other’s patronizing tone but smiled thinly and nodded.

They continued through into the central ward, which was a frenzy of activity, last-minute preparations being attended to by scurrying servants and scullions. The ward was large enough for cavalry practice to be pursued simultaneously with archery and swordsmanship, and Gonji admiringly appraised the training facilities. Only a handful of troops, mostly Llorm, plied their weapons on the grounds now, and the samurai observed their techniques with great interest.

They dismounted, hostlers attending at once to their horses. Garth paused to speak with them awhile. Flavio approached Gonji, an admonishing set to his pursed lips.

“Remember your promise now—no trouble,” the Elder said affably, smiling and waving to anxious servants who rushed by in their duties.

“Not unless I’m provoked, of course.”

Flavio’s concern creased his brow. “Gonji, I would be more at ease if you told me you could extend the limits of your tolerance somewhat...at least for this important occasion.”

They walked across the ward, Milorad and Garth following.

Gonji sighed. “I
am
sometimes too easily provoked by effrontery, I suppose. And you
are
my master.” He smiled at the Elder. “As you would have it.”

“Good!” Flavio grinned and picked up his step toward the great hall across the ward. “Now let us meet with our new liege lord and find out precisely where we stand—hello, Frantisek!” He greeted a bubbling servant who nearly tripped over himself as he bobbed his head and walked backward with a heavy ewer.

Gonji was not surprised to find himself a popular attraction. Soldiers and civilians alike scanned him closely as he passed. He wondered what most fascinated them: his fighting reputation? Or had Julian spread the word so quickly that Gonji had become his secret operative?

He took careful note of the Llorm regulars and their people. The Akryllonian nationals were a dark, pale folk who looked drawn, worn by their nomadic life. Lean and hungry. Desperate. Such qualities translated into ferociousness in battle, he well knew. The children, especially, seemed a pathetic lot; scrawny and hollow-eyed, weak and sickly. But the men, the Llorm regulars, were hardy enough, and if their will to live, to preserve their people and ease the burden of their families, ran deep enough, they’d not be leaving the province after the winter. Not this winter, nor many winters hence.

It was all absurd. Could this really be the remnant of some lost island kingdom and not simply the camp following of a bandit chieftain? Perhaps they’d have answers soon.

The delegates were led through the portals of the great hall and into a massive groin vault with egresses into three corridors. They turned left, armed guards before and behind them, passed noisy chambers and anterooms, and entered through a broad archway into the hall proper.

It was a cavernous place, richly appointed, alive with the chatter and laughter of soldiers and civilians, servants and animals. Dogs barked and begged, scurried underfoot, awaiting handouts to come. Roistering mercenaries bellowed and clanked their armament, called out ribald jokes; some, already drunk, grabbed at scampering, yelping servant girls.

Gonji sniffed distastefully. He had been expecting a more sedate and august display, something akin to courtly decorum. But this was the epitome of decadence, a scene freshly cut from the Judgment Day perdition paintings he had seen.

Oil lamps and cresset torches blazed in the hall. The only windows were tall, slender affairs set high up on the walls, which admitted a network of murky gray twilight swirling with smoke and dust motes. Halfway up the walls, running its course around them, a canopied gallery bulged out over the hall, supported by ornate ivory columns. Dozens of chamber doors gave egress from the gallery, and at one side sat a group of musicians. Lute and recorder, flute and cymbal valiantly strove against the babble and din.

Stately and heraldic arras hung about the walls, gazing down somberly on the wassail. The long oaken tables already were in disarray, the parquet floor a quagmire of mud and beverage spills. The banquet had yet to be served.

They were led to a solitary table set before the raised dais where several of Klann’s advisers had already assumed their places. The four were seated at the end before the dais, Flavio and Gonji facing Milorad and Garth. Several other places at their table were set but untenanted. Servants crisscrossed the room, darting about with pitchers and kegs in a failing effort to keep flagons and goblets full. The air reeked of mead and ale, wine and
kvas
. Some servants fairly tripped over each other in their effusive efforts to greet the smiling Flavio, Milorad, and Garth. One scullery maid knelt and kissed Flavio’s hand, pleading for him to secure her release.

They sat back and observed the orgiastic proceedings as their beverages were served, Gonji and Flavio selecting wine; Garth having an ale; and Milorad, mead. No one spoke for a time, each man content to observe, to ponder the promise of the night’s meeting, to seek a comfortable niche for himself in the surroundings.

Gonji saw that the adjacent tables were reserved for the Llorm’s women and children and decided that was good. He was beginning to take his ease in this magnificent structure of huge ashlar blocks and sturdy beams which massed beasts of burden might strain at in vain. He worked at a stoic detachment from the nods and chuckles cast in his direction by tactless soldiers. Their childish threat was distant and impotent; it couldn’t disturb his harmony. He even met Julian’s occasional haughty glances with calm, impassive stares of his own, breaking them off at his leisure.
Dignity will be mine tonight
, he thought with supreme self-satisfaction.

Then the Great Dane sidled up between Gonji and Flavio and began sniffing at the samurai’s swords.

“
Damn
you, mangy cur!” Gonji grated in his throat, shooing the animal away in not altogether dignified fashion. “Lift your leg on my swords and someone will be feasting on
your
carcass tonight!”

When his companions’ laughter had subsided, he reestablished his lost harmony and rubbed his reddening face. But he couldn’t help laughing himself and was pleased to see that he had lifted them from their timid sipping. Removing his
daisho
—his matched set of swords—from his
obi
, Gonji set them at his right side against the bench seat. He ran his hands under the slack left in the sash by their removal.

“Now I’ve got room,” he said, sniffing deeply with eyes closed at the tempting whiffs of meaty aroma seeping from the kitchens. “Looks like no monsters were invited tonight, anyway,” he added.

The others’ snickers subsided quickly, their memory of the cretin giant still poignant.

“Wonder who’s going to be seated at our table,” Gonji thought aloud. “Oh, Garth—did the hostlers tell you why you were invited?”

Garth shook his head glumly. “No, I don’t know.... It isn’t for smith work,” he added haltingly.

Tumo will be feasting tonight, too....
Gonji shook his head and cleared his throat, was about to say something pleasant when the shriek came from a nearby table of mercenaries.

“How dare you!” a woman shouted. “I’m a personal servant of the king!” She raised a silver serving tray over her head like a bludgeon.

The man who had given her offense raised his eyebrows and leaned back in surprise, his companions roaring their mirth.

“She’s a fiery one, eh?”

“Draw on her, Merwyn!”

The woman launched into a tirade, berating the soldier’s impropriety, shaking a petite fist in his face all the while. A Llorm regular finally rose from his table and interposed himself between them, dismissing the girl and bending low to admonish the drunken wastrel.

“There’s the hoyden,” Garth said sullenly.

Gonji looked to him questioningly.

“Wilfred’s Genya,” Flavio clarified.

“
Ah, so desu
—so that’s the lady fair!” Gonji said amusedly.

And then she was heading for their table, adjusting her hair and skirts primly as she pattered over with restored dignity. They all rose to greet her. She looked to be in her late teens, her short stature emphasizing a ripe figure. Her hair was curly, soft and dark, and it frolicked about her shoulders as she moved pertly, calling attention to a cherubic face and sparkling dark eyes. A set of baby-fat dimples framed full red lips that were formed in a tempting pucker. It should not have been surprising that she was much pursued by the young men of Vedun, for nature had fashioned her for allure. But it seemed to Gonji, as the men rose from their table to greet her, that her charm was not without guile and artifice.

“Oh, they’re such animals, these soldiers,” she said primly. Then she at once melted into wide-eyed innocence. “Oh, Papa Flavio, thank
God
you’re here! We’ve been simply dying inside, all of us, to know what’s become of Vedun.”

She bent and kissed his hand lightly, her own small white hand fluttering at her bodice modestly. “How are my parents?” She spoke to the Elder in his native Italian.

“They’re in good health,” Flavio replied, smiling benignly, “and they asked me to convey their love, as have all the servants’ families. My heart is heavy, though, for Lottie Kovacs. I’m afraid her father....”

“Yes, we’ve heard—oh, Blessed Mother, what a terrible, terrible thing! Lottie’s crushed, absolutely crushed. But at least Richard is here to comfort her. But
dear
Signore Flavio, you
will
try to gain us our freedom tonight, won’t you—?”

And Flavio offered his cautiously optimistic assurances that he would seek the hostages’ release. But almost before he had finished Genya had shifted her attention to Garth.

“Herr Gundersen, how is Wilfred? I miss him so—oh my!” Quickly dismissing her startled expression at Garth’s bruises, she stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and after a moment’s hesitation the burly smith self-consciously bent to oblige her.

“He’s fine,” Garth said. “Stubborn as always.” He averted his eyes from hers, rather rudely, it seemed to the others.

“
Bitte
, tell him to have a care. It’s so dreadful around here these days. The castle is full of dangers. The soldiers are everywhere. Monsters and giants roam the grounds freely. Have you seen them?” She was whispering with awe now.

The delegates all muttered their agreement. And then, before their voices had ceased to echo, Genya was speaking with Milorad, making a show of interest in his and Anna’s well being in the new social circumstances.