The Drawing of the Dark

Aurelianus nodded sympathetically. 'If we could rely on impossibilities we'd all be better off.' He crossed the room and sat down at a cluttered desk. 'But excuse me -I did not mean to stir up your past. Here,' he said, lifting

a cloth bag from an opened drawer, 'is five hundred ducats.' Duffy caught the toss and slid the bag into a pocket. 'And here,' Aurelianus went On, flourishing a sheet of paper, 'I will write a letter of introduction' He dipped a pen in an- inkpot and began Scribbling.

Duffy had long ago found it handy to be able to read upside-down and now casually glanced across the writing table at Aurelianus' precise script.

'My dear Gambrinus,' Duffy read, 'the bearer of this note, Brian Duffy,' (here Aurelianus paused to draw deftly a quick, accurate sketch of the Irishman) 'is the man we've been looking for - the guardian of the house of Herzwesten See that he is paid five hundred ducats when he arrives, and subsequently whatever monthly salary you and he shall agree upon. I will be joining you soon; mid-April, probably, certainly by Easter. I trust the beer is behaving properly, and that there is no acidity this Season - Kindest regards, AURELIANUS.'

The black-robed old man folded the letter, poured a glob of thick red wax onto it from a little candle-heated pot, and pressed a seal into it. 'There you go,' he said, lifting away the seal and waving the letter in the air to cool the wax. 'Just hand this to the brewmaster'

Duffy took the letter. The seal, he noticed, was a representation of two dragons locked in combat. 'What are my duties to be?' he asked. 'Tell me again.'

Aurelianus smiled. 'Just as you said Yourself: the bouncer. Keep the riffraff out. Keep the peace.'

The big Irishman nodded dubiously. 'Seems odd that you'd have to come to Venice to find somebody to work in an Austrian tavern.'

'Well I didn't come here to do that. I'm here for entirely different reasons Entirely. But when I saw the way you dealt with those boys out front I knew you were the man this job called for.'

'Ah. Well, all right. It's your money.' The wind must be up, Duffy thought. Listen to that window rattle!

Aurelianus stood up. 'Thank you for helping me out in this matter,' he said quickly, shaking Duffy's hand and practically pulling him to the door. 'I'll see you in a month or so.'

'Right,' agreed Duffy, and found himself a moment later standing on the dark landing while the door clicked shut behind him. Now there's an odd fellow, he thought as he groped his way down the stairs. I'll be very curious to see if there actually are five hundred ducats in this bag.

A stale liquor scent lingered at the foot of the stairs, and Bella sidled out of the shadows when he reached the bottom. 'The little eunuch gave you some money, didn't he?'

'I beg your pardon, lady,' Duffy said. 'Nothing of the sort.'

'Why don't you and me go drink some wine somewhere?' she suggested 'There's lots I could tell you about him.'

'I'm not interested in him. Excuse me.' Duffy slid past her to the pavement outside.

'Maybe you'd be interested in a little feminine companionship.'

'Why would that concern you?' he asked over his shoulder as he strode away. She shouted something after him in a rude tone of voice, though he missed the words. Poor old woman, he reflected. Gone mad from cheap Italian liquor. Shouting harsh words at strangers and harrying poor weird old men.

He glanced at the sky - an hour or so after midnight. No sense now, he thought, in going back to San Giorgio; the only thing worth mentioning that waits for me there is a landlord justly angry about my failure to pay rent. I'd better find some kind of rooming house to spend the night in, and then get an early start tomorrow. A few hours sleep in a moderately clean bed is what I need right now. It's been a tiring night.

'Stand aside, grandfather, we're trying to unload cargo here.'

Duffy glared fiercely at the lean young dockworker, but moved obediently away. The morning sunlight was glittering like a handful of new-minted gold coins on the water, and Duffy was squinting and knuckling his eyes. He'd been told to look for a Cyprian galley called the Morphou, which was scheduled to make a stop at Trieste on its way home; 'Look for a triangular sail with three sad eyes on it,' a helpful little Egyptian had said. 'That'll be the Morphou.'

Well, he thought irritably, I don't see any damned three eyes. Half these ships have their sails reefed anyway.

He sat down on a bale of cotton and watched disapprovingly the activity of all these loud, wide-awake people around him. Dark-skinned children, screaming to each other in a tangle of Mediterranean languages, ran past, flinging bits of cabbage at an indignant, bearded merchant; tanned sailors swaggered up from the docks, looking forward to impressing the Venetian girls with their foreign coins and fine silk doublets; and old, granite-faced women stood vigilantly over their racks of smoked fish, ready to smile at a customer or deliver a fist in the ear to a shoplifter.

Duffy had awakened at dawn in a malodorous hostel, feeling poisoned by the liquor he'd drunk the night before but cheered by his memory of opening the cloth bag beneath a flickering street lamp to discover that it did indeed contain five hundred ducats. And there are five hundred more waiting for me in Vienna, he thought, if I can just find this filthy Cyprian Morphou.

The gray-haired Irishman struggled to his feet - and a man on a porticoed balcony a hundred feet behind him crouched and squinted along the barrel of a wheel-lock harquebus; he pulled the trigger, the wheel spun and sprayed sparks into the pan and a moment later the gun kicked against the man's shoulder as its charge went off.

A ceramic jar beside Duffy's ear exploded, stinging his face with harsh wine and bits of pottery. He leaped back in astonishment and pitched over the bale of cotton, cursing sulphurously and wrenching at his entangled rapier.

The gunman leaned out over the balcony rail and shrugged. On the pavement below, two men frowned impatiently, loosened the daggers in their sheaths, and began elbowing their way through the crowd.

On his feet now, Duffy clutched his bared sword and glared about fiercely. It's probably one of those furioso Grittis, he thought. Or all three. And after I was so patient with them last night! Well I won't be this morning.

A tall, feather-hatted man, whose moustache appeared to be oiled, strode up to the Irishman and smiled. 'The one who fired at you is escaping in that boat,' he said, pointing. Duffy turned, and the man leaped on him, driving a dagger with vicious force at the Irishman's chest. The hauberk under his much-abused doublet saved Duffy from the first stab; he caught the assassin's wrist with his right hand before another blow could be delivered, and then, stepping back to get the proper distance, ran his rapier through the 'man's thigh. Feather-hat sank to his knees, pale with shock.

I'm leaving Venice none too soon, Duffy reflected dazedly. He noticed with annoyance that his hands were trembling.