added to and subtracted from for centuries.
'As to what it was originally: a watchtower looking out over the Tyrrhenian? Possibly. The redoubt of some princeling? We don't know. And actually it mightn't be so easy to find out after all - not from books, at least - because as far as we're able to discover most of its historical records have been destroyed. I mean, utterly.
'The one sure thing we do know is that it's stayed in the hands of the same family for centuries. Their line goes back a long way, you might say immemorially. But records? - forget it! Where they exist they've been altered, updated, re-written from scratch. Not that there's much we can deduce from that; quite a few old families have skeletons in their closets. These people have cleared them out, that's all. Or maybe that's not all. It could be they were simply making room for a few new ones ...'
These people?' Harry sat wrapped in his own thoughts. He had absorbed all that Darcy had told him, which wasn't much so far. 'Well, it seems obvious to me that you've been interested in "these people" for quite some time. And that's E-Branch I'm talking about, keenly interested! So who are they?'
'They're called the Francezcis,' Darcy told him. 'That's their family
name, anyway: the current owners and occupiers of Le Manse Madonie. But as I've said, it's been Francezci family property, oh, since the year dot. They're brothers, twins, but not identical. Anthony, or Tony, and Francesco Francezci. That is who they are, but it's what they are that interests us.'
Harry nodded. 'So what are they?'
'First the facts,' Darcy answered. 'Let me tell you what we know for sure, and then what we suspect. And finally we'll be down to best bets. The Francezci brothers are the sole surviving heirs to one of the richest families in the world.
You can measure their wealth ... well, in billions! So we believe. Okay, okay!' He held up a hand. 'I said I'd tell you only what we know, and we do know. But it isn't easy to tie these people, or their assets, down. Put it this way: if you could calculate their wealth in terms of the Italian economy - if you could find a way to put back half of what they have taken out -then Italy and Sicily wouldn't be in half the shit they're in now.'
Harry could see where they were going. 'Mafia,' he said, very simply.
'Shhh!' Darcy put a finger to his lips and pulled a mock-horrified face. 'What, the Francezci brothers? But that's akin to blasphemy, Harry! Even suggest such a thing in polite Italian society, you'd be ostracised in a moment - and later you could end up circumcised, too, from the neck up! No one talks about them in such terms, but we're pretty damn sure it's how people think of them. Except... well it's amazing how things get warped with the passage of time. I mean, look at the so-called "legends" of Robin Hood, Jesse James, Ned Kelly - all the murderers and thieves who've become folk heroes.'
As he paused for breath, Harry said, 'Are you telling me the Francezcis are heroes?'
Darcy grinned, or grimaced, and said, 'But when you're powerful enough you can be what you want to be. I'l give you an example of what I'm talking about. Some forty-odd years ago it was a Francezci -allegedly one "Emilio" Francezci, a shady
"uncle" to Anthony and Francesco - who helped to organize the collaboration of a then underground Sicilian Mafia in the American invasion of 1943. That was a joint effort that came about as a direct result of an old debt owed by Emilio to Lucky Luciano, who was then rotting in an American prison cel.
'It was Emilio's "suggestion" that in exchange for Luciano's freedom and later extradition to Italy, Lucky might like to contact several Sicilian "ex"-capo friends on behalf of the American invasion force, and request that they and their "ex"-Mafia soldiers - who were still scattered throughout Sicily's villages - tighten the screws on what remained of II Duce's armed forces and make them an offer they couldn't refuse: life if they ran away, death if they chose to remain at their posts. Except while a clean sudden death as the result of an American blitzkrieg couldn't be guaranteed, a very ugly one on the cutting edge of some mafioso guerrilla's garrotte most certainly could!
The reason for all those "ex"s is simple: you've