The Drawing of the Dark

'Well,' spoke up one of them after a moment, 'Otto here says the Pope can't predict the weather.'

Duffy looked shocked. 'Whose mother?'

Otto blinked. 'No,' he said, 'I told him the Pope -'I don't want to hear any filthy lies about the Pope and this gentleman's mother,' Duffy said in a low but outraged tone of voice. 'Are you drunk, to talk this way?'

'You misunderstand,' protested the first man. 'We were -'

'I understand perfectly. Your disgraceful talk has offended everyone in the room' -. Actually no one was paying any attention. - 'and I think you two had better buy a round of beer for the whole lot, including me, by way of apology.'

'What? Good Lord, we don't have that kind of money on us. Can't -'

'Tell the innkeeper I said you could open an account. He'll be pleased. And then keep your voices down. If I hear you squabbling again I'll come over here and cut out your bowels.'

Duffy sat down again just as Anna set his beer on the table. 'What did you tell those men?' she asked.

'Told them I'd knife them if they didn't shut up. If Werner ever lets you take a break, draw yourself a beer and join me. Tell me what-all's been going on during these three years.

'All right. It'll be a few minutes yet.'

Duffy watched her hurry away, and admired, as he always did, the sidling, half-on-tiptoes dance of an experienced barmaid carrying a tray across a crowded room.

Half an hour later Anna slumped down at his table. 'Whew,' she breathed. 'Thanks for the beer. It's life and

breath and mother's milk to me at times like this.' She brushed a strand of damp hair back from her forehead and took a deep swig from her mug. 'So where have you been for three years,' she asked, setting the beer down, 'if not in hell, like everybody thought?'

'In Venice,' Duffy told her, 'which is where I met Aurelianus, who gave me this job.'

'Oh, yes,' Anna nodded. 'Our absentee landlord. I've only seen him once or twice-he gives me the creeps..'

'I can see how he might, holding burning snakes in his

mouth and all. When did he get this place? I don't I remember seeing him around when I lived here.'

'He got here about a year ago. From England, I think, though I might be wrong on that. He had a paper, signed by the bishop, saying that the St Christopher Monastery belonged to him. His ancestors owned the land, apparently, and never sold it. The abbot sent a protest, of course, but the bishop came out here in person. Told them yes, this little old bird owns the place, all you monks will have to go somewhere else. The bishop didn't look happy about it, though.'

'They just turned all the old monks out?'

'Well, no. Aurelianus bought them another place on the Wiplingerstrasse. They were still pretty upset about it, but since the Diet of Spires it's become popular to take property away from the Church, and everybody said Aurelianus had behaved generously.' She chuckled. 'If he hadn't promised to keep the brewery going, though, the citizens would have hanged him.'

'He must be rich as Jakob Fugger.'

'He's got the finances, beyond doubt. Spends it everywhere, on all kinds of senseless things.'

In an offhand voice the Irishman now turned to the subject uppermost on his mind. 'Speaking of money,' he

said, 'wasn't Max Hallstadt rich? How come Epiphany's -working?'

'Oh, he looked rich, with his big house and his land and his horses, but it was all owed to usurers. He kept borrowing on this to pay the mortgage on that, and one day he looked over the books and saw he didn't own anything, and that eight different moneylenders could validly claim to own the house. So,' Anna said with a certain relish, 'he laid a silver-plated wheellock harquebus on his carved mahogany table, knelt down in front of it and blew his lower jaw off. He meant to kill himself, you see, but when Epiphany came running in to see what the bang was, he was rolling around on the carpet, bleeding like a fountain and roaring. It took him four days to die.'

'Good Jesus,' Duffy exclaimed, horrified. 'My poor Epiphany.

Anna nodded sympathetically. 'It was rough on her, that's true. Even when everything was auctioned off, she still owed money to everybody. Aurelianus, to do him justice, did the generous thing again. He bought all her debts and now lets her work here at the same wage the rest of us get.'

Duffy noticed Bluto sitting with a stout blonde girl a few tables away. The hunchback gave him a broad wink.

'Where is she?' Duffy asked. 'Does she live here?'

'Yes, she lives here. But tonight she's off visiting her father, the artist. He's dying, I believe. Going blind for sure, anyway.'