Imprimatur

Day the Ninth

19th September, 1683

"Look, look here. This one is young."

Hands and eyes of merciful angels were caring for me. I had come to the end of a long voyage. I, however, was no more: my body must have been elsewhere, while I enjoyed the beneficent warmth which heaven radiates upon all good souls. I waited to be shown the way.

A few timeless instants passed, then the hands of one of the angels gently prodded me. Light, indistinct murmurs were gradually awakening me. I could at last catch a droplet of that sweet celestial colloquy: "Search the other one better."

A few fleeting but perhaps eternal moments later, I understood that the winged celestial messengers had temporarily left me. Perhaps, for the time being, I no longer needed their charitable assistance. I then opened myself to the divine light which benign heaven extended over and around me and other poor wandering souls.

Contrary to all expectations, I still had eyes to see, ears to hear and flesh with which to feel the warm and holy dawn which utterly pervaded me. So I raised my eyelids and before me appeared the divine symbol of Our Lord, used centuries ago by the first Christians: a magnificent silver fish, which observed me benevolently.

At last, I looked up towards the light, but I had at once to raise my hand and cover my eyes.

It was day and I was under the sun, lying on a beach.

I soon understood that I was alive, although not in the best of condition. I sought in vain the two angels (or whatever they were) who had busied themselves about me. My head ached terribly and my eyes could not bear the light of day. Suddenly, I realised that I barely able to rise to my feet. My knees shook and the mud on which I walked threatened to make me to slip perilously.

Narrowing my eyes, I nevertheless looked around myself. I was no doubt on the banks of the Tiber. It was dawn and a few fishing boats sailed placidly on the waters of the river. On the far bank stood the ruins of the ancient Ponte Rotto-the Broken Bridge. To my right, lay the indolent profile of the Isola Tiberina, anointed by the two branches of the river which have for aeons caressed its banks. To my left, the quiet hill of Santa Sabina stood out against the quiet dawn sky. Now I knew where I was: a little further to the right was the outfall of the Cloaca Maxima, which had vomited Atto and me into the river. Fortunately, the current had not taken us downstream. I had a confused memory of having dragged myself from the water and cast myself down dejectedly upon the bare ground. It was a miracle to be alive; if all this had happened in winter, 1 thought, I should certainly have rendered my soul to the Lord.

Instead, I was comforted by the September sun, once more rising into a limpid sky; but hardly had my mind grown clearer than I realised that I was all filthy and numbed with cold, and an uncontrollable fit of shivering began to shake me from head to foot.

"Leave me, villain, leave me! Help!"

The voice came from behind me. I turned and found my way obstructed by a clump of tall bushes. I crossed it rapidly and found Abbot Melani lying on the ground, he too all covered in mud, and by now no longer in a state to cry out; he was vomiting violently. Two men, or rather, two dubious-looking individuals were leaning over him, but hardly did 1 approach than they took to their legs, disappearing behind a slight rise which dominated the beach. From the barks which were sailing in the vicinity, no fisherman seemed to have witnessed the scene.

Shaken by tremendous convulsions, Atto was throwing up the water which he had swallowed during our disastrous shipwreck. I held his head, hoping that the liquid expelled would not suffocate him. After a while, he was again able to speak and breathe normally.

"The two bastards…"

"Do not overstrain yourself, Signor Atto."

"… thieves. I shall catch them."

I had not then, indeed, I never had the courage to confess to Atto that in those two thieves I had recognised the two blessed angels of my awakening. Instead of caring for us, they had carefully inspected us with a view to robbery. The silvery fish which I had found by my side was no sacred epiphany, only some fishmonger's refuse."Anyway, they found nothing," Atto continued between one expectoration and another. "The little I had on me, I lost in the Cloaca Maxima."

"How do you feel?"

"How do you expect me to feel, in this condition and at my age?" said he, opening his filthy doublet and shirt. "If it were up to me, I would remain here in the sun until I feel a little warmer; but that, we cannot do."

I gave a start. Soon Cristofano would be beginning his matutinal rounds.

Followed by the curious glances of a group of fishermen who were preparing to disembark nearby, we moved away.

We took a little road parallel to the river bank, leaving Monte Savello to our right. Filthy and desperate as we were, the few passers- by looked upon us in dismay. I had lost my shoes and walked with a limp, coughing uncontrollably; Atto looked thirty years older and the clothing which he wore seemed to have been robbed from a tomb. He kept quietly cursing all the rheumatic and muscular pains provoked by those tremendous nocturnal labours and the soaking he had received. We were about to walk towards the Portico d'Ottavia, when he turned brusquely.

"I have too many acquaintances here. Let us change our route."

We then passed through the Piazza Montanara and crossed the Piazza Campitelli. More and more people were appearing on the streets.

In the labyrinth of narrow, tortuous, damp and gloomy alleyways, almost all of them unpaved, I savoured again the habitual alternation of dust and mire, the evil smells, the clangour and the cries. Swine large and small rooted in heaps of rubbish near steaming cauldrons of pasta and broad pans of fish already frying at that early hour, in flagrant disregard of all the notices and edicts of public health.

I heard Atto murmur something with disgust and vexation, while the sudden thunder of a cart's wheels covered his words.

Once it was quiet again, Abbot Melani continued: "How is it possible that, like pigs, we should have to seek peace in manure, serenity in rubbish, repose in this shambles of neglected streets? What is the point of living in a city like Rome if we must move like beasts and not like men? I beg you, Holy Father, deliver us from excrement!"

I looked at him questioningly.

"I am quoting Lorenzo Pizzati da Pontremoli," said he. "He may have been a parasite at the court of Pope Rospigliosi; but how right he was! It was he who penned this candid supplication to Clement IX some twenty years ago."

"But then, Rome has always been like this!" I exclaimed in surprise, always having imagined a very different and most fabulous environment for the city of the past.

"As I have already told you, I was in Rome at the time; well, in those days, the streets were repaired, albeit badly, almost every day. And if you consider all the sewers and pipes, too, the roads were always blocked by public works. To protect oneself from the mire of rainwater and refuse, one had to wear high boots, even in August. Pizzati was right: Rome has become a Babel in which people live in a continual clamour. It has ceased to be a city. It is a pigsty," exclaimed the abbot, stressing the last word.

"And did Pope Rospigliosi do nothing to improve matters?"

"On the contrary, my boy! But, if only you knew how pig-headed these Romans are. He tried, for example, to plan a public system for the collection of ordure; he commanded the citizens to clean the street before their doorways. All in vain!"

All of a sudden, the abbot pulled me violently to one side and we flattened ourselves against a wall. Only by a hair's-breadth did I thus escape the precipitous onrush of an enormous and luxurious carriage. The abbot's mood grew even darker.

"Carlo Borromeo was wont to say that in Rome, to have success, two things are necessary: to love God and to possess a carriage," Melani commented bitterly. "Do you know that in this city, there are more than a thousand of them?"

"Then it is perhaps they who account for the distant rumble which I hear even when no one is passing through the streets," said I, disconcerted. "But where do all those carriages go?"

"Oh, nowhere. It's simply the case that noblemen, ambassadors, physicians, famous advocates and Roman cardinals move about exclusively in carriages; even for the briefest of journeys. And that is not all: they are alone in their carriages, and sometimes, alone yet accompanied by several other carriages."

"Are their families so numerous?"

"No, of course not," said Atto, laughing. However, cardinals and ambassadors on official visits may proceed accompanied by up to three hundred carriages; with all the choked traffic and daily clouds of dust which that entails."

"Now, I can understand the brawl over a carriage station," said I, echoing him, "which I recently witnessed on the piazza in Posterula; the footmen of two carriages belonging to noblemen were going at each other hammer and tongs."

At that point, Atto turned off again.

"Even here, I could be recognised. There is a young canon… Let us cut across towards the Piazza San Pantaleo."

Exhausted as I was, I protested against all these complicated itineraries.

"Be quiet and do not attract attention to yourself," said Atto, unexpectedly tending to his faded white hair.

"It is a good thing that, in all this bestial confusion, no one is paying the slightest attention to us," he whispered, adding in an almost inaudible voice, "I hate being in this state."

It was wise, and Atto knew it, to traverse the great crowd at the market on the Piazza Navona, rather than be seen as isolated vagabonds in the middle of the Piazza Madama or the Strada di Parione.

"We must reach Tiracorda's house as early as possible," said Atto, "but without being seen by the Bargello's watchmen who are mounting guard in front of the inn."

"And, after that?"

"We shall try to enter the stables and take the underground galleries."

"But that will be extremely difficult; anyone might recognise us."

"I know. Have you any better ideas?"

We therefore prepared to plunge into the crowd at the market on the Piazza Navona. How immense was our disappointment when we found ourselves facing a half-empty square, animated only by sparse groups, in the centre of which, from the height of a box or a seat, bearded and sweaty orators waved their arms, haranguing and declaiming. No market, no vendors, no stalls piled up with fruit and vegetables, no crowd.

"The deuce, it is Sunday!" said Atto and I, almost in unison.

On Sunday, there was no market: that was why there were so few people in the streets. The quarantine and our too frequent adventures had made us lose count of the days.

As on all feast days, the priests were the lords of the piazza, preachers and pious men who, with edifying sermons attracted, some by the subtleties of their logic, some by the stentorian flow of their eloquence, small gaggles of students, scholars, loafers, mendicants, and even cutpurses, always ready to profit from the distraction of the other spectators. The gay quotidian chaos of the market had given way to a grave, leaden atmosphere; and, as though yielding to that atmosphere, clouds suddenly covered the sun.

We crossed the piazza stunned by disappointment, feeling even more naked and defenceless than we in fact were. We moved away from the centre of the square to the right-hand side, where we tiptoed along the walls, hoping to attract no attention. I was startled when a little boy, coming out from a nearby hut, pointed us out to the adult who was accompanying him. The latter stared briefly at us and then, fortunately, ceased to attend to our furtive and miserable presence.

"They will notice us, damn it. Let us try to merge into the crowd," said Atto, pointing out to me a nearby group of people.

So we mixed with a small but compact assembly, gathered around an invisible central point. We were just a few paces from the Cavalier Bernini's great Fountain of the Four Rivers in the middle of the piazza; the four titanic anthropomorphic statues of the aquatic deities, almost admonitory in their marmoreal potency, seemed to be participating in the pious atmosphere of the piazza. From within the fountain, a stone lion scrutinised me, ferocious but impotent. Above the monument, however, there stood an obelisk all covered in hieroglyphics and capped with a little golden pyramid, almost naturally pointing towards the Most High. Was this not precisely the obelisk which had been deciphered by Kircher, as someone had told me a few days earlier? But I was distracted by the crowd, which moved further forward, the better to listen to the sermon which I could hear coming from a few paces beyond.

In the forest of heads, backs and shoulders I could descry the preacher for only a few brief instants. His hat revealed him to be a Jesuit brother; he was a rotund purple-faced little man wearing a tri- corn too big for his head and entertaining with torrential eloquence the small, tight group of spectators who had gathered around him.

"… And what is the life of devotion?" I heard him declaim. "I tell you that it is to speak little, to weep much, to be mocked first by this man, then by that, to tolerate poverty in one's life, suffering in one's body, insults to one's honour, injuries to one's interests. And, can such a life not be most unhappy? I tell you, yes it can!"

The crowd was stirred by a hubbub of incredulity and scepticism.

"I know," continued the preacher vehemently. "Persons who live the life of the spirit are accustomed to these evils and would even wish spontaneously to suffer from them. And if they do not find them upon their way, they go out hunting for them!"

Another murmur of disquiet traversed the crowd.

"Think of Simon of Cyrene, who feigned madness in order to be mocked at by the people. Think of Bernard of Clairvaux, who suffered from poor health and always took refuge in the iciest and most cruel of hermitages! And do you therefore account them to have been no more than miserable wretches? No, no, listen with me to what the great prelate Salviano said."

Abbot Melani caught my attention by pulling at my sleeve. "The way seems clear, let us go."

We moved towards the way out from the square nearest to the Donzello, hoping that those last footsteps would not hold any bad surprises for us.

"The great prelate Salviano may say what he will, but I cannot wait to get changed," complained Atto, nearing the limits of his patience and endurance.

Without having the courage to turn round, I had the disagreeable impression that someone was following us.

We were on the point of emerging safely from our perilous crossing when the unforeseeable occurred. Atto was proceeding ahead of me, skirting the wall of a palazzo, when from a little doorway I saw a pair of robust and decisive hands dart forth, seize him and drag him indoors by force. This terrible vision, together with my overwhelming weariness, almost caused me to lose my senses. 1 was petrified, unable to decide whether to run away or to call for help, in both of which cases I ran the risk of being identified and arrested.

Extricating me from the horns of this dilemma, there came from behind me a familiar voice, whose sound was so improbable as to appear celestial: "Get you ultraquickly into the coneyhole!"

Great though Abbot Melani's scorn for the corpisantari may have been, I believe that on this occasion he had no little difficulty in hiding his gratitude for their intervention. Not only had Ugonio miraculously survived the Cloaca Maxima, but after rejoining Ciacconio, he had tracked us down again and-although the method employed may have been somewhat rough-had brought us to safety. It was, however, Ciacconio who had dragged Atto through the little door on the Piazza Navona, whither Ugonio now urged me to enter in my turn.

Once beyond the threshold, and without giving us the time to ask any questions, the corpisantari made us pass through another little door and climb down an exceedingly steep flight of stairs which in turn led to a narrow and even more dismal windowless corridor. Ciacconio produced a lantern which, absurdly, he seemed to have been concealing, already lit, in the folds of his grimy overcoat. Our saviour seemed to be as soaked as we, and yet he trotted along as boldly and rapidly as ever.

"Where are you taking us?" asked Atto, for once surprised and no longer master of the situation.

"The Piazzame Navonio is perditious," said Ugonio, "and, to be more padre than parricide, the subpantheon is more salubricious."

I remembered that, during one of our explorations of gallery C, the corpisantari had shown us the way to an exit which led to the courtyard of a palace behind the Pantheon, not far from the Piazza della Rotonda. For a good quarter of an hour, they led us from cellar to cellar, through an uninterrupted sequence of obscure doorways, steps, abandoned store-rooms, spiral staircases and galleries. Every now and then, Ugonio would bring out his ring laden with keys, open a door, let us through, then lock the door behind us with four or five turns of the key. Atto and I, already exhausted, were pushed and dragged along by the two corpisantari like two mortal vessels whose souls were ready to abandon them at any moment.

We arrived at last before a sort of great wooden portal which opened creaking onto a courtyard. The daylight again hurt our pupils. From the courtyard, we emerged into a little alleyway and from there into another half-abandoned courtyard, to which we gained access through a door without any lock.

"Ultraquickly into the coneyhole!" exhorted Ugonio, showing me a wooden trap in the ground. We raised the lid, revealing a dark and suffocating well. Across the top was laid an iron bar, from which hung a rope; and this we swarmed down. We already knew where it led: to the network of tunnels connected to the Donzello.

As the trapdoor closed over our heads, I saw the cowled heads of Ugonio and Ciacconio disappear into the light of day. I would have liked to ask Ugonio how he had managed to survive the wreck of our boat in the Cloaca Maxima and how the deuce he had got out from there, but I had no time. While I lowered myself, grasping the rope, for a fleeting instant it seemed to me that Ugonio's eyes met my own. Inexplicably, it seemed to me that he knew what I was thinking. I was happy that he was safe.

Hardly had I returned to my chamber than I changed in a rush and hid my dirty, mud-stained clothing. At once, I betook myself to Cristo-fano's apartment, ready to justify my absence by an improbable visit to the cellars. Too exhausted to worry, I was ready to face questions and objections for which I was utterly unable to find a reply.

Cristofano, however, was sleeping. Perhaps still exhausted by the crisis of the day before, he had gone to bed without even closing his door. He lay clumsily sprawled across the bed, half-dressed.

I took care not to awaken him. The sun was low on the horizon; I still had time for something before the appointment we had fixed with Devize in Bedfordi's chamber: to sleep.

Contrary to my expectations, this sleep did not restore me. My rest was troubled by tormented and convulsed dreams, in which I relived those terrible moments when I was under the capsized bark; then those disquieting discoveries on the islet of the Mithraeum, and lastly, the nightmare of the Cloaca Maxima, in which I believed that I had met with death. That was why, when Cristofano's fists pounded on my door, I arose almost wearier than before.

The physician did not seem to be in good form either. Two heavy bluish bags under the eyes marked his weary countenance; his gaze was watery and distant, and his posture, which I usually found so solid and erect, was slightly bent. He neither greeted me nor asked me anything, thank heavens, about the previous night.

On the contrary, I found myself reminding him that we would soon have to make the usual arrangements for our guests' breakfast. First, however, we must turn our minds to the emergency. It was time to put Robleda's theories to the test: Bedfordi's infection would, this time, be treated by the notes of Devize's guitar. I went to inform the Jesuit that we were about to follow his advice. We called Devize and we then went to the adjoining chamber, where the poor Englishman lay.

The young musician had brought his little stool with him so that he could play in the corridor without entering the sickroom and thus risking his own health. The door would remain open, so that the guitar's (we hoped) beneficent sound could penetrate within. Cristofano, however, posted himself right by Bedfordi's bed, in order to observe the patient's reactions, if any.

I stood discreetly in the corridor, a few yards from the musician. Devize sat on his little stool, sought the most comfortable position and began to tune his instrument. He soon broke off and warmed his hands with an allemande. This, he followed with a courante, after which he turned to a severe sarabande. He stopped again to tune and asked Cristofano for news of the patient.

"Nothing new."

The concert continued with a gavotte and a gigue.

"Nothing new-nothing, nothing, nothing. He does not seem even to hear," said the doctor, both discouraged and impatient.

It was then that Devize at last played what I had long awaited, the one piece which, among all the dances I had heard him perform, seemed capable of capturing the attention and the heart of all the guests at the inn: the superb rondeau which his master Francesco Corbetta had written for Maria Teresa, Queen of France.

As I suspected, I was not alone in awaiting those fatally fascinating notes. Devize executed the rondeau once, then again, and then a third time, as though to let it be understood that, to him, too, those notes were-for unknown reasons-most sweet and delectable. We all remained in silence, rapt in like manner. We had listened to this music so many times, yet we could never hear it enough.

But while we were listening to the rondeau for the fourth time, my pleasure in the sounds gave way to something utterly unexpected. Lulled by the cyclical repetition of the ritornello, I suddenly thought: what was it that Devize had said about it on the first day? The alternate strophes of the rondeau "contain ever new harmonic assays, which all conclude in an unexpected fashion, almost as though alien to good musical doctrine. And after reaching its apogee, the rondeau brusquely enters its finale."

And what had Abbot Melani read in the letter from Kircher? That the plague, too, is cyclical and "there is in the final stages something unexpected, mysterious, foreign to medical doctrine: after reaching the height of its strength, the disease senescit ab abrupto, or suddenly begins to come to an end."

The words used by Devize to describe the rondeau were almost identical to those used by Kircher when speaking of the plague.

I waited until the music ended and at last put the question which I should have asked long-too long-before: "Signor Devize, has this rondeau a name?"

"Yes, 'Les Barricades Mysterieuses'," he pronounced slowly.

I remained silent.

"In Italian, one says… barricate misteriose, mysterious barricades," he added, as though to fill the silence.

I froze, utterly speechless.

Mysterious barricades, les barricades mysterieuses: were those not the same obscure words which Atto Melani had muttered in his sleep the afternoon before?

I had no time to answer my own question. Already, my mind was galloping out of control towards other mysterious barricades, the arcanae obices of Kircher's letter…

My thoughts were swept away. Cast into a sea of suspicion and illusion by the exasperating buzz which those two Latin words had left in my mind, I was seized by vertigo. I rose suddenly to my feet and rushed straight to my chamber, under the astonished gaze of Cristofano and Devize, who was just beginning to play the same piece once more.

I slammed the door behind me, crushed by the weight of that discovery and by all the consequences which, like the most ruinous of avalanches, it carried with it.

The terrible mystery of Kircher's arcanae obices, the mysterious obstacles which concealed the secretum vitae, had at last taken form before my very eyes.

I needed a pause for reflection, in total solitude, in my own room; not so much in order to clarify my ideas as to understand with whom I could share them.

Atto and I were on the trail of those arcanae obices or "mysterious barricades" which had the supreme capacity to overcome the pestilence, as mentioned by Kircher in the ravings of his last letter to Superintendent Fouquet; then, I had heard the abbot, in his sleep, name the still unidentified barricades mysterieuses in the language of his chosen country. And now, when I asked Devize the name of the rondeau which he was playing in order to heal the plague-ridden Bedfordi, I learned that its very title was "Les Barricades Mysterieuses". Someone knew far more than he was prepared to admit.

"But you really have no idea about anything!" exclaimed Abbot Melani.

I had just awoken him from a deep sleep in order to obtain explanations and suddenly the fire of the news had rendered incandescent both his words and his gestures. He asked me to repeat my account word for word: about Devize who was playing the rondeau for Bedfordi's health and who had freely confessed to me that the music was entitled "Les Barricades Mysterieuses".

"Pardon me, but you must leave me a few minutes in which to reflect," said he, almost overcome by what I had told him.

"Yet you know that I desire your explanations, and that…"

"Yes, of course, of course, but now please let me think."

So, I had to leave him and again to knock at his door a few minutes later. From his eyes, which had regained their vigilance and pugnacity, I would have thought that he had never slept.

"Just at this moment when we are near to the truth, you have chosen to become my enemy," he began, in almost heartbroken tones.

"Not your enemy," I hastened to correct him, "but you must understand that…"

"Enough," he interrupted me. "Just try to reason for one moment."

"If you will permit me, Signor Atto, this time I am able to reason perfectly well. And I say to myself: how is it possible that you should know the title of that rondeau, and that it should also be the translation of arcanae obices?"

I felt proud to have that most sagacious of beings with his back to the wall. I stared at him suspiciously and accusingly.

"Have you finished?"

"Yes."

"Very well," said he at length, "now let me speak. In my sleep, you heard me murmur ' barricades mysterieuses’ if I have understood you correctly."

"Exactly."

"Well, as you know, that is more or less a translation of arcanae obices."

"Indeed. And I want to know once and for all how you knew…"

"Be quiet, be quiet, that is not the point."

"But you…"

"Trust me just this one last time. What I am about to tell you will make you change your mind."

"Signor Atto, I cannot follow these mysteries any longer, and besides…"

"You need follow nothing. We are there already. The secret of the arcanae obices lies here between us, and perhaps it is more yours than mine."

"What do you mean?"

"That you have seen it, or better, heard it more often than I."

"Pardon me?"

"The secretum vitae which protects against the plague is in that music."

This time, it was I who needed time to get used to the shocking news. In the marvellous rondeau which had so fascinated me, lay the centre of the mystery of Kircher and Fouquet, of the Sun King and Maria Teresa.

Atto gave me time to blush, a helpless prey to surprise, and to stammer defencelessly: "But I thought… it is not possible."

"That is what I too said to myself initially, but if you think about the matter, you will understand. Just follow my reasoning: have I not told you that Corbetta, Devize's master, was expert at encrypting messages into his music?"

"Yes, that is true."

"Good. And Devize himself told you that the rondeau 'Les Barricades Mysterieuses' was composed by Corbetta and that, before he died, he presented it to Queen Maria Teresa."

"That, too, is true."

"Well, the dedication of the rondeau, which you saw with your own eyes, is ' a Mademoiselle': the wife of Lauzun. Lauzun was in prison with Fouquet; and Fouquet had received the secret of the plague from Kircher. Now Fouquet, when he was still Superintendent, must have commissioned Corbetta to encrypt in music the secretum vitae (or arcanae obices or mysterious barricades, if you prefer) which brings salvation from the pestilence."

"But you told me that Kircher too knew how to encrypt messages in music."

"Certainly. Indeed, I do not exclude the possibility that Kircher may have passed on to Fouquet the secretum vitae already encrypted in a musical score. It is, however, probable that such music was still at a rather rough, preparatory stage. Do you remember what Devize told you? Corbetta created the rondeau, rearranging it on the basis of an earlier melody. I am sure he was referring to Kircher. Not only that: Devize himself, playing it again and again on his guitar, may have so perfected its performance that it became quite impossible to suspect that so sublime a harmony might conceal a message in ciphers. Incredible, is it not? I myself find it difficult to believe."

"And it is in the form of a rondeau that the Superintendent must jealously have conserved the secretum vitae."

"Yes, that music somehow survived all the misadventures which befell my friend Nicolas."

"Until in Pinerol…"

"… he confided it to Lauzun. But do you know what I think about this? That it was Lauzun himself who wrote the dedication 'a Mademoiselle '. He will have given it to his wife to pass on to Queen Maria Teresa."

"Yet Devize told me that the score was a gift from Corbetta to the Queen."

"A tall story, and one of no importance. A way of complicating a simple tale for you: the truth is that, after Corbetta, and before Maria Teresa came into possession of that rondeau, it passed through the hands of Fouquet, Lauzun and Mademoiselle."

"One thing does not make sense to me, Signor Atto: did you not suspect that Lauzun was imprisoned at Pinerol near to the Superintendent in order to extract the secret from him?"

"Perhaps Lauzun served two masters. Instead of spying on and betraying Fouquet, he may have preferred to talk openly to him- also because the Squirrel was most perspicacious. Thus, Lauzun will have helped him to win his own freedom from the King in exchange for the secretum morbi. But, and this would do him honour, he will have avoided revealing to His Most Christian Majesty the fact that Fouquet also possessed the secretum vitae, in other words, the rondeau. On the contrary, he and Mademoiselle will have availed themselves of the opportunity to revenge themselves on the King and to place the precious antidote to the plague in the hands of His Majesty's enemies: beginning, and it pains me greatly to say this, with his wife Maria Teresa, may the Lord keep her in His Glory."

I remained deep in thought, going over in my mind all the notions which Atto had set before me.

"There is truly something strange in that music," I observed, drawing all the threads of my memory together. "It is as though it… came and went, always the same, yet always different. I cannot explain this well, but it brings to mind what Kircher wrote about the pestilence: the distemper moves away, then returns; and in the end, it dies just when it has reached its paroxysm. It is as though… that music spoke of this."

"Indeed? So much the better. That there is in this music something mysterious and indefinable, I too, had thought, ever since I first heard it."

In the heat of our discussion, I had completely forgotten the reason for my calling upon Abbot Melani: to obtain an explanation of those words which he had pronounced in his sleep. Yet again, however, Atto would not let me speak.

"Listen to me. Two unresolved problems remain: first of all, to whom could the antidote of the secretum vitae against the secretum morbi, and thus against His Most Christian Majesty, be useful? Secondly: whatever is Dulcibeni plotting? How is it that he was travelling with Devize and Fouquet before my poor friend,"-and here, Atto's voice again broke under the weight of emotion-"came to die at your hostelry?"

I was about to remind him that he had also to discover to whom or to what Fouquet's strange death was attributable, and what had become of my little pearls, when the abbot, paternally cupping my chin in the palm of his hand, continued: "Now I ask you, if I had known at what door to knock in order to find the arcanae obices mentioned by Kircher, would I have wasted all this time just for the pleasure of your company?"

"Well, perhaps not."

"Certainly not: I would have set my sights directly upon Devize and the secret of his rondeau. Perhaps I would have succeeded without too much difficulty: it is possible that Devize himself does not know what is embedded in the rondeau of the 'Barricades Mysterieuses'. And we could forget about Corbetta, Lauzun, Mademoiselle and all that horribly complicated tale."At that precise moment, our eyes met.

"No, my boy. I must admit it, you are most precious to me, but I do not intend to deceive you in order to obtain your services. Now, however, Abbot Melani must ask you to make one last sacrifice. Will you still obey me?"

I was spared a reply by the echo of a scream: I had no difficulty in identifying the voice of Cristofano.

I left Abbot Melani and ran directly to Bedfordi's chamber.

"Triumph! Wonder! Victory!" the doctor kept repeating, his face purple with emotion, his hand on his heart and his back against the wall to prevent himself from falling.

The young Englishman, Eduardus Bedfordi, was sitting on the edge of his bed, coughing noisily.

"Could I have a drink of water?" he asked in a hoarse voice, as though he had awoken from a long sleep.

A quarter of an hour later, all the lodgers were gathered around the stunned Devize, before Bedfordi's door. Jubilant and breathless at the happy surprise, the inhabitants of the Donzello had all flowed like a little torrent into the corridor on the first floor, and now they were bombarding one another with exclamations of amazement and questions to which they did not even expect an answer. They dared not yet approach Cristofano and the newly revived Englishman: the doctor had meanwhile regained his self-control and was meticulously examining his patient. His response was not long in coming: "He is well. He is very well, by Jove! I'd say that he has never been better!" exclaimed Cristofano, allowing himself to give way to an outburst of liberating laughter, which spread to all the others.

Unlike Signor Pellegrino, my master, Bedfordi had immediately recovered his normal consciousness. He asked what had happened and why he was bandaged everywhere and suffering such pain in all his members: the excision of the tokens and the incisions for bleeding him had played havoc with his young body.

He remembered nothing; and to every question that was put to him, by Brenozzi in the first place, he would react with bewilderment, opening his eyes wide and wearily shaking his head.

Looking more closely, I saw that not all were in the same humour. The rejoicing of Padre Robleda, Brenozzi, Stilone Priaso and my

Cloridia (who regaled me with a lovely smile) were in contrast to the absorbed silence of Devize and Dulcibeni's waxen pallor. I observed Abbot Melani, lost in thought, ask something of Cristofano. He then withdrew and returned up the stairs.

It was only then that, in the general turmoil, Bedfordi at last understood that he had had the plague and had for days on end been given up for lost.

"But then, the vision…" he exclaimed.

"What vision?" came a chorus of questions.

"Well… I think that I have been in hell."

Thus he related that, of his illness, he remembered only having suddenly experienced a long, long fall downwards, and the fire. After who knows how long, no less a personage than Lucifer stopped before him. The Devil, with green skin, moustaches and a goatee on his chin (just like those of Cristofano, he pointed out) had planted one of his red hot talons, from which leapt tongues of fire, in his throat, and had tried to tear out his soul. Not succeeding in this, Lucifer had brandished his pitchfork and transfixed him with it again and again, almost draining him of all his blood. Then the foul beast had clutched his poor, exhausted body and thrown him into boiling pitch; and here Bedfordi swore that this had all seemed horribly real to him and that he would never have believed that one could suffer such pain. And in that pitch, the young man had remained for who knows how long, contorted by suffering, and he had begged God for forgiveness for all his sins and his little faith and had implored the Most High to rescue him from that infernal Hades. Then, darkness.

We all listened in religious silence; but now the guests' voices were competing for who should shout "Miracle!" the loudest. Padre Robleda, who throughout the narration had been continuously making the sign of the cross, stepped forward prudently from the group and, deeply affected, signed the air in blessing; whereupon some knelt and crossed themselves in turn.

Only the physician's countenance had darkened. He knew well, as did I, whence Bedfordi's vision came: it was none other than the delirious memory of the cruel therapies to which Cristofano had subjected him as he lay prostrate in the clutches of the pestilence. The diabolical claw which tried to tear out his soul was in reality the imperial musk with which Cristofano had induced vomiting; the cruel pitchfork of Lucifer, we recognised without difficulty as the harness which the physician had employed when bleeding his patient; lastly, the boiling pitch was none other than the cauldron over which we had placed Bedfordi for his steam bath.

Bedfordi was hungry, but, at the same time, he said he was suffering from a strong sensation of burning in the stomach. Cristofano then commanded me to warm him a little of the good broth of stockdove which had already been prepared. This would both nourish him and pacify his bowels. At this juncture, however, the Englishman fell asleep.

We resolved then to let him rest and all descended together to the chambers on the ground floor. Oddly enough, no one was troubled by the fact that he had left his own apartment; nor did Cristofano remember to scold them all and make them return to their own chambers. The plague seemed to have gone; so, by tacit accord, our seclusion was at an end; and no one so much as mentioned it.

The guests of the Donzello seemed also to be suffering the pangs of great hunger; wherefore, I descended to the cellars, determined to cook something tasty and rich with which to celebrate. While with my head down almost to the ground among the boxes of snow I searched among kids' heads and feet, sweetbreads, legs of mutton and chicken, a multitude of thoughts passed through my mind. Bedfordi was cured. How was that possible? Devize had played for him, as recommended by Padre Robleda: was the Jesuit's theory about the magnetism of music then true? It was indeed true that the Englishman seemed to have awoken only after "Les Barricades Mysterieuses"… But was that rondeau not supposed to be a mere cipher concealing the secretum vitae? That had at least been Abbot Melani's assumption. Now, however, the melody itself had perhaps proved to be the agent of the cure… No, I really could make no sense of the whole matter. I must speak of this with Abbot Melani as soon as possible.

Returning up the stairs, I heard the voice of Cristofano. In the dining hall, I saw that Atto had joined the group.

"What is one to say?" asked the physician, addressing the little assembly. "It may have been the magnetism of the music, as Father Robleda avers, or my remedies, I do not know. The truth is that no one knows why the pestilence disappears so suddenly. The most wondrous thing is that Bedfordi had shown no sign of improvement. On the contrary, he was near death, and I should soon have been compelled to inform you that all hope was lost."Robleda nodded emphatically at that juncture, thus showing that he was already implicated in those desperate moments.

"I can tell you," continued Cristofano, "that this is not the first such case. There are those who explain such mysterious recoveries by contending that nothing of the pestilence remains in the furniture or in the houses or in material things, but can disappear overnight. I recollect that when I was in Rome during the Visitation of 1656, no remedy having been found, it was decided to initiate a great fast and many processions during which the people went barefoot, in sackcloth and ashes, begging forgiveness for their sins, their faces wet with tears, all mournful and dolorous. God then sent the Archangel Michael, who was seen by all the people of Rome on the 8th of May above the Castello with a bloody sword in his hand: from that moment on, the pestilence ceased and of the infection, nothing remained, not even in clothing or in beds, which are usually among the most dangerous vehicles of contagion. Nor is that all. The historians of antiquity also tell of such strange instances. In the year 567, it is told that there was a visitation of a most terrible and cruel pestilence throughout the world, and only a quarter of humanity survived. Yet the plague suddenly ceased and infection remained in no object."

"In the Plague of 1468," Brenozzi added in support of the physician's assertions, "more than thirty-six thousand died in Venice, and in Brescia, over twenty thousand; and many houses remained uninhabited. But these two visitations came to a sudden end and the infection was left in no thing. The same occurred during the visitations that followed: in 1485, the pestilence returned to Venice in the most horrendous form and killed many nobles, including even the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo; in 1527, it spread throughout the whole world and, finally, in 1556, it reappeared in Venice and all its dominions, although, thanks to the good governance of the senators, it did little damage. Nevertheless, at a certain point during every one of these visitations, the pestilence suddenly died out and not a trace of it remained. How, how can that be explained?" he concluded grandiloquently, growing red in the face.

"Well, I would until now have preferred to say nothing in order not to bring bad luck upon us," Stilone Priaso added solemnly, "but, according to the astrologers, because of the malign influence of the Dog Star during the last two weeks of August and the first three of September, all those contaminated by the pestilence should die within two or three days, or even within twenty-four hours. Indeed, in London, during the plague of 1665, that was the worst period, and it is said that in a single night, between one o'clock and three in the morning, more than thirty thousand persons perished. During the same period, nothing of the sort happened to us."

A shiver of fear and relief traversed the little assembly, while Robleda rose to poke around in the kitchen. As soon as the kids' heads, the gigot and the chicken began to give off their first sweet aromas, I served soup with asparagus and citrus fruit, in order to settle the stomach.

"I remember that, when I was in Rome in '56," said Cristofano, resuming his narration, "the pestilence was in full spate. I was then a young physician and my colleague, who had come to visit me, told me that the fury of the distemper was about to abate. Yet, it was precisely in that week that the bulletins reported more deaths than throughout the whole year, and I pointed this out to my fellow-practitioner. He gave me the most surprising of replies. 'Judging by the number of persons who are sick at this moment,' said he, 'if the distemper were still as fatal as it was two weeks or so ago, we should have had three times as many dead. Then, it killed within two to three days, but now it lasts eight to ten days. Two weeks ago, moreover, one sick person in five survived, while now we count at least three cures. You may be certain that next week's bulletin will show a far lower mortality, and that there will be ever more recoveries. The distemper has lost its virulence, and, although the number of those infected is enormous, however long the infection itself may last, the number of deaths will be ever less elevated.'"

"And was it so?" asked Devize, visibly perturbed.

"Precisely so. Two weeks later, the bulletin showed half as many deaths. To tell the truth, many still died, but the number of those who recovered was far greater."

In the weeks that followed, it was to become even clearer, explained Cristofano, that his colleague had been right: within a month, deaths had almost ceased to be reported, although the sick still numbered tens of thousands.

"The distemper had lost its malignancy," repeated the doctor "and not gradually, but at the very height of its fury, when we were most desperate; just as has happened today in the case of the young Englishman."

"Only the hand of God could so swiftly interrupt the course of the distemper," commented the Jesuit with great emotion.

Cristofano gravely nodded in agreement: "Medicine was powerless in the face of the infection; death harvested thousands at every street corner; and, had matters continued thus for two or three more weeks, not a soul would have been left alive in Rome."

Once it had lost its death-dealing potency, the physician continued, the distemper killed only a small proportion of those infected. The physicians themselves were astounded by this. They saw that their patients were getting better; they sweated abundantly and their tokens soon matured, their pustules were no longer inflamed, fevers were not so extreme and they no longer suffered from terrible pain in the head. Even those physicians whose faith was less fervent were obliged to admit that the sudden decline of the pestilence was of supernatural origin.

"The streets filled with persons who had just been cured, with their necks and heads still bandaged; or limping from the scars left by the tokens in the groin. And all were exulting that they had escaped so great a peril."

It was then that Padre Robleda stood up and, drawing a crucifix from his black tunic, brandished it before his listeners, proclaiming: "How marvellous a change, O Lord! Until yesterday, we were buried alive, but Thou hast restored us to the land of the living!"

We knelt and, ardent in our gratitude, intoned our praise to the Most High, guided by the Jesuit. Whereupon, when luncheon was served, all sat down to eat with a great appetite.

I, however, could not free my mind from the thought of those words of Cristofano: the plague possessed it own obscure natural cycle, in accordance with which, after spreading, it suddenly dissipated, losing its virulence until, at last, it disappeared altogether. Mysteriously it departed, as it had come. Morbus crescit sic ut mortales, senescit ex abrupto… — . the distemper grows like mortals, and suddenly grows old. Were not those the same words as Abbot Melani had read in the strange letter from Padre Kircher which he had discovered in Dulcibeni's drawers?

After hastily consuming my meal at the big kitchen table, I found Atto in the dining hall. We understood one another at a glance. I would be calling on him as soon as possible.

So, I went to bring his luncheon to Pellegrino, who could be considered as cured, were it not for his continual giddiness. The doctor joined me there, advising me that he in person would bring his broth to the young Englishman.

"Signor Cristofano, could we not perhaps ask Devize to play in my master's chamber, too, so that he might again become as sharp-witted as he once was?" I took the opportunity of asking him.

"I do not believe it would be of any use, my boy. Unfortunately, matters have not gone as I had hoped: Pellegrino will not fully recover that soon. I am certain that this was not a case of the spotted fever, nor indeed of the pestilence, as even you will have realised."

"Then what is wrong with him?" I murmured, troubled by the innkeeper's fixed, bewildered stare.

"Blood in the head, because of his fall down the stairs: a clot of blood which will only very gradually be reabsorbed. I think that we shall all leave here safe and sound before that happens. But, do not worry, your master has a wife, has he not?"

So saying, he departed. While feeding Pellegrino, I thought with a pang in my heart of his sad fate, when his severe spouse returned to find him in that vague condition.

"Do you recall what we read?" asked Atto no sooner than I had entered his chamber. "According to Kircher, the pestilence is born, grows, becomes old and dies just like men. When it is about to die, it augments and reaches its greatest strength before expiring."

"Exactly as Cristofano said just now."

"Yes. And do you know what that means?"

"Perhaps that Bedfordi recovered on his own, or not thanks to the rondeau?" said I, hazarding a guess.

"You disappoint me, my boy. Do you really not understand? The plague in this hostelry was barely at its beginnings: it should have accomplished a massacre before losing its virulence. Instead, matters went otherwise. Not one of us others fell ill. And do you know what I think? Since Devize, compelled to keep to his chamber, began to play the rondeau ever more frequently, those notes, spreading throughout the inn, have preserved us from the infection."

"Do you honestly believe that it is thanks to that music that no one else among us fell victim to the pestilence?" I asked sceptically.

"It is surprising, 1 know. But think now: in all history, it has never sufficed, when faced with the spread of the plague, simply to withdraw alone to one's chamber. As for Cristofano's remedies to preserve us from the infection, forget it!" said the abbot with a laugh. "Besides, the facts speak for themselves: the doctor was in contact with Bedfordi every single day, after which, he visited all the others. Yet neither he nor any of us ever fell ill. How do you explain that?"

Indeed, I thought, if I was immune to the infection, one could not say as much of Cristofano.

"Not only that," Atto continued, "once Bedfordi himself was directly exposed to the notes of the rondeau, just when he was about to give up the ghost, he awoke and the distemper literally vanished."

"It is as though… Padre Kircher had discovered a secret which, in those already suffering from the plague, speeds up the natural cycle of the disease, inducing its extinction without having wrought any harm. Yet this is also a secret capable of preserving the healthy from the infection."

"Bravo, you have got it. The secretum vitae concealed in the rondeau functions precisely thus."

Bedfordi, concluded Atto, making himself at ease on his bed, was all but resuscitated when Devize played for him. The idea had come from Padre Robleda, persuaded of the health-giving magnetism of music. Initially, however, the French musician had played for a long time without anything happening.

"You will have noticed that, after Bedfordi's recovery, I stopped to speak to the doctor; well, he made it clear to me that only after Devize had begun to play the rondeau and had repeated it ad infinitum, did the Englishman show signs of life. I wondered: whatever is hidden in those blessed 'Barricades Mysterieuses'?"

"I too had wondered about that, Signor Atto: the melody must have mysterious powers."

"Exactly. As though in it Kircher had concealed a thaumaturgical secret, yet the content was one with the casket; so much so as to radiate its potent and health-giving effects to anyone who so much as listened to the rondeau. Now do you understand?"

I assented, with rather less than true conviction.

"But could we not find out more about this?" I tried to ask. "We could try to decrypt the rondeau. You understand music. I could attempt to borrow Devize's scores from him and from there we could work by trial and error; or perhaps we might even obtain something from Devize himself."

The abbot stopped me with a gesture.

"Do not imagine that he knows any more than we do," he retorted, smiling. "Besides, what does that all matter to us now? The power of music: there is the real secret. During these days and nights we have done nothing but rationalise: we wanted to understand everything and at all costs. Rather presumptuously, we meant to square the circle. And I was the first to behave thus:

Qual e 'l geometra che tutto s'affige per misurar lo cerchio, e non ritrova, pensando, quelprincipio ond'elli indige, tal era io a quella vista nova.* as the poet says."

"The words of Seigneur Luigi, your master?"

"These words, no. They were penned a few centuries ago by my divine countryman, who is now out of fashion. What I mean to tell you is simply that while we racked our brains, we neglected to use our hearts."

"Did we then misinterpret everything, Signor Atto?"

"No. All that we discovered, all our insights and our deductions, were perfectly correct; but incomplete."

"Meaning?"

"Of course, in that rondeau there is encrypted I know not what formula of Kircher's against the pestilence. That, however, is not all that Kircher had to say. The secretum vitae, the secret of life, is something more. And that cannot be expressed: you will find it neither in words nor in numbers, but in music. That, then, is Kircher's message."

Atto, still half-reclining, had leaned his head against the wall and was looking dreamily over, and far beyond, my head.

I was disappointed: Abbot Melani's explanation did not calm my curiosity.

"But is there no way of deciphering the melody of the Barricades Mysterieuses? Thus we would at last be able to read the secret formula which protects against the pestilence," I insisted.

"Forget it. We could spend centuries here, studying those pages without finding a single syllable. There remains to us only what we

As the geometer who tries all ways he can

To square the circle, yet cannot,

By thinking, find out the principle involved,

So was I, when faced with that new sight.

— Dante Paradiso. (Translator's note.)

have seen and heard today: simply upon hearing it, that rondeau protects against the plague. That should suffice for us. In what manner it brings this about, it is not, however, given to us to understand: '"High fantasy here lost its power'," intoned the abbot, again quoting the poet, his countryman, and concluding: "That madman Athanasius Kircher was a great man of science and of the Faith, and with his rondeau, he gave us a great lesson in humility. Never forget that, my boy."

Resting on my couch, I awaited sleep, wearied by the hurricane of revelations and surprises. I was a prey to endless cogitations and stirrings of the soul. Only at the close of my conversation with Atto had I understood the double and inextricable magic of that rondeau, it was no accident if the "Barricades Mysterieuses" bore that name; and there was indeed no sense in deciphering them. Like Kircher, Abbot Melani had taught me a noble lesson: the profession of humility by a man in whom neither pride nor mistrust were in any way lacking. I mused vaguely for a long time yet upon the mystery of the "Barricades", while striving in vain to hum its touching melody.

I had also been touched by the paternal tone in which Atto had called me "my boy". I was lulled by that thought, so much so that only when I was on the point of falling asleep did I recollect that, for all his fine words and reassurances, he had not yet explained to me how come he had, the day before, pronounced the words " barricades mysterieuses", in his sleep.

I spent I know not how many hours resting in my little chamber. On my awakening, a sovereign silence reigned over the Donzello. The hostelry, once the uproar had died down, seemed to have fallen into lethargy: I pricked up my ears, yet I could hear neither Devize's playing nor Brenozzi's importunate ramblings. Nor had Cristofano come to look for me.

It was still early to prepare supper, yet I resolved to descend to the kitchen: as I had already done at luncheon, only even more so, I desired adequately to celebrate the good news of Bedfordi's recovery and the return to the Donzello of the hope of freedom. I would prepare tasty little redwings, or thrushes, fresh as could be. On the stairs, I met Cristofano, whom I asked for news of the Englishman.

"He is well, very well," said he, contentedly. "He is only in pain… er… because of the cutting of the tokens," he added, with a hint of embarrassment.

"I had in mind to cook redwings for dinner. Do you think that would also be suitable for Bedfordi?"

The doctor smacked his lips: "More than suitable: the flesh of thrushes is excellent in savour, both substantial and nutritious, easily digested and good also for convalescents and for all those whose constitution is debilitated. They are now at their best. In winter, however, they arrive from the mountains of Spoleto and Terni, and are very fat, for they have during that season fed on myrtle and juniper berries. When they have eaten myrtle berries, they are, moreover, excellent for curing dysentery. But if you really do intend to cook them," said he with a touch of hungry impatience, "you would do well to make haste: the preparation takes time."

Once on the ground floor, I found that the other guests had descended and were all present, some engaged in conversation, some playing cards, others wandering freely. No one seemed willing to return to those chambers in which they had all feared they might die of the pestilence.

My Cloridia came to me with festive mien: "We are alive again!" she exclaimed happily. "Only Pompeo Dulcibeni is missing, it seems to me," and she looked at me questioningly.

At once, I felt dejected: here, once again, Cloridia was showing her interest in the elderly gentleman from the Marches.

"In truth, Abbot Melani is absent, too," said I, turning my back on her ostentatiously and rushing down to the cellars in order to choose all that I would be needing.

The dinner that followed was the most delicious since that of the cows' teats and-pardon my immodesty-was deservedly received with great and general applause. As I had already seen my master do, I prepared the redwings with the freest and most honest invention. Some, I prepared rolled in breadcrumbs and lightly fried in minced bacon with slices of ham, then covered with broccoli tips cooked in good fat and flavoured with lemon; others, I roasted, after lighting a good blaze, interspersed with sausages and slices of oranges and lemons; or I boiled them with salted stuffing, covered with small fennel or lettuce leaves bound with egg, serving them in nets as roulades or bunched with herbs, and a sauce of spiced mostacciolo cake.

Then, when cooking them, I made many alio spiedo (on skewers), incrosta (in pastry), or interlarded with slices of bacon and bay leaves, anointed with good oil and sprinkled with breadcrumbs. Nor did I fail to cook the redwings as Pellegrino best knew how to: stuffed with bacon and ham slices, sprinkled with cloves and served in a royal sauce; and finally, served in roulades, netted or in marrow leaves. Some other, rather bigger, birds I parboiled, then halved and fried. The whole dish I served with fried green vegetables, simply lacquered with sugar and lemon juice, without cinnamon.

By the time I completed my cooking, I was surrounded by the guests' joyous faces, as they hastened to serve themselves and to share the various dishes. Cloridia, to my surprise, served me my own portion; I had arranged for her a generous serving which I had not omitted to garnish deliciously with parsley and a slice of lemon. My blush was of the deepest crimson, but she did not give me time to breathe a word and with a smile joined the others at table.

In the meanwhile, Abbot Melani, too, had come downstairs. Dulcibeni, however, was not to be seen. I went to knock on his door and ask him whether he wished to dine. Even had I wished to obtain from him some indication of his future intentions, I would have had no means of doing so. He said from behind the door that he was not at all hungry, nor did he desire to talk with anyone. Rather than raise his suspicions, I did not insist. As I was leaving, I heard a by now familiar sound within, a sort of rapid, whistling sniff. Dulcibeni was again at his snuffbox.