The Drawing of the Dark

Page 12

 

  'I'm afraid not. Just ink. ' He held up the ink pot. 'This is ink. Don't drink it this time, eh?'

  'Of course, of course,' Vogel said absently. 'I'm glad you happened to drop by today. I want to show you how The Death of Archangel Michael is coming along. ' Duffy recalled visiting the old artist two weeks ago, for the first time in three years, and being greeted with the same casual 'Glad you happened to drop by today. '

  'Come on,' the old man wheezed. 'Tell me what you think of it. '

  The Irishman allowed himself to be led to the far wall, which was fitfully illuminated by two candles. Filling the wall entirely, from floor to ceiling and corner to corner, drawn with painstaking care on the plaster in a near-infinity of fine, close-knit penstrokes, was a vast picture.

  Duffy gave a polite glance to the maelstrom of churning figures. When he had first seen the picture, possibly seven years ago, he'd had to look close to see the faint outlines of the shapes on the white plaster; and when he left Vienna in 'twenty-six the wall was a finely shaded drawing, crowded and vague in subject but faultless in execution. Now it was much darker, for every day the artist added hundreds of strokes, deepening shadows and, very gradually, blacking out some peripheral figures altogether. Three years ago the scene pictured seemed to be occurring at noon; now the tortured figures writhed and gestured in the shade of deep twilight.

  'It's coming along wonderfully, Gustav,' Duffy said.

  'You think so? Good! Naturally your opinion counts in this,' the old man chittered eagerly. 'I've invited Albrecht to come and see it, but lately he hasn't even been answering my letters. I'm nearly finished, you see. I've got to complete the thing before I lose my sight entirely. '

  'Couldn't you call it finished now?'

  'Oh no! You don't know about these things, young man. No, it needs a good deal of work yet. '

  'If you say so. Here, I'll stash this food in your pantry. Don't forget it's there, either!' Still looking at the old man, Duffy pulled open the door of the narrow pantry; a gust of fresh, cold air, carrying a smell like the sea, ruffled his hair from behind, and he closed the door without turning around. 'On second thought,' he said, a little unsteadily, 'I'll let you put it away. '

  Epiphany's father, intent on touching up the shading of a cloud, wasn't even listening. Duffy ran a hand nervously through his hair, then laid a small stack of coins on a box that seemed to be serving as a table, and left the room. Descending the stairs he was careful to stare straight ahead, and he won his way to the street without being subjected to any more visions.

  He strode unhappily back toward the Zimmermann Inn.

  What, he asked himself, almost ready to cry, is going on? Until today I hadn't seen any outre things in nearly a month. I'd hoped I was through with all that. And at least those satyrs, griffins and unseen nightfliers last month were, I think, real, since other people saw or were affected- by them. But what about this damnable lake? Would another person have seen that? Maybe I'm crazy and haunted. That's it. Epiphany, will you take an insane husband to match your father?

  From the walls came echoing the boom of cannons as Bluto and his crew of assistants tested the city's artillery for range. I wonder, Duffy thought, not for the first time, if the Turks really will try for Vienna this year. I suppose they will. And what with the shape the old Holy Roman Empire's in, they'll probably sweep right through and be in Ireland in two years. I should take Eilif's advice - just throw myself into the tide of warfare and keep too busy to go mad.

  The soldiers were rowdy downstairs, shouting for the casks of bock to be opened just two days early, and the clamor eventually helped rouse the Irishman from his unusually deep and prolonged afternoon nap. He stared at the ceiling for a few moments and tried to remember what dream it was that had left him with such an oppressive, though unfocused, sense of dread.

  There came a rapping at his door. 'Mr Duffy,' called Shrub, the stable boy. 'Werner says come down or be evicted tonight. '

  'Coming, Shrub. ' He was glad of even this annoying interruption, for it was a summons to rejoin the world, and for a moment the world had seemed on the point of going to bits like a scene painted on shredding canvas. 'I'm coming. ' He put on his boots and sword and left the room.

  At the door to the dining hall he paused to run his hands

  through his gray hair and shake his head a couple of times. Odd, he thought - I feel as if I'm still half asleep. . . as if that damned dream, the one I can't remember, is still going on, and is in some way more real than my perceptions of this old door, my hands, and the smell of cooking beef in the warm air.

  'Don't hang back,' came Anna's cheerfully exasperated voice from behind him. 'Push on. '

  He obediently stepped through into the wide hail and moved aside for her to pass with her tray of pitchers. All the candles were lit in the cressets and wooden chandeliers, and the long room was packed with customers of every sort, from foreign mercenaries with odd accents to middle-aged merchants sweating under the weight of many-pocketed display coats. Probably a third of the company had upturned their empty or nearly-empty mugs, and Anna and two other women were kept busy refilling them. Several dogs who had got in somehow were grow- I ling and bickering for scraps under the tables.

  It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good-fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn't lost yet.

  A tableful of young students near the bar had struck up a song, a cheery sounding number with lyrics in Latin:

  'Feror ego veluti

  Sine nauta navis,

  Ut per vias aeris

  Vaga fertur avis;

  Non me tenent vincula,

  Non me tenet clavis,

  Quero mihi similes

  Et adjungor pravis!'

  Calling on his rusty seminary skill, the Irishman was. a little appalled when he translated it in his head:

  I am carried violently off

  Like a captainless ship,

  Just as down the highways of the sky

  A vagrant bird is driven.

  I am not held by any fetters

  Or secured by any key.

  I look for others like me,

  And my companions are distorted outcasts.

  He frowned, and abandoned as hopeless the notion of finding an uncrowded bench. He decided to sit in the kitchen and just listen for sounds of major unrest.

  Catching the eye of one of the serving women as she was sidling past, the Irishman called over the din, 'Do you know if Epiphany's in the kitchen?'

  A drink-ruddied face looked up from beside Duffy's elbow. 'No, she's not,' the man put in merrily. 'She was under the table here a minute ago. . . ' With a helpful air he peered around his feet. 'Gone! Run off with Werner's mastiff, I expect, and there'll be another litter of pups. about the place before long. Now a leash would -The Irishman's hand shot out and seized the knot of the

  man's wool scarf. With a rolling heave of his shoulders Duffy hauled the choking man right up out of his place, held him briefly overhead as he re-planted his feet, and then pitched the whimpering figure twisting through the air to violently sweep the beer mugs off a nearby table before crashing to the floor, which resounded like a great drum. .

  The roar of conversation halted abruptly, then resumed much louder. Casting his glance defiantly over the crowd, the Irishman happened to catch the narrowed eyes of the Oriental who'd dealt with Bobo that morning. Yes, Duffy thought, what with the mandarino and myself there have been a lot of people flying through the air around here lately. Then, catching a glint of speculation in the sardonic gaze, the Irishman suddenly realized something. Whatever it is, he thought, that's got me so keyed up - this frustration or anticipation or foreboding - that man shares it.

  Werner was beginning to voice hysterical protestations on the far side of the hail, so Duffy turned an
d strode through the steamy kitchen and out the back door into the stable yard.

  That was a damn fool thing to do, he reflected. Flying into a boyfriend-rage like some teenager. Where's my self control these days?

  He breathed deeply the chilly air of evening, staring west over the high roof of the city hall toward the diming-to-black tiers of the sunset. In some land over there it's broad daylight, he told himself. Night rushing up behind me and day so distant in front.

  Was that the scuff of a footstep? He turned and noticed a wooden bucket rocking where it hung on the brewery door. Ah, he thought, just a delivery. Probably the butter Anna's been expecting, hung on the wrong door by mistake. Well, Shrub can carry it in tomorrow morning, I don't want to be meeting anyone just at the moment. Glancing up, he was reassured to see the thickening

  cloud cover. Best not to stand under the open sky in times like these, he thought. Pull all available covers right up over your head.

  A breeze flitted through the yard, and the tang of gunpowder smoke stung his nostrils. Instinctively he spun and glanced about, then leaped to the bucket on the door. A fuse was poking out of it from under the hammered down wooden lid, and quickly disappeared inside, sputtering like a grease-fire, even as the Irishman let out a yell and lifted the bucket off the hook. Though it weighed a good thirty pounds, Duffy pitched the thing one-handed across the yard, letting the momentum of the throw fling him face down onto the cobblestones.

  A flash and deafening crack split the night, and splinters, spinning boards and bits of stone rebounded from the inn walls and clattered down into the yard as the explosion's roar echoed away through the dark streets. Duffy sat up, coughing in the dust-and-smoke-choked air, and blood spilled down his cheek from a gash a flying bit of wood had laid open in his forehead. He lurched to his feet and drew his sword, half expecting a rush of hostile figures from out of the darkness. The only rush, though, was from the kitchen door behind him, as a knot of serving girls and customers elbowed their way outside to see what had happened.

  One voice, Werner's cut through the babble. He pushed several people aside and stepped to the front. 'God damn you, Duffy!' he shouted. 'What have you done now? It wasn't enough to break my windows this morning, now you have to blow up half my stable? Get out of my house, you lazy, drunken son of a bitch!' By way of punctuation he punched the Irishman in his broad chest.

  'Ho!' called someone in the crowd. 'Werner's got a savage side!'

  Duffy barely felt the blow, but something seemed to burst in his head. 'City-bred dog!' he roared, all thoughts of explanation flown. 'Will you lay hands on me? On me? Run, vermin, and rejoice I won't foul my sword with your whore's-spit blood!'

  The spectators had automatically stepped back at the new, harsh authority in Duffy's voice, and he now gave the innkeeper a stinging slap with the flat of his blade. 'Run,' ordered the Irishman, 'or by Manannan and Llyr, I'll cave in your head with the pommel!' Werner's nerve broke, and he bolted around the corner of the building.

  'And hear, this, servant!' Duffy shouted after him. 'You haven't the competence to order me out of your master's house. Aurelianus governs here, not you. '

  Whirling to face the throng of uprooted diners, the Irishman stabbed a finger at two of the Swiss mercenaries he'd gambled with that morning. 'You two,' he pronounced, 'will sleep out here in the yard tonight to make certain this doesn't recur. You may build a fire, and I'll see to it that blankets are sent out to you. Keep your swords ready to hand. Understood?'

  The bewildered landsknechten gulped, looked helplessly at each other, and nodded.

  'Fine. ' The crowd parted for him as he strode back inside through the kitchen door. After a few moments Shrub fetched a bucket of water and timidly set about extinguishing the several small fires the explosion had started, while two of the older stable boys began calming down the surviving horses. Cheated of an explanation, the chattering knot of people slowly filed back inside, concocting wild theories of their own to account for the blast leaving behind the two mercenaries who began unhappily gathering up shattered pieces of wood for a fire.

  An hour later Duffy hung his clothes on a chair and got [ into bed. He blew out the candle with, it seemed to him, his last bit of strength.

  He was still a little awed by his spectacular rage earlier. I must be wound even tighter than I thought, he told himself. I've never before lost my temper so completely. It was as if I were someone else for a moment. He shook his head. I guess I'll put off until morning the question of who would want to blow up the brewery and bury poor old Gambrinus in his cellar.

  His eyes snapped open then, for the thought of the cellar had recalled to him completely the hitherto forgotten afternoon dream. He had been, he remembered

  now, pottering comfortably about in the old Irish cottage in which he'd spent his boyhood, but had after a while found one thing that didn't fit with his memories of the place: a trap door in the flags of the floor, still half-hidden by a rug someone had kicked aside. For some reason the sight of it filled him with fear, but he worked up the nerve to grasp its ring and lift it on its grating hinges. Climbing down into the cellar this revealed, he found himself in an archaically opulent chamber. His attention, though, was drawn to a stone bier on which lay the body of a man; a king, or a god even, to judge by the tragic dignity expressed in every line of the strong, sorrow-creased face. Duffy stood over the body - and then had recoiled all the way into wakefulness, glad of Shrub's knock at the door.

  Duffy now shook his head, trying to shake from it the memory of the last few seconds of the dream; for, though the figure on the bier was not alive, it had opened its eyes and stared at him. . . and for a moment Duffy had been looking up at himself, through the dead king's eyes.