‘You dare to come back,’ howled Grignan. ‘Are you too stupid to be terrified, Ratfood?’
‘I am not Ratfood. I am Talina, the Terror of the Neighbourhood,’ Talina said bravely, through rattling teeth.
Remembering the song, Talina ventured, ‘I’m also the not-quite-cat who’s going to set it all to rights – all the badness that’s been done.’
‘Yes, Ratfood, so I have gathered,’ Grignan shouted. ‘And yes, badness has been done! As you now know, old Sior Flangini cheated my ancestor out of our ancestral lands. Then Flangini proceeded to make his family rich, selling off parcels of land until it was all in tiny separate ownerships. He blurred the lines, kicked sand over the true story. So no one would trace the great big cheat back to him. Then he had my poor ancestor Verpillion Grignanne killed, stuffed and mounted!’
Talina thought, ‘The Child-Mauling Thingy by the best parlour! That’s what it is – a stuffed Ravageur. Grignan’s great-something-or-other!’
Grignan paced to and fro, snarling, ‘Shame and stinking ignominy on the humans and the name Flangini for ever!’
He glanced with fury at the fire-ringed portrait burning in its niche.
Talina realized, ‘That must be the old Flangini, the ancestor of my Guardian.’ She told Grignan, ‘Flangini was a very poor specimen of a Venetian. As is his descendant, I might add. But all humans are not Flanginis,’ countered Talina. ‘My parents, for example.’
‘Oh yes,’ laughed Grignan. ‘Your parents.’
Struggling to suppress her rage, Talina said stoutly, ‘You cannot hide the fact that your ancestor accepted the humans’ payment. Whatever the price, he sold your ancestral lands for something he wanted more. No one forced him.’
Grignan, seating himself heavily on his dais, laughed bitterly. ‘A cheat is not a sale. Except maybe to a sneaking Venetian.’
A few hairs sprouted under Talina’s fingernails.
‘I shall not lose my temper, I shall not lose my temper, I shall not lose my temper,’ she chanted to herself. ‘I shall not turn Ravageur.’
‘What’s that, Ratfood?’ Grignan leant over his gravy-stained book, dipping his muzzle in a large jar of Golosi’s Mostarda, so that his jaws dripped large clouts of the orange jelly.
‘Why not take the matter to some kind of court?’ asked Talina as evenly as possible.
‘Any court would give me back my land,’ snapped Grignan, ‘but it would not give me revenge for these centuries of exile. I want the Venetians to feel our pain. Then I want the Venetians to feel terror, and despair. Then I want them to know the misery of homelessness and humiliation. And if they still don’t leave, then I want them to die.’
Talina found herself crouching on all fours. The reds and greens were draining from her vision. She tried to speak evenly as she protested, ‘But it is not today’s humans who did this to you. They don’t even know anything about it. I agree that Sior Flangini was … less than honest. But modern Venetians are kind, and truthful. They would share the land with you, or come to some kind of compromise. You’d only have to talk … and, by the way, isn’t there something that you Ravageurs are not quite … fair or honourable or upright about?’
‘What do you mean, Ratfood?’
It was too much. Talina exploded in a rush of long red tongue, ‘What about your own females? Is it right, the way you treat them? Locked away, kept stupefied by sweets. Food thrown in a trough, while you dine in luxury! Would you treat them any better if you owned Venice? Would they too be given the freedom of the city?’
‘For why? I believe there is a swampy area in the north where we may deposit them, and build a mud wall to keep them out of sight. Quintavalle, the humans call it.’
‘Oh,’ said Talina, ‘I happen to know that part of town quite well.’
‘I daresay,’ the Ravageur Lord said, ‘in your fashion.’
He might as well have said, ‘in your pathetic, worthless, human fashion’.
Talina sprouted a thick wad of fur around her knuckles.
‘Now really, Ratfood,’ he growled. ‘Are you trying to tell me that human beings are kind and honest? It delights me to be the first to inform you that you personally have been betrayed by your own kind. For it is one of your own kind, your very own blood indeed, who has done away with your parents.’
‘Done away with … ?’ Talina’s voice trembled.
‘Uh huh.’ The Ravageur’s mouth was full. He was eating a little drumstick decorated with a plumy white feather.
‘Wait a moment. Is that egret that you’re eating? You eat egrets?’
‘Believe that we do that thing,’
Talina burst into tears of frustration. ‘Tell me what you’ve done with my parents, you … you … egret-eater! Or I’ll … I’ll …’
‘Their exact fate, I don’t actually know. It depends how long they can eke out a seed cake and an egg between them. Perhaps they found some moss to gnaw on? Certainly they could live for a short while on the bits of gristle left between their teeth from their last meal. Of course, they’ll be suffering a bit without any light or heat.’
Talina screamed, ‘You mean they’ve lived like that for the last three months? What have they ever done to deserve such a thing? It is atrociously cruel and unfair!’
‘Atrociously cruel and unfair, eh? Well, you humans would know all about that! And you, Ratfood, were you never cruel or unfair to your parents? Did you ever make them worry, break their hearts with your impudence? Did you ever? Did you?’
Talina hung her head silently. Grignan continued, ‘It’s time for you to hear the truth of what happened the night your parents disappeared. January 30th, was it not?’
Talina nodded tensely.
‘On that particular night, a certain human named Marco Molin was engaged in classifying some ancient manuscripts in a quaint old department of the Venetian Archives.’
‘The department of Malignant Spells, Invoked Pestilences and Abominable Rites,’ said Talina proudly.
‘He was a dedicated man, and he’d been working late. But he had a wife and daughter whose company he loved. So when he glimpsed the clock, he shuffled his things together and reached for his old coat, for Marco Molin was not a rich man. The lease of his humble house in the Calle del Teatro was in the name of one Uberto Flangini, for instance. And he had to depend on the charity of others to educate his daughter.’
‘How could you know all that?’ demanded Talina.
Grignan smiled. ‘I know a lot of things that would surprise you. For example – as Marco Molin straightened the papers on his desk, a document appeared from between two pieces of parchment. I imagine a sneaky, tricky piece of paper – it must have seemed almost as if it crawled on invisible slimy legs into his hands. It was a handwritten copy of a certain Deed of Sale etched on a tower wall at Quintavalle. Now this was not something that Marco Molin had ever dealt with before – his department, as you know, normally handled grimoires, books of spells, almanacs and handwritten curses. This document was something else.’
‘But its meaning was quite transparent,’ Talina whispered. ‘My poor father must have been so shocked!’
‘Indeed. Marco Molin innocently despatched a messenger boy to fetch his kinsman Uberto Flangini from Quintavalle. The note he sent was full of horror and revulsion. Obviously, he wanted to ask Flangini if he knew anything about his ancestor’s dishonourable negotiation.’
‘So … ?’
‘The messenger boy ran the whole way. Uberto Flangini received that note about twenty minutes later. But Flangini did not come straight to the Archives, Ratfood. You see, I myself had been to visit him only a few nights before – because he himself had been the first human to read that inscription for fourteen hundred years. He’d been wiping the condensation from his windows and saw it in the reflection. Then he had used a mirror to write it down. He’d heard our nightly calls for justice. One of my minions, Croquemort, climbed his own tower every night. So your Guardian hoisted a note up there. ‘For the R
avageur Lord’, it said. He threatened to expose our claims to Venice as void. He thought he was being clever … but he never expected a personal visit from me.’
‘And you put your case to him. So he realized that he was not so clever after all. That if he exposed your claim as empty, then he’d take down his own family’s reputation with it.’
‘Exactly. And then I encouraged him to make a another copy, which I took away, a kind of paper hostage. I gave your great uncle a few days to consider his position … and left him a messenger – my useful vulture Restaurant – to send to me when he was ready to do business. Restaurant waited in the church of Our Lady of the Sparrows. The sparrows, incidentally, provided snacks while he waited.’
‘Poor little birds!’ Talina thought. ‘That night the Guardian brought me to the tower, I saw a black shadow flying in front of us – that must have been Restaurant. No wonder the sparrows were terrified when I flew up there on the tea towel. They must have thought it was Restaurant coming back.’
Grignan’s rasping voice pulled her thoughts back to the present. He drawled, ‘But your Guardian kept me waiting too long. Insultingly long. Unforgiveably long. I had to teach him a lesson, make him think a little harder on the consequences.’
‘So you put the copy of the Deed of Sale on my father’s desk where he’d be sure to find it.’
‘I knew you’d work that out. When he received that urgent message, Flangini knew exactly what Marco Molin had discovered. Your father was eloquent in his disgust. So Uberto Flangini’s secret was revealed – he’d had a taste of the bitter shame that would follow him for the rest of his life, dirtying his family’s name for ever.’
‘But,’ said Talina bitterly, ‘there was one way of stopping it from getting any further.’
‘Indeed. Flangini finally saw sense and sent the vulture to me. So I despatched Frimousse, Rouquin, Échalas, Croquemort and Lèche-bottes to the Archives to remove—’
‘My parents! Five Ravageurs against two helpless humans!’
‘We’d meant only to take your father. But your mother would insist on arriving almost at the same moment as my minions. Her bad luck. And yours. Croquemort told me she cried out, “But there’s a child at home alone!” And he replied, “The child will be taken care of. So you choose: Be quiet and come along. Or scream and die.”’
Talina’s heart hurt with imagining her parents’ terrified faces, their choice that was really no choice.
‘So my Ravageurs removed your parents … and the potential scandal and problem for both Flangini and myself. Now he knew he had to guard the secret on his tower. It was already stained with the sacrifice of Marco Molin and his wife. He’d have to guard that secret now, with his very life.’
Talina growled, ‘All this sacrificing! It’s not just because you’re afraid of your claim being shown up as empty! It’s also because you were afraid of looking ridiculous, weren’t you? Brass buttons and mink jelly and fancy pastries indeed! A bit of something shiny or sweet, and your whole race was suddenly homeless. That’s why you haven’t told the other Ravageurs about it – they wouldn’t want you for their leader if they knew what a stupid thing your ancestor did. He betrayed your whole race! And once your friends found out about that, you’d be the one wretchedly roaming in desolate wildernesses or whatever you said … in a trice!’
‘And you were homeless too,’ retorted Grignan vindictively, ‘after your parents were taken.’
Talina thought back to that wretched night.
‘So that’s why my Guardian was waiting for me at the Archives! Having disposed of my parents! He knew exactly where I’d be – looking for them! But that doesn’t matter any more. Where are they now? I demand that you tell me!’
‘Demand away. An island. An almost deserted island we call the Isola di Butoléta.’
‘Maggot Island?’
‘Indeed. Until your parents came, the entire population consisted of worms. Who will conveniently dispose of your parents’ remains when they are dead, if they are not dining off them already. Meanwhile, Marco and Lucia Molin have served me rather well as bait! They brought you back to me for convenient disposal. For I must deal with you now, my flouncy little friend, you skinny not-quite-anything with a temper to burn down the house.’
‘On account of that song,’ Talina realized with horror.
‘Precisely. You see, it’s become obvious to me – if not to you – that if there’s no more not-quite-cat, then there’s no more prophecy, and no more threat to the Ravageurs’ dominion. And when I’ve done with you, I’ve promised some particular pieces of you to my vulture, Restaurant.’
‘My friends have a copy of the – oh!’
From the corner of her eye, Talina had caught a glimpse of something large, white and grey on a beam above their heads. A creamy neck rose from a ruff of grey feathers. There was a gust of cold air as the bird beat its brindled wings in a gesture of pure menace. On each foot, three talons gripped the beams.
‘Those feet are the size of a human head,’ thought Talina.
The vulture dipped its neck and regarded her intently, its head on one side.
Talina’s courage crumpled as she met the bird’s cold, inquiring eye. She suddenly knew in her heart that she would have business with this creature. She did not know how or when. She whispered aloud, ‘That bird will get me, if it can; if not today, very soon.’
‘Too true, too true,’ crowed Grignan. ‘But Restaurant won’t touch you now, of course. He’ll wait for the leftovers. You are currently looking a bit too much like one of us.’
Talina clapped her hand over her face, disgusted to feel the Ravageur muzzle under her fingers.
A trumpet squawked and the doors opened.
‘Ah,’ observed Grignan, ‘time to feed. First Luncheon.’
Two hundred Ravageurs rushed in and took their places around the U-shaped table. Above them rose the usual unsavoury cloud of loose fur and skin. Nochin Quinchou headbutted Croquemort out of his place. There was a brief scuffle, a howl; then something red, blotched and jaggedly triangular lay on the leather tablecloth.
‘Ooh!’ cried Croquemort. ‘Look at that!’
Everyone jostled to see. There was a great clatter of overturned skull-cups and medicine spoons.
‘It’s Nochin Quinchou’s ear dropped off at last!’ exclaimed Frimousse. ‘It was zat loose, was bound to ’appen.’
‘It didn’t drop off, it was pushed!’ sobbed Nochin Quinchou. ‘That Croquemort!’
‘Cheer up, Nochin. Bits of me are dropping off all ze time,’ said Échalas, the lankiest of the Ravageurs. Half his tail had been devoured by mange.
Suddenly all the Ravageurs were competing to show the ravages of mange on their bodies – infected flanks, back legs riddled with sores, a muzzle almost bald.
‘What about my ear?’ whined Nochin Quinchou.
A grey shadow swooped over the table. The ear disappeared in a flurry of feathers.
‘Restaurant!’ thought Talina.
Over the tumult, Grignan shouted, ‘I don’t see any reason why you should go on living now, Ratfood. I know everything you know.’
He told his subjects, ‘Enough! Be quiet and take your medicine. And listen. This female has begun to bore me. What do you think we should do with her? Gather round!’
One by one, the Ravageurs were leaving their places at the table, either jumping on top of it, or crawling underneath. They closed in on Talina, like rabbits fascinated by a dancing stoat.
‘Stoat!’ thought Talina wildly. ‘The Fascinating Stoat will confuzzle any male! The Ravageurs are as male as possible, nasty things! I suppose I’m really the rabbit in this scenario, but I can pretend to be the stoat.’
And she began to dance.
She danced the mesmerizing steps she’d learnt from the grannies of Quintavalle. She looped, leapt, swooped and twirled. She paused, fascinatingly, and loped backwards, then sideways. She wiggled, crouched and stretched. And while she danced, she reached into her p
inafore pocket for the small bottles of Manitoba Gargling Oil that had been tucked in there by one of the grannies. She tipped them both over herself. ‘Now I’ll be too slippery to get a hold of, if they make a lunge for me. And I certainly won’t taste very nice. Maybe they’ll spit me out.’
The Ravageurs’ eyes grew round and their heads began to sway in time to the unheard music of Talina’s dance. Their red tongues lolled out of their mouths and they lost themselves to a state of rapt greed. Some of the Ravageurs, hypnotized, started dancing too, in a strange, vigorous yet sleepy way, as if drugged. Croquemort and Nochin Quinchou nuzzled one another affectionately, and danced in a circle together. The vulture, perching on his beam, nodded drowsily in time to the rhythm of Talina’s dance.
Even Grignan’s cold eyes softened, then drooped. And he too began to sway and turn around in rhythmic circles. Then he rose on his back legs and began to hop and loop like a stoat. From his mouth came not growls but a soft, singing whimper. In a moment, the whole Sala del Sangue was reverberating with the thud of pairs of prancing Ravageur paws and the high-pitched crooning of the oblivious dancers.
Talina waited no more. She fled through the nearest sheep exit.
five breathless minutes later
AFTER RUNNING THROUGH interminable mud corridors lit by stinking tallow candles, Talina was unexpectedly brought up short against an intricate screen secured with iron locks and bolts. She shivered. Her breath came in ragged gasps; her corn-husk hair, pinafore and shoes were sticky with Manitoba Gargling Oil.
No one was chasing her. She could hear no drumming pawfall, no pursuing growls. What she could hear – in the distance – was the continued thump of dancing paws and soused-sounding chants and moans punctuated by the odd dreamy squawk from Restaurant.
‘The grannies would be so proud,’ Talina thought. ‘My Fascinating Stoat confuzzled those Ravageurs perfectly.’