Man Eater

XXI

‘You sure this is the right place?’

Pansa took a step backwards and grimaced at the ramshackle building, its door bowed, its fallen shutters overtaken by fungi and woodlice. This was an old patrician hut, one of the lodging stops for those too rich and fastidious to pass their nights in taverns with the commoners. They preferred their own private domiciles, wooden affairs of sufficient dimensions to afford a modicum of comfort during the nomadic course of their aristocratic duties. But fifteen years of neglect, of merciless summer suns, pitiless winter rains and a relentless stream of pillaging had taken a heavy toll on these rudimentary constructions. Several had collapsed, many more lolled drunkenly, needing only the next spring gale to finish the job.

‘Yep.’ Confidently Froggy screwed up the parchment detailing directions to the cabin and tossed it into a bed of wild liquorice. Startled, a black-eyed rat scurried away. ‘Oi, Ginge! Still having problems back there?’

‘Just about cracked it.’ A mop of red hair poked round the back of the hut. ‘Two more minutes should see me right.’

‘Good.’ Froggy nodded wisely, because the instructions were clear. The sum of money requested would be paid, but on the strict understanding it was to be a one-off remittance and that it should be made in absolute secrecy. To that end, the Client (as Froggy insisted all marks should be called from now on) had chosen the time and the venue.

As Ginger returned to the tricky business of hiding the horses from view now that the stables had disintegrated and as Pansa tested his weight on the second step leading to the shack, the first already fallen to woodworm, Froggy looked at the lengthening shadows and rubbed his hands with satisfaction. The sum he’d requested was high, though not beyond the Client’s reach and should the old widow be found guilty of murder, he was equally certain the Client, regardless of what was written in that note, would not be averse to handing over similar sums in the future to ensure their silence on this rather ticklish subject.

‘What’s it like inside?’ he asked Pansa, squinting up the highway. Once, this was nose to tail with wagons and riders, the air filled with the exotic scents of the Orient, the din of livestock, of crated peacocks, hazel hens, squealing sucking pigs. Nowadays the same smells, the same sounds headed eastwards from Narni, and the only movement on this stretch of road was likely to come from the Client.

‘About what you’d expect,’ Pansa called back. ‘Damp. Gaping great holes in the roof, floorboards rotten. No furniture left except one cruddy table and a couple of stools.’ Which looked in surprisingly good nick.

‘How about the back door?’

‘No problem.’ It was Ginger who answered his question. ‘The way I’ve fixed it, hitching the horses to the back wall, anyone coming in that way will have to push his way through the animals. No chance of sneaking up.’

‘Besides,’ the muffled voice of Pansa added from deep inside the cabin, ‘the back door’s jammed.’ Looks like someone nailed it up at some stage. Funny, though. You’d have thought those nails would have gone rusty.

‘Then we’re in business,’ said Froggy.

He wasn’t stupid. He understood enough of human nature to know that people don’t always mean what they say and that if they can slit a throat to avoid a payment, it doesn’t always hang heavy on their conscience. Which is why he’d brought Ginger and Pansa along. As backup. You don’t tangle with three armed, able-bodied men. If the Client tried any funny business, he, Froggy, was ready for it.

‘Bang on time,’ he said, observing a lone figure on horseback appearing over the brow of the hill. ‘You know what to do, don’t you, lads?’

Pansa, swiping the cobwebs off his sleeve, nodded vigorously. Ginger, following Froggy up the steps, also gave a resounding ‘Yes!’ because they’d rehearsed it twenty times by now, although his eyes had caught two large bolts on the outside of the door.

‘What do you reckon those are for, Froggy?’

The young man with the protuberant eyes paid no heed. ‘If questioned, it’s not that we don’t trust the Client. We’re brothers, see? You two came for the ride. Now, inside, lads. Let’s look relaxed about the whole thing. Pansa, pull up them stools. Ginger-that crate over there, sit on that. Casual, like.’ The coolness that he believed he projected was betrayed by the tumbling of his words.

‘Daggers on the table. Don’t clutch them, we’re not threatening, just make sure they’re handy-’

A shadow in the doorway made them look round. Ginger and Pansa exchanged glances. Froggy had told them about the Client, but they were still taken aback. Outside, a horse snickered.

‘I wish to make it quite clear, if it is not already so,’ the Client swung straight in to take the initiative, ‘that this’, a heavy leather sack plonked on the table top, ‘is purely a one-off payment to ensure you boys will not be in Narni, or indeed anywhere near it, next Wednesday.’

‘No problem,’ Froggy said confidently.

‘Miles away,’ echoed Pansa.

‘Good, because I take a dim view of blackmailers. This matter between me and the widow, call it a joke if you like, a practical joke, there is nothing-shall we say, sinister-behind it.’ The Client leaned forward. ‘For that reason, you have my assurance that should you approach me again for money, I shall not hesitate in laying the matter before the judiciary.’

Froggy bit his bottom lip to stop it curling into a grin. Nothing sinister? Some poor cow’s up for murder, you want us well shot of the city-and then you expect us to believe that bullshit about the judiciary?

‘And you have my word,’ he said solemnly, ‘plus that of my brothers here, that you won’t hear from us ever again after today.’

His gaze fell on one of the bright shafts of sunlight which penetrated the gloom. Well, not until the next time, eh?

‘I’m greatly relieved to hear you say that.’ The Client, seeming to relax, drew a drawstring bag from the sack, which chinked comfortingly. ‘Count it, if you will.’ Froggy teased open the string and saw his friends’ eyes bulge at the coins twinkling inside. ‘I trust you,’ he said amiably. Growing up in a busy tavern, he was more than familiar with the weight of silver.

The Client made to leave, then paused. ‘I would just like to say, before we go our separate ways, that I was very impressed with the job you did last Sunday. It was timed to perfection and quite without overkill.’

‘Well, we-’ Froggy didn’t know what to say. Praise had not visited him often in his eighteen years. ‘I-’

‘And considering we all have a long ride home, what say you we share this before setting off?’ A flagon of wine appeared from the copious depths of the leather sack.

The boys licked their lips. It was a long ride back to Narni…

Three cheap cups also materialized and the Client filled each to the brim. ‘Since we are a mug short, you will perhaps pardon my manners if I sip from the jug. Do you wish to propose a toast?’

Froggy could smell the wine. It was good stuff, Campanian, or maybe even Falernian. ‘Why drink to anything special?’ he said, eager to sample that which had previously been beyond the scope of his pockets. ‘Straight down the hatch, that’s what I say!’

He did not notice the Client’s slanting smile. ‘I could not agree more. Straight down the hatch!’

As their heads tilted back, the boys were only vaguely aware of the Client lowering the jug and backing towards the door.

‘What the fuck?’ Froggy’s hand flew first to his throat, then to his dagger, but he was too slow. The coins had gone, the door was closed, he could hear two heavy bolts being shot.

‘I told you-’ began Ginger, and then the pain hit him. The searing, burning, tearing pain as the acid reached his stomach. Writhing and hissing, he gouged at the decaying wood.

‘The back way!’ cried Froggy. His eyes were on fire, and his mouth, his belly. When he gasped for breath, a stream of dark vomit shot across the room.

Pansa, convulsing violently, began to make hideous screeching noises.

Froggy thought he heard ‘Nails’, but it made no sense to him.

And looking upwards through the hole in the roof, he wondered why the sky had suddenly turned red.