The Drawing of the Dark

With a booming crack that numbed Duffy's abused eardrums and echoed from the distant trees, the gun lurched backward, gushing an afterburn of nearly transparent flame. Blinking through the great veil of acrid smoke that now churned over the parapet, Duffy saw a spurt of dust and bracken kicked into the air a dozen feet to the left of 'Suleiman's tent'.

'Ha ha!' crowed Bluto. 'Very respectable, for a first try! You there - yes, you - give the barrel a kick from your side, will you? Then sponge her out and get ready to re-load.' He turned to Duffy. 'I'm finally getting this city's artillery in order. In the first two weeks we were in town, all I did was scrape rust out of the bores. These idiots left the guns uncovered during the rains; didn't even put the tompions in the muzzles. I believe the council looks on these things as some sort of.. .iron demons, able to fend for themselves.'

'Bluto,' the Irishman said quietly, 'you more or less have charge of Vienna's arsenal until the Imperial troops arrive, don't you? Right. Well, listen - have you noticed any thefts of powder?'

The hunchback shrugged. 'I haven't checked the quantities. Why?'

Duffy gave him a succinct version of the previous night's events. 'It blew out two stalls in the stable,' he concluded. 'Killed two horses and scared the hell out of every man and beast within three blocks.'

'Good Lord, a petard,' Bluto said in surprise. 'Hung on the brewery door?'

'That's right. I'm beginning to wonder whether, weird as it sounds, some rival brewery might be trying to put us out of business.'

'But Herzwesten doesn't have any rivals,' Bluto

pointed out. 'The nearest commercial brewery is in Bavaria.'

'That's right,' admitted Duffy. 'Well, I don't know - a rival inn, a resentful monk...' He shrugged.

Bluto shook his head in puzzlement. 'I'll run an inventory of the whole arsenal. Maybe powder isn't the only thing someone's been stealing.'

'She's ready to load, sir,' panted one of the gunnery men.

'Very well, out of the way.' The hunchback picked up the long ladle-pole and dipped it like a shovel into the powder cask. He hefted it once or twice. 'That's three pounds,' he judged, and slid it into the bore; when it clicked against the breech he turned it over and pulled the empty ladle out. Then he rammed the wad in, followed by the six-pound ball. 'Now then, gang,' he said with a grin, 'let's see if we can knock Zapolya's hat off. Give me the linstock.'

'I thought you said it was Suleiman,' Duffy said, a little sourly. A year had gone by since the Hungarian governor had defected to the Turks, but Duffy had known the man long ago, and it still galled him to hear Zapolya and Suleiman equated as enemies of the west.

'We figure they're both in there, playing chess,' Bluto explained.

The hunchback touched off the charge, and again the cannon roared and heaved and coughed forth a great gout of smoke to hang over the battlements. A couple of seconds later a tree to the left of the target abruptly collapsed, slapping up another cloud of dust.

'Closer still,' Bluto said, 'You - give her another kick.'

Duffy got to his feet. 'I can't linger here all morning,' he said. 'We broach the bock tomorrow, and I've got things to do in the meantime.

'See you later, then,' Bluto said, preoccupied with the

gun. 'I'll drop by for a mug or two if it's on the house.

'Why should it be on the house?' the Irishman demanded testily.

'Hmm?' Bluto reluctantly turned away from watching his men sponge out the bore. 'Well, for God's sake, I saved your life, didn't I?'

'When?'

'You forgetful bastard. A month ago, when you were attacked in the forest.'

'You nearly killed me,' Duffy said. 'And it was you being attacked, not me.' -

'Here, what are you apes doing?' the hunchback shouted at his assistants. 'Give me that.' He pushed the gunnery men away from the cannon and seized the sponge-pole himself. 'Three turns left and three right,' he told them. 'Or maybe you want a stray spark still in there when you put in the new powder, eh? Idiots.' His assistants grinned apologetically and shuffled their feet.

Duffy shook his head and strode to the stairway that would take him down to the street. Truly a single-minded hunchback, he thought.

When he reached the pavement and looked up from his boots, he groaned inwardly. Oh hell, he thought, it's the Englishman, Lothario Mothertongue. Can I duck out? No, damn it, he's seen me. Hello, Lothario,' he said tiredly to the tall blond man who was walking toward the stairs.

'Hello, Duffy,' boomed Mothertongue energetically. 'I've come to inspect the artillery. Give yon hunchback a bit of advice on the placement of the guns.'

Duffy nodded. 'I'm sure he'll be grateful.' Mother-tongue had been 'inspecting the artillery' daily ever since