The Drawing of the Dark

Page 3

Duffy had long ago found it handy to be able to read upside-down and now casually glanced across the writing table at Aurelianus' precise script.
'My dear Gambrinus,' Duffy read, 'the bearer of this note, Brian Duffy,' (here Aurelianus paused to draw deftly a quick, accurate sketch of the Irishman) 'is the man we've been looking for - the guardian of the house of Herzwesten See that he is paid five hundred ducats when he arrives, and subsequently whatever monthly salary you and he shall agree upon. I will be joining you soon; mid-April, probably, certainly by Easter. I trust the beer is behaving properly, and that there is no acidity this Season - Kindest regards, AURELIANUS.'
The black-robed old man folded the letter, poured a glob of thick red wax onto it from a little candle-heated pot, and pressed a seal into it. 'There you go,' he said, lifting away the seal and waving the letter in the air to cool the wax. 'Just hand this to the brewmaster'
Duffy took the letter. The seal, he noticed, was a representation of two dragons locked in combat. 'What are my duties to be?' he asked. 'Tell me again.'
Aurelianus smiled. 'Just as you said Yourself: the bouncer. Keep the riffraff out. Keep the peace.'
The big Irishman nodded dubiously. 'Seems odd that you'd have to come to Venice to find somebody to work in an Austrian tavern.'
'Well I didn't come here to do that. I'm here for entirely different reasons Entirely. But when I saw the way you dealt with those boys out front I knew you were the man this job called for.'
'Ah. Well, all right. It's your money.' The wind must be up, Duffy thought. Listen to that window rattle!
Aurelianus stood up. 'Thank you for helping me out in this matter,' he said quickly, shaking Duffy's hand and practically pulling him to the door. 'I'll see you in a month or so.'
'Right,' agreed Duffy, and found himself a moment later standing on the dark landing while the door clicked shut behind him. Now there's an odd fellow, he thought as he groped his way down the stairs. I'll be very curious to see if there actually are five hundred ducats in this bag.
A stale liquor scent lingered at the foot of the stairs, and Bella sidled out of the shadows when he reached the bottom. 'The little eunuch gave you some money, didn't he?'
'I beg your pardon, lady,' Duffy said. 'Nothing of the sort.'
'Why don't you and me go drink some wine somewhere?' she suggested 'There's lots I could tell you about him.'
'I'm not interested in him. Excuse me.' Duffy slid past her to the pavement outside.
'Maybe you'd be interested in a little feminine companionship.'
'Why would that concern you?' he asked over his shoulder as he strode away. She shouted something after him in a rude tone of voice, though he missed the words. Poor old woman, he reflected. Gone mad from cheap Italian liquor. Shouting harsh words at strangers and harrying poor weird old men.
He glanced at the sky - an hour or so after midnight. No sense now, he thought, in going back to San Giorgio; the only thing worth mentioning that waits for me there is a landlord justly angry about my failure to pay rent. I'd better find some kind of rooming house to spend the night in, and then get an early start tomorrow. A few hours sleep in a moderately clean bed is what I need right now. It's been a tiring night.
'Stand aside, grandfather, we're trying to unload cargo here.'
Duffy glared fiercely at the lean young dockworker, but moved obediently away. The morning sunlight was glittering like a handful of new-minted gold coins on the water, and Duffy was squinting and knuckling his eyes. He'd been told to look for a Cyprian galley called the Morphou, which was scheduled to make a stop at Trieste on its way home; 'Look for a triangular sail with three sad eyes on it,' a helpful little Egyptian had said. 'That'll be the Morphou.'
Well, he thought irritably, I don't see any damned three eyes. Half these ships have their sails reefed anyway.
He sat down on a bale of cotton and watched disapprovingly the activity of all these loud, wide-awake people around him. Dark-skinned children, screaming to each other in a tangle of Mediterranean languages, ran past, flinging bits of cabbage at an indignant, bearded merchant; tanned sailors swaggered up from the docks, looking forward to impressing the Venetian girls with their foreign coins and fine silk doublets; and old, granite-faced women stood vigilantly over their racks of smoked fish, ready to smile at a customer or deliver a fist in the ear to a shoplifter.
Duffy had awakened at dawn in a malodorous hostel, feeling poisoned by the liquor he'd drunk the night before but cheered by his memory of opening the cloth bag beneath a flickering street lamp to discover that it did indeed contain five hundred ducats. And there are five hundred more waiting for me in Vienna, he thought, if I can just find this filthy Cyprian Morphou.
The gray-haired Irishman struggled to his feet - and a man on a porticoed balcony a hundred feet behind him crouched and squinted along the barrel of a wheel-lock harquebus; he pulled the trigger, the wheel spun and sprayed sparks into the pan and a moment later the gun kicked against the man's shoulder as its charge went off.
A ceramic jar beside Duffy's ear exploded, stinging his face with harsh wine and bits of pottery. He leaped back in astonishment and pitched over the bale of cotton, cursing sulphurously and wrenching at his entangled rapier.
The gunman leaned out over the balcony rail and shrugged. On the pavement below, two men frowned impatiently, loosened the daggers in their sheaths, and began elbowing their way through the crowd.
On his feet now, Duffy clutched his bared sword and glared about fiercely. It's probably one of those furioso Grittis, he thought. Or all three. And after I was so patient with them last night! Well I won't be this morning.
A tall, feather-hatted man, whose moustache appeared to be oiled, strode up to the Irishman and smiled. 'The one who fired at you is escaping in that boat,' he said, pointing. Duffy turned, and the man leaped on him, driving a dagger with vicious force at the Irishman's chest. The hauberk under his much-abused doublet saved Duffy from the first stab; he caught the assassin's wrist with his right hand before another blow could be delivered, and then, stepping back to get the proper distance, ran his rapier through the 'man's thigh. Feather-hat sank to his knees, pale with shock.
I'm leaving Venice none too soon, Duffy reflected dazedly. He noticed with annoyance that his hands were trembling.
The frightened merchants and dockworkers were hurrying away, so he noticed immediately the two figures that were sprinting toward him - one was a stranger, one was young Giacomo Gritti, and both carried drawn knives.
'Fetch the guardia, for God's sake!' Duffy yelled shrilly at the crowd, but he knew it was too late for that. Sick with tension, he drew his own dagger and crouched behind his crossed weapons.
The stranger leaped ahead of Gritti, his arm drawn in for a solid stab - and then his eyes widened in pained astonishment, and he pitched heavily forward on his face, Gritti' s dagger-hilt standing up between his shoulder blades.
Separated by ten feet, Gritti and Duffy stared at each other for a moment. 'There are men waiting to kill you on the Morphou,' Gritti panted, 'but the old Greek merchant• man anchored three docks south is also bound for Trieste. Hurry,' he said, pointing, they re casting off the lines right now.'
Duffy paused only long enough to slap both weapons back into their sheaths, and nod a curt and puzzled thanks before trotting energetically away south, toward the third dock.
* * *
Chapter Two
After a bit of token frowning and chin-scratching, the merchantman's paunchy captain agreed to let Duffy come aboard - though demanding a higher-than-usual fare 'because of the lack of a reservation'. The Irishman had learned long ago when to keep quiet and pay the asking price, and he did it now.
The ship, he observed as he swung over the high stern, was notably dilapidated. God, dual steering oars and a square, brailed sail, he noted, shaking his head doubtfully. This one is old enough for Cleopatra to have made an insulting remark about it. Well, it's probably made the Venice to Trieste run more times than I've pulled my boots on, so I suppose it's not likely to founder on this trip. He sat down in the open hold between two huge amphorae of wine, and set one of the weather cloths, a frame of woven matting, upright in its notches in the gunwale. There, he thought, leaning back against it, I'm hidden from view at last, by God.
The sailors poled the vessel out past the clusters of docked galleys, and then the sail was unfurled on its dozen brailing lines, and bellied in the cold morning wind. The antique ship heeled about as the brawny steersman braced himself against the overlapping oar handles, and they were under way.
The captain sauntered about the deck criticizing the labors of his men until the Lido had slipped past on the starboard side; he relaxed then and strode to the stern, where Duffy was now perched on a crate, idly whittling a girl's head out of a block of wood with his dagger. The captain leaned on the rail next to him and wiped his forehead with a scarf.
He nodded at Duffy's sword. 'You a fighting man?'
The Irishman smiled. 'No.'
'Why are you so anxious to get to Trieste?'
'I'm going to enter a monastery,' Duffy said, paring the line of the girl's cheek.
The captain guffawed. 'Oh, no doubt. What do you think you're going to find in a monastery?'
'Vows of silence.'
The captain started to laugh, then frowned and stood up. He thought for a moment, then said, 'You can't carve worth a damn,' and stalked off to the narrow bow. Duffy held the block of wood at arm's length and regarded it critically. He's right, you know, he told himself.
The heavy-laden old vessel made poor time, despite the 'new' lead sheathing which the captain announced, proudly, had been put on by his grandfather; and the quays of Trieste were lit with the astern sunset's orange and gold by the time the craft was docked. The captain was barking impatient orders at his tired crew as they kicked the wedges away from the step and lowered the mast backward across the decks, and Duffy unobtrusively climbed the ladder and walked up the dock toward the tangled towers and streets of the city. Many of the windows already glowed with lamplight, and he was beginning to think seriously about supper. He increased his pace and tried to estimate which section of town would be likely to serve good food cheaply.
The whitewashed walls of the narrow Via Dolores echoed to the clumping of Duffy's boot-heels as the salt-and-dried-fish smell of the docks receded behind him. An open door threw a streak of light across the pavement, and laughter and the clinking of wine cups could be heard from within.
Duffy strode into the place and was cheered by the hot draft from the kitchen, redolent of garlic and curry. He had taken off his hat and begun to untie his long, furred cloak when a man in an apron hurried over to him and began chattering in Italian.
'What?' the Irishman interrupted. 'Talk slower.'
'We,' the man said with labored distinctness, 'have - no - room. Already too many people are waiting.'
'Oh. Very well.' Duffy turned to go. Then he remembered his hat and turned around; a priest at a nearby table was nodding approvingly to the man in the apron, whom Duffy had surprised in the act of blessing himself. After a moment Duffy wordlessly took his hat and stalked outside.
Provincial idiots, he thought angrily as he shoved his hands in his pockets and trudged further up the street Never seen a non-Mediterranean face in their lives, I guess. Thought I was some kind of bogey.
Patches of sapphire and rose still glowed in the late-winter sky, but night had fallen on the streets. Duffy had to rely on the light from windows to see his way, and he began to worry about footpads and alleybashers. Then, with a sound like branches being dragged along the cobbles, the swirling skirts of a heavy rain swept over him. Good God, he thought desperately as the cold drops drummed on the brim of his hat, I've got to get in out of this. I'm liable to catch an ague - and my chain mail shirt is already disgracefully rusted.
He saw an open door ahead, and loped heavily toward it, splashing through the suddenly deep-flowing gutter. Do I actually hear a mill-wheel pounding, he wondered, or is that just some overtone of the storm? No tavern sign was visible, but vine leaves were hung over the lintel, and he smiled with relief, when he'd stepped inside, to see the sparsely populated tables. They won't tell me they're too full here, he thought, beating the water off his hat against his thigh. He went to an empty table, flung his cloak on the bench and sat down next to it.
This is an odd place, he reflected, looking around; that drunken old graybeard by the kitchen door appears to be the host. Gave me a courtly nod when I came in, anyway.
A young man emerged from the kitchen and padded across the room to Duffy's table. 'What can we do for you?' he asked.
'Give me whatever sort of dinner is in the pot, and a cup of your best red wine.'
The lad bowed and withdrew. Duffy glanced curiously at the other diners scattered around the dim, lowceilinged room. The rain had apparently got them down. They all seemed depressed - no, worried - and their smiles were wistful and fleeting. Duffy took the block of wood from his pocket and, unsheathing his dagger, recommenced his whittling.
When the food arrived it proved to be a bit spicier than he liked, and it all seemed to be wrapped in leaves, but the wine - of which they brought him a full flagon - was the finest he'd ever tasted. Dry but full-bodied and aromatic, its vapors filled his head like brandy. 'Incredible,' he breathed, and poured another cup.
After quite a while Duffy regretfully decided that the bas relief he'd been cutting into the surface of the table was no good. He shook his head and put his dagger away. Someone must have refilled the flagon, he thought, when I wasn't looking. Perhaps several times. I can't remember how many cups of this I've had, but it's been a respectable quantity. He glanced blurrily around, and noticed that the room was crowded now, and more brightly lit. I must be drunker than I thought, he told himself, not to have noticed these people arrive. Why, there are even a couple of people sitting with me now at this table. He nodded politely to the two bearded fellows.