Count von Salm, ostensibly in charge, paced the street and watched all the activity, content to let experts pursue their crafts. He had ordered most of his troops to go eat and rest in what barracks remained, keeping only a minimal force on watch; there were men along the wall, though, who kept their eyes, on the Turkish lines, ready at the first sign of offensive movement to signal von Salm and the bellringer in the St. Stephen’s spire.
Through the afternoon there was shifting along the Turkish front, banners moving back and forth above the occasional distant glint of sun on metal, but they seemed to be grouping to the west, toward the southern front of the city and away from the break in the wall.
At four the haggard von Salm climbed the stone stairs of the wall at the Schwarzenbergstrasse and walked a hundred yards west along the catwalk to confer with the hunchbacked bombardier. The freshening western breeze swept the crenellations, drying the sweat on the commander’s face and neck; in no hurry to climb back down to the muddy, windless streets, he chatted with Bluto about various aspects of the morning’s battle.
“I’m tempted to cluster a large number of guns right along here,” Bluto said presently, “from the Carinthian gate to the western corner.”
“Because of this shift of theirs? It’s got to be a feint,” von Salm objected. He ran his fingers through his graying hair. “Obviously they’re not going to attack here, along this completely fortified and unweakened side, when there’s a damned two-hundred-foot hole in the wall around the corner a hundred yards east.”
“Look at them, though,” said Bluto, leaning between two merlons and pointing south across the cloud-shadowed plain. “There’s no one moving around to the eastern side; they’re all focusing straight ahead, due south. Hell, man, if it is a feint it would take them a good half hour to re-group on the eastern plain—unless of course they want to run up close to the wall here, and run that hundred yards within range of our guns.”
“That could be what they have in mind,” von Salm said.
“They’d lose a thousand Janissaries, even if half our lads were asleep.”
“Maybe Suleiman doesn’t care. He’s got more soldiers than time at this point.”
Bluto shook his head. “Very well, if Suleiman isn’t concerned about massive casualties, why not attack directly at the gap, and push until the defenders give way? Why this westward shift?”
“I don’t know,” admitted von Salm. “They may shift back under cover of darkness. That’s what I would do, if I were Suleiman. But yes, set up... five guns along here, and I’ll see you get enough men to work them. And if I see them come this way, or hear it during the night, I’ll send more.” He gnawed a knuckle and stared at the plain. “What’s the date today? Oh, the twelfth, of course. I wish there’d be more moon tonight, and a clear sky. I’ll have a gang trot outside here and dump chalk in a wide line along this front, just to make you feel better, eh?”
“Both of us,” said Bluto dryly as the commander turned and began walking back the way he’d come.
The hunchback strode back and forth along the catwalk, peering through the crenels and thoughtfully laying flagged sticks at each point where he felt a gun should be wheeled up and bolted down, as the red sun sank behind the wooded hills to his right, and lights began to glow in the windows of the city at his back and, distantly in front of him, among the tents on the plain.
Since he’d lit the snake just as the bells overhead had ceased their deafening, bone-jarring announcement of nine o’clock, and it was now nearly burned down to his fingers, Duffy deduced that it must be nearly time for him to brace himself for the one stroke of the half hour. He flipped the coal-tipped stub spinning out over the rail, and watched it draw random red arabesques as it tumbled toward the square far below; then he turned to the wizard who was, crouched over the telescope. “Aren’t we about due for—” the Irishman began, but he was interrupted by the preludial mechanical grinding from above, so he closed his eyes and shoved his fingers in his ears until the single bong had been struck, and the echoes were ringing away through the dark streets below.
“Dut for what?” snapped Aurelianus irritably.
“Never mind.” Duffy leaned out on the rail and looked up at the stars that were visible behind the high, rushing clouds. The crescent moon was nothing but a pale blur glowing intermittently in one of the widest patches of cloud.
A gust of particularly cold wind buffeted the cathedral tower, and the Irishman shivered and got back in under the sculptured arch of the small observatory alcove. Their narrow and drafty vantage point was not the highest or most easily accessible, but von Salm and various military advisors had two weeks ago sealed off and taken possession of the platform that commanded the best view. Aurelianus had said it didn’t matter, that the little open landing they now occupied was high enough above the rooftops and street-smokes to make star-gazing possible; and for what Duffy considered to be a very long hour now that was what he had been doing.
Finally the old sorcerer leaned back from the eyepiece, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one hand and balancing the telescope on the rail with the other. “It’s chaotic,” he muttered. “There’s no order, nothing to be read. It’s... unpleasant to see the sky this way, it’s like asking a question of an old, wise friend and getting imbecilic grunting and whining for an answer.” The image seemed to upset Aurelianus, and he went on quickly. “You’re the cause, you know, the random factor, the undefinable cipher that makes gibberish of all the trusty old equations.”
The Irishman shrugged. “Maybe you’d have been better off without me from the start. Saved your time. Hell, I haven’t really done anything so far that any hired bravo couldn’t have done.”
“I don’t know,” Aurelianus said. “I’m limited to what I can actually see and touch—I don’t know!” He looked at Duffy. “Did you hear about the newest movement of the Janissaries?”
“Yes. They’ve shifted west, as if they intended a suicide charge at the unweakened southwestern front. What about it?”
“What do you think would happen if they did attack there?”
Duffy shrugged. “Like I said—suicide. They’d lose a thousand men in five minutes.”
“Might one call it a... sacrifice?”
“To gain what? There’d be no sense in sending the Janissaries, their finest troops—oh my God.” The Irishman carefully sat down and leaned his back against the rail. “I thought you had one of the only two copies of the damned thing in the world.”
“So did I.” Aurelianus squinted out over the dark rooftops. “And maybe I do. Maybe Ibrahim has got the Vatican copy... or hopes somehow to get mine.” He shook his white head thoughtfully. “As soon as I heard of the shift it occurred to me—it’s the Janissaries, the troops conscripted from among the children of conquered Christians...”
“At least a thousand baptized souls.”
“Right.”
“Look, he’s probably got spies in the city—it may very well be that he doesn’t yet have a copy of Didius’ Loathesome Whatnot, and is counting on having yours stolen.” The sorcerer stared at him blankly, so Duffy went on. “Isn’t it obvious? Destroy your copy.”
Aurelianus looked away, frowning deeply. “I’m... not ready to do that.”
The Irishman felt a wave of pity and horror. “Don’t even consider it, man! There must be clean strategies—and even if we do lose Vienna, you’ve said the main thing is having the Fisher King alive. You and he could escape through those tunnels the Dark Birds mentioned, and set up for a better stand somewhere else. The Turks can hardly come any further into Europe this season.”