Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (29 page)

As for Wilfred, there was no question that the young smith ached for a chance to assault the castle. His jump on most of the others in fencing skill, plus his earnest desire to learn the ways of
ken-jutsu
swordsmanship and the tenets of the
bushido
code, quickly established him as Gonji’s second-in-command. Gonji declared on the first day of training that he had decided to award his spare
katana
, Spine-cleaver, to the trainee who best embraced the principles and practices of the
bugei
he would teach. From the start, Wilf lustily entered the lists. The immediate upshot was that he was dubbed “the junior Japper” by his and Gonji’s enemies and detractors. Stung by the insult, he nonetheless surged ahead with his training. But a certain distancing between Wilf and Gonji became apparent to those close to them. No longer did Wilf associate with the samurai in the fawning, tagalong way he had earlier. Used to being a leader and a loner, Wilf now manifested a more formal, equal-to-equal relationship with Gonji. He trained hard, displayed skill, anger, and tenacity in equal measures. And when the training was done, he worked dutifully in the smith shop; and longed for his Genya; and planned and prayed and wrought in his mind an endless gallery of savage scenarios he might have to survive in order to see her returned to him. Wilf’s few close friends noticed his new moodiness and introversion. Some tried to pry him out of it, largely without success.

Jiri Szabo, for instance.... Jiri was a young metal founder and probably Vedun’s all-around finest athlete. A well-built, though short, tawny-haired man with sincere blue eyes and a ready smile, Jiri would likely one day supplant Garth as the city’s most popular fellow, once the beloved smith had passed on. Earnest and guileless, ever more concerned with the feelings of an opponent he had beaten than with the thrill of his own triumph, eminently teachable and seemingly fearless, Jiri became the butt of Gonji’s oft-repeated jest: “Szabo, what dirty things are you thinking about—
right now?!
” The samurai’s sudden narrow-eyed focus on Szabo, coupled with the man’s red-faced innocence, never failed to elicit hearty laughs. On foot, no one was faster. Only Aldo Monetto could keep up with him in climbing a rope or scaling a wall. He took to
ken-jutsu
eagerly and learned well. Jiri’s betrothed—a sweet lass named Greta, who plied the weaving looms—often worked in the cavern in support of the training. The smiles and winks they sneaked at each other during breaks evoked much kidding, some of it plainly envious. Jiri had everything to live for. “It would be nice to keep the ones like him alive,” Rorka observed once. Gonji had been irked by the baron’s unnecessary caution, for he knew only too well that he was preparing Jiri for a very good chance at young death.

Lorenz Gundersen proved his father’s match at springing unexpected facets to his background. Somewhere in the course of business ventures, the priggish Executor of the Exchequer had acquired passable adroitness as a rapier fencer. He moved surely and unflinchingly from wooden to steel blades, practicing vigorously, now and again even breaking a sweat. But he remained an opponent of Gonji’s methods, particularly in regard to military discipline (degrading, in so motley an army) and security (insulting, implemented by an outsider), and when Gonji advised him that rapier alone, a weapon designed only for thrusting, would leave him ill equipped to deal with armored opponents, Lorenz countered cavalierly: “Finding the chinks—isn’t that what it’s all about?” Gonji shrugged and wished him happy chink-hunting.

Vlad Dobroczy showed considerable skill with the sword, was a fine horseman, and possessed a mean streak that would prove useful in combat. He had only one drawback—a hatred of Gonji, perhaps based in bigotry, perhaps on Gonji’s friendship with his longtime rival Wilf. But it vented itself in insolence and discord, particularly when he was required to take orders from Wilf, and Gonji knew that he could tolerate such negative attitudes for only so long.

Paolo Sauvini, the wagoner, exhibited another sort of insolence. Sullen and withdrawn, a rather anti-social man who seemed widely disliked, Paolo had tried since Gonji’s arrival to engage the samurai’s attention through boorish staring matches. Now during the training of the militia his yearning for recognition had taken a new tack: anything for attention. Determined to excel with the sword, he hedged by pairing himself off with opponents he knew he could handle, sometimes coming on too aggressively in supposedly controlled practice bouts. He volunteered for everything; always was either the very first or the very last to respond to an order. After three days of censure by Gonji—the last time for bullying Klaus, the most easily victimized of the trainees—Paolo changed his concentration to the bow, where he performed quite well under Gerhard’s direction. But Gonji frequently caught Paolo’s hateful black eyes glowering from across the cavern, and he finally thought he understood why. As the top man, Gonji was the competition. The glory of soldiering success burned in those smoldering eyes of Paolo’s, and until it became more important to him
to be
a soldier than to posture as one, he would be just another target for Klann’s troops.

Karl Gerhard and Aldo Monetto were fine leaders and splendid exemplars of their specialties: Monetto with his biller’s axe, conditioning techniques, and what Gonji called
karumi-jutsu
—techniques of agility in jumping, climbing, and dodging; and, especially, Gerhard with his magnificent longbow, which required four men to string. Under his guidance several fine archers were emerging. Each day the targets were moved back, yet roughly the same number of hits were recorded. And to watch Gerhard sight and quick-fire at the mobile target was a favorite sport in itself, always evoking whistles and cheers. Yet separating these two argumentative best-of-friends had done little to quell their wearisome bickering. Each day one would suggest a way to improve the other’s teaching method, and the battle was joined. But their arguing was based on friendly competition, on the desire to intensify mutual respect and esteem.

What cemented the friendship of Berenyi and Nagy, no one could say.

Stefan Berenyi and Nikolai Nagy were hostlers at the Provender. That was the extent of their similarity. Berenyi was the town comic, a man of twenty-two with long, flowing hair and twinkling hazel eyes whose lips were ever twitching at some anticipated jest, usually provided by him and often at Nagy’s expense. Berenyi was the sort who always went for the cheap laugh, the low note of humor; the one irreverent voice in the otherwise polite crowd. A gifted mimic of voices and mannerisms, he kept his fellows in stitches, not always during the most appropriate moments. Yet he was the type one could not easily get angry with, and in any case there was no use in wasting one’s anger—in seconds Berenyi could dispel the mood with still another asinine jest or foolish posture. Gonji decided that his brand of nonsense was badly needed. In Japan warriors masked their fears with faces of stone; in Europe they hid them behind laughter.

When Stefan unveiled his imitation of Gonji, and was prodded into performing it for the samurai, Gonji was not sure whether to break his ribs or crack a smile. But the others were already chuckling at the samurai’s barely stifled mirth, and Gonji joined in heartily. It was the first warm, boisterous laugh they ever shared as a group. Berenyi had helped form a valuable bond that day. And he possessed one other staple of the vulgar comic’s repertoire: he could belch and fart at will. If Alain Paille was Vedun’s intellectual jester, then Berenyi was its clown prince.

To everyone but Nagy.

Nick Nagy was over twice Berenyi’s age. Gray-haired and squinty-eyed, Nagy was a fist-shaking grouch who never failed to tell his tormenting partner where he could shove his latest jest—which he was quite probably the target of. Still strong, with thick, gnarled hands and wiry arms, Nagy trained harder than most of his young peers and refused to recount to anyone but his wife the toll these long agonizing days were exacting of him. Nagy’s two children were grown, married, and departed from Vedun, and the Nagys were accustomed to having Stefan for dinner several nights a week. It was said that only Magda Nagy was exempt from Berenyi’s jests, and in his less charitable moments Nick would call Stefan “the kid we had who died but then came back.” Berenyi and Nagy could be vicious to each other, but as Paille observed, it was a “mutually salutary hatred.”

Michael Benedetto presented Gonji a special problem. Ever Gonji’s antagonist on the military council, ever the devil’s advocate when the samurai would propose a new training technique or introduce a fresh tactic into their plans against Klann, Michael occupied the unenviable position of the least skilled of the leaders in use of arms. He further suffered embarrassment at being repeatedly remanded to
bokken
training from the more dangerous and demanding steel blades. The complete Renaissance man, Michael had been trained with the
schiavona
, the Venetian broadsword, during his education in Italy. He knew he was superior in skill to some of those Gonji had promoted ahead of him. And in his confusion, his rancor for the oriental increased.

But Gonji had good reason—for Michael was sword-shy. The council Elder’s protege showed fine coordination, speed, and balance; his thrusts and slashes were crisp and economical, his parries sure, his ripostes and combination attacks swift and clever. But he flinched under attack once restraints were removed and the bouts became freestyle. He did well enough against classically schooled fencing styles but tensed up and fell back, his form eroding, against a wild flailer—precisely what he’d be facing in many a mercenary. So Gonji was hard on him, sending him back again and again to wooden practice weapons, knowing full well the importance of keeping him alive, not only inasmuch as he was the city’s pride and joy but also because of Gonji’s own guilt. For he knew that Michael sensed the samurai’s attraction to his wife. Sometimes Gonji would respectfully suggest that Michael switch his concentration to the bow, but the councilman would adamantly insist on staying with the sword, the elegant weapon of command. And always it seemed that when Gonji had occasion to embarrass Michael with a criticism, Lydia would be there, cleansing a wound or serving a beverage or repairing an item of equipment. She’d send Michael a nod and a gentle smile of encouragement, which he’d answer with a scowl.

Gonji was approaching his surfeit with this angry young Italian. In his bleaker moods Gonji would resolve to let him have his head, to allow him to rush bull-headedly to his date with the executioner’s blade.

To leave his fetching wife a widow.

* * * *

And then there was Klaus.

“Owwww!”

Gerhard hefted the quiver of shafts and ambled over to the firing line, where a knot of archers, including Berenyi, stifled snickers at his approach. Klaus stood shaking his hand.

“Klaus, what’s the problem?” Gerhard asked.

“Hurt my thumb on the string, Karl,” the lumpish Klaus replied.

“Call me
‘Lehrer.’
Here comes Gonji.”

“Oh—I’m sorry, Ka—I mean
Lehrer.
I keep forgetting.” Klaus was Berenyi’s favorite
schlemihl
, the easy butt of his sometimes cruel jokes. A dimwitted fellow with unkempt wheat-shock hair and a pointless frazzle of near-invisible mustache, physical accomplishments always came hard for him. But he tried, and Providence had outfitted him with the patience of the social pariah. Ever sincere. Ever on the outside trying annoyingly hard to qualify as a peer. Ever the last in line.

Gonji strode over, a long, vicious-looking halberd leaning on his shoulder, to narrowly regard the bunch who now strung bows with businesslike chatter and very straight faces.

“Klaus, who told you to put the archer’s ring on your bow hand?” Gerhard asked, knowing the answer. “It goes on the string hand, to protect your thumb.”

“Stefan did,” Klaus said vapidly, pointing to Berenyi.

Gerhard and Gonji looked at each other, then at Berenyi, who affected a defensive mask. “I’m sure I didn’t,” he replied. “Klaus, I told you it goes on
that
hand.”

“Berenyi, go load quivers,” Gerhard said flatly.

“Now, Klaus,” Gonji said, directing with gestures, “let’s try again. Nock your arrow—rotate over your head as you inhale and puuuuullll—now you’re going to sight your target as you arc downw—”

Twaanngg.

“Look out!”

The clothyard shaft zanged into the cavern roof overhead, clacking sharply and lancing down toward the massed archers.

“Watch out!” someone yelled as they scrambled, laughing.

“Have a care!” Baron Rorka cried from halfway across the cavern. “Hit a stalactite just so and it will crush your skulls!”

They sorted themselves out, and Gonji and Gerhard separated Klaus from the rest.

“Really sorry,
sensei
, but I couldn’t hold it—”

“Never mind that now,” Gonji said. “Listen, Klaus, maybe there’s another weapon for you. What sort of tools do you use in your trade? What do you do?”

“I make buckles,” Klaus answered with simple pride.

“Buckles,” Gonji echoed, crestfallen. He sighed.