5 - Nuns and Flying Monkeys

Father Arturo is directed by Cola to visit the Convent of Santa Maria Formosa in the Santangelo rione. He and his companions, Marco, Rocco and Fr. Giovanni are received by Abbess Hildegarde. It seems that one of her Oblates, a young woman of noble birth named Serena Frangipani has disappeared. Prioress Maria Assunta is convinced that she has been abducted by a young man called Matteo Corsini. With her own eyes she saw Corsini wearing a “ridiculous” hat standing on a ladder and peering over the wall at the moment she was alerted by screams in the orchard. They subsequently found the ladder and love letters from Corsini were found in the girl’s room. Sister Ursula who was supposed to be the girl’s mentor and companion confirmed that they were indeed carrying on a secret liaison. However, Sister Ursula’s eye-witness account differed substantially from that of the Prioress in that she said that three demons came to drag the oblate off to Hell. The girl is plainly overwrought and hysterical and the Abbess is more inclined to follow the account of the Prioress.

The party undertake to visit Corsini and put him under pressure to release the girl immediately. The meet Corsini and his manservant, Noli, in a wineshop near Corsini’s house. To their surprise, Corsini’s account tallies with that of Sister Ursula. Three demons in the shape of flying monkeys swooped down and snatched his darling, flying off in a broadly northerly direction. He and Noli ever since have been seeking news of the flying monkeys and though they have no solid leads as yet they have found some persistent rumours of such creatures particularly in the Quirinale district. The two parties agree to work together on the matter.

Basing themselves at La Deliziosa, a brothel in the Trevi district where Father Arturo and his friends seem assured of a warm welcome, the comrades follow up a number of leads and find themselves drawn to a derelict palazzo with a ruined tower near the crown of the Quirinale. The place is being fitted out for a masque on Midwinter night. Attendance is by invitation only on the night but by visiting while the place is full of workmen and victuallers they find a hidden door under the stage set up in the ruins of the great hall. This is found to lead to a separate, more modest, dwelling place, set upas some sort of office with a plain-looking street entrance further down the hill from the palazzo.

On the night of the masque the group make their way up the hill amongst the revellers but peel off to make their way into the palazzo via the back entrance they have discovered. This involves a certain amount of lock-picking at which Noli proves adept. They hide themselves under the stage and wait. At midnight the main event takes place in front of an audience of invitees. It seems that this is to be an auction. The prize will be to take part in the summoning of a Scimio Volante – a flying monkey – to be bound to the will of the auction winner.A key element of the ritual will be the sacrifice of a virgin of noble blood.

The auction grows hot and the astronomical sum of 3600 florins wins it. However, as the girl is conveyed to the stage by three “flying monkeys” the party burst out, blades drawn. There is fierce resistance. There are two “servitors” who seem to be necromantic constructs, three flying monkeys and the sorceror himself to contend with but the rescuers manage to escape with the girl and flee down the tunnel, locking the door behind them.

They regroup at the Deliziosa. While Noli goes to fetch a litter in which the young lady may be conveyed back to the convent. Meanwhile there is a disagreement between Father Arturo and Marco over the extent of unchaperoned access Matteo should have to the girl he has just rescued. Romanticism and Marco’s muscle win the argument.

4 – October 1340

Fr. Michele has not been seen for a couple of weeks and Cola is concerned. Trucco asks Marco to look into it. He gathers together a crew comprising Fr. Giovanni, Astore, Rocco, and Pino to go to the vast ancient ruin known as the Baths of Diocletian from whence Fr. Michele is known to operate. Fr. Giovanni enters the complex alone and begins to question a derelict family who live near the entrance. They tell him they have not seen Michele for a few weeks. He gives them some alms and tends to their sick father.

While he is there two ruffians turn up and see him off with blows, chasing him out of the complex. However, emboldened by the sight of his comrades outside he whips around to face them while they, seeing he has company think better of their pursuit and run back into the ancient complex. Without waiting for his friends Fra Gio gives chase but is ambushed and felled by one of the ruffians lying in wait for him. Meanwhile the other villain fetches more of his band. When Astore and Rocco arrive on the scene (Marco is still by the entrance putting on his armour) more ruffians are there. It is hard to tell how many in the deep shadows there, but at least one has a crossbow and it is levelled at them. Rocco indicates that they too are after the meddling mendicant and they are permitted to drag him away, but are told in no uncertain terms not to return. They go back to the Black Cat where at Cola’s expense Fr. Giovanni receives some healing.

The following day they return to the environs of the ancient baths. Marco identifies a good spot in the waste ground from which to spy on comings and goings between the baths and the rest of the city. In the morning they see the same two villains – a slight weasly-looking fellow and his companion who looks like a large pig on its hind legs – heading into town with empty panniers on their backs. They return an hour or so later laden with what look like provisions. In the afternoon the same pair come out of the baths once more. The party follow this time and as they dive into the streets of Rome, Rocco and Pino tail them to a shabby-looking merchant’s house in the Monte district of the city.

After their targets enter the merchant’s house, Rocco and Pino return to the agreed rendezvous – a wineshop – where they find Marco and Astore. Of Giovanni there is no sign. After spending a fruitless afternoon and early evening looking for the lost friar, they return to the Black Cat for the night with their intelligence, scant though it is.

Meanwhile, Giovanni, still limping after his wound taken the previous day, had failed to keep up with the others and with the conversation agreeing the rendezvous point. After trying a few places to no avail he simply returned to the hideout by the baths. Thus he was in a position to see the two ruffians return. This time their packs were empty but they had in tow a young lady. To the friar’s eye, this was no floozy but seemed a respectable girl who showed all the signs of being an unwilling companion to the two of them as they entered the baths complex. Realising that he would not get back to the Black Cat while it was still light, he decided to seek lodgings nearby. Of course, as usual, he had no money to pay for a bed for the night but was lucky enough to find a wineshop where the landlord was happy to let him sleep in the otherwise empty commonsin return for his help with the dishes. It was over breakfast the following morning that Fra Giovanni asked the landlord whether he knew anything about the new denizens of the baths which lay just up the hill from the wineshop. Indeed he did, for they often came in to drink at his place.

He didn’t know a great deal about their business, though he guessed they were in some kind of trade – indeed at one point they’d asked him about the market for Malmsey wine and spices (as if he could afford such luxuries). He’d seen at least eight of them but seldom more than three or four at once. There were a couple he would describe gents, one of whom he thought was called Scagnelli. They were definitely from out of town. He thought Venice but his wife had said that one of them mentioned Pescara. Most of the others were of a rougher sort – probably sailors or transport men - but also seemed to be from outeast. However, there were a couple who were obviously Roman – he described Weasel and Piglet here and indeed confirmed that this was what the others called them (Dannola and Porcellino).He hadn’t seen Fra Michele, who he knew, since this lot arrived on the scene.

Shrugging at the disappearance of Giovanni, the rest of the party breakfast at the Black Cat and make their way back to their observation point near the Baths of Diocletian. In the late morning they once more see Weasel and Piglet trudging down the slope into town. This time they seem quite heavily laden. The larger man, in particular, is plainly carrying an amphora on his back. This time it is Rocco and Astore who follow them to the same merchant’s house and see them enter. They take the opportunity to case the joint, noting a back alley, and return to their comrades.

It is the mid-afternoon before the friar manages to find the rest of the party and compare notes. They decide that they now have enough to report at the Black Cat where by chance Cola himself is running one of his public consultation sessions. When the crowds have departed he listens to their tale. His interest is piqued by the mention of Pescara as he has heard word that the Venetian Agent of Pescara has recently entered the City by the Porta Nomentana with a squad of mounted and armed men with whom none had dared interfere. They rode straight to the residence of the Venetian Agent in Rome. Cola said that it was time to turn over this merchant’s house and dispatches Marco and his comrades to that end. Meanwhile he sends a note of hand to the residence of the Venetian Agent.

At the merchant’s house, Rocco climbs over the back wall, drops into the yard and unbars the gate. He then manages to lift the latch on what seems to be the kitchen window. He climbs in and silently tiptoes past the recumbent and snoring form of the cook who is lying on a pallet in front of the fire. He bursts into the snug beyond to find Piglet and Weasel sitting at a table. They have plainly been at the jug of wine there and are slow to react, especially Piglet but he soon finds himself heavily engaged with both of them.

Meanwhile Astore who has followed Rocco through the window decides to throw himself upon the ample body of the cook shouting at her not to scream. She screams and Astore first tries to stab her with his dagger, then to strangle her and finally to beat her brains out on the flagstones of the floor. She is a big strong woman, used to fetching water, kneading dough and hanging cauldrons upon hooks above the fire. By the time she is subdued, and falls silent, her blood is all over the kitchen floor. All this is witnessed by a wide-eyed Pino through the kitchen window.

Marco belabours the back door with his axe. By the time he breaks it down Piglet is dead with Rocco’s basilard through his eye. Rocco is bleeding from a wound in his thigh and Weasel looks to be taking advantage of Rocco’s weakened state. All this changes with Marco’s arrival and Weasel throws down his blade and begs for quarter.

The house belongs to a Signore Bobboli. He is a merchant fallen on hard times. He admits that he was going to fence the goods that Weasel and Piglet brought him and had been promised ten percent of the proceeds, but they had kidnapped his only daughter to ensure his cooperation. The amphora, bolt of cloth and box of spices were just a sample of what they said they wanted him to shift for them. The only other resident in the house was an elderly servant who was the brother of Esmerelda the cook.

Fra Giovanni is aghast at what Astore has done to the cook and puts forth his prayers to save her life. She must have been a good and pious woman for the Lord grants his prayer at least to the extent of keeping her alive, although whether she will ever recover fully from her wounds only time will tell.

They gather up the Amphora, the bolt of silk cloth and the spice box and make Weasel carry the bulk of them, making their way back to the Black Cat. There they are met, despite the lateness of the hour, not only by Cola but by two sumptuously dressed men who are introduced as Lorenzo Bembo, the Venetian Agent for Rome and Beltrano Corner, the Venetian Agent for Pescara.

Scagnelli and his gang, it seems were pirates and wreckers operating on the coast south of Pescara. They were mostly quite small time villains preying on local traffic but had struck it lucky during a late summer storm and had lured a Venetian trading galley onto a rocky shore. They had helped themselves to spices, silk and jars of fine wine from Monemvasia, and slain several Venetian sailors in the surf as they tried to defend themselves and their ship. Nevertheless there had been survivors and they had made their way to Pescara to seek justice. Corner had investigated, identified the culprits and followed their trail to Rome. Plainly they had felt that it would be easier to fence the goods in Rome than in any of the towns and cities of the East coast. He had also heard it said that there was a Roman amongst their crew. Corner’s eye falls upon Weasel at this point who visibly quails and begins babbling that he was just a pawn in this business and that he is fully prepared to cooperate in bringing the rest of them to justice. The Venetians leave with the jar, the bolt of silk and the spices (they have plenty of flunkies); along with Weasel, a rope about his neck and his hands tied. They leave a bag with Cola that clinks.

As they depart, Bembo turns and says to Cola but with a glance around the room. “Thank you signori. La Serenissima is grateful to you and is in your debt.”

Once he is gone, Cola asks the party for a full account of the night’s work. He listens gravely to Fra Giovanni’s account of the treatment meted out to Esmerelda the cook and has stern words of advice for Astore. He counts out eight Venetian gold ducats for each member of the group (though he says he will look after Pino’s share for him) and bids them goodnight.

3 - August 1340

While working the boats on the river, Rocco discovers a tunnel mouth on the east bank of the Tiber, that appears to lead under the the lower part of the northern slopes of the Capitoline hill. He tells Marco, Astore and Father Arturo. They also decide to inform Cola who agrees a condotta with them under which he provides a boat, a crew and equipment. In return he receives a share of the treasure and custodianship of any writing discovered. He also provides a fourth member of the party - a young artist and scholar named Bartolomeo (Bartolo) Gaddi.

They discover the tunnel to be guarded by what Bartolo describes as a Cloacal Demon. This gelatinous creature patrols back and forth in what seems to be a large sewer. They come to no plan to detroy it but find its habits to be predictable but regular - and find it will not come into the sunlight. So they manage to evade it and find two discreet areas off the tunnel to explore - in both cases by coming up through the seat of easement above.

In the first they find some sort of undead creature, fortunately chained by the neck to the wall. Father Arturo begs the Lord to send it to its rest and it is no more. They explore the passages around and discover a door guarded by two armed guards - also undead but necromantically animated according to Gaddi. An attempt to deal with them by strength of arms sees the party repulsed, for they seem to know their business.

In the second, Rocco and Arturo are greeted by an aparition that offers them refreshment and then disappears by walking through a wall. The wine they drink is excellent and the water fresh. Looking around they see that everything seems to be as if it were occupied but yesterday. Aside from the lavatory in which they emerged, there is a bedroom and a library full of scrolls - in marvellous state of preservation. They bethink themselves to test this presumed spell of preservation by sending Astore briefly out of the complex with a pair of slippers and two scrolls. To their disappointment all items begin to accrue the weight of the ages as soon as removed from the immediate locale.

The party decide to take their discovery back to Cola and leave all artefacts in situ.