The Drawing of the Dark

Though he had always been as at home in forests or at sea as in cities, the twelve-day confinement of the siege had given the Irishman something of the habitual city-dweller's point of view; it now felt unnatural to be seeing the walls of the city from the outside - an unnatural perspective, like looking up at the hull of a ship from under water, or seeing the back of one's own head.

They tramped on and the walls slowly drew nearer and still they heard no wailing battle cries or thunder of hooves from behind. Duffy could recognize men on the battlements now, and saw Bluto peering along a cannon barrel.

Then there was the drumming of hoof-beats from the Cast, and von Salm raised his hand to check the instinctive increase in speed. 'We will not run!' he shouted. 'They cannot reach us before we are inside. Anyway, I believe they want to deal with the guard we left by the wall.'

So the columns of knights and landsknechten marched on at the same agonizingly restrained pace, while the pursuit grew audibly nearer. The men on the walls were now calling to them to hurry.

Duffy turned to stare behind - a mercenary's luxury; the knights were etiquette-bound to look straight ahead and take their leader's word for what was happening - and saw perhaps two dozen mounted Janissaries riding after them, their long white robes whipping about like wings in the head-on breeze. He's right, the Irishman admitted to himself. They can't possibly get here before we get through the gate, and they'd be mad to ride within cannon-range in the attempt. I guess they must really think we've left men to guard that damned little wall.

Then the Janissaries had reached the wall, and were wheeling around it; and a moment later the wall's midsection silently turned into a skyward-rushing dustcloud, and Duffy saw several horses and riders on the periphery flung to the ground. After a second or two the boom of the explosion rolled across him.

They could hear the Carinthian gate being opened as they rounded the southeast corner, and von Satin, swaying in his saddle, did not object when they all quickened their pace.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

As had recently become his involuntary habit, Duffy awoke as suddenly as if someone had punched him. He rolled out of his bunk and stood up, glaring round-about in an unspecific panic, wondering where he should have been at this moment and whether the dim light beyond the window was that of early dawn or late evening.

At Duffy's abrupt movement another man gasped and scrambled out of a bunk. 'What the hell?' he shouted, blinking rapidly and grabbing for his boots. 'What the hell?'

Several groans arose out of the room's shadowy expanse, and one voice at the other end called, 'What's the trouble, Suleiman goosing you in your sleep? Get drunk before you go to bed - then you won't dream.'

Well, I'm not sure that's true, Duffy thought. He relaxed and sat down on the bunk, having remembered, in less than the usual ten seconds, who he was, and where, and when. That's evening out there, he told himself proudly; this afternoon we sallied forth to drive the Turks back from that little rise, and my gun misfired, and poor old Bobo ate one scimitar while parrying two others. I remember it all.

He pulled on his boots and stood up again, wishing, not for the first time during the last twelve days, that there was water to be spared for bathing.

'That you, Duff?' came another voice, nearby.

'Yes.'

'Where you headed?'

'Out. Go drink somewhere.'

'Eilif's at the Peerless Ploughman, on the other side of the Kartnerstrasse by the Capuchin church. Know the place?'

'Oh, aye.' Duffy had, during the last five months, been making up for his three-year absence from the legendary mercenaries' tavern, which had been founded in 1518 by an expatriate Englishman who'd lost a leg in a minor skirmish on the Hungarian border. 'Perhaps I'll trot round that way myself.'

'A wise plan,' the other man agreed. 'He said he had something he wanted to tell you anyway.'

'That's where I'm likely to be, then. Come yourself whenever you think you've had enough sleep.'

Duffy stepped outside, breathing deeply in the cool west breeze that hadn't slacked in the last two weeks. The day's cloud cover was breaking up, and he could see Orion lying almost prone across the rooftops. Bonfires and braziers already flickered here and there on the rubble-strewn pavement; groups of soldiers hurried by with an air of purpose, and the little boys who sold firewood were scrabbling about in the wreckage of several shattered buildings, cautiously pleased by the quantity of windfall kindling they were able to fill their baskets with. Someone was strumming a lute in the next barracks, and Duffy hummed the tune as he strode away up the Schwarzenbergstrasse.

There was nothing much about the exterior of the Peerless Ploughman to distinguish it from any other building in the area; it was a low, shingle-roofed house whose small, leaded-glass windows spilled only a slight gleam of light out onto the cobblestones, and its sign, a rusty plough, was bolted flat against the bricks of the wall and practically invisible at night. Duffy clumped up to the heavy oaken door and pounded with his fist on

the worn spot below the empty knocker-hinge.

After a few seconds the door swung inward, letting more light and a mixture of smells - beef, beer, spices and sweat - out into the street. A big, sandy-haired young man with pop eyes peered at him over the top of a foaming beer mug.

'Can I come in?' Duffy asked with a smile. 'I'm with-'

'I know,' said the beer drinker, lowering the mug and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 'Eilif's company. I saw you from the wall today. Come on in.' He stepped back and waved Duffy inside.

There were five steps down to the main floor, which made the heavy-beamed ceiling seem high. Lamps and candles cast a diffused yellow light from a dozen tables, and the surf-roar of conversation and laughter and rattling cups surged back and forth in the place, so completely contained by the massive wails and thick door that a passerby in the street outside would scarcely have known the house was occupied. There was music, too, for old Fenn, the host, had got out his antique harp - booty from God-knew-what long-forgotten campaign - and was strumming on it old country airs to which he'd improvised filthy and blasphemous lyrics. Duffy picked his way down the steps and began weaving through the crowd toward where he knew the wine was.

'Duffy!' sounded a shout through the babble. 'Damn it, Brian! Over here!'