“He got here about a year ago. From England, I think, though I might be wrong on that. He had a paper, signed by the bishop, saying that the St. Christopher Monastery belonged to him. His ancestors owned the land, apparently, and never sold it. The abbot sent a protest, of course, but the bishop came out here in person. Told them yes, this little old bird owns the place, all you monks will have to go somewhere else. The bishop didn’t look happy about it, though.”
“They just turned all the old monks out?”
“Well, no. Aurelianus bought them another place on the Wiplingerstrasse. They were still pretty upset about it, but since the Diet of Spires it’s become popular to take property away from the Church, and everybody said Aurelianus had behaved generously.” She chuckled. “If he hadn’t promised to keep the brewery going, though, the citizens would have hanged him.”
“He must be rich as Jakob Fugger.”
“He’s got the finances, beyond doubt. Spends it everywhere, on all kinds of senseless things.”
In an offhand voice the Irishman now turned to the subject uppermost on his mind. “Speaking of money,” he said, “wasn’t Max Hallstadt rich? How come Epiphany’s working?”
“Oh, he looked rich, with his big house and his land and his horses, but it was all owed to usurers. He kept borrowing on this to pay the mortgage on that, and one day he looked over the books and saw he didn’t own anything, and that eight different moneylenders could validly claim to own the house. So,” Anna said with a certain relish, “he laid a silver-plated wheellock harquebus on his carved mahogany table, knelt down in front of it and blew his lower jaw off. He meant to kill himself, you see, but when Epiphany came running in to see what the bang was, he was rolling around on the carpet, bleeding like a fountain and roaring. It took him four days to die.”
“Good Jesus,” Duffy exclaimed, horrified. “My poor Epiphany.”
Anna nodded sympathetically. “It was rough on her, that’s true. Even when everything was auctioned off, she still owed money to everybody. Aurelianus, to do him justice, did the generous thing again. He bought all her debts and now lets her work here at the same wage the rest of us get.”
Duffy noticed Bluto sitting with a stout blonde girl a few tables away. The hunchback gave him a broad wink.
“Where is she?” Duffy asked. “Does she live here?”
“Yes, she lives here. But tonight she’s off visiting her father, the artist. He’s dying, I believe. Going blind for sure, anyway.”
He nodded. “He was going blind three years ago.”
Anna glanced at him. “I remember now,” she said. “You were sweet on her, weren’t you? That’s right, and then she married Hallstadt and you took off to Hungary, after shouting a lot of rude things at the wedding. Everybody knew why you went.”
“Everybody’s an idiot,” the Irishman said, annoyed.
“No doubt. Here, you finish my beer. I’ve got to get back to work.”
The room had been swept before the lights were snuffed out, but mice darted across the old wood floors in the darkness, finding bits of cheese and bread in the corners and around the table legs. Every once in a long while a muffled cough or door-slam sounded from upstairs, and the mice would stop, suddenly tense; but ten seconds of silence would restore their confidence and they’d be scampering about again. A few paused to nibble the leather of two boots under one of the wall tables, but there was tastier fare elsewhere, and they didn’t linger there.
When the sky began to pale behind the wavy window glass, the mice knew the night was nearly over. Occasional carts rumbled by on the cobbled street, crows shouted at each other from the rooftops, and a man tramped by the windows, whistling. Finally the rattle of a key in the front door lock sent them bolting for their holes.
The heavy door swung open and a middle-aged woman hobbled in. Her graying hair was tied back in a scarf, and her fingers were clumsy with the keys because of the woolen gloves she wore. “Well, how does the place look this morning, Brian?” she inquired absently.
Duffy stood up. “It’s good to see you, Piff.”
“Yaaah!” she shrieked, flinging her keys across the room. She stared at him in utter horror for a second, then sighed and dropped unconscious to the floor.
For God’s sake, Duffy thought as he ran across the room to the crumpled figure, I’ve killed her. But why did she speak to me if she didn’t know I was here?
Bare feet thumped down the stairs. “What have you done to her, you monster?” shouted Werner, who stood draped in a wrinkled white nightshirt on the first landing. He waved a long knife menacingly at the Irishman. “Who’ll serve breakfast this morning?”
“She’s only fainted,” Duffy said angrily. “I know her. I said hello to her and she was startled, and fainted.”
Other voices sounded now on the stairs. “What’s happened?” “That gray-haired drunkard we saw last night just knifed the old lady who serves breakfast.” “That’s right. He tried to rape her.” “Her?”
Oh God, Duffy thought, cradling Epiphany’s head, this is the worst so far. Worse than the wedding. At least that had a little dignity, smacked of respectable tragedy. This is low farce.
Epiphany’s eyes fluttered open. “Oh, Brian,” she said. “It really is you, isn’t it? And I’m not crazy or haunted?”
“It’s me sure enough. Pull yourself together now and explain to these citizens that I haven’t murdered you.”
“What citizens... ? Oh Lord. I’m all right, Mr. Werner. This gentleman is an old friend of mine. I came upon him suddenly and it gave me a fright. I’m terribly sorry to have waked you.”
Werner looked a little disappointed. “Well, in the future conduct your horseplay on your own time. That goes for you, too, uh, Duffy.” The innkeeper disappeared up the stairs, and the curious guests, muttering “horseplay?” in several tones of voice, went back to their rooms.
Duffy and Epiphany remained sitting on the floor. “Oh, Brian,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I thought for sure you were dead. They said nobody but Turks survived the battle of Mohács.”
“Well, damn few, let’s say,” the Irishman corrected. “But if you thought I was dead, why did you speak to me when you walked in? I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought someone had told you I was in town.”
“Oh—old women get into silly habits,” she said sheepishly. “This last year, since Max died, I’ve... when I’m alone... well, I talk to your ghost. Only a sort of game, you know. I’m not going mad or anything. It’s just that there’s more variety in it than in talking to myself all the time. I certainly never thought you’d answer.”
Half saddened and half amused, Duffy hugged her. Unbidden, the words of the old man in his Trieste dream came back to him: Much has been lost, and there is much yet to lose.
BOOK TWO
“... Age to age succeeds,
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds,
A dust of systems and of creeds.”
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Chapter Six
WHEN DUFFY AWOKE, his pillow was littered with debris from his dream. He had seen this before, this apparent survival into daylight of a few dream-images, and he patiently patted the sheet where the things seemed to lie until they dissolved away like patterns of smoke. He swung his legs out of bed and rumpled his hair tiredly, as a startled cat leaped from the bed to the windowsill. What kind of dream could that have been, he wondered, to leave such uninteresting rubbish—a few rusty links of chain mail and Epiphany’s old coin purse?