Free The Night Falling by Katherine Webb Page A

officials in return for their flour, oil and bean coupons, Paola took steps to protect herself. On the day one such randy official made his intentions plain, she let him lead her to a quiet place then she put a knife to his scrotum, got all the coupons she was due and some extra ones as well. She laughed about it, and said the man would be too embarrassed to tell anybody, but Ettore worried for her, then and now. The officials know her face, and he fears that they will mark her out, and make a point of finding her. Sooner or later. She goes about with Iacopo strapped to her back like a talisman, but that won’t deter them when it comes to it.
    By afternoon Ettore is on his feet. He can’t put any weight on the cut leg so he hops, using the walls for balance. From their door a short flight of stone steps leads down to a tiny courtyard, an offshoot where the narrow street, Vico Iovia, makes a ninety-degree turn. Beneath their room is a stable, where their neighbour sleeps with his mule and an elderly nanny goat. Ettore picks up the wooden pole with which the double door is barred at night, and uses it as a crutch. There’s no water for Paola to wash their clothes, but she hangs what spare things they own out on a line anyway, to try to air them. Flies settle on the stiff fabric, like they settle on everything else. Paola comes along the alley with a basket of straw on her hip – fodder she collects for their neighbour’s goat, in return for a cup of her milk now and then. She opens her mouth to scold him but Ettore forestalls her.
    ‘Did Valerio find work today?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she says.
    ‘And yesterday – he was with the shepherd, yes? How much did he earn?’
    ‘He stank of sheep, so I suppose that’s where he was. He wasn’t back until after dark, then he slept, and said nothing to me. He …’ She pauses, repositions the basket on her hip. ‘His cough is worse. Always worse.’
    ‘I know.’ Ettore sets off in the direction of the castle.
    ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘To check he’s earning, since I’m not, and not busy pledging yesterday’s wages on wine.’
    The castle looms over him as he emerges from Vico Iovia. Crows line its rooftops, bickering and looking down at the mess of life at street level. It looks out of place, almost ridiculous. There it sits, empty, a monument to one man’s wealth and power; and to the peasants of Gioia, who live sometimes ten, twelve, fifteen to a room, it’s hard to think such things were built and belong in their own world, and not in some fairy land. Ettore’s leg throbs harder and harder. It sounds so loud in his own ears that he starts to wonder if other people can hear it too. It begins to bleed again, and leaves a trail of drips so that a stray dog comes to follow him with its nose twitching. When it gets too close Ettore flails at it with the wooden pole. The dog has a hungry, speculative look in its eye. On the Via del Mercato is a bar, a simple place with stools in front of a pitted countertop, and big barrels of wine behind it. It’s the first one Ettore tries, and he curses when he sees Valerio at the far end of the room, sitting there stooped and unshaven, playing zecchinetta with a man who looks considerably happier than him.
    Ettore limps over and slams his hand down flat on the bar in front of them. Neither man is startled, so he knows at once that they’re drunk. The playing cards are yellow and dog-eared; there are sticky rings of spilt red wine all around them, and the scent of it sour and pervasive in the air. Valerio looks up at his son, and Ettore sees that he has drunk so much he can’t keep his face straight. It veers from shock to guilt to anger to resentment, all in a few seconds. Valerio swallows, and finally settles for a sort of sickly, listless expression.
    ‘Something you want to say, boy?’ he says.
    ‘Yesterday’s money? Is there any of it left?’ says Ettore. He sounds cold and hard to his own ears, when what he