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As long as they don't talk (Marco Vestini's) own wife into leaving him, he's content to let (Sophia's Daughters) be. - Vodacce, the Vestini writeup Fiametta Vestini is a cousin to Donello Falisci. Marco Vestini's dissolute father wanted to strengthen ties to the supplier of his favorite vintage and arranged their betrothal a few years before his death on his son's blade. The old prince's daughter Alexandrie was Twice-Blooded, via her Montaigne mother, so Vestini held out for the prince's brother's child, a Full-Blooded strega. Theus knew the Vestini needed all the strega they could get. Fiametta, perhaps more than her contemporaries, had the education of a classic Vodacce strega. Mea Lucani labored under her family's curse; Francesca Villanova lived under the shadow of her tyrant brother; Alexandrie had a strange Vodacce/Montaigne hybrid upbringing; Valentina Vestini was so quiet and subdued one might think she was a Senzavista. Fiametta was also a Falisci, a member of one of the most devious houses of Vodacce. At eighteen, she knew herself to be a superior creature, elevated above common women (including nobly-born Senzavista and even Half-Blooded strega). Men were curious beings, more powerful than herself in some ways, but open to manipulations both sorcerous and mundane. Her goals would be to strengthen her husband's holdings, attack his (and her own) enemies, and see that her sons and daughters went out into the world with every possible advantage. At her betrothal, she found that she liked Marco Vestini and his Exemplary Arcana; great things might be in store, if the old man didn't drink away the family fortunes. Fiametta certainly encouraged the Swords strand between father and son, and Blessed her betrothed before his duel with his father. They were married, him quite young by Vodacce standards, after he assumed the throne. Vestini customs horrified Fiametta. Blind Senzavista paraded around the palace as if they were actual ladies with an actual role to play in the Game. Some of them had been schooled, like shopwomen learning to keep books for their husbands! They dabbled in philosophy and music, as if they were courtesans! And everyone seemed to think that this was wonderful, the wave of the future. A future, Fiametta saw, in which strega were not necessarily the be-all and end-all of feminine power. And her husband's piety (which was not so great that he did not seek her readings) encouraged this move away from sorcery. She spent a decade working against the tide, forming alliances with the few Vestini strega, pulling strands to try and lessen the influence of the other women, to try and turn their husbands against them. But there were too many Senzavista, and too many strega who were reluctant to work in that way against their sisters. The Vestini women, Fiametta found, just as often as not bought into this idea of 'equality' for the lesser females. Absolute idiocy, but there it was. And there was something else, some person or people using mundane means to undo what the strega were trying to do with sorcery. If you can't beat them, you join them, even if you're not sure who 'they' are. Fiametta made public peace with some of her old enemies. The benefit, she smiled, to a land with so few strega was that it was easier to conceal one's intentions. For five years, she has moderated her disdain - not too much, of course, that would be suspicious - and has learned to speak the language of these champions of change. And as a result, she's meeting people whose strands are filling in the holes of her knowledge about her mysterious opposition. She knows that Marco knows about them, but that he's ambivalent about them. If or when Fiametta finally sees Marco's primary worry is that the Daughters will take her from him, she will - external considerations permitting - put into place a plan to realize his worst fears. She will allow him to reclaim her, of course - once the damage between him and the Daughters is done. Once the meddlers are gone, Fiametta can look into restarting her campaign to restore the honor of strega in Vestini lands.
Fiametta Vestini, Villain
Brawn 2, Finesse 2, Wits 3, Resolve 4, Panache 3
Advantages: Keen Senses, Noble, Scarovese, Servants, Vodacce, Montaigne
Courtier: Dancing 1, Etiquette 4, Fashion 4, Oratory 2, Diplomacy 2, Gossip 3, Politics 2, Scheming 1, Sincerity 4
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