‘I’m sorry for the last punch,’ said James. ‘I knew the right had finished you. It was cruel to follow with the left… But I suppose I just wanted to make sure.’

‘It’s always best to make sure,’ said Fitzpaine and he held out his hand.

James shook it.

‘No hard feelings, eh?’ Again Fitzpaine attempted a smile, though it looked horrible and twisted on his swollen face.

‘No hard feelings,’ said James.

He just hoped that Count Ugo Carnifex would feel the same way.

Somehow he doubted it.

17

17

Blood Brothers

Mauro had been walking all afternoon, but he didn’t mind. He was walking away from the nightmare at La Casa Polipo; he was leaving Count Ugo behind him; but best of all he was going home. He hadn’t been back since Easter and he was looking forward to seeing his mother and little sister.

He enjoyed life at Capo d’Orso. He liked working for Victor and he liked relaxing on the beach in his spare time, but he still didn’t think of Casa Polipo as his home. He never would. The village was home, and Victor and Poliponi would never replace his family.

The people of the Barbagia were tough and fiercely loyal to their families. Arguments here were usually settled with the gun. There were feuds going back generations, the original reasons for the fights long forgotten. Mauro’s own father had been killed in just such a feud when Mauro was only three years old and his mother was pregnant with his little sister. She had bravely approached the other family and begged them to end the feud, as she didn’t want to risk losing her only son. The other family, also sick of bloodshed, had thankfully agreed.

But the feud had not been entirely forgotten and Mauro’s sister had been christened Vendetta. Vendetta Maria Grazia Benetutti.

She was thirteen years old now, small and dark, with the eyes of a cat and the temper of a wild animal. She was growing up fast and Mauro missed her.

He was nearly home. He had left the Gennargentu Mountains and was in the Supramonte to the north. These mountains were stark and dramatic, with great, sheer walls of jagged grey rock thrusting up above the tree line as if they had been pushed through from below. The peaks were bare and gaunt, tinged here and there with burnt orange.

Mauro knew this land well. He had grown up here, playing among the rocks and trees. He breathed in the scent of wild thyme and rosemary.

He crested a ridge and startled a big moufflon, a mountain sheep, with the curled horns of a ram. It leapt away across the rocks, scattering stones in its wake.