May.
Umberto returned to Rome from Turin, an extra star on his uniform’s epaulettes.
The twenty-seven-year-old Brigadier General, Crown Prince of Savoy, a graduate of the Royal Military Academy in Turin, had served in the military for many years.
He was taciturn, loathed the Fascist Party, and sympathized with the Royalists but never publicly stated his position.
Every label attached to him had been repeatedly analyzed by Mussolini’s intelligence services.
Mussolini did not trust him, but also had no reason to act against him—the Crown Prince’s performance in the military was standard, he had no public political statements, no attempts to win over officers, and he was even restrained in his drinking.
This was exactly what Cerydra needed.
It was not about making Umberto a threat, but about keeping him precisely at the critical point of being “worth watching but not enough to be purged.” Too weak, and he would be swallowed up; too strong, and he would be purged.
The critical point was the safest position.
The siblings were walking in the garden of the east wing of the Quirinal Palace.
The May roses were in full bloom; the Bourbon roses that Sister Yolanda had planted herself were as red as blood under the afternoon sun.
The sound of the fountain trickled softly, masking their conversation.
Virginia followed at a distance, maintaining a gap just far enough to be unable to hear the conversation, but close enough to see everything.
“Regarding your affairs in Naples,” Cerydra said, “how much does Mussolini know?” Umberto stopped for a moment.
“Almost everything.
My training plans for the Naples Legion, troop movements, and logistical arrangements have all been reported to the Ministry of War through normal channels.
The Fascist Party Headquarters at the Ministry of War has a copy, and the people at Palazzo Venezia have certainly seen it.” “Good.” Umberto turned his head, watching his sister’s white short hair shine with a faint blue in the sunlight; her profile was exquisite and calm, like a marble statue.
When she spoke, her gaze fell on some indeterminate point ahead—not the end of the garden, but somewhere further away, somewhere Umberto could not see.
“What do you mean by ‘Good’?” “It means, let them see.
The more normal you are, the fewer excuses they can find.
The more you follow the rules, the less reason they have to overstep.
But the actual control of the Naples Legion cannot fall into the hands of the Fascist Party Headquarters.” Umberto was silent for a moment.
“The Chief of Staff of the Naples Legion is Colonel Cadorna, the nephew of General Luigi Cadorna.
He nominally obeys the Ministry of War, but in reality, like the old general, he has no love for the Fascist Party.
I have already established trust with him.” “Not enough.” “What is not enough?” Cerydra stopped, her cane tapping the ground lightly.
She turned to face Umberto, her blue eyes almost transparent in the afternoon sunlight.
“If one day, Mussolini decides to remove the Chief of Staff of the Naples Legion and replace him with someone from the Fascist Party Headquarters—you need to have the ability to make that impossible to execute.
Not through protest, not through petitions, but through those at the very grassroots, those who execute orders.” Umberto’s brow furrowed slightly.
“You mean…
grassroots officers?” “Yes.
Battalion commanders, company commanders, even platoon leaders.
Make them loyal to Savoy, not to that piece of paper from the Ministry of War.
Orders can be changed, but people cannot.” The garden was quiet for a long time.
The sound of the fountain trickled, and a bee buzzed in the rose bushes.
Umberto looked into his sister’s eyes.
In those excessively blue eyes, there was a look he had once seen on his father’s face—not calculation, but weighing.
It was the look of someone holding a handful of chips, calculating where each one should be placed.
No, his father was a passive weigher, always making choices under the pressure of the situation.
But Cerydra’s weighing was active; she was creating the chips.
“Cerydra.” Umberto called her name, as he often did when she was very small.
There was a gentleness in his voice that only an older brother would have, an attempt to pull her back.
“You are sixteen this year.
You don’t have to think about so much.” Cerydra looked at him, the sunlight falling on her white short hair, the blue at the tips seeming borrowed from the sky.
She suddenly smiled—not the polite kind of smile, but a genuine one with a touch of warmth.
Like before she was sixteen, before she started playing this game.
“Brother.” She only said these two words.
Umberto reached out and gently patted the top of her head.
He had been used to this action since the first time he held her.
Back then, she was just a newborn baby, and he had been so nervous he was stiff.
Now she had grown up, but he still couldn’t help but do it.
“I will do it well.
You don’t need to worry about the matters in Naples.” “I know.” “Do you really not need me to do anything?” “I do.” Cerydra said, “I need you to make everyone think that the focus is on Naples.” Umberto was silent for a breath, then he nodded.
He didn’t ask why; he had already learned not to ask her why.
Not because she was his sister, but because he had spent sixteen years gradually realizing one thing: the chessboard Cerydra saw was always one layer deeper than what others saw.
The siblings continued walking forward.
The cane tapped on the ground, making a soft and determined sound.
The sound of the fountain behind them gradually faded, but Cerydra knew that someone had heard their footsteps.
Outside the garden wall, there were the eyes of OVRA.
In the bushes behind the rose thicket, perhaps there were the ears of OVRA.
Every corner of the Quirinal Palace could have them.
That was why she had let Umberto come back, why she walked in the garden with him, in a place where everyone could see.
That was why she wanted everyone to see—the Crown Prince and the Princess, close siblings, talking intimately about affairs in Naples.
That was exactly the scene Mussolini needed to see: the Crown Prince managing the Naples Legion, the Princess as the Crown Prince’s cover.
The siblings were trying to build a Royalist foundation in the military.
This was the story Palazzo Venezia would believe.
It was reasonable enough, and threatening enough.
Because its threat fell exactly in the direction Mussolini was most vigilant about—the military, the officer corps, the military foundation of the Royal Family.
The Fascist Party could tolerate the prestige of the Royal Family, could tolerate Royalists grumbling in aristocratic circles, could tolerate Cerydra providing relief to unemployed workers in the Testaccio District—those were all controllable.
But the military could not be; the military was the lifeblood of the Fascist Regime, and any attempt to establish independent influence within the military would be listed as a highest-level alert.
So they would cast all their eyes on Naples, on Umberto, on Colonel Cadorna and those officers “wooed by the Crown Prince.” They would spend a great deal of energy monitoring, infiltrating, and disintegrating the Royalist forces in the Naples Legion.
And Cerydra would let them see what they wanted to see—Umberto’s actions in Naples, the Royalists in the Naples Legion, the Crown Prince’s prestige in the military.
Every piece of intelligence would be reported up through layers of OVRA, eventually flowing into that drawer at Palazzo Venezia.
But they would not see other things; they would not see Brigadier General Labienus quietly leading his troops in the 2nd Infantry Battalion in Rome, with no political statements, just making his soldiers increasingly convinced by their battalion commander.
They would not see Martini—Black Scorpion—that veteran picked up from the Testaccio District relief station, who had already silently disappeared into the night of Rome, heading in the direction Cerydra had pointed.
They would not see these things, because they were busy watching Naples.