in this province was dreadfully important right now. These people had to be placated. They could be most troublesome if they decided to bare their fangs while the army still licked its wounds.
(don’t think such weak thoughts)
(take a firm hand with them you’re a king)
But it was exasperating, listening to the council Elder’s petty concerns....
Recompense and conscripted servants, bullying in the streets—what do we care for these things?! We are king and as such are above the concerns of these small folk! (be just and merciful wisdom walks hand-in-hand with mercy) And what of those people Mord has taken for his foul purposes? What shall we tell them of those? Surely they’ll demand an answer soon enough. But what is that to us? What can they do about it? We are king; we have our own people to worry after. The problems of these provincials are as nothing to us. (correct be firm, stall them tell them what they want to hear) (no be just and compassionate)
Be still, my brethren, be still....
And then Klann saw the audacious one.
He lurched to his feet and pointed past the Vedunian delegates to a table adjacent to theirs.
“You, there! You in the dirty frock coat! How dare you? Guards, seize that man!”
The hall fell silent as a garroted throat.
As the pair of Llorm sentries rushed over, the singled-out mercenary wove to his feet, bleary-eyed from his wine, and held his hands out, palms up, in mute appeal.
“Sire?” he slurred.
“Were you not told that guns were forbidden within these halls?” Klann boomed.
The soldier reached down and slapped the offending pistol at his side, a half-grin twisting his mouth. His eyes came wetly alight with remembrance and guilt.
“I—I forgot, Milord King, that’s all,” he stuttered in Spanish. “But it’s not loaded or spannered and—and—”
“Remove him!” Klann ordered. “And if we ever see you within the middle bailey of this castle again, your head will decorate the towers!”
Then Klann settled himself, self-consciously rubbing his thighs as he sat back, and the buzz of voices and lilting strains of music gradually returned to normal.
* * * *
Eeyaaiii, but he’s a moody one, neh? Gonji thought, relief flooding him once the incident had ended. And that’s very bad in a king. Hai, very so.
For an instant, when Klann had risen and pointed along Gonji’s table, the samurai had thought he was the one being singled out.
But what did this obsession about firearms mean? Especially from a king whose army depended on them so. And was he truly a king at all? Gonji’s initial suspicion that Klann would turn out to be nothing more than a bandit warlord seemed to be vindicated by Klann’s appearance and mien. He had little to commend him as royalty.
Gonji listened as Klann sidestepped Flavio’s appeals for redress and release of the conscripted servants. Flavio and Milorad clearly were less than enthusiastic about Klann’s declaration that he would take these matters under advisement. All the while Garth idly picked at his food as if it were the last meal of a condemned man.
The samurai himself sampled a portion of most everything that passed his way. The pheasant was especially succulent, and the trout was a rare and marvelous treat. He drank a light white wine, sipping judiciously so as not to wander far from total control of his faculties. For although he had laid his swords at his right side in a gesture of peace and respect, these were still to be considered hostile surroundings.
Klann had steered the conversation away from military and political matters to topics of a more light-hearted, jovial nature, sometimes seeming about to reveal some inner source of mirth. Gonji’s curiosity was just turning to the empty place of honor beside the king when a table of mercenaries nearby was cleared, a new troop clumping in shortly thereafter to take their places with many a braying greeting to comrades already present.
A pang of alarm: Would Klann’s magnanimity reach out to encompass his entire mercenary force? Would the 3rd Free Company, whom Gonji had quit after the violent incident with the Mongols, be relieved so that they might feast this night, as well?
His gaze wandered to his swords, leaning at his side against the bench, then back to the new band of adventurers who were already regarding with puzzlement his topknot and oriental features. There within easy reach was his katana, the Sagami, whose noble steel had tasted the blood of many strong opponents. Skewed against it was his ko-dachi, the short sword which, if honor demanded, would be used for seppuku, for ritual suicide, before he would ever submit to surrender.
If the hours of this night were to be his last, then that was karma. So be it. He dismissed the matter. But not before first offering a short prayer to the kami of fortune that he might have an end of his quest before dying.
Then he was suddenly attentive on the king, for Klann had addressed him personally.
“And you, bodyguard,” Klann was saying in Italian, “your name is Gonji—?”
“Sabatake Gonji-no-Sadowara, sire,” Gonji clarified, standing proudly and offering Klann a deep bow. “Gonji is my given name.”
“I’ve heard something of your Far Eastern fighting prowess. Were you not one who came forward to fight my ill-fated field commander?”
Gonji was aware of Julian’s scornful glare as the captain leaned forward on an elbow at the high table.
“Hai, milord—yes,” Gonji answered, smiling thinly. “But, so sorry, I was denied the honor of fighting the great boxer. Instead I was placed in a contest with his subordinate, a man of somewhat lesser skills.”
He couldn’t resist the jibe, and he knew from the oohing and laughter that it had carried to the table of Luba. He could practically feel the heat waves emanating from Luba’s table.
Klann chuckled. “They say you use your feet as smoothly as a man might use his fists. I’d like to see that sometime. But what I’d really like to know is, who was your friend?” Klann’s eyes narrowed under coyly arched brows.
Gonji swallowed, cocking his head uncertainly. “Sire?”
“The one who so easily killed Ben-Draba.”
Nearby conversation dwindled amid shushing whispers. Gonji chose his words carefully.
“So sorry, Milord King, but...you ascribe to me influence that this simple warrior neither possesses nor deserves.” He smiled and bowed again, not so low this time.
“I see,” Klann said patronizingly. “Well, then we’ll leave it at this: This ‘pouncing killer,’ or whatever the troops are calling him, had best not turn up in the province again. Unless, that is, he’d like to claim the price on his head for himself. We might make room in our mercenary command for such an astonishingly gifted fighter, eh?”
Klann looked up and down the table at his officers, who grunted or clucked hoarsely.
“I might make room for him at the end of my saber,” Julian advanced haughtily. A few nervous laughs came from the table, but they were bled of all their conviction by the still poignant memory of the big commander’s helplessness at the ferocious attack by the stranger, the subsequent whirlwind escape, climaxed by the unique warrior’s amazing leap over a fifteen-foot wall and disappearance into the forest—with a war arrow embedded in his flesh.
“He’s probably dead already of his wounds,” one of Klann’s captains said from behind clenched hands that supported his chin on bracing elbows. There were mutters of hopeful agreement.
“I’m not so sure.”
From his end of the table came the eerie bass voice of Mord. The sorcerer stood and pointed to Gonji with a gloved hand.
“Tell me what you know of the Deathwind,