Imprimatur

Night the Sixth

Between the 16th and 17th September, 1683

As usual, we waited until all the guests, including Cristofano, seemed finally to have retired, before descending the well which led to the labyrinth beneath the hostelry.

We covered the distance to our meeting point with Ugonio and Ciacconio under the Piazza Navona without any unforeseen occurrences. When, however, we met the corpisantari, Atto Melani found himself faced with a number of demands and an animated argument.

The two strange beings complained that, because of the adventures in which we had involved them, they had been unable to dedicate themselves freely to their activities. They claimed, moreover, that I had damaged some of the precious bones which they had carefully stacked, and which had collapsed upon me when we first met. The claim was scarcely credible, but Ciacconio had begun to wave under the nose of Abbot Melani an enormous, nau- seatingly evil-smelling bone, with still some flesh attached to it, which, the corpisantaro pretended, had been harmed during that incident. If only to be rid of that filthy, stinking fetish, Atto preferred to give in.

"Very well, so be it. But I insist that you will cease henceforth to bother me with your problems."

He drew forth from his pocket a handful of coins and offered them to Ciacconio. In a lightning movement, the corpisantaro grasped the money in his hooked fingers, almost clawing Abbot Melani's hands.

"I cannot bear them, those two," murmured Atto under his breath, massaging his palm disgustedly.

"Gfrrrlubh, gfrrrlubh, gfrrrlubh…" Ciacconio began to grunt quietly, passing the coins from one hand to the other.

"He is totalising the pecuniary valorisation," said Ugonio in my ear, with an ugly, knowing grin. "He is economiserly."

"Gfrrrlubh," commented Ciacconio at last, with satisfaction, letting the money slide into a grimy, greasy sack where it fell jingling onto what must be a sizeable heap of coin.

"Nevertheless, the two monsters are invaluable to us," said Abbot Melani to me later, while Ugonio and Ciacconio moved into the darkness. "That revolting thing which Ciacconio held under my nose was some butcher's refuse, anything but a relic. But at times it is better not to be too tight-fisted and to pay up; otherwise, we should risk making enemies of them. Remember, in Rome one must always win, but never crushingly so. This holy city reveres the powerful but takes pleasure in their ruin."

After obtaining their reward, the corpisantari had delivered to Atto what we needed: a copy of the key to Tiracorda's coach-house and kitchen. Once we had emerged from the trap into the physician's little stables, entering the house was a matter of no difficulty. The late hour made it reasonable to suppose that only the old court physician would still be up and about, awaiting his guest.

We crossed the kitchen and entered the chamber with the old four-poster bed, then the lobby. We moved in the dark, finding our way only by memory and with the help of the faint moonlight. Thus, we climbed the spiral staircase: here we found the welcoming light of the large candles higher up the stairs, which Atto had had to extinguish the evening before in order to safeguard our retreat. We passed the first parlour halfway up the stairs in which were displayed the fine objects which we had so admired on our previous inspection. We then came to the first floor which, as on the night before, was plunged in darkness. This time, however, the door giving access to the chambers was open. All lay silent. The abbot and I exchanged glances of complicity: we were about to cross that almost fateful threshold and I felt myself strong with a courage as unusual as it was misplaced. The night before, all had gone well, so I thought, and we could again succeed this time.

Suddenly, three loud knocks coming from the lobby sent our hearts to our mouths. Almost instantaneously, we took refuge on the stairs from the first to the second floor, outside the other little room which housed the library.

We heard a stirring above our heads and then, down below, the shuffling of distant footsteps. Once again, we were caught between two fires. Atto was on the point of again blowing out the candles (which this time would certainly have aroused the suspicions of the master and mistress of the house) when Tiracorda's voice came clearly to our ears.

"I shall go, Paradisa, I shall go."

We heard him descend the stairs, cross the hall and utter an exclamation of happy surprise. The visitor entered without a word.

"Enter dumb into here," said Tiracorda joyfully, closing the door. "Number to dine: three."

"Pardon me, Giovanni, I am in no mood for laughter this evening. I must have been followed, and so I preferred to take another passage."

"Come in, my friend, my dearest friend."

Atto and I held our breath, glued like two snails to the wall of the staircase. The brief dialogue had been sufficient for us to recognise the voice of Pompeo Dulcibeni.

Tiracorda led his guest to the first floor. We heard the pair move away, and at length a door closed. As soon as we were alone, we descended from our hiding place and looked into the large vestibule on the first floor. I would have liked to ask Abbot Melani a thousand questions and to obtain his comments on as many matters, but silence was our only hope of salvation.

We entered a spacious chamber where, in the semi-darkness, we could descry two four-poster beds and a number of other pieces of furniture. By some miracle, I avoided tripping over a low coffer. When, however, my pupils grew accustomed to the darkness, I suddenly realised that two icy, frowning faces lay silently in ambush in the darkness.

Frozen with terror, I needed several seconds to realise that these were two busts, one of stone, the other of bronze, placed at my height upon two pedestals. Beside them I could now see a plaster Flercules and a gladiator.

Turning to the left, we passed into an ante-chamber along the walls of which stood a long row of chairs. Thence, we moved to a second more spacious ante-chamber, immersed in gloom. From a neighbouring room came the voices of Tiracorda and his fellow- townsman. With great circumspection, we approached the crack of the door, which was not completely closed. There, transfixed by the fine blade of light that issued from within, we overheard the strangest conversation.

"Enter dumb into here… Number to dine: three," intoned Tiracorda, as when he had welcomed his guest at the front door.

"Number to dine: three… three…" repeated Dulcibeni.

"And so, consider calmly now; did you not perhaps come for this?"

The physician stood up and off he trotted to the left, out of our field of vision. Dulcibeni remained seated with his back to us.

The chamber was lit by two large candles of gilded wax, standing on the table at which the two were seated. The pomp of the furnishings, such as I had never seen before, left me both surprised and filled with admiration. Next to the candles stood a silver basket overflowing with wax fruit; the place was also illuminated by two large candelabra, one standing upon a little sandalwood table, the other on an ebony writing desk decorated with black mouldings and gilded bronze coats of arms. The walls were covered with rich crimson satin; everywhere hung fine pictures with varied and delightful figures: looking around, I recognised paintings of landscapes, animals, flowers and figurines: a Madonna and Child, a Pieta, an Annunciation, a Saint Sebastian and perhaps an Ecce Homo.

But dominating the room, in the middle of the longest wall, immediately opposite us, hung an imposing portrait of Our Lord Innocent XI, with a great gilt frame, carved with arabesques adorned with cut-glass foliage and garlands. Under this, on a pedestal, I espied an octagonal reliquary in silvered and gilt bronze which I imagined to be full of holy relics. More to the left, I could see a bed and a commode covered in red brocade. This last particular seemed revealing to me: we were in all probability in Tiracorda's study, where he received his patients.

We heard the doctor returning to the middle of the room, after opening and closing a door.

"How silly of me, I put it on the other side."

He turned to the right and went to the wall on which, immense and imposing, hung the portrait of His Holiness. To our surprise, in the wall before us, there opened up another door: there were two invisible panels, covered in the same crimson satin as the walls. The secret doorway concealed a dark closet in which were stored the instruments of his art. I could distinguish pincers, forceps and lancets, vases of officinal herbs and a number of books and piles of paper; these were perhaps notes on medical consultations.

"Are they still in there?" asked Dulcibeni.

"They are here and they are well," said Tiracorda busying himself in the little room. "But I am just looking for a couple of pleasant little things which I had set aside for the two of us. Ah, here we are."

He came out from the cupboard triumphantly waving a half-crumpled piece of paper, closed the secret door and sat down, preparing to read.

"Now, listen to this: if a father has seven daughters…"

At that precise moment, Atto Melani shocked me by clamping his hand sharply over his mouth. His eyes closed and he stood on tiptoe, his chest suddenly swelling, then doubled up desperately, with his face tucked into his armpit. I was seized by panic: I could not understand whether this was a fit of pain, hilarity or anger.

His anguished and impotent look made me understand that Atto was on the point of sneezing.

I have already drawn attention to how, in those days, Abbot Melani suffered from brief but uncontrollable fits of sneezing. This was, fortunately, one of the rare occasions when he succeeded in containing one of these loud outbursts. For a moment, I feared that he might lose his balance and fall against the half-open door. He leaned against the wall and, miraculously, the danger passed.

Thus, however, although only for a few instants, we were distracted from listening to Tiracorda and Dulcibeni. The first scrap of conversation which I managed to follow, as soon as Atto had recovered his composure, was as incomprehensible as what had gone before.

"Fourteen?" Dulcibeni was asking in a bored voice.

"Eight. And do you know why? One brother is brother to all the girls. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, haaaaa!'

Tiracorda had abandoned himself to unbridled asthmatic laughter, in which he was not joined by his guest. Hardly had the doctor calmed down than Dulcibeni endeavoured to change the subject.

"So, how did you find him today?"

"Ah, he fares not so well. If he does not cease fretting, there will be no improvement, and he knows it. Perhaps we shall have to forget about the leeches and try some other mode of intervention," said Tiracorda, pulling on his nose and drying his tears of laughter with a handkerchief.

"Really? I thought…"

"I, too, would have continued by the usual means," replied the physician, pointing towards the secret door behind him, "but now I myself am no longer quite so sure…"

"Permit me to say, Giovanni," Dulcibeni interrupted, "although I do not belong to your art: to each remedy, due time must be allowed."

"I know, I know, we shall see how we proceed…" the other responded absently. "Unfortunately, Monsignor Santucci is in a poor state of health and can no longer care for his patient as in the good old days. It was proposed to me that I should replace him, but I am too old. Fortunately, there are several persons who can one day take our place; like young Lanucci, whom I have done all in my power to help."

"He too is from the iMarches, if I am not mistaken?"

"No, he was born here in Rome. But I have adopted him, so to speak. First, he was a pupil of our colleague from the Marches, then I made him my assistant at the Archispedale of Santo Spirito in Sassia."

"So, you will change the treatment?"

"We shall see, we shall see. Perhaps a little country air will suffice to obtain an improvement. Talking of which," said he, reading again from the crumpled paper, "On a farm…"

"Giovanni, listen to me," interrupted Dolcibeni with some warmth. "You know how much I enjoy our meetings, but…"

"Have you dreamed again of your daughter?" asked the other. "It is not your fault, I have told you that a thousand times."

"No, no, it is not that. It is…"

"I understand: you are again concerned about the quarantine. I have already told you: it is a trifle, a mere trifle! If matters are as you have described them to me, there is no danger of infection, let alone of being interned in a pest-house. He is absolutely right, that… what is he called? that Cristogeno of yours."

"Cristofano, he is called Cristofano. But I am concerned about something else. It seems to me that I was followed when I was coming to your house through the galleries."

"Ah well, one thing is for sure, you have been trampled on by some water rat, ha, ha, haaa! By the way, the other day, I found one right here in the stable. It was as big as this," said Tiracorda, stretching his short, round arms full length.

Dulcibeni remained silent, and although we could not see his face, I had the impression that he was losing patience.

"I know, I know," said Tiracorda then. "You are still ruminating upon that business. I do not understand why you torment yourself thus after so, so many years. Is it perhaps your fault? No; and yet you believe it and you think: 'If only I had served another master! Ah, if I had been a painter, a steward, a poet, a blacksmith or a stable-boy! Anything, but not a merchant.'"

"Well, yes. At times, I do think that," confirmed Dulcibeni.

"And I, do you know what I say to you? If it had been so, you would not even have known your daughter Maria."

"It is true. Far less would have sufficed: simply that Francesco Feroni should never have crossed my path."

"There we are again. Are you so sure that it was he?"

"It was he who backed the sordid designs of that swine Huygens."

"You could at least have revealed the facts and demanded an investigation."

"An investigation. But I have already explained to you: whoever would have undertaken a search for the bastard daughter of a Turkish slave? No, no, in difficult cases no help can be obtained from the Bargello's men, only from rogues and scoundrels."

"And the scoundrels told you that there was nothing to be done."

"Exactly, nothing to be done: Feroni and Huygens had carried her off, up there where that wretch lived. I went to search for her, to no effect. Do you see this old black great coat which I am wearing? I have had it ever since then. I bought it in a shop in the port when I was at the end of my strength and of my hopes; I shall never take it off again, never… I searched again and again, I paid informers and spies halfway across the world. Two of the best told me that of Maria there was no longer any trace: sold or, as I fear, dead."

The two fell silent for a few moments. Atto and I looked at each other; and in his eyes I read the same surprise and the same questions.

"I have told you many times: in this affair, there is neither resolution nor hope," Dulcibeni continued softly. "A drop of the usual?" he then asked, drawing out a flask and placing it on the table.

"What a question!" said Tiracorda, as his face lit up.

He rose to his feet, again opened the secret door and entered the cupboard. Groaning, he stretched up on tiptoe and, reaching out to a shelf near the ceiling, with his stubby fingers grasped two large goblets of fine green glass.

"It is a miracle Paradisa has not yet discovered my new secret hiding place," he explained, while closing the closet. "If she found my wine glasses, she would make such a scene. You know, with all her mania about sins of gluttony, and Satan… But let us return to you: what happened to Maria's mother?" asked Tiracorda.

"I have already told you: she was sold a little while before Maria's abduction. And of her, too, no more was ever heard."

"Could you not oppose her sale?"

"She belonged to the Odescalchi, not to me; as did my daughter, alas."

"Ah yes, you should have married her."

"Of course. But, in my position… with a slave…" stammered Dulcibeni.

"Had you done so, you would have obtained paternal rights over your daughter."

"It is true, but you do understand…"

A sound of breaking glass made us start. Dulcibeni cursed under his breath.

"I am sorry, oh, I am so, so sorry," said Tiracorda. Let us hope that Paradisa has heard nothing. Oh dear, what a mess…"

Moving one of the wax candles which lit the table, Tiracorda had struck Dulcibeni's flask, causing it to fall to the floor and shatter into a thousand pieces.

"It does not matter. I should have some more at the inn," said Dulcibeni in conciliatory tones, and he began to gather up the largest fragments of glass from the floor.

"Take care, you will cut yourself. I am going to fetch a cloth," said Tiracorda. "Please do not go to so much trouble, as you did when you served the Odescalchi, ha, ha, haaa!"

And laughing, he moved towards the half-open door behind which we were hiding.

We had a few seconds in which to act, and no choice. While Tiracorda opened the door, we flattened ourselves against the wall on either side of the door. The doctor passed between us, as between two sentries standing rigid and erect with fear. He crossed the whole ante-chamber and went out through the door at the far end.

It was then that the genius of Abbot Melani came to our aid, that and, perhaps, his insane inclination for disguises and ambuscades. He gave me a nod, and we both ran to the opposite wall, as silently and swiftly as two mice. Here, we again glued ourselves against the wall on either side of the doorway, this time with the advantage of being able to hide behind the open double doors.

"Here we are," said Tiracorda, who had evidently found a cloth.

The Archiater returned to the ante-chamber, passing between myself and Atto. Had we remained at the opposite end, I then realised, he would have faced us and there would have been no escape.

Tiracorda returned to the chamber where his guest was waiting for him, and closed the door behind him. Just before the last sliver of light disappeared, I had time to catch sight of Dulcibeni, still seated, and turning his head toward the door. With a dubious frown, he stared into the darkness of the ante-chamber, looking, without knowing it, straight into my frightened eyes.

We remained immobile for a few minutes, during which I did not dare so much as to wipe the sweat from my forehead. Dulcibeni announced that he felt unusually tired and decided to take his leave and return to the Donzello. It was as though the failure of their toast had suddenly robbed his visit of all meaning. We heard the pair rise to their feet. We found no better solution than to run back to the first room, that which gave onto the staircase, and to hide behind the plaster statues. Tiracorda and Dulcibeni passed near us, unaware of our presence. Dulcibeni left with a lantern in his hand, the same one which he would use to return to the inn, while the physician kept apologising for breaking the flask, thus spoiling their evening.

They descended the stairs to the lobby. We did not, however, hear the main door of the house open. Surely, Atto whispered to me, Dulcibeni was returning to the Donzello by the underground route, the only possible one because of the watchmen who kept guard over the inn, day and night.

A little while later, Tiracorda returned up the stairs and went to the second floor. We were in utter darkness. With a thousand precautions, we descended to the kitchen and thence into the stables. We prepared to follow Dulcibeni.

"There is no danger: like Stilone Priaso, he will not escape us," whispered Atto.

However, matters went otherwise. Very soon, in gallery D we caught sight of the light of Dulcibeni's lantern. The gentleman from the Marches, with his heavy and corpulent physique, was advancing at a moderate pace. The surprise came at the junction with gallery C: instead of turning to the right, in the direction of the Donzello, Dulcibeni proceeded to the left.

"But that is impossible," Abbot Melani gestured to me.

We advanced a fair distance, until we were close to the watercourse which crossed the gallery. Beyond that, darkness reigned: it was as though Dulcibeni had extinguished his oil lamp. No point of reference remained to us and we advanced blindly.

We slowed down, fearing an encounter with our prey, and pricked up our ears. Nothing was to be heard save the rushing of the underground stream. We decided to proceed further.

Abbot Melani tripped and fell, fortunately without any consequences.

"The Devil with it, give me that wretched lantern," he cursed.

He himself lit our lantern and we both remained utterly confounded. A few yards ahead of us, the gallery came to an end, cut off obliquely by the watercourse. Dulcibeni had disappeared.

"Where do we start from?" asked Abbot Melani, visibly piqued, as we returned to the inn. In a painful endeavour to discern some logical sequence in the latest events, I summarised all that we had learned.

Pompeo Dulcibeni had several times visited Giovanni Tiracorda, his fellow-citizen of Fermo and physician to the Pope, to discuss mysterious matters the essence of which we had not succeeded in understanding. Tiracorda had mentioned obscure questions concerning brothers and sisters, farms, "number to dine, three", and other incomprehensible expressions.

Tiracorda also had a patient who seemed to be causing him some concern, but whom he hoped soon to restore to good health.

We had received important news concerning Pompeo Dulcibeni: he had (or, in his own words, had had) a daughter called Maria. The mother was a slave of whom he had soon lost all trace. The woman had been sold.

Pompeo Dulcibeni's child had, according to him, been abducted by a certain Huygens, the right-hand man of a certain Feroni (a name which, in truth, did not sound new to me) who seemed to have had a hand in the affair. Dulcibeni had not been able to prevent the abduction and believed that the girl was now dead.

"In all probability, it was to his lost daughter," I observed, moved to pity, "that Dulcibeni imagined he was speaking during his soliloquy, poor man."

But the abbot was no longer listening to me.

"Francesco Feroni," he murmured. "I know the name: he enriched himself trafficking slaves to the Spanish colonies in the New World, and returned to Florence in the service of Grand Duke Cosimo."

"A slaver, then."

"Yes. He is said to be a man of few scruples: in Florence, much ill is told concerning him. And, now that I remember, it was about him and that Huygens that a rather ridiculous tale circulated," said Atto with a little laugh. "Feroni dreamed of an alliance with some Florentine nobleman, instead of which, his daughter and heiress quite literally lost her health for love of that Huygens. The problem was that Huygens was Feroni's trusted collaborator and managed all the most important and delicate affairs on his behalf."

"What happened? Did Feroni dismiss him?"

"On the contrary: the old merchant neither would nor could do without him. Thus Huygens remained in the family business, while Feroni endeavoured almost obsessively so to exercise his power as to fulfil his young assistant's every caprice. In order to keep him away from his daughter, he arranged for him to have all the women he wanted, even the costliest ones."

"And how did it all end?"

"I do not know, that is of no interest to us. But I think that Dulcibeni's little girl fell, poor creature, under the eyes of Huygens and Feroni," sighed Atto.

Dulcibeni, I resumed, and this was the most surprising discovery, had in the past been a merchant in the service of the Odescalchi: the Pope's family.

"And now, put your questions to me," said Melani, guessing that I had a long list of queries on the tip of my tongue.

"First of all," I said as with a little jump down, we came to gallery D, "what service will Dulcibeni have performed for the family of the Pope?"

"There are various possibilities," replied Atto. "Dulcibeni said 'merchant'. But the term is perhaps misleading: a merchant works on his own account, while he had a master. He may therefore have served the Odescalchi in the capacity of a secretary, an accountant, a treasurer or an agent buying for them. Perhaps he travelled for them. For decades, that family bought and sold grain and textiles throughout Europe."

"Padre Robleda told me that they lend money with interest."

"Did you speak of this too with Robleda? Bravo, my boy; well, yes. They subsequently withdrew from trading and dedicated themselves above all to moneylending. I know that in the end they invested almost everything, purchasing public offices and savings bonds."

"Signor Atto, who can the patient be of whom Tiracorda spoke?"

"That is the easiest question to answer. Think about it: this is a patient whose illness must remain secret, and Tiracorda is physician to the Pope."

"Good heavens, it must be…" I swallowed as I dared to draw the inference "Our Lord Innocent XI."

"I do believe so. Nevertheless, I was surprised. When the Pontiff falls ill, the news spreads like wildfire. Yet, Tiracorda wishes to keep it secret. Clearly, they fear in the Vatican that the time is too sensitive: it is still unclear who will win in Vienna. With a weakened Pope, there is in Rome a danger of discontent and disorder; abroad there is a risk of raising the morale of the Turks and sapping that of the Christian allies. The trouble is, as Tiracorda said, that the Pontiff is not recovering, so much so that it will soon be necessary to change his treatment. That is why the news must not be bruited abroad."

"Yet Tiracorda confided this to his friend," I observed.

"He evidently thinks that Dulcibeni knows how to keep his lips sealed. And Dulcibeni, like ourselves, is shut up in an inn under quarantine: he certainly has no opportunities to let out the secret. The most interesting thing, however, is not this."

"What is it, then?"

"Dulcibeni was travelling with Fouquet, now he is visiting the Pope's physician to talk of mysterious things: farms, brothers, 'enter dumb into here'… I would give an eye to understand what they were talking about."

While returning to the Donzello, we encountered the corpisantari, in their archives among the ruins under the Piazza Navona.

I noticed that the pair had reconstituted their filthy heap of bones, which now appeared to be considerably higher and more bulky. The corpisantari did not in any way salute our arrival: they were engaged in an intense discussion and appeared to be arguing over the ownership of an object. Ciacconio had the better of it, with a sudden ugly gesture grabbing something from Ugonio's hand and placing it, with an all-too servile smile, in the hands of Atto Melani. It was a few fragments of dry leaves.

"And what is this?" said Atto. "I cannot possibly pay for all the stupid things that you would like to sell me."

"It is an estranged foliage," said Ugonio. "To be more medicinal than mendacious, Ciacconio disgoverned it in the vicinity of the mortified, bloodified rodents."

"A strange plant near to dead rats… how curious," remarked Atto.

"Ciacconio says that it reeks in a stupefactual manner," continued Ugonio. "It is an excitifying, inquisitating, besotting plantation. In sum, to obtain more benefice than malefice, he is representing it to you, for by fulfilling one's obligations the Christian's jubilations are increased."

Atto took one of the leaves; while he was raising it to the light of the lamp in order to examine it, I had a sudden reminiscence.

"Now that I come to think of it, Signor Atto, I too seem to have seen dry leaves in the galleries."

"That is a fine one," he commented, clearly amused. "We are full of leaves down here. How is that possible? Trees do not grow under the ground."

I explained to him that, when we were following Stilone Priaso in the conduit, I had trodden on dry leaves, so much so that I feared I might be heard by Stilone.

"Silly lad, you should have told me. In situations like ours, nothing should be neglected."

Taking some of those friable vegetable fragments, I promised myself that I would make up for that inattention. Seeing that I was unable to help Atto to decipher the business of the farms, brothers and "enter dumb into here" discussed by Tiracorda and Dulcibeni in the course of their incomprehensible conversation, I would at least endeavour to discover from what plant those dry leaves came: thus we might discover who had disseminated them throughout the underground galleries.

We left the corpisantari busy with their bones. During our return to the inn, I remembered that I had not yet reported to Abbot Melani my conversation with Devize. In the whirl of our recent discoveries, I had forgotten it, all the more so in that I had learned nothing of importance from the musician. So I told Atto of this encounter (obviously omitting the fact that, in order to gain the guitarist's confidence, I had cast a slur on the abbot's honour).

"Nothing of importance, did you say?" he exclaimed, without allowing me to finish. "You are telling me that Queen Maria Teresa had contacts with the famous Francesco Corbetta, and with Devize, and you call that nothing of importance?"

Atto Melani's reaction took me by surprise: the abbot seemed almost beside himself. While I was recounting these matters to him, we would proceed for a short distance, then suddenly he would stop, open his eyes wide and ask me to repeat what I had said; whereupon he would again move on in silence, and then halt yet again, lost in thought. In the end, he had me recapitulate the whole story from the beginning.

So I told him yet again how, on my way to Devize's apartment to give him a massage, I had heard that rondeau which he so often played and which had so delighted all the other guests at the Donzello before the quarantine. I then asked him if he was the author of that piece and he replied that it was his master, one Corbetta, who had learned the melody of that rondeau during one of his frequent voyages. Corbetta had rearranged it and had made of it a tribute to the Queen; she had then handed the musical score to Devize, who in his turn had reworked it in part. In other words, it was not clear whose the music was, but we did at least know through whose hands it had passed.

"But do you know who Corbetta was?" asked the abbot, with eyes that had narrowed down to two slits, and stressing every single syllable.

The Italian Francesco Corbetta, he explained to me, had been the greatest of all guitarists. It was Mazarin who had called him to France to teach music to the young Louis XIV who adored the sound of the guitar. His fame had soon spread and King Charles II of England, another lover of the guitar, had taken him with him to London, had arranged a good marriage for him and had even elevated him to the peerage. However, in addition to being a wonderfully refined musician, Corbetta was also something else which almost no one knew: a most skilful master of ciphers and codes.

"Did he write letters in code?"

"Even better: he composed music containing ciphers, in which secret messages were encoded."

Corbetta was an exceptional individual: both fascinating and intriguing, and a hardened gambler. For much of his life, he had travelled between Mantua, Venice, Bologna, Brussels, Spain and Holland, even becoming implicated in a number of scandals. He had died scarcely two years ago, in his sixtieth year.

"Perhaps he too did not disdain the profession of… counsellor, alongside the art of music…"

"I would venture to say that he was very much involved in the political affairs of the states which I have mentioned," said Atto Melani, thus admitting that Corbetta must have had a hand in some affairs of espionage.

"And did he use the tablature of the guitar for that purpose?"

"Yes, but that was certainly not his invention. In England, the celebrated John Dowland, who played the lute at the court of Queen Elizabeth, wrote his music in such a manner that, through it, his patrons could transmit secret information."

Atto Melani took no little time to convince me that musical notation could include meanings completely foreign to the art of sound. Yet, this had always been so: both monarchs and the Church had for centuries had recourse to musical cryptography. The matter was, moreover, familiar to ail men of doctrine. To give an example accessible to everyone, he said that in De furtivis litterarum notis Delia Porta had listed all the systems whereby secret messages of every kind and length may be encrypted. By means of a suitable key, for example, every letter of the alphabet could be associated with a musical note. The succession of notes, annotated on the pentagram would thus provide whoever held the key to the code with complete words and phrases.

"Thus, however, there arises the question of the saltus indecentes, or in other words, of disagreeable dissonances and disharmonies, which might even arouse suspicion in one simply casting an eye over the music. Someone then thought up more refined systems."

"Who was that?"

"Our Kircher, to be precise: for example, in his Musurgia Universalis: instead of assigning a letter to each note, he distributed the alphabet among the four voices of a madrigal or an orchestra, the better to govern the musical material, thus rendering the composition less rough and disagreeable: after all, if the message was intercepted, such flaws would be enough to arouse suspicion in anyone. There are infinite possibilities for manipulating the sung text and the notes to be intoned. For example, if the musical note-'fa', 'la' or even 're'-coincides with the text, then only those syllables are to be taken into account. Or one can do the opposite, conserving only the remainder of the sung text which, at that point, will reveal its hidden meaning. It is, in any case, certain that Corbetta will have been aware of Kircher's innovation."

"Do you think that, apart from his art, Devize will have learned from Corbetta this… art of communicating secretly?"

"That is just what is rumoured at the French court; especially as Devize was not only Corbetta's favourite pupil but above all a good friend of his."

Dowland, Melani, Corbetta and now perhaps also his pupil Devize: I was beginning to suspect that music was inevitably accompanied by espionage.

"What is more," continued Abbot Melani, "Corbetta knew Fouquet well, seeing that he was guitarist to Mazarin's court until 1660: only then did he emigrate to London, even though he in fact continued to make frequent visits to Paris, where he finally returned ten years later."

"But then," I concluded, without even wishing to believe my own words, "even that rondeau might conceal a secret message."

"Calm down, calm down, first let us consider the other things we know: you told me that the rondeau was given by Corbetta to Queen Maria Teresa who in turn gave it to Devize. Well, this provides me with another piece of precious information: I had no idea that the Queen was in touch with the two guitarists. The thing is so extraordinary that I find it almost hard to believe."

"I understand," I interrupted. "Maria Teresa led an almost reclusive existence…"

I then told him of the lengthy monologue in which Devize described the humiliations which the Most Christian King had heaped upon his poor consort.

"Reclusive?" said Atto at the end. "I would not use that term."

And he explained to me that Devize had painted me perhaps too immaculate a portrait of the late Queen of France. At Versailles, even now, one might still encounter a young mulatto girl who bore a curious resemblance to the Dauphin. The explanation of that wonder was to be found twenty years previously, when the ambassadors of an African state had sojourned at court. To manifest their devotion to the consort of Louis XIV the ambassadors had presented the Queen with a little black page called Nabo.

A few months later, in 1664, Maria Teresa had given birth to a hale and lively little girl with black skin. When this prodigy took place, the Chirurgeon Royal swore to the King that the newborn child's colour was a passing inconvenience due to congestion at birth. Days passed, however, and the child's skin showed no sign of lightening. The Chirurgeon Royal then said that perhaps that court blackamoor's over-insistent glances might have interfered with the Queen's pregnancy. "A glance?" replied the King. "It must have been most penetrating."

"A few days later, with the greatest discretion, Louis XIV had the page Nabo put to death."

"And Maria Teresa?"

"She said nothing. She was not seen either to weep or to smile. Indeed, she was not seen at all. Yet, from the Queen no one had ever succeeded in obtaining anything except words of kindness and pardon. She had always made a point of telling the King of every little thing, in proof of her own fidelity, despite the fact that he dared to appoint his own mistresses as her maids of honour. It was as though Maria Teresa had not known how to appear anything but colourless, opaque, almost devoid of any will of her own. She was too good, too good."

Devize's phrase came to mind: it was indeed an error to judge Maria Teresa by appearances alone.

"Do you think that she dissimulated?" I asked.

"She was a Habsburg. She was a Spaniard. Two exceedingly proud breeds, and bitter enemies of her husband. How do you think that Maria Teresa felt, exiled on French soil? Her father loved her dearly and had agreed to lose her only in order to conclude the Peace of the Pyrenees. I was present at the Isle of Pheasants, my boy, when France and Spain concluded the treaty and decided the nuptials between Louis and Maria Teresa. When King Philip of Spain had to bid his daughter farewell, and knew that he would never again see her, he embraced her and wept disconsolately. It was almost embarrassing to see a King comport himself thus. At the banquet which followed the agreement, one of the most sumptuous that I have ever seen, he barely touched his food. And in the evening, before retiring, he was heard to groan between his tears, saying, 'I am a dead man,' and other silly phrases."

Melani's words left me speechless: I had never thought that powerful sovereigns, the masters of Europe's fate, might suffer so bitterly for the loss of a loved one's company.

"And Maria Teresa?"

"At first, she behaved as though nothing had happened, as was her wont. She had immediately let it be understood that her betrothed was pleasing to her; she smiled, conversed amiably and showed herself pleased to be leaving. But that night, everyone heard when in her chamber she cried in torment: 'Ay, mi padre, mi padre!"

"Then it is clear: she was a dissimulator."

"Exactly. She dissimulated hatred and love and simulated piety and fidelity. And so we ought not to be too surprised that no one should have known of the gracious exchanges of musical scores between Maria Teresa, Corbetta and Devize. Perhaps it all took place under the King's nose!"

"And do you think that Queen Maria Teresa used the guitarists to hide messages in their music?"

"That is not impossible. I recall having read something of the sort many years ago, in a Dutch gazette. It was cheap scribblers' stuff, published in Amsterdam but written in French in order to spread poisonous rumours about the Most Christian King. It told of a young valet at the court of Versailles, by the name of Belloc, if I recall correctly, who wrote scraps of poetry for recital during ballets. In those verses were inserted in cipher the reproaches and sufferings of the Queen for the King's infidelities, and these were said to have been commissioned by Maria Teresa herself."

"Signor Atto," I then asked, "who is Mademoiselle?"

"Where have you heard that name?"

"I read it at the top of Devize's score. There were written the words ' a Mademoiselle'."

Although the diffuse light of the lantern was faint, I saw Abbot Melani grow pale. And suddenly in his eyes I read the fear which for the past couple of days had begun silently to consume him.

I then told him everything else about my meeting with Devize: how I had accidentally stained the score with oil and how, when endeavouring to clean it, I had read the dedication "a Mademoiselle'". I recounted the few things which Devize had told me about Mademoiselle: namely, that she was a cousin of the King; and how the latter had, because of her past as a rebel, condemned her to remain a spinster.

"Who is Mademoiselle, Signor Atto?" I repeated.

"What matters is not who she is but whom she married."

"Married? But was she not to remain unmarried, as a punishment?"

Atto explained to me that matters were rather more complicated than Devize's version. Mademoiselle, who was in reality called Anne Marie Louise, Duchess of Montpensier, was the richest woman in France. Riches, however, were not enough for her: she was utterly set upon marrying a king, and Louis XIV amused himself by forbidding her the joys of matrimony. In the end, Mademoiselle changed her mind: she said she no longer wished to become a queen and to end up like Maria Teresa, subjected to the whims of a cruel monarch in some distant land. At the age of forty-four, she then fell in love with an obscure provincial gentleman: a poor younger brother from Gascony, with neither skills nor fortune who, a few years earlier, had had the good luck to be liked by the King, becoming the companion of his amusements and even acceding to the title of Count of Lauzun.

Lauzun was a cheap seducer, said Atto scornfully, who had courted Mademoiselle for her money; but in the end, the Most Christian King consented to the marriage. Lauzun, however, being a monster of presumption, wanted festivities worthy of a royal wedding; "like the union of two crowns," he would boast to his friends. Thus, while the wedding was held up by too many preparations, the King had time to relent and again forbid the marriage. The betrothed couple begged, entreated, threatened; all to no avail. So they married secretly. The King found this out, and that was the ruin of Lauzun, who ended up in prison, in a fortress far from Paris.

"A fortress," I repeated, beginning to understand.

"At Pinerol," added the abbot.

"Along with…"

"Exactly, along with Fouquet."

Until that moment, explained Melani, Fouquet had been the only prisoner in the enormous fortress. However, he already knew Lauzun, who had accompanied the King to Nantes on the occasion of his arrest. When Lauzun was brought to Pinerol, the Superintendent had been languishing in a cell for over nine years.

"And how long did Lauzun remain there?"

"Ten years."

"But that is so long!"

"It could have been worse for him. The King had not set the duration of his sentence and could have held him at his pleasure."

"How come, then, that after ten years he was freed?"

That was a mystery, said Atto Melani. The only certain fact was that Lauzun was liberated a few months after the disappearance of Fouquet.

"Signor Atto, I no longer understand a thing," said I, unable to control the trembling which had seized my limbs. We were now almost back at the inn, filthy and overcome by cold.

"Poor lad," said Atto Melani pityingly. "In a few nights, I have compelled you to learn half the history of France and of Europe. But it will all be useful! If you were already a gazetteer, you would have enough to keep you writing for the next three years."

"But, in the midst of all these mysteries, even you no longer understand anything concerning our situation," I dared retort, disconsolate and panting with fatigue. "The more we struggle to understand, the more complicated matters become. This much I know: your sole interest is in understanding why the most Christian King had your friend Fouquet condemned twenty years ago. As for my little pearls, they are lost forever."

"These days, everyone is curious about the mysteries of the past," said Abbot Melani, calling me severely to order. "This is because the present mysteries are too frightening. I and you shall, however, resolve both. That, I promise you."

These words were, I thought, all too facile. I endeavoured to summarise for the abbot all that we had learned in six days of shared claustration at the Donzello. A few weeks earlier, Superintendent

Fouquet had come to our hostelry, in the company of two gentlemen. The first, Pompeo Dulcibeni, was familiar with the system of tunnels under the inn and used them to visit his fellow-countryman, the physician Tiracorda, who was at the present time caring for the Pope. Dulcibeni had, moreover, had a daughter by a Turkish slave, who had been stolen from him by a certain Huygens, backed by a man called Feroni, when Dulcibeni was in the service of the Odescalchi, in other words, the family of the Pope.

Fouquet's second companion, Robert Devize, was a guitarist whose relations with Maria Teresa, Queen of France, were not clear. He was a pupil of Francesco Corbetta, an intriguing personage who had written and, before dying, donated to Maria Teresa the rondeau which we so often heard Devize playing. The music sheet of this rondeau, however, bore a dedication to Mademoiselle, the cousin of the Most Christian King and wife of the Count of Lauzun. The latter had, for ten years, been the companion of Fouquet at Pinerol, before the Superintendent's death…

"You should say 'before his escape'," Atto corrected me, "seeing that he died at the Donzello."

"Correct. And then…"

"And then we have a Jesuit, a runaway Venetian, a harlot, a Neapolitan astrologer, a drunkard of a host, an English refugee and a physician from Siena: like all his colleagues, a murderer of defenceless Christians."

"And the two corpisantari," I added.

"Ah yes, the two monsters. And, last of all, we ourselves who are racking our brains while someone in the hostelry has the plague, bloodstained pages from the Bible are to be found in the galleries beneath the city, as well as phials full of blood and rats puking blood… too much blood, now that I come to think of it."

"What does it all mean, Signor Atto?"

"A fine question. How many times must I repeat to you? Think of the crows and the eagle. And behave like an eagle."

By that time, we were already climbing the stairs that led to the secret chamber in the Donzello; and soon after that, we separated, after giving each other an appointment for the morrow.