The Drawing of the Dark

'If you'll pardon my saying so, John, none of this makes any sense. Why should you risk your life sneaking into Vienna, and then settle for just killing me and blowing up this inn?' Keep him talking, Duffy told himself; play for time and maybe some drunk will lurch into him, spoil his aim for one precious second.

'Don't play ignorant with me, old Duff,' said Zapolya with an easy smile. 'You wouldn't be here if you didn't know what this place is, and who you are.'

'Why must everyone speak to me in riddles?' Duffy complained. 'What is it you want? Why are you sitting in here if you've got a damned siege-gun levelled at the back door?'

'Keep your voice down. I'm sitting here because I'm a dispensable piece in this game, a rook they're willing to sacrifice for a solid checkmate. I've been sent here - at great personal risk, as you've noted - by my master, Ibrahim, to offer you a very high, very powerful position in the Eastern Empire.'

The amorous priest reeled by behind Zapolya's chair in pursuit of one of the serving women, but earned a mental curse from the Irishman for failing to collide with the traitorous Hungarian's chair. 'Position?' Duffy sighed. 'What sort of position?'

Zapolya stared at him with something like envy. 'A higher one than mine. If you play this game right, you could replace Suleiman himself.'

Duffy laughed derisively and gulped some beer, using the motion to let his hand fall nearer his dagger. 'I hate to be the first to tell you you're crazy, John. If I am.' He strove to keep his tone light while trying to guess the position of the other man's gun. 'Why should Ibrahim want me to replace the Sultan? The greatest Sultan the Ottomans have ever had! This really is madness. And I can just imagine the delight the Turks would exhibit at being led by an Irishman. Ho ho.'

'Much the same, I imagine, as their delight at having an orphan from Parga appointed Grand Vizir over Ahmed Pasha, who'd deserved the post for years. These things do happen, and the next step is always unimaginable until it's occurred.'

Can I flip this table over before he can pull the spark rasp of his gun? Duffy wondered. Probably not. 'Why me, John?' he stalled. 'Why Brian Duffy from Dingle? You haven't explained that yet.'

Zapolya, for the first time during the conversation, looked disconcerted. 'Brian.. .honestly, don't you know who.. .what. . .you are?'

A wrenching thunderclap sounded from the rear of the building, and the windows rattled furiously. Ladies screamed, serving women dropped laden trays, and Zapolya instinctively half-turned in his chair. Duffy leaped to his feet, overturning the table on the Hungarian, whose pinned gun sent a lead ball splintering into the floor between Duffy's boots.

There were screams and sword clangs from the back alley, and a fog of gunpowder smoke blew through the kitchen into the dining room, where the beer-fuddled crowd had united in a desperate, shouting rush for the front door. Duffy was knocked sprawling by a fat lady

who was bulling her way through the press, and he lost sight of Zapolya.

'Bluto!' Duffy yelled. 'Aurelianus, anyone! Grab that Spaniard! He's Zapolya!'

No one heard him, and by the time he'd kicked and cursed his way clear of the shouting crowd, the Hungarian was nowhere to be seen. The Irishman gritted an oath and ran through the smoke-fogged kitchen.

The stableyard beyond was all aglare, lit by a furiously burning haywagon that sat on its collapsed axles in the middle of the yard. A great gap had been torn in the back fence, and through it he could see flames licking about among a scattered rubble-heap that had been a leather shop that afternoon. Bugge' s Vikings fingered the grips of their bared swords and kept wary eyes on the shadows; and after a moment the Irishman noticed three bodies sprawled on the paving stones.

'Aurelianus!' he called. 'Bluto! Damn it, we can still catch him!'

'Who?' asked Aurelianus, who had followed him through the kitchen and now stood wringing his hands behind Duffy.

'Zapolya! He was here. Take a horse and race to the north gate. I'll take the Carinthian gate. Have them close it and let no one out.' Duffy had seized a wild-eyed horse as he spoke, and now scrambled up onto its bare back. 'Go!' Not pausing to see if the trembling old man obeyed him, Duffy put his heels to his mount's ribs and galloped out of the red-lit yard.

Bluto cut another notch in the candle's rim and watched the hot wax spill down the side. 'Anna,' he said. 'Another cup of bock.'>He stood up reluctantly and looked down at Epiphany, who in the diminishing light was an indistinct figure stretched across the bed. 'I'll be back sometime,' he said.

'I hope so,' she answered in a small voice.

* * *

Chapter Twelve

Crowded into a shadowy corner, Duffy and Aurelianus watched three beer-crazed shepherds jigging on one of the tables while nearly everyone in that quarter of the dining room sang and clapped in accompaniment.

'Don't you think you should get those men down from there?' Aurelianus asked anxiously.

Duffy shook his head. 'No. The celebration spirit would only break out in some other activity, like maybe pitching beer mugs through the window. They're just enjoying themselves, and they're paying you for the beer. Why interfere?'

'Well.. .all right. You're the chucker-out, after all.' The old man leaned against the wall, apparently a little bewildered by the rowdiness of the bock celebration. 'Are you quite up to all this?' he asked. 'Have you rested up at all since our underground enterprise last night?'

'What? I can't hear you in this pandemonium.' Aurelianus repeated his last sentence, louder. 'Oh! Don't worry about me, I'm fine. These days it takes more than a few hobgoblins to disorder me.'

'Good. It's a wise tolerance to cultivate.'

'It's what? I didn't - God help us.' Duffy shoved several people aside, spilling their beer in all directions, and, taking a flying hop over a table, bowled off their feet two mercenaries who bad begun trading knife-thrusts. Before they could roll to their feet the Irishman had unsheathed his own dagger and cut, with two quick flicks of the blade,