The Drawing of the Dark

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.'

He nodded. 'He was going blind three years ago.'

Anna glanced at him. 'I remember now,' she said. 'You were sweet on her, weren't you? That's right, and then she married Hallstadt and you took off to Hungary, after shouting a lot of rude things at the wedding. Everybody knew why you went.'

'Everybody's an idiot,' the Irishman said, annoyed.

'No doubt. Here, you finish my beer. I've got to get back to work.'

The room had been swept before the lights were snuffed out, but mice darted across the old wood floors in the darkness, finding bits of cheese and bread in the corners and around the table legs. Every once in a long while a muffled cough or door-slam sounded from upstairs, and the mice would stop, suddenly tense; but ten seconds of silence would restore their confidence and they'd be scampering about again. A few paused to nibble the leather of two boots under one of the wall tables, but there was tastier fare elsewhere, and they didn't linger there.

When the sky began to pale behind the wavy window glass, the mice knew the night was nearly over. Occasional carts rumbled by on the cobbled street, crows shouted at each other from the rooftops, and a man tramped by the windows, whistling. Finally the rattle of a key in the front door lock sent them bolting for their holes.

The heavy door swung open and a middle-aged woman hobbled in. Her graying hair was tied back in a scarf, and her fingers were clumsy with the keys because of the woolen gloves she wore. 'Well, how does the place look this morning, Brian?' she inquired absently.