Talina in the Tower Read online

  The rat interrupted, ‘It’s about those beasts that roam our streets at night. The beasts who take Venetians. And cats.’

  Talina felt her fur tighten.

  ‘My cousin Glauco were et by one o’ them monsters,’ confided Albicocco.

  ‘And my sister Annamaria, and my uncle Giorgio!’ whispered Brolo. ‘What a down-in-the-dumper, that night.’

  The Contessa keened, ‘My last litter, all taken.’

  ‘And me own dear mother, Dog-bite-my-ear!’ howled Bestard-Belou. ‘So make wid da talking, rat! Make it good and make it fast. Remembering my ma always makes me hungry.’

  just after midnight, May 2nd, 1867,

  Saint Atanasio’s Day

  THE RAT’S WOUNDS were dreadful to behold. The grooves of five claws were thick with blood all the way down his belly. Bestard-Belou observed, ‘Somebody had a go at eatin’ this one already. I doan generally help meself to someone else’s leavings. Dey always takes da liver and kidneys, both.’

  The Contessa glared at him. ‘Let the rat speak.’

  The cats drew closer. Talina, Brolo and Drusilla quietly made their way through the taut furry bodies to reach the inner circle around the wounded creature.

  ‘Allow me to present myself. I am Doctor … Raruso …’ The rat’s voice was proud, though torn with pain. ‘I had hoped for a private interview with her, but … circumstances … Two nights ago, a rumour started, strange new rumour … that a … not-quite-cat … has appeared in Venice. And now they’re saying … that she’s here. At your esteemed Ostello delle Gattemiagole. We, that is, Venice, needs … her help. Because of the song, you know. The one that started the rumour. The one that the birds are singing without cease.’

  ‘A not-quite-cat, ho ho ho didgever ’ear the like!’ sneered Albicocco.

  ‘Nothing like that here,’ said the Contessa dismissively.

  ‘We’s all cats froo-n-froo,’ agreed Bestard-Belou.

  Drusilla looked hard at Talina. She asked the rat, ‘What song?’

  In a single rush of ragged breath, the rat warbled,

  There shall be a little cat

  A cat who wasn’t always that

  A cat who’s lost what she loves best,

  whose tongue is fierce; whose heart no less.

  It is her quest

  to find the truth, the light, the right

  and save this city from her plight –

  from threats and howls and nightly frights.

  Talina who was in the tower

  Talina who —

  ‘’Scuse me, but ’as we got a cat called Talina ’ere?’ asked Albicocco. ‘I is not aware of a cat o’ that name in our presence, savin’ ’er grace.’

  Brolo bravely interrupted, ‘Let the rat finish his song. Poor beast and all, you know.’

  ‘Sez who? Yew shrew-struck or sumpin? You want some?’ Bestard-Belou menaced.

  Doctor Raruso’s sigh ended with a rattle in his throat. ‘Don’t you cats wish to know … what’s happening in Venice? The … whys and wherefores of this terrible situation? In my learned opinion …’

  Then a long shudder ran through his whole body and he fell silent, breathing fast and shallowly.

  ‘Ye want to be pulling yersself together, rat,’ Albicocco licked his lips.

  Suddenly Doctor Raruso opened his eyes and began to speak again. ‘Do you know the history of Venice, cats?’

  ‘Course we do. Yew think we is hignorant?’ blustered Bestard-Belou.

  There was a short silence while the cats licked various parts of themselves and batted some potato peelings around the floor in an embarrassed fashion.

  Talina said quietly, ‘The first settlers came here in the fifth century. The founding date of Venice is AD 421.’

  ‘The first human settlers,’ corrected the rat. ‘What nobody realizes is this: someone else was here before them. ’

  ‘Nah!’ chorused the cats complacently.

  The rat seemed to rally a little. He propped himself up on one paw, and spoke clearly.

  ‘I must begin further back, in a deep part of time … in another place, thousands of human miles away from Venice … a time and a place where wolves and humans lived in harmony.’

  ‘Wolves? Wot’s dey got to do wid anyfing?’ scoffed Albicocco. ‘Least of all, wid a nice rat dinner.’

  ‘Wolves,’ Doctor Raruso continued stubbornly, ‘are ancient creatures. And they were pleasantly flattered when the first humans chose to imitate them by living in family groups and pairs, by hunting in packs and so on. But then the humans decided that wolves were in competition with them for all the goods of the earth. They began to kill wolves, not even to eat them, but just to try to stamp out their race. They killed defenceless baby wolves if they could find them. And pregnant females as well. Soon the human atrocities against the wolves destroyed the respect between the species. The wolves hid away in dark places of the world – where rich pockets of magic seethe – particularly in those Siberian plains that lie in the shadows of mountains. After some centuries, one race of wolves changed. After so much crouching, slinking and hiding, their backs developed a natural slope, or so they say. The magic they breathed changed their natures, too. They became wilder and more daring. They even dared to ravage the sheep flocks of the humans, and the henhouses and also the kitchens. They ravaged so much of the land around them that they became known not as wolves but as “Ravageurs”.’

  ‘Ravageurs,’ repeated Talina, tasting the word on her tongue, finding it bitter and dreadful. She shivered.

  The rat nodded. ‘It got worse. Eventually, they say, it led to war. The Ravageurs have always claimed that they were driven south from the Siberian plains in the great Lupine Wars. They say that the few survivors made their way here, taking refuge on an island in this lagoon … in the quarter that Venetians now call Santa Croce. The Ravageurs called it “Luprio”.’

  ‘Luprio!’ said Talina. ‘Like the proclamations at the churches where the saints’ relics were smashed. They said “Luprio” was the new name of Venice!’

  Doctor Raruso nodded wearily. ‘The old name, in fact. The Lords of Luprio were the Ravageurs. That’s what they say, anyway.’

  ‘And that’s why those Ravageurs are so snobbish and arrogant,’ said the Contessa, with the air of one who knew what she was talking about. ‘That’s why they think they are so entitled.’

  ‘Indeed,’ confirmed the rat. ‘For centuries … as their legends have it, the Ravageurs ruled not just Venice but the lagoon, easily gaining mastery over all the other creatures. All of us – rats, ducks, egrets – we bowed to their will. If we did not serve them … they simply ate us in sauce. In fact, there’s one important thing about Ravageurs that we have learnt to our cost – they must keep eating constantly and in enormous quantities, or they quickly die. They have two breakfasts, four luncheons and five suppers, and they feed in between, too.’

  He subsided in a new fit of coughing.

  ‘Yew’ll ’ave to do better than dat, rat. We cats dint niver agree to bow to the will of no Ravidgers!’ sniffed Albicocco. ‘No matter ’ow many suppers dey eat.’

  ‘The Compleat History of the Venetian Empire says that cats arrived in Venice in the ninth century,’ Talina put in quietly. ‘The Venetian merchants brought them back from Syria then. Hundreds of years after the Ravageurs, in other words.’

  ‘Hoo sayed dat?’ demanded Bestard-Belou suspiciously. Albicocco was counting on his claws, cross-eyed with concentration. Brolo covered his mouth with his paw and stared at Talina significantly. She took his point, bending down to lick her tail as innocently as possible.

  Doctor Raruso drew a long, trembling breath, and continued: ‘By the time humans arrived here, the Ravageurs had become semi-enchanted creatures … they had left Siberia with rich northern magic in their blood. Here in Venice they soaked up into their fur some of the antique magic that flows through our waterways. So they became invisible – to adult humans at least. Only human children up to the age of th
irteen or fourteen can see them. But most adult humans can still hear them. Or feel them through the extra senses, the ones they don’t much use. Especially the sixth sense, they say.’

  ‘Dere’s too much saying goin’ on round ’ere,’ lamented Albicocco. ‘Too much sayin’ and not nuff chewin’.’

  ‘When the time comes,’ Doctor Raruso said with dignity, ‘you are welcome to partake of my mortal remains, felines. Better and more hygienic than leaving me to rot. As the old proverb goes, superbo in vita, spuzzolente in morte – proud in life, stinking in death. My mission … is almost accomplished. Pray let me finish … The adult Venetians have always chosen not to believe in the Ravageurs. In the old days, the adult humans insisted that the Ravageurs were monsters of the fearful imagination, and nothing more. And now their descendants prefer to maintain a fiction that some “Pastry-Bandits” from Rovigo are kidnapping their loved ones … along with all the cats and cakes and cooking equipment. They pretend … ransom notes will arrive from Rovigo at any minute. Even though not a single one has ever been received. The human capacity for self-deception is … truly more terrifying than a Ravageur, if you ask me.’

  ‘Ambrogio says the creatures are real. He saw one!’ Talina whispered to Drusilla. ‘You know, the boy from school who came here. He drew it. And my awful French mistress, Mademoiselle Chouette – she’s an adult but she knows they exist too. She’s heard them, and she hates them because—’

  Albicocco demanded suspiciously, ‘Wait a griddle-grabbing moment there, Mister Rat! So zackly how did dem humans from hunnerds of year ago get dem Ravidgers rid? If dey couldn’t even see ’em?’

  Doctor Raruso whispered, ‘The first Venetians simply did not know there were Ravageurs on the island of Luprio. The Ravageurs never built anything, just mud-heaps for sleeping in, which the humans used as building blocks or to shore up canals.’

  ‘But. But. But. Given how very beastly they hevidently is, why dint them Ravidgers fight back?’ Bestard-Belou demanded.

  ‘And if they did, why isn’t there anything in the history books about it?’ Talina dared to ask. ‘The Ravageur Wars would have been very important and—’

  Bestard-Belou’s look closed Talina’s mouth. Doctor Raruso replied, ‘For some reason, the Ravageurs did not mount an attack … until now. It is something we rats have never understood. The Ravageurs …’

  Everyone waited out the rat’s next cough. Frailer than ever, he continued, ‘As the old proverb goes: l’amor, la tosse, la mossa de corpo, xe tre cose che no pol star sconte – love, a cough and, excuse me, diarrhoea, are three things you can’t hide. Where was I? The Ravageurs retreated … to one of the furthest and most deserted islands of the lagoon. They’ve surrounded it with a private cloud of impenetrable fog. Why, if your boat enters it, you can sit at the bow and not be able to see the prow! A few rats know how to steer through it, of course. It is our job. We rats have traditionally served as the Ravageurs’ slaves, their gondoliers, and also … their meals. That’s if they can’t get their paws on … the kind of food they really like: Timballes de queues d’Ecrevisses Mantua, Terrine de foie gras avec sa gelée and Faisan à la Financière.

  ‘Not humans?’ Talina’s voice was thick with hope. ‘So they are not actually eating the humans they take?’

  But before Doctor Raruso, shaken by another ferocious cough, could answer, Bestard-Belou interrupted, ‘And if dey was drove out of Venice – or Luprio, or whatever dey called it – fourteen hunnerd oomin years ago, so why in da name of lamb chops did dem Ravidgers wait until roight now to start saying that dey want it back?’

  ‘It may have something to do with the new Lord of the Ravageurs, who is an ugly specimen in every way. It is he … who has ordered the tallest human chimneys to be filled with gunpowder.’

  ‘Gunpowder!’ wailed Talina. ‘What kind of … ?’

  The rat ran a shaking paw down the welts on his belly. ‘The kind of creature who did this to me. And this,’ he pointed to a burn on his paw, ‘with his sage-leaf cigar. Until I told him the words of the song. Then he laughed and fell on his food like a mad thing … so I was able to escape. That Grignan’s the worst Ravageur that ever lived. As the old proverb goes, in casa vècia no manca mai sorzi – the old house never lacks a rat – every family has its black sheep, its low-life evil-doer … But in fact … all the Ravageurs seem … maddened, baddened … in the last few months. Something has changed in them – the Ravageurs are … not as they once were. They are wild, strange … perhaps … unwell.’ He shuddered.

  Drusilla bent over him with concern, licking his paw.

  ‘’Ere, me first!’ growled Albicocco.

  The bully-boys drew closer. Drusilla put a protective paw on the rat’s belly, and stared defiantly at the other cats. ‘Let him finish,’ she hissed.

  ‘So that’s why … Venice needs the not-quite-cat …’ the rat gasped. ‘Urgently. The Ravageurs are on the move. Tomorrow could—’

  Then he wheezed and his jaw fell slack.

  ‘Oho, he bust of his own accord, wivout us havin’ to do nothin’! Shame,’ observed Bestard-Belou. ‘I could of stood to watch ’im sufferin’ nobly for a bit longer. Has a tenderizing effect, all dat noble suffering.’

  ‘Heh heh heh,’ sniggered Albicocco. ‘Excuse me while I break me own heart.’

  ‘You grisly, greedy beasts!’ yowled Talina.

  ‘You didn’t ought to have said that, Talina,’ cried Brolo, as a spitting blur of orange fur wrapped itself around her, growling, ‘Wash yore mouf! Where yew from? Rovigo or somefing?’

  a few minutes later

  A KEY TURNED IN the door, and a familiar voice inquired, ‘How are all my pretties this dark night?’

  Albicocco removed his jaws from Talina’s throat and sauntered back to Doctor Raruso, only to find Bestard-Belou standing proprietorially over the rat’s body.

  Signorina Tiozzo swiftly resolved the argument that was brewing as to who was going to eat Doctor Raruso. She picked him up and threw him in the sack with the drowned cats she had collected from the canals.

  ‘No good ever came from eating a rat,’ she observed tartly.

  Side by side, so their ribs touched through their fur, Talina, Drusilla and Brolo wept shocked and silent tears for Doctor Raruso.

  Signorina Tiozzo, meanwhile, emptied a stack of glistening fish-heads and crabs into the feeding trough. Not a cat moved.

  Talina whispered to Drusilla, ‘They were all hoping for a bite of Doctor Raruso, the ghouls!’

  Drusilla answered, ‘And perhaps they’re also thinking about what he told us.’

  ‘What’s this? No appetite this evening, my pretties?’ asked Signorina Tiozzo.

  Thirty-eight cats sat silently on their haunches, thoughts of fish-heads and crab-legs apparently far from their minds.

  ‘Well, there’s no accounting for cats,’ observed Signorina Tiozzo, picking up her spade and key. ‘That’s why I love them so.’

  Before she was even out of the room, the Contessa drawled, ‘I gather the late rat’s so-called “not-quite-cat” is one of our two recent arrivals? No doubt, it is the one who is so well-versed in human history. Step forward.’

  Drusilla and Brolo flanked Talina as she skittered into the centre of the room.

  ‘I want you to know,’ said the Contessa, barely glancing at Talina, ‘that in our opinion, a not-quite-cat is a cat who is not-quite-good-enough. We’ll have no more showing off. I assume that is understood.’

  Talina nodded. Nor were the Contessa’s words lost on Albicocco and Bestard-Belou. ‘Ye heared what she sayed?’ demanded Albicocco.

  Bestard-Belou added, ‘And you unnerstand you’ll be gettin’ da fish-heads only after we’ve sucked dem now?’

  ‘Yer not wrong, Bestardo,’ growled Albicocco. ‘’Ceptin’ insofar as sucked head is too good for the likes of her.’

  Talina nodded humbly and went to make herself as small and insignificant as possible in the deepest corner of the cardboard box, where she was
joined by Drusilla and Brolo. They conferred in whispers.

  Drusilla warned, ‘Talina, please don’t get too hopeful. You mustn’t break your heart a second time. This news does not mean that your parents are alive. How can we trust a rat? Even an educated rat?’

  ‘The humans must be hostages, not food. Listen,’ Talina insisted. ‘We know the Ravageurs always arrive in gondolas. So it must be true they are still living on an island, as Doctor Raruso said. There are hundreds of islands in the lagoon. They haven’t even mapped them all.’

  ‘And this one’s hidden in a fog that never lifts,’ remembered Drusilla.

  ‘Someone must tell the humans about what Doctor Raruso said, and all. How can we do that?’ Brolo wondered.

  ‘We’ll have to get ourselves adopted by someone,’ Drusilla said.

  ‘I can still read. So perhaps I can still write?’ added Talina, hopefully. ‘I have to get hold of a pencil.’

  The morning brought more humans looking for cats.

  Signorina Tiozzo appeared somewhat awed by her new visitors, curtseying over and over again to a plump gentleman of about forty years with a goatee beard, extremely elegant in his round black-rimmed spectacles, despite the truffle sauce stains on his waistcoat. He was accompanied by a lively-looking overgrown boy of a man with a battered hat crammed over tousled red hair and what looked suspiciously like a dressing-gown cord around his trousers instead of a belt.

  Sleepily, Talina looked out of the box. Then she leapt to her feet. ‘Look! That’s Giuseppe Tassini, the famous lawyer, historian and gourmand! And look who’s beside him: Professor Marìn!’

  Drusilla explained to Brolo, ‘They are Talina’s heroes. She adores their books and the professor’s a friend of her parents.’

  ‘Dear Professor Marìn!’ Talina craned her neck towards the man with red hair.

  Joyfully, she took in his inquisitive eyes, full of fun and wisdom at the same time. He had a way of looking at people that made them talk to him. Signorina Tiozzo, normally laconic with humans, had melted into gushes and giggles.