Part 23 (1/2)
Cervera winced up at Gonji but turned his eyes away quickly.
”So your beloved daughter was seduced, and she conceived a child. And both mother and child were destroyed by the monster this heathen witch became,” Balaerik bellowed.
But Gonjis voice roared still louder, silencing the entire square.
”Its a lie!”
A womans scream broke the stillness from somewhere outside the promenade walls. Scores of people sucked in breaths at once amid shrills of alarm. Soldiers scampered off in response.
Now. It must be now- Gonji tested his manacles. Useless to struggle. He cast his gaze all about the square, searching for the surrept.i.tious rescuers. But none came. The disturbance ended as swiftly as it had begun.
Balaerik pressed Cervera again. ”Is it not even as I have described, milord?”
The duke was on his feet again. ”No-!” Oohs and ahhs accompanied his surprising response. ”Now that Ive heard it put like that, you see, I-it cant be true. I refuse to believe it, or to have any word out of my mouth be used against this man!” He took two steps off the podium and locked eyes with Gonji. ”Forgive me, my son. For permitting a fathers broken heart to cloud my mind.”
Gonji experienced a profound suffusion of relief and pity toward the now tearful duke. ”Arigato goziemas.h.i.+te, milord,” he replied with great politeness, for indeed, the duke had spoken the words Gonji had traveled so many deadly miles to hear.
When the rumbling of the crowd had been brought under control and the pipe organ had ceased its dirge-like droning, Gonji himself was unshackled from the post and brought to the witness podium. A tremor of antic.i.p.ation rolled through the morbid, superst.i.tious audience. Crucifixes, relics, and various sacramentals were produced and extended in a grotesque display of public warding of Gonjis evil spirits.
The samurai steeled himself, for he knew that the ordeal of the next few moments might well be more intolerable than that of the entire imprisonment of the past year.
Preliminary questioning... Gonjis full t.i.tle, mimicked by boors in the crowd... He abided it without a blink.
Balaerik faced him squarely, not a yard away.
”Weve all heard the accusations against you, time and time again throughout the night. Attested to and corroborated and repeated in an endless rondo the holy angels themselves must find insufferable.”
No more so than you, b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Arrogance and Evil. Where in h.e.l.l are my compadres?
”Weve heard your impressive honorifics-'Deathwind of Vedun, eh?” Balaerik smiled condescendingly.
Gonji bit his tongue, swallowing with difficulty.
”But we will have an end of this. There is but one charge I would see you answer to yourself. I refer to the charge averred by no less than the French knights of the Order of the...but my vow against speaking the most holy name forbids me-”
”The Order of the Holy Ghost,” a prelate completed from the long bench of cowled prosecutors.
”Gracias,” Balaerik replied. ”This charge concerns black magic which led to the obliteration of a town near Avignon, France. Black magic perpetrated by you, witch. You destroyed every man, woman, and child in Pont-Rouge-”
”There were no children in that town,” Gonji retorted as he leaned forward emphatically. ”They were sacrificed, by their own parents, to Satan-your master!”
Gasps of outrage broke from the stunned gathering.
”Sacrilege!”
”Insolent swine!”
”Youll burn for that, you-”
Balaerik pressed for silence. ”Is that so? And can you produce any witness to corroborate this...this...”
”You know I cant, or else you wouldnt posture so smugly.”
”But I can testify to the truth of what the prosecutor says. Someone help me-por favor?”
The audience began to murmur as the man who had called out from among them was duly recognized and aided to the prosecutors platform. He was blind, his eyes patched over with oblong pieces of black fabric that lent him an eerie cast.
And Gonji could not believe his own eyes. Until he met Balaeriks maddeningly complacent look.
”That man is dead!” Gonji could scarcely muster conviction enough to voice what he was whispering, so momentarily shocked was he by this apparition. ”I killed him.”
”Did you.” It was a rhetorical statement that accused him of failure or self-delusion.
Or perhaps something worse, Gonji began thinking, apprehended only by the samurai. An admission of something Balaerik himself had done that outweighed the violence implicit in Gonjis statement. And he realized, when he saw the nattering and head-turning of the cowled priests, that his accusers had heard him clearly enough. Gonji had added nothing toward convincing anyone of his pristine innocence.
The truth was that Gonji and his late companion Emeric had both had to deal with this witnessing revenant. Emeric had put out the mans unearthly eyes to stay their ghastly power, and Gonji had ended his twisted life. So he had thought.
”This is Monsieur Perreault. He will relate a tragic tale of human misery. The very least of which was his savage blinding at the hands of this witch and his cohorts.”
Balaeriks dramatic phrasings set the stage for the revivified fiends lies. Gonji could not believe the things he heard, for he and his companions were being subst.i.tuted for the perpetrators of the most callous and inhuman act of evil hed ever seen.
”My little ones,” the undead Perreault sobbed tearlessly. ”Sacrificed that this monster might gain unholy power-”
”Its an evil lie!” Gonji roared. ”Make him swear by the Christ-someone lay on him the crucifix of the Christ!”
”Be still, witch,” Balaerik commanded with deadly calm, pointing a finger. ”Say not the Most Holy Name.”
”-forced me to watch what they did to my children and then put out my eyes so that I would live forever with the memory of that last terrible vision!”
”Take away his eye patches! See what lies beneath!” All control fled Gonji now, the nightmare seizing him in its nerve-racking grip. He strained uselessly at his shackles.
”Stay thyself!” the Grand Inquisitor bellowed in Latin, executing a warding gesture at Gonji from the bench, where he now stood in wrathful att.i.tude.
”The golden Rhone ran red with blood,” Pearreaults reanimated corpse intoned mournfully. ”Now only the mistral cries where once there were the sounds of children.”
”Nooo!” Gonji shouted. ”Youre all loco-dont you see what theyre-?!”
Balaerik strode up to Gonji with mock outrage and slapped at him. Gonjis head twisted to evade the blow. Hands and feet shackled to a post, he could do nothing in reply but concentrate his rage into the gaze he now slanted at his enemy.
”Forgive me,” Balaerik said with a veneer of sincerity. He reached out with both hands to caress Gonjis face as if in patronizing affection. The samurai jerked his head back but could not evade the evil donados cold touch. ”I can see now that you cannot help what you are.”
He withdrew and addressed the throng now. ”Dont you see, Your Eminence, honored brothers and sisters, that he is possessed by the demon that brings the moon-madness we have known so well? I cannot disgrace this holy court by prosecuting this poor, tortured soul further.” He walked off.
Gonjis teeth ground as he strove to regain control over his trembling body, his blood-streaked thoughts.
”Enough, donado,” Bishop Izquierdo said with a wave of his hand, calling the a.s.semblage to order. ”We have heard enough. By the holy power invested in me by the High Office of Inquisition...”