Imprimatur

Night the Ninth

Between the 19th and 20th September, 1683

"Urgentitious, perditious and sacrilegious," assured Ugonio, in a voice shaking unaccustomedly with excitement.

"Sacrilegious, what do you mean by that?" asked Abbot Melani.

"Gfrrrlubh," explained Ciacconio, devoutly crossing himself.

"Whene'er he verbalises a sacral mutter, or one that how or whensoever implacates a holy ecclesiasticon, or holy saintliness, or one eminentitious-for by fulfilling one's obligations the Christian's jubilations are increased-Ciacconio duefully denominates him with condescending, lucent and remanent respectuosity."

Atto and I looked at one another in perplexity. The corpisantari seemed unusually agitated and were trying to explain something to us concerning a personage of the Curia, or something of the sort, for whom they appeared to feel no little reverential fear.

Anxious to know the outcome of Ciacconio's incursion into the house of Tiracorda, Atto and I had found them in the Archives, busy as ever with their disgusting pile of bones and filth. According the dignity of language to Ciacconio's grunts, Ugonio had at once put us on guard: in the house of Dulcibeni's physician friend, something dangerous was about to take place, which it was urgent to circumvent and which concerned a high-ranking personage, perhaps a prelate, whose identity was, however, as yet unclear.

"First of all, tell me: how did you gain entry to Tiracorda's house?"

"Gfrrrlubh," replied Ciacconio with a sly smile.

"He entrified via the chimblypipe," explained Ugonio.

"Up the chimney? So that is why he was not even interested to know anything about the windows. But he will have made himself filthy… Excuse me, forget that I said that," said Atto, remembering that filth was the natural element of the two corpisantari.

Ciacconio had managed to climb without too much difficulty into the chimney of the kitchen on the ground floor. Thence, following the sound of voices, he had succeeded in tracing Tiracorda and Dulcibeni to the study, where they were intent on conversing on matters incomprehensible to him.

"They parleyfied argumancies theoristical, and enigmifications, perhaps even thingamies necromaniacal."

"Gfrrrlubh," confirmed Ciacconio, nodding in confirmation, visibly disquieted.

"No, no, have no fear," interrupted Atto with a smile, "those were no more than riddles."

Ciacconio had overheard the enigmas with which Tiracorda enjoyed distracting himself with Dulcibeni and had taken them for obscure cabalistic rituals.

"In parleyfying, the doctorer intimidated that, perduring the nocturn, he would," added Ugonio, "ascend unto Monte Cavallo, there to therapise the sacrosanctified personage."

"I see. Tonight he will go to Monte Cavallo, in other words, to the papal palace, in order to treat that person, that exceedingly important prelate," Atto interpreted, looking at me with a significant expression.

"And then?"

"Then they ingurgitated alcohols magnomcumgaudio, and into the arms of Murphyus the doctorer fell."

Dulcibeni had again brought with him the little liqueur to which the doctor was so partial and with it had put him to sleep.

Here began the most important part of Ciacconio's narration. Hardly had Tiracorda entered the world of dreams than Dulcibeni took from a cupboard a vase decorated with strange designs, on the sides of which were various holes to let in the air. From his pocket, he had then extracted a little phial from which he had poured into Tiracorda's vase a few drops of liquid. Atto and I looked at one another in alarm.

"While effectifying this outpouring, he demurmured: '"For her…'"

" 'For her'… How interesting. And then?"

"Then thereupon did the furiosa represent herself."

"The fury?" we both asked in unison.

The good wife Paradisa had burst into the study, where she had surprised her spouse in thrall to the fumes of Bacchus, and Dulcibeni in possession of the abhorred alcoholic potion.

"She greatly disgorgified herself, in manner most wrathful and cholerific," explained Ugonio.

From what we understood, Paradisa had begun to shower her husband with insults and repeatedly to hurl at him the beakers which had served for their toasts, together with the physician's instruments and whatever came to hand. In order to escape from all those projectiles, Tiracorda had been compelled to take refuge under the table while Dulcibeni had hastily returned to its place the decorated vase into which he had poured those drops of mysterious liquid.

"Exorbitrageous female: most inappropriate for the doctorer, who therapises in order to achieve more benefice than malefice," pronounced Ugonio, shaking his head, while Ciacconio nodded in concerned agreement.

It was, however, at that very moment that Ciacconio's mission suffered a setback. While Paradisa was venting her hatred for wine and grappa upon the defenceless Tiracorda, and Dulcibeni remained quietly in a corner, waiting for the storm to pass, Ciacconio seized the opportunity to satisfy his baser instincts. Already, before the woman's arrival, he had espied upon a shelf an object to his taste.

"Gfrrrlubh," he gurgled complacently, producing from his overcoat and showing us, polished and shining, a magnificent skull, complete with the lower jaw, which Tiracorda had probably used when teaching his students.

While Paradisa's raging grew incandescent, Ciacconio had crept into the study on all fours, making his way around the table under which Tiracorda had hidden, and had managed to purloin the skull without being seen. As chance would have it, a large candlestick which Paradisa had hurled at Tiracorda rebounded and struck Ciacconio. Offended and in pain, the corpisantaro leapt onto the table and met fire with fire, uttering as a war-cry the one and only sound of which his mouth was capable.

Upon the unexpected sight of that repulsive and deformed being, who was, moreover, threatening her with her own candlestick, Paradisa screeched at the very top of her voice. Dulcibeni remained where he stood, as though petrified, and Tiracorda flattened himself even more under the table.

Hearing Paradisa's cries, the servant girls came rushing down from the floor above, just in time to encounter Ciacconio who was hurrying towards the stairs down to the kitchen. The corpisantaro, finding himself faced with three fresh young damsels, could not resist the temptation to lay his clutches upon the one nearest to him.

The poor girl, lasciviously groped by the monster just where her flesh was softest and plumpest, instantly lost her senses; the second maid exploded into hysterical screams, whilst the third ran back to the second floor as fast as her legs could carry her.

"It is not cognisable whether she also pissified upon herself," added Ugonio, cackling rather vulgarly together with his companion.

Crowing savagely at the unhoped-for entertainment, Ciacconio succeeded in regaining the kitchen and the chimney whereby he had made his entry. This, he had rapidly (and in what manner remains inexplicable) ascended until he returned to the roof of Tiracorda's house, thus at last regaining his liberty.

"Incredible!" commented Atto Melani. "These two have more lives than a salamander."

"Gfrrrlubh," specified Ciacconio.

"What did he say?"

"That in the vessel there were not salamanthers but leechies."

"What? Perhaps you mean…" stammered Abbot Melani.

"Leeches," I broke in, "that is what was in the vase which Dulcibeni found so interesting…"

Abruptly, I stopped: a sudden intuition had jolted my thoughts.

"I have it, I have it!" I cried at length, while I saw Atto hanging on my every word. "Dulcibeni, oh my God!.."

"Go on, tell me," begged Melani, grasping me by the shoulders and shaking me like a sapling, while the two corpisantari looked on as curiously as two owls.

"… wants the Pope dead," I gasped.

We all four sat down, almost crushed by the unbearable weight of that revelation.

"The question is," said Atto, "what is the liquid which Dulcibeni secretly poured into the vase of leeches?"

"Something which he must have prepared on his island," I promptly replied, "in the elaboratory where he slices up rats."

"Precisely. He quarters them, then he drains their blood. They are sick rats, however," added Atto, "for we encountered a number of dead ones and others which were moribund, do you remember?"

"Of course I remember: they were bleeding freely from their snouts! Cristofano told me that this is just what happens to rats which are sick with the pestilence," I retorted excitedly.

"So they were rats with the plague," agreed Atto. "Using their blood, Dulcibeni prepared an infected humour. He then went to Tiracorda and put him to sleep with liquor. In this way, he was able to pour the pestiferous humour into the vase of leeches, which have thus become a vehicle for the distemper. With those leeches, Tiracorda will tonight bleed Innocent XI," concluded Atto in a voice made hoarse by emotion, "and he will infect him with the plague. Perhaps we are already too late."

"We have circled around this mystery for days, Signor Atto. We even heard Tiracorda say that the Pope was being treated with leeches!" I interjected, blushing.

"Good heavens, you are right," replied Melani, growing gloomy after a moment's reflection. "That was the first time that we heard him talk with Tiracorda. How could I have failed to understand?"

We continued to reason, to remember and to conjecture, completing and rapidly reinforcing our reconstruction.

"Dulcibeni has read many medical tomes," continued the abbot. "One can hear that whenever he touches on the subject. So he knows perfectly well that during visitations of the plague, rats fall ill; and so from them, or rather, from their blood, he can obtain all that he needs. Moreover, he accompanied Fouquet, who knew the secrets of the pestilence, on his travels. Lastly, he is well acquainted with Kircher's theory: the plague is transmitted, not by miasmas, odours or stenches, but per animalcula: through minuscule beings which can transmigrate from one being to another: from rats to the Pope."

"It is true!" I recalled. "At the beginning of our quarantine, we all discussed theories of the plague together, and Dulcibeni explained the theories of Kircher down to their minutest details. He knew them so well that it seemed he had never thought of anything else; for him this seemed to be almost…"

"… a ruling passion. The idea of contaminating the Pope must have come to him some time ago; probably, when he was speaking of the secrets of the plague with Fouquet, during the three years which the Superintendent spent in Naples."

"But then, Fouquet must have trusted Dulcibeni implicitly."

"Certainly. So much so that we found Kircher's letter in his undergarments. Otherwise, why should Dulcibeni have helped a blind old man so generously?" commented the abbot sarcastically.

"But where will Dulcibeni have procured the animalcula that transmit the plague?" I asked.

"There are always outbreaks here and there, although they do not always develop into major visitations. I seem to recall, for instance, that there were outbreaks on the borders of the Empire, around Bolzano. No doubt, Dulcibeni will have obtained the blood of infected rats there, with which he began his experiments. Then, when the time was ripe, he came to the Donzello, just next to Tiracorda's house, and continued to infect rats in the underground city, so as to have a ready supply of freshly infected blood."

"In other words, he kept the plague alive, passing it from one rat to another."

"Precisely. Perhaps, however, something caused him to lose control of his activities. In the underground galleries, everything was to be found: infected rats, phials of blood, lodgers at the inn coming and going… too much movement. In the end, some invisible germ, some animalculum, reached Bedfordi and our young Englishman was infected with the distemper. Better thus: it could have struck down you or me."

"And Pellegrino's illness, and the death of Fouquet?"

"The plague has nothing to do with all that. Your master's illness has turned out to be simply the result of a fall, or little else. Fouquet, however, according to Cristofano (and in my view, too), was poisoned. And I would not be surprised if he was killed by Dulcibeni himself."

"Oh heavens, the assassination of Fouquet, too?" I exclaimed in horror. "But, to me, Dulcibeni did not seem too unpleasant a character… After all, he has suffered greatly from the loss of his daughter, poor man; his way of life could hardly have been more modest; and he was able to gain the confidence of old Fouquet, assisting and protecting him…"

"Dulcibeni intends to kill the Pope," Atto cut me short, "you were the first to understand that. Why, then, should he not have poisoned his friend?"

"Yes, but…"

"Sooner or later, we all make the mistake of trusting the wrong person," said he, silencing me with a grimace. "And besides, you have already heard how the Superintendent always trusted his friends too much," he added, shivering a little at his own words. "If, however, you have a taste for doubts, I have a far greater one: when he is bled tonight, the Pope will be infected by Tiracorda's leeches and will die of the pestilence. Why? Only because the Odescalchi did not help Dulcibeni to find his daughter?"

"So, what are you saying?"

"Are you not struck by how flimsy a motive this is for taking the life of a Pontiff?"

"Well, yes, indeed…"

"It amounts to so little, so very little," repeated Atto, "and I have the impression that Dulcibeni must have some other motive for so bold an undertaking. Just now, however, I cannot go beyond that."

While we two were thus reflecting, Ugonio and Ciacconio were also deep in discussion. In the end, Ugonio stood up, as though impatient to be on his way.

"Concerning the matter of mortal risks, how did you manage to save yourself from the wreck of our bark on the Cloaca Maxima?" he asked the corpisantaro.

"Sacramentum of salvage, this was done by Baronio."

"Baronio? And who would that be?"

Ugonio looked at us with solemn mien, as though he were about to make a grave announcement: "When and wheresoever, he intervenerates to salvage a personable acquaintance in emergentitious necessity," said he, while his companion invited us with a series of pulls and pushes to rise and follow him.

Thus, guided by the corpisantari, we again set out in the direction of conduit C.

After a few minutes' march, Ugonio and Ciacconio suddenly stopped. We had entered the first part of the gallery, and I seemed to hear a discreet rustling sound grow closer and closer. I became aware, too, of a strong, disagreeable, bestial stench.

Suddenly, Ugonio and Ciacconio bowed down, as though to worship an invisible deity. From the thick darkness of the gallery, I could just descry a number of greyish outlines, jumping up and down.

"Gfrrrlubh," proffered Ciacconio, deferentially.

"Baronio, of all the corpisantari, Excellentissimus, Caporal and Conducentor," announced Ugonio solemnly.

That the people of darkness who formed the corpisantari might be fairly numerous was doubtless foreseeable; but that it should be guided by a recognised chief to whom the stinking mass of seekers after relics accorded prestige, authority and quasi-thaumaturgical powers-that, we really had not expected.

And yet here was the novelty which now faced us. The mysterious Baronio had come to meet us, almost as though he had sensed our approach, surrounded by a dense group of followers. They were a motley crowd-if one can use the word motley for shades only of grey and of brown-composed of individuals not too dissimilar to Ugonio and Ciacconio: attired at best in miserable and dusty cloaks, their hands and faces concealed by cowls and over-long sleeves, the acolytes of Ugonio, Ciacconio and Baronio formed the most frightful rabble conceivable to the mind of man. The penetrating stench which I had smelled before the meeting was no more and no less than the clarion call that heralded their coming.

Baronio stepped forward. He could be distinguished by the fact that he was slightly taller than those who accompanied him.

Hardly had we met, however, than there occurred something unforeseeable: the head of the corpisantari made a rapid withdrawal and two of his stunted adepts instantly stepped in to form a shield before him. Hedgehog-like, the entire assembly of corpisantari formed into a phalanx, emitting a rumble of mistrustful mutterings.

"Gfrrrlubh," then spoke forth Ciacconio, and suddenly the group appeared to lower their guard.

"You scarified Baronio: he misbegot you for a daemunculus sub-terraneus," said Ugonio, "but I did reinsure him, and can conswear, that you are a goodlious comrade-in-harms."

The head of the corpisantari had taken me for one of those little demons which-according to their bizarre beliefs-inhabit the subterranean darkness and whom the searchers after relics have never seen but of whose existence they are horribly certain. Ugonio explained to me that such beings, who were said to inhabit the vast regions under the ground, had been amply described by Nicephorus, Caspar Schott, Fortunius Licetus, Johannes Eusebius Nierembergius and by Kircher himself, who broadly discussed the nature and customs of the daemunculi subterranei, as well as of the Cyclops, the giants, pygmies, monopods, tritons, sirens, satyrs, cynocephali and acephaii (or dog-headed and headless beings).

Now, however, there was nothing to be feared. Ugonio and Ciacconio stood guarantors for me and for Atto. The other corpisantari were therefore presented to us, answering (although my memory may betray me) to such appellations as Gallonio, Stellonio, Marronio, Salonio, Plafonio, Scacconio, Grufonio, Polonio, Svetonio and Antonio.

"Such an honour," said Atto, restraining his ironic disgust only with the greatest of difficulty.

Ugonio explained that it was Baronio who had guided the group which came to his assistance when our little bark had capsized, leaving us at the mercy of the Cloaca Maxima. Now, too, the head of the corpisantari had mysteriously perceived (by virtue, perhaps, of the same miraculous olfactory sensibility possessed by Ciacconio, or of other out-of-the-ordinary faculties) that Ugonio wished to meet him, and he had come to the encounter from the deep bowels of the earth; or perhaps, more simply, from the trapdoor which led into the underground tunnels from the Pantheon.

The corpisantari seemed to be united by bonds of brotherhood and Christian solidarity. Through the mediation of a cardinal with a passionate interest in relics, they had informally petitioned the Pope for the right to form an arch-confraternity; but the Pontiff had ("strangefully", commented Ugonio) failed as yet to respond to that request.

"They rob, they deceive, they smuggle, and then they behave like so many church mice," Atto whispered to me.

Ugonio then fell silent, leaving the floor to Baronio. At last the uninterrupted bustling of the corpisantari — perennially intent upon scratching, scraping away dead skin and scurf, coughing and spitting, and toothlessly chewing away at invisible and disgusting aliments- ceased.

Baronio puffed up his chest, pointed severely upwards and, pointing a clawed index heavenward, declaimed: "Gfrrrlubh!"

"Extraordinary," Atto Melani commented icily, "they all speak the same… language."

"It is no linguafrank, it is a vote," Ugonio intervened with some irritation, perhaps understanding that Atto was subtly deriding his leader.

Thus we learned that the limited lexical capacity of the corpisantari was a consequence, not of ignorance or stupidity but of a pious vow.

"Until the sacral object is disgoverned, we have voted not to verbalise," said Ugonio, who then explained that he alone was free of that pledge so as to be able to maintain contacts between the community of the corpisantari and the outside world.

"Ah yes, and what would this sacred object be which you so ardently seek?"

"Ampoule with the true Sanguine Domini Nostri," said Ugonio, while the rest of the troop made the sign of the cross as one man.

"Yours is indeed a noble and holy quest," said Atto, turning to Baronio with a smile.

"Pray that they should never be released from that vow," he then whispered to me so as not to be overheard, "or in Rome they will all end up talking like Ugonio."

"That is improbabilious," Ugonio replied unexpectedly, "whereinasmuch the undersignified is Germanic."

"Are you German?" asked Atto in astonishment.

"I proveniate from Vindobona," came the corpisantaro' s stiff reply.

"Ah, so you were born in Vienna," translated the abbot. "That would account for your speaking so…"

"… I commandeer the italic tongue, not as an immigrunter, but as if 'twere my own motherlingo," Ugonio hastened to add, "and am most gratificated to your worshipful decisionality for the complement of esteem wherewith you do adub me."

Once he had finished with complimenting himself for his awkward and ramshackle eloquence, Ugonio explained to his companions what was at stake: a dubious individual, lodging at our hostelry, had excogitated a plan to assassinate His Holiness Innocent XI using pestiferous leeches, and that at a time when in Vienna the fate of Christendom hung in the balance. The dastardly plot was to be enacted that very night.

The corpisantari received the news with expressions of profound indignation, approaching panic. A brief but excited debate took place, which Ugonio summarised for us. Plafonio proposed that they should withdraw in prayer and beg for the intercession of the Most High. Gallonio, on the other hand, favoured a diplomatic initiative: a delegation of corpisantari should visit Dulcibeni and request that he desist from his plan. Stellonio joined the discussion, expressing a very different opinion: they should enter the Donzello, capture Dulcibeni and execute him without further ado. Grufonio observed that such a scheme would provoke disagreeable counter-actions, such as the arrival of the Pontifical Guards. Marronio added that entry into premises shut up on grounds of suspected pestilence would thereafter incur undeniable risks. Svetonio pointed out that such an action would in any case be of no use for the purpose of foiling Dulcibeni's plot: if Tiracorda visited the Pope (and here Grufonio once more made the sign of the cross) all was lost. Tiracorda must therefore be stopped at all costs. The entire body of corpisantari then turned to Baronio, who harangued them efficaciously: "Gfrrrlubh!"

Baronio's rabble then began to jump up and down and to grunt in a furious, warlike manner; whereupon, as we watched, it dispersed and transformed itself, forming double ranks, like a band of soldiers, all marching into conduit C in the direction of Tiracorda's house.

Atto and I witnessed all this impotently, quite out of our depth; Ugonio, who had remained with us together with his usual companion, had to explain to us what was happening: the corpisantari had decided to intercept Tiracorda come what may. They would position themselves in the little roads around the old Archiater's, house, in order to ambush his carriage when it set out for the pontifical palace of Monte Gavallo.

"And we, Signor Atto, what shall we do to stop Tiracorda?" I asked, seized by agitation and the desire to fight with all my might against whoever threatened the life of the Vicar of Christ.

The abbot, however, was not listening to me. Instead, he simply replied to Ugonio's explanation with the words: "Ah, so that is how matters stand," proffered in a colourless voice.

He had lost all control over the situation and did not seem very pleased about that.

"Well then, what are we to do?"

"Tiracorda must be stopped, that is for sure," said Melani, striving to regain a decisive demeanour. "While Baronio and the others control the surface, we shall look after the underground galleries. Look here."

Under our eyes, he stretched out a newly revised version of the map of the underground city which he had drawn up previously but lost in the disaster of the Cloaca Maxima. The new map also showed conduit C, including the intersection with the little subterranean river leading to Dulcibeni's elaboratory and the Cloaca Maxima. The continuation of conduit D was also visible, up to the exit in Tiracorda's stables, just next to the Donzello.

"In order to intercept Tiracorda, it will not suffice to control the streets around the Via dell'Orso," explained Atto. "We simply cannot ignore the possibility that the doctor may, in the interests of secrecy, prefer to pass through the underground galleries, taking conduits D, C, B and A, in that order, and emerging on the banks of the Tiber."

"But why?"

"He might, for example, travel some way by boat, moving upstream to the harbour of Ripetta. That would lengthen his itinerary but make it almost impossible to follow him. Or he might surface at some point unknown to us. It will be as well if we divide our tasks so as to be ready for all contingencies: Ugonio and Ciacconio will keep an eye on galleries A, B, C and D."

"Will that not be rather too much for the two of them on their own?"

"They are not two, but three: there is also Ciacconio's nose. You and I, my boy, shall explore the part of conduit B where we have never yet been; just to make quite sure that Tiracorda cannot get by that way."

"And Dulcibeni?" I asked. "Do you not fear that he too may be wandering underground?"

"No. He has done all that he could: to infect the leeches. Now it will suffice that Tiracorda should visit the Pope and apply those leeches."

Ugonio and Ciacconio departed at once, almost at a run, taking conduit C in the reverse direction. As we began our march, I found myself unable, however, to contain my overpowering curiosity: "Signor Atto, you are an agent of the King of France."

He looked askance at me. "Yes, and what are you getting at?"

"Well, it is just that… after all, this Pope is surely no friend of the Most Christian King, and yet you wish to save him, is that not so?"

He stopped. "Have you ever seen a man beheaded?"

"No."

"Well, you should know that when the head is rolling down from the scaffold, its tongue can still move. That is why no prince is ever content when one of his peers dies. He fears that rolling head and the dangerous things which that tongue might utter."

"Then, sovereigns never have anyone killed."

"Well, that is not exactly the case… they may do so, where the Crown itself is in jeopardy. But politics, and remember this, my boy, real politics consists of balances, not bloodshed."

I observed him surreptitiously; the uncertainty in his voice, the pallor of his face, his shifty eyes, all betrayed the return of Abbot Melani's fears: despite his fine words, I had clearly detected his fumbling. The corpisantari had left him no time for reflection: they had rapidly taken the initiative and were organising the rescue of Innocent XI; an heroic enterprise which Atto had not undertaken with such celerity and into which he had now been catapulted by surprise. There was now no turning back. He tried to mask his unease by hastening his steps, thus showing me only his stiff and nervous back.

Once we had reached the Archives, we searched in vain for some trace of Ugonio and Ciacconio. The two must be waiting there already, well hidden in some corner.

"It is we! Is all well?" asked Atto in a loud voice.

From behind some archway enveloped in darkness, Ciacconio's unmistakeable grunt replied in the affirmative.

We therefore resumed our exploration and, as we walked, again began to converse.

It had, we both agreed, been inexcusably short-sighted on our part not to have collated the very clear clues which had come to our attention during the previous few days. Fortunately, it was still possible to catch the mad horse of truth by the mane. Atto tried once more to sum up the elements of which we were aware: "Dulcibeni worked for the Odescalchi, as an accountant or something of the kind. He had a daughter called Maria, by a Turkish slave. The maiden was abducted by the former slave-trader Feroni and by his right-hand man Huygens, surely in order to satisfy one of the latter's caprices. Maria was probably taken very far away, to somewhere in the north. In order to trace her, Dulcibeni then turned to the Odescalchi, but they did not help him. This is why Dulcibeni detests them, and will naturally feel special hatred for the powerful Cardinal Benedetto Odescalchi, who has in the meantime become Pope. Moreover, after the abduction, something strange happens. Dulcibeni is assaulted and thrown from a window, probably with the intention of killing him. Are we agreed?"

"Agreed."

"And here the first obscure point arises: why would someone, acting perhaps on the orders of Feroni or the Odescalchi, have wished to be rid of him?"

"Perhaps to prevent him from recovering his daughter."

"Perhaps," said Atto with scant conviction. "But you have heard that all his searches were in vain. I am more inclined to believe that Dulcibeni had become a danger for someone."

"But Signor Atto, why was Dulcibeni's daughter a slave?"

"Did you not hear Tiracorda? Because her mother was a Turkish slave whom Dulcibeni was unwilling to marry. I am not well informed on the trade in negroes and Infidels, but-according to Dulcibeni- the bastard child was also considered to be a slave of the Odescalchi. I only wonder: why did Huygens and Feroni not simply buy her?"

"Perhaps the Odescalchi did not wish to sell her."

"Yet they did sell her mother. No, I think it was rather Dulcibeni who opposed his daughter's being ceded; that would explain why she was abducted, perhaps with the support of the Odescalchi themselves."

"Do you mean to say that such an abominable action might have had the backing of the family?" I asked, horrified.

"Surely. And perhaps that of Cardinal Benedetto Odescalchi himself, who has since become Pope. Do not forget that Feroni was exceedingly wealthy and quite powerful. That would suffice to explain why the Odescalchi should not have wished to help Dulcibeni to find his daughter."

"But what means had Dulcibeni to oppose the sale, if the girl was the property of the Odescalchi?"

"You rightly ask: what means had he? That, I think, is the point. Dulcibeni must have unsheathed an arm that posed a real threat to the Odescalchi and left them no choice but to arrange the abduction with Feroni and to try to have Dulcibeni silenced forever."

Feroni: I was about to tell the abbot that the name did not sound new to me. However, being unable to recall where I had heard it, I held my peace.

"An arm against the Odescalchi. A secret perhaps… who knows," murmured the abbot, with a Iubricious gleam in his eyes.

An inadmissible secret in the past of the Pope: I understood that Atto Melani, secret agent of His Most Christian Majesty, would have given his life to know what that might have been.

"We must come to a conclusion, damn it!" he exclaimed at the end of his cogitations. "But first, let us recapitulate: Dulcibeni hatches the idea of assassinating no less a personage than the Pope. He can surely not hope to obtain an audience with the Pontiff and to stab him with a knife. How can one kill a man from a distance? One may attempt to poison him; but it is exceedingly difficult to introduce poison into the Pope's kitchens. Dulcibeni, however, works out a more refined solution. He remembers that he has an old friend who will serve his purpose: Giovanni Tiracorda, Physician in Chief to the Pope. Pope Odescalchi-and this Dulcibeni knows-has always suffered from delicate health. He is Tiracorda's patient, and Dulcibeni can take advantage of the situation. Just at this moment, moreover, tormented by the fear that the Christian armies might be defeated in Vienna, the condition of Pope Innocent XI has worsened. The Pope is treated by blood-letting, and this is effected by means of leeches which, of course, feed on blood. So, what does Dulcibeni do? Between one riddle and another, he gets Tiracorda drunk. This is not too difficult a task, because the physician's wife, Paradisa, is a bigot and half-crazed: she believes that alcohol leads to the damnation of the soul. So Tiracorda is compelled to drink in secret, and thus almost always to gulp down large quantities at speed. As soon as he is inebriated, his friend Dulcibeni infects the leeches intended for treating the Pope with the pestiferous humour which he has produced on his islet. The little creatures will sink their teeth into the Pontiff's holy flesh and he will be attacked by the infection."

"How horrible!"

"I would not say that. This is simply what a man thirsting for vengeance is capable of. Do you recall our first incursion into Tiracorda's house? Dulcibeni asked him: 'How are they?'", referring, as we now know, to the leeches which he planned to infect. Then, however, Tiracorda accidentally broke the bottle of liquor and Dulcibeni was compelled to postpone his operation. Last night, however, his plans progressed smoothly. While he was infecting the leeches, he pronounced the words, 'For her'": he was fulfilling his vendetta against the Odescalchi for the abduction of his daughter."

"But," I observed, "he needed a quiet place in which to prepare his plan and to carry out his operations."

"Bravo. And above all to cultivate the pestiferous humour, using arts unknown to us. After capturing rats, he caged them on his island and inoculated them with the infection. Then he extracted their blood and so treated it as to produce the infected humour. It was surely he who lost the leaf from the Bible in the galleries."

"So could he also have stolen my little pearls?"

"Who else? But, do not interrupt me," said Atto, cutting me short, and adding: "After the beginning of the quarantine and your master's being taken ill, Dulcibeni, in order to continue to have access to the underground galleries and, thus, to the isle of the Mithraeum, had to filch a key from Pellegrino's ring and to have a copy made by a locksmith. He wrapped a copy of the key in Komarek's page from the Bible; but, what with all that trafficking with rats, leeches and alembics, it was inevitable that he should have accidentally stained it with blood."

"On the island, we also found a vase for leeches almost identical to Tiracorda's," I observed, "and then, there were all those instruments…"

"He used the vase, I imagine, to keep a few leeches in and perhaps to make certain that they could feed on infected blood without themselves being killed by it. When, however, he understood that he was not the only one to take walks in the underground galleries, and that someone might be on his trail, he got rid of the little creatures which might have provided evidence of his criminal designs. The apparatus and instruments on the islet, however, were used not only for his experiments on rats, but also for preparing the pestiferous humour. That is why everything called to mind the cabinet of an alchemist: alembics, unguents, crucibles…"

"And that sort of gallows?"

"Who knows? Perhaps to keep the rats still while he bled them, or to cut them up and collect their blood."

And that was why, we repeated once more, we had found dying rats in the galleries: they had either escaped from or survived Dulcibeni's experiments, and we had encountered them before they died. Finally, the glass phial full of blood which we had found in gallery D had certainly been lost by Dulcibeni, who had perhaps attempted unsuccessfully to infect his friend Tiracorda's leeches directly with the rats' blood.

"But in the underground galleries, we also found leaves of mamacoca," I observed.

"That, I am unable to explain," admitted Abbot Melani. "Those had nothing to do with the pestilence or with Dulcibeni's plot. Another point: I cannot conceive how it was possible for Dulcibeni, day after day, and even at night, to run, to row, to climb and to escape our attempts to stalk him with the energy of a young boy. It seems almost as though someone must have helped him."

While we were engaged in such discussions, we came to the trapdoor at the intersection between conduits A and B. The left-hand branch of B was the last of the three passages which we had undertaken to explore a few days earlier, in order to complete our understanding of the galleries under the Donzello.

Contrary to our usual practice, therefore, we did not lower ourselves through the trapdoor leading from gallery B to A, as we would have done in order to return to the Donzello, but continued on our way. Thanks to the plan drawn up by Atto, it was clear to me that we were proceeding in the direction of the river, with the inn to our right and the Tiber to our left.

The gallery offered no surprises of any kind, until we came across a square stairwell not dissimilar to that all too familiar one which led down from the secret chamber in the Donzello to the galleries below.

"But if we take this, we shall emerge in the Via dell'Orso," said I, as we began to climb the stairs towards the surface.

"Not quite, perhaps a little more to the south, in the Via Tor di Nona."

The ascent led to a sort of vestibule with a floor of old bricks, again very like that which we had crossed so many times on our sorties from the hostelry.

On the ceiling of this vestibule, our eyes (and above all our probing hands) discovered a sort of heavy lid of iron or perhaps lead, which muffled all vibrations and resisted any attempts to open it. We needed to remove that last obstacle in order to discover to which point on the surface our path had led us. We put our backs to the heavy disc, and, with a great heave, pushing vigorously against the last step of the stone stairway, our combined efforts managed to shift it, with a loud clanging on the flagstones, just enough for us to squeeze out from under the ground. As we did so, we glimpsed and heard a violent struggle, which was taking place only a few yards from where we emerged.

We moved forward under the dim nocturnal light. In the semi- darkness, I could distinguish a carriage in the middle of the road, upon which two torches set on either side cast a sinister, oblique light. Suffocated cries came from the postillion, who was struggling to break free of the grip of several individuals. One of the attackers had taken the reins and stopped the horses, which were whinnying and snorting nervously. Just then, another individual slipped out of the carriage, holding a voluminous object in his arms (or so it seemed to me). There could be no question about it, the carriage was being robbed.

Although confused by my lengthy peregrinations under the ground, I instinctively recognised our surroundings as the Via Tor di Nona which, parallel to the Tiber, leads to the Via dell'Orso: Abbot Melani's estimate of where we would emerge had proved correct.

"Quick. Let us get closer," murmured Atto, pointing at the carriage.

The scene of violence which we were witnessing had almost paralysed me; I knew that, very nearby, at the end of the Sant'Angelo Bridge, a detachment of guards were usually stationed. The risk of being involved in so grave a crime did not dissuade me from following the abbot who, keeping prudently close to the wall, was approaching the scene of the robbery.

"Pompeo, help! Guards, help!" a voice whined from within the carriage.

The weak, stifled voice of the passenger belonged without the shadow of a doubt to Giovanni Tiracorda.

In a flash, I understood: the man in the driver's box, who uttered hoarse little cries as he vainly struggled against overwhelming forces, was certainly Pompeo Dulcibeni. Against our every expectation, Tiracorda had asked him to accompany him on his errand to serve the

Pope at the palace of Monte Cavallo. The physician, being too old and weak to drive his own carriage, had preferred to be accompanied by his friend, rather than by some anonymous coachman, on his delicate and secret mission. The corpisantari, however, had lain in wait nearby and had intercepted the carriage.

It was all over in a few moments. Hardly had the bag been extracted from within the coach than the four or five corpisantari who were immobilising Dulcibeni released their prey and took to their legs; they passed very close and disappeared behind us in the direction of the trap from which we had just emerged.

"The leeches, they must have taken the leeches," said I, excitedly

"Shhh!" warned Atto, and I understood that he had no intention of participating in what was taking place. Some of the inhabitants of the surrounding houses, hearing the noise of the brawl, had meanwhile come to their windows. The guards might arrive at any moment.

From within the carriage came Tiracorda's feeble complaints, while Dulcibeni descended from his box, probably in order to succour his friend.

It was then that something incredible occurred. A fast-moving shadow, turning back from the trap into which the corpisantari had disappeared, approached in a zigzag and slipped back into the carriage. He still seemed to be carrying under his arm the voluminous object which we had seen him snatch from poor Tiracorda.

"No, you wretch, no-not the crucifix! There is a relic…"

The physician's imploring voice echoed piteously in the night as, after a brief struggle, the shadow emerged from the opposite side of the carriage. A fatal error: here, Pompeo Dulcibeni awaited him. We heard the cruel, sharp crack of the whip which he had recovered and which he now used to hobble the marauder's legs, causing him to fall to the ground. As he struggled uselessly to rise from the dust, by the light of one of the torches, I recognised the clumsy hunchbacked figure of Ciacconio.

We drew a little closer, thus risking being seen. With our view partly obscured by the still open door of the carriage, we heard the whip crack once again, and then a third time, accompanied by Ciacconio's inimitable grunt, this time carrying a clear note of protest.

"Filthy dogs," said Dulcibeni, as he placed something back in the carriage, closed the door and jumped back into the box, urging on the horses.

Once again, the sheer speed of the sequence of events prevented me from considering the motives of prudence and of the intellect, and even the righteous fear of God, which should have persuaded me to escape from the perilous influence of Abbot Melani and not to involve myself in rash, criminal and violent deeds.

That was why, still set on our bold plan to save the life of Our Lord Innocent XI, I did not dare draw back when Abbot Melani, dragging me from the shadows, guided me towards the carriage just as it was moving away.

"Now or never," said he when, after a brief chase, we leapt onto the footmen's platform behind the body of the carriage.

Hardly had we grasped the great handles behind the coach when there was another thud on the platform and rapacious hands gripped me, almost causing me to fall into the road. Almost overcome by this last shock, I turned and found myself facing the horribly deformed and toothless grin of Ciacconio, who held in his hands a crucifix to which was tied a pendant.

Thus weighted down by a third unasked-for passenger, the carriage meanwhile tilted sharply to one side.

"Filthy dogs, I shall kill you all," said Dulcibeni, while his whip cracked again and again.

The carriage turned left, along the Via del Panico, while on the far side the disorderly band of corpisantari watched impotently as our vehicle made off. Clearly they had all returned to the surface when Ciacconio failed to rejoin them. Three or four of them set out to follow us on foot, while we again veered to the right at the Piazza di Monte Giordano in the direction of the Santa Lucia sewer. Because of the ambush, Dulcibeni had been unable to take the road to Monte Cavallo and seemed now to be proceeding haphazardly.

"You've played another of your tricks, is that not so, you ugly beast!" cried Abbot Melani to Ciacconio as the carriage gathered speed.

"Gfrrrlubh," grunted Ciacconio in self-justification.

"Do you see what he has done?" replied Atto, turning to me. "As though winning were not enough, he had to turn back to rob the carriage of the crucifix with the relic, which Ugonio already tried to filch the first time we entered Tiracorda's stables. And thus, Dulcibeni has recovered the leeches."

Behind us, the corpisantari did not abandon their chase, even if they were already losing ground. Just then (we had again turned left) we heard the tremulous, terrorised voice of Tiracorda, who was leaning out from the window: "Pompeo, Pompeo, they are following us, and there is someone here behind…"

Dulcibeni did not reply. An unexpected and exceedingly violent explosion deafened us, while a cloud of smoke momentarily deprived us of our sight and our ears were pierced by a cruel, lacerating whistle.

"Down! He has a pistol," Atto exhorted us, crouching on the platform.

While I followed his example, the carriage again accelerated. Already sorely tried by the assault of the corpisantari, the horses' nerves had been unable to withstand the sudden detonation.

Instead of taking shelter, Ciacconio opted as usual for the most insane solution and climbed on top of the carriage, crawling towards Dulcibeni and holding by some miracle onto that unsafe roof which bounced in every direction. A few moments passed and the crack of the whip compelled him at once to renounce his attack.

We were emerging at high speed from the Via del Pellegrino into the Campo di Fiore, when I saw Ciacconio, still clinging precariously to the carriage roof, remove the pendant with the relic and hurl the holy cross at Dulcibeni with all his might. The carriage tilted slightly to the right, which gave us the impression that the missile had found its target. Ciacconio tried again to advance, perhaps attempting to take advantage of the opportunity before Dulcibeni had time to reload his pistol.

"If Dulcibeni does not stop the horses, we shall end up against a wall," I heard Atto say, his voice almost drowned out by the clatter of the wheels on the cobblestones.

Again, we heard the whip crack; instead of slowing down, our speed was increasing. I noticed that we were driving almost in a straight line.

"Pompeo, oh my God, stop this carriage!" we heard Tiracorda whine from within the carriage, his voice just audible despite the metallic screech and clatter of wheel-rims and horseshoes.

By now, we had crossed Piazza Mattei and even Piazza Campitelli; the wild charge of the coach through the night, leaving Monte Savello behind on our right, seemed utterly devoid of sense or any hope of safety. While the flames of the two side torches gaily streaked the darkness, the rare and furtive night wanderers, enveloped in their cloaks and unknown to all save the moon, speechlessly witnessed our noisy onrush. We even crossed the night watch on their rounds, but they had neither the time nor the means to stop and interrogate us.

"Pompeo, I beg of you," Tiracorda yet again implored, "stop, stop at once."

"But why does he not stop, and why does he keep driving straight on?" I screamed to Atto.

As we crossed the Piazza della Consolazione, Dulcibeni's whip and Ciacconio's grunting could no longer be heard. We peeked cautiously over the roof and beheld Dulcibeni, standing in his box, exchanging with Ciacconio a wild, disorderly rain of blows and kicks. No one held the reins.

"My God," exclaimed Atto, "that is why we never turned."

It was then that we entered the long tetragonal esplanade of the Campo Vaccino-the Cows' Field-where one can see all that remains of the antique Roman Forum. To our left, the Arch of Septimius Severus, to our right, the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Stator and the entrance of the Orti Farnesiani joined in the desperate frenzy harassing our eyes. Before us, drawing ever nearer, was the Arch of Titus.

Our ride became all the more hazardous, given the barbarously uneven terrain of the Campo Vaccino. Somehow, we avoided two Roman columns which lay on the ground. At last, we passed under the Arch of Titus and ran down the hill, ending the descent at a mad velocity. Nor did it seem that anything could stop us now, while Dulcibeni's angry voice screamed, "Filthy dog, go to hell!"

"Gfrrrlubh," Ciacconio insulted him in turn.

Something large, greyish and ragged then rolled down from the carriage, just as the team of horses, exhausted yet triumphant, entered the ample space over which, for sixteen centuries, the ruins of the Colosseum have loomed in magnificent indifference.

As we approached the imposing amphitheatre, we heard a dry crack under our feet. The rear axle had yielded to the excessive demands of the long ride, causing our vehicle to skid and tilt violently to the right. Before the carriage turned over, screaming in terror and shock, Atto and I let ourselves fall and roll on the ground, miraculously escaping being smashed by the spokes of the great wheels spinning wildly just next to us; the horses fell heavily, while the carriage with its two passengers toppled, then slipped and slid sideways some way further over a broken patch of earth, stones and weeds.

After a few instants of comprehensible confusion, I rose to my feet. I was in a sorry state, but uninjured. The carriage lay on its side, with one wheel still spinning in the void, suggesting unenviable consequences for its passengers. The torches on either side were smoking, having gone out.

We knew that the grey thing which had been thrown down not long before must have been poor Ciacconio, hurled by Dulcibeni from the moving vehicle. But our attention was at once captured by something else. Atto pointed at one of the carriage doors, flung open and pointing heroically heavenward. We understood each other instantly: without a moment's hesitation, we leapt inside the carriage, where Tiracorda lay groaning, and in a swoon. Swifter than Atto, I seized a heavy little chest from the hands of the Chief Physician, within which clinking sounds betrayed the probable presence of a vase. It seemed beyond a doubt to be the same object which we had seen seized from Ciacconio: the container of the robust hermetic vase used by physicians for transporting leeches.

"We have it!" I exulted. "Now let us flee!"

But even before I could complete my sentence, a powerful grip tore me from within the carriage, dumping me on the hard flagstones, where I rolled painfully like a little bundle of rags. It was Dulcibeni, who had perhaps recovered his wits at that very moment. Now he was trying to tear the little chest from my grasp; but I, clasping it in my arms with all the strength that remained in me, had closed around my prize, shielding it with my arms, chest and legs. Thus, every attempt by Dulcibeni ended up with him lifting me and my precious load together, without succeeding in separating us.

While Dulcibeni struggled thus, crushing me with his powerful weight and inflicting upon me many painful bruises, Abbot Melani attempted to turn away the fury of the ancient Jansenist. All in vain: Dulcibeni seemed to possess the strength of a hundred men. We all three rolled on the ground, in a furious, tumbling entanglement.

"Let me go, Melani," yelled Dulcibeni, "you do not know what you are doing!"

"Do you really mean to assassinate the Pope, all because of your daughter? All because of a little half-caste bastard?"

"You cannot…" gasped Dulcibeni, while Atto succeeded for a moment in twisting his arm, thus stifling him.

"Did the daughter of a Turkish whore bring you to this?" continued Atto scornfully, while, coughing hoarsely from the effort, he was forced to let go of Dulcibeni's arm.

Pompeo hit him hard on the nose, which caused the abbot to groan no little, and left him rolling semi-conscious on the ground.

Turning back to me, Dulcibeni found me still clasping the little chest. Paralysed by fear, I dared not even move. He grasped me by the wrists and, almost tearing me apart, freed the container of the vase from my grasp. He then ran back to the carriage.

I followed him with my eyes in the moonlight. A little later, he emerged from the carriage, jumping nimbly to the ground. He held the chest under his left arm.

"Give me the other one. Yes, that is it, it is just behind," said he, speaking to someone within.

He then reached inside the carriage and drew out what appeared to be a pistol, unless my eyes betrayed me. Rather than reload his first arm, he had preferred to take a second pistol, ready for use. Meanwhile, Atto had risen and was rushing towards the carriage.

"Abbot Melani," said Dulcibeni, half scornful and half threatening, "since you enjoy stalking people so much, you may now complete your work."

He then turned and began to run in the direction of the Colosseum.

"Stop! Give me that bag!" called Atto.

"But Signor Atto, Dulcibeni…" I objected.

"… is armed. I am aware of that," replied Abbot Melani, crouching prudently near the ground. "But that is no reason to let him escape us."

I was struck by Atto's decisive tone and in a blinding insight, I understood what was agitating his heart and his thoughts and why, that evening, he had climbed without a moment's hesitation onto the back of Tiracorda's carriage, taking the mortal risk of following Dulcibeni.

Atto's natural predisposition to embroil himself in obscure intrigues and the potent pride which caused him to puff up his chest when he detected the presence of plotters, all those things which he felt and wanted and tended naturally to desire, remained unsatisfied. Dulcibeni's half-unveiled revelations had drawn Melani into their vortex. And now the abbot could not, would not withdraw. He wanted to know, come what may. Atto was not running in order to tear the leeches from Dulcibeni's hands: he wanted his secrets.

While those images and those thoughts rushed before my eyes at a speed a thousand times greater than that of Tiracorda's carriage, Dulcibeni fled towards the Colosseum.

Dulcibeni disappeared in the twinkling of an eye behind the dark portico of the Colosseum. Atto dragged me to the right, as though he intended to follow the same route as the man he was pursuing, but outside the colonnade.

"We must surprise him before he reloads his pistol," he whispered to me.

Dodging from side to side, we drew near to the arches of the Colosseum. We stopped first by one of the mighty load-bearing columns, draping ourselves like ivy around the stone blocks. Then we slipped into the colonnade: of Dulcibeni, there was no trace or sound.

We advanced a few paces, listening intently. It was only the second time in my life that I found myself among the ruins of the Colosseum, but I did know that the place was often infested, not only by owls and bats, but by all manner of bawds, thieves and wrongdoers who hid there in order to avoid justice and to perpetrate their execrable practices. The darkness made it almost impossible to see anything; now and again, one could distinguish only whatever was open to the sky and the pale light of the moon.

We proceeded cautiously along the great arcade, almost more at pains to avoid stumbling on some half-buried lump of stone than to track down our prey. The vault of the portico and the wall to our right echoed our every sound; the latter separated the arcade from the interior of the amphitheatre, and was pierced at regular intervals by vertical slits which allowed one to peer into the great arena. Apart from the padding of our feet and the swishing sounds of such gestures as we inevitably made, there was silence. That was why we jumped when, clearly and directly, a voice came out of the dark: "Poor Melani, slave to your king unto the bitter end."

Atto stopped: "Dulcibeni, where are you?"

There followed a moment's silence.

"I am ascending to heaven, I want to see God from closer quarters," whispered Dulcibeni from an unidentifiable place, which sounded at once distant and near at hand.

We looked fruitlessly around us.

"Stop and let us talk," said Atto. "If you do so, we shall not denounce you."

"So you wish to know, Abbot. Well, then I shall give you satisfaction. But first, you must find me."

Dulcibeni was moving away; but neither behind, nor before us under the portico, nor outside the Colosseum.

"He is already inside," concluded Atto.

Only far later, a long time after these events, did I discover that the wall which separates the interior of the amphitheatre from the arcade, while allowing one to see into the great arena, was regularly penetrated by criminals. One could obtain lawful access to the arena only through the big wooden gates situated at either end of the edifice, and these were obviously closed at night. Thus, to make a useful secret hiding place of the ruins, men and women engaged in nefarious activities would open up breaches in the surrounding wall, which the authorities rarely repaired as swiftly as they should.

Clearly, Dulcibeni had passed through one of these gaps. Abbot Melani at once set about exploring the nearby part of the wall, in search of the passage.

"Come on, come on, Melani," Dulcibeni's voice derided us all the while, growing ever more distant.

"Damn it, I cannot… ah, here we are!" exclaimed Atto.

It was not so much a hole as a simple widening of one of the slits in the surrounding wall, reaching up to the waist of a person of normal height. We helped each other through this gap. As I lowered myself into the arena, I felt myself shaken by a powerful tremor of fear. From outside, a hand had gripped my shoulder. I thought with alarm that this must be one of the criminals who infest the area at night, and was about to cry out when a familiar voice invited me to remain silent: "Gfrrrlubh."

Ciacconio had retraced us, and now he was about to join forces with us in the difficult task of capturing Dulcibeni. While the corpisantaro slipped through the opening, I breathed a sigh of relief and passed the news on to Atto.

The abbot had already moved ahead to scout the place out. We were in one of the many corridors which extend round the central space, whose sands were, centuries ago, stained by the blood of gladiators, lions and Christian martyrs, all sacrificed to the delirium of the pagan mob.

We proceeded in single file under high stone walls sloping down towards the centre of the Colosseum, which once framed the central arena and which must once-as could readily be conjectured-have supported the tiers on which the public sat. The nocturnal hour, the damp and the stink of the walls, arches and half-ruined bridges, and the crazed fluttering of bats, all rendered the atmosphere gloomy and menacing. The stench of mould and organic waste made it difficult even for Ciacconio, with his miraculous sense of smell, to determine which direction we should take in order to find Dulcibeni. Several times, I saw the corpisantaro point his huge nose upwards, panting and sniffing like an animal, but all in vain. Only the moonlight, which was reflected even on the white stone of the highest tiers of the edifice, afforded us some partial comfort and enabled us to proceed, although we had no lamp, without falling into one of the many chasms that opened up between one ruin and another.

After yet more useless reconnoitring, Atto lost patience and halted.

"Dulcibeni, where are you?" he cried.

The unquiet silence of the ruins was the only response.

"Shall we try dividing our forces?" I asked.

"On no account," replied Atto. "By the way, where have all your friends gone?" he asked Ciacconio.

"Gfrrrlubh," replied the latter, gesticulating and making it clear that the rest of the corpisantaro rabble would soon be arriving.

"Good. We shall need reinforcements to collar…"

"Slave of crowned heads, are you not coming to catch me?"

Dulcibeni had once more called us to action. This time, the voice came unequivocally from above our heads.

"Stupid Jansenist," commented Atto in a low voice, clearly irritated by the provocation, then he called out: "Come closer, Pompeo, I only want to talk with you."

In response, we heard resounding laughter.

"Very well, then I shall come up," Atto retorted.

That was in truth more easily said than done. The interior of the Colosseum, between the central arena and the fagade, was a labyrinthine series of ruined walls, mutilated architraves and decapitated columns, in which the difficulty of orienting oneself was exacerbated by the lack of light.

Over centuries, the Colosseum had been, first, abandoned, then stripped of its marble and stone by many pontiffs for the (justified and sacrosanct) construction of many churches; as I have said, of the former terraces sloping down to the arena, there remained only the supporting walls. These radiated from the perimeter of the arena to the top of the curved outer wall. Parallel to these ran the narrow passages connecting the many concentric circular corridors which completely surrounded the stadium. The whole formed an inextricable maze through which we now moved.

We followed one of the circular corridors some way, endeavouring to draw nearer to the point from which Dulcibeni's voice had issued. The attempt proved useless. Atto looked questioningly at Ciacconio. The corpmntaro again explored the air with wide open nostrils, to no effect.

Dulcibeni must have realised our difficulties, because he almost immediately showed his presence again: "Abbot Melani, you are making me lose my patience."

Contrary to all our expectations, the voice was anything but far off; yet the echoes produced by the ruins made it impossible to detect from which direction the fugitive's mocking words came. Curiously, the moment that the sonorous reflections of his voice died out, I seemed to hear a brief and repeated whistling sound, which seemed familiar to me.

"Did you hear?" I asked Atto in a very small voice. "It seems that… I think that he is taking snuff."

"Strange," commented the abbot. "At a time like this…"

"I heard him doing that this evening, too, when he did not come down to dinner."

"In other words, when he was on the point of setting out to complete his plan," noted Abbot Melani.

"Precisely. I also saw him take snuff just before his soliloquy about crowned heads, when he went on about corrupt sovereigns and so forth. And I noticed that, after taking snuff, he seemed more awake and vigorous. It was as though he used it to think more clearly, or… to gain strength-yes, that is it."

"I think that I have just fathomed this," murmured Atto under his breath, but he suddenly broke off.

Ciacconio was pulling us by the sleeves, drawing us towards the centre of the arena. The corpisantaro had moved out of the labyrinth, the better to follow the scent of Dulcibeni. Hardly had he entered the open space when he gave a start. "Gfrrrlubh," said he, indicating a point on the immense and impervious perimeter walls of the Colosseum.

"Are you sure?" we asked in unison, vaguely put out by the danger and inaccessibility of the place.

Ciacconio nodded and we at once set out for our objective.

The great perimeter walls of the stadium were composed of three superimposed orders of arches. The point indicated by Ciacconio was an arch at the intermediate level, at a height above ground perhaps exceeding that of the entire Locanda del Donzello.

"How are we to get up there?" asked Abbot Melani.

"Get some help from your monsters," we heard Dulcibeni cry; this time Atto had spoken without lowering his voice sufficiently.

"You are quite right, that is a good idea!" he yelled back. "You were not mistaken," he then added, turning to Ciacconio, "the voice does come from up there."

Ciacconio was meanwhile beating a path in all haste across the labyrinth. He led us towards one of the two great wooden gates which were left open in daytime to give access to the interior of the amphitheatre. Just in front of the gate there rose a great, steep staircase which entered into the majestic body of the Colosseum.

"He must have come up this way," murmured Melani.

The stairs did indeed lead to the first storey of the building, in other words to the level of the second order of arches. Hardly had we ascended the last steps than we emerged into the open and found ourselves in an enormous corridor which ringed the entire amphitheatre. Here, rising no little above the level of the auditorium, the moonlight spread more surely and more generously. Spectacular was the view over the central space and the ruins of the tiers of seats; and, above us, the enormous walls that contained the entire mass of the circus, standing out majestically against the heavens. With our breath short after our rapid climb, for an instant we halted and almost forgot our objective, ravished by so grandiose a spectacle.

"You are almost there, spy of kings," the harsh, grating voice of Dulcibeni called us from the right.

From there, came a detonation that terrified us, and almost instantly we flattened ourselves on the ground. Dulcibeni had fired at us.

We were then startled by a loud clatter a few paces away. I approached on all fours and found Dulcibeni's pistol, half-broken by the hard impact.

"Two misses, what a pity! Take courage, Melani, now we are on an equal footing."

I handed the arm to Atto, who looked thoughtfully in Dulcibeni's direction. "There is something that escapes me," he commented, as we approached the place from which the voice and the pistol had come.

For me, too, something was amiss. Already, as we ascended the great staircase, I had been assailed by no few doubts. Why had Dulcibeni drawn us into that bizarre moonlight pursuit among the ruins of the Colosseum, thus losing precious time and risking being caught by the police in flagrante delicto?

Why should he have wanted so much to attract Abbot Melani all the way up here with the promise that he would reveal to him all that he wanted to know?

Meanwhile, as we clambered breathlessly over the last time-worn tiers of seats, we heard the echo of distant cries, sounding something like the warlike bustle of troops converging upon an agreed objective.

"I knew it," commented Abbot Melani, panting. "It was impossible that a few caporioni and members of the watch should not show up. Dulcibeni could not hope to pass unobserved after that episode with the runaway carriage."

With his mocking provocations, our prey had facilitated our search. Yet it at once became clear that it would be very difficult indeed for us to approach him. Dulcibeni had in fact hauled himself up on top of one of the walls supporting the terraces; from the corridor in which we stood, the wall climbed obliquely to a window in the perimeter wall, at almost the highest point of the Colosseum.

There he was, comfortably seated under the window with his back to the wall, still holding the chest with the leeches tightly in his arms. I was astounded by the extraordinary way in which he had succeeded in taking refuge up there; under the oblique wall on top of which he had ventured there yawned a horrible and most perilous gulf, and anyone who fell into it would meet with a ghastly death. Beyond the window, there was a chasm as deep as two entire palaces were high, yet Dulcibeni did not seem in the least perturbed by this. Three awesome and sublime worlds opened up around the fugitive: the great arena of the Colosseum, the tremendous abyss beyond the facade, and the starlit night which set the seal on the grandiose and fatal theatre of that night's events.

Under the Colosseum, in the meantime, we seemed to hear the voices and presence of strangers: the men of the watch must have arrived. We were separated from our prey by a space of empty air as wide as a middling city street.

"So here they are, the saviours of the usurer with the tiara, of the insatiable beast from Como," and he exploded into what seemed to me to be forced, unnatural laughter, the fruit of an insane blend of wrath and euphoria.

Atto glanced questioningly at me and Ciacconio.

"I have understood, you know," said Atto.

"Tell me, tell me, Melani, tell me what you have understood," exclaimed Dulcibeni.

"The tobacco is not tobacco…"

"Oh, how clever. Do you know what I have to say to that? You are quite right. So many things are not what they appear to be."

"You inhale those strange dried leaves, what are they called…?" insisted Atto.

"Mamacoca" I exclaimed.

"How perspicacious! I am lost in admiration," Dulcibeni replied caustically.

"That is why you are not tired at night," said the abbot. "But then in the daytime you become irascible and feel the need to have more and more of it, and so you continue to stuff your nostrils with it: and then you declaim complete speeches before your mirror, imagining that you still have your daughter with you. And when you launch into one of your insane diatribes about sovereigns and crowns, you become inflamed, and no one can stop you, because that herb sustains your body, but it… In short, it confuses the mind, which becomes possessed. Or am I mistaken?"

"I see that you have amused yourself teaching the art of spying to your little prentice instead of leaving him to his natural destiny as a source of amusement for princes and of astonishment for fairground idlers," replied Dulcibeni, with roars of laughter which he flung vengefully at me.

It was, moreover, true that I had spied at the Jansenist's door and had then gone to recount all that I had heard to the abbot.

Dulcibeni then bounded nimbly along the oblique wall, oblivious of the chasm beneath his feet and (despite the burden of the little chest which he still carried) hauled himself onto the top of the great wall of the fagade, the width of which exceeded three paces.

There our adversary now stood, majestically dominating us from above. A few yards away from him rose a great wooden cross, higher than a man, placed above the facade of the Colosseum to signify the consecration of the monument to the memory of the Christian martyrs.

Dulcibeni glanced downwards, outside the Colosseum. "Take courage, Melani. Reinforcements will soon be arriving. There is a group of guards down there."

"Then tell me, before they arrive," Atto rejoined, "why do you want the death of Innocent XI?"

"Rack your brains," said Dulcibeni, withdrawing from the edge of the great wall; at that precise moment, Atto was climbing in his turn onto the narrow cornice that led to the perimeter wall.

"What has he done to you, damn it?" Atto continued with a strangled voice. "Has he dishonoured the Christian faith, has he covered it in shame and ignominy? Is that what you think? Say it, Pompeo, admit that you are possessed, like all the Jansenists. You hate the world, Pompeo, because you cannot manage to hate yourself."

Dulcibeni did not reply. Meanwhile Atto, holding tightly onto the naked stone, was climbing painfully along the wall that led up to him.

"The experiments on the island," he continued, clumsily grappling on all fours with the top of the wall, "the visits to Tiracorda, the nights in the underground galleries… You did all that for a bastard, half-Infidel bitch, you poor madman. You should thank Huygens and that slobbering old Feroni if they did her the honour of ripping open her maidenhead before they threw her into the sea."

I was shocked by the cruel obscenities which Abbot Melani had unexpectedly unleashed. Then I understood. Atto was provoking Dulcibeni to make him explode. And he succeeded.

"Silence, castrato, shame of God, you who can only get your arse ripped open," screamed Dulcibeni from afar. "That you liked plunging your cock in the shit, that I knew; but that your head was full of it too…"

"Your daughter, Pompeo," Atto continued, taking advantage of the moment, "old Feroni wanted to buy her, is that not so?"

Dulcibeni let out a groan of surprise: "Go on, you are getting close," was, however, all that he replied.

"Let us see," said Atto, panting from the effort of his climb, yet drawing ever closer to Dulcibeni. "Huygens looked after Feroni's affairs; therefore, he often dealt with the Odescalchi, and so with you too. One day he discovered your little girl and took a fancy to her. That idiot Feroni, as usual, wanted to give her to him at all costs. He offered to buy her from the Odescalchi, perhaps even to sell her again when Huygens grew tired of her. Perhaps he obtained her from Innocent XI himself when he was still a cardinal."

"He obtained her from him and from his nephew Livio, damned souls," Dulcibeni corrected him.

"You could not legally oppose the sale," continued Atto, "because you had not deigned to marry her mother, a wretched Turkish slave, and so your daughter belonged not to you but to the Odescalchi. Then you found a remedy: to rake up a scandal against your masters, a stain on the honour of the Odescalchi. In short, you blackmailed them."

Dulcibeni again remained silent, and this time his silence seemed more than ever to be a confirmation.

"I am lacking only one date," Atto asked. "When was your daughter abducted?"

"In 1676," Dulcibeni replied icily. "She was only twelve years old."

"Just before the conclave, is that not so?" said Atto, taking another step forward.

"I believe you have understood."

"The election of the new Pope was being prepared, and Cardinal Benedetto Odcscalchi, who had lost the previous conclave by a hair's- breadth, was determined to triumph this time. But with your threats, you held him in your power: if a certain item of news were to reach the ears of the other cardinals, there would have been an enormous scandal, and goodbye to the election. Am I on the right track?"

"You could not be more right," said Dulcibeni, without concealing his surprise.

"What was the scandal, Pompeo? What had the Odescalchi done?"

"First, finish your own little story," Dulcibeni invited him scornfully.

The night wind, which at that height makes itself felt more acutely, whipped relentlessly at us; I trembled, without knowing whether it was from cold or fear.

"With pleasure," said Atto. "By threatening them, you believed that you could prevent the sale of your daughter. Instead, you signed your own death warrant. Feroni, perhaps with the complicity of the Odescalchi themselves, abducted your daughter and thus closed your mouth for long enough for Benedetto to be elected Pope. After which, you tried to find the child. But you were not clever enough."

"I raked through Holland from end to end. God only knows that 1 could do no more!" roared Dulcibeni.

"You did not find your daughter and you were the victim of a strange incident; someone caused you to fall from a window, or something of the sort. Yet you escaped with your life."

"There was a hedge below, I was lucky," explained Dulcibeni. "Pray continue."

Atto hesitated before this latest exhortation from Dulcibeni. Even I wondered why he was doling out so much rope to us.

"You fled Rome, hunted down and terrorised," continued Melani. "The rest, I already knew: you converted to Jansenism and in Naples you met Fouquet. There is, however, something else which I do not understand. Why take revenge now, after so many years? Perhaps because… Oh my God, now I see."

I saw the abbot bring his hand to his forehead in a gesture of surprise. He had, meanwhile, in a bold balancing act, crossed another stretch of the wall, drawing even closer to Dulcibeni.

"Because there is a battle now for Vienna and if you kill the Pope, the Christian alliance will collapse, the Turks will win and will devastate Europe. Is it not so?" exclaimed Atto in a voice hoarse with astonishment and indignation.

"Europe has already been devastated: by her own kings," retorted Dulcibeni.

"Oh, you wretched madman," replied Atto. "You would like… you want…" and he sneezed three, four, five times with unaccustomed violence, at the risk of losing his grip on the wall and tumbling into the abyss.

"Damn it," he swore, thoroughly put out. "Once there was only one thing that made me sneeze: textiles from Holland. And now at last I know why I have been sneezing so much since I entered that accursed hostelry."

I too understood: it was the fault of Dulcibeni's old Dutch clothing. Yet, I suddenly recalled, Atto had sometimes sneezed upon my arrival. Perhaps I was just returning from the Jansenist's apartment. Or…

This was no time for such cogitations. I observed Dulcibeni move along the top of the amphitheatre's facade, first to the left, then to the right, continuing to keep an eye on Tiracorda's carriage.

"You are still hiding something, Pompeo," cried Atto, recovering from his bout of sneezing and regaining his balance as he straddled the wall. "With what did you manage to blackmail the Odescalchi? What is the secret with which you held Cardinal Benedetto in your power?"

"There is no more to be said," Dulcibeni cut him short, again looking in the direction of the Chief Physician's carriage.

"Ah no, that is all too convenient! Besides, your daughter's story does not hold water: it is simply not enough to explain an attempt on the life of a Pope. Come, come: first, you were not even willing to wed her mother, and now you would do all this to avenge her? No, that makes no sense. Besides, this Pope is a friend of you Jansenists. Speak, Pompeo."

"It is no business of yours."

"You cannot…"

"I have no more to say to a spy of the Most Christian King."

"Yes, but with your leeches, you wanted to do the Most Christian King a great favour: to free him of the Pope and Vienna at a blow."

"Do you really believe that Louis XIV will defeat the Turks too?" replied Dulcibeni invidiously. "Poor deluded creature! No, the Ottoman tide will cut off the head of the King of France, too. No regard for traitors: that is the victor's rule."

"So is this then your plan for palingenesis, your hope for a return to the pure Christian faith, you true Jansenist?" retorted Atto. "Yes, of course, let us sweep away the Church of Rome and the Christian sovereigns, let the altars go up in flames! Thus we shall return to the times of the martyrs: our throats cut by the Turks, but firmer and stronger in the Faith! And you believe that? Which of us is the more deluded? Dulcibeni?"

Meanwhile, I had moved away from Atto and Dulcibeni, reaching a sort of little terrace, near the stairs which we had climbed to the first storey; from that viewpoint, I could observe what was taking place outside the Colosseum, and I understood why Dulcibeni was looking down with so much interest.

A group of the Bargello's men were busying themselves around the carriage, and in the distance the voice of Tiracorda could be heard. Some of them were observing us; soon, I imagined and feared, they would come up and capture us.

Suddenly, however, I had cause to shiver, not on account of the freshness of the late night wind: a howl arose, nay, a savage chorus which came from all sides of the open space before the Colosseum, and a diffuse crackling sound which seemed to be caused by the throwing of many stones and projectiles.

The horde of corpisantari (who had evidently planned their incursion with care) poured screaming into the forecourt of the Colosseum, armed with clubs and sticks and charging at full speed, without even giving the Bargello's men time to understand what was happening. Our view was somewhat improved by the light which the guards' torches spread here and there on the scene.

The ambuscade was sudden, barbarous, pitiless. A group of attackers emerged from the Arch of Constantine, a second descended from the wall around the orchards overlooking the ruins of the Curia Hostilia, another rushed out from the ruins of the Temple of Isis and Serapis. The warlike cry of the assailing mob rose high and wild, utterly disconcerting their victims, who numbered only five or six.

A pair of guards who were more cut off from the group, almost paralysed with surprise, were the first to suffer the blows, scratches, kicks and bites of the three corpisantari arriving from the Arch of Constantine. The clash came in a chaotic scrimmage of legs, arms, heads bestially grasped, a rudimentary brawl devoid of any military orderliness. The blows dealt out were, however, certainly not mortal, seeing that the victims, although badly thrashed, soon beat an indecorous retreat towards the street that leads to San Giovanni. Two other guards (those, in fact, who in all probability were on the point of entering the Colosseum in order to arrest us), terrorised by the filthy corpisantaro band, made off without so much as a blow, running as fast as their legs would carry them in the direction of San Pietro in Vincoli, followed by a bunch of verminous attackers, among whose cries I seemed to discern the unmistakeable eloquence of Ugonio.

Matters, however, went differently for the two guards near to Tiracorda's carriage: one of the pair defended himself ably with his sabre, succeeding in keeping a trio of corpisantari effectively in check. Meanwhile, his companion, the only one on horseback, hauled up to the saddle a third, plump and clumsy personage who (unless my eyes deceived me) had a bag hanging from his neck. It was Tiracorda, whom the guard had doubtless recognised as the victim of the criminal events of the night, and had decided to bear to safety. Hardly had the horse carrying the two ridden off towards the sanctuary of Monte Cavallo than the guard who remained on foot resigned himself to flight, disappearing into the darkness. The Colosseum returned to the realm of silence.

My attention switched back to Atto and Dulcibeni, who had also been distracted by the real battle which had taken place before our eyes.

"It is all over, Melani," said the latter. "You have won, with your subterranean monsters, with your mania for spying and intrigue, with that insane curiosity which makes you crawl like a bedbug under the clothing of princes. Now, I shall open this bag and give you its contents, which the little prentice here would perhaps like to lay his hands on even more than you."

"Yes, it is all over," repeated Atto with a weary sigh.

He had almost reached the end of the wall and was a few yards now from Dulcibeni's feet. Soon, he would be able to climb onto the outer wall of the Colosseum and stand face to face with his antagonist.

I was not, however, of the same opinion as the abbot: it was by no means all over. We had stalked, followed, investigated, reasoned for nights and nights. All in order to find the answer to one question above all others: who had poisoned Nicolas Fouquet, and how? I was astounded that among the thousand questions which Atto had put to Dulcibeni, that was the one question for which he had found no time. But, if he did not ask it, I was still there.

"Why kill the Superintendent too, Signor Pompeo?" I dared then to ask.

Dulcibeni raised his eyes to heaven and burst into lugubrious laughter.

"Ask that question of your dear Abbot, my boy!" he exclaimed. "Ask him how come his dear friend Fouquet felt ill after his foot bath. Get him to tell you also why Abbot Melani became so agitated and why he tormented the poor man with his questions and would not even let him die in peace. And then… ask him what was so potent in the water of Fouquet's foot bath, ask him which poisons kill so perfidiously."

I looked instinctively at Atto, who said nothing, as though caught off balance.

"But you…" he tried feebly to interrupt.

"I put one of my little mice to swim in that water," Dulcibeni continued, "and after a few moments, I saw him perish in the most horrible way imaginable. A powerful poison, Abbot Melani, and a treacherous one: well dissolved in a foot bath, it penetrates through the skin and under the toenails without leaving a trace, and ascends through the body to the bowels, inexorably destroying them. A true work of art, such as only the French master perfumers can create, is that not so?"

I recalled then that, on my second visit to Fouquet's body, Cristofano had found on the floor, next to the basin containing the foot bath, a few pools of water; this, despite the fact that I myself had dried the floor carefully that very morning. In taking his sample, Dulcibeni must have spilled a little. I shivered when I remembered that I had touched a few drops of that fatal liquid: too little, fortunately, to suffer even so much as a slight malaise.

Then, turning to Atto, Dulcibeni added: "Did the Most Christian King perhaps entrust a very special task to you, Signor Abbot Atto Melani? Something terrible, but which you could not refuse? A proof of supreme fidelity to the King?"

"Enough of that, I cannot permit such talk!" warned Atto, at last hauling himself up onto the great wall surrounding the Colosseum.

"What vile lies against Fouquet did the Most Christian King feed to you when he commanded you to eliminate him?" insisted Dulcibeni. "You obeyed, squalid slave that you are. But then, when he was dying in your arms, the Superintendent murmured something to you which you did not expect. I can imagine it, yes: some reference to obscure secrets, a few babbled phrases which perhaps no one could ever have understood. But it was enough for you to realise that you were a pawn in a game the existence of which you did not so much as suspect."

"You are raving, Dulcibeni, I do not…" Atto tried once again to interrupt him.

"Ah! You are under no obligation to say anything: those words will remain forever a secret between you and Fouquet, that is not what matters," cried Dulcibeni, facing the wind which was growing ever more impetuous. "But at that moment, you understood that the King had lied to and exploited you. And you began to fear for yourself. Then you got it into your head to investigate all the guests at the inn: you were trying desperately to discover the real reason why you had been sent to kill your friend."

"You are mad, Dulcibeni, you are mad and you are trying to accuse me in order to cover up your own guilt, you are…"

"And you, boy," Dulcibeni interrupted him, turning again towards me, "ask your abbot, too: why were Fouquet's last words " ‘Ahi, dunqu ‘e pur vero' “? Is that not strangely reminiscent of an aria famous in the Superintendent's golden days? Abbot Melani, you cannot have failed to recognise it: tell me, how many times did you sing it in his presence? And he meant to remind you of those words, as he died with the pain of your betrayal. Like Julius Caesar, when he saw that among the ruffians who were stabbing him was his beloved Brutus."

Atto had ceased to respond. He had climbed onto the great wall, and now he and Dulcibeni confronted one another. But the abbot's silence had another cause: Dulcibeni was about to open the box of leeches.

"I promised you, and I always keep my promises," said Dulcibeni. "The contents are all yours."

Then he approached the edge of the wall and turned the little chest upside down, opening it onto the void.

But from the chest (even I could see this from a distance) came nothing. It was empty.

Dulcibeni laughed.

"Poor imbecile," said he to Melani, "did you really believe that I would waste all this time for the sole pleasure of being insulted by you?"

Instinctively, my eyes and Atto's sought each other, sharing the same thought: Dulcibeni had drawn us up there for the sole purpose of creating a diversion. He had left the leeches in the carriage before fleeing into the Colosseum.

"Now they are on their way with their master, bound for the veins of the Pope," he added mockingly, "and no one can stop them."

Atto sat down, overcome; Dulcibeni dropped the chest into the void, outside the Colosseum. A few seconds later, we heard a sad, muffled thump.

Dulcibeni took advantage of the respite to take his snuffbox out once more and treat himself to a great sniff of mamacocoa, then he threw the little box into the void too, turning his arm in a gesture at once triumphal and derisive.

It was that last throw, however, that cost him his balance. We saw him sway a little, then try to regain an erect position, at last bending to the right, where the great wooden cross stood.

It all happened in a matter of moments. He brought his hand to his head, as though assailed by a sharp, cruel pain, or a sudden loss of control, and collided with the cross, the presence of which-1 thought-he had not in any way foreseen.

The collision with the wooden symbol deprived him of his already precarious equilibrium. I saw his body fall into the Colosseum, in instants dropping the height of many men placed one above the other. Fortunately-and this saved his life-the first impact was with a slightly sloping brick shelf. Then Dulcibeni's body landed on a great stone slab, which received it mercifully, as a riverbed receives the wrecks of ships overcome by the force of the tempest.

Only with the help of the other corpisantari were we able to raise the inert body of Dulcibeni. He was alive, and a few minutes later, he even regained consciousness.

"My legs… I can no longer feel them," were his first words.

Under the guidance of Baronio, the corpisantari found a handcart nearby, perhaps left there by some fruit vendor. It was old and rickety, but, thanks to the united forces of the corpisantari, we managed to use it to transport Dulcibeni's poor injured body. Of course, Atto and I could have abandoned the wounded man among the ruins of the Colosseum, but we at once agreed that so to do would be pointlessly cruel and dangerous; he would sooner or later be found and, what was more, would be missing from the roll-call at the inn, thus inevitably provoking an inquiry on the part of Cristofano, and then, by the authorities.

I felt relieved by our shared decision to save Dulcibeni: the melancholy and tragic history of his daughter had not left me indifferent.

The march back to the Donzello was interminable and funereal. We followed the most tortuous of routes and the strangest shortcuts in order to avoid once again being surprised by the Bargello's men. The corpisantari, taciturn and peevish, were disheartened by their failure to prevent Tiracorda from escaping with the leeches and mortified both by the bitterness of defeat and the fear that, by the morrow, the Pope might be mortally infected. On the other hand, Dulcibeni's desperate condition inspired no one with the idea of denouncing him; the savage assault which the corpisantari had just inflicted upon the Bargello's men counselled prudence and silence. It would be in all our best interests that there should remain in the minds of the guardians of order only memories of this night, but no traces.

In order not to form too large and visible a group, most of the corpisantari left us, not without a hurriedly grunted farewell. Seven of us remained: Ugonio, Ciacconio, Polonio, Grufonio, Atto, Dulcibeni (loaded onto the hand-cart) and myself.

We proceeded in a group, taking turns to push the cart. We were near to the Gesu church, in the vicinity of the Pantheon, where we were to regain the underground galleries in order to return to the Donzello. I noticed that Ciacconio was not keeping up with us and had fallen behind. I observed him: he was walking with difficulty and dragging his feet. I drew this to the attention of those at the front of the group and we waited for Ciacconio to catch up with us.

"All the haste leaves him windified," commented Ugonio.

It did not seem to me that Ciacconio was merely exhausted. Hardly had he rejoined us than he leaned against the cart, then sat down on the ground, with his back to the wall, and remained motionless. His breathing was short and light.

"Ciacconio, what is wrong with you?"

"Gfrrrlubh," he replied, pointing to the left-hand side of his belly.

"Are you tired, or unwell?"

"Gfrrrlubh," he replied, repeating the same gesture, and seeming to have nothing to add to that.

Instinctively (and despite the fact that any bodily contact with the corpisantari was to be regarded as far from desirable) I touched Ciacconio's clothing at the place which he had indicated. It seemed damp.

I shifted the folds of material a little and became aware of a disagreeable but familiar odour. Everyone had meanwhile gathered round, and it was Abbot Melani who drew even closer. He touched Ciacconio's clothing and brought his hand to his nose.

"Blood. Good heavens, let us open his clothing!" he said, nervously undoing the cord which kept Ciacconio's old overcoat closed. He had a wound just halfway up his belly, from which blood was seeping continuously and had already stained a great patch of material. The wound was most grave, the haemorrhage copious, and I was astounded that Ciacconio should still have had the strength to walk until now.

"My God, he needs help, he cannot come with us," I said, shocked through and through by our discovery.

There was a long moment's silence. It was all too easy to understand what thoughts were traversing the mind of the group. The ball which had struck Ciacconio had come from Dulcibeni's pistol. Without intending it, he had mortally wounded the unfortunate corpisantaro.

"Gfrrrlubh," said Ciacconio, then, pointing out with one hand the road which we were following and gesturing that we should continue on our way. Ugonio knelt down and drew near to him. There followed a rapid and unintelligible parley between the two, during which Ugonio twice raised his voice as though to convince his companion of his own opinion. Ciacconio, however, repeated the same murmur again and again, each time more feebly and breathlessly.

It was then that Atto understood what was about to happen: "My God, no, we cannot leave him here. Call your friends," he said, turning to Ugonio. "Let them come and fetch him. We must do something, call someone, a chirurgeon…"

"Gfrrrlubh," said Ciacconio in a slight, resigned whisper, which fell among us as the most definitive human reasoning of which one could conceive.

Ugonio, for his part, laid his hand gently on his companion's shoulder, then stood up as though the conversation were at an end. Polo- nio and Grufonio then approached the wounded man and exchanged confused and mysterious arguments with him in an uninterrupted murmur. At length, they all knelt down together and began to pray.

"Oh no," I wept, "it cannot, it must not be."

Even Atto, who had hitherto manifested so little sympathy for the corpisantari and their bizarre qualities, could not contain his emotion. I saw him draw aside and hide his face and I noticed that his shoulders were shaken by convulsive movements. In silent, liberating sobs, the abbot was at last releasing his pain: for Ciacconio, for Fouquet, for Vienna, for himself; a traitor perhaps, but one betrayed, and alone. And, while I bethought myself of Dulcibeni's last mysterious words about the death of Fouquet, I felt dark shadows gather between Atto and myself.

In the end, we all went down on bended knee to pray, while Ciacconio's breathing became ever shorter and more suffocated; until Grufonio left briefly, to warn (or so I surmised) the rest of the corpisantari who, within a few minutes, arrived. Soon they would remove the poor body and accord it a decent burial.

It was then, before my eyes, that the last heartrending seconds of Ciacconio's life ran out. While his companions gathered around him, Ugonio compassionately supported the head of the dying man; with a gesture, he invited us all to keep silent and interrupt our prayers. The quiet of the night fell over the scene and we could heart the last words of the corpisantaro: "Gfrrrlubh."

I looked questioningly at Ugonio who, between sobs, translated: "Lachrymae in pluvia."

Then the poor man ceased breathing.

There was no need for further explanations. In those words, Ciacconio had carved his own fleeting adventure on earth: we are as teardrops in the rain; hardly shed, and already lost in the great flow of mortality.

After Ciacconio's remains had been borne away by his friends, we went again on our way with our hearts weighed down by bitter, indescribable pain. I walked with bowed head, as though propelled by a force outside of me. My suffering was such that during the remainder of our march, I had not even the courage to look at poor Ugonio, fearing that I would be unable to hold back my tears. All the adventures which we had faced together with the two corpisantari returned to mind: our explorations of the subterranean maze, the beating of Stilone Priaso, the incursions into Tiracorda's house… I imagined then how many other vicissitudes he must have shared with Ciacconio, and, confronting his state of mind with my own, I understood how desperately he would miss his friend.

Such was our mourning that it overshadowed all my memories of the rest of the journey: the return underground, the exhausting march through the tunnels, the conveyance into the hostelry, then into his chamber, of Dulcibeni. In order to hoist him up, we had to cobble together a sort of stretcher, removing a few planks from the cart which we had used on the surface. The injured man, now feverish and semi-conscious, aware only of having suffered grave and perhaps irreversible wounds, was thus transported, tied up like a sausage in its skin, and raised from one trapdoor to another, from one stair to the next, and only at the cost of inhuman efforts by twelve arms: four corpisantari, Atto and I.

It was already dawn when the corpisantari took their leave of us, disappearing into the little closet. Obviously, I feared that Cristofano might hear the passing of our cortege, however quiet, above all when we hauled Dulcibeni up into the little room and then down the stairs of the hostelry to the first floor. When, however, we passed in front of his chamber, we heard only the peaceful, regular vibration of his snores.

I had also to bid Ugonio farewell. While Atto stood aside, the corpisantaro grasped my shoulders firmly with his clawed hands; he knew that it was hardly probable that we should ever meet again. I would no longer descend into his subterranean world, nor would he ever emerge under the dome of heaven, save under cover of night, when poor, honest folk (like myself) lie abed, sleeping away the exhausting labours of the day. Thus we left one another, with heavy hearts; nor indeed, did I ever see him again.

I needed urgently to retire to bed and to avail myself of the little time that remained to Atto and me in which to recuperate our strength. Yet, too shaken by events, I already knew that I would never be able to find sleep. I therefore decided to take advantage of the situation to note down in my diary the events which had just taken place.

The temporary leave-taking from Atto was a matter of a moment, and of a look which each of us read in the eyes of the other: several hours ago by now, Dulcibeni's pestiferous leeches would already have attacked the soft, tired flesh of Innocent XI.

Everything depended upon the course which the illness took: whether it was slow or, as in so many cases, fulminating.

Perhaps the new day would already bring with it the news of his death; and with it, perhaps, the outcome of the battle for Vienna.