I’m not sure if he did this on purpose, but the color of his pants matches my oversized, mid-length salmon dress that I had to tighten around my waist with a thin white belt. Cec, too, dons a salmon pocket square inside his tan sport coat slung over his white button-up—Bes must’ve picked it out for him.
“Trained soldiers?” he muses rhetorically to my question. “Not as many as you’d imagine. These are Mussolini’s Blackshirts. They’re the voluntary militia, tasked with providing security in smaller towns and easily accessible places like highways and ports.”
“One way in, one way out,” I mutter.
He glances at me and smiles. “Quite right.”
While we continue to wait, I think about why the colonists in my country formed a militia all those years ago: for freedom from tyranny. Yet, this… this is to maintain tyranny, even if theBlackshirts believe otherwise. Not to abate fear, but to instill and uphold it.
“How does one even become a Blackshirt? Is there a draft, or a sign-up sheet?”
Bes doesn’t crack a smile this time. “The Blackshirts were formed over ten years ago when many of the disgruntled soldiers who served in the Great War came together. Back then, their main objective was to lead the fight against their enemies—the Socialists.”
I shake my head. “I can’t imagine being so bent at Socialists that you’d form an actual army against them.”
“Believe it,” Cec pipes up.
“Now they number in the hundreds of thousands,” Bes continues. “There are rumors Mussolini has plans to send many of them over to aid the Nationalists in Spain.”
“Fascists of a feather stick together,” I mutter.
“Consider yourself lucky there’re no militiamen nearby wearing all black.” Bes cranes his neck. “Only the Moschettieri del Duce—Mussolini’s Musketeers—wear that uniform, and it usually means the dictator himself is nearby.”
Thank God for that, at least.
“Then it’s a good thing I don’t believe in luck.”
Cec groans. “Now, why would you go and say a fool thing like that?”
I glare at him to find he’s reaching into his shirt to procure a pendant strung with a worn leather strap around his neck. He kisses it, glances up at the heavens, then tucks it back in.An odd time for Cec to be superstitious.The Amulet of Amun, snug against my own chest, pulses.
Alright, not that odd.
“What the hell was that about?”
Cec winks. “When the old gods smile upon us and keep us out of trouble, you’ll thank me.”
“It’s acornicello,” Bes explains. “In Italy, it’s considered a good omen and a lucky charm.”
I stare at Cec. “I didn’t peg you as someone who believes in the Bogeyman.”
Then again, they believe the amulet possesses real magic. The Bogeyman isn’t too far off from his perception of reality.
With a huff, he tucks his cane underneath his arm and pulls thecornicelloout of his shirt again. Placing it in his palm, he holds it out for me to see. A shiny, gold bail grasps the long red horn, connecting it to the dark brown leather around his neck.
He regards me as best he can. “The horn is made with red coral.”
I eye it with morbid curiosity. “It looks like an oddly-shaped vial of blood.”
He nods. “Italians consider blood to be synonymous with the well-being of every person. My mum always said ‘red wine makes good blood’.”
Bes breathes in my ear, “She wouldn’t let him leave the house without it.”
Red wine or the pendant, I wonder, acutely aware of Bes’s proximity to me.
I clear my throat, working to slow my racing pulse. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Cec glares in my direction and mutters. “We all know howyousleep at night.”
