For several minutes Mothertongue sat dejected, reflexively looking up every time he heard the front door creak open. After a while a tall man came in, his hair plastered down by the rain, and Mothertongue recognized Brian Duffyand waved, a little reluctantly. He pursed his lips then, for Duffy had returned the wave and was crossing the room toward him.

'Hello, Brian,' he said when the Irishman stood over him. 'I don't suppose you'd know where Epiphany's father lives, would you? Or that you'd tell me, if you did?'

The Irishman sat down, eyed him narrowly and said something in a language Mothertongue didn't understand. Mothertongue cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, and Duffy frowned with concentration, then spoke again in Latin. In spite of an unusual accent the Englishman was able to understand it. 'You seem unhappy, friend,' Duffy had said. 'What troubles you?'

'I'm worried about Mrs Hallstadt. She's been -'In Latinae.'

Mothertongue stared in surprise at Duffy, trying to decide whether or not he was being made fun of. The intentness of Duffy's gaze reassured him, and though still .puzzled he began to speak haltingly in Latin. 'Uh . . .1 am

concerned about Epiphany. She has been feeling bad lately, and then - I am sure unintentionally - you upset her yesterday morning by abruptly reappearing after an absence of many months. Now she has evidently received some bad news about her father, whom she has gone to see, and I would like to be with her in this crisis.

'Ah. You care for this woman, do you?'

Mothertongue looked at him cautiously. 'Well.., yes. Why, do you - still have affection for her?'

The Irishman smiled. 'Still? I see. Uh, no, not the sort you mean, though I naturally have a high regard for.. .the woman. I am glad she has found as worthy a man as yourself to be concerned for her.'

'Why, thank you, Brian, it is good of you to be that way about it, rather than.. .be some other way. Damn this language. It has all looked completely hopeless to me of late, but perhaps something can still be salvaged of the old order.'

'The old order?' Two citizens shambled past, gawking at these men speaking church language.

'Yes. Perhaps.. .perhaps you remember certain hints I was making, when I first got here, this last spring.'

'Remind me.'

'Well, certain powerful authorities have summoned me

-, His face had begun to brighten, how now it fell. 'But they might better have saved the effort. It has all failed.'

Why don't you just tell it to me.'

'I will. It's an outmoded secret now. I - he looked up, with a certain battered dignity. 'I am the legendary King Arthur, re-born.'

Duffy's gray eyebrows were as high as they could get. 'Would you please repeat that, giving special care to your use of the verb?'

Mothertongue repeated it as before 'I know how

fantastic that sounds, and I doubted it myself for years; but a number of visions, supplemented with a lot of logical reasoning, finally convinced me. As a matter of fact, I was aware that Arthur had come back long before I deduced that it was I. I believe several of my men have been re-born as well, and that some high power intended us to meet and lead the way to a final dispersal of the Turks.' He shook his head. 'But it has failed. I found the men, but was unable to awaken the older souls in them. I told my secret to Count von Salm, and offered to assume command of a part of the army, and I was actually mocked -actually laughed at and ordered to leave.' Mothertongue waved in the direction of the door. 'And then, idle here in my defeat, I noticed Epiphany. I happened to look in her eyes one day, and got a conviction as clear as my first convictions that Arthur had been re-born - I suddenly knew that this woman had known Arthur very well.' He shrugged. 'Need I say more?'

'Just a bit, if you would.'

'She is Guinevere. The gods are kind! I was unable to awaken the dormant souls of my men with a call to duty, but I think I can awaken her soul with love.'

The Irishman stared at him with the wondering respect one feels for a child who has done some tremendously difficult, absolutely pointless thing. 'I wish you well,' he said.

'Thank you, Brian! I would like to say I am sorry for the way I -'

He was interrupted by a sudden jolt and rumble that seemed to come up through the floor. Duffy's face changed in an instant, and he leaped up and sprinted to the front door, wrenched it open and stood there listening. Several patrons cringed at the gust of cold air and the louder hiss of the rain, but nobody dared voice any objections. After several seconds another sound cut through the rain: the strident clangor of the alarum bells in the tower of .St Stephen's.

'My God,' Duffy breathed, speaking contemporary Austrian for the first time that day. 'That was the wall'

He ran back through the dining room, flinging several people out of his way, through the steamy kitchen and out the back door into the yard; splashing across to the stables, he dragged a reluctant mare out of the shelter, leaped and scrabbled up onto the creature's bare back, and rode her out to the street, goading her to a gallop when they reached the south-ward-stretching, rain-swept expanse of the Rotenturmstrasse.

The echoing pandemonium of the bells was deafening as he drummed past the cathedral square. Though the rain was thrashing down out of the gray sky as hard as ever, quite a number of people were kneeling on the pavement. Make it count, you silly bastards, he thought grimly. If ever there was a morning for a high-density volley of prayers, this is the one.

Soon he could hear the thousand-throated roar of battle, and he had taken a left turn and ridden half-way down a narrower, slanting street when he saw ahead of him, dimly through the curtains of rain, half of a great, ragged-edged gap in the high wall, and a maelstrom of men surging back and forth over the hills of rubble. Even from this distance he could see the white robes of the Janissaries. 'Holy God,' he murmured, then whirled out his sword and put his heels to the mare's flanks.

The Viennese forces had been assembled within minutes of the mine-detonations, and were now grouped in two tightly packed divisions, trying by sheer weight and advancing force to drive back the waves of wailing Janissaries. This was desperate, hacking savagery, in which there was no thought except to press forward and kill. Long gone was the almost formal restraint of yesterday afternoon's sortie. A culverin hastily loaded with

Tags: Tim Powers Fantasy
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