The Fiasco at Scala

The Forsaken, part five

5. After an hour or two on horseback, Ennio and Ilaria had arrived at a gated red-tiled villa set on a sea of grassy meadows. An old bench beside the dwelling looked to the east coast, over the fields and out to sea. Upon further inspection, small olive trees grew along the lane leading up to the patio of the peaceful property. Ennio knocked on the door, to be greeted with raspy scepticism by a crotchety wrinkled woman, seventy-five years of age. Ilaria wondered who she was, while Ennio explained it was his grandmother, Nonna Piazza. Nonna had cared for Ennio after his parents were killed in the fire that destroyed his previous home when he was a child. Ennio continued to work and live at the villa until he came of age and staked out on his own in town, occasionally returning to visit his Nonna.

 The elder looked upon the younger woman and told Ennio she did not have enough room for him and his girlfriend, a claim the two visitors rejected instantly. Nonna showed the two to a spare bedroom, yet Ennio relinquished the room to Ilaria to sleep under the stars. Ilaria complimented Nonna for taking care of his scoundrel grandson for so long until she took a shoe to Ennio upon hearing how he had messed everything up previously. Nonna took Ilaria on a tour of her estate in the middle of the night.

 Inside the alcoves and many rooms of her villa, she apparently took the time to make some of the finest cheeses in the kingdom using milk she bought from local farmers. However, there was more to Nonna than what she seemed. Nonna even showed Ilaria to a secret series of underground rooms and dimly lit offices, where she had hired several workers to help her make fresh varnished flintlock muskets and blunderbusses. She would then sell these finely crafted weapons off to merchants for a neat profit margin. Nonna took a shining towards Ilaria, thinking of her as the daughter she never had.