Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel. T. C. Rypel

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СКАЧАТЬ fear rimming them as she looked over Gonji’s shoulder. The others were all staring.

      Gonji turned, and a chill shot through his spine. He was gazing into the masked face of Mord. The sorcerer’s diamond-hard black eyes appeared to be smiling with private amusement.

      Gonji bowed, and a long moment later the magician returned the gesture, bending forward slowly and dreamily, like a reed under water.

      “We’ve...met?” Mord asked in his murky basso profundo voice.

      Gonji’s nape prickled with fine pinpoints of tension. His palms were cold and moist, but his face betrayed nothing of it.

      “Not unless you’ve been to Honshu,” he replied evenly.

      The sorcerer’s gleaming filigreed mask tilted almost imperceptibly, as if the arch reply had thrown him off guard. Then his piercing ophidian eyes appeared to shift, to cloud over with a dull film, to pulsate hideously as if about to burst their sockets.

      And an instant later Gonji was gazing with barely disguised shock into the fiery red orbs of the wyvern.

      Cholera.

      Gonji’s face grew hot; his senses reeled with an instant’s indecision. He could feel his companions’ breathless anticipation. Against his leg—the solid comfort of his sword hilts where they leaned. Then—

      “All kneel!”

      Gonji slowly joined the jostling, clinking throng in dropping to one knee, striving to control his bewilderment, to plan, to reestablish his wa, his harmony of spirit....

      “Know ye the righteous liege lord of the Isle of Akryllon and all its possessions, Successor to its throne, Preserver of its heritage, Supreme Commander of the Akryllonian Royalist Forces.... Know ye King Klann, Him Who Is Called the Invincible!”

      And in the reverent silence that had fallen during the heraldic pronouncement, it seemed that nothing had moved or stirred the air.

      And then the legendary King Klann was among them, and all eyes were on him. All eyes save Gonji’s.

      Gonji peered furtively over his shoulder.

      But Mord was gone.

      * * * *

      They sat alone over dinner in the stillness of the house, Michael Benedetto missing his murdered brother’s bright chatter more than ever. Two tapers cast their cold glow over the meal. The silence became unbearable, Lydia’s smug indulgence insufferable as she served him.

      “So say it already, vixen!” Michael growled. “They didn’t want me along because of my temper, and I’ve trodden on the graven image of your lofty ambition.” The words were spat more than spoken.

      Lydia blinked, but her composure was otherwise unshaken.

      “A broken nose and blackened eyes ill befit a statesman.”

      “Really? I can think of a few statesmen whose noses warrant rearrangement.”

      “Stop being a child. You’re making a shambles of your career—”

      “I’m the same child you wanted to keep in Count Faluso’s employ in...Mi-lahn-o,” he drawled sarcastically.

      “You needn’t have stopped there. With a bit of string-pulling by your mother, the de’Medicis might have—”

      “The de’Medicis—the corrupt de’Medicis—fie on the de’Medicis!”

      “Hush! You’ve chosen your position. You’d prefer to administer to peasants. But that’s no reason to slander the de’Medicis.”

      “And then where after Florence, my love?” Michael sneered. “Back to your homeland? To Krakow in triumphant return?”

      “Your Polish isn’t up to it.”

      “How very like my courtly mother you are. So thoroughly seduced by the appearances of state and the fripperies of court life.”

      Lydia spoke softly. “You still don’t understand me, Michael. I’m not your mother, I’m your wife. I believe that God has designated leaders and followers. You possess the talent and the education for leadership, but your cardinal humor is choler, and you make no effort to resist it. To fail to live up to your potential is a great sin.”

      Their meal half-eaten but appetite gone, Michael fell to brooding. Lydia approached him with a wet cloth and touched his shoulder gently.

      “Lie back and let me lay this on your battered face.”

      He shrugged off her hand. “Leave me alone.”

      She left the room with a soft rustle, the faintest wisp of her perfume trailing behind her. A moment later a servant came and cleared the table, careful not to intrude on her employer’s sullen introspection. And then Michael was alone with the hypnotic flicker of the candle flames.

      She was right. He was failing miserably in his charge. Even his rightful place in the castle delegation had been usurped by a stranger—and an infidel, yet! And from an angry cell in the dungeons of his mind came the shrill warning that this bold mercenary was going to be real trouble if he went unchecked. In more ways than one....

      For he had seen how the oriental had looked at his wife.

      Michael rose and donned a capote and toque. Lydia stopped him just as he was slipping out through the narrow vaulted foyer.

      “Where are you going at this hour?” she asked, eyes flashing with a trace of suspicion or fear.

      “Out,” he replied without looking back. “To think.”

      She watched him go through the window grating, then wrapped a shawl about her and stepped out into a crisp breeze that tumbled down from the mountain fastness.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Two concerns held Flavio captive. There was, of course, the apprehension over the momentous meeting with the warrior-king that was now but seconds away. And then there was the anxiety over Gonji: his temper; his flair for being at the center of contention; and now, most threateningly, the sorcerer’s apparent recognition of him.

      Could Mord have already divined, by means of some hideous magick, that it was the samurai who had attacked his familiar, the wyvern, with bow and arrows?

      Gonji was trouble, and bringing him along—indeed, hiring him as bodyguard!—had been a grave mistake.

      But then King Klann was speaking.

      “Welcome, all of you—my people, my soldiers, free companions who have entered my service, ambassadors from the city of Vedun—welcome, to you all! And now rise.” Klann swept his arms upward. “Rise and resume your merrymaking!”

      A great cheer swept the hall, and flagons were raised in toast to the king’s munificence.

      Klann and his retinue marched through the aisles toward the head table on the dais, the king jesting with soldiers and civilians on either hand. It was clear that here was СКАЧАТЬ