be loath to follow. In any case,” he sighed resolutely, “his command should be...considerably diminished by then. There’ll be no one to follow. I’ll see to that. We’ll see to that.” Gonji locked narrow-eyed gazes with Wilf.
“Ridiculous—!” came the derisive cries, once the translators had finished. Some stood as if to leave but were urged back into their seats by faithful bushi.
“What about the conscripts at the castle?” asked a farmer whose daughter had been taken as a servant.
“I was coming to that,” Gonji responded, strolling again. “You see we’re going to...take it back again....”
The simple confidence in the bold statement tore gasps from the onlookers. Gonji smiled thinly as he went on.
“Wilfred and I will lead a raiding party that will wrest Castle Lenska from those thieving bastards who’ve soiled it by their presence. We’ll free the hostages and the castle servantry, so that they may join you until it’s fit to return and restore Vedun. To fortify it against future incursions.”
“You keep speaking as if Vedun were a fortress, a military stronghold—” Milorad began fretfully.
“And so it is,” Gonji shot back, eyes gleaming. “So it must be, my diplomatic friend. There is no way to think now—fight or die.”
“How will you mount enough men to attack Castle Lenska?” Roric Amsgard thought aloud, the former military man shaking his head.
“It’s not the manpower, Roric, it’s the method,” Gonji replied. “You know that. Maybe we’ll turn some of Mord’s deceptive tricks against him. You see, I say this all with utmost confidence, because I want our traitor to tell Mord I’m coming for him. I want him to know that.”
He smiled calmly, eyes half-lidded as if he envisioned an oracle of certain victory. Softly, he continued: “You see, I know Mord’s power wanes. He grows weaker with each passing hour. His monsters die by the hands of puny men. Has any among you seen the wyvern trail its filth across your skies today? I thought not. I myself participated in his demise....”
A tremor of excitement and jostling. Whispers of awe.
Gonji spoke with quiet arrogance, wishing Mord to know it all, if indeed the traitor would be able to get word to him. It would be necessary for Mord to be enraged, his thinking unhinged, his plans out of focus as he concentrated all his hatred on Gonji.
But was the traitor among them now? Among those he most trusted and most distrusted?
Hai. The traitor was there. Somewhere. Pulsing with fear and wrath....
Wilf had stood as Gonji had mentioned his name. The young smith also now leaned against his table with arms folded.
“Can any of you doubt that we’ll accomplish what Gonji says?” Wilf contributed with a forced pride that caused the samurai to stifle a smile. How well Gonji appreciated the company of the valiant and loyal bushi of Vedun!
His father cast his eyes groundward to hear Wilf’s swaggering, while both his brothers seemed embarrassed.
“Oh—Aldo,” Gonji said in sudden remembrance to the bearded biller, Monetto, “don’t forget to mount that party of worthies today to begin reopening the tunnel to the castle dungeons.”
Monetto nodded, as he had been instructed to do.
It was a ruse. On reflection, any person who had seen the effective blocking of the tunnel in question—the supporting timbers fired, tons of earth and rock jamming the collapsed tunnel for an unguessable depth—would have known the near impossibility of what Gonji asked. The samurai had taken Aldo into his confidence in this additional minor effort at keeping Mord off balance, should their plans be conveyed to him.
Madness must be met with madness, their plans sown with red herrings and apparent illogic.
“Garth,” a man called out from behind the burly smith, “why does Klann refuse to see you now?”
“Da—were you not his trusted general once?”
Affirmations and questions echoed in reinforcement of the inquiry. Garth seemed stung by the implications, whose innuendo defamed both his present and his past.
“I tried,” he retorted sharply, “and that is that.” His ears reddened.
Lorenz rose at his side, the Executor of the Exchequer espying the accusers along his nose with courtly indignation.
“Who raises doubts regarding my father’s integrity?” Lorenz bridled. “He rode to the castle and was rebuffed at the drawbridge. Captain Kel’Tekeli refused to see him unless he wished to speak of Gonji’s whereabouts. Inasmuch as he possessed neither the knowledge nor the willingness the captain sought, he abandoned that tack. He next tried his old comrade Captain Sianno, who unfortunately hasn’t been seen in the city since that revolt of the idiots—”
Here there was grumbling at the aspersion cast on the late Phlegor, his fate still unknown to most of them. A few craftsmen leapt to their feet.
“Watch it, Gundersen. Phlegor’s a good man, and he has friends here.”
Lorenz ignored them. “Now what would you have my father do? You all know me. I’m a rational man—will you all grant me that?” He kept talking without pausing to assess the muttering. “But I’ve come to believe, reluctantly, that the militants are now right in saying that there’s no recourse but a violent one. So...we must fight.” With the single brandish of a fist, Lorenz relaxed, smoothed the creases from his well-cut doublet, and sat back down. There were shouts of assent among the groans.
Ignace Obradek, the blind wheelwright, cackled shrilly and slapped his thigh.
Gonji peered at Lorenz a moment, not liking the depersonalization in his phrase “the militants,” which in a single cleverly inflected swoop both ignored Gonji’s singular importance and voiced Lorenz’s undying contempt for the very fighting men he had spoken in support of. And the offhanded remark directed at Phlegor and the craftsmen reminded Gonji of his own guilt over having set Julian to watching them in order to deflect suspicions of the real militia’s effort.
“We’ll have no more in-fighting,” Gonji declared. “No more bickering among factions within the city. We are one, or we are nothing. As for what the craftsmen did.... They did what they felt they must at the time, believing Klann to be dead. It was a sound military principle, if ill-timed and undermanned. Now, I’m afraid, we must proceed in the belief that what Garth has told you is true—that Klann possesses more than one life.” His voice had dwindled to a near whisper, but now he raised it to a sonorous command tone. “But his troops are quite mortal! We’ve all seen that. And we are united against them. The craftsmen have laid their remaining weapons cache in the hills at the disposal of the militia, for which we thank them. And Phlegor—” Gonji’s gloom permeated the chamber, though none knew the man’s terrible fate, save Wilf. “—if we never see Phlegor again, he should be remembered as a heroic defender of his city. Along with Master Flavio, and Tralayn, and all those others who have fallen.”
A brief silence followed, punctuated by nervous coughing. Then Roric broke the spell.
“This business of the wagons, Gonji—” the provisioner advanced, “—are you sure there are enough of them to carry all the innocents away?”
Gonji turned his palms up. “They’ll have to do, Roric.”
Stefan Berenyi brightened suddenly. “Jacob Neriah’s back in town with his caravan! Just back from the east yesterday. He must have twenty sturdy wagons and a dozen drays.”
“That’s right,” Nick Nagy agreed.
“Are the draft horses kept nearby?” Gonji asked.
Both hostlers agreed readily that they were.
“Sure,” Berenyi said, “in the livery. Not all are at the Provender, though. Some few had to be sent over to the caravanserai at Wojcik’s