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.
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Updated: Apr 11, 2024
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.
The autumn rains had given way to the first real bite of Winter, so I had to loan Friar Giovanni an old cloak to prevent him freezing solid while begging in the street. My golden fortune in ducats dwindled quickly into a small puddle of silver once I gave alms for the care of a sick women and bought a fine mail haubergion. Now I look like a soldier again, although wearing it in the streets is asking for trouble. The Friar says that poverty is good for the soul, as it removes so many temptations from reach. He set a fine example dressed in rags and his summer sandles while I threw the last of our wood on the fire. Good firewood costs a fortune in the Eternal City, and my little pile of silver would not have kept us warm for much longer.
Then our fortunes changed, as Father Arturo stuck his head round the door and said ' Come on, Cola has given me a job to do and I need some street security'. So Rocco and I followed him to the Convent de Formosa, and met no trouble along the way. Friar Giovanni tagged along, bowl in hand, hoping for alms and a warm greeting.
We got neither, although we were finally admitted into the Convent after freezing outside for an eternity. Without the good Father being expected we would not have gotten in at all, and the Prioress did not seem pleased to see us. Nonetheless we were ushered into the presence of the Abbess Hildegard herself and offered a watery cup of wine. We let the good Father do the talking, mostly; the abbess did not take kindly to men-of-arms. Mendicants she ignored altogether.
The Abbess explained that one of her oblates was missing. The young lady had been sent by her family to the convent to negate a romantic association with one Matteo Corsini, a young man they had not selected as suitable for their daughter. Apparently young love had blossomed, and they sent her here to prevent things going any further. Now she was gone, and Prioress Maria Ascente was certain she had eloped ‘with the Corsini boy’. Apparently she recognised his distinctive hat while viewing a midnight assignation in the courtyard from a convenient window. A ladder had been found in the back street, left against the courtyard wall. The job seemed simple enough so far - find the sweethearts and bring the girl back without fuss or bloodshed.
Then things took a turn on the weird side. Father Arturo asked to speak with any other witness, and Sister Ursula enters our story. Young and foolish, she admitted her part as chaperone to the midnight tryst, but burst in tears and wailed that the oblate had been abducted by three demons from hell, and not some would-be-lover. Her despair and misery seemed real enough, however bizarre her account. After much bawling we let her go back to her prayers and then Father Arturo spent an age examining every tree in the inner courtyard as well as the ladder found outside before we left the convent.
‘Patience is a virtue,’ says Friar Giovanni, and I must confess that it is one I lack. For it seemed clear to me that the suitor must be a minor sorceror with the power to confuse weak minds with colourful nightmares, and we should move without delay to recover the missing oblate from his clutches - by whatever means were needed. But my learned colleagues were wiser than I, and insisted upon words not deeds as our next move. I went along grumbling, and impatient.
Matteo Corsini met us in an bar not far from his town-house that very evening and confirmed the same fantastic tale as Sister Ursula : whilst he declaimed romantic poetry from the top of a ladder the object of his desire was seized and dragged into the night sky by three demons from hell ! Ever since he had been searching the city for their lair, and had found rumours of unnatural birds flying by night, haunting the alleys around the Saint Angelo district. To check, we made straight for that district and discovered the same rumours from several sources; something was definitely up, and Corsini seemed on the level.
Early next morning we met Matteo and his loyal servant Noli once more. It was clear we all had a common cause and would do better as allies than rivals. So Matteo and both priests had breakfast with our friends at the Deliziosa, whilst Rocco, Noli and I investigated strange goings-on reported at a ruined mansion at the top of the hill of Saint Angelo. We helped a waterman push his cart up the hill to the ruin where someone was spending a fortune tarting up the place for a massive party two nights hence. Rocco and Noli mingled with the workers and spied out the work site while I loafed around on a break and kept a lookout.
A horde of workmen were refitting the shell of the old mansion as some sort of playhouse with a central stage. We also learned that there would be no admittance to the party without a private token, and entry to the playhouse for the 'midnight auction' was for token-bearers only. A vast outlay for a secret gathering - but what was to be sold ? Perhaps abducted virgins? The whole thing seemed bizarre and required more investigation, so we crept back after dark and dodged around the watchmen. Rocco and Noli crept about and found a door under the stage which led to a tunnel with further doors leading to a small house in a nearby street, from which a clerk ran the construction. So this ruin had a secret back entrance, and seemed to be visited by the night-devils haunting the run-down district below the hill, seeking out young women and children.
Surely Providence had led us this far with a purpose, so we all agreed to see it through - to whatever end.
So the next night saw us pick a lock and creep quietly up that tunnel to wait beneath the stage for the midnight auction. Waiting quietly for hours in darkness before an ambush is thirsty work, and it gives time for doubt to creep into your mind. What devilment is afoot here? Is the girl still alive? Will we live to see the dawn? Such is the life of a soldier. But Father Aurturo had called upon the Holy Spirit to bless our endeavour, which gave me both hope and comfort. He said we were to follow the path of the Righteous Man, and to confront the Tyranny of Evil Men with cold steel - that was good enough for me. Only Forward Now…
The murmering began as the crowd assembled around the stage, a hushed hubbub of excitement.Then the boards above creaked as they bore the weight of several men. "Welcome friends, Welcome' boomed a voice above. He sounded like a market-trader showing off his wares, confident and well-spoken. But this was no regular meat market. His patter made it plain it was an auction to buy a secret ritual to summon a 'flying monkey' and bind it to service with blood. A drop of blood from the winner, and all the blood of a young virgin. Those of a squeamish nature were advised to leave before the ritual was completed.
Down in the dark, my eyes met those of Matteo - doubts fled, and only iron remained.
The bidding started at 500 and soared to 2000 before it checked, then crept at last to an incredible 3600 golden florins - a Pope's ransom ! Now the bidder boarded the stage and the crowd gasped as the auctioneeer called out ' See my servants bring down - the sacrifice! ' Which was, of course, our call to arms and ambuscade.
We burst out from beneath, running up the stairs and on to the stage with a shout. It was a scene from a Cardinal's nightmare: three night-devils hovering above a virgin lying helpless at the feet of a sorceror - with the stage surrounded by a crowd of masked cultists.So no shortage of sinners at this party. Our path to the sorceror was blocked by two hulking axemen who felt no pain. Re-born in some necromatic vat, their mockery of God's Work had to be hacked into pieces with many blows. By the time we were done with them Rocco was limping with a smashed foot, Friar Giovanni had been scragged by a devil, and the sorceror had fled into the milling mob who surrounded the stage. But Matteo had the girl.
'Get Them !' was the cry, but the masked mob lacked the courage to face just two armed men. Maybe that was for the best, for I planned to murder, right quick, the first to set foot on that stage as a lesson in prudence for the others. 'Blessed are the Merciful, for They shall be Pardoned'says the good Friar, but I was all out of mercy for evil men who would bid a fortune to murder a young girl. In hard times and tight places, Anger is more useful than Despair. And Providence watched over us, for the mob was leaderless, and hesitated, - so we were gone back down the tunnel and off into the night a few minutes later. The Deliziosa was our refuge once more, and the girls took the drugged oblate to a bed and treated her kindly.
It was here that I must admit a sin of Anger, as Father Arturo would insist on standing in the bedroom while Matteo held her hand and whispered comforting words in her ear, safe from a fate worse than death. He had risked his life in common cause and was now my brother-in-arms; my heart said that he had earned a quiet moment with the poor girl he was obviously devoted to. 'Greater Love Hath No Man' as the saying goes. But Father Arturo kept bleating loudly about chaperones, and absolutely refusing to move, which provoked the sin of anger in my heart. By force I carried him bodily down the stairs and dumped him back at the table outside and told him to sit quiet and leave the two of them in peace. To lay hands on the holy Father was a sin, but it was Pity that moved me, so perhaps my penance will be small. After that the good Friar and Father Arturo busied themselves more usefully healing wounds by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, and there was no more talk about chaperones.
My faith in Matteo was well-founded - in the morning he returned with a litter and four bearers so we could convey the oblate back to the Convent on his behalf, and bear a true witness to all that had occurred to the Abbess. This we did, receiving her grateful thanks and wonderment at the evil that men do in the Eternal City.
And so ends my tale of kidnapping and sorcery, thwarted by devoted love - and men of faith and courage. I came through all our tribulations without a scratch, by the Will of Providence. But I do confess the sins of Impatience and Anger in my part, and ask forgiveness from those I have offended.
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