Twelfth Night 1341 - Flying Monkeys over Rome

The city continues to be terrorised by demons in the form of flying monkeys. Scarcely a citizen now doubts their existence, for everyone seems to know someone who claims to have seen them - or at least knows someone whose cousin or aunt has glimpsed these terrors. Now every backstreet killing or disappearance is laid at their door - though level heads might point out that there were plenty and enough of such occurences long before their appearance in the night sky.

Such is the furore around these horrors that it is said that the matter has even come to the myopic attentions of the Council of Thirteen - the Captains of the Rioni charged with the oversight of law and order in the thirteen districts of the City. What action these idle wastrels have resolved to take is unknown but they are said to have promised rewards for information leading to the apprehension of these vile creatures and and a bounty to anyone who can bring in a corpse. The lack of any published handbill or enumeration of the rewards on offer has led the cynical to assume that they have little confidence that they can be found and no intention of paying up if they are.

December 1340 - Demons in the Night Sky

Rumours abound in Rome of demons, said to resemble flying monkeys, dropping out of the night sky to kill and feed upon the unwary. There are even wild tales of young women being snatched and carried off screaming by these fell beasts. The creatures - if indeed they exist and are not just figments of wine-raddled Saturnalian imaginations - seem most active in the area of the Quirinale. However, there have been similar reports from other areas.

Mayhem in Monti

A woman has been battered almost to death in her own home in the Monti rione.

The terrible assault took place in the Bobboli household in what was once the merchant quarter of the district. The widow Esmerelda Pozzoli was cook and her brother Enrico steward to Silvio Bobboli. Esmerelda was a well-liked and well-respected woman in her community, known for her generosity and good works in the parish.

Though still alive, visitors report that Esmerelda is not responding to her environment. She is capable of swallowing water and the thin broth that her brother feeds her but speaks never a word and seems unaware of her surroundings. A physician attends each day and the parish priest comes to pray over her and read to her from his breviary, but none know whether her situation may ever be ameliorated.

There is much speculation as to what exactly happened that night. Neighbours report shouting and screams: then silence. Those peeping out of their shutters speak of a group of street ruffians leaving the property an hour or so later. One was limping heavily; another seemed to be a prisoner; there was a boy with them; and one of those disreputable mendicant friars. The following morning a tumbrel arrived and took away a body – a very substantial body given the way the driver and his mate staggered under the load.

The next day Desiderata, the daughter of the Bobboli household was brought to her father’s door by none other than Lorenzo Bembo, the Venetian Agent, who spent a full hour at the Bobboli house with a scribe and another man, while his guards stood outside front and back. Folk speculate that this must all be connected to the commotion over by the Porta Nomentana. The name of Cola di Rienzo, the notaio from the Aventine rione whose fingers seem to be in so many pies these days, is also whispered as the benefactor who sent round the physician (and the tumbrel).

Silvio Bobboli and Enrico Pozzoli are saying nothing and swiftly change the subject when pressed. However, it is said that Esmerelda’s three sons are devoted to her and they be more persistent in demanding answers from their uncle and her employer. They are all professional soldiers, currently fighting down in the Regno for King Roberto.