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 worldlessly 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, low-ceilinged 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.
Duffy knew he should try to snap out of this wine fog. I’m an idiot, he thought, to get drunk in an unknown tavern in a foreign city.
The young man who’d served him was standing on a table, playing a flute, and most of the people in the place were whirling in a mad dance, singing a refrain in a language Duffy couldn’t place. The old bearded host, too drunk now even to stand unaided, was being led around the room by a gang of laughing boys. The poor old wino, Duffy thought dizzily—mocked by children. They’re probably the ones that tied those ridiculous vine leaves in his hair, too.
Duffy could hear the mill-wheel rumble again, deeper and more resonant than before, like the pulse of the earth. The high, wild intricacies of the flute music, he now perceived, were woven around that slow, deep rhythm.
Suddenly he was afraid. A dim but incalculably powerful thought, or idea, or memory was rising through the murky depths of his mind, and he wanted above all to avoid facing it. He lurched to his feet, knocking his wine cup to the floor. “I’m...” he stammered. “My name is...” but at the moment he couldn’t remember. A hundred names occurred to him.
The bearded man next to him had picked up the cup, refilled it with the glowing wine, and profferred it to the Irishman. Looking down, Duffy noticed for the first time that the man was naked, and that his legs were covered with short, bristly fur, and were jointed oddly, and terminated in little cloven hooves.
With a yell Duffy ran toward the door, but his own legs weren’t working correctly, and he made slow progress. Then he must have fallen, for he blacked out and dropped away through hundreds of disturbing dreams... he was a child crying with fear in a dark stone room; he was an old, dishonored king, bleeding to death in the rain, watched over by one loyal retainer; he stood with two women beside a fire on a midnight moor, staring into the black sky with a desperate hope; in a narrow boat he drifted on a vast, still lake; he sat across a table from a shockingly ancient man, who stared at him with pity and said, “Much has been lost, and there is much yet to lose.” The dreams became dim and incomprehensible after that, like a parade dwindling in the distance, leaving him finally alone in a land so dark and cold it could never have known the sun.
Several kicks in the ribs woke him. He rolled over in the chilly mud and brushed the wet gray hair out of his face.
“Damn my soul,” he croaked. “Where in hell am I?”
“I want you to leave this city,” came a man’s voice.
Duffy sat up. He was in an empty, puddled lot between two houses. The rain had stopped, and the blue sky shone behind the crumbling storm clouds. He looked up into the angry and worried face of a priest. “You’re...” Duffy muttered, “you’re the priest who was in that first place I went last night. Where they turned me away.”