He hooked a thumb at the storeroom. 'Piff still in there?'

'Well,' she answered cautiously, 'yes...'

He pushed the door open quietly so as not to startle her, and saw her and Lothario Mothertongue sitting together

on one of the few remaining hundred-pound sacks of flour. They were talking in low mutters and Mothertongue was stroking her hair. The Irishman closed the door as silently as he'd opened it.

He stood beside Anna and watched her chop an onion and then dice it. 'How long has that been going on?'

She scooped up the white bits and flicked them off her hand into the pot. 'A few days. It seems like everybody's behavior has changed during these last two weeks.'

'Do tell. Well, I'll still speak for her to Aurelianus.' 'Now there's generosity!'

He nodded. 'Biting, Anna, very biting. Rest assured I'm cut to the quick. Where will I find him?'

'Hell, I'm sorry. In the old chapel, probably. He spends a lot of time in there, doing all kinds of peculiar things with weights and pendulums and little tops like the ones Jewish children play with. And any time there's a bit of sun he'll be waving a little mirror out one of the windows. Like he was signalling, you know, but it's a windowless, high-walled court out there - the only ones who could see the flashes would be birds overhead.'

'That's the sort of thing these magicians like to do,' Duffy told her. 'See you later.'

>'It's Vertot,' said Eilif, who'd been ignoring the noise and was still watching the street. 'Aha! And von Salm right behind. He's punctual - a good sign! Sit tight, lads, this is where we straighten everything out.'

Well, Duffy thought bitterly, perhaps not quite everything.

Epiphany did not reappear during the meeting, in which Duffy found he could take no great interest. Anna served beer and sausage, giving the Irishman occasional glances of angry reproach.

Damn it, he thought during a long statement by the elegantly dressed and bearded von Salm, it wasn't my fault. Was that any way for the old girl to go on, after all this time? It must have been affectation, a pose - surely

Anna can see that! Hell, no romantic reverse ever gave me more than a week's upset...

Oh? spoke up sarcastically another part of his mind. Then I guess it must have been some other Irishman that went off to fight the Turks at Mohacs in 'twenty-six, just because his girl married another man; it took him three years to face her again.

.isn't that right, Brian? Or would you say I've overstated the case?' Eilif was eyeing him expectantly.

Duffy raised his head, letting his frown of worry look, he hoped, like one of grim determination. 'There was no exaggeration in what you said,' he told Eilif.

The Swiss turned again to von Salm. 'Hear? And that from a man who fought with Tomori! You can't deny...' And the discussion swam again out of the Irishman's focus of attention. Despite a vow he'd made at dawn, he was doing more than his share of putting away the beer.

At last the captains were pushing the benches back and standing up.

'As a limited representative of Emperor Charles V, that is all I can offer to add,' von Salm said. 'You can be sure, though, that when the Turks are driven off-assuming you landsknechten maintain your present level of performance - I will vehemently recommend a fuller payment for you all.'

The captains nodded and broke up into conversing groups, having evidently got as much as they'd hoped for.

Eilif turned to the Irishman. 'Heading back, Duff?'

'Uh...no.' Duffy grimaced at the kitchen door. 'No, I've got to settle a thing or two.'

'Well, I'll see you back there.' The grizzled Swiss

- captain grinned at him. 'Don't give it all more worry than it's worth, lad.'

Duffy shrugged. 'I forget what it's worth.'

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

He found her in the flour-dusty storeroom, sitting on a keg of salt and sobbing so convulsively that it looked as if a pack of invisible dogs was mauling her.

Tags: Tim Powers Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net