Secretum

Day the Eighth

14th J ULY, 1700

"And what do you mean to say, That I'm an ignoramus?"

Poor Buvat fell silent at once, shocked by Atto's acid tone.

That morning Abbot Melani was really beside himself. Buvat had just returned from a walk in town and had found us in close conversation, trying to think up a way of getting into the Congregation of the Oratory while eluding the surveillance of the Philippine Brothers. The moment that he attempted to contribute to the discussion, Atto set to berating him.

"Never would I dare suggest such a thing, Signor Abbot," the secretary hesitantly defended himself, "only…"

"Only what?"

"Well, there's simply no reason to elude the surveillance of the Philippine Brothers because, as I was saying, there is none."

Abbot Melani and I looked at one another in consternation.

"What is more," Buvat continued, "Virgilio Spada himself arranged for his collection to be displayed in an accessible place. It is indeed a genuine museum, so arranged as to satisfy the curiosity of many visitors."

Buvat went on to explain that Virgilio Spada, although he had in his youth soldiered under the Spanish flag, was a most religious, cultivated and erudite man, a good friend of the great architect Borromini whom he had introduced to the court of Pope Innocent X half a century previously. Spada had at the time been instructed by the Pontiff to restore order to the great hospital of Santo Spirito in Saxia, and had subsequently been appointed Privy Almoner to His Holiness. Besides this he had, thanks to his spiritual qualities, been invited to join the pious Congregation of the Oratory, so called because its founder, Saint Philip Neri, had held its first spiritual meetings at the Oratory of San Girolamo della Carita and later in that of Santa Maria in Vallicella, where the seat of the Congregation of the Oratory is now to be found, along with Virgilio's collection.

"How the deuce do you come to know all this?"

"You will of course remember that, when I was recently visiting libraries in search of information on the cerretani, among other things, I went to the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, which happens to be just next to the Oratory of the Philippine Brothers. So it was that I got into long and pleasant conversations with them. At that time, I could even have taken a look at the collection of Virgilio Spada, if only you had told me that you thought you might find there these objects which interest you so much."

Melani lowered his eyes and muttered furious obscenities under his breath.

"Very well, Buvat," he then said. "Take us to your Oratorian friends."

"And this must be what you are looking for," said the young monk, turning the key in the lock of a great two-panelled chest.

The room was gay and luminous, but rendered severe by the display cabinets, walnut chests of drawers and bookcases full of all manner of objects which covered it and made it rather like a sacristy.

"No one knows that these objects, the ones you're looking for, are here. Perhaps there's someone in the Spada family who remembers," added the monk, with an expression that betrayed the desire to know how we came to be informed of this.

"Quite. I believe that is precisely the case," replied Atto, in terms that did not address the Oratorian's observation, who was therefore left no wiser.

We were in the room at the Oratory devoted to the museum: a corner room on the second floor giving onto the Piazza della Chiesa Nuova (that of the church standing next to the Oratory itself), and a narrow alley called the Via de' Filippini.

We had begun with a detailed visit to the entire collection of Virgilio Spada: Roman coins; medals from every epoch; busts antique and modern; sundials; concave mirrors; convex lenses; gnomons; volcanic rocks; crystals; precious stones; solar sponges; the fangs of monstrous beings; teeth and bones of animals mysteriously turned to stone; the ravenous mandibles of unknown beings; elephants' vertebrae; gigantic conch and mussel shells; seahorses; stuffed birds and hawks; horns of rhinoceros and stags' antlers; turtles' shells; ostrich eggs; claws of crustaceans; and in addition, oil lamps of the first Christians found in the catacombs; tabernacles; Roman, Greek and Persian vases and amphorae; goblets; huge oil jars; lachrymal vases; bone calyxes; Chinese coins; alabaster spheres and a thousand other oddities which kept us suspended between wonderment and impatience.

After a guided visit lasting half an hour (tiresome but necessary, for if we had asked at once to see what interested us, that would have attracted too much attention), Atto put the fateful question: were there by any chance three objects which the good Virgilio Spada had not integrated into the collection but for which he cared no less, and which were of such and such a kind?

The Oratorian then led us into an adjoining room, where we at last stopped in front of an orotund and triumphal globe, that of Capitor. The Abbot and I concealed our enthusiasm and examined it with polite interest, as one might any fine product of human craftsmanship.

"We have it, my boy, at last we have it!" Abbot Melani whispered in my ear, controlling his joy with some difficulty, while our guide led us to the second object: the goblet with the centaur. Once again, we dissimulated.

"It looks just the same as in the picture, Signor Atto, there can be no doubt about it," I murmured in his ear.

The crucial moment came only at the end, when the great black key turned in the lock and the mechanism which had guarded the third gift since who knows when gave way at last. The Oratorian opened both doors of the cabinet wide and extracted an object measuring about three feet by six, weighing a great deal and covered with a grey cloth.

"Here we are," said he, laying it carefully on a little table and removing the cover, "we have to keep it under lock and key because it is particularly valuable. It is true that no one enters here unannounced, but one never knows."

We barely heard the words of the courteous Oratorian father; the blood beat hard against our temples and we would willingly have exchanged our eyes for his hands the better to discover the object so long and ardently coveted: the Tetrachion.

Here it was at last.

"It… is so beautiful," gasped Buvat.

"It is the work of a Dutch master, so at least we are told, but we do not know his name," the priest added laconically.

After the first moments of emotion, I was at last able to enjoy the refined forms of the dish, the exceedingly fine decoration of the edge, the exotic seashells and most capricious arabesques, and then the wonderful central marine scene, in which a pair of Tritons ploughed the waves drawing a chariot surmounted by a couple of deities seated one beside the other, their pudenda lightly covered by a golden veil; Neptune was grasping a trident, and, entwined in an embrace with her spouse, the Nereid Amphitrite was holding the reins. The pair were embossed in silver and stood out strikingly, being statuettes in the round set in the golden bed of the charger. Just as I was pausing to view the divine couple, Atto drew near to examine a minute inscription.

I too approached, and read in turn. The inscription was carved at the feet of the two deities: MONSTRUM TETRACHION

"Would you like to see anything else?" asked the Oratorian, while Atto, without even having asked his permission, took the dish in his hands, and with Buvat's help, closely inspected the two silver statuettes.

"No thank you, Father, that will suffice," the Abbot answered at length. "Now we shall take our leave. We simply wished to satisfy our curiosity." "The correct meaning of monstrum is 'marvel' or 'a marvellous thing'. But what sense does it make to write monstrum Tetrachion, or 'quadruple marvel'?"

No sooner were we on our way, moving from the Oratory of the Philippines towards the Tiber than Atto set about trying to work out what that inscription might mean. We had to hasten towards the Vessel. It was almost midday and, as Cloridia had announced to us two days earlier, another meeting between the three cardinals was due to take place, perhaps the last one on which we might have a chance to spy, or attempt to spy, seeing that all our attempts to date had failed miserably.

"Permit me, Signor Abbot," interrupted Buvat.

"What is it now?" asked Melani nervously.

"To tell the truth, monstrum Tetrachion does not mean 'quadruple marvel' at all."

Caught off balance, Atto stared at his secretary and uttered a faint murmur of protest.

"Tetrachion, as you obviously know, is a word of Greek origin, but the Greek word for quadruple is tetraplasios, not tetrachion. On the other hand, tetrachion is not to be confused either with tetrachin, an adverb that means 'four times'," explained the secretary, while humiliation painted itself in dark colours on Atto's forehead.

"And what does tetrachion mean then?" I asked, seeing that the Abbot lacked the breath to put the question.

"It is an adjective, and it means 'with four columns'."

"Four columns?" Melani and I repeated incredulously in unison.

"I know what I am saying, but you can always check in any good Greek dictionary."

"Four columns, four columns," murmured Atto. "Did you not notice anything curious about those two statuettes, the marine deities?"

Buvat and I reflected a few moments.

"Well, yes," said I at length, breaking the silence, "they are in rather a strange position. They are sitting on the chariot, one beside the other, and Neptune has his left leg between those of Amphitrite, unless I am mistaken."

"Not only that," Buvat corrected me, "but it is not clear which is the right leg of the god and which is the left leg of the nereid. It is as though the two statuettes were actually… fused together. Yes, they are joined, by a hip, or a thigh, I know not which, so much so that when I first saw them, I thought, how strange, they look like a single being."

"A single being," repeated Atto thoughtfully. "It is as though they had — how can one put it? — four legs shared between the two of them," he added in a low voice.

"So the four columns are the legs," I deduced.

"That is possible. Oh yes, in terms of language, it is certainly possible, I can confirm that," Buvat pronounced. His intellect may perhaps have been lacking in daring, but when he took the bull of erudition by the horns, he would not let go.

"So, Buvat, if I may take advantage of your admirable science, I ask you whether, instead of 'quadruple marvel', I can translate monstrum Tetrachion as 'four-legged' or even 'four-pawed monster'."

Buvat reflected one moment, then gave his ruling: "Yes, definitely. Monstrum in Latin means both 'prodigy' or 'marvel' and 'monster', that's well known. Still, I do not understand where all this is leading up to…"

"Good, that will do," commented Atto.

"Still, what is this Tetrachion?" I questioned him. "If it really is the heir to the Spanish throne, it seems almost to be an animal, Signor Atto."

"What the Tetrachion is, I do not know. What's more, to be quite honest, 1 know even less than I did before. Yet I feel that the answer is at hand, if we can but take one step forward. It is always like that: whenever one is close to the solution of some mystery of state, everything seems confused. The closer you approach, the more you stumble in the dark. Then suddenly, it all becomes clear."

While he was commenting on our progress, we passed the bridge over the Tiber and by now we were already climbing the Janiculum Hill and rapidly approaching our goal.

"Only one piece is missing from the mosaic," Atto continued, "and then perhaps we shall find what we seek. I want to know: where the deuce does this word Tetrachion come from? We must go and put a couple of little questions to someone. Let's hope he's already arrived at Villa Spada. We have very little time left before Spada, Albani and Spinola return to the Vessel. Let us get a move on."

Our initial search through the gardens of Villa Spada proved fruitless. Romauli, said the other servants, was doing his rounds, but no one knew exactly where he was. Since he spent most of his time bending over, he was easily concealed by hedges and shrubs.

"Damn it all, I have it," cursed Atto. "We need some help."

He guided our trio to his apartment. No sooner had we entered than he rushed to the table and grasped a familiar object: the telescope. He pointed it out of the window, to no avail.

We then went outside and crossed to the other side of the villa. This time, after a swift scan, Melani whistled with satisfaction:

"I have you, wretched gardener."

Now we knew where he was.

Tranquillo Romauli, punctual in his activities as the rising of sun and moon, could certainly not fail to water the Saint Antony's lilies which he had planted not long before and which required constant and intensive care. He was carefully sprinkling the diaphanous lanceolate calyxes bunched in lovely racemes when we appeared before him, greeting him with the greatest courtesy that haste and emotion permitted.

"Do you see? With lilies, the ground needs generous watering, but it must never be drenched," he began, almost without responding to our greeting. "In this period, they should really be resting, but I have succeeded in developing a hybrid which…"

"Signor Master Florist, be so kind as to permit us to ask you a question," I asked him amiably, "a question concerning the Tetrachion."

"About the Tetrachion, my Tetrachion?"

"Yes, Signor Florist, the Tetrachion. Where did you find that name?"

"Oh, that is a rather sad story," said he, as he put down his watering can, his face marked by some distant memory.

Fortunately, his explanation was not too lengthy. Years before, Romauli had not dedicated all his time to flowers: he had been married. As well I knew, his late spouse had been a great midwife; indeed she had taught the art to Cloridia, and had attended the birth of our two little ones. From his tale one understood that it had been the premature death of his wife that had caused him to devote himself body and soul to gardening, in a vain attempt to banish the indelible shadows of mourning. Not long after the sad event, the poor woman's parents had asked Tranquillo if he could leave them some personal belonging of hers as a memento.

"I gave them a few jewels, two little pictures, a holy image and then her work books."

"So these were books for midwives," said Atto to encourage him.

"They are used by midwives to acquaint themselves with the possible accidents arising from difficult deliveries, or to instruct themselves on the different kinds of womb, and other such matters," he replied.

"And from which book did you take the term Tetrachion?"

"Ah, well, that I really cannot remember. It was so many years ago. I do not recall the details. The use of that name is in fact a memento, just a memento of my dear wife."

We had learned enough.

"Thank you, thank you for your patience, and please pardon us for having troubled you," said I, while Atto was already hurrying away, without so much as a farewell, towards the gate of the villa. Romauli stared at us in surprise.

Running as fast as I was able to, I rejoined Atto, who had charged out of Villa Spada without even a nod towards a pair of cardinals, who had themselves turned to greet him. Buvat meanwhile had obeyed his master's orders to remain in the villa and had turned back towards the great house.

"I have sent him to look for your wife," explained Melani. "We must find the book from which the Master Florist took that name. I want the author, the title, the page number, the lot."

He and I moved rapidly away from the Villa Spada. The Vessel awaited us.

"A curse upon Tranquillo Romauli and his chatter. I knew it: they've disappeared again."

It was midday. We had entered Benedetti's villa, but as on the previous occasions, of the three cardinals there was not so much as a shadow.

"It is noon. The appointment was fixed for precisely this hour," I observed after we had carried out our usual swift but careful preliminary reconnaissance.

We were on the second floor. Near us, on the ground, lay Pieter Boel's picture.

"It looks very like a gross error of workmanship," commented Atto.

The Abbot leaned over the canvas, intent upon comparing the depiction of Capitor's dish with the original which we had just examined so avidly at the Oratory.

"It is just as I had already observed: what at first sight appears to be Amphitrite's right leg comes from Poseidon's left side," continued the Abbot, "while what looks like the god's left leg comes from the nereid."

"Then it is as I said," I intervened, "there's just one leg placed over the other."

"That was my own first impression," he retorted, "but look carefully at the toes."

I leaned over in turn to examine the detail.

"It is true, the big toes…" I exclaimed in surprise. "But how is that possible?"

"From their position, it is clear that the two legs cannot be crossed: the nereid's right leg really is her own and Poseidon's left leg really does belong to him."

"It is as though, through the goldsmith's carelessness, they'd been wrongly attached to the statuettes."

"Quite. But do you not find that rather strange for an artist capable of producing a masterpiece like this?"

"We shall have to return to the Oratorian Fathers and ask to be shown the original again."

"Alas, I fear that would not be of much use. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify to which statuette the legs are in fact attached. I already tried to look on the dish itself, but do you see the little strip of gold that runs horizontally across the flanks of the two deities, covering their pudenda?"

"Yes, I'd already noticed it."

"Well, the goldsmith soldered it to the statuettes, so it is no longer possible to raise it and resolve the mystery. Only, I wonder why ever…"

Melani broke off with an irate grimace of vexation.

"Him again, that demented Dutchman. But when will he stop?"

Re-emerging once more from who knows where, Albicastro was at it again: once again the theme of the folia echoed, proud and indomitable, through the halls of the Vessel. A little later, he entered the room where we were.

"I thank you for the compliment, Signor Abbot Melani," the violinist began placidly, showing that he had heard Atto's comment. "Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, overcame the suitors thanks to his madness."

Melani snorted.

"If you will kindly excuse me, I shall be on my way," said Albicastro amiably in response to Atto's rude gesture. "But remember Telemachus, he will be useful to you!"

It was the second time that the Dutchman had spoken of Telemachus, but on neither occasion had I grasped his meaning. I knew Homer and the Odyssey only in outline, having read it thus some thirty years before in a book of Greek legends; I remembered that Telemachus had feigned madness in the assembly of the suitors who had invaded his father Ulysses' palace and had thus delivered them up to the death which Ulysses planned for them. Nevertheless, I could not fathom the meaning of Albicastro's recommendation.

"Signor Atto, what did he mean?" I asked when he had left.

"Nothing. He's mad and that's all there is to it," was Melani's only comment as he shamelessly slammed the door behind the Dutchman.

We returned to the picture. A few seconds later, however, we again heard the penetrating sound of Albicastro's violin and of his folia. Melani rolled his eyes in vexation.

"Of the inscription on the dish, there's no trace in the painting," said I, in an attempt to bring his attention back to bear on the image of the Tetrachion. "It is too small for it to be possible to paint it correctly."

"Yes," Atto assented, after a few instants; "or else Boel did not wish to paint it; or perhaps someone ordered him not to do so."

"Why?"

"Who knows? Likewise, the goldsmith may have perhaps made that mess with the legs deliberately, because he was commissioned to do so."

"But why?"

"For heaven's sake, my boy!" shouted Atto, "I am only airing suppositions. It exercises the intellect, and one finds an answer every now and then. And above all, tell that Dutchman to stop that racket once and for all, I need to reflect in silence!"

Thereupon, he put his hands over his ears and moved towards the staircase.

It was rather rare for Abbot Melani to become angry. Albicastro's music was certainly not so loud as to disturb or annoy. I had the impression that more than the volume of sound, it was the music itself, the folia, which was getting on Atto's nerves; or perhaps, I thought to myself, Albicastro, that curious soldier-violinist, and his bizarre philosophising were even more irritating for him. It was very rare for Atto to call an adversary mad. With Albicastro, who was no enemy, he had done just that: as though the other's thinking set off some hidden inner rage in him.

"Signor Atto, I agree, I shall go down and tell him…"

But the Abbot had already disappeared from my sight.

"Forget it. I shall look for somewhere better," I heard him say from some adjoining room.

I followed him at once. I expected to find him in the central salon giving onto the four apartments. When, however, I got there, I found myself alone. Yet Atto had not gone downstairs: I checked the main staircase and not a sound reached me from below. I then went to the service stairs, and there at last I heard his footsteps. He was not going down but up.

"It is quite intolerable," he grumbled as he climbed the stairs to the top floor.

When I followed him, I understood why. As had already happened the first time that we met Albicastro, in the little spiral staircase, the sound of the violin was amplified beyond all measure and embellished by echoes which transformed that agreeable melody into an infernal jumble. The sonorous reverberation produced by the spiral cavity made it seem like, not one violin, but fifty or a hundred all playing the same tune, but one note out of time, so that the plain linear theme of the folia sucked one down into the all-enveloping vortex of a musical canon which wound in vertiginous coils ever more tightly around the hearer, like the coils of the stairway itself which I and Atto were now climbing a few paces apart, he fleeing the music and I, following him.

"Where are you going?" I yelled, trying to drown with my voice the deafening orchestra of a thousand Albicastros twisting like restless spirits in the stairwell.

"Air, I want air!" he replied, "I'm suffocating here."

As the stairs wound upward, I heard him cough once, then twice, and in the end came one long, tremendous outburst, a hoarse, painful attack like that brought on by a dreadful cold, suffocation, strangling or burned lungs. True, the Vessel was dusty in the extreme, but that feverish fit, that violent and malignant expiration bespoke a grave alteration of the humours. Atto's soul was in sore travail, his body was struggling to rid itself of all that was weighing it down by fleeing the folia.

"But Signor Atto, perhaps if you open a window…" I called out to him.

There was no response. Perhaps he had not even heard me. I realised then that, as I climbed, the music was getting louder, despite the fact that the sound of Albicastro's violin seemed to be coming from the ground floor.

"Upstairs there's nothing but the servants' quarters, and they are empty," I called again, as I tried to catch up with him.

Almost at once, I reached that level; but Atto had gone on higher.

Two days earlier, we had reached that third floor, but to do so we had taken the grand staircase, which went no further. Unlike those stairs, the servants' ones went right up to the very top: to the terrace crowning the Vessel.

At last I too climbed those last narrow steps and, like a soul welcomed to paradise, fled the darkness of the stairwell and the unnatural thundering of the folia, emerging into the blessed, airy light of the terrace.

I found Melani slumped on the ground, still coughing, as though he had been almost asphyxiated.

"That accursed Hollander," he murmured, "damn him and his music."

"You have been coughing badly," I observed as I helped him to his feet.

He did not even answer me: he had raised his eyes and was staring, dumbfounded by the beauty of the space in which we stood, bounded by a wall surmounted by many fine vases decorated with floral motifs. In this wall were a number of wide oval openings through which one could enjoy an immense panorama dominating all the surrounding villas. At the four corners stood the four little cupolas crowning the Vessel and characterising it even from a distance. Covered with majolica tiles, over the four little domes stood weathervanes in the form of banners, each ending in a cross, which beautifully completed the terrace.

"With all the searching we've done here, we never discovered this belvedere. Admire it, my boy, what a gem! And such peace!"

His walking stick trembled. The fit of coughing, although short-lived, had shaken him badly. He seemed to me again the old, worn Atto I had found on the first day. He turned his back on me and walked towards the short end of the terrace, facing south and overlooking Via San Pancrazio, the street from which one enters the Vessel.

We allowed ourselves a few minutes in which to stare wide- eyed, leaning on an iron balustrade wrought to resemble foliage, at the splendid panorama surrounding the Vessel, with its vineyards and its pines, the solemn walls of the Holy City, the San Pancrazio Gate, and lastly, distant and discreet, the silvery glint of the sun on the sea.

We then moved to the head of the terrace, facing north. Here stood a rather lightweight structure, a sort of penthouse, crowned by a suspended balcony decorated at the corners with the fleur-de-lys, to which one gained access by two iron staircases set at either end.

We climbed the stairs on the left, and here our view opened up even more. We were simply overcome by the magnificence of the vistas which, both to the left and to the right, revealed to the spectator the triumphal grandeur of the Eternal City: in a pageant of symbols of the Faith, there stood before us a host of blessed cupolas, a forest of holy crosses, giddy pinnacles, venerable campaniles and the pink roofs of noble palaces, crowned by the hills which have always protected the cradle of Christianity. I remembered what Monsignor Virgilio Spada had suggested to Benedetti, and which Atto had mentioned a few days before: the idea of building a villa as a fortress of wisdom which would stimulate the visitor to reflect deeply on the victories of the intellect and the mysteries of the Faith.

My eyes then turned to the gardens of the Vessel and to the great pergola of grapes over the avenue leading from the entrance: as the Abbot had observed, Benedetti welcomed his visitors with grapes, the Christian symbol of rebirth.

"We're standing on the prow," said Atto.

In the naval architecture of the Vessel, that hanging balcony did indeed correspond to the upper deck.

Like two admirals on the bridge, we looked towards the Vatican Hill, that custodian of things imperishable. The Vessel dared point its bows towards the apostolic palaces, as though it were claiming: I too possess a fragment of eternity. Then I thought to myself, was not the Vessel perhaps a place of rebirth, where the broken threads of past and present again came together? Had this not perhaps happened when I had been able to witness the apparation of the young Louis and his beloved Maria and their dalliance? Likewise, when we beheld in the garden the image of Superintendent Fouquet, serene, free, untouched by disgrace or calumny. Those apparitions in that garden had recreated for us what history had denied them. The theatre of what should have been but never was: such was the Vessel.

It was on the strength of that very high office that this galleon claimed its place near the Vatican Hill. Saint Peter's, rock of the Faith and, near it, that other guardian of things eternal: the Vessel, fortress of justice, banished from the pedestal of history.

So it was that, standing on that little terrace suspended above infinity, with the wind raising the laces of my shirt, for an instant I felt like an intrepid sailor on the deck of a new Ark, a miraculous craft able to salvage just Fate and to stand guard over it in another time.

While I was thus wandering off into my daydreams, Atto suddenly called me back to things present.

"Perhaps you will have formed a precise image of it."

I knew at once to what he was referring.

"No," I replied. "It is a monster; that is the only thing I have understood. If the forecast is correct, a monster with four legs is about to succeed to the Spanish throne. That really doesn't seem to make much sense, does it?"

"I know. I've not stopped thinking of it for a moment, but nothing else comes to mind. Until your wife gets hold of the book that Romauli saw, I fear we shall not be able to make head or tail of it."

"I hope that Cloridia is as quick as usual."

"Let us go back down," said Atto at length. "I want to go and take another look at the picture."

It was then that we made the discovery.

"Look!" said Atto. "That is where they get through."

It could be seen only from there, at that particular angle. No other observation point anywhere in the Vessel was high enough or faced in the right north-westerly direction like the steps on which we stood. From here we could descry a little gate in the boundary wall of the garden through which one could pass unseen into a street adjoining the Vessel. This exit was cleverly concealed by a barrier of plants and brambles. It was quite impossible to locate unless one already knew of its existence. Once out, where did one go? That, we could see for ourselves: a furtive little group, perhaps the escort of one of the three cardinals, was entering a similar gate in the wall of a villa further down the road, the property of a Genoese nobleman by the name of Torre.

Peering more closely, I could make out a little further off the three cardinals of our acquaintance as they strolled undisturbed in Torre's garden.

"So that's why Spada, Spinola and Albani always make their appointments at the Vessel," said Atto. "They confound anyone who might wish to follow them, including us, by entering here then mysteriously disappearing. In actual fact they meet at Torre's villa. For your master Cardinal Spada, that is an ideal solution. At a short distance from his own estate he has a safe house in which to hold secret meetings, Torre's villa, and a place to muddy the waters, namely the Vessel. It is not by chance that until this moment he has always succeeded in shaking us off."

As he spoke, Abbot Melani did not take his eyes off the trio for one moment. I saw him suddenly stretch out his neck and screw up his eyes as though trying to see better what was going on; but the distance was too great. Our lookout point may indeed have been exceptional, but it would soon be useless. It was then that the Abbot suddenly slapped his forehead.

"What a fool I am. Fortune assists me and I neglect it!"

He reached into his jacket and drew out a long, fine cylinder: the telescope. He had kept it on his person ever since we had located Romauli in the garden of Villa Spada, as thence we had gone directly to the Vessel.

Fie looked briefly, then handed me the spyglass.

"Take a look yourself; it will be a useful experience."

I brought the eyepiece to my pupil and looked.

Cardinal Spinola was shaking his head gently, as though he were hesitating, while Spada and especially Albani were deep in conversation. The thing really did not last long; following a few words from Albani, Spinola assented with a somewhat unwilling nod, or so it seemed to me from that distance. Then Albani took him by the arm with visible pleasure and the three continued their stroll. Atto then took the telescope back from me and resumed his observation.

In the light of what I had learned the evening before from reading the exchange of letters between Atto and the Connestabilessa, the episode had no more mysteries, even for me. The three cardinals had to provide His Holiness Innocent XII with an opinion on the question of the Spanish succession, so that the Pope could respond as best he could to the request for help put to him by the King of Spain, Charles II. The three eminences had therefore to agree on a common line: a gesture of immense political importance which could make the fortune of the trio or be their ruin. It was quite clear that Spinola was not of exactly the same opinion as the other two prelates.

I looked once again at Atto as he spied avidly on the meeting between the three cardinals. He was worried, and I knew why. Were those meetings, at which the election of the future Pope would almost certainly be decided, impartial? Barely two days before, we had learned that Albani was in cahoots with the Imperial Ambassador, Count von Lamberg. As for Spada, being the Secretary of State of a Neapolitan pope, he was naturally pro-Spanish. Spinola, as I had read in the Abbot's last letter, was pro-Empire. French interests, or so it seems, were not represented. This could certainly not please Atto. As though that were not enough, Lamberg and Albani had got hold of the treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave and probably intended to use it against Atto.

"And now, what are we to do?" I asked.

"There's no point in sticking our noses in over there and being seen by Torre's guards."

"So?"

"I declare myself defeated. By now the festivities at Villa Spada are at their last gasp and tomorrow all the guests will leave. We shall never know what those three were confabulating about."

The seraphic resignation with which Atto had replied to me only reinforced my conviction. I already knew that, opinion or no opinion, conclave or succession, something quite different lay behind his presence at the Villa Spada: the mission of love with which the Most Christian King had entrusted him, in the hope of persuading Maria Mancini to see him once more.

"Let us go and take one last look at the picture," said he at last, "even if I despair of getting anything more from it; then let us go and see whether Buvat has found Cloridia."

We descended the little iron staircase, but just as we were about to enter the service stairs once more and descend to the second floor, we heard that voice:

T his work I call a looking-glass

In which each fool shall see an ass.

The viewer learns with certainty;

My mirror leaves no mystery.

It was Albicastro's inimitable timbre, although slightly muffled. It came from within the little penthouse from which the balcony was suspended.

"Again that Dutch lunatic," moaned Abbot Melani. "As if that fiddle were not enough, now he must needs pester us again with his damned Sebastian Brant. But what's Albicastro up to in there and how did he get in?" he asked, thoroughly vexed.

"Oh, to the Devil with him," said Atto, opening the door to the little penthouse which we had not even noticed before that. It was then that it all happened.

The penthouse was empty. Albicastro was not there. Curiously, the light was very dim. It came from two windows on the side facing Saint Peter's. The glass was partially blackened, so as to reduce the light drastically and — so I suspected — to make the visitor's steps uncertain. The space was quadrangular, with two pillars in the middle, perhaps supports for the little balcony. We were just next to one another and it was comforting in that strange place to feel Atto's by my side. Then we heard the Dutchman once more.

Whoever sees with open eyes

Cannot regard himself as wise,

For he shall see upon reflection

That humans teem with imperfection.

A disembodied voice, quite impossible to place. True, those verses were typical of Albicastro's usual inane ramblings, yet it was as though, in order to reach us, they had passed through some alien dimension in which sound is drained, washed free of its very properties. It was (to give the reader a fair idea) the voice of Albicastro's ghost. It seemed to come from the left.

We therefore turned to the left, and we saw.

It was there, or rather, they were both there looking at us. What cruel comedy there was in that sharp vision, I thought in a sudden flash of humour, as I beheld the being both one and double, and he looked at us. After Albicastro's ghostly voice, the Tetrachion overwhelmed us with the evidence of its utterly carnal presence, its stolid bestiality.

They stared at us as one, both with that dazed expression which only the Habsburg chin, that monstrously protruding jaw, can confer upon a human visage. Moreover the eyes were mismatched, the one sticking out, the other caved in, while the neck was twisted, the bodies deformed: one was stunted, as so often happens to beings ill-favoured by nature, the other, bloated. The flanks fused together, the legs wavering and horridly twisted one against the other, almost like the tentacles of some marine monster, gave that being the miserable destiny of twins who share the same body.

Incapable of opening my mouth, I raised my hand to shield my sight, and saw that the wretched creature (or one of them, but which?) gestured towards me, greeting me or begging perhaps to be left in peace. Then their features, as though made of quicksilver, became even more distorted, so that the chin of the one protruded absurdly, while the other collapsed on itself, and one chest was contorted in a horrendous spasm, while the raised hand of the other became a paw, a hoof, a stump. What nauseous and horrifying force dominated that flesh, those skins, those bones, and deformed them with the same cruel mastery as a taxidermist exercises upon the cadavers of the beasts which he stuffs?

Without a care for the sad spectacle of the monstrum Tetrachion and the horror it inspired, Albicastro's voice rang out as mockingly and ferociously as those paintings in which Death, a walking skeleton shouldering a scythe, walks calmly amongst the plumed knights and ladies whom he is about to harvest:

He's stirring at the dunces' stew;

He thinks he's wise and handsome too,

And with his mirror form so pleased

You 'd think he had a mind diseased;

Indeed he cannot see the ass

That's grinning at him from the glass!

Then there remained nothing, only horror, folly and desperation, my scream, our disorderly, precipitous flight down the stairs and then down the road, each paying no attention to the other, and at last the pain of having found in the mysterious abyss of the Vessel a second abyss peopled by monsters, sad morbidity, incest and death.

"Do you know who Ulisse Aldrovandi is?"

"No, I do not," I heard my distant voice reply, as pale and empty as my face.

We were in Atto's apartments at Villa Spada, where Buvat had summoned Cloridia. My legs were still trembling, but I had come back to myself sufficiently to hear others' voices, or at least to pretend that I heard them.

"But what ails you, husband?"

"Nothing, nothing," I answered, indicating Atto's frowning forehead with my glance and gesturing that only later would I be able to explain. "Now, tell us."

Cloridia had found out at once. She had found, not the book, but something better: now, at last, she could explain to us what the Tetrachion was.

"'Tis a very curious business indeed that your secretary has asked me to advise you on, Signor Abbot Melani," she began.

"Why curious?"

"It is something reserved for the very few, a matter that's almost obscure, I'd say. These are things which midwives are in fact not even obliged to know; even if we do, in the end, learn a little of everything: medicine, anatomy, natural philosophy…" said she with a knowing grimace.

"And what is this subject that's so unusual?"

"It is the science of abnormal foetuses and the generation of prodigies and portents: the science of monsters."

"Monsters?" asked Atto, on whose face I could for an instant descry the same terified expression as it had taken on when faced with the Tetrachion.

Cloridia then explained that the literature on the subject was most extensive. Among the most exhaustive works, one must mention the Deux livres de chirurgie by Ambroise Pare, first chirurgeon to the King of France, published over a century ago, and the more recent Monstrorum historia by the learned Bolognese Ulisse Aldrovandi, which listed the most famous cases of monstrous births and unnatural features.

"There is, for example, the celebrated case of an Ethiopian born with four eyes, one next to the other, or that of a man who came into this world with the neck and head of a crane, and there was another born with a dog's head…" said Cloridia, apparently savouring our reactions.

The list of monstrous births, in nature and in man, continued with hairy little girls, infants with horse's legs, new-born babes like fishes enveloped in a monk's habit, creatures in the form of scorpions, with two hands on each arm and huge asses' ears, or with the face of a wolf; or others with the features of a goat-like biped, raptor's talons, flaccid breasts, demon's wings, eagle's claws and canine chest; with mermaid's characteristics (but masculine) and with a devil's head, horns, goat's ears, great bestial fangs, protruding tongue, hands with thumbs but no other fingers, crested fins on the arms and back, seal's tail; or again, creatures with a woman's belly, one foot a pig's trotter and the other made like a hen's, or with the whole body covered in feathers; even gruesome entities formed like fish-pigs, with webbed and clawed fins, human eyes emerging from their scaly sides and a mouth full of fangs; and, to end with, a fine exemplar of the monstrum cornatum amp; alatum: with a bear's head, no arms, an enormous spindle-shaped penis ending in a point, one leg feathered, eagle's wings, an eye on the knee and the left foot webbed.

"Enough, enough, that will do for me," Atto protested at length, as disgusted by the descriptions as I. "So, what then is the Tetrachion?"

"The Tetrachion, Signor Abbot Melani," replied Cloridia in a subtly sarcastic tone of voice, "might prove somewhat indigestible for you, like some of those poor beings of which you have just heard, almost all of which miscarried or were stillborn."

"And why is that?"

"It is another kind of misfortune of nature. In the language of the specialists, it concerns a well-known case that occurred in Paris in 1546: a woman six months pregnant gave birth to a creature with two heads, four arms and four legs. Doctor Pare, who carried out the autopsy on the child, found that it had only one heart. From this he concluded, on the basis of Aristotle's well-known statement, that it must really be one infant, not two. The malformation was probably caused by a material defect, or by something wrong with the womb, which was too small, so that the seed was hard pressed and coagulated into a globe, producing two infants connected and united."

"And those two beings, or rather, that being, had… four legs?" asked Atto.

"Two heads, four arms and as many legs."

Atto lowered his eyes and scratched his forehead, while with the eyes of thought he returned to the infernal vision he had shared with me.

"But," continued Cloridia, "there have been less grave examples of a Tetrachion."

"What do you mean?"

"There have been cases of twins, perfect in every way, but united in some part of the body solely by their skin; or joined by a member, an arm or a leg, which is thus deformed. Both such cases cannot, however, be distinguished at birth from the more severe cases, for they cannot be separated as that might kill them. They must be allowed to grow. If they attain adulthood, they may be operated on with little harm. At most, they will be crippled."

I could not have said whether the being (or beings) which we faced in the little house on the terrace corresponded in all details to the image cited by my wise spouse: too great was the horror that had seized me upon seeing it. At least one detail did, however, correspond: the number four; the four contained in the Tetrachion, the being that stands on four columns, as in the (clearly stylised and beautified) image of the two marine deities on Capitor's dish.

"In any case, there are worse things," commented Cloridia.

"Worse things…" repeated Atto, somewhat shaken. "What do you mean?"

Cloridia explained that she was referring to unheard of entities like th e Monstrum triceps capite Vulpis, Draconis amp; Aquilae which was for some time to be found near the banks of the Nile and which, besides having an arm and limb like an eagle's, a horse's tail, feathered legs ending in two feet, one fin and one dog's paw, had three heads. There was also the Monstrum bifrons born to a Frenchwoman in Geneva in 1555: it had two faces, like the god Janus, with a head, arms and legs, both in front and behind; or again the Monstrum biceps caudatum born on 26th October 1598 in a citadel between Augeria and Tortona: two boys with two backs, but joined on the right side so that they had one arm and one leg for each head but, in the middle, instead of the other two legs, an enormous, horrendous fleshy excrescence.

"Tell me just one thing, Monna Cloridia," Atto interrupted her. "What causes such monstrosities?"

My wife explained that, if it was not to be defective, childbirth must satisfy five conditions: the infant must be born in the right position, at the right time, easily, with no sickness that cannot be cured by means of purges, and with complete, perfect limbs. Any delivery which fails to satisfy one of these conditions will be defective. If the infant is partially imperfect, it will be called a monster; if it is completely unsound, it will just be a formless piece of flesh.

But the principal cause lies in the mother's imagination. If the woman imprints the vestige of something desired in the unborn infant's body, it will come to pass, because she desires that greatly. Yet, what foolish woman would ever desire to have monstrous children? The answer is that one does not need desire to generate monsters, it is enough that the expectant mother should see something monstrous, even without desiring it.

"This comes of something natural which we see almost every day of our lives. If someone yawns, you too will yawn; if you see wine running from a barrel, you will want to urinate; if you see a red cloth, your nose will bleed; if you see someone else drinking medicine or buying it from the grocer, you will evacuate your bowels three or even four times. For the same reason, if you place a killer before the body of someone he has killed, more blood will gush from that corpse."

Atto made no negative comment on Cloridia's discourse. After all, he too had attributed to a similar theory (that of flying corpuscles) the apparition of Fouquet, Maria and Louis at the Vessel. Why, then, should he not admit that a mother's imagination, which is so intimately involved with the fruit of her womb, could determine so many mutations in the foetus?

"The midwife must, in any case, baptise monsters at once," continued Cloridia, "because most of them survive only a very short time. To be precise, a monster with two heads or two torsos should be baptised twice, but only once if it has only one face and four arms and four legs."

If in the monster one can recognise one distinct body, said she, completing her explanation, but the other cannot be clearly discerned, the first to be baptised will be that which clearly belongs to the human race, then the other, but sub conditione, meaning that, for the baptism to be valid, God must recognise the second one as being endowed with a soul, which only He will be able to see beyond the appearance of the deformity.

"As you have seen, I was not lying when I said to you that the subject of monstrous foetuses is somewhat curious," commented Cloridia; "and, what is more, rather an entertaining matter to tell of to women who have just given birth to fine, healthy infants. After all the travails of childbirth, while they are resting before the afterbirth and the purges, they'll be cheered up by tales and theories about monsters."

"Cheered up?" muttered Atto, whose greenish pallor gave us cause to fear an attack of nausea.

"But of course," trilled my little wife. "When they're resting under observation, we give them rather amusing descriptions of monstrous creatures, with dog's, calf's, elephant's, deer's, sheep's or lamb's heads or with goat's legs or other members resembling those of some animal. Or those with more members than usual, like two heads or four arms, as with your Tetrachion. Or monsters resulting from the crossing of two different species, like centaurs, half man and half horse, minotaurs, half bull, or onocentaurs, half donkey. Then there's the legend of Gerion, King of Spain, who had three heads, and…"

"What's that?" Melani interrupted her again. "A King of Spain with three heads?"

"Exactly," she confirmed, noticing Atto's interest. "It is said that they were triplets born joined together, and that they reigned in great concord."

"Tell me more about this Gerion, Monna Cloridia," Atto requested, wiping the perspiration dripping from his forehead with a handkerchief.

"There's no cause for surprise," said my wife. "Have not the kings of Spain a two-headed eagle on their arms? That is simply a memento of a defective birth of that kind which took place among the Habsburgs in long bygone days."

I held my breath. This would have been the time to talk and tell Cloridia what had happened.

But Atto said nothing. I understood that he was overcome by shame and even diffidence at the prospect of telling Cloridia of such an incredible event. In any case, in order to explain himself, the Abbot would be constrained to admit our dishonourable flight. For my part, I did not wish to break his silence: the secret belonged to us both.

It was no accident that Spain, continued Cloridia, was a land where all manner of extraordinary and anomalous births had been thoroughly studied. The Iberian Antonio Torquemada, in his book, The Garden of Curious Flowers writes, for example, that from bears and baboons, if they mate with women, perfect men may be born with their wits well about them. He tells of a Swedish woman who mated with a bear and of a Portuguese one who, condemned to death and driven into the midst of a wilderness, was with child by a baboon: both gave birth to perfect men. The same thing happened between a woman and a dog who were the only survivors of a shipwreck in the East Indies. Marooned in a desert place infested with wild beasts by the name of Tartary, the dog defended the woman from attacks by the wild beasts and love grew up between them. She became pregnant and gave birth to a perfect boy. He in turn lay with his mother and they gave birth to so many perfect and wise men and women that they peopled the whole kingdom. The dog's descendants preserved the memory of their ancestor and to this day they can find no finer title for their emperor than the Great Khanine.

"If this were the case," commented my wife, who was becoming more and more amused by the bewilderment she was causing me and Atto, "the Scaligeri, the lords of Verona, might also be of canine origin, for many members of that family are called Cane della Scala or even Cangrande della Scala."

Soon, Abbot Melani dismissed us all. I looked at him. He had reached the limit of his strength. The tremendous vision we had seen at the Vessel had profoundly shocked him and he now urgently needed to rest. What was more, that evening was to be the final one in the series of festivities; and Albani would be present.

When I was left alone with Cloridia, I was able to bring her up to date with the latest disconcerting events. She became pensive, and when I asked her for her opinion on the matter, she would only venture: "You are digging too deep: some matters are best left alone. You should rather be busying yourself with obtaining the girls' dowry from Abbot Melani."

While awaiting the final spectacle, which was to begin only after dark, the afternoon had been dedicated to various amusements and entertainments.

A real tennis court had been set up. For the players there had been acquired from Horatio at the Piazza di Fico, a noted real tennis player, the most perfect racquets and the best "flying balls". A short distance away, another space had been prepared for the game of bowls.

The participants, however, were few. Many guests preferred to save their strength for the long night of entertainments and carousing ahead of them. Cardinal Spada had arranged for a number of Turkish pavilions to be set up decked in the finest, lightest, opalescent silk gauze which, it seems, was sent specially from Armenia (and was something that had never before been seen in Rome), all in the most vivid colours, richly ornate and most pleasant to behold. Those who so desired could open up the roof onto the starry sky. Meanwhile, braziers would be lit to fill the night with sweet-smelling smoke. Here, those guests who did not wish to abandon themselves to sleep could take their ease on generous day-beds where they would be served until the break of day with all manner of delicacies by lackeys attired in gorgeous Saracen uniforms, enjoying both the exotic decor and that rare opportunity capriciously to take their ease.

In view of the small numbers of persons playing real tennis and bowls, Don Paschatio soon exempted me from serving those gentlemen and sent me instead to help prepare the Turkish pavilions: unrolling tapestries and carpets, setting up the braziers, polishing brass bowls and filling them with perfumed water for washing hands, providing each pavilion with napkins and towels in abundance, etcetera, etcetera.

While busying myself thus, I thought of Abbot Melani. As we had learned from Ugonio, his treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave was due on the morrow, Thursday, to pass from the hands of the cerretani into those of Cardinal Albani. What might the Secretary for Breves, who had clashed so bitterly with Atto, do with it? Perhaps he might approach the Abbot that very evening to propose some sordid exchange that would compromise him even more: I shall refrain from ruining you, provided that you do me this small favour…

Or perhaps tomorrow, for instance, during the guests' visit to

Palazzo Spada, he might take advantage of the situation to create a public scandal, casting the manuscript at the feet of the Pope's other ministers, starting with Cardinal Spada. Then, everyone would be able to read the most recondite information on conclaves, France's secret intentions, the Abbot's true opinion on dozens and dozens of cardinals, concerning whom Atto, in that secret report (intended for the eyes of the Most Christian King only), had revealed who knows what sins.

Abbot Melani's career, an entire lifetime devoted to tricks, insults, threats and dissimulation, was on the point of coming to an end. His vocation as a political acrobat, walking a tightrope between espionage and diplomacy, was within a hair's breadth of failure. Within a few hours, at the very latest on the next day, all the discretion he had employed for decades, all the prudent stratagems, the subterfuges… Yes, everything would collapse under the weight of infamy and betrayal, as well as in the eyes of the senior hierarchy of the Church of Rome: those of whom he boasted that he knew them as well as the contents

of his own pockets. Could one imagine a worse epilogue?