“How would this person have knocked them out?” Duffy interrupted. The sun was beginning to clear the mound, and he raised a hand to shield his eyes.
“Oh, there are two notes which, though pitched too high to be audible to the human ear, can counter and blank out the brain waves of these things; the two notes correspond to the pulse of their brains, but are contrary, and have an effect like stopping a garden swing by leaning back and forth at the wrong times. I’ve seen it done—the man used a tiny one-holed pipe and blew a long steady breath, rapidly covering and uncovering the hole with one finger: the cageful of little fellows just pitched over as if dead. Then when he stopped they all got up again.”
“Could he do it inhaling?” Duffy asked sharply.
Aurelianus looked started. “No, as a matter of fact. The tones would be wrong—two low, maybe even audible. No.”
“Quick as arrows, you said. By how far is that an exaggeration?”
“Not very damned far.” The sorcerer smiled sheepishly. “I see what you mean, of course. For anything more than the quickest look-and-grab it would have had to be two men taking turns, one piping while the other catches his breath and uses two hands on something.”
Duffy got to his feet and moved to the side, so that he could see Aurelianus without squinting into the sun. “Are you certain someone got in? To judge by the mess that room is in, losing one book would be so easy as to be almost inevitable.”
“I’m certain. I know exactly where I left it. Besides, there were other signs of an intruder—things were picked up and replaced in not quite the same position, a number of books were looked at, to judge by the scuffing of the dust on the shelves, and one of my smoking-snakes was bitten. Someone evidently assumed it was a sort of sweetmeat.”
Duffy shuddered, imagining the person’s surprise and dismay. “It was Werner,” he said.
“Werner? Don’t be ridic—”
“I saw a one-holed pipe on the table in his little wine-closet, and I remember it wouldn’t produce any noise I could hear. This poet friend of his, this Kretchmer, must be a spy for the Turks. Wait a minute, don’t interrupt! Through flattery of Werner’s doubtless trashy poetry, and the bestowal of sexual favors by some woman pretending to be Kretchmer’s wife, the man has got your poor innkeeper into a state where he’d do anything for him.”
Aurelianus was silent for a few moments. “Even a woman, eh? The silly old fool. Fancies himself the great poet and lover, I expect. I’ll bet you’re right. Damn, why wasn’t I suspicious of Kretchmer from the start?” He slapped his forehead. “I’m as easily taken in as poor Werner. Kretchmer must have been ordered by Ibrahim to get my copy of Didius’ Dire Gambit Overwhelming. Yes, and wasn’t Werner asking me months ago if he could borrow some books sometime, with the hint that he’d like free access to my library? Then when I refused, Kretchmer would have had to learn of my little guards—I’d like to have seen that brief encounter—and then consult Ibrahim for a way to get around them. It must have taken some time to get in touch with the Turkish adept, for it was only this last Monday I thought I saw footprints in the dust on my floor; the two of them must just have been taking inventory that time, after which Kretchmer would somehow have got outside to show the list of books to the then nearby Ibrahim. Right! And Ibrahim would have known which of those books it would be in, and he sent them back to get it.”
“But you hid it Monday night,” Duffy remembered.
“Yes. So last night, Tuesday night, they whistled their way in again, failed to find the book where they’d last seen it, and grabbed probably several books at random, of which Becky’s is the only one I’ve missed. I’ll have to do an inventory myself. Damn. I should probably check the wine cabinet, too.”
Duffy started to speak, but Aurelianus interrupted him with a bark of laughter. “Do you remember when Werner turned up all bloody and limping, and claimed one of your Vikings had got drunk and tried to kill him? No, that’s right, you had already moved out by then. In any case, Bugge denied it when I asked him about it.”
“So?”
“So Werner was probably the one who first discovered my guards. He couldn’t have got more than a step or two into the room, or he’d never have got back out alive.”
The cool west wind had blown away the gunpowder smell, and now Duffy could catch the aroma of a pot of oniony stew cooking somewhere. He looked up and down the street, and soon noticed the half-dozen men huddled around one of the fires fifty yards south of him. The Irishman yanked straight his hauberk and tunic with, he hoped, an air of finality and conclusion. “So what will you do now?” he asked.
“Kretchmer and Werner won’t know we’re aware of their deceits, so I don’t think they’ll be hard to find. We’ll go confront them, make them return whatever they took, and then you can kill them.”
Duffy stared at him. “I can’t leave this area. I’m on call. I’m defending the West, remember? Hell, why don’t you just go sift something deadly into their wine?” He started to leave, then paused. “Oh, and I’d try to get them to admit some of it. It’s just possible that Werner had some other reason to own that silent whistle. Here, I’ve got it—put some disabling venom in their wine, and then tell them they can have a sip of the antidote only after they’ve told you all. Then if they should somehow happen to be innocent, you can give them the antidote and apologize.”
Aurelianus shook his head. “You’re all right with a sword, Brian, but you’d make a hair-raising diplomat. No, I think Werner alone I can effectively crack without the stage props, and with his testimony I’ll be able to get a dozen armed men to grab Kretchmer for me... assuming he’s still in the city.”
“Ah. Well, good luck in capturing the pair.” Duffy yawned. “I guess the main thing is that they didn’t get Didius’ Horrors, eh? And now if you’ll excuse me there is a plateful of stew down there waiting for me to ladle it out of the pot, and beyond that, under an improvised canvas roof, is a cot waiting to fulfill its purpose in the scheme of things by letting me fall asleep on it.”
“Good enough,” said the wizard. “I’ll go set my traps. Oh, and I’ve got to try to see von Salm, and tell him that the Turks are likely to re-form in the vulnerable east again, since Ibrahim no longer has any reason to sacrifice his thousand baptized souls.”
“Well, give him my regards,” Duffy said, his words made almost incomprehensible by a huge yawn. “And thanks for this latest patch-up job.”
“You’re welcome. Get a new hauberk, hmm?” Aurelianus turned and strode away west. Duffy pointed himself south, toward the stew. The sun was up now, shining through a break in the golden clouds, and Duffy had to squint against the glare.
Throughout the long morning, patches of light and shadow dappled the plain in shifting patterns, and once or twice veils of rain whirled across the city or the Turkish tents like the skirts of the passing clouds.
As Aurelianus had predicted, the Turkish troops were shifting around to face the eastern wall with its gap like a missing tooth in a stony jaw. Sentries crouched to lay their ears against the pavement, and many claimed to hear the digging of miners at several points north of the collapsed section of wall. There was sporadic trading of booming cannon-fire, but, aside from a particularly heavy burst of Turkish firing by the south wall at about noon, the cannonade was little more than a desultorily observed formality.
Battle was anticipated, and the sellers of horoscopes and luck pieces did a good business among soldiers and citizens alike. Prostitutes and liquor vendors clustered around the makeshift landsknecht barracks, taking their own share of the weirdly inverted economy common to all long-besieged cities. The solace of Faith was free, but nothing else was—and food was much harder to buy than luck, sex, or a drink.