AllFreeNovel
Share Us
'We're a bit early - I don't think Stein had left yet when we did. Von Salm will probably be late anyway, to show us that he isn't impressed by our position. I think we can make a good case, though - and you just nod and look determined at whatever I say, got it?'
'Certainly,' Duffy agreed airily, though privately resolving to speak up if he should want to. They turned left, and soon he could see their destination, several blocks ahead.
The Zimmermann Inn stood at the wall end of the Tuchlauben in the north section of the city, a good half mile from the actual focus of the Turkish offensive, and something very like Vienna's normal daily life still went on here. No soldiers trooped by, the streets were free of rubble and charred lumber and masonry-scarred cannon balls, and the west wind kept the smoke away; it was possible to imagine, seeing the usual milkmaids and beggars, that there were not seventy-five thousand Turks only three miles to the south.
The place looked, in fact, just as it had five months ago when he'd seen it, and he couldn't suppress a reflexive home-at-last feeling. He had to remind himself that this was also the home of a sorcerer whose goal it was to drive him literally out of his head.
And it's also Epiphany's home, he thought, my old girl-friend who, until I finally left here, had got to the point of bursting into tears every time she saw me. The Irishman had a tendency to let long-standing guilt dry out into annoyance, and it had happened in his dealings with Mrs Hallstadt. Why do women have to be that way, he wondered impatiently. Very well, I did let her down, broke a promise - admit it! But do you suppose a man would let something like that sour the rest of his life? Hah! Why, you could show me the Nine Virgins of Luxor this minute, all of them naked and beckoning, and spirit them away from me a minute later, and a cup of wine would clear me of the tragedy. And it's been five months, after all. Hell, maybe she has got over me by now.
He strode on more cheerfully then, ignoring a faint, uneasy suspicion that he bad not quite honestly assessed Epiphany's feelings, nor his own.
Eilif led the way up to the step and pulled open the front door. They stepped through the vestibule and entered the dining room, where a couple of captains already sat at a long table by the windows. From a corner of his eye Duffy noticed Lothario Mothertongue sitting by himself at a table in the far corner. I see nothing's changed, he thought - except that Lothario is looking a bit more haggard. But so are we all.
'Good morning, lads,' Eilif greeted. 'This is my second-in-command, Brian Duffy. Brian, this is Fernando Villanueva of Aragon, and Franz Lainzer of the Tyrol.'
Duffy nodded as he sat down, and the Spaniard smiled. 'I enjoyed your harping last night,' he said. 'You must play for us all once again before the walls come down.'
'I'm not sure that gives enough time,' replied Duffy with a grin. 'I have to have drunk a huge quantity of beer to do it, and Suleilman's likely to have the wall down by mid-day.'
'Then you'd certainly better start now,' Villanueva decided 'Ho, someone in the kitchen there! Beer for our musical friend! And for the rest of us, too!'
Eilif was looking out the window, which had been repaired with clear glass after Bobo's passage through it. 'Several people coming,' he said.
Behind him the kitchen door swung open, and Epiphany came walking across to the table, carrying a tray with a pitcher of beer and a half dozen mugs on it. Duffy averted his eyes uncomfortably, reflecting that she looked both older and dearer. Then she saw him - he heard a gasp, and a moment later a clatter and splash as the tray hit the floor. He looked up in time to see her run, weeping, back into the kitchen. Mothertongue got up from his seat and
hurried after her.
The Spaniard blinked in astonishment. 'She obviously disapproves of drinking in the morning, ' he said. 'Ho, miss! Landlord! Anyone! We don't intend to Lap it up off the floor like cats!'
After several moments Werner appeared at the kitchen door, his eyebrows raised in impatient inquiry. Then he saw the foamy puddle on the floor. 'Epiphany did that?' he asked of no one in particular. 'This is positively the last! Anna,' he called over his shoulder, 'don't you go look for her. She just ran off because she spilled all this beer, and knows what I'll do this time - which is sack the lushy bitch!' He disappeared back into the kitchen.>'To hell with that,' said Eilif carelessly. 'They've tried to mutiny before, and with a lot more cause than that. I have a talent for putting down mutinies. Besides, you are the man for the job - few of my lads have had the years of experience you have, and you're lots smarter than they are.'
'And for you to refuse,' Vertot pointed out with a smile, 'would almost Constitute a mutiny right there.'
'Duffy knows that,' snapped Eilif.
'Of course,' acknowledged the Irishman. 'And I'm not going to refuse.' He looked away and saw Ebers,
a cask under one arm, elbowing angry drinkers out of his way as he struggled back toward the table.
'The beer arrives,' Stein pronounced, getting to his feet. I He drew his sword with a ringing rasp of steel and I confronted Ebers' pursuers. 'What he has done was by my
order!' he shouted. 'Back, you dogs, unless you want to leave here carrying your livers in your hands.'
The gang of irate landsknechten fell back, grumbling about the privileges of rank. Ebers set the cask on the table and saluted. 'Mission accomplished, sir.'
'Well done. Draw yourself a cup and then go away.
'That's settled, then,' said Eilif, who had opened the tap and was filling several cups from the steady brown stream. 'You'll accompany me to the Zimmermann in the morning.' He turned the tap off and set one of the filled mugs in front of the Irishman, then commenced wiping up the puddle of spilled beer with a crust of bread.
'Right.' Duffy took a deep breath and drained half the mug at one draught. Damn, he thought. The stuff is good. Eilif, chewing with relish on the soggy bread, seemed to be of the same opinion.
Fenn stumped up to the table, pivoting expertly on his wooden leg. 'What's the riot here?' he inquired, grinning wolfishly. '1 run a quiet, family-type place.'
'We know you do, Fenn, and that's why we brought your excellent beer over here for safekeeping,' Duffy told him, 'away from those damn drunkards.' By way of punctuation he drank off what remained in his cup and refilled it.
'Am I to understand you are buying the whole cask?'
'That's right,' confirmed Stein. 'In celebration of Duffy's promotion to lieutenant.'
