The Best new Horror 4

by Stephen Jones

  “Why, indeed it is!” the priest beamed. “But I assure you it’s not unusual hereabouts. We are, after all, on the terrain of Etruria, are we not? You’ll find many survivals of that sort. The very name of our paese”—he used the word that means both village and country—“is half Etruscan: the same root that one finds in Volsci, plus the Latin for old. There are many ancient patronymics here, as well. Have you visited your aunt’s grave? No? Well, I have half an hour to spare. If you like I can take you to it now and show you what I mean on the way.”

  “I’m sure that would be very interesting,” Carlo said hastily. “But we shouldn’t detain Signor Anzani too long.”

  “No, of course not,” Father Maru granted. “Well, doubtless there will be another chance.”

  With visible relief the lawyer stumped towards his car, a sober dark blue Fiat, instructing them to follow.

  As Carlo was starting up Ann said thoughtfully, “I think that priest has an Etruscan name, too.”

  “What?”—swinging into the wake of the Fiat.

  “Maru. You assumed it was a variant of Marius at first, didn’t you? So did I. Now I suspect it’s much older.”

  “Since when do you know so much about Etruscan?”

  “Since last year when we held an exhibition of Etruscan art,” she retorted. “I wrote the notes for the catalogue, remember?”

  Embarrassed at having forgotten, Carlo said, “So what does Maru mean?”

  “I’m not sure—I don’t think anybody is—but either priest or magistrate, maybe both. Back in those days there wasn’t much distinction between religious and civil office.”

  Carlo said nothing further for the time being. Now they were out of the village Anzani, more familiar with the area and perhaps less concerned about damage to his car, was setting a fast pace along a rough and stony track, and he was having trouble keeping up without being blinded by the clouds of dust.

  Aunt Silvana’s former home was a typical farmhouse of the region, its roof of tiles unaltered in design since Roman times, its walls of hollow bricks covered with flaking stucco and partly masked by a sprawling vine. Chickens were scratching around a disused well in what passed for its front garden; near by a donkey brayed; there was a noticeable odour of goat; sweet peppers and tomatoes were laid out to dry in the sun. An elderly woman clad in black, her face lined, her hands gnarled, several of her teeth missing, awaited them at its door with the timeless patience of one to whom clocks were still a novelty. Emerging from his car, Anzani gave her a curt greeting, and would have gone on to introduce Ann and Carlo but that she interrupted.

  “Ah, so you are Signora Silvana’s niece. I don’t need to be told. There is something about your eyes. One can tell your ancestors hailed from our paese.” Her voice, though wheezy, was clear and easy to understand despite a trace of the regional accent they had heard in Bolsevieto. “And you, signore, must be her husband. Welcome! Please call me Giuseppina. I am used to it. Sometimes I almost forget I have another name. Come, let me show you to the room I have prepared.”

  Ann and Carlo exchanged glances. They had been planning to return to Bolsevieto, or even Matignano, for the night. Ann turned to the lawyer intending to say as much, but he forestalled her.

  “You’ll lodge better here than at the albergo in Bolsevieto,” he grunted. “And in a cleaner bed, most like. Besides, the property is an extensive one. You’ll need to take your time inspecting it . . . Oh! Before I forget!”

  He strode back to his car, leaned in, and reached for something on the back seat. Returning, he held out to Carlo a bottle of Asti Spumante.

  “A token to mark your arrival,” he said. “Well, now I must leave you. There’s no phone here, I’m afraid, but you have my number and if you need any more information you can ring me from the bar where we met. Signora—signore—Giuseppina—arrivederci.”

  The abruptness of his departure left them astonished. Not until his car was a hundred metres down the lane did Ann murmur to her husband, “He could at least have made it champagne.”

  Not only was there no phone; there was no electricity, water came from a spring on the hillside—here they were just below the high ground that encircled Bolsevieto—and the outside privy was so noisome Ann declared her intention of hiding behind a bush rather than make use of it. But the huge brass-framed bed was indeed clean, and looked rather comfortable, and despite being cooked over a wood fire the mess of spaghetti, eggs and wild mushrooms that Giuseppina prepared for their supper was tasty as well as filling. Moreover the grana cheese she served with it was stravecchio—extra mature, of the highest quality. Also there was a salad of tomatoes from the garden dressed with fresh basil and local olive oil. And even though there was no refrigerator, half an hour in the running water from the spring chilled Anzani’s wine to acceptable coolness—made it, indeed, quite palatable.

  They had expected Giuseppina to eat with them in the salone, but she retreated to the kitchen. When they asked why, she shrugged and indicated her sunken lips, implying that it was embarrassing for her to eat in company lacking so many teeth. They nodded understanding but insisted she take a glass of wine along. When she came to clear the table and deliver grapes and figs by way of dessert, she left them with a warm good night.

  “Bedtime?” Carlo said as the door closed behind her.

  “Well, we’re out in the wilds,” Ann sighed. “No TV, no radio even—unless you want to sit in the car until the battery runs flat. We might as well take the hint. If we get up early we can look over the estate before lunch and be on our way by afternoon.” She glanced around the room, fitfully lit by a paraffin lamp that Giuseppina had set on a handsome but neglected nineteenth-century side-board. “We ought to be able to raise a fair price, don’t you think? There’s a good deal of land.”

  Carlo nodded firmly. “Enough to pay off the mortgage on our apartment, at the least.”

  “You’re not tempted to sell up and return to nature?” Ann enquired with such mock gravity that for a second he took her seriously and almost choked on his last swig of wine. When he recovered he started to laugh.

  “Come on, let’s turn in,” he managed at length.

  “OK. I just hope that donkey doesn’t start braying in the night. And there’s bound to be a cockerel, too.” She reached for her handbag, checking abruptly.

  “Damn. I meant to save a mouthful of wine to swallow my Pill. I hope that water’s safe. Pass me the jug.”

  Luckily the night proved tolerably quiet. The only noise that did disturb them was the barking—rather, the baying—of a large dog, perhaps one of those they had seen in the village. But it didn’t last for long, and by the time Giuseppina’s movements disturbed them at six they had had plenty of rest. Besides, it was a fine morning.

  After breakfast Ann kept her promised rendezvous with a bush, as did Carlo, and having arranged with Giuseppina to return for lunch at noon they set off on their tour of exploration armed with the sketch-map Anzani had supplied.

  The land had been neglected, but the lawyer had told the truth after all. Thanks to the spring welling from the hillside it was indeed exceptionally fertile compared with the area they had driven through yesterday. It was also less flat than the surrounding terrain, forming a series of gently undulating hills, some adorned with trees and bushes planted by past owners: chestnuts, olives, mulberries, lemons. For a wild moment Carlo felt tempted by the idea Ann had mooted as a joke, then dismissed it sternly. Certainly it would be possible to survive off a farm like this—one might even live quite well—but he had no wish to be transported back in time, as Ann had put it.

  Then, abruptly, everything changed.

  In shorts today, Ann had run up the next hill ahead with a laughing accusation about smoking too much—it wasn’t true, he’d given up at her request when they got married—and come to a dead stop. Not until he had caught up did she recover from her shock.

  “Carlo, I don’t believe it!” she whispered. “Look!”

  Ahead, in a s
ort of bowl, there stood a tumulus in the form of a wide low cone. The irrelevant thought crossed Carlo’s mind that it was exactly the shape of one of Ann’s breasts. Though it was covered in scrub, a single glance sufficed to show that it was artificial, for it was ringed by a stone wall, about shoulder height, and it had a door, or rather a doorway: a low stone porch was crudely blocked by wooden planks nailed to a wooden frame and lashed in position with ropes that served for both hinges and latch. All around were signs that this was or had recently been someone’s home: a pile of rubbish, another of ashes, a bucket, an axe, a stack of firewood.

  “Something like the nuraghi we saw on Sardinia the other year?” Carlo hazarded, shading his eyes against the sun.

  “Idiot!” She strode down the slope, leaving him to keep up as best he might. “We’re slam in the middle of an Etruscan necropolis! I bet the sides of these hills have as many burrows as a rabbit-warren! And look at this!” Halting beside the mound, she pointed at a long box-like object, half full of water. Its reddish-brown sides, patched with lichen, bore traces of elaborate moulding.

  “What is it?”

  “An Etruscan coffin! Lord, it must be worth millions and it’s being used as a drinking-trough!”

  Darting towards the porch, she attacked the rope that fastened its door.

  “Ann, do you think you ought to?”

  Over her shoulder she snapped, “According to the map we’re on my land, aren’t we? I suppose I have some rights as the new owner!”

  The rope fell away. She dragged the door aside and peered in. Reluctant, Carlo followed her example.

  Cut into the side of the tumulus there was a large, low-ceilinged room, its roof upheld by square pillars. There were more signs of occupation: a bed, a table, tools, kitchen utensils. In a niche beside the entrance stood four primitive statuettes, presumably very old, garlanded with withered flowers, and these stopped Ann in her tracks with an exclamation under her breath: “Lares and penates! And still receiving offerings! In this day and age!”

  But what really seized and held her attention were the walls—rather, the paintings on them. Grimy and faded, they were none the less astonishing.

  “My God,” she whispered. “Look! This scene of two men in hoodwinks, that one with a club and this one with a dog roped to his arm! Only one other like it is known to have survived. It’s supposed to represent some sort of trial by ordeal, maybe a precursor of the Roman Games. Presumably the man with the club had to flail about hoping to cripple the dog before it could sink its teeth into him. Carlo, you realize what this means, don’t you? I’ve inherited a fortune! There must be other tombs all around us, so provided they haven’t been ransacked – ”

  “Listen,” Carlo broke in.

  A moment, and it came again: a deep baying sound, the cry of a dog such as Father Maru owned.

  “I think the occupier may be coming home,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They returned to daylight, and his guess proved right. Staring down at them from the crest of the same hill over which they had passed stood a thick-set man with a heavy black beard, cradling on his left arm a broken shotgun, at his right a dog that might have been litter-brother to the priest’s. At their appearance he shook the gun closed with a swift and practised motion, and made to raise and point it.

  He shouted something they failed to understand, to which the dog added a growl, its hackles bristling.

  “We’re the—the new owners!” Ann called back. “I’m Ann Bertelli and this is my husband Carlo!”

  Eying them suspiciously under bushy brows, the man advanced. It could now be seen that he had a pouch slung at his side, from under the flap of which protruded the ears of a fresh-killed rabbit. He halted five or six paces away, studying them from head to toe. Especially Ann. He scrutinized her, the way, she imagined, he would inspect a horse or ox he planned to buy.

  He had extraordinary eyes, not just dark, but actually black—as black as though she were looking through them into nowhere.

  Eventually he said, his accent thick but his meaning clear enough, “All right. Just don’t come poking around again, hear? This is mine! So unless you want Cerbero to help himself to dinner off your backside . . . In your case”—with a nod at Ann—“that would be a shame. Now be on your way!”

  “Now look here!” Ann began hotly, setting her hands on her hips. Carlo checked her with a touch on her arm.

  “Gun,” he said succinctly.

  Not to mention dog. She conceded the wisdom of beating a strategic retreat. But she fumed all the way back to the house, describing what she was going to say to Anzani for not having warned them they had a squatter in residence.

  Carlo uttered occasional murmurs of agreement.

  “Odd!” she said at last as they approached their goal. “I couldn’t help feeling that that fellow looked familiar. As though I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

  Her husband shrugged. “Probably a local type,” he suggested. “I imagine there’s a lot of inbreeding in communities like Bolsevieto. Everybody’s probably everyone else’s cousin.”

  “Yes, perhaps . . . Now where’s Giuseppina? I have a few questions to put to her, as well!”

  They found her at her wood-fired hearth stirring a bollito misto of kid meat, sausage, and assorted vegetables. “So you met Tarchuno Vipegno,” she said when she heard Ann out. “Yes, he has the right to live there.”

  “But those are Etruscan tombs! They must be full of priceless archeological relics! If they haven’t been plundered, of course.”

  “None the less,” Giuseppina said composedly. She turned away from the pot, wiping her hands on her apron. “There were Vipegnos living here long before my day, let alone yours. They do say: since a hundred generations.”

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous!” Ann stamped her foot. “Does he have a wife, does he have a family?”

  Giuseppina let her apron fall.

  “The Vipegnos don’t marry,” she said. “They take.”

  After an ill-tempered meal nothing would satisfy Ann but that they drive to the bar in Bolsevieto and ring Anzani. Carlo’s reminders about the siesta fell on deaf ears, and at last he reluctantly gave in.

  It was, however, as he had predicted: there was no reply from the lawyer’s office, and the bored waiter assured them it was useless to try again before half-past three. Too restless to sit for so long, Ann cast around for distraction. Carlo suggested they might visit her aunt’s grave, and she listlessly agreed. They found it without trouble—there were few recent tombstones in the little cemetery—stared at it inanely for a while, and turned back the way they had come. As the priest had mentioned, many of the names above the other graves were unusual and archaic, and the sight of them set Ann complaining again.

  “What I don’t understand,” she muttered, “is why the site isn’t famous. It doesn’t look as though it’s ever been properly excavated. Certainly this—this Tarchuno has no business treating it as . . .”

  The words tailed off. Carlo glanced a question at her.

  “I just realized,” she said after a pause, “that his name is literally Etruscan.”

  “How do you mean?” They were strolling side by side towards the village square and the church again.

  “Tarchuno—Tarquinus, as it was in Latin. And Vipegno—that’s too like Vibenna for coincidence. There were two brothers called Aulus and Caelius Vibenna who lived during the last years of kingly rule in Rome, supposed to have been friends and allies of Servius Tullius . . . Did you know the Etruscans were the first people to use the modern European style of naming, a given name plus a family name?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she plunged on.

  “Soon as we get back to Milan, I must get in touch with the people I met while I was writing up those exhibition notes. Heavens, this place ought to be one of the biggest tourist attractions in the area! And couldn’t it do with a shot in the arm?” They were in sight of the square now, where the only signs of life consisted
of a few buzzing flies and the usual drowsy dogs; the human inhabitants were still in hiding from the heat.

  Carlo hesitated. After a pause he said, “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about selling?”

  “Not at all! But now we know what comes with the property we’d be fools not to milk it for every lira. And if there are a decent number of saleable relics in the necropolis we might well consider doing up the house and keeping it on for weekends, hm? It’s not all that far from Milan, and it wouldn’t half impress people.” Ann checked her watch. “Damn, still another quarter-hour to go. Suppose we take a look at the church.”

  And, as though her eyes had been newly opened, she found much to comment on there, too. The sinister carvings Carlo had noticed yesterday—most of them had semicircular recesses, much ornamented, around the faces, not at all like the haloes usually accorded to Christian saints—she referred to as antefissi and said they must have developed from the protective icons the Etruscans used to mount on the corners of roofs. The very structure of the church, which to Carlo seemed dull and ordinary, excited her, too. Apparently it was built to an Etruscan pattern with three distinct chambers, or one chamber and two cells, instead of the conventional Christian layout.

  “I wish there were a guidebook!” she exclaimed.

  “Even if there were,” Carlo sighed, “we couldn’t buy one. There aren’t any shops open, and if yesterday is anything to go by there won’t be until four o’clock. But it’s half-past three and we can try raising Anzani again. I suppose they take a shorter siesta in the big city.”

  At the idea of Matignano as a big city she managed to crack a smile, and they headed for the bar arm in arm.

  Anzani sounded as though he had not yet fully woken up, but at the sound of Ann’s angry voice he briskened.

  “Yes, I’m sorry not to have explained about Vipegno,” he cut in. “It was one of the things I planned to discuss with you. But do remember you were over two hours late, so I scarcely had time to go into detail.”