2 - Summer 1340

La Deliziosa

It is a few days before mid-summer when Trucco, one of Cola Di Rienzo's lieutenants, approaches Marco da Pitigliano with a request from the Capo. It seems that over in Rione Trevi there is a client of Cola's in distress. Trucco tells Marco of a gangster, by the name of Giacomino Strozza, throwing his weight around and demanding protection money from local businesses. Trucco tells him to take a couple of lads to the Deliziosa - a brothel of the better sort - and put himself at the service of Donna Giulia the proprietoress.

Marco sets off with his companions, Rocco del Mare and Fr. Giovanni and a young guide by the name of Pino. When they arrive they are surprised to find a priest, Father Arturo Quotidiano, sitting drinking wine in the cortile of the brothel with an ugly ugly looking brute called Astore Tollo. It seems that they had just rescued one of Donna Giulia's doormen from a beating handed out by this Strozza's men. They readily agree to help.

After a day spent watching the gang's caserma. Marco and his fellows decide that it is best to lay a trap for the gangsters when they come to collect - or to carry out their threat to abduct La Deliziosa's star turn, La Bella Scura.

On midsummer night Strozza's righthand man Turo and a couple of henchmen turn up to demand the money or the girl. When Donna Giulia refuses him, Turo decides that he and his men are sufficient unto the task of abducting La Bella Scura. He is mistaken. As they enter the courtyard they are surprised by Cola's men. Turo tries to escape but is brought down by a well aimed roof tile thrown by Pino. All three are given a good drubbing. They are stripped to their shirts and despatched back to their boss with the message that La Deliziosa already has protection.

The Necrofagi

The group are next asked to attend to a plea for help from merchants in Piazza Navona. Their contact, Signore Arminio, tells them that people have been disappearing from their area at nights. He leads them down into the old passageways beneath the strangely elongated market square that is Piazza Navona. There he shows them a fissure leading further down into the depths. It seems that a hat known to belong to one of the victims was found. He provides the group with lamps and a flask of oil.

They make their way down the rubble slope into a set of passages below. There they find a band of Necrofagi - corpse-eaters or ghouls feasting upon a frech body. After a fierce fight, including a struggle with a much larger ghoul, they find an inner room with a huge, bloated female of the species lying upon a veritable bed of charnel. She is in the process of giving birth. Withstanding her terrible shrieks, as his companions waver, Astore steps forward to drive his cinquedea, through her guts and end her unholy existence.

In the room beyond they find a "larder" in which lie four victims, frozen to immobility by the chilling touch of the Necrofagi, but still alive.

1 - Spring 1340

Marco da Pitigliano, Rocco del Mare and Fra.Giovanni encounter each other on the Via Nomentana winding its way from the North East, down from the Umbrian hills, across the plains of Lazio to the city of Rome.

Approaching Rome they encounter another medicant friar, a Brother Michele, who on receipt of alms offers to show them a way into Rome that will avoid what he describes as a shakedown at the Porta Nomentana. He leads them through the fields to one of the many ruins dotting the countryside around here.

Pushing his way through the bushes he reveals the entrance to an ancient tunnel. They follow the friar through a long straight passage that pops up in another set of more substantial ruins that they can see is within the city walls.

Michele leads them to a main road which he says is the Via Nomentana and shows them where a group of armed men is indeed waylaying travellers in and out of the city and levying "tolls" upon them. He advises them to tread warily in the city and recommends they seek employment at the Sign of the Black Cat (Il Gatto Nero) in the south of the city. He tells them to ask for Cola and say that Brother Michele sent them.

Michele gives them directions but they soon become lost. It is the following day, after a number of adventures, including a conversation in which they reject the offer of a small boy to show them a new hole in the ground that has opened up, and a street brawl with a gang of ruffians, before they arrive at Il Gatto Nero.

There they witness the notary Cola di Rienzo hold court to a long queue of clients, all seeking his advice and favour. When they finally get to speak to him, he gives them a sealed box and asks them to deliver it to his father in law in Trastevere, the district across the Tiber. This they do - not without incident - and take a return message back to Cola at the Black Cat.

It seems that this was all a test of their honesty and competence, which they are deemed to have successfully passed. Cola offers to enter their names into his Book of Clients and they agree.