Three days later, a man arrived at the relief station.
He stood in the 27th position, wearing a military overcoat worn white with age, its cuffs frayed to reveal the grey cotton batting inside.
The epaulets on the overcoat had been removed, leaving two dark marks—traces left behind after the rank insignia had been stripped away.
He was in his early thirties, tall and broad-shouldered, yet terribly thin; the military overcoat hung loosely on his frame, like it was draped over a coat hanger.
A scar stretched from his left brow bone down to his jaw, pulling his left eye into a slight droop and giving his face an indescribably cold and hard expression.
His hair was cut very short, with white stubble already appearing at his temples.
The most striking thing about him was his hands—large knuckles and thick calluses on his fingertips.
These were not hands that held pens, nor were they hands that held hoes; these were hands that held guns.
Virginia wrote his name in the registration book.
“Name.” “Martini.” “Surname?” “None.” Virginia’s pen paused for a moment, then she continued writing.
She did not press for more, as it was her habit to work this way—never asking about things she did not need to know.
Martini took the bread and porridge, walked to the wall, crouched down, and began to eat.
He ate very slowly, chewing each mouthful for a long time, as if confirming that the food truly existed and was not a hallucination.
He ate for a long time—long enough for the queue to change twice, and long enough for Virginia to think he had finished.
But when she looked in that direction again, Martini was still crouching there, holding the last piece of bread in his hand; he was not eating it, merely clutching it.
His gaze was fixed on the person standing at the entrance of the relief station.
Cerydra had come out at some point.
She stood at the entrance, cane in hand, her short white hair shimmering with a faint blue hue under the winter sun.
Her gaze swept past the queue, past the registration desk, and past the rising steam in the courtyard, landing on the man crouching by the wall.
Martini stood up, the bread still clutched in his hand.
Cerydra walked toward him.
Virginia wanted to follow, but Cerydra gently waved her hand to stop her, her cane tapping against the ground with a faint, resolute sound.
Martini stood perfectly straight, his military overcoat swaying slightly in the wind, the scar on his face exceptionally jarring in the sunlight.
The two stood facing each other.
Martini was nearly two heads taller than Cerydra, and he had to lower his head to meet her gaze.
The white-haired, blue-eyed girl looked up at him, her gaze calm, devoid of any pity or probing.
It was like looking at a chess piece—not the kind of look one gives to someone “who can be used,” but something quieter and deeper.
It was like confirming the position of this piece on the chessboard.
“Your military overcoat,” Cerydra said.
“Which year are you from?” Martini was silent for a breath.
“1917, Your Highness.” “Piave River?” Martini’s eyes contracted slightly.
It was not surprise—his expression barely changed—but rather something deeper, buried beneath layers of silence, that had been touched.
Like a stone submerged at the bottom of a river, turned over by the current, it let out a muffled thud that only he could hear.
“…Yes.” “What branch of service?” “Mountain Infantry, Third Alps Regiment.” “Rank?” Martini was silent for a long time—long enough for the sound of the wind in the courtyard to become distinct, and long enough for people in the queue to begin exchanging uneasy glances.
“Lieutenant,” he finally said.
Cerydra looked at him.
There was no rank on his overcoat; only two dark marks remained where the epaulets had been.
Yet his posture betrayed him—it was the stance of an officer.
Even wearing a tattered coat, even having become so thin that his cheekbones protruded, and even with the scar on his face making him look more like a desperado than a soldier, his stance had not changed: spine straight, shoulder blades tucked in, feet spread shoulder-width apart.
That was something carved into his bones by his military career, something that could not be worn away by hunger and poverty.
“And after the war?” Cerydra asked.
Martini’s jaw tightened slightly, and he was silent for a long time.
“…There was no after the war, Your Highness.” Cerydra did not press him.
She simply stood there, cane in hand, the crystal chess piece quietly refracting light under the winter sun.
Waiting.
Her waiting itself was a power—no rushing, no impatience, no providing an out, no applying pressure, just waiting.
Like someone who already knew the answer, patiently waiting for the other person to say it.
Martini spoke, his voice lower than before, as if telling something that should not be heard by anyone.
“After the war, I returned to Sicily.
I had a mother and a younger sister at home.
They were there when I left, but when I returned, they were gone, because of the Spanish Flu.” He paused.
There was no choking, no trembling in his voice, only a flatness compressed to the extreme.
“I spent half a year looking for work, but no one wanted a man who only knew how to fight.
I went to factories, to the docks, to the mines.
When they saw the scar on my face, they wouldn’t hire me.
Later, someone approached me to do some work, and I did it.” He did not say what the work was.
Cerydra did not ask either.
She already knew the answer.
In those years in Sicily, the kind of work a veteran unable to find a job would be approached to do—there was only one kind: the Mafia.
The Mafia that had been shattered by Mussolini’s iron-fisted suppression; the Mafia that had gone underground but had never truly disappeared.
Martini’s silence, his posture, the calluses on his fingers that were not from holding a hoe, and the way he omitted his surname when stating his name—everything pointed in the same direction.
He was not a common Mafia member.
A common member would not have an officer’s posture, nor would they have the habit of maintaining a scanning vigilance of their surroundings even while crouching by a wall eating relief bread.
He was a veteran recruited by the Mafia, one of those who carried out the most unspeakable tasks in the shadows of Sicily.
Cerydra was silent for a moment, then she said two words.
“Look up.” Martini looked up.
He expected to see disgust, or wariness, or the kind of condescending pity usually shown by a superior toward a fallen person.
But what he saw was a pair of blue eyes.
Calm, clear, eyes devoid of any judgment.
There was even something in those eyes that suddenly made him feel as if his throat were blocked.
It was not pity; it was confirmation.
“I do not care who you worked for before.” Cerydra said, her voice soft, but each word as clear as a chess piece landing on a board, “I only care about one thing—from today on, who you work for.” Martini’s breath hitched.
He lowered his head—not a bow, not a salute, but the posture of someone accustomed to standing, bending his spine for the first time.
It was not forced; it was a choice.
“Your Highness.” His voice was low and gravelly, like a blade that hadn’t been used in a long time being drawn from its sheath.
“I am a man who no longer has a name.
My face is on record, my hands have been stained with blood, and there is no difference between my being alive or dead.
If Your Highness needs such a man—I am he.” Cerydra looked at him.
The winter afternoon sun fell upon her short white hair, the blue at the tips almost transparent in the light.
The crystal chess piece at the top of her cane refracted a small rainbow, which fell upon Martini’s tattered military overcoat.
“What is your name?” “Martini.” “Surname?” “None, Your Highness.” “From today on,” Cerydra said, “you have one.” Martini looked up.
“Black Scorpion,” Cerydra said.
“I bestow upon you the name Black Scorpion.” The courtyard was silent for a long time.
The people in the queue did not know what had happened; they only knew that the Princess had said a few words to the scarred man, and he had knelt down.
Not on one knee, but on both.
It was not a ritual of allegiance, but something deeper, a heavier posture.
Like a drowning man grasping a hand extended from the shore.
Martini kept his head lowered, his voice squeezed out from deep in his throat: “I, Martini, a man without a name, former Lieutenant of the Third Alps Regiment in Sicily, hereby accept the name bestowed by Your Highness.
From this day forward, I am Your Highness’s Black Scorpion.
Wherever Your Highness points, I shall strike.
No matter how many enemies are in the darkness, no matter how much blood my hands must be stained with, no matter what the cost—I will not hesitate.” Cerydra looked down at him, her cane tapping the ground slightly.
The crystal chess piece made a very faint sound, like a piece landing in its rightful place on the board.
“Rise.” Martini stood up.
His eyes were not red, but something in them was glimmering faintly—not tears, but the look of someone who had stayed in the darkness for too long and had suddenly seen a glimmer of light.
Cerydra turned to Virginia.
“Arrange quarters for him, in the guard barracks in the east wing of the Quirinal Palace.” Virginia curtsied.
“Yes.” Cerydra turned and walked toward the depths of the palace, her cane tapping on the ground with a faint, resolute sound.
She did not look back at Martini.
She knew he would stand there, watching her back disappear into the shadows of the porch.
Martini stood where he was, watching the white-haired, blue-eyed girl walk away.
Every time her cane tapped the ground, it was like a chess piece landing on the board.
Crisp, resolute, and unshakeable.
He looked down at his hands, which had held guns and other things.
Large knuckles, thick calluses on his fingertips, and several old scars on his palms.
These hands had held rifles in the mud of the Piave River and had held other weapons in the dark alleys of Sicily.
These hands had done things that kept him from sleeping, and things that had kept him alive.
He had thought these hands would never have any value again, except for holding the bread at the relief station.
Now, someone needed these hands.
Not out of pity, but out of choice, like a chess player choosing a piece—not because it was beautiful, not because of sympathy for its plight, but because it could complete a mission on the board that only it could fulfill.
Martini shoved the last piece of bread into his mouth and slowly chewed it to pieces.
Martini, Black Scorpion, former Lieutenant of the Third Alps Regiment in Sicily, survivor of the Piave River, remnant of the Mafia.
His eyes could be used, his hands could be used, his life could be used, but his heart could not.
His heart had already been destroyed once; what remained could only be protected, not used again.
Outside the window, the snow of January 1931 was still falling.