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Night the Eighth

Between the 18th and 19th September, 1683

"Closed! It is closed, damn it!"

That was to be expected, I thought, while Atto Melani pushed uselessly against the trapdoor that led to Tiracorda's stables. Already, when we were marching through the galleries, escorted by the subdued muttering of Ugonio and Ciacconio, this latest nocturnal expedition to the house of Tiracorda seemed to me destined to fail. Dulcibeni had discovered that we were keeping an eye on him. Perhaps he did not imagine that we had already spied upon him in Tiracorda's study, but he would never have wished to run the risk of being observed while conducting strange trafficking with (or against) his old friend. And indeed, after entering his fellow-countryman's home, he had made sure that the trapdoor was locked.

"Excuse me, Signor Abbot," said I while Atto wiped his hands nervously, "but perhaps it is better like this. If tonight Dulcibeni notices nothing strange while he is playing at riddles with Tiracorda, perhaps tomorrow we shall find our way free."

"Not a bit of it," replied Atto crossly, "he knows now that he is under observation. If he intends to accomplish something strange, he will do it as early as possible: even tonight; or tomorrow, at the latest."

"And so?"

"And so, we must find a way of entering Tiracorda's house, even if I really do not know how. We would need…"

"Gfrrrlubh," interrupted Ciacconio, stepping forward.

Ugonio looked at him frowning, as though in reproof.

"At last, a volunteer," commented Abbot Melani, satisfied.

A few minutes later, we were divided into two unequal groups. Atto, Ugonio and I marched along gallery C, in the direction of the underground river. Ciacconio, on the other hand, had climbed to the surface up the well which led from the same conduit to the Piazza della Rotonda, near the Pantheon. He had not been willing to explain to us how he intended to effect his entry into the house of Tiracorda. We had patiently explained to him, down to the smallest details, how the physician's house was laid out, but only at the very end did the corpisantaro candidly declare that the information would be absolutely of no use to him. We had even provided him with a sketch of the house, including the disposition of the windows; but, hardly had we separated than we heard resounding in the gallery a frenetic, goatlike sound of mastication. The life of our sketch, on which Ciacconio was horribly banqueting, had been all too brief.

"Do you think he will succeed?" I asked Abbot Melani.

"I have not the least idea. We explained to them ad nauseam every single corner of the house, but it is as though he already knew what to do. I cannot bear them, those two."

In the meantime, we were rapidly advancing towards the small underground river where, two nights previously, we had seen Dulcibeni mysteriously disappear. We passed close to the old and nauseating carcasses of the rats, and very soon we heard the sound of the subterranean watercourse. This time we were better equipped: at Atto's request, the corpisantari had brought with them a long and robust rope, a few iron nails, a hammer and a few long staves. These would be useful for the perilous and somewhat unwise operation which Atto intended at all costs to perform: to ford the river.

We stood for who knows how long, pensively observing the watercourse, which seemed more black, fetid and threatening than ever. I shivered, imagining a ruinous fall into that disgusting and hostile current. Even Ugonio seemed worried. I sought to bolster up my courage by addressing a silent prayer to the Lord.

Suddenly, however, I saw Atto move away from me and direct his gaze towards a point where the right-hand wall of the gallery formed an angle with the channel through which the river ran. For a few moments, Atto remained immobile opposite the corner between the two conduits. Then he stretched out a hand along the wall of the fluvial gallery.

"What are you doing?" I called out in alarm, seeing him lean dangerously towards the river.

"Keep quiet," he whispered, groping ever more eagerly at the wall, as though he were seeking something.

I was about to run to his assistance, fearing that he might lose his balance. It was precisely then that I saw him at last retreat from this dangerous exposure, grasping something in his left hand. It was a little painter of the kind which fishermen use to moor their boats on the Tiber. Atto began to pull on the cord, gradually coiling it. When at last there seemed to be resistance at the far end, Atto invited Ugonio and myself to look at the little river. Just in front of us, faintly illuminated by the light of the lantern, there floated a flat-bottomed boat.

"I think that by now even you will have understood," said Abbot Melani soon afterwards, as we navigated in silence, driven by the current.

"No, I really do not," I admitted. "How did you manage to discover the boat?"

"It is simple. Dulcibeni had two possibilities: to cross the river or to go down it by boat. In order to take the river, however, he needed to have a boat moored at the point where the two galleries intersect. When we arrived, there was no trace of any boat; but, if there had been one, it would surely have been subject to the pull of the current."

"So, if it was secured by a rope," I guessed, "it would be pulled downstream by the current into the gallery to our right, where it flows down towards the Tiber."

"Exactly. The mooring had therefore to be secured to a point situated to the right in relation to gallery C, in other words, in the direction of the current. Had it been otherwise, we should have seen the hawser stretched from left to right, towards the boat. That was why I looked for the cord on the right. It was secured to an iron hook, which had been placed there who knows how long ago."

While I meditated upon this new proof of Abbot Melani's sagacity, Ugonio increased our pace by pulling gently on the two oars with which the boat was equipped. The bare landscape illuminated by our lantern was dull and monotonous. On the vaulted stone roof of the gallery, we heard the echo of the waves lapping against our fragile bark.

"But you were not sure that Dulcibeni had used a boat," I suddenly objected. "You said: 'Now, if there had been one…'"

"Sometimes, in order to know the truth, it is necessary to presuppose it."

"What do you mean?"

"It frequently happens like this in affairs of state: in the presence of inexplicable or illogical facts, one must figure out what must have been the indispensable condition which determined them, however incredible it may be."

"I do not understand."

"The most absurd truths, my boy, which are also the blackest ones, never leave any traces. Remember that."

"Does that mean that they will never be discovered?"

"Not necessarily. There are two possibilities: the first is that there may be someone who knows or who has understood, but who has no proof."

"And what then?" I asked, understanding very little of the abbot's words.

"He then constructs the proof which he does not have, so that the truth comes to the surface," replied Atto candidly.

"Do you mean that one can encounter false proofs of real facts?" I asked, open-mouthed.

"Bravo. But do not be surprised. You must not fall into the common error of believing, once it has been discovered that a document or a proof was counterfeited, that its content, too, is false. The contrary is likely to be true. Remember that when you become a gazetteer: often the most horrendous and unacceptable truths are contained in false documents."

"And what if even those are not available?"

"At that point, and this is the second assumption, it remains only to make suppositions, as I told you at the outset, and then to verify whether one's reasoning holds."

"If so, one must reason thus in order to understand the secretum pestis."

"Not yet," replied Melani. "First, one must understand the role of each of the actors, and above all the comedy which they are interpreting. And I believe that I have found it."

I looked at him in silence, with an expression which betrayed my impatience.

"It is a conspiracy against His Most Christian Majesty," exclaimed Atto solemnly.

"And who would be behind such a plot?"

"Why, that is clear: his wife, the Queen."

Seeing my incredulity, Atto was obliged to refresh my memory. Louis XIV had imprisoned Fouquet in order to extort from him the secret of the plague. Around Fouquet, however, moved personages who, like the Superintendent, had been humiliated or ruined by the Sovereign. First among these was Lauzun, imprisoned at Pinerol together with Fouquet and used as a spy; then, there was Mademoiselle, His Majesty's wealthy cousin, whom the King had forbidden to marry Lauzun. Moreover, Devize, who had accompanied Fouquet to the Donzello, was faithful to Queen Maria Teresa, who had suffered all manner

of infidelities, vexations and overbearing behaviour on the part of Louis XIV

"But all this is no sufficient basis for holding that all of them plotted against the Most Christian King," said I, interrupting him to voice my doubts.

"That is true, but I ask you to consider: the King wants the secret of the pestilence. Fouquet refuses to give it to him, probably affirming that he knows nothing of it. When the letter full of Kircher's ravings which we have found on Dulcibeni comes into Colbert's possession, Fouquet can no longer deny all knowledge, on pain of his own life and that of his family. In the end, he reaches an agreement with the King and leaves Pinerol in exchange for the secretum pestis. Thus far, are we in agreement?"

"Yes. Agreed."

"Well, at this point, the King has triumphed. Do you suppose that, after twenty years of rigorous imprisonment and reduced to indigence, Fouquet will be content?"

"No."

"Would it have been human for him to gain some small satisfaction at the King's expense, before disappearing?"

"Why, yes."

"Exactly. Now, imagine: your immensely powerful enemy extorts from you the secret of the pestilence. He wants it at all costs, because he yearns to become even more powerful. However, he does not realise that you are also in possession of the secret of the antidote, the secretum vitae. If you cannot use that yourself, what will you do?"

"I could give it to someone… to a foe of my own enemy."

"Very good. And Fouquet had any number of such persons at his disposal, all ready to take their revenge on the Sun King: beginning with Lauzun."

"But why, in your opinion, did Louis XIV not realise that Fouquet also possessed the antidote to the pestilence?"

"This is my theory. As you will recall, in Kircher's letter, I also read secretum vitae arcanae obices celant or, in other words, the secret of life is concealed in mysterious obstacles, while the secret of the transmission of the pestilence is not. Well, I maintain that Fouquet was unable to deny that he knew the secretum morbi but succeeded in keeping to himself the secret of the antidote, adducing as a pretext-thanks to that phrase-that Kircher had hidden it from him too. This must have been quite easy for the Superintendent, seeing that the King's main interest was, if I know him well, how to spread the plague, not how to combat it."

"That does all seem rather complicated."

"But, it works. Now, consider this: with the secret of the pestilence in his hands, for whom might Louis XIV have been able to cause a few headaches?"

"Well, above all for the Empire," said I, thinking of what Brenozzi had told me.

"Very good. And perhaps for Spain too, with whom France has been at war for centuries. Is that not correct?"

"That is possible," I admitted, without understanding what Atto was getting at.

"But the Empire is in the hands of the Habsburgs, and Spain too. To what royal house does Queen Maria Teresa belong?"

"To the Habsburgs!"

"There we are: if we are to impose some order on the facts, we must therefore assume that Maria Teresa received, and used, the secretum vitae against Louis XIV Fouquet may have given the secretum vitae to Lauzun, who will have passed it on to his beloved Mademoiselle, and she to the Queen."

"A queen, acting in the shadows against the King her husband," I reflected aloud, "why, that is unheard of."

"There too, you are mistaken," said Atto, "for there is a precedent."

In 1637, said the abbot, a year before the birth of Louis XIV the secret services of the French Crown intercepted a letter from the Spanish ambassador in Brussels. The letter was addressed to Queen Anne of Austria, sister of King Philip IV of Spain and consort of King Louis XIII, in other words, the mother of the Sun King. From the missive, it was clear that Anne of Austria was in secret correspondence with her former country; and that, at a time when France and Spain were in open conflict. The King and Cardinal Richelieu ordered thorough but discreet inquiries. Thus, it was discovered that the Queen visited a certain convent in Paris rather too frequently: officially, to pray; but in reality, to exchange letters with Madrid and with the Spanish ambassadors in England and Flanders.

Anne denied that she had been engaged in espionage. She was then summoned for a private interview with Richelieu: the Queen risked imprisonment, the Cardinal warned icily, but a simple confession would save her. Louis XIII would pardon her only in exchange for a complete account of the news which she had learned in her secret correspondence with the Spaniards. The letters of Anne of Austria did not, indeed, relate solely to the usual complaints about the life of the court of Paris (where Anne was rather unhappy, as Maria Teresa was also to be). The Queen of France was exchanging precious political information with the Spaniards, perhaps in the belief that this could bring about an early end to the war. It was, however, against the interests of her kingdom. Anne confessed in full.

"In 1659, during the negotiations which led up to the Peace of the Pyrenees on the Isle of Pheasants," continued Atto, "Anne at last met her brother, King Philip IV of Spain, again. They had not seen each other for forty-five years. They had separated painfully when she, as a young princess barely sixteen years of age, had left for France forever. Anne tenderly embraced and kissed her brother. Philip, however, drew away from his sister's lips, looking her in the eyes. She said: 'Will you pardon me for having been such a good Frenchwoman?' 'You have my esteem,' said he. Ever since Anne had ceased to spy on his account, her brother had ceased to love her."

"But she was Queen of France, she could not…"

"I know, I know," said Atto sharply. "I told you that old story only to help you understand what the Habsburgs are like. Even when they marry a foreign king, they remain Habsburgs."

"The blackwater is walloping!"

We had been interrupted by Ugonio, who was showing signs of nervousness. After a relatively calm stretch, the little river had become more impetuous. The corpisantaro was using his oars with more vigour, trying in fact to slow us down. Rowing against the current, he had just decapitated one oar against the hard bed of the watercourse.

An awkward moment then arose: a little further on, the river divided into two branches, one twice as wide as the other. The noise and the speed of the waters were distinctly greater.

"Right or left?" I asked the corpisantaro.

"Decreasing the scrupules so as not to increase one's scruples, and to obtain more benefice than malefice, I ignorify comprehension and navigate fittingly," said Ugonio, while Atto protested.

"Stay on the wider stream, do not branch off," said the abbot. "The other branch may lead nowhere."

Ugonio instead made a few decisive movements with his oar and steered us into the lesser channel, where our speed at once diminished.

"Why did you not obey me?" complained Atto, growing angry.

"The canaletto is conductive, but the grand canalisation is misodorous; while by decreasing the scrupules so as not to increase one's scruples, and by fulfilling one's obligations, the Christian's jubilations are increased."

Rubbing his eyes as though he were suffering from a violent headache, Atto abandoned any attempt to understand Ugonio's mysterious explanation.

Very soon, Abbot Melani's suppressed rage was unleashed. After a few minutes of placid navigation, the vault of the new gallery began to become lower and lower.

"It is a secondary sewer, a curse upon you and your sparrow's brain," said Atto, turning to Ugonio.

"Yet it misodours not, howsoever well the other ramification may flow," replied Ugonio, without in any way losing his composure.

"But what does he mean?" I asked, worried about the roof, which was coming ever nearer to our heads.

"It misodours not, for all that it is overstrait."

We gave up all hope of interpreting Ugonio's verbal hieroglyphics, also because the gallery had in the meantime become so low that we had to crouch uncomfortably at the bottom of the boat. It was now almost impossible for Ugonio to row and Atto himself had to help the boat forward by pushing from the stem with one of the poles. The stink of the black waters, which was already in itself almost unbearable, had now become even more painful because of the posture which we were compelled to adopt and the suffocating space into which we were being forced. With a pang of regret, my thoughts went out to Cloridia, to the intemperance of Master Pellegrino, to sunny days and to my bed.

Suddenly, we heard plashing around us, just next to our craft. Living beings of an unknown nature seemed to be moving excitedly in the waters around us.

"Rats," announced Ugonio. "They fugitate."

"How ghastly," commented Abbot Melani.

The vault was now even lower. Ugonio was forced to draw the oars aboard. Only Atto, in the stern, kept pushing our bark onward with rhythmic shoves from his pole against the bottom of the channel. The waters we were traversing were almost completely stagnant, yet deprived of their accustomed silence: for, all around us, in bizarre counterpoint to the rhythmic beat of Abbot Melani's pole, we were followed by the sinister gurglings of the rats.

"If I did not know that I was alive, I would say that, roughly speaking, we must be on the Styx," said Atto, panting from so much effort. "Always provided that I am not mistaken as to the first point," he added.

We now lay face upwards, pressed one against the other on the bottom of the craft, when we heard the acoustics of the gallery change and become gentler, as though the channel were about to widen. It was then that there appeared before our astonished eyes, on the roof of the gallery, a circle of crepitating fire, into which yellow and reddish tongues of flame seemed to want to draw us.

Disposed in a halo within the circle were three Magi, immobile and fatal. Enveloped in crimson tunics and long conical cowls, they observed us icily. Within the cowls, from pairs of round holes, flashing eyes observed us, evil and all-knowing. One of the three held a skull in his hand.

Overcome by the surprise, all three of us started in unison. The bark deviated slightly from its natural course and went askew, with its prow and poop scraping against the opposite sides of the channel; thus, it became stranded immediately under the circle of fire.

One of the three Magi (or were they perhaps sentinels of the Inferno?) leaned over, observing us with malevolent curiosity. He brandished a torch, which he waved several times, seeking the better to illuminate our countenances; his fellows consulted with one another in hushed tones.

"Perhaps I was indeed mistaken about that first point," I heard Atto stammer.

The second Magus, who held in his hand a great white candle, leaned forward in his turn. It was then that Ugonio exploded in a scream of infantile terror, struggling madly and involuntarily kicking me in the stomach and hitting Abbot Melani hard on the nose. Hitherto frozen by fear, we reacted with unpardonable discomposure, striking out in all directions. In the meanwhile, the bark had freed itself; so that, before we realised what was happening, our terrified trampling got the better of us and I heard one splash, then two, to either side of me.

The world folded in upon itself and all grew suddenly cold and dark while beings leapt forth from diabolical whirlpools and crawled over my face, sprinkling it with disgusting filth. I screamed in turn, but my voice was broken and fell like Icarus.

I shall never know for how long (for seconds? for hours?) that nightmare in the subterranean canal lasted. I only know that it was Ugonio who saved me, when with bestial vigour he pulled me from the waters, dumping me on hard planks so rudely that he almost broke my back.

Overwhelmed by terror, I had lost my memory. I must have dragged myself along the sewer, sometimes tiptoeing along the bottom, which I was just able to do, sometimes floating, and been saved in the end by Ugonio. Now I lay in the bottom of the boat, which had been righted and emptied of water.

My back was quite painful; I was panting from cold and fear, and still in thrall to its diabolical effects. Thus I believed that my eyes were deceiving me when, upon sitting up, I looked around me.

"Both of you may thank Abbot Melani," I heard Atto saying. "If, when I fell into the water, I had let go of the lantern, we should by now be food for the rats."

The faint light continued heroically to light up the way, offering our eyes the most unexpected of sights. Although struggling to penetrate the darkness, I could clearly discern that we were in the middle of a vast subterranean lake. Above our heads, as we were able to tell from the echo, an immense and majestic cavern opened up. All around us there spread black and threatening waters. But our bodies were safe. We had landed on an island.

"To obtain more benefice than malefice, and to be more padre than parricide, I abominate the artefactor of this revolting, merdiloquent and shiteful spectacule. He is a disghastly felonable!"

"You are right. Whoever has done this is a monster," said Atto, for the first time completely in agreement with Ugonio.

It was not difficult to explore the islet upon which destiny (or rather, our carelessness and lack of the fear of God) had so kindly deposited us. The little strip of ground could be covered on foot in a few instants and I would not have said that it was any bigger than the modest little church of Santa Maria in Posterula.

It was, however, the middle of the island which caught the attention of Atto and Ugonio: it was there that several objects of varying sizes were gathered, and which I had difficulty in distinguishing clearly.

I felt my clothing: I was soaking wet and shivering with cold. I shook myself, striving to revive my inner heat, and in my turn disembarked, diffidently testing the cindery soil of the isle with my outstretched foot. I joined Atto and Ugonio who were searching here and there with expressions at once thoughtful and disgusted.

"I must say, my boy, that your talent for fainting is growing ever more refined," said Atto in welcome. "You are pale. I see that our recent encounter has terrified you."

"But who were they? Good heavens, they looked like…"

"No, they were not the guardians of the Inferno. It was only the Societas Orationis et Mortis."

"The pious confraternity who bury abandoned corpses?"

"The very people. Do you not recall how they came to the inn to collect the body of poor Fouquet? Unfortunately, I too had forgotten that when they meet in procession, they wear tunics and cowls and bear torches, skulls and so on. Rather picturesque, really…"

"Ugonio too was terrified," I observed.

"I asked him why and he did not want to answer me. I am under the impression that the Societas Orationis et Mortis is one of the rare things that the corpisantari fear. The Company was proceeding along an underground gallery in which there is an opening above the sewer at exactly the same moment, alas, as we arrived on the scene. They heard us passing and leaned over to look, and panic played an unpleasant trick on us. Do you know what happened after that?"

"I… recall nothing," I admitted.

Atto briefly explained to me what had taken place: he and Ugonio had fallen into the water and the bark had suddenly lost its balance and capsized. I had remained imprisoned underneath the boat, with my body under the water and my head above it, which was why my screams had been stifled, as though under a bell. Terrified by the cataclysm, the rats which infested the waters had jumped onto me, running over my face and fouling me with their excrement.

I touched my face. It was true. I wiped myself with a sleeve, with my stomach turning in disgust.

"We were fortunate," continued Atto, while he guided me around the island, "for, between one scream and another, Ugonio and I managed to free ourselves of those disgusting beasts."

"Rats, not beasties," Ugonio promptly corrected him, while he gazed at a sort of cage which stood at our feet.

"Rats, mice, what you will! In short," Abbot Melani finished explaining to me, "we succeeded in bringing you and the bark out of that accursed sewer and finding our way into this underground lake. Fortunately, the three hooded ones did not attempt to follow us, and here we now are. Courage! You are not the only one to be cold. Just look at me: I too am soaked to the skin and covered in mud. Who could ever have imagined that I should ruin so many magnificent clothes in your wretched hostelry… But, come on now."

He showed me the bizarre workshop which occupied the centre of the isle.

Two large blocks of white stone lay on the ground and served as pedestals for two tables of dark, rotting wood. Upon one, I discovered a great array of instruments, pincers, pointed little knives and long butchers' knives, scissors and various blades without handles; bringing our lantern closer, I noted that they were all caked with congealed blood, of all shades from carmine to black. The table stank horribly of rotting carcasses. Among the knives were a couple of large, half-consumed candles. Abbot Melani lit them.

I moved to the other table, upon which lay other more mysterious objects: a ceramic vase, complete with its lid, decorated all over and with a number of holes in its side, which seemed strangely familiar to me; a little phial of transparent glass, the appearance of which also did not seem new to me; next to it, a voluminous orange-coloured earthenware basin about an arm's length in diameter, in the middle of which stood a strange metal harness. It was a sort of tiny gallows.

Upon a broad tripod stood a vertical stem which ended in two curved arms which, using a screw, could be hooped and tightened at will so as to garrotte any unfortunate homunculus attached thereto. The dish was half-full of water, so that the little scaffold (which was no higher than a jug) was completely immersed, apart from the garrotting hoops at the apex.

On the ground, however, stood the most singular item of the whole mysterious elaboratory: an iron cage, as tall as a small child, and with rather close, narrow bars; as though it were designed to imprison minuscule, lively and volatile creatures like butterflies or canaries.

I noticed a movement within the cage and looked more closely. A tiny grey creature was, in its turn, looking at me, fearful and furtive in its nest: a little wooden box filled with straw.

Atto brought the lantern closer so that I could see what he and Ugonio had already discovered. Now the sole hostage of the isle, visibly scared by our presence, I descried with surprise was a poor little mouse.

Around the cage, piled one against the other, stood other sinister devices, which we examined with cautious disgust: urns filled with yellowish powder, drippings, secretions, bilious humours, phlegm and mire; little jars filled with animal (or human?) fat, all mixed with ashes, dead skin and other revolting elements; retorts, alembics, glass jars, a bucket full of bones, surely of animals (which Ugonio nevertheless examined meticulously), a lump of putrescent meat, the rotting peel of fruit, nutshells; a ceramic vase filled with locks of hair, another glass one containing a mass of little serpents preserved in spirits; a little fishing net, a brazier with its bellows, old firewood, half-rotten leaves of paper, coals and pebbles; finally, a pair of large, filthy gloves, a pile of greasy rags and other sordid and vile objects.

"It is a necromancer's den," said I, thoroughly disconcerted.

"Worse still," retorted Atto, while we still roamed around that mad and barbarous bazaar. "It is the den of Dulcibeni, who lodges at your inn."

"And whatever would he be doing here?" I exclaimed in horror.

"It is difficult to say. What is certain is that he is doing something to rats which does not find favour with Ugonio."

The corpisantaro was still pensively observing the butcher's table, completely undisturbed by the mortiferous stench which emanated from it.

"He imprisons, he strangulates, he bistourifies. Thereafter, however, it surpasses all apprehension," said he at length.

"Many thanks, thus far I too had come," said Atto. "First, he captures rats with his fishing net, then he puts them into cages. Then he uses them for some strange sorcery and he strangles them using that strange little gallows. Then he quarters them, and in the end I have no idea what else he may do," said Atto with an acid smile. "All, no doubt, in accordance with the pious prescriptions of the Jansenists of Port-Royal. The one in the cage must be the sole survivor."

"Signor Atto," said I, nauseated by this triumph of obscenity, "does it not seem to you that there is something here which we have already seen?"

I pointed to the phial on the table, next to the miniature gallows.

By way of a reply, Atto extracted from his pocket an object whose existence I had practically forgotten. Unwrapping them from a handkerchief, he exhibited the fragments of the glass phial full of blood which we had found in gallery D. Then he compared them with the phial that was still intact.

"They are twins!" I remarked with surprise.

The broken phial was indeed identical, both in its form and in its greenish glass, to that which we had just found on the island.

"But we have already seen the decorated vase with a lid," I insisted. "It was, unless I am mistaken…"

"… in Tiracorda's secret room," added Atto, coming to my help.

"There we have it!"

"No, no. You are thinking of the vase in which Dulcibeni was rummaging when his friend had gone to sleep. This one, however, is far bigger and the designs painted on it are far more intricate. The motif of the decoration and the holes in the sides are, I will allow, almost identical. Perhaps they are the work of the same artisan."

The vase found on the islet also had lateral air-holes on it and was likewise decorated with pond plants and little swimming beings, probably tadpoles which played about between the leaves. I opened the lid, raised the vase to the lantern and immersed one finger: inside, there was greyish water, in which floated fragments of light white gauze; at the bottom, a little sand.

"Signor Atto, Cristofano told me that it is dangerous to handle rats during a time of pestilence."

"I know. I thought of that, too, the other night, when we encountered those two moribund rats which were spitting blood. Clearly, our Dulcibeni feels no such fear."

"The insula is not goodly, not justly, not sanitary," warned Ugonio in grave tones.

"I know, you brute, we shall be leaving it very soon. Instead of lamenting, you could at least tell me where we are, seeing as it is thanks to you that we came here."

"It is true," said I to Ugonio. "If, at the fork in the river, you had chosen to take the other branch, we should never have discovered Dulcibeni's island."

"It is no opera of delight, in as where and what concerns the occupation exercisioned with great artifice upon the altar of the insula."

Abbot Melani raised his eyes to heaven as though in extremities of distress. He fell silent for a moment, and suddenly cried out: "Then will somebody tell me where and what the deuce this damned insula is!" and his cry caused the whole vast cavern to reverberate.

The echoes died away. Without opening his mouth, Ugonio invited me to follow him. He pointed at the back of the huge stone block which served as the base for one of the tables, and nodded his head with a grunt of satisfaction, as though in reply to Abbot Melani's challenge.

Atto joined us. On the stone, a high-relief was visible, in which the figures of men and animals could be distinguished. Melani drew even closer and began impatiently to explore the carved surface with his fingertips, as though to confirm what he had just seen with his eyes.

"Extraordinary. It is a Mithraeum," he murmured. "Look, look here. A textbook example! There is everything here, the sacrifice of the bull, the scorpion…"

Where we stood, there had once, long ago, been an underground temple in which the ancient Romans adored the god Mithras. He was a god originating in the Orient who had in Rome come to rival in popularity Apollo, who, like him, represented the sun. That this was indeed an ancient shrine of Mithras was not in doubt: the image carved on one of the stones showed the god killing a bull, whose testicles were held in the claws of a scorpion, a typical depiction of Mithras. What was more, underground sites (always supposing that this place had been under the ground) were favoured by the worshippers of Mithras.

"We have found only the two large stones on which Dulcibeni places the tables he uses for his practices," concluded Abbot Melani. "Perhaps the remainder of the temple is at the bottom of the lake."

"And how could that be?"

"With all these underground rivers, every now and then the terrain down here settles. You have seen it yourself. Underground, there are not only conduits, tunnels and galleries, but grottoes, caverns, great hollows, whole Roman palaces integrated into buildings of more recent centuries. The waters of the rivers and the sewers carve the ground out blindly and every now and then a grotto crumbles, another one fills with water, and so on. That is the nature of the subterranean city."

I thought instinctively of the fissure which had opened in the wall of the staircase of the inn, a few days earlier, after we had heard a reverberation under the ground.

Ugonio was again showing signs of impatience. We decided to return the boat to the water and attempt to go back. Atto could not wait to see Ciacconio and to know the success or otherwise of his incursion into the house of Tiracorda. We again launched our humble vessel (which had fortunately suffered no significant damage) and prepared to return up the same narrow channel which had brought us to the subterranean Mithraeum.

Ugonio seemed in the worst of humour. Suddenly, just when we were about to embark, he jumped down from the boat and, raising a shower of gravel with his rapid little trot, returned to the island.

"Ugonio!" I called after him, astonished.

"Be quiet, he'll only be a moment," said Atto Melani, who must have foreseen what the corpisantaro was about to do.

A few moments later, indeed, Ugonio returned and jumped agilely into the bark. He seemed relieved.

I was about to ask him what the deuce had called him back, when suddenly I understood.

"Insula iniquitable," muttered Ugonio, speaking to himself.

He had freed the last rodent from its cage.

Our return through the suffocating channel that flowed into the lake was somewhat less dramatic but just as wearying as the outward journey. The going was made all the slower and more painful by our fatigue and the fact that we were moving upstream, however weak the current may have been. No one spoke and in the poop Atto and Ugonio pushed with poles while I held the lantern and provided a counterweight in the prow.

After a while, I wanted to break the heavy silence, relieved only by the viscous slopping of water in the canal.

"Signor Atto, concerning this matter of the movements provoked by underground rivers, something bizarre befell me."

I told him that the astrological gazette which we had taken from Stilone Priaso had forecast for the month of September natural phenomena such as earthquakes and the like. A few days earlier, at exactly the time predicted, there had been heard in the bowels of the earth a sort of abysmal, menacing rumble and a fissure had appeared in the wall of the staircase. Was that only a fortuitous occurrence? Or did the author of the almanack know that in September phenomena of that nature were likely to take place?

"I can only tell you that I do not believe in such nonsense," said Abbot Melani with a scornful little laugh, "otherwise, I would have run to consult an astrologer to tell me the present, the past and the future. I do not believe that the fact of having been born on the 31st of March can…"

"Aries," muttered Ugonio.

Atto and I looked at one another.

"Ah yes, I was forgetting that you are… that you understand these things," said Atto, struggling to contain his laughter.

But the corpisantaro would not be intimidated. According to the great astrologer Arcandam, Ugonio imperturbably pronounced, the native of Aries, warm and dry in nature, will be dominated by wrath. He will be red-headed or fair and will almost always bear marks on his shoulders or on his left foot; he will have abundant hair, a thick beard, brightly coloured eyes, white teeth, well-formed jaws, a fine nose and large eyelids.

He will be observant and curious about the words and deeds of others and concerning every secret. His will be a studious, elevated, variable and vigorous spirit. He will have many friends. He will flee evil. He will be little inclined to illnesses, apart from the grave vexations caused him by headaches. He will be eloquent, solitary in his way of life, prodigal in necessary things: he will meditate upon fraudulent enterprises and will often employ threats. He will have good fortune in all kinds of wars as in negotiating all things.

In his early youth, he will be very contentious and choleric. He will suffer from inner irascibility which he will barely manifest. He will be a liar, and false; using soft words to cover dissimulation and lies, saying one thing and doing another, making marvellous promises but not keeping them. He will spend a part of his life in a position of authority. He will be avaricious and will therefore take care to acquire and to sell. He will be envious and therefore quick to anger, but even more, he will be envied by others, wherefore he will have many enemies and treacherous adversaries. As for misfortune, he may be beset by various calamities, so much so that he will not enjoy a single commodity without discommodiousness and peril for his property. He will possess a mutable inheritance, or he will soon lose what he had acquired and soon acquire what he had lost. But much wealth will be bestowed upon him.

He will make many voyages and will quit his country and his parents. From the age of twenty-three onwards, he will move on to better things and he will handle money. He will become rich at the age of forty and will attain a position of great dignity. He will succeed perfectly in whatever he undertakes; his good offices will be appreciated. He will not marry the woman who was first intended for him, but another whom he will love and from whom he will have noble sons. He will converse with ecclesiastics. In general, if he is born during the hours of daylight, he will be fortunate and held in great esteem by princes and lords. He will live to the age of eighty-seven years and three months.

Instead of mocking Ugonio, Atto and I listened to him in religious silence up to the end. Abbot Melani even left off using his boat-pole, while the corpisantaro humbly maintained his rhythm.

"Well, let us see," reflected Atto. "Wealthy, that is true. Skilful in negotiations, that is true. Fair-haired, at least until it went white, that is true. A great traveller, an observer of others' words and deeds: for sure. Fine eyes, white teeth, well-formed jaw, fine nose: yes, indeed. Eloquent, studious, elevated, variable and vigorous spirit: God forgive my immodesty, but that is not incorrect; on the contrary. What else? Ah yes, the esteem of princes, the company of prelates, and headaches. I do not know where our Ugonio fished up so much information from the sign of Aries, but it certainly is not all unfounded."

I avoided asking Atto Melani whether he also recognised himself in avarice, irascibility, fraudulence, envy and recourse to lies and threats, as mentioned in the astrological portrait. And nor did I ask

Ugonio why, among the many defects of those born under the sign of Aries, vanity had been omitted. I also took care not to mention the prophecy concerning marriage and children, which were obviously precluded in the case of the abbot.

"You truly know many things about astrology," I complimented the corpisantaro instead, recalling also his eloquent excursus into medical astrology a few nights previously.

"Perused, auscultated, verbalised."

"Remember, young man," interjected Abbot Melani, "that in this holy city, every house, every wall, every single stone is imbued with magic, with superstition, with obscure hermetic knowledge. Our two monsters must have read a few manuals of astrological consultations-one can find them everywhere, so long as the matter is not spoken of out loud. Scandal is but an entertainment for bumpkins: remember the story of Abbot Morandi."

It was at that moment that the sound of running water distracted us from our conversation: we had returned to the confluence with the main channel.

"Now we shall have to set to work with the oars," said Atto, while our boat gave itself up to the far faster and more forceful waters of the underground river.

A moment passed, then we all looked at one another speechlessly. "The oars," said I. "I think that we abandoned them when the trio of the Societas Orationis et Mortis made their appearance."

I saw Atto glare resentfully at Ugonio, as though awaiting an explanation.

"Aries also distractable," said Ugonio in his defence, trying to shift the blame for the loss of the oars to the abbot.

The little bark, now a helpless prey to the current, began to accelerate remorselessly. All attempts to use the poles to slow down our progress proved useless.

For a brief passage, we proceeded down the river; soon, however, a confluent poured in from the left, provoking a wave which compelled us to hold on tight to our poor piece of wood in order not to be thrown out. The roaring of the waters had grown ever louder and more overwhelming; the walls of the channel offered no hold. No one dared open his mouth.

Ugonio tried to use the cord which he had brought with him to hook onto any outcrop in the walls, but the bricks and stones that made these up were completely smooth.

Suddenly, I remembered that, on our outward journey, the corpisantaro had, however enigmatically, explained the reason why, when we came to the fork that led to the lake, he had not wished to proceed along the main channel.

"Did you not say that this river 'misodours'?" I asked him.

He nodded. "It misodours with the foulestest of fetidness."

Suddenly, we found ourselves in the midst of a sort of aquatic crossroads: from the left and from the right, two equal and contrary confluents hurled themselves with even greater force into our river.

That was the beginning of the end. The little bark, reeling drunkenly from that convolution of confluents, began to turn on itself, at first slowly and then vertiginously. We clung now, not only to the boat but to one another. The rotation soon made us lose our sense of direction, so that for a moment I had the absurd sensation of moving upstream, towards salvation.

Meanwhile a deafening roar drew ever nearer. The only reference point was our lamp which, with the greatest of difficulty, Atto continued to hold up, as though the fate of the world depended on it; around that point of light, everything spun madly. We seemed almost to be flying, I thought, transported by fear and vertigo.

That thought came true. Under the boat, the waters vanished, as though a magnetic force had raised us up and was about to deposit us mercifully upon the sands of salvation. For a brief and insane moment, I remembered the words of Padre Robleda about Kircher's Universal Magnetism, which comes from God and holds all things together.

But suddenly a blind, colossal force crashed against the bottom of the bark, throwing us from it at the same instant, and all became dark. I found myself in the water, drawn through icy, malignant eddies, lapped by filthy, disgusting foam, screaming with terror and despair.

We had gone over a waterfall, plummeting into an even more fetid and disgusting river. Not only had the impact with the water capsized the boat, but our lamp was lost. Only from time to time could I touch bottom with my feet, perhaps because here and there lay some large outcrop. Had that not been the case, I should surely have drowned. The stench was unbearable and my lungs were filled only by my panting from weariness and fear."Are you alive?" yelled Atto in the dark, while the roar of the cascade hammered at our ears.

A large blunt object struck me in the chest, leaving me breathless.

"Hold on, hold on to the boat, it is here between us," said Atto.

Miraculously, I managed to grasp the edge of the bark, while the current continued to drag us along.

"Ugonio," screamed Atto again, with all the breath that remained to him, "Ugonio, where are you?"

We were only two now. Certain at this moment that we were going to our death, we let ourselves be led by that poor wreck, floating in the midst of stinking fluids and other indescribable faecal waste.

"It misodoureth… now I understand."

"Understand what?"

"This is not just any channel. It is the Cloaca Maxima, the biggest sewer in Rome, built by the ancient Romans."

Our speed increased again, and, going by the sound, we knew that we were in a broad conduit the vault of which was rather low, perhaps hardly enough for the capsized hull of our little bark to pass. Now the roar of the waters had diminished, as we drew away from the waterfall.

Suddenly, however, the boat came to a stop. The vault was too low and had caused our poor craft to run aground in a comical, capsized position. Somehow, I managed to hold onto the edge. I raised an arm and felt with horror how close and oppressive was the roof of the vault. The air was dense and fetid: breathing had become almost impossible.

"What shall we do?" I panted, struggling desperately to keep my lips above the surface of the waters.

"There is no way back. Let us go with the current."

"But I cannot swim."

"I neither. But the water is dense, one has but to keep afloat. Lie on your back and try to keep your head erect," said he, spitting to cleanse his lips. "Move your arms a little from time to time, but do not struggle or you will sink."

"And then what?"

"We shall emerge somewhere."

"And what if, before that, the vault closes in completely?"

He did not reply.

Almost at the limit of our strength, we let ourselves be borne by the waves (if that disgusting mire could be so called) until my prophecy came true. The current again speeded up, as though we were on a slope; the air was so rarefied that I alternated long periods of holding my breath with sudden, agitated intakes; the foul gases thus inhaled provoked pains in my head and violent dizziness. It felt as though a remote and powerful whirlpool was about to swallow us.

Suddenly, the top of my head struck the roof of the gallery. The current ran even faster. This was the end.

I was about to vomit. Yet somehow I held back, as though at last about to obtain liberation and, with it, peace. Strangled, yet very close, I heard Atto's voice one last time.

"Alas, so it really is true," he murmured to himself.