Duffy concluded his examination of the horse with a long stare into its eyes. 'How much for him?'
'Oh...' The innkeeper pursed his lips. 'Sixty ducats?'
'Forty it is.' Duffy gave the man some more coins. 'I'm not kidding when I say I'll be back here, angry, if he drops dead.'
'He's a good horse,' the innkeeper protested. 'I've cared for him since he was born. Assisted at his birth.'
'Good heavens. I don't want to hear about it. Listen, I'll need some food, too. Uh. . .four, no, five long loaves of bread, five thick sticks of hard salami, a week's worth of whatever kind of grain the horse likes, two gallons of dry red wine, a bottle of really potent brandy.. .and a sack of onions, a handful of garlic cloves and two pounds of white
cheese. Put all that in four sacks and tell me how much it adds to my bill.'
'Yes, sir,' the innkeeper turned and started back toward the building.
'And I mean potent brandy,' Duffy called after him. 'flare to give me watered-down stuff and I'll be back here even if the damned horse can fly.'
* * *
Chapter Three
The sun still lingered in the morning side of the sky when Duffy left Trieste, riding east, angling up through the foothills toward the white teeth of the Julian Alps. He'd stopped once more before leaving the city, to buy a pair of leather breeches and a knapsack, and he was wearing both items now. The bright sun sparkled at him from the new brooks that ran down through the hills, but he could still see the white steam of his breath, and he was glad he'd picked up a good pair of gloves during his stay in Venice.
Hunching around in the saddle, he nodded to the blue patch on the horizon that was the Gulf of Venice. So long, Mediterranean, he thought. It's been a pleasant interlude here, with your sunshine, Madeira wine and dark-eyed girls - but I guess I'm by nature more at home in the colder northern lands. God knows why.
The Irishman tilted back his hat and shook his head bewilderedly. Odd, he thought, how it got so weird there at the end. The Gritti boys try to kill me three-on-one Wednesday night, and then one of them saves my life and directs me to a safe ship next morning. And how did he know I needed a Trieste-bound ship, anyway? The Venetian citizens seem to know more about my business than I do myself.
And what is my business, anyway? I still can't see why that little old black-clad jack-in-the-box - God, I can't even remember his name - gave me all this money. Am I really the only man he's met capable of keeping the peace in his Austrian tavern? And since when do bouncers get this kind of money? It seems to me they're usually doing well if they get mere room and board. Oh, don't question it, old lad, he advised himself. The money's real, that's what counts.
The road wound now through tall evergreens, and the chilly air was spicy with the smell of pine. Duffy filled his lungs and smiled nostalgically. Ah, that's a smell from home, he thought. Austria, I've missed you.
And, he admitted uneasily, I've missed you, too, Epiphany. Good God - Duffy suddenly felt old - she's probably got a child by now. Maybe two of them. Or - he brightened - maybe that gargoyle Hallstadt fell off his horse one day while out hawking, leaving the old girl single and rich. Ho ho. Of course she might not speak to me. Steward, dump chamber-pots on that derelict at the front door. A quick vision of Duffy, befouled and berserk, kicking his way through a dining hail window, the ghastly spectre at the feast.
The thump of unhurried hoof beats interrupted his reverie. He turned and saw, riding lazily fifty yards behind, a sturdy fellow wearing the laced-leather tunic and slung bow of a chamois hunter. Duffy waved politely but, not wanting conversation, didn't slow his pace.
Finally he focused his mind on the idea that was bothering him most. Could it be, he asked himself reluctantly, that I'm becoming a serious drunkard? I've been drinking since I was eleven, but it's never before given me hallucinations and blackouts. Well, you're getting older every day, you know. Can't expect to be able to toss it down the way you did when you were twenty. After this journey I'll stick to beer for a while, he promised himself, and not a lot of that. I certainly don't want to start seeing goat-footed people again.
The way was steeper now. A muddy slope, furred with brown clumps of pine needles, rose at his., left hand, a similar one fell away at his right, and the tall pine trees stood up from every height like bushy green spectators seated in tiers. Bird-screeches echoed through the woods, and squirrels on high branches regarded the horse and man with great interest. Duffy flapped his arms and hooted at them and they fled in astonishment.
He was overtaking another rider, a fat friar on a plodding mule. The man appeared to be asleep, rocking loosely in the saddle and letting his mount navigate. Quite a busy road for this time of year, Duffy reflected.
Suddenly it was quieter. What sound just stopped? he asked himself. Oh, of course - the hoofbeats of the chamois hunter's horse. Duffy turned around again - and abruptly rolled out of the saddle as an iron-headed arrow split the air six inches over his saddle-bow. Somersaulting awkwardly across the path, boots flailing, he dived in a semi-controlled slide down the steep right-hand slope. For thirty feet he cut gouges in the mud and matted pine needles, then his clutching hand caught a tree root and he pulled himself hastily to his feet. He was behind a wide trunk and, he prayed, invisible to anyone on the road above.
He wiped cold mud off his face with a trembling gloved hand and tried to quiet his breathing. A bandit, by God, Duffy thought. I hope he leaves that poor friar alone. This makes three attempts on my life in three days - quite a coincidence. And it is simply a coincidence, he told himself firmly.
'Do you see his body?' asked someone up on the road.
'I tell you, idiot, you missed,' came an answer. 'Your arrow bounced away through the trees. He's hiding down there.'
After a long pause the first speaker, more quietly now, said, 'Well that's great.'
Who's this other man, Duffy wondered. And where's the friar? Or is that the friar? I wish I could see up there.
'Hey,' one of them shouted. 'I know you can hear me. Come up right now and we won't hurt you.'
Is that so, Duffy thought with a mirthless grin. Is that so, indeed?
'You know I've got a bow up here. I can just wait. You've got to come out some time, and I'll put an arrow through your eye when you do.'
Well, if it comes to that, the Irishman reasoned, I can wait until dark and then creep unseen back up the hill and cut your vociferous throat, my friend. Where can my horse and supplies be getting to? Strange breed of bandits you two are, not to have gone after him instead of me.