The Drawing of the Dark

By late afternoon the northmen were snoring in the hay, exhausted by their journey and made drowsy by the three kegs of beer they'd emptied. Duffy, nearly asleep himself, sat at his customary table in the dining room and watched the serving women ply brooms, mops and damp cloths about the walls and floor.

Presently listless footsteps dragged up to the front door and Bluto slouched in through the vestibule. He saw Duffy and started laughing. 'Poseidon! You've taken a bath, I perceive, but you still smell like the canal.'

The Irishman smiled sourly. 'Go ahead and laugh,' he said. 'Those northmen think I'm God or somebody.' He waved in grudging invitation toward the other chair at the table. 'How was your day?'

'Oh, not good.' Bluto sat down heavily. 'Beer here, someone! A kid stuck his head in one of my best culverins and threw up.

'That'll surprise the Turks,' Duffy observed.

'No doubt. Listen, Duff, do you really think it's likely Suleiman will be coming here? It's awful far north, in Turkish terms.'

Duffy shrugged. 'Unless Suleiman dies - and is replaced by a pacifist Sultan, which is nearly a contradiction in terms - I'd say certainly, the Turks will try to take Vienna. After all, why. should they stop now? They've been moving steadily up the Danube: Belgrade in 'twenty-one, Mohacs, Buda and Pest in 'twenty-six . . .and it's not

as if Suleiman will be meeting a terribly-organized front. Charles is too busy fighting the French king, Francis, to send us any troops, and Ferdinand alone won't be able to do much. Pope Clement has sent the customary good wishes, and little else. And then we've got good old Martin Luther wandering around saying idiot things like "to fight against the Turks is to resist the Lord, who visits our sins with such rods." Two years ago I'd have said Zapolya was our firmest hope against them, and now of course he's signed up as Suleiman's lackey. Actually, the Holy Roman Empire, the whole West, has never been so ripe for overthrow.'

Bluto shook his head worriedly. 'Right, then, so they come. Do you think we can turn them back?'

'I don't know. You're the gunnery man. But I think if we do rout them it'll be mainly because natural circumstances have weakened them - the weather, overstretched supply lines, things like that. They'll be far from home, after all.'

'Yes.' The hunchback's beer was delivered, and he sipped it moodily. 'Duff, as my closest friend, will

'Hell,' the Irishman interrupted, 'you've only known me a month.'

'I'm aware of that, of course,' Bluto went on stiffly, making Duffy wish he hadn't spoken. 'As my closest friend, I'm asking you to do a favor for me.'

'Well, of course,' said Duffy, embarrassed as he always was by any manifestation of sentiment.

'If I should happen to be killed.., will you see to it that my body is cremated?'

'Cremated? Very well,' Duffy said slowly. 'The priests wouldn't like it, but I guess there'd be no reason for them to hear about it. You might outlive me, of course. Why do you want to be cremated?'

Bluto looked uncomfortable. 'I guess if you accept the charge you deserve the explanation. Uh. . .my father was a hunchback, like myself. The whole line may have been, for all I know. He died when I was two years old. A cousin told me the following story, late one night; he was drunk, but swore it was true, that he'd been there.'

'For God's sake,' said Duffy. 'Been where?'

'To my father's wake. Be quiet and listen. My father committed suicide, and the local priest said everybody's ancestors would be dishonored if my father was to be buried in consecrated soil. It was just as well - I don't think the old man would have wanted it anyway. So a bunch of his friends carted his body to an old pagan burial ground a few miles outside of town.' He had another pull at his beer and continued. 'There was a little house there, with a table, so they dug a grave right out front, broke out the liquor and laid the corpse out on the table. But he was a hunchback, as I've said, and he wouldn't lie flat. It wouldn't do to celebrate the wake with him face down, either - bad luck or something - so they found a rope somewhere, ran it over Dad's chest, and tied it under the table so tightly that he was actually pressed flat. So, now that the guest of honor was properly reclining, they hit the liquor. By nightfall a lot of other people had shown up; they were all crying and singing, and one of them was embracing the corpse.. .and he noticed the bowstring-taut rope.

'Uh-oh.'

'Right. Nobody was watching him, so he sneaked out his knife and sawed through the rope. My father's corpse, with all that spring-tension suddenly released, catapulted right out the window. It scared the devil out of the mourners until the knife-wielder explained what he'd done. They went outside to bring the body back in, and saw that it had landed just a few feet to one side of the grave they'd dug. So they dragged him back inside, tied him down again, moved the table a little, made a few bets, and cut him loose again. Boing. Out he went. On the fourth shot he landed in the grave, and they filled it in and went home.'

'Good holy Christ!' Duffy exclaimed. 'I think your cousin was lying to you.'

'Maybe. But I want to be burned.'

'Look, just because something like that happened to your father -,

'Burned, Duff.'

'Oh, very well. I'll see to it, if I survive you.' They shook hands on it.

Looking over the Irishman's shoulder, Bluto remarked in a more casual tone, 'Hm! The mandarino is giving one of us the fish-eye.'

Duffy shifted around in his chair, and found himself once again meeting the cold stare of Antoku Ten-no. 'You're right,' he said, repressing a shudder as he turned back to Bluto. 'An unpleasant customer, beyond doubt.'

'Speaking of your customers,' said the hunchback, 'at what hour will you actually broach the bock tomorrow?'

'Can't get your mind off that, can you? Oh, tomorrow evening about five, I guess. I'll see you then, I assume.'