the girls and 1, but there was a diflerence between myself and them. I was the protetta of Guillaume de Matarese and I knew a great event was taking place. He was my padrone, my lover, and I wished to be a part of it. In addition to which I'd spent three years with tutors, and although hardly a learned woman, I was given to better things than the giddy talk of ignorant girls from the hills.
I crept away from the others and concealed myself behind a railing on the balcony above the great hall. I watched and listened for hours, it seems, understanding very little then of what my padrone was saying, only that he was most persuasive, his voice at times barely heard, at others shouting as though he were possessed by the fever.
He spoke of generations past when men ruled empires given them by God and by their own endeavors. How they ruled them with iron might because they were able to protect themselves from those who would steal their king- doms, and the fruits of their labors. However, those days! were gone and the great families, the great empire builders-such as those in that room-were now being stripped by thieves and corrupt governments that har- bored thieves. They-those in that room-had to look to other methods to regain what was rightfully theirs.
They had to kill-cautiously, judiciously, with skill and daring-and divide the thieves and their corrupt protectors. They were never to kill by themselves, for they were the decision-makers, the men who selected victim&wherever possible victims chosen by others among the corrupted.
Those in that room were to be known as the Council of the Matarese, and word was to go forth in the circles of power that there was a group of unknown, silent men who understood the necessity of sudden change and violence, who were unafraid to provide the means, and who would guarantee beyond living doubt that those performing the acts could never be traced to those purchasing them.
He went on to speak of things I could not understand, of killers trained by great pharaohs and Arabian princes centuries ago. How men could be trained to do terrible things beyond their wills, even beyond their knowledge. How others needed only the proper encouragement for they sought the assassin's martyrdom. These were to be the methods of the Matarese, but in the beginning there would be disbelief in the circles of power, so examples had to be made.
During the next few years selected men were to be as%. sassinated. They would be chosen carefully, killed in ways that would breed mistrust, pitting political faction against political faction, corrupt government against corrupt government. There would be chaos and bloodshed and the message would be clear: the Matarese existed.
The padrone distributed to each guest pages on which he had written down his thoughts. These writings were to be the council's source of strength and direction, but they were never to be shown to eyes other than their own. These pages were the Last Will and Testament of Guillaume de Matarese... and those in that room were his inheritors.
Inheritors? asked the guests. They were compassionate, but direct. In spite of the villa's beauty and the servants and the musicians and the feast they had enjoyed, they knew he had been ruined---as each of them had been ruined. Who among them had anything left but his wine cellars and his lands and rents from tenants to keep but a semblance of his former life intact? A grand banquet once in a great while, but little else.
The padrone did not answer them at first. Instead, he demanded to know from each guest whether that man accepted the things he had said, if that man was prepared to become a consigliere of the Matarese.
They replied yes, each more vehement than the last, pledging himself to the padrone's goals, for great evil had been done to each of them and they wanted revenge. It was apparent that Guillaume de Matarese appeared to each at that moment a saint.
Each, except one, a deeply religious Spaniard who spoke of the word of God and of His commandments. He accused the padrone of madness, called him an abomination in the eyes of God.
"Am I an abomination in your eyes, sir?" asked the padrone.
"You are, sir," replied the man.
Whereupon the first of the most terrible things happened. The padrone took a pistol from his belt, aimed it at the man, and fired. The guests sprang up