Once she'd gotten the message, that six cruel interrogators in the service of the Borgia had been into Roma for the sole purpose of terrifying the citizenry into turning on the Brotherhood and thus depriving the Assassins of one of their greatest assets, Maria had called upon three of the recruits who had been training themselves amid the underground rooms of Isola Tiberina. Primo Penna was one of them, as it turned out, still even considering the man's clear and rather adorable desire to court her he could be professional when the moment called for it.
She knew that Uncle Mario would have sent the man away in a heartbeat if such had not been the case; it was what she would have done, in the same position.
As she, Lorenzo, Primo, and Alighiero made their way to the location that had been described to her in the message that Niccolò had left at the pigeon coop that she'd previously visited, Maria narrowed her eyes as she began hearing the distinct sounds of a crowd that was just as frightened as they were angry. Signaling to the three apprentices that had followed in her footsteps to spread out, so that they would be better able to deal with the interrogators, spread out as they themselves had become as they tried in vain to wring the Brotherhoods' secrets out of those who were uninvolved in their struggle, Maria orientated herself on the nearest of them.
Cutting the man down in his tracks with a bolt from her crossbow, Maria continued on her way across the rooftop, she narrowed her eyes as she caught sight of a man standing against one of the larger, rougher-looking interrogators. There were people gathered around him, though even from where she was perched Maria could see that the man was protecting them. He would clearly need help, of course, so with that thought in mind Maria leaped down from the roof to join him.
Reinforcing his weaker side, helping him to stand against the interrogator he'd taken up arms against for the people who seemed to be his family, Maria smiled briefly at the man as he looked over at her during a brief lull in the battle they were both currently engaged in. Once she'd managed to finish off the interrogator, the man she'd been supporting having taken the opportunity to see to his family – a wife and a small boy, both of whom the Borgia had been willing to kill to get what they wanted; though given everything Maria had seen she was hardly surprised – Maria turned her attention to the man.
"Grazie, Madonna," he said, smiling as he reached out to take her right hand in both of his own.
"Of course, Messer," she said, nodding and turning to make her way back into the streets of Roma; there were still interrogators to be dealt with, after all.
The next of those she managed to find was also under attack, but the man fighting this one was younger, but also had someone by his side, as well. There was only one of them this time, however, a young woman who seemed about the same age, though the pair of them didn't seem to be related. Still, there would be a chance for her to find out about all about them later; once she'd dealt with the Borgia thug threatening them.
Once the man lay dying on the ground, and after she'd performed the last rites as any Assassin learned to do, Maria turned her attention to the man she'd saved from death at the hands of the Borgia; and the young woman she'd likely saved from worse.
"Madonna, you were magnifico!" the young man said, eyes shining with excitement as he and the young woman that he'd been shielding came running over to her.
"Grazie," she said, smiling at the pair of them as she began to suspect the way the conversation she was having was going to go.
"Madonna, is there some way that we can learn to do what you did?" the young woman asked, an eagerness in her manner that Maria could barely remember feeling, herself.
In the end, of course, Fedele Fabiani and his girlfriend Lucia Corretta chose to throw in their lot with the Assassins, following her directions to a nearby tunnel entrance. When she met back up with the apprentices she'd brought along on this latest task of hers, she sent Lorenzo to watch over them; to make sure the pair of eager young recruits made it to Isola Tiberina without getting into trouble their excitement might not have allowed them to see before it was upon them.
Making for another nearby pigeon coop, Maria found herself wondering just what task she was going to be set to next.