send the feisty guildsman packing.
The Ministry was at the peak business hour. Stools and tables were twisted askew in the lobby. Voices chattered incessantly. Stale food and beverage smells clung in the informal air of the heavy late summer caravan trade season. Overworked secretaries argued with traveling chapmen and locals alike in small booths lining the walls. Flavio, the august Council Elder and his snowy-bearded adviser, Milorad Vargo, could be seen huddled over a desk through the doorway of a rear chamber. Boris Kamarovsky, the ferretlike woodworker, leaned against a foyer window, gazing about him dimly as he waited for his boss to finish signing for the recent trade goods shipment. It was humid after the recent rains, and the atmosphere lent itself well to an epidemic outbreak of irritability and headaches.
Phlegor seemed to thrive on such tense circumstances.
“Listen, Lorenz,” Phlegor said, leaning forward over the counter, “is that Jap still staying with you Gundersens?”
“Ja, for now,” Lorenz responded casually, applying the Seal of the Exchequer to a pile of documents.
“I don’t like the way he swaggers around here like he’s master of the city.”
Lorenz cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? I understand you were quite taken with him the night of that ridiculous brawl on the rostrum.”
“That was then. Sure, it was amusing to see Klann’s bandits take their licks. And he showed he could fight, even if it was only with his feet, like some damned fighting cock. But what’s he done since then, except strut around town eyeing up the women? You people haven’t mentioned the council meeting to him, have you?”
Lorenz stopped in his work. His lips perked, and he eyed the craftsman sidelong. “I’ll just pretend you never said that.”
“Hey, no offense! I just don’t trust strangers, that’s all. Especially heathens and infidels.”
“That’s your privilege.”
“I understand Flavio’s taken him on as a bodyguard,” Phlegor said loud enough to turn nearby heads from their business.
“That’s his privilege,” Lorenz said at length.
“Pretty rash, if you ask me.”
Lorenz bit his tongue. Then he said, “Weren’t you in favor of the hiring?”
Phlegor thought a moment. “Ja, I suppose...but that was the other night. I’ve had time to think about it since. Is he really going along to the castle banquet?”
“So I understand.”
Phlegor shook his head. He leaned close again. “What about that wildman who killed the big soldier and then jumped over the wall? Anyone know who he was yet? God, that was something!” Phlegor breathed an awe.
The Executor of the Exchequer exhaled deeply and flung down the Seal. Leaning back in his chair, he smoothed the wrinkles out of his doublet and peered up at the insistent craft leader.
“No, Phlegor, no one knows. But I’m sure you’ll be the first to find out, and then you can tell us all.” Lorenz’s voice reeked of the haughty sarcasm that was his trademark.
“Well ten-to-one he’s a friend of the monkey-man, and I’d like to know what they’re planning. As far as I’m concerned they’re just two more invaders trying to make a reputation at Vedun’s expense.”
Boris snapped to attention at the window. “Phlegor—here he comes now!”
“The Jap?”
“Da.” Boris smirked. “Still got his hair tied up on top of his head like a turnip. And guess who’s with him?”
“Who?”
“That crazy Paille!”
“Oh, Jesu Christi!”
Lorenz’s face dropped into a cupped hand, the elbow resting on the chair arm. “Oh no,” he grated in a low voice.
When Gonji entered the foyer and bowed to those in the lobby, Boris scrambled over to stand next to Phlegor without a look in the samurai’s direction. Several people returned Gonji’s bow nervously, the babble of voices diminishing to sporadic whispers.
Gonji spotted Flavio in the rear chamber, and the Elder waved him over. He removed his sashed swords with a slow, elegant motion and carried them, sheathed, in his right hand to Flavio’s office.
Then came Paille.
“Gundersen! My paints! Did they arrive with Neriah’s caravan?” The artist waved his order form over his head.
Lorenz gathered himself to fend the coming storm. “Not this time, Paille. Can’t you just begin on another section with the colors you still have—?”
Then the storm broke in all its aesthetic fury.
CHAPTER THREE
Local musicians had gathered in the square, and drumbeats counterpointed their lilting refrain as the banquet escort party was mounted.
A short column of Llorm dragoons, hefting lances and flying Klann’s colors on crisply snapping pennons, awaited the delegation in front of the rostrum. Council Elder Flavio already was there, seated astride a roan of sixteen hands which had been carefully groomed and caparisoned. Flavio himself sat tall and smiling in a long, colorful capote that looked too uncomfortable for the day’s heat but would be needed on the return ride that night. Flavio returned the well-wishes of the gathered populace with repeated nods and waves.
Beside the Elder, aboard a gray gelding, sat Milorad, the paunchy ex-statesman, happily affecting a courtly dignity he had little occasion to employ these days.
On Flavio’s right sat Gonji, erect and dignified, calm but expectant as he stroked Tora’s withers, trying hard to mask his excitement and curiosity over at last visiting Castle Lenska. Clean and polished cap-à-pie, he had even oiled his scabbards so that they glistened impressively.
Women and children spread flowers on the roadway to the postern gate. The city’s collective hope for peaceful coexistence with the invaders and the redress of grievances would ride with the delegates. The musicians played on, wilting in the midday heat. A muggy breeze lapped the city. More rain seemed in the offing.
A rumble and clink of mounted troops approached from down Alwin Street in the German quarter of the city, and a column of mercenaries wheeled out of the lane and trotted to the square, the richly adorned Captain Julian Kel’Tekeli at their head. It was the 1st Free Company, grinning and chattering in the ranks at the prospect of the castle banquet.
Julian passed close to Gonji and cast him the merest glance. This was the nearest they had been to each other since Gonji had hired on with the captain as an operative for Klann. Gonji suppressed a smirk as he observed the captain’s proud bearing, the preciseness of his every movement. Julian spoke briefly to the free companions, admonishing them to good behavior, then appointed his second-in-command to lead the column and himself clumped to the head of the leading Llorm squad.
Gonji looked the mercenaries over. They carried the usual array of mismatched weapons—swords, axes, and a few short bows—but it took him a while to notice today’s difference: there were no firearms in their ranks. Not a pistol in sight.
Then he spotted Luba, the big ugly trooper with the bald, shining bullet of a head whom he had knocked cold in the boxing match. Luba spat and worked his jaws in a silent insult as their eyes met. The samurai’s mouth twisted with wry unconcern, and he languidly turned from the man’s view.
They’d have their time of rematch, he knew, and when it happened, it happened. He dispersed all thoughts of Luba, then, relaxing and establishing a sense of inner harmony. He would need control and a keen mind today.
Garth Gundersen, the last of the delegates, arrived and lipped a quiet apology to Flavio for his tardiness. At his side rode Wilf, looking bright-eyed and anxious and, quite frankly, more like a delegate than his blacksmith sire. The young smith