Man Eater

‘If that’s not enough, now I get a complaint from Gisco to say you’re shagging his wife, too. What is it with you, Orbilio? Too much red meat? Is that what makes you ride every filly within reach?’

He put it down. He couldn’t read, the parchment was shaking so badly it was making him cross-eyed. Mother of Tarquin, I’ve really cocked up this time. He leaned back and closed his eyes, waiting for the nausea to subside before picking up where he left off.

‘The rape charge I’ve thrown out,’-did he know the woman’s reputation? — ‘but get this. Under no circumstances can I allow an officer of mine to be responsible for any further outbreaks of cuckolding, least of all amongst our most prominent citizens. A few weeks of “night starvation” ought to bring you to your senses, so until I say so, you will not set foot within these city walls. Do I make myself clear?’

Underneath, and written in his boss’s own writing, as opposed to that of his scribe, was a postscript.

‘So you know I mean business, I’ve told Gisco where to find you.’

*

For a cheap inn down the squalid end of town, it was doing a roaring trade by the time Froggy elbowed his way through the guffaws of laughter, the maudlin tales, the off-key shanties. The rest of his gang, he noticed with a tinge of rancour as he thumped down his goblet, had already dipped deep into one pitcher of wine and were calling for a second before he’d taken so much as a swill of the first.

‘You’re late tonight,’ chimed Pansa, tipping a set of knucklebones out of a dog-eared leather bag before stacking up an assortment of coins. ‘Much longer and we’d have started without you.’

Froggy said nothing. He drained his goblet then pulled up a stool in the space the others had made for him, secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t pee without checking with him first.

‘Put the bones away,’ he ordered.

‘No one’s watching,’ Ginger protested amiably. ‘You can’t see what goes on in this corner.’

‘I know that,’ Froggy replied irritably. It was why they always sat here on a market-day evening. Gambling, even in this dive, was still illegal. ‘I want to talk.’

A collective groan rippled round the table, but the coins disappeared back into their respective purses. Froggy had been their leader since they could remember and they knew when they were beaten-Ginger, imaginatively named after his thatch of red hair; Pansa, who walked with his hand shielding the birthmark on his cheek; the two brothers Lefty and Restio; plus Festus, the shield-maker’s son. Reluctantly Pansa scooped up the knucklebones.

Glancing about, Froggy satisfied himself the other revellers weren’t listening. Right now their attention was fixed on a couple of newcomers making passes at the serving girls, and the innkeeper, who was having none of that, was pointing out a brothel over the way if they wanted, and of course they did. This was Narni. The Via Flaminia passed through it, so did the river Nera, and so did a constant procession of soldiers, bargees, porters and stevedores. The wealthier types-the merchants and their agents-lodged in more salubrious establishments, but there remained a whole host of clerks and labourers left to fend for themselves until their masters’ business was done. The whores of Narni, like those of many a staging town, offered a bright spot of comfort in an otherwise bleak and ragged existence.

Froggy turned back to his friends. ‘You know that job we did recently?’

‘The burglary up by the-’

‘The other one,’ he said, brushing his hair as a spider-or worse-fell from the rafters. Whatever the creature, he crushed it under his fist on the table. ‘Sunday morning.’ He wiped the remains of the insect down the seam of his tunic. ‘When we ran that rig off the road.’

Easy money, that. He paused as plates piled high with boiled bacon and lentils were plumped in front of them, another part of the market-day ritual. A dish of grits completed the feast.

‘What about it?’ asked Ginger, blowing on his spoon. ‘Something go wrong?’

‘Not exactly.’ Froggy was idly twirling his knife round his plate. ‘But that’s what made me late. Apparently some widow was on board, and now she’s been charged with murder.’

Restio whistled. ‘What a psycho!’

‘Not half,’ echoed Pansa. ‘Count ourselves lucky she didn’t do for one of us, eh, lads?’

A drunk bumbled over, a bargee-Froggy could tell by the smell of oxen which clung to him no matter how clean the poor sod’s clothes. ‘Piss-house is that way, mate,’ he said, jerking his thumb towards the far corner. The drunk belched gratefully and lumbered towards the door.

‘The trial’, he continued, taking care not to raise his voice beyond the reach of the table, ‘takes place here, in Narni, on Wednesday. You know what that means, don’t you?’

‘Narni?’ asked Ginger, through a mouthful of vegetables. ‘Why not Tarsulae?’