The Drawing of the Dark

At the same moment, Duffy strode in from the kitchen and Aurelianus pushed open the street door. Both men looked tired and less than pleased. Without looking at each other they pulled up a chair and a bench at Bluto's table.

'Uh, make that a pitcher, and two more cups, Anna,' the hunchback called. Duffy and Aurelianus nodded agreement.

'Did he leave through the Carinthian gate?' the old man asked after a minute of breath-catching. 'I've got the north one closed and triply guarded.'

Duffy nodded. 'He did. Three minutes before I got there. I followed him south for a half mile, but even in this moonlight I lost his tracks.'

Aurelianus sighed. 'Are you sure it was him?'

'Yes. I used to know him, remember? He came to entice me over to the Turkish side, and to blow this place up. By the way, Bluto, I believe the missing siege mortar is in the middle of that bonfire out back.'

'It is,' Bluto confirmed. 'You can see it through the flames.'

'I wonder,' Duffy sighed, filling a cup with the newly arrived beer, 'why they aimed the thing the wrong way. Was it all a bluff? But why bring the gun at all if that was the case?'

'It wasn't a bluff,' Bluto told him. 'When your north-men saw those four men roll the wagon into the yard, they told them, in Norse and sign-language, to get it the hell out of there. Zapolya's men told them to shut up, so the Vikings turned the wagon around themselves, intending to shove it back out into -the street. That started a fistfight, and apparently these haywagon boys were carrying fire-pots or slowmatches. One of them was knocked unconscious and fell into the hay. A minute later the wagon was in flames, and a minute after that the mortar let go, taking out the fence and two buildings on the next street. Your Vikings figured this was an unfair weapon, so they unsheathed their swords and killed the remaining three intruders immediately.'

Duffy laughed grimly. 'And I thought they'd never earn their keep.'

'He tried to entice you, you say?' Aurelianus asked, leaning forward. 'By what persuasions?'

'Crazy things. He talked like you frequently do, as a matter of fact. That stranger-things-are-possible-than-you-know sort of nonsense.' Duffy refilled his mug. 'He said if I went along and signed up, that Ibrahim would make me Sultan and just depose old Suleiman, I guess.' He shook his head and sighed with genuine regret. 'Poor old John. I remember him before he lost his mind.'

Aurelianus was deep in thought. 'Yes,' he said finally, 'I can see what Ibrahim must have had in mind. A wild gambit indeed! Zapolya's mission was to buy you over or, failing that, to kill you. And to blow up this inn in any case.

'Ibrahim could have sent a better messenger,' Duffyobserved. 'John never got around to mentioning money.

Aurelianus stared at him. 'Money? He offered you the third highest position in the Eastern Empire!' He shook his head. 'Oh hell. I don't know; maybe it's a good thing you persist in regarding these matters in such a mundane light. Maybe that's your strength.'

'Ibrahim wants Duffy here for a sultan?' Bluto snickered, 'I thought sultans were supposed to be teetotallers.'

The Irishman wasn't listening. 'He did seem a little . . .at a loss, right at the end, like a man offering gold coins to a savage whose tribe barters only hides and fish. He said,

"Do you honestly not know who you are?" and then that gun went off.' He turned hesitantly to Aurelianus. 'Do you think...you don't think...Ibrahim really sent him? To offer me... that?'

Aurelianus looked away. 'I can't be sure,' he said, but Duffy got the impression that the old man's uncertainty was feigned.

'Who am I, then? What did he mean by all that?'

'You'll know soon enough,' Aurelianus said pleadingly. 'This is the sort of thing it's no use telling you about until you've more than half figured it out already. If I explained everything now, you'd laugh and say I was crazy. Have patience.'

Duffy was tired, or he might have pursued the point. As it was, he just shrugged: 'Let it lie, then. I'm fast losing interest in all this anyway.' 'His decision to flee with Epiphany had given him a pleasant sense of dissociation with all of Aurelianus' schemes and theories. 'More beer here, Anna! This pitcher's suddenly empty. Oh, by the way, Aurelianus, when do they draw the Herzwesten Dark?'

Aurelianus blinked. 'Who in hell have you been talking to? Bluto, would you leave us for a moment? This is a private business.

'Certainly, certainly!' Bluto stood up and went to another table, intercepting, to the Irishman's chagrin, the new pitcher.

'Who,' Aurelianus asked earnestly, 'told you about the Dark?'

'Nobody told me. I-heard a noise in the cellar and found some red-haired fellow wandering around down there. I followed him through the door in the wall, and saw that huge vat. Is all Herzwesten beer drawn from that?'

'Yes. Do you.. .have any idea who he was?' The old man's voice quivered with suppressed excitement.

'Me? No. He disappeared in the vat room. I looked all

over for a secret door, but couldn't find one.' Duffy laughed. 'I figured he must have been a ghost.'

'He was. Did he speak?'