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.