Part 15 (1/2)

Gonji eyed him balefully, but inside he was warmed by a burst of perverse humor. Both his eyes must be blackened, like those of a scavenging animal he had heard of in the Americas. Thats what the guard had meant. His buried sense of humor emerged to rescue his sanity. They could not break his spirit with their taunts.

From that point on Gonji began to use the guards presence as a practice device for his own powers of concentration; he gradually blocked both their sight and sound from his consciousness, as surely as if they were walled away by successive layers of cotton batting.

In the early evening, Colonel Nunez arrived under heavy personal guard with the intention of questioning the samurai. Finding Gonji in a state of meditation, the impatient officer employed every device he knew, from coaxing to outrageous threat, to gain his attention. It was not until he c.o.c.ked his fist for a blow to the head that the colonel snapped Gonji from his reverie. He never delivered the intended blow: The samurais mask of sheer defiance warded him back, sending him off muttering words of impotent rage and promises of Inquisition terrors to come. Gonji felt a swell of pride over the small triumph.

As he sat in the enshrouding blackness of the second night, listening to the shouting and gunfire in the streets above, he intuited that he was somehow involved, but he felt less a princ.i.p.al than a detached observer, expecting nothing, whatever the meaning and outcome of the fighting. It was much later that he would hear of the action of Captain Salguero and his faithful command.

When the din had ended, Gonjis guard peered through the grating, strained face glowing redly beside the cresset torch. ”Monster, devil-your witchery twists the senses of the kings own subjects!”

Gonji had mustered enough social grace to extend him the courtesy of an angry glower.

Not long after, Pablo Cardenas face had appeared at the portal, staring down for a long time with an expression that was unreadable. Gonji could only wonder what was on the mans mind, for the solicitor had said at length, ”Im sorry, senor. I dont know why, but I am.” And then he was gone.

At midnight, the maverick lancer Montoya was brought to Gonjis cell. He shuffled down the stairs sullenly, probing the floor-seated prisoner with surly glances. Evidently a prisoner, he was not bound as the samurai was, and Gonji found something suspicious in the look he exchanged with the harpy warden.

Gonji extended his legs flat on the floor and executed an easy series of rolling stretches to unkink his thews. Montoya snorted as he watched, then began to prattle insultingly, strutting around the cell like a wildcat spoiling for a fight.

Gonji ignored the boorish soldiers voice, concentrating instead on the pattern and sound of his movements as he settled in a crouch with eyes closed to slits and chin lolling on his chest, as if he would drift off to sleep in the manner of a crane.

When he heard the knife softly withdrawn from Montoyas boot, he did not react. Nor did he show any cognizance of the mans stealthy footfalls. It was when he felt the parting of air before the knifing lunge that he sprang to his feet and whirled out of the way. Urgency galvanized his aching body.

”Come on! Come on, you j.a.ppo devil!” Montoya snarled, circling warily, watching Gonjis deadly feet.

The samurai wasted no motion, and hard black eyes locked onto the Spaniards own gleaming orbs through the dim glow of the telltale portal torch. He could feel the guard watching above, the instigator of the attack.

Montoya feinted time and again, dropping his blade point in antic.i.p.ation of the blocking kick that never came.

Suddenly Gonji stamped forward, causing Montoya to backstep rapidly until he was almost against a wall. A diversionary high kick drew the blade up to eye level, then Gonjis darting side snap kick caught Montoya in the ankle, throwing him off balance. A swift crescent kick batted the knife out of his grasp. It clanked against the back wall. Montoya froze.

”G.o.d d.a.m.n you,” the soldier growled in a strained voice.

He brought up his hands, but Gonjis hard front kick to the groin brought him to his knees, moaning in pain. A left roundhouse cuffed him beside the ear, his jaws clacking. Gonji continued his rotation, a whopping right spinning-heel kick belting him slackly onto his side in the darkness.

The only sound was the creaking of the door hinges as the sentry descended with pistol half-hammered. Gonji met his mad gaze with the unleashed fury of the fight still reflecting from his own.

”You think manipulating my death can save your quivering soul?” the samurai bellowed, struggling for control of his radiating anger. ”Finish it, then.”

More guards appeared at the top of the stairs, weapons drawn. The warden looked to them, then back to Gonji.

”You-youre Satan himself!”

The warden motioned for Montoya to be carried off.

”Did you offer him his freedom?” Gonji asked icily.

”Silence, diablo!”

The warden backed up the stairs, still leveling his pistol. Gonji moved to the back wall and saw something.

”Muchacho,” he called up to the departing soldier. Gonji toed the forgotten knife, grinning mirthlessly. He kicked it sharply to the base of the stairs.

The warden blanched at his oversight, warned Gonji back, and quickly retrieved the weapon. Col. Nunez arrived, then, amidst a flurry of harsh verbal exchanges, taking the warden to task for the execution attempt. Evidently, it had not been ordered by Nunez. So others must have taken it upon themselves to gild their souls by eliminating the ”evil” of this mysterious oriental warrior.

Gonji began to apprehend the conflict in high places over how to deal with the problem of the legendary Red Blade from the East.

The detachment escorting Gonji to Toledo a.s.sembled early the next day.

The samurai was thrown roughly into a thick-barred ox-cart, bound hand and foot now, bundled in a cloak against the weathers ravages. He wrestled with the grimace that strove to twist his face at every movement, so fierce were his multiple pains now.

The column trundled him past the great siege cannon, past the mounted companies preparing to a.s.sault Castle Malaguer.

The rumbling carts jostling ride would do nothing to expedite his healing.

His last impression of Barbaso was of an outbreak of shouts and arguments in the street as he pa.s.sed by. He saw citizens at odds with soldiers over something. He cared not what. He heard shouting about ”dignity-at least let him ride with dignity-hes no animal-”

Dignity.

Gonji earnestly longed for his swords again, feeling empty, devoid of his freedom of choice, without them. As the last buildings rolled past his view and the gates of Barbaso diminished behind him, Gonjis thoughts turned to death.

PART TWO.

Death Be Undone.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A strange, multifarious council a.s.sembled in Toledo to deal with the problem of the oriental barbarian. They met in austere lamplit chambers, debating deep into the night the disposition of the notorious warrior.

Prelates of the High Office occupied the table on the dais, presided over by the interim Grand Inquisitor, Bishop Ign.a.z.io Izquierdo. The remainder of the a.s.semblage was composed of a s.h.i.+fting members.h.i.+p from among the clergy, the military, and the n.o.bility. Toledo had become a hotbed of activity, daily arrivals and departures of notable figures now the norm, such that high protocol and guarded circ.u.mlocution were the standing orders of the day.

”This Wunderknecht movement, as theyve come to call it,” General de la Vega was saying, ”quietly, insidiously eats at the underside of the military power structure of Europe, in these threatening times. By their very name-Knights of Wonder-they proclaim themselves as elitist, lording over all other men, and militant in their att.i.tude-”

An elderly priest, a scholar of the Hall of Records, interrupted him: ”Dispenseme usted, senor-excuse me, but I believe their use of the word wonder refers to their vague awe at the sublime wonders of creation. Their specific tenets bear careful study before a precise mandate-”

”Por favor, indulge me, Padre,” another officer piped in, ”but time is always an enemy. If youll forgive me, theological study has never been noted for its speed and efficiency of pursuit.”

”Eternal concerns,” the priest retorted, ”are not bound by temporal considerations. This is a th.o.r.n.y issue.”

”Th.o.r.n.y and urgent,” the officer replied, annoyed, but backing off at once to see the eyebrows hed raised among the gathered august leaders.

The representative of the adelantado of Leon rose. ”Your Eminence, holy friars, n.o.bles, and gentlemen-His Excellency the Governor appreciates the touchiness of this matter of the oriental barbarian and his misguided followers. But it must be pointed out that he is reputed to be the son of a powerful warlord in his homeland. j.a.pan has proven a rich source of new trade. Weve all, I think, benefitted by the inroads the Portuguese have made with this...regrettably pagan culture. And, I hasten to add, Holy Mother Church has seen considerable spread in her influence among the j.a.panese. They are becoming Catholicized in spite of themselves, one might say. And a nations strength grows by more than might of arms, if our valiant fighting men will forgive me.”

The military contingent sputtered and fumed.

General de la Vega voiced their objection. ”And so you suggest we let this...son of a monkey general roam free to erode our strength from within, with his ideas, eh?”