Tim Powers The Drawing of the Dark

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rescuing one of the serving women from an old priest turned amorous by the
evening's heady brew. After encouraging the clergyman to recall the dignity he
owed the cloth, Duffy lifted a mug from a passing tray and drained it in two
long swallows.
'Here, here! Pay for that, sir!' came a voice from behind him. He turned and
Bluto grinned at him.
'Hello, Bluto,' Duffy said. 'I've told the girls you're to get free bock till
ten.
'Till ten? What happens at ten?'
'You start paying for it.'
'I'd better get busy then. Oh,' Bluto spoke more quietly, 'I finished checking
the stores this afternoon. There's about a hundred pounds of black powder
missing.'
The Irishman nodded. 'Nothing else?'
'No. Oh, maybe. One of the old forty-pounder siege bombards seems to be
missing, but the armorer probably miscounted them when he made the list back
in 'twenty-four. I mean, how could anyone carry away a gun like that?'
Duffy frowned. 'I don't know. But I'll keep my eyes open. You haven't seen
Shrub around, have you?'
'Yes. He's in the kitchen. I saw him peeking in here a minute ago, looking
scared. Where are your
Vikings?'
'In the stable, drinking and singing. I'm hoping that if I keep sending beer
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out to them they'll stay there, and not try to join the party in here. Oh no,
what are those shepherds doing to that guy over there?'
'Baptizing him with beer, it looks like.'
'Excuse me.
Twenty minutes later Duffy sank exhausted onto a bench in the corner and
signalled to Anna for a pitcher. He had put down so many uprisings in the
still noisy room that people within earshot of him - not a great distance, to
be sure - kept a wary eye on him; the rowdier drunkards were shaken and, in
some cases, pulled down from chandeliers or out from under tables and told to
stop it by their more sober friends.
Shrub edged his way nervously through the crowd, leading a tall, dark-faced
man who wore a heavy cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. 'Mr Duffy,' the boy said
before darting out of the room, 'this gentleman wanted to see you. He's a
Spaniard.'
He looks more like a pirate than a gentleman, the Irishman thought, but I may
as well be civil.
'Yes, sir?'
'Can I sit with you?'
Duffy's pitcher arrived then, giving him a more tolerant outlook. 'Very well,'
he said, 'pull up a bench. Have you got a mug to drink from?'
The Spaniard swiped an empty one from the nearest table. 'Yes.'
'Then have some beer.' Duffy filled both their mugs. 'How can I be of service
to you? Uh, the boy was mistaken, I assume, in describing you as a Spaniard.'
'Eh? Why do you say that?'
'Well, you're stretching your vowels, but your accent's Hungarian. Or so it
seems to my possibly beer-dulled ears.
No, damn you, you're correct. I'm Hungarian. But I think it's your eyes that
are beer-dulled if you don't recognize me.
The Irishman sighed, and with some effort focused his attention on the man's
shadowed face, expecting to recognize some old comrade-in-arms who would
probably want to borrow money.
Then his stomach went cold, and he suddenly felt much more sober; it was a
face he had last seen on that awful morning in the late summer of 1526 when
Duffy, wounded and exhausted, had breasted the broad tide of the Danube and
dragged himself onto the north bank. The Turkish banners had been flying over
the conquered town of Moh�cs behind him, and sixty thousand slain Hungarian
soldiers were being buried on the battle-furrowed plain. That morning, on the
river's north side, he had met the army of John Zapolya, for whom Archbishop
Tomori and King Louis, both at that moment being laid unmourned in unmarked
graves, had not waited. The battered Irishman had described to Zapolya the
disastrous battle and rout of the previous afternoon, and Zapolya, shocked and
angry, had within the hour led his army away westward. Duffy had rested in the
woods for another day and then beaten a furtive, solitary retreat to the
south, over the Alps to Venice. Years later he heard of
Zapolya's subsequent defection to the Turkish side.
'By God,' he breathed now, 'how do you dare come here? After you sold your
homeland to Suleiman I
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file:///F|/rah/Tim%20Powers/The%20Drawing%20Of%20The%20Dark.txt never thought
I'd see you again.. .except perhaps over a gun-barrel or sword-point.'
John Zapolya's eyes narrowed, but his sardonic smile didn't falter. 'My [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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