10 Medieval Assassin Organizations That Terrified Even the Mightiest Empires

10 Medieval Assassin Organizations That Terrified Even the Mightiest Empires In the winter of 1271, magistrates in Milan began recording something they could not explain. Senior officials, guild rivals, and minor nobles were dying in locked quarters, in secured courtyards, in beds surrounded by household guards. The deaths looked natural. They were not. The records used a single recurring phrase to describe the pattern: lama di notte. The blade of the night.