“It is all a lot of senile fantasies on Aurelianus’ part,” he went on, trying to convince himself almost as much as Epiphany. “Certainly, the old fellow can work magic tricks and conjure spirits out of holes in the ground... but, Christ, we’re dealing with modern warfare here: cannons, troops, swords and mines. How can I save the damned brewery if the Hapsburg and Vatican armies fail to save Vienna? And if they do save the city, what point will there be in me standing vigilantly in front of the brewery flexing my sword-hand? Hell—Aurelianus might have been something once, but he surely doesn’t know what’s going on now. The fact is that Suleiman wants the empire of Charles V, and is coming to break the eastern wall of it—and Aurelianus thinks the whole affair revolves around me, Herzwesten beer, and some old hermit in the woods who imagines he’s a king!”
He had stood up in order to gesture more effectively during this speech, and now he sat down beside Epiphany on the bed. Her face was lit by the reflected, curtain-scrimmed orange light from the west, and for the first time since his return to Vienna she really looked familiar to him. This was Epiphany Vogel at last, beginning to shed the gray, acquired personality of Epiphany Hallstadt.
“Listen, Piff. I’ve done my share of killing Turks, and I don’t see how my presence in Vienna could affect the coming battle one way or the other. Now I happen to have saved some money, and on top of that for some reason they’re paying me a princely salary. I figure in a few weeks, early May, let’s say, we’ll have enough... that is, if it sounds as good to you as it does to me... what I mean is, what would you think of hoofing it to Ireland with me, before they lock Vienna’s gates? We could get married—finally!—and live in a real slate-roofed cottage and, I don’t know, raise goats or something. Don’t tell anybody, though.”
“Oh, Brian, it sounds wonderful!” She blotted a tear with a beer-damp sleeve. “I’d given up ideas like that till you came back from the dead. But can’t I tell Anna?”
“Nobody. Aurelianus could legally prevent you from leaving, because you owe him money.”
She scratched her head. “Do I?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember? He bought up all the debts and bad accounts that were your legacy from that worm-gut son of a bitch Hallstadt, may he be turning on a spit this minute in hell.”
Epiphany was shocked. “Brian! Max was your best friend once. You shouldn’t hate him.”
“It’s because he was my best friend that I do—did—hate him. I wouldn’t have minded so much if a stranger had taken you from me.”
She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t dwell on all the stuff that’s behind us. We can still spend our twilight years together.”
“Twilight years? I don’t know about you, lady, but I’m as nimble and sharp as I was at twenty-five, which wasn’t all that long ago.”
“Very well,” she said with an indulgent smile. “Our... early afternoon years. Oh, God... do you really think it’s a possibility, after all this time?”
“After all this time,” Duffy asserted, “it’s an inevitability.”
He leaned forward and gave her a kiss, and it lingered past the point of being perfunctory. Gently transported by the dimness, and the brain-fumes of an afternoon’s wine-drinking, he was at last in the arms of Gustav Vogel’s impossibly attractive daughter; and he had, unnoticed, become again the Brian Duffy of 1512, whose glossy black hair did not yet have to be grown long in the back to cover a knotted white scar.
They fell back across the bed with the ponderousness, and something of the sound, of an old stone wall collapsing, and Epiphany pulled her mouth free and gasped, “You’re on duty tonight, aren’t you? And dinner is probably being served this minute.”
“Damn duty and dinner,” the Irishman muttered thickly; then, “Oh, hell, you’re right,” he said. “Easter evening, the drawing of the bock, is what Aurelianus specifically hired me to watch over. For the money he’s been paying me I guess I owe this much to him.”
He stood up reluctantly and looked down at Epiphany, who in the diminishing light was an indistinct figure stretched across the bed. “I’ll be back sometime,” he said.
“I hope so,” she answered in a small voice.
Chapter Twelve
CROWDED INTO A SHADOWY CORNER, Duffy and Aurelianus watched three beer-crazed shepherds jigging on one of the tables while nearly everyone in that quarter of the dining room sang and clapped in accompaniment.
“Don’t you think you should get those men down from there?” Aurelianus asked anxiously.
Duffy shook his head. “No. The celebration spirit would only break out in some other activity, like maybe pitching beer mugs through the window. They’re just enjoying themselves, and they’re paying you for the beer. Why interfere?”
“Well... all right. You’re the chucker-out, after all.” The old man leaned against, the wall, apparently a little bewildered by the rowdiness of the bock celebration. “Are you quite up to all this?” he asked. “Have you rested up at all since our underground enterprise last night?”
“What? I can’t hear you in this pandemonium.” Aurelianus repeated his last sentence, louder. “Oh! Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. These days it takes more than a few hobgoblins to disorder me.”
“Good. It’s a wise tolerance to cultivate.”
“It’s what? I didn’t—God help us.” Duffy shoved several people aside, spilling their beer in all directions, and, taking a flying hop over a table, bowled off their feet two mercenaries who had begun trading knife-thrusts. Before they could roll to their feet the Irishman had unsheathed his own dagger and cut, with two quick flicks of the blade, their belts, so that their hands now had to be occupied with holding their clothing together. They left the room, red-faced, accompanied by howls of laughter.
“Mr. Duffy!” Shrub cried, waving from atop the bar.
“In a minute, Shrub,” Duffy called, for on the other side of the room a suddenly irate merchant was slapping his wife and calling her vile names. Muttering a quick apology, the Irishman snatched up a brimming mug from a table he passed, and then dashed its foaming contents forcefully into the face of the misogynist shopkeeper; the man had just been filling his lungs for another burst of abuse, and was choking now on a couple of ounces of beer he’d inadvertently inhaled. Duffy lifted him from his chair by a handful of hair and gave him a resounding slap on the back, then slammed him back down into his seat. “There y’are, sir,” said the Irishman cheerfully. “We don’t want any of our patrons choking to death, eh?” He leaned down and said more sharply but in a whisper, “Or getting their ribs kicked in, which will happen to you if you touch that lady again or say any more insulting things to her. Do I make myself clear? Hah? Good.”
“Mr. Duffy!” Shrub called again. “There’s a man to see you—”