Secretum

Evening the Ninth

15th July 1700

"One moment, please, all of you, one moment. Let us leave off from chewing, let us hold our tongues, let us curb our appetites! Let none rest on the laurels of their ill-conquered lunch! And let no one forget our kind Lord who, in offering us such a treat, is lavishing all these good things on us without a thought for the morrow, thus demonstrating with wise liberality the splendid generosity of his soul. Permit me then to raise my glass and dedicate this toast to our master, the most eminent, munificent and excellent Cardinal Spada, and to wish him the most magnificent and ever-increasing good fortune!"

While a gay concert of clapping, cries of jubilation and the sound of clinking glasses accompanied the end of this short speech, he who had pronounced it, namely the Secretary for Protocol of the Spada household, Carl' Antonio Filippi, sprawled on one of the day-beds in the garden, then rolled up his sleeves and began to gorge himself on fried trout covered with lilies and stuffed with apricocks, candies, sugar and cinnamon and triumphally garnished with slices of lemon.

The wine flowed fresh down my throat, but I wanted to keep my lips wet with it and pressed them against Cloridia's; while the two little ones who are the fruit of our union played at our feet, I kissed her tenderly, whispering sweet nothings, love pleasantries and other secret things.

All around us the servants' banquet was in full, free and joyous progress: Cardinal Spada had allowed the servants to celebrate and enjoy themselves in the august park of the villa and even to pass the night in the Turkish pavilions, caressed by Armenian silks, which had until a few hours previously received the noble guests invited to the nuptial celebrations. This generous decision had provided Secretary Filippi, the author of the speeches given in the Spada household on important occasions, with yet another opportunity to display his mastery of impromptu eloquence and the whole company with a rare chance to feast like lords.

I had not yet told my sagacious little wife the truth about the mad night at Saint Peter's: doing my very best to gloss over the dangers to which I had exposed myself, I strung out a sketchy, improbable account of that adventure, which she pretended to believe out of the kindness of her heart, aided and abetted by the festive atmosphere. From time to time, she would innocently pose me some trick question and I would invariably fall into the trap. But such was her joy to have me back by her side that she showed no great keenness to dig any deeper with her questioning: on that evening she took delight in using her tongue to caress rather than to scourge.

The Secretary for Letters of the Spada family, Abbot Giuliano Borghi, was seated at a sumptuously laid table with Don Tibaldutio, Don Paschatio, the Venerable Dean Giovanni Griffi, Master Cupbearer Germano Hondadei, Auditor Giovanni Gamba and Aide de Camp Ottavio Valletti, all busily engaged in devouring a dish of soles pan-fried in butter and stuffed with pulped fish, marzipan, tellins and mostacciolo. True, these were leftovers, but marinated in gravy and their own good juices, they can sometimes taste even better.

Footmen, lackeys, sub-deacons, coachmen, assistant coachmen and grooms, sitting around a simpler table, were sipping with evident pleasure and surprise at a soup of prawns, truffles, prunes, mantis crabs, lemon juice, muscatel wine and spices, with bread crusts garnished with prawns' shells stuffed with foie gras interspersed with little pastries alia Mazzarino, coated with pistachios.

Another yet more humble group comprising porters, wardrobe servants, gardeners, prentices and assistants was gaily assembled around a souffle full of pulped bass, tench and eel, pork crackling, capers, asparagus tips, prunes, poached egg yokes and slices of citron.

All the servants, even cooks and scullions, were seated under the stars or under cover in the Turkish pavilions, freely commenting on all the effort they had expended during those days.

As though the world had been turned upside down, the servants were the gentry and the gentry were bereft of assistance: all the illustrious guests had departed or were taking their leave, and none was any longer paying any attention to goings-on at the villa. Cardinal Spada, for his part, had returned to affairs of state.

After a week's unremitting labour, the humble company was relaxing and gossiping, commenting on all that had happened in town — whether important or frivolous — during the past few days. At the Apostolic Palace of the Quirinale, with the pontifical choir in attendance, mass had been sung by Cardinal Moriggia (whom by now everyone at Villa Spada knew well, especially Caesar Augustus, who had liberally covered him with insults); during Vespers in the church of the Madonna at Monte Santo, a beam had collapsed, killing a member of the choir; His Holiness, on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of his pontificate, had received the Sacred College of Cardinals and the ambassadors, who had proffered him their wishes for a long reign (knowing full well that this could never happen).

Some of the chatter smacked of a return to normality. Everything, not only the celebrations, seemed to be over and done with. Maria had come but, thanks to Abbot Melani's eccentric behaviour, we had been able to descry her only from afar. If she had never come, might it not have been the same? Atto's treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave had remained in the hands of the cerretani, and perhaps it had already been handed over to Lamberg, if not to Albani in person. Thus, Atto was under the sword of Damocles. What was more, the three cardinals whom we had so carefully stalked had always evaded us and only on the last occasion had we been able to understand why: but too late.

Lastly we had, it was true, tried to understand what the Tetrachion was, but the arcane atmosphere at the Vessel and the apparitions we had witnessed there had misled us; instead of the monster announced by popular prophecies and Capitor's bizarre charger, we had seen our own effigies, reflected in distorting mirrors. We had tried everything, and nothing had succeeded. We had been defeated by adverse conditions, our own incapacity and by human weakness.

Lastly, and worst of all, the Abbot had hidden the truth from me about the three cardinals and what they up to when we followed them: the dying King of Spain had requested the Pope's assistance in resolving the problem of the succession to the throne and the Pope had instructed the three to draw up the reply. I had taken part in a hunt without knowing what quarry we were pursuing.

Of course, I understood perfectly well that, given his prudence and his mistrustful nature, Atto could not always reveal to me what he was plotting: all the more so in that his principal reason for coming to Villa Spada concerned something very different: the secret correspondence between the Connestabilessa and the Most Christian King.

Nevertheless, his stubborn silence on the Spanish question had made me feel like a marionette who could not be trusted with secrets. The worst of this was that I could not even blame him for his behaviour: I myself had betrayed his trust by reading his correspondence with Maria, and that forced me to remain silent.

We had amply fed at the gentlemen's table. Cloridia absented herself briefly to put the little girls to bed alongside the children of the other servants. Returning to me, she took me by the hand and guided me towards the pavilions. There, under cover of the late hour and guided by the braziers giving off their odours of pungent spices — and protected by the fact that most souls were overcome by so much imbibing of sugary liqueurs — the chaos of the domestics' chatter had given way to conspiratorial whispers and amorous murmuring. My spouse and I made our way between stockings and shoes abandoned on the lawn and bare feet echoing on the thresholds of those silken kiosks.

We settled down some way off, on the edge of that curious village, by now silent, yet full of activity. There, under a fluttering tent of Armenian gauze softly interwoven with gentle shades of amaranth red, we prudently unrolled the hangings to close the entrance and, far from prying eyes, my members sank amidst plumed cushions and my memory dissolved utterly in my lady's melting, rounded warmth, while the aromatic perfume of the braziers blended with other secret and ineffable fragrances.

"To what do we owe the honour?" said Cloridia, smiling in the most natural way in the world to someone behind my back.

I gave a violent start and turned sharply, as a hand was laid on my shoulder.

"I have news," said Abbot Melani, without so much as a hint of embarrassment. "Get dressed. I shall wait for you at the gate. My respects and my most profound apologies, Monna Cloridia," he added; then, just before pulling the entrance curtain behind him, "and my compliments…"

"How dare you!" I shouted, quite beside myself, after dressing and joining him.

"Calm down. I did call you from outside the tent, but you were too busy to hear me…"

"What do you want?" I cut him short, purple in the face with indignation.

"I have spoken with Lamberg."

"And?" I rejoined, hoping that some light had at least been cast on the assault suffered by Atto.

After a long wait, Abbot Melani had at last come face to face with the powerful Count Lamberg, scion of one of the Empire's most glorious families of ambassadors.

Exercising the greatest possible caution, he had come accompanied by Buvat. But the sombre Lamberg had begged the servants to leave him and his guest in private. Consequently, the secretary had remained in the ante-chamber.

"I know you by reputation, Signor Abbot Melani," Lamberg began.

Atto was instantly alarmed: was this an allusion to his treatise on the conclaves? Had he perhaps received it by some oblique route, perhaps from Cardinal Albani himself, and already perused it from start to finish?

"When the Emperor sent me here from Ratisbon," the Ambassador continued, "I expected to find benign influences here in this Holy City where the Jubilee is now taking place. Instead, I found Babylon."

"Babylon?" repeated Atto, growing even more circumspect.

"I find myself caught up in a sea of confusion, of horrible wars, of partisan struggles," he continued, scowling grimly.

"Ah, yes, I understand: the difficult international situation…" said Atto in an attempt to bring some calm to the conversation.

"Wretch!" Lamberg screamed suddenly, banging his fist on the table.

Silence descended on the room. Innumerable pearls of sweat ran down Abbot Melani's forehead. Such threatening and violent behaviour might even presage an attack. Without giving any sign of doing so, Atto had begun to look around him: he feared the sudden attack of assassins ordered to murder him. Damnation, why had he not thought of that? It was too long since he had been on mission in the Empire and he had forgotten how different the Germans were from the French. "Those damned Habsburgs, mad and bloodthirsty every one of them, from Spain to Austria, ever since the time of Joan the Mad." Before the meeting, he had promised himself that he would accept nothing from Lamberg's hand, not even a glass of water; but the possibility of an ambush had not crossed his mind.

"No one would ever find me. Only you knew that I had gone to visit Lamberg, but no one would ever have believed you," observed the Abbot.

He began to curse himself for having brought Buvat; they might kill the pair of them and both would simply disappear from the face of this earth.

At that point in the Abbot's narration, I remembered the Bezoar stone which, as I had secretly read a few days earlier in his correspondence, the Connestabilessa had sent him for its powers in warding off poisons. Atto had promised to keep it in his pocket during the audience, but it would be of little use in the event of an ambush..

As these dark thoughts rushed through the Abbot's mind, Lamberg remained silent, looking him straight in the eye. Melani returned the stare, not understanding whether the Ambassador intended to continue the conversation or to pass from words to action.

A sudden thought consoled him: too many people had seen him enter the Medici palace, which was the Roman property of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, his protector. Atto was well known there. If he were to die of stab wounds, it would be difficult to hush the matter up for long.

Still Lamberg said nothing. Atto dared not move a muscle. He remembered an old story — who knows whether it was true or not? A minister of the Emperor who had apparently died of a heart attack had in fact been killed with an invisible inoculation of poison behind the ear. There were any number of poisons that simulated a natural death: some could be sprayed on clothing, in one's hair, vapourised in the air, poured into the ear, dissolved in baths and foot-baths… All this, Atto knew perfectly well. The serpent of fear again crept up his back.

"Wretch…" hissed Lamberg once more, betraying in his trembling voice anger of an intensity approaching madness.

Fear or no fear, Atto could not allow himself to be insulted like that. Calling up all the audacity of which he was capable, he replied as his honour demanded.

"I beg your pardon."

Lamberg's eyes, which had for a moment wandered elsewhere, again fixed his own with unbearable intensity. The Ambassador stood up. Atto did likewise, fearing the worst. He grasped his walking stick firmly, ready to defend himself. Lamberg, however, moved to the window, which was ajar. He opened it wide.

"Are you happy in Rome, Signor Abbot Melani?" he asked, suddenly changing the subject.

"That's an old trick," thought Atto to himself, "continually changing the subject to confuse the person with whom one is speaking. I must be on my guard."

Meanwhile, Lamberg was looking out of the window, with his back to him: an unusual, and somewhat embarrassing situation. Atto waited awhile, but as the Ambassador continued to show him his back, which was in terms of diplomatic protocol quite unprecedented, he felt entitled to move so as to be able to see and hear him better. However, hardly had he taken a step forward than he realised the Austrian's chest was shaking rhythmically. Atto could hardly believe his eyes, yet there could be no doubt about it.

Lamberg was weeping.

"Wretch," he repeated for a third time, "he did not leave me so much as a scrap of paper. But the Emperor will make him pay for this, ah yes, that he will! He will pay for every one of his misdeeds," said he, turning and wagging his finger menacingly at Melani. "That wretched dog Martinitz," he sobbed, with a crazed expression contorting his face.

Count Martinitz, Atto explained to me, had been Lamberg's predecessor. A few months previously, he had been relieved of his post as Ambassador and hurriedly replaced because he had made himself too many enemies in Rome. Everyone in town had heard of this.

What no one, however, knew of and Lamberg angrily explained to Atto, was Martinitz's revenge. On his arrival in Rome, poor Lamberg had found in the Embassy archives, as he himself had confessed, not one single scrap of paper. His predecessor had carried off the entire diplomatic correspondence with him.

The new Ambassador (who in fact knew neither the city nor the pontifical court) was thus deprived of all the information essential for his work: the contacts upon whom he could count, the list of paid informers, the cardinals with whom there were good relations and those of whom one must be wary, the character of the Pope, his preferences, the details of pontifical ceremonial and so on and so forth. Of course, when he was appointed, he had, as was common practice, received instructions from the Emperor; but the situation really obtaining at the Rome embassy he could only learn from Martinitz, who had instead played this atrocious trick on him.

"I understand, Your Excellency, the matter is extremely grave," murmured Atto sympathetically.

Atto knew perfectly well: the representatives of the Empire were rigid and intractable and incapable of any spark of imagination. Without a written trail to follow, Lamberg was perfectly incapable of building up his own network of acquaintances and informers.

The Ambassador's outpourings continued like a torrent in full spate. I lardly had he set foot in Rome, he recounted, when he realised (but no one had forewarned him) that the pro-imperial party in the city was very weak indeed, while the French had it all their own way and obtained from the Pope whatever they wanted.

"Really?" I exclaimed in surprise.

"He even told me that he was unable to obtain an audience with the Pope, while Uzeda and the other ambassadors come and go freely every day in the Vatican."

In other words, the long-awaited meeting with the man suspected of being behind the wounding of Atto and perhaps even the assault which had brought about the death of the bookbinder Haver, had turned out to be nothing but a litany of whining and complaints. In the end, Lamberg had approached Atto, putting him on his guard against the malign forces which were abroad in the city and inviting him especially to beware of the Sacred College of Cardinals, that nest of every vice and iniquity.

"I expected to find here the government of the just, but I was all too soon forced to change my mind," said he in lugubrious tones. "What counts in Rome are reasons of state and in the pontifical court worldly affairs are handled with no respect for reason or rights, not even for the law. Religion counts for absolutely nothing!"

"I seemed to be hearing the music of that compatriot of theirs — what is he called? Ah yes, Muffat. A symphony so grave, so slow and severe as to be positively mournful," said the Abbot with perplexity written all over his face.

Faced with this outburst, Atto, once more sure of himself, had retorted: "But what did you expect to find in these parts, Signor Ambassador? This is the city of deceit, dissimulation and eternal postponements, and of promises never kept. The Pope's ministers are past masters at spinning illusion, saying but not saying, intriguing, attacking from under cover."

The Abbot had continued freely to list the iniquities of the court of Rome, while Lamberg nodded disconsolately; until the Ambassador, perhaps because of another visit, sent him warmly on his way, honouring him with a sincere handshake.

Sincere? Once in the street with Buvat, Atto had regretted allowing himself to be dismissed so soon. He realised that Lam- berg's behaviour bordered on the improbable. What if it had all been put on? If it had been he (as really had appeared to be the case until that moment) who had woven the thread of the assault on the Abbot and the theft of his treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave, then he must be malign and subtle indeed. If that were so, would he not be able even to act the part of the fool? The emotions displayed by the Ambassador had, however, been so violent and unexpected that anyone would have been caught out.

"In other words," I commented, "we are back where we started."

"Alas, yes. This Lamberg is either a soul whose true vocation was to be found in the peace of an Austrian cloister, or else he is a consummate actor."

"If I have understood, he got you to speak at length about the court of Rome while he himself told you little of any use."

"What do you think? Of course, I told him only what is generally known, nothing of any importance. Do you take me for a novice?" Melani retorted, somewhat piqued.

"I am not for one moment doubting your word, Signor Atto; however if Lamberg really put on a show for you but you were not pretending with him…"

"What of it?" he asked nervously.

"Then he knows your nature but you don't know his."

"Yes, but I do not think that… Buvat, what is this all about?"

Atto's secretary had arrived all out of breath. This was clearly an emergency.

"Sfasciamonti had caught the second cerretano, the friend of Il Roscio."

"Is that II Marcio, the one we followed at the Baths of Diocletian, but who got away?"

"The very man. It was sheer luck: he made a false move. He was begging in church, in Saint Peter's itself. Seeing the protection enjoyed by the cerretani, he must have thought he could get away with it. Instead, Sfasciamonti was around and he caught him. He has already interrogated him using the same methods as last time: real prison, false notary. He enlisted the help of a couple of colleagues."

"Those are people who do nothing out of friendship," commented Atto. "I think I shall have to shell out another large tip… So, what did the cerretano say?"

"Sfasciamonti is waiting to tell us all about it."

"Let us make haste, then," Atto exhorted me, as I resigned myself to doing without Cloridia's company for the rest of the evening.

The catchpoll was hiding behind the toolshed in the garden. He was in a state of agitation and one could not blame him for that. It was the second time in a few days that he had laid hands on a cerretano and, if the sect were really that powerful, he was risking his skin. As he talked, he panted with excitement, as after a long run.

"They are holding it tonight, by all the daggers."

"Holding what?"

"They're meeting tonight for the new Maggiorengo-General. The leader of the scoundrels. They all get together, even those who come from far afield, to appoint the successor."

"And where?"

"At Albano."

"Can you repeat that?"

"At Albano."

I saw Atto Melani lower his eyelids, as though he had just heard a friend had died, almost as though he had been told that the Most Christian King had ordered him never again to set foot in France.

"It simply is not possible… Albano, a stone's throw from Rome

…" I heard him gasp. "How could I not have thought of that?"

Albano. And not Albani. When Ugonio told us that the cerretani intended to bring Atto's papers ad Albanum, we thought that they meant to hand them over to Cardinal Albani. Instead the old tomb robber meant that they were to be taken to Albano, the little town near the lake of the same name, which has been a well-known holiday resort since the days of Cicero.

I saw Atto's face relax a little. At least there was no danger of Cardinal Albani covering him with infamy, as he had feared.

There remained the unknown factor of Lamberg, and the Grand Legator: why should the cerretani have to go to Albano to deliver the treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave to him?

"What will they do with my manuscript at Albano?"

"The vagabond knows nothing of that."

"What else did he say?"

"Besides electing the Maggiorengo-General, the cerretani have to change their way of speaking. But there's a problem. The new secret language appears to have been stolen."

"But by whom?"

"The ragamuffin does not know. If you want, I can read the record of his interrogation to you. As I did with II Roscio, I changed a few dates and names, you know, in order not to run any risks; but the rest is exactly as I said."

"Not now. While we are on the road."

"While we are on the road?" I asked, without grasping what he meant by that.

Geronimo. That was the real name of II Marcio, the cerretano caught by Sfasciamonti. Now we had his words under our eyes, lit by the tremulous flame of a lantern, written in a tiny no-nonsense handwriting of which one could with a little intuition sense that it lent itself readily to lies: the hand of some catchpoll in the habit of falsifying, distorting or cutting statements. As we had been told, the date of the interrogation had been altered for safety, as had already been done with that of II Roscio. Sfasciamonti had back-dated it by more than a century so as to be able to place it in the Governor's archives while making sure that it passed unobserved. So this second record of proceedings was dated 18 March 1595, as ever at the prison of Ponte Sisto.

It was not easy to read. Despite its being summer, the road to Albano was full of potholes and the bumps followed one another without a break. The carriage (despite the fact that it was an excellent vehicle, hired at the last moment at an astronomical cost) shook and jumped because of the road, swinging and sometimes tilting dangerously from side to side; but it kept moving. Atto, who sat to my left, had devoured Geronimo's statement. Now he sat there, silent and deep in thought, with his unmoving gaze fixed on the landscape, as though he were observing the rare lights from farmhouses, whereas his mind was implacably set on his anxieties.

To my right sat Buvat, as stiff as a poker, despite a passing bout of somnolence. Before we mounted the carriage, I saw him briefly confer with Don Paschatio. From their confabulation, we overheard only a few last recommendations which the Major-Domo imparted when Buvat was already on his way to the carriage: "Take care: avoid dampness and excessive movement, and make sure to keep them upright at all times." I had no idea what this was all about, but when Buvat got in, Atto asked him no questions, so I too asked none. On the front seat, there sprawled Sfasciamonti's exorbitant bulk, as though squeezed by force into the tight space. He too was locked in impenetrable silence. A short while before our departure, he had held a long conversation with Atto, probably to agree on the price of his forthcoming services. The journey to Albano by night was no joke. Even less reassuring was the place to which we were headed; the agreed price must have been high. Next to the catchpoll sat the passenger who must, at the time of our departure, have most perplexed our coachman.

As soon as the carriage arrived, Atto had ordered that we first be taken to the Baths of Agrippina. Objective: to pick up Ugonio. It was unthinkable to sneak into the meeting of the cerretani without a guide. As soon as we reached his hide-out, we brought him out simply by shouting his name at the top of our voices. Rather than attract the attention of the neighbourhood (for Ugonio, it was indispensable to have a discreet lair known to no one) the corpisantaro rapidly emerged and agreed to talk with us. At the outset, however, Atto treated him with obvious irritation. When he reported that the treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave was to be brought ad Albanum, Ugonio meant the town towards which we were now heading. If he did not make that clear, it was because, to him, it was perfectly obvious. He could of course have no idea that a certain Cardinal Albani might be involved in Atto's affairs or that this might give rise to confusion on my part and Atto's. He could not be blamed for the misunderstanding, but it had wasted a huge amount of our precious time. To increase Atto's impatience, Ugonio put up a strenuous resistance when he knew for what purpose we meant to recruit him: to guide us to the meeting of the cerretani. Only under the combined pressure of threats and abundant offers of cash did he end up by giving in and accompanying us, bringing with him all that would be needed for the undertaking. Just before the corpisantaro climbed into the carriage, there was, however, one last negotiation. Atto drew the new passenger aside and held an intense discussion with him. Finally, he poured an unusually large number of gold coins — or so they seemed in the darkness that enveloped us — into Ugonio's purse. Last of all, he passed him a book. I tried to ask the Abbot, but he would not tell me what all that business was about.

My thoughts turned once more to the curious meeting between Atto and Lamberg. Until that moment, we had acted on the assumption that the Imperial Ambassador was behind the assault and the theft suffered by Atto. But now we were stumbling in the dark: either Lamberg was a brilliant simulator, or else he really was a pious and fervent Catholic whose moral code had been afflicted by the cruel scourge of disillusionment. If that were the case, our journey to Albano was beset by even more unknown factors: the enemy towards which we were marching was faceless.

I saw that my mind was wandering and broke off from that review of the latest developments to return to my reading.

The record of the cerretano's interrogation, which I was subsequently able to transcribe almost in its entirety, began with the criminal notary's usual forms of words, followed by the arrested man's statement:

DIE 18 MARTIJ

Examinatus fuit in carceribus Pontis Sixti coram magnifico et Excell. ti Dno N… per me notarium infra scriptum Hieronymus quondam Antonij Furnarij Romani annorum 22 in circa, cui delato iuramento etc.

Interrogatus de nomine, patria, aetate et causa suae carcerationis, respondit:

"I was born in Rome, son of the late Antonio Fornaro of the Colonna ward near the Trevi Fountain. My name is Geronimo, I am twenty-two years of age, I have no trade, except that I go and work in the salt pans for four months every year, after which I return to Rome and go begging for alms. As you can see, I am very poor and sick, and for the past ten years I have been without father or mother, an abandoned orphan, trying to live as best I can, and I was arrested in Saint Peter's on Friday last March because I was begging in Church."

Geronimo was then asked what he knew about the mendicants' secrets. Here, the interrogation repeated all twenty-five sects already confessed by his predecessor to which the accused added several others: the Trawlers, the Mountebanks, the Hucksters, the Dormice, the Mandrakes, the ABCs, the Bloodsuckers, the Mumpers, the Itchies, the Palliards, the Marmots, the Bullies, the Sharpers, the Errants and the Sweeps.

"The Trawlers sleep at night and beg by day; the Mountebanks sell fake rings and pieces of earth of Saint Paul's Grace and fool the hicks most wonderfully; the Hucksters are dreadful charlatans, they always have some grubs or crabs with them — that's what they call the youngsters who work with them. They go to market and while they're at their huckstering or shopping, the grubs and crabs go stealing and cutting purse-strings, then in the evening they all share the spoils. They always have boys with them because they're all back-gammon players, which is what we call sodomites. The Dormice are crippled in all four limbs, they don't even have hands and feet, and they beg. The Mandrakes are cripples and get themselves pulled in little packing cases on wheels or carried on someone's shoulders, and they, too, beg. The ABCs are poor blind men, and they beg as well. The Bloodsuckers go from hamlet to hamlet selling chap-books of the lives of the Saints and Orations to Saints, which they sing, and then they all beg together for alms. The Mumpers are those who are well dressed and claim to have formerly been gentlemen or artisans and, with the most courteous, severe mien, off they go a-begging too.

"The Itchies are mangy, scabby lepers and the like, and they beg like all the others. The Palliards are those who cut their hands or feet and seem to be crippled, but there's nothing wrong with them at all. They make false wounds on an arm or a leg with a piece of bloody liver, and beg. The Marmots pretend to be dumb or to have no tongue, and beg. The Bullies are those who go begging dressed in mountain men's sheepskins. The Sharpers play in hostelries and inns with marked cards and loaded dice, they're as cunning as they come. The Sweeps are those who say they're Jews and they have families, and they've converted to Christianity. That way they collect plenty of alms. Last but not least, there are the Doxies and the Autem Morts, who are women that beg in various ways. The Doxies are young and good company, whereas the Autem Morts are good for the hospital or the tavern and for the most part they're old."

I skimmed through the statement rapidly until I came to the important information about Albano.

"I have heard said that in May many beggars mean to meet at the grottoes of Albano, because they want to elect the new Maggiorengo-General and to give out the new jargon for us to speak, but, as we've heard that this has been stolen, they mean to set things in order and to lay down penalties so that no one gives the game away. And whoever does give us away they'll play Martin with — in other words, he'll find himself on the wrong end of a dagger. And I've heard that some fellows found that Pompeo near Pescheria and started to beat him up, and if he'd not run to a Church for sanctuary with the priests, they'd have killed him, as everyone was so angry with him for having sold out on them."

So the cerretani would be meeting at Albano, as Sfasciamonti had told us (for safety, the statement spoke of May instead of July). They said someone had stolen their new secret language and they meant to restore order (though Geronimo did not say how they proposed to do so). What's more, they wanted to kill Pompeo, alias II Roscio, because they had heard he'd blabbed. But who'd told them?

At the end, the criminal notary asked why the mendicant, who had made a full confession, did not abandon such bad company and such infamous practices and find a trade, as so many did in Rome.

"Sir, I'll tell you the truth. We like this way of living freely here and there, sponging for bed and board, without having to make any efforts, far too much and, in short, whoever once has tasted of the canters' way of life will never give it up that easily. This is true both for the men and the women. I hope that with God's help I shall be able to change my life, if I can get out of prison, 'cos I'd like to go and stay with the friars of San Bartolomeo on the island and take care of their donkey."

"In the end, of course, we had to let him go," laughed Sfasciamonti who, as had happened with Il Roscio, could certainly not have someone imprisoned who had not been legally arrested. "He'll surely go and take care of the donkey, so long as his comrades don't catch him first and play Martin with him, as they put it."

"But how could they know he's been questioned?" I asked, worried about the idea of another leak of this kind of information.

Sfasciamonti's visage darkened.

"In the same way as after Il Roscio's arrest."

"Meaning?"

"I don't know."

"Come now, what do you mean?"

"These cerretani are diabolical. One of them says something and suddenly they all know about it."

"It's true, damn it," Atto echoed him forcefully after a moment's silence, "they really are diabolical."

This time, Buvat was not there. "Who," I asked, "played the part of the criminal notary?"

"A real notary," the catchpoll replied.

"How can that be?"

"There's no more perfect forgery than an authentic object," Atto interjected.

"I don't understand."

"That's a good sign. It means the old law still works, and three centuries hence it will still be working," replied the Abbot.

"Now I remember that when we met you spoke to me of how false documents sometimes contain the truth. Is that what you meant?"

"No, this time I meant the exact opposite, and I'm not speaking only of papers but far more. I'll give you an example: who mints money in a state?" asked Melani.

"The Sovereign."

"Exactly. So the coin that comes from his mint, the state mint, will always be genuine."

"Yes."

"In fact, no. Or at least, not always. The Sovereign can always, if he wants, mint false money, and in large quantities: for example, to finance a war. All he need do is produce coin with a lower gold content than its nominal value. Now, will that money be true or false?"

"False!" I answered, contradicting what I had just said.

"But the King minted it. So it will be both true and false at the same time. To be precise, this money will be genuine but misleading. The trick's as old as the world. Four hundred years ago, when the King of France, Philip IV the Fair, wanted to finance a war against the Flemings, he reduced the livre tournois by half. Initially, it weighed eleven and a half ounces. But he also did the same thing with its gold content, lowering it from 23 carats to 20 carats. That way the King's coffers gained six thousand Parisian livres 'under the counter'. In the process, however, he reduced the land to extreme poverty."

"Does that kind of thing still happen today?"

"More than ever. William of Orange did it when he minted forged and suitably 'lightened' Venetian zecchini."

"How awful! False things that reveal the truth and true things that spread what's false," I sighed.

"That's the chaos of human society, my boy. That pain-inthe-proverbial, Albicastro, did say at least one thing that was absolutely right: 'Human affairs, like the Sileni of Alcibiades, always have two faces, each the opposite of the other.' That is and always will be the way of the world: open a Silenus, and you'll find everything transformed into its opposite," concluded Atto, surprising me by quoting the Dutchman whom he so detested.

The Abbot was speaking of the Sileni mentioned by the violinist, those grotesque statuettes which contained divine images within.

"Getting back to the subject," added Melani. "Friend Sfasciamonti had Geronimo examined by a real notary, who drew up a record of the interrogation that was in the correct form down to the smallest details, as not even Buvat could have done. It is not a false document. It contains information which is somewhat… imprecise, if you wish, like certain dates; nevertheless, it was drawn up by a genuine notary, assisted by genuine sergeants. It is not a faithful document, but it is an authentic one, indeed, most authentic. Is what I say correct?" asked Atto, turning to his travelling companion.

The catchpoll said nothing. He was not pleased that these methods should be spoken of openly, but he could not deny what had been said. Instead of answering, he looked away from us, thus giving his tacit assent.

"Remember, my boy," said Atto to me, "great falsifications call for great means; and these, only the state possesses."

Following Ugonio's directions, we ordered the coachman, a mercenary used to all manner of missions (nocturnal fugues, adulteries, clandestine meetings) to take us to a quiet spot in the town. We were set down in a dark alley behind a big haystack. The houses were plunged in darkness. Only from rare windows did faint lights still glimmer, while the sole denizens of the narrow streets were cats and their customary victims.

The driver told us to take care, but carefully avoided asking us what we proposed to do in that God-forsaken place at that hour.

The streets were singularly free of any sign of life; yet it was a warm, comforting summer night of the kind beloved by insomniacs, clandestine lovers and adventurous boys. Judging by the deathly pall over all our surroundings, one might have thought we were in the midst of a blizzard in the dark lands of the far north of the kind so well described by Olaus Magnus.

The corpisantaro carried a big greasy sack on his shoulder. We took a lane that led out into the fields, split into two separate roads, then petered out amidst a group of ruins. Our march was long and tortuous. We crossed vegetable gardens, then an uncultivated field. The only counterpoint to our footsteps was the chirping of crickets and the petulant buzz of mosquitos. We had in truth to advance rather cautiously, to avoid falling into some hidden ditch.

"Is it still far?" asked Atto, somewhat impatiently.

"'Tis a particulate and secreted location," said the corpisantaro in justification, "that must remain incognito."

Suddenly, Ugonio stopped and drew from his sack three filthy hooded cassocks.

"Only three?" I asked.

The corpisantaro explained that Sfasciamonti could not come with us.

"These vestibulements would be overmuch too tight-knitted for him," said he, pointing at the cloaks. "He has an excess of corpulousness. Better that he should vegetate here until our retourney, decreasing the scrupules so as not to increase our scruples, naturalissimally."

The catchpoll grunted some discontented comment but did not protest. What a strange destiny for Sfasciamonti, I thought. He'd striven so long to investigate the cerretani, despite the opposition of colleagues and superiors, and here he was, reduced to doing so on Abbot Melani's behalf: in other words, as a mercenary. And now, after travelling by night all the way to Albano, he could not even come with us to the meeting.

I put on the smallest of the cassocks. There is no point in my dwelling upon the disgust that those vile, stinking rags inspired in me, worn for years by creatures accustomed to crawling amidst subterranean rubbish in a world utterly alien to the very notion of cleanliness. They reeked of stale urine, rotting food and acid sweat. I heard Atto cursing under his breath against Ugonio's companions and their filth. Buvat put up with these clothes uncomplainingly, faithful secretary that he was.

The undeniable advantage of the garments was, however, their disproportionately voluminous cowls which covered almost all one's face, the outsized sleeves which concealed one's hands and the way they trailed along the ground, so that one could walk without one's footwear or stockings being visible. Holding back a wave of nausea, I slipped my arms into the sleeves. I had been transformed into a smelly cocoon of clumsy, formless sackcloth. Only their stature rendered Atto and Buvat a little less awkward.

"What? No lantern?" Atto protested once more when he learned from Ugonio that we would have to proceed in the dark. The corpisantaro was adamant: from that moment on, we risked being discovered and unmasked by the cerretani. What was more, I remembered that the tomb robbers always moved without light, both by night and in the dark tunnels under Rome.

Like three faceless ghosts, Buvat, Atto and 1 followed Ugonio who guided us along a pathway visible only to him. In a hoarse whisper, Sfasciamonti wished us good luck.

As I walked, the stink of the caftan I wore cancelled out the smell of the effluvia of the countryside by night. I crossed myself mentally and prayed the Lord not to judge too severely the rash acts which we were surely about to commit. I sought courage in the thought that only the future dowries of my little girls could justify such recklessness.

After a long straight walk on the level, the path made a great curve and sloped gradually down into a damp ravine where only a few sinister and wavering glimmers reached us from the heavens.

Suddenly, as though magically exuded from the darkness, a few figures appeared nearby. An old cripple, supported by two companions, was coming towards us. Behind them, emerging from the nocturnal mists, other similar beings appeared.

Before us stood a great stone wall which seemed to be that of an enormous edifice. We entered through a narrow tunnel. A number of torches set into the walls at last cheered the soul and the eyes. Suddenly, however, rock, moss and bare earth closed in on us, forming an impregnable fortress. The tunnel had come to an end. Ugonio turned, showing us his broken, blackish teeth in a malicious smile, taking pleasure in our discomfiture.

Buvat and I exchanged alarmed looks. Had we been led into a trap? The corpisantaro gestured that we were to make sure that our faces were well hidden under our cowls, so that no one could distinguish our features. Then he leaned against the wall to our left. The rock swallowed him up: Ugonio had entered it like water absorbed into a sponge.

Almost as though emerging from another dimension, he took a step backwards and motioned us to follow him.

Obviously, Ugonio had not penetrated the substance of the rock. The sharp noise of the painted wood forming the door set into the rock face had escaped me. This was a secret passage which intruders would be utterly unable to find but which Ugonio had obviously taken who knows how many times.

Once inside, it took a few moments for our eyes to become accustomed to the new situation. We looked all around us. Neglected for centuries, enormous and powerful, and now crawling with cerretani, the Roman amphitheatre of Albano lay before us.

"So we came in by a secret passage," I whispered in Ugonio's ear.

"To bring about more benefice than malefice," he assented, "the normal orifices have been blockified. No strangers or noseinsinuators must get in here tonight."

"But no one stopped us."

"It is not necessitable. There are many guardians postified everywhich where and any introoter will be visualised, compressed and suppressed."

So the amphitheatre was protected by a system of sentinels responsible for finding any intruders and rendering them harmless. Thanks to the disguise provided by Ugonio, no one had suspected us.

Along the internal perimeter of the amphitheatre, a long series of torches lit up the scene. In that vast space, enclosed but open to the sky, I felt simultaneously disoriented and imprisoned. Above our heads, the star-studded black of the sky warned that there was no hope of escape for those without wings. Waves of murmuring coming from the arena maliciously tickled the senses and the spirit. The air was sickly-sweet, humid and loaded with sin.

"But yes, of course, the amphitheatre," said Atto under his breath, "it had to be here…"

"Do you know this place?" I asked.

"Of course. Back in Cicero's day…"

Ugonio silenced us with a sudden movement of his arm. A few paces behind us there was still that old cripple with his two friends who had escorted him from outside. The animal caution with which the corpisantaro was leading us seemed all but tangible; and already we could feel the dismal atmosphere of a secret meeting of brigands clutch at our shoulders like some rapacious lemur.

From the centre of the arena shone the rays of several torches which, from what we could hear and see, lit up an assembly. At the same time, a confused babble of voices reached us. We approached, still following prudently in Ugonio's footsteps. After passing a heap of firewood, we could at last get a look at the scene.

A few paces ahead of us stood a huge brazier, as high as a man, in which a great flame burned generously, crackling and sending sparks high up into the sky. All around were small groups of cerretani; some were idly eating a wretched meal, others were gulping down cheap wine and yet others were playing cards. Then there were some who were welcoming new arrivals, raising their arms in salutation. The company was one great multitude of sordid, ill-dressed, mud-bespattered, evil-smelling people.

"We have arrivalled at the most suitful moment," murmured Ugonio, motioning us with his hand to follow him in single file.

From another part of the amphitheatre, we saw approaching us a sort of procession, upon seeing which those camped near the brazier stood up dutifully.

"The electrocution has just taken place. The Maggiorenghi are now entrifying with the Grand Legator," said Ugonio pointing to the procession and inviting us to stand aside. "The firstsome is the head of the Company of Mumpers. Behind him are all the adjuncts and conjuncts of the othersome companies: Dommerers, Clapperdogeons, Brothers of the Buskin, Abram Coves, Pistoleros and Tawneymen…"

"So these are the heads of the cerretani companies?" asked Atto, opening his eyes wide, as we prepared to join the procession.

I looked at that vile troop. On the basis of what Il Roscio had told us, I could identify the head of the Dommerers' company. Around his neck, he wore a huge iron chain and he was constantly murmuring "bran-bran-bran"; as I recalled, the speciality of his group was imposture: they claimed to have been prisoners of the Turks and so spoke Turkish. Of course, there was no pigeon to pluck that evening but the Dommerers, like all the other cerretanii, had, after a manner of speaking, come to their general meeting wearing their company uniform.

"And where is the Grand Legator?" he added, looking all around (although the very idea was absurd) for Lamberg's face.

In lieu of an answer, Ugonio moved to the head of the procession of Maggiorenghi. He greeted the head of the Mumpers, an individual with a flowing grey beard and long hair that spilled out from under a showy plumed hat; in accordance with the practice of his sect, he wore the clothes of a nobleman, save that these were unbelievably dirty and threadbare. The Mumpers, as I had just read in Geronimo's statement, were those who begged, saying that they were ruined gentlefolk or artisans. Ugonio knelt in the most unctuous and servile manner, momentarily slowing down the little cortege of Maggiorenghi. Instantly, we pulled our cowls down even lower, fearing that our faces might be seen. Fortunately, we were helped by the intermittent, flaming light of the torches which illuminated the space somewhat irregularly. I looked around me again: the whole place was crawling with cripples and lepers, with men blind, mutilated or emaciated, their bodies half naked, twisted and limping, bearing the marks of flagellation, chains and torture. It was a veritable catalogue of the cerretani' s impostures: all those apparent lacerations, those pustules, that exhausted dragging of legs, were merely the tricks of the trade: not suffering, but art, of which the canters kept the signs even when they were not actually engaging in their scoundrelly activities. Observing more closely, I saw that they were strolling peacefully here and there, downing their cheap wine, laughing and joking without a care in the world. I wavered between horror, fear and wonderment, but there was no time to exchange any comment with Atto. After a brief muttered colloquy, Ugonio returned to us and the procession continued on its way.

"Bemark the Mumper posterior to the Maggiorengo," he whispered.

This was a bald, half-hunchbacked old man, wearing a badly torn artisan's apron and a pair of down-at-heel shoes. He, too, according to the dictates of his sect, begged, pretending to have been an honest workman who had fallen on hard times. On his shoulder, he carried an old bag in which one could just descry the white pages of a small tome.

"He is the Grand Legator," announced Ugonio.

"What!" hissed Atto, his eyes bulging out of his head with surprise.

"He is a brother from Holland. His name is Drehmannius and he's a bit gagafied, he can't even read the foliables he binds, but he is indeed an excellentissimus buchbinder. That's why he's a Mumper. He has the treaty," added Ugonio, with an imperceptible nod in the direction of the contents of the bag on the man's shoulder.

I saw Atto's jaws tighten. What Lamberg? What imperial plot? Now it was all crystal clear: the Grand Legator was no legatus or Ambassador but a legator, in the cerretanis'' dog Latin, that meant he was an ordinary bookbinder! So the treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave, the key to Atto's destiny, was in the hands of that lousy insignificant old Dutchman.

"What's this Dutch bookbinder, Drehmannius or whatever he's called, proposing to do with my treatise?" asked Melani, on tenterhooks.

"To ungluify the binderings. The Maggiorengo has just secreted it to me."

"To unglue the binding?" repeated Melani, utterly at a loss for words. "What the deuce do you mean?"

But we had to stop talking. A tall, imposing cerretano, with filthy, stubby great hands, had drawn near to us, his right eye covered with a black bandage. He called Ugonio to one side and the latter followed him at once.

Thus, we were suddenly without a guide in the very midst of that demented, lawless mass, at the tail of a procession of which we knew neither where it was going nor why. In the middle of that cortege, a group of old men were fighting over a flask of wine. One of them, obviously drunk, came face to face with Atto and belched loudly. Melani turned away in disgust and rummaged instinctively in his overcoat in search of his lace handkerchief, then realised it would be wiser not to seem finicky.

Suddenly, the procession of cerretani, by now distinctly the worse for drink, struck up a bizarre song:

Doing nothing at all is the very best trade.

And when winter comes,

You just lie in the sun,

While in summer, you lie in the shade.

With a branch in your hand, you chase flies away

And the fat meat you eat

And you toss out the lean…

A tramp, bare-chested and all covered in bruises, with filthy bagpipes hanging around his neck and bare feet with long black nails, encouraged by the little chorus, began to sing loud and clear, caring not to keep time with the others:

By lies and by tricks You can live half a year; By tricks and by lies, Live the other half too!

I recognised this: it was the same cerretano doggerel Don Tibal-dutio had taught me.

Suddenly, an icy cold, sliding presence came between the cassock and my neck. I turned sharply

I nearly fainted. A slimy serpent, held in the hand of a disgusting wretch with a fat, greasy, ill-shaven face had licked my defenceless neck. The cerretano roared with coarse laughter and gave me a slap on the shoulder that almost knocked me over. It was all a joke. He then put the serpent in a wicker basket and began to sing in a chorus with three or four of his mates:

We are scum, we are scum,

'Tis for wenching we have come,

From the house of Saint Paul we descend.

We were born, we were born

Far away from this land

With a snake on the bum,

On the bum, on the bum,

And a snake in the hand…

So this was a sanpaolaro, a healer and handler of serpents, like the one I'd seen at work a few days before. To make the meaning of his doggerel quite clear, he put his hand on his privates and accompanied the last verses with obscene rhythmic thrusts of the hips. If he and his companions were not drunk with wine, they surely were with bestial gaiety. A middle-aged tramp had seized a fiddle and was making it moan and whine like a cat on heat. But there was no time to stop and stare. New participants kept arriving in the amphitheatre, multitudes of cerretani were crowding into the arena. Choruses, chaotic ballets, screams and coarse belly laughter resounded everywhere. When we arrived, it was a meeting, now it was one of the circles of hell. The procession had become enormous: there were hundreds and hundreds of vagabonds, almost all bearing torches, and it had begun simply to turn on itself in the arena, imprisoned by the amphitheatre like a mole whose nest has become too tight for it. Curious eyes focused on us. Although well covered by Ugonio's cassocks, we did not have the agile, bestial movements of the corpisantari, nor did we seem to be playing any great part in the carousing. But we had no time to worry. Our attention was distracted by a new development. Other swarms of beggars had gathered around the little procession of the Maggiorenghi, overcrowding the end of the arena where we stood. Elbows, backs and legs struggled like gladiators in agony. It was hard to keep close to Atto and Buvat and not to get dragged off into the crowd.

The chaos was such that, fortunately, no one seemed to be paying much attention to anyone else, and thus, not to us either. In the background, the whining of the fiddle was joined by the whistling of a group of rustic flutes and the nasal complaint of bagpipes.

"Look: just take a look at that one," said Atto, pointing out a gaunt-looking young man with a bushy beard and sunken eyes.

Standing on tiptoe, I could just make out this character's face.

"Does that face not seem familiar to you too?"

"Well, yes… I do seem to have seen him before, but I don't recall where. Perhaps we've seen him begging somewhere."

Just next to the young man, almost in the very middle of the throng, three Maggiorenghi suddenly appeared. They had mounted a platform, or perhaps some other kind of dais, hurriedly erected by a group of scruffy half-naked youths. The Maggiorengo in the middle was the head of the Mumpers. The other two raised his arms heavenward and the crowd cheered. We needed no interpreter to understand that this was the new Maggiorengo-General.

Beside the trio appeared the Grand Legator. He was holding a book in his hand. Both Atto and I recognised it: it was his treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave.

"Tut, tut, another Dutchman, what a coincidence."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Use one Dutchman to hunt the other," he replied with a wicked little smile.

While I was trying to understand the Abbot's enigmatic words, a fifth being mounted the platform: Ugonio.

"Take care not to lose us, we must stay close to the platform," Atto warned me.

Then silence fell — or almost.

"My wily, artful friends, you guys and you heels, hear me out, prick up your bells!" began the Maggiorengo of the Mumpers, speaking in a stentorian voice. He was, it seems, beginning his enthronement speech as the new Maggiorengo-General: a speech in Saint Giles' Greek, of which we would probably understand next to nothing.

Buvat, kneeling, well wrapped in his bedraggled caftan so as to avoid being seen, began rapidly to turn the pages of the glossary of cant. Atto and I did our best to shield him from unwanted attention.

The Maggiorengo-General asked the Grand Legator to pass him Atto's book.

"This breviar is by a froggy autem cull," the Maggiorengo continued, waving the book in the air; "an angler, and his falcon with the harness of little tapers, he wanted to make a razzia: to make up like a carp and whitewash the damned one."

A scandalised and hostile hubbub arose from the crowd.

"I think he said that the book which he's holding in his hand is by a foreign ecclesiastic who wanted to cause trouble and discover the language," Buvat muttered to Atto, continuing to leaf frenetically through the book.

"To discover a language?" repeated Atto. "The Devil, I've got it! The stupid, ignorant jackasses, may God curse them…"

At that moment, I noted with alarm that a young cerretano, barefoot and emaciated, almost completely bald and with his face horribly scarred, bare-chested and with the rest of his body covered only by an old blanket knotted around his waist, was staring perplexedly at Buvat and his little book. Atto, too, became aware of this and fell silent.

"Baste the cull, baste the cull!" screeched a horrendous old man in the crowd, with his face all covered in pustules.

"Siena! Si-e-na! Si-e-na!" the crowd responded, swaying with enthusiasm. Another round of applause followed and many bottles emptied by the mass of cerretani were hurled into the air in jubilation.

"Baste the cull means… Well, they're saying this foreigner should be punished, in other words, he should be killed," whispered Buvat worriedly, still feverishly turning the pages of his glossary. "Siena means yes."

"What a clever idea," commented Atto sarcastically, as he pulled the grimy cowl down more closely over his head, taking care to touch it only with his fingertips.

The half-naked cerretano drew a companion's attention to us. By pure luck, at that moment the movement of the crowd blocked their view. Were they approaching us?

Meanwhile, the Maggiorengo of the Mumpers waited for the applause to die down a little. Moved by an almost primordial instinct, I checked our distance from the entrance, which I supposed must also be the way out. It was still very near.

"And now, my goodly heels," said the orator, "whereas We, Sacred Majesty, great and glorious Emperor, have duly been elected Emperor, King, Chief, Condottiere, Prince, Rector and Guide of the Canters; and whereas such authority as We enjoy appertains not only to His Most Scoundrelly Majesty but to the least canter among our select assembly, We are impelled by our scoundrelly nature to expatiate in this our speech on the pre-eminence and most condign worthiness of the Way of the Canters and all those who follow it."

An ovation resounded through the amphitheatre.

At this point, Buvat was fortunately able to leave off consulting his glossary. The speech was continuing in ordinary language since no strangers could be present to follow it (we, of course, being secretly present): the introduction in the cant language had served mainly to warm up the spirits of those present.

Someone handed a bottle to the Maggiorengo-General, from which he drank voraciously, in great gulps, until he let it fall empty at his feet.

"For a start," he continued, "the society of the canters is more ancient than that of the Baronci, of which Boccaccio speaks, older than the Tower of Nembrotto, and indeed that of Babel. Being ancient, it is of necessity excellent and perfect, and consequently, every single canter is excellent and perfect, so that it follows that its Sovereign will be most excellent and most perfect and almost immortal!"

Waves of applause greeted the eulogy which the new Maggiorengo-General, laughing complacently, heaped upon himself and his subjects. Atto and I exchanged worried glances. We were in the midst of a host of madmen.

"And let us, then, begin from the beginning of this great horrible world," continued the Maggiorengo. "Let us speak of the Golden Age, when Master Saturn was the King of men. What a scoundrelly life was ours back then! All lived in peace, considering the Sovereign as a good father, and he treated them like good children. All lived in freedom and safety, 'midst all manner of contentments and pleasures, eating, drinking and dressing after the manner of good canters, knowing not wealth or possessions, so that this epoch was called by the authorities of the people of canters the Golden Age. Then there were only goodfellows, purloiners free from all malice. Everything was held in common, there was no division of lands, no carving up of things, no separation of houses, no fences around vineyards. No force had ever to be employed in dealings with anyone, there were no disputes, no one stole chickens, no one contended for harvests. Everyone could work the land he wanted to, planting whatever seed he would and training the vines as it pleased him. Every woman was everyman's wife and every male was every woman's husband and of every thing the valiant canters made one great bundle. What a wonderful stallion our good scoundrel Biello would have made in that Golden Age!"

The Maggiorengo-General spoke these last few words turning towards a cerretano seated near him on the podium and pointing him out to the multitude, who applauded him long and loud.

"But then came that beard-splitter Jove, who forgot that he too was a canter, seeing that he'd been raised like a beast and given suck by nanny goats. Greedy for power and no longer having the slightest respect for the people of canters, Jove drove his old father Saturn from the Golden Age. Thus, life and conditions changed for everyone, freedom was lost and enmity, wrath, disdain, fury, cruelty, arson and rapine arose among men. Then they began to divide all possessions and goods, to enclose vineyards, gardens and houses, to lock gates, doors and entrances, to be jealous of women, to question each other and to fight even to the death, and so many other evil things that one loses all count of them."

One cerretano not far from us let out a great noisy fart, making all his neighbours laugh.

"Ah, Jove did plenty of damage," Atto commented to himself in disgust.

"Nevertheless, the tyrant Jove was not powerful enough to cancel out and extinguish the holy people of canters," continued the Maggiorengo-General, "who, being divine and immortal, even given this change and setback, gave that proud upstart clearly to understand that, king though he was, he could not do without us. For not only Jove, but all his relatives — and he had masses of them — lived in comfort and contentment only because they ate and drank what they extorted from the canters…"

"Si-e-na! Si-e-na!" bawled dozens of cerretani in a chorus of approval.

Atto motioned that I was to follow him: we moved to the left, doing our best to avoid the attentions of the half-naked cerretano. To no avail; when I turned around, he was still looking at us.

"… And everything in which the gods took pleasure, they did using Canters'manners and tricks: dissimulating who they were, fooling and cheating everyone. Starting with Jove himself who, when he wanted to lay Europa, the maiden who looked after King Agenor's cows, had to get help from the Canters to dress up as chief cowherd. He'd never have had Europa if he hadn't fooled her with that disguise! And when he wanted to make the beast with two backs with Leda, he dressed up as a poultryman, and that's why, when she became pregnant, she laid eggs, ha!"

The adepts responded to the Maggiorengo's joke with a chorus of laughter.

"To do his dirty little things with Antiope, Jove dressed up as a goatherd; and when he wanted to screw Alcmene, he got himself up like a boatman to look like her husband, who plied that nasty trade. When he coupled with Danae, he dressed as a stonemason and with that huge prick of his drilled a hole in her roof, and once he'd got into her house, he reverently fut- tered her. When he wanted to piss into Aegeria, he dressed as a chimney-sweep. And to debauch Calisto, he had to dress up as a washerwoman, which was easy enough for him because in those days he was still as imberb as any nancy-boy of an ephebe, or as my dear old rascal Biagio, who sits here before me."

Biagio was the nickname of a beardless fatty with a bald, shiny pate who responded to the Maggiorengo's call with hoarse and hearty laughter, echoed by the uncontrollable screeches of the cerretano multitude.

"Although Jove's relatives were privileged, being his cousins, nephews and nieces, to get up to their dirty tricks, they all ended up embracing the Canters' way. How? They were gods, you tell me? Yet everyone knows that Vulcan was the lousiest failed blacksmith of all time — worse even than Bratti Old-Iron!"

Bratti was a toothless old man standing a few yards away from us who had been nicknamed after the well-known Tuscan popular figure of fun. I saw him snigger proudly when he was pointed out as an example to the rest of the company.

The Maggiorengo-General's harangue was really most effective and perfectly suited to that kind of gathering. Citing all manner of examples of mythical iniquity, adapted to meet the needs of the cerretani, he galvanised his listeners incomparably. I looked once more: this time, I could not see the half-naked canter.

"I've lost sight of him," I told Atto.

"That's a bad sign. Let's hope he hasn't gone off to spy on us."

"And Apollo? He was an even lousier hunter after other people's business than our arch-canter Olgiato," said the orator, winking at another fellow lost in the crowd. "Mars, when he was young, was a great bandit and assassinated thousands. Mercury was a sturdy, baby-minding steward, courier and ambassador or squire or summoner; meaning that he was in the business of extortion. Pluto was a baker and his Proserpine looked after the ovens. Neptune was a fishmonger, Bacchus, a wine merchant, Cupid, a little pimp. As for their womenfolk, some looked after the hen run, like Juno, some were washerwomen, like Mistress Diana. Of Venus, everyone knows she was an even bigger whore than that Pullica from Florence, and she'd let any man sow and plough her fields."

The vile mass of cerretani roared with boorish laughter, tickled by their new leader's obscenities.

"Plato, the granddad of all scribblers, lived and died a canter. Aristotle was born the son of a common-or-garden physician and never strayed from the Way of the Canters. Pythagoras came from the codpiece of a bankrupt merchant; that oid tramp Diogenes slept in a barrel without any straw. But let's move on now from the Greek and barbarian kingdoms and talk of the Latins. Was not Romulus, the glorious founder of Rome, the wretched son of a common soldier who extorted his pay from the rich? His mother, as is public knowledge, was a nun who'd been thrown out of her order, and he himself was nothing but a lousy bricklayer who did a job or two on the walls of Rome. As long as he lived by the Canters' code, he was a great man and highly esteemed; when he betrayed it, as we all know, he ended up badly. A long, long time after Romulus, the Roman people became the masters of the world. But what does 'people' mean? The people are the Canters, the plebs and the ne'er-do-wells! And who were the captains of the Roman armies?"

"The canters!" the assembly thundered.

"And so, who fought, who smashed and subjugated the world?"

"The Canters!"

A burst of acclamations and applause followed the last exclamation. Calm returned only a while later. The Maggiorengo skilfully chose exactly the right moment to resume his harangue.

"Virgil, the imitator of Homer, was born in a shack near Mantua from the finest canters who ever lived in Piedmont; when he came to Rome, his only desire was to stay a Canter till he died, so he worked in the imperial stables, until the Emperor Augustus took him from there. And that was because the Emperor loved him, precisely for his virtues as a great rogue. Cicero was a canter; he always loved the canters and hated all forms of gentility and all things high class. Mucius Scevola was a baker and he never put his hand heroically into the fire to save Rome, as they tell you now. He was branded on the palm of the hand by the judges because, during the siege of the city, he mixed bean flour in with wheat flour to make his loaves weigh more. Marcus Marcellus was a lousy butcher, and Scipio, the one who killed him and took over from him, was a poultry farmer."

"What an erudite speech," commented Atto sarcastically. "Worthy of a real ruined gentleman. 'Tis no surprise he's a Mumper."

The words of the new Maggiorengo-General did indeed suggest that he had known better times. Meanwhile, he continued:

"And what of the great families? The Fabi sold beans, the Lentuli sold lentils, the Pisoni, peas; and the Papinii take their name from the candlewicks they sell on the market. Even Caesar, for as long as he stayed a canter like his peers, was feared and revered. But when he abandoned that way of life to become a tyrant and command all the others, they killed him like a dog. Augustus, born to a baker from Velletri, as the prophet Virgil was to tell him, followed the holy Way of the Canters, and the humbler he was and the better a companion, the higher he rose. His stepson was Tiberius, and as long as he followed in his stepfather's footsteps, all went well for him, because he who holds to the Way will be successful in all he undertakes and cannot possibly end up badly. However, he who despises and departs from it will become a vicious ingrate, bizarre and odious in everyone's eyes, and after his death he will fall into the greater hell!"

New rounds of applause arose, whistles, some raspberries and a belch. I saw Atto stand on tiptoe to scan the hellish horde of cerretani.

"It is time," said he to Buvat as the turmoil of acclamations continued to rage. "Take care not to be seen, or we're done for."

The secretary moved off towards the middle of the amphitheatre which, as I had seen, was full of old firewood and other rubbish and happened at that moment to be almost deserted, since almost all those present at the meeting had gradually gathered around the dais where the new Maggiorengo-General sat. It seemed to me that there was a kind of bulge under Buvat's cassock and I remembered that I had noticed something of the sort under his usual tail coat when we sat in the carriage.

"Caligula was more of a scoundrel than a canter," the Maggiorengo continued undaunted, "and that was his ruination. Nero was the great canter whose renown we all know, but as he was above all a glutton, he's not of much interest to us. Needless to say, all those other great emperors, the Tituses, the Vespasians, the Ottos, the Trajans, right down to our own day, were born and lived as canters. And the better they were at canting, the more dignified and valiant they were as emperors. He who is not, has not been and will not be a canter will never enjoy power, wealth or dignity. One cannot be virtuous nor can one excel in any science unless one follow the Way of the Canters. It is holy, because in it there is faith, love and charity; it is divine because it renders men immortal; it is blessed because it makes men rich and powerful. From the Way, all pleasures derive, all consolations and all amusements, right down to games like tarot and piastrelle. Remember! The real canter is loved, revered, courted, and desired by all, even if they don't all want to show it. Let everyone therefore embrace the Way of the Canters, place their trust in it and make it their capital. Let everyone exercise and refine how he does his canting, as does the rascal Lucazzo who's sprawling here just next to me, who cheats, steals and begs with the same art as the Cavalier Bernini designed his statues. Through the Way of the Canter, each of us can become a poet, an orator, a philosopher and, in principle, a gentleman, even a king or an emperor. Long live the canters! And you will see that destiny will soon send us a sign of its favours!"

"Don't worry, I'll send you that now," said Atto, as a deafening burst of cries, clapping and whistles greeted the conclusion of the speech.

"What's Buvat gone off to do?" I asked in a whisper.

"Telemachus."

Too late I understood what was about to happen; and that was just as well. The suspense of waiting might have been too much for me.

It all happened in a matter of moments. First came a terrifying explosion, almost like the rumble of an earthquake. I glanced at Ugonio, who was still perched on the platform, and our gazes met somewhere above the multitude of the cerretani, all excited by the speech which had just ended, then suddenly paralysed. Then came another, even more tremendous deflagration.

The noisome greyish mass of the cerretani spilled out in all possible directions, some jumping in the air for shock, some throwing themselves to the ground, the others scattering to the four winds.

Came the third explosion, which prevented the sordid mob from recovering their senses. This time, however, as well as the thunderous bang, there opened above our heads a marvellous purple flower, illuminating the cerretano horde, quite unworthy of such dazzling beauty, with great flashes of carmine and vermilion. The reddish globes which had multiplied in flight above the amphitheatre opened up into as many luminous corollas which descended gently to the ground, at last forlornly dying.

The name of the first two infernal machines said it all: Earthquake.

Before leaving, Atto had sent Buvat to Don Paschatio to ask whether any fireworks remained from the evening before. He had been far-sighted. Buvat had got the Major-Domo to explain to him in detail how to light the fireworks (fortunately, there was no lack of fire at the meeting of the cerretani) and how to handle them before use: no dampness, no excessive movement, and keep them upright at all times (as I had heard Don Paschatio say when we were on the point of leaving). Usually, the Earthquake is used to bring the pyrotechnical display to a triumphant close, by which time the ears are accustomed to the thundering noise of explosions. Buvat, however, had shattered the eardrums of the gathering, taking them by complete surprise, and the shock was redoubled by the funnel shape of the amphitheatre. After the two Earthquakes, Buvat had set off a real multicoloured firework.

Abbot Melani's technique, as he himself had just announced to me, had been that of Telemachus, the son of Ulysses who — according to what Albicastro had reminded us of the day before — had feigned madness before the assembly of his mother's suitors and thus had delivered them helpless and unprepared into his father's vengeful hand.

Atto's calculations had proved completely accurate. The cerretani were behaving just like the suitors of Homeric lore: despite the confusion, no one had come down from the dais, neither the Maggiorengo-General, nor his two colleagues, nor Drehmannius, the Dutch bookbinder. Faced with the fireworks, they were plainly unsure whether this was a joke, a pleasant surprise spectacle or a threat. Ugonio obviously was by their side and he was as rapid as he was precise. When the red rocket rose in the sky, followed by all the noses in the amphitheatre, the corpisantaro's clawed hands were already deep in the bookbinder's bag, removing his book and replacing it with the one which Melani had handed him in the carriage. The two small volumes were identical: it can not have been difficult for Atto and Buvat to find another book of similar dimensions with an unmarked vellum cover, just like the one which the Abbot had commissioned poor Haver to make for his treatise.

"Use one Dutchman to hunt the other," Abbot Melani had said enigmatically not long before. Now I understood: thanks to the words of Albicastro, we had taken the treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave from Dremannius's bag.

In the festive but still somewhat stunned crowd of th e cerretani, everyone was asking his neighbour who had had the fine idea of setting off fireworks.

"Let's go, Signor Atto."

"We can't yet. We must wait until… Buvat! There you are, damn it! Let's get out of here."

"What about Ugonio?" I asked.

I looked at the platform. The corpisantaro had turned his back on us. The message could not have been clearer. We must leave the amphitheatre on our own; he would take another route.

We hastened towards the secret door.

"Not like that, not like that," whispered Atto. "Look at me."

Instead of turning his head in the opposite direction from the crowd, Abbot Melani was walking backwards, with his face directed towards the platform, so as to merge in with all those around us.

Too late. The half-naked cerretano who had been keeping an eye on us had seen me and Buvat and was now trying to point out our position to a pair of ugly great brutes. The two stared intensely into the teeming multitude in search of our trio. In the end, they identified us and I saw them set off determinedly after us.

"Signor Atto, they've sent two fellows to catch us," I announced, as we continued our difficult task of making our way through the crowd while showing no signs of haste.

The distance between us and the pair who were hunting us down decreased rapidly. Forty paces. Fifteen. The door leading to the secret passage through the rock was in sight. Ten paces from the brutes. Eight.

A sudden violent movement caught my attention. It was behind the pair following us and a little to the right. The outline of Ugonio, advancing with great difficulty, tugged back from behind — then turning to free himself — a hand taking Atto's tome away from him — but he resists, grabs it back, again begins to flee — other hands grasping the book, the binding is torn…

"Buvat!" commanded Atto, apparently referring to something already agreed.

I did not understand what he meant. Meanwhile, we were only some six yards from the bully boys. Now I could see them better. They were as dirty as all the others but quite muscular and obtuse-looking. I could tell instinctively that they knew very well how to inflict pain.

"But where am I to… Ah, here!" exclaimed Buvat, practically throwing himself at a cerretano bearing a torch.

The flame was incredibly intense: red, white and yellow as well as some shades of light blue, then the Catherine wheel became animated and spun wildly, flying towards Ugonio and those chasing after him. Buvat had worked most skilfully, hurriedly lighting the fuse at just the right point and aiming the firework perfectly. The crowd split into two like the Red Sea dividing to let the children of Israel pass.

Meanwhile, after the ceremony and the sermon, the time had come for Bacchus to take to the stage. An enormous vat was being transported towards the speakers' rostrum, to enable the revellers to give full rein to their baser instincts. The container, which must have weighed as much as a pair of buffaloes, was being carried by a group of cerretani who were already tipsy and was just in the way of the pair who were after us.

I just had time, as we disappeared into the secret passage, to catch a glimpse of the first of the two brutes, his face contorted with pain and his leg shattered under the huge vat, while the other screamed at the bearers terrorised by our rocket, and tried to co-ordinate their efforts so as to extricate his injured mate. The smoke from the Catherine wheel, which had ended up goodness knows where, was making those nearest to it weep and adding to the confusion. The chaos was total, the panic of the cerretani, too.

I could see nothing else. As the door closed behind us, there blew on my face for the last time, like the breath of a sleeping dragon, the rank, foul stench of the cerretano gathering.

The next sensory impression was the invigorating caress of the night breeze as we took the road back: a long march across fields, on the bare grass, avoiding the path so as to spare ourselves any disagreeable encounters. We kept our ears pricked and our eyes alert for any sign of whether Ugonio had made it to the exit: an all-too-faint hope, as he had been found out. In fact, we heard and saw nothing.

Atto was swearing. His treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave, which had perhaps already caused Haver's death, was still in Ugonio's hands and the last time that we had seen him, he had been in those of the cerretani. The tomb-robber had betrayed them for Atto's money. They would by now have found it on his person and torn him to pieces.

We came to the place where we had left Sfasciamonti, by now exhausted, our nerves shattered by the danger from which we had just escaped, and depressed by the defeat we had suffered. For the last few minutes, Atto had trailed behind us, fiddling with something in his waistcoat, so much so that Buvat and I had had to incite him to catch up with us.

Sfasciamonti came towards us.

"Let's get a move on, it will soon be daybreak," he urged.

"Look out! Behind you!" Atto yelled at him.

The catchpoll spun around, fearing an attack from behind.

Atto approached and pulled something from his waistcoat. The report of the little pistol resounded sharply, almost stridently, in the night.

Sfasciamonti fell forward onto his face with a blind scream of pain.

"Let us go," was all that Abbot Melani said.

I had not the courage to look back and see the sad, corpulent figure of the catchpoll disappear amidst the grass of the field, covered in blood right down to his ankles.

We were five when we left, only three returned. Ugonio was at that moment probably being murdered by the crowd in the amphitheatre, while Sfasciamonti must be dragging himself in search of help in a desperate attempt to survive.

At last, we reached the carriage which was waiting for us behind the haystack, and were on our way. In response to the questioning glance of the coachman, when he noticed the absence of Sfasciamonti (who had hired him) and Ugonio, Atto responded laconically: "They preferred to stay overnight."

Words accompanied by gold coin, which Atto forced into the postillion's hands, thus silencing any further questions.

Once again, as seventeen years before, I found myself sur-reptiously scrutinising the face of Abbot Atto Melani, one-time famous castrato singer, trusted aide to the Medici of Florence, to Mazarin and to a thousand princes throughout Europe, friend of cardinals, popes and sovereigns, and secret agent of the Most Christian King of France, and wondering whether I was not in fact facing a mere rogue, or worse, a professional killer.

He had shot poor Sfasciamonti coldly, cruelly and without showing the least sign of pity. In the face of such determination, no one had dared express the least opposition. Had I protested, perhaps I too would have met the same end.

Now, sitting in the carriage opposite the Abbot, my limbs felt as cold and rigid as marble. Buvat, overcome by emotion, had soon collapsed into heavy, infantile sleep.

Atto relieved me of the need to put questions to him. It was as though he had heard the sound of my thoughts and wanted to silence it.

"It was you who provided me with the necessary elements," said he suddenly. "In the first place, the ease with which the thief got into my apartment. It was you who pointed that out when we inspected the place immediately after the theft. After all, you said, Villa Spada was under close surveillance. And then I asked."

"Whom did you ask?" said I, without understanding what Atto was getting at.

"The thief, obviously: Ugonio. And yes, he told me that, yes, the cerretani had told him that his work would be facilitated, so to speak, by those working in the Villa Spada."

"Sfasciamonti betrayed us," I murmured.

I was unable to accept this. Had Ugonio and his accomplices really carried out the theft with Sfasciamonti's complicity?

"Ugonio might have said that he'd been helped by Sfasciamonti for the sole purpose of calumnying him," I objected. "After all, the catchpolls are the enemies of the corpisantari."

"That's true. But I told him straight away that I suspected Don Paschatio, with whom the corpisantari have no bone to pick. Thus, I avoided the risk of a less-than-genuine answer."

"And what else?"

"Then it was you who again provided me with an interesting factor: the reform of the police, which you heard talk of during the celebrations. If that were to be put into effect, many catchpolls might lose their jobs, including Sfasciamonti. Our man's scared, he wants money, the future is uncertain. And then there's the incredible story of the ball."

"Do you mean when we went to Saint Peter's?"

"It was quite clear that it was he who prevented you from taking my treatise from the ball, where it was hidden — a weird idea but, I must admit, a rather charming one — either by Zabaglia, the foreman at Saint Peter's in cahoots with the cerretani\ or, more probably, by one of them who'd done him some dirty favour. I pretended I believed him when he told me that he had picked up your inanimate body and carried you back to the Villa Spada all on his own, losing my treatise in the process — what a coincidence!"

"What do you think really happened?"

"He nearly killed himself to get to the ball before you because he wanted to stop you from getting your hands on his quarry. He did not fall accidentally, as it seemed to you, he must have thrown himself onto you with his full weight, knocking you down and giving you a good bash over the head to send you into the world of dreams. Then he took you away with the help of the guards, obviously in collusion with Zabaglia."

I remembered that when I came to my senses after Sfasciamonti had brought me home from the failed expedition to the ball above Saint Peter's, 1 had heard Atto pronounce certain obscure phrases. Now their meaning became quite clear to me.

"That was why you said, if my memory does not betray me, 'No one can escape death like that save with the help of an assiduous practitioner.'You meant that it was Sfasciamonti who saved me from death or capture."

"Exactly."

"You also said: 'Behind every strange or inexplicable death there lies a conspiracy of the state, or of its secret forces.'"

"Yes, and that's not just true of assassinations but of every single theft, every injustice, every massacre, every scandal about which the people complain to high heaven and yet, strangely, no culprits are ever brought to justice. The state can do absolutely anything, if it so desires. It doesn't matter whether it is the King or France, the Pope or the Emperor who's in command. The all-too-easy life of the cerretani here in Rome is a perfect example: they can get away with it only because of the corruption of individual catchpolls or their superiors, the Bargello or the Governor. Or perhaps the state may find it useful to manipulate the cerretani for its own purposes. Or they may hold them in reserve to do so when necessary. Remember, my boy, happy is the criminal who sows terror on behalf of the state: he'll surely never go to prison. But only for as long as he's not privy to too many infamous secrets; when that day comes, he'll meet a bad end."

"Yes, just recently I was told that the halt and the blind belonging to the Company of Saint Elizabeth bribe the catchpolls to be able to beg in peace."

"I'm perfectly aware of that. So why are you surprised if the cerretani pay Sfasciamonti?"

So here, I thought, was the suspicion which had been tormenting me ever since I had learned about the Company of Saint Elizabeth, and which I had never quite been able to put my finger on.

"But why did he help us to get as far as Zabaglia and so to understand that your treatise was inside the ball?"

"Because when I asked him to find the person of whom Don Tibaldutio had spoken, I did not tell him what I meant to do with that information. He himself was curious to know what we wanted it for."

I fell silent, licking the wounds in my soul.

"Sfasciamonti is no fool," the Abbot continued. "He's one of the many catchpolls who's short of money and tread the line between justice and crime. They're always on the lookout for a good source to exploit: assassins on the run, harlots occupying apartments illegally, embezzling tax officials, and so on and so forth. Anyone susceptible to a good extortion racket. Once he's identified his victim, the catchpoll puts on a terrifying face: he pretends that he means to investigate, to arrest or sequester property. Thus, he makes a good impression on his superiors, while in reality he always comes to a stop one step before reaching his supposed goal: when he has to arrest someone, he arrives two minutes too late, when he's interrogating, he conveniently forgets to put the right question; when he's searching premises, he doesn't look in the room where the loot is hidden. In exchange, obviously, the victim shells out a good deal of money. Rogues always set a good deal aside for such contingencies."

"But the cerretani are far too numerous to be afraid of…"

"… of a fathead like Sfasciamonti? For those engaged in dirty business, every single catchpoll is like a mosquito: if you can't squash him, you try to make sure he stays outside. With money, you can do that, and there are no pointless risks involved. On the contrary, you'll make a friend of him forever, because he'll have every interest in leaving things as they stand. You know the saying: stir the shit and out comes the stink."

I felt bewildered, and said nothing. The coarse but honest catchpoll I thought I knew had turned out to be no better than an astute, corrupt rascal.

"Who knows how long Sfasciamonti's been on the heels of the cerretani?' Atto continued. "Whenever he got too close to the objective and threatened to cause them serious trouble, they'd give him something to keep him happy. And off he'd go back home with his tail between his legs. That's what he did when he interrogated II Roscio and Geronimo: he falsified the data so that it could never be found and would never be used. What judge can accept evidence a century old? Yet the information contained in those records could not be hotter; these things are all taking place here and now: a thorn in the side of the cerretani who want to keep their sects secret and are prepared to pay generously to ensure that stuff does not get around. So he keeps blackmailing them and they keep paying. The catchpolls' pay is risible, you too know that from when you overheard those two prelates at the villa, and that's why the Rome police are so corrupt."

"But is Sfasciamonti not afraid that the cerretani may sooner or later grow tired of this and get rid of him?"

"Kill him? Forget it. A dead catchpoll can cause a whole load of trouble, while buying him off with money resolves everything discreetly and well. Besides, if you kill him, you don't know who may take his place. Perhaps it will be a hard man who takes no bribes and does his job thoroughly."

"When were you sure he was betraying us?"

"After you climbed up to the ball at Saint Peter's. But tonight 1 got the final confirmation: how do you think the cerretani knew that II Roscio had talked, as Geronimo told us?"

"It was Sfasciamonti," I murmured disconsolately.

So, I reflected bitterly, the catchpoll had accompanied us during our investigations, even providing us with some help here and there, only in order to spy on us and keep a check on our activities.

"The funny thing is that, to keep him at my service for the past while I too had to pay him. So he was taking money from both sides: from Abbot Melani and from the cerretani," said he with a bitter smile.

"Did you plan to use the fireworks?"

"Only if our backs were to the wall, in order to create chaos and exploit it. It was Cardinal Spada's idea of rounding off the celebrations with a pyrotechnical display that saved us. Even you did not know what was going to happen in the amphitheatre: I couldn't risk the possibility that you might give something away to Sfasciamonti."

I felt myself blushing. Despite all his expressions of friendship and esteem, at the decisive moment, Atto had treated me like a troublemaker to be trusted with as few secrets as possible. There was nothing to be done about it, I thought: once a spy, always a spy, an outsider with everyone and an enemy to all forms of trust.

"Why did you bring him here with us?"

"To keep a check on him. He thought he was keeping an eye on us, but it was the other way around. I told Ugonio that Sfasciamonti was not to accompany us to the meeting. Thus, he wouldn't get in our way. Of course, he could not object: he knew perfectly well that he'd have raised too many suspicions, had he done so, because I paid him to do what I told him. He may perhaps have tried to get in and give us away, but he doesn't know where the secret passage is."

I stared out into the nothingness. How was it possible? Had I really understood nothing about the people around me? Was Sfasciamonti really that hypocritical and immoral? I called to mind the first time I had met that clumsy but courageous sergeant who claimed he was trying to convince the Governor to put those mysterious cerretani in the dock: the catchpoll who withdrew from the daily struggle only to go and find his mother…

"By the way," added Atto, "between visiting libraries, I sent Buvat to put a couple of questions to the parish priest where Sfasciamonti lives. He discovered something really funny."

"What?"

"Sfasciamonti's mother died sixteen years ago."

I fell silent, saddened by my own inadequacy. Atto had deduced Sfasciamonti's betrayal from observations and information much of which I myself had collected, and yet I had been incapable of collating it all logically.

"There is one thing I do not understand," I objected. "Why did you not unmask him earlier?"

"That is one of the stupidest questions you have ever put to me. Think of Telemachus."

"Again?" I exclaimed impatiently. "I know that the myth of Telemachus gave you the idea of creating a diversion to distract the cerretani with fireworks, but here, frankly, I can't see…"

"Homer called Telemachus 'wise'," Atto interrupted me, '"the equal of the gods' and even 'endowed with sacred strength'; he praises him in almost every verse. But what did the good Eumaeus, the swineherd who so loved him, have to say about him? That 'one of the gods has damaged his brain'. And what of his own mother, the faithful Penelope? She screamed at him: 'Telemachus, you are mindless and witless!' Thus was his behaviour judged by those who best loved him. They were unable to appreciate the subtle wisdom and extreme prudence of his apparently senseless acts. And do you know why?"

"He was pretending to be mad in order not to arouse the suspicions of the suitors who had occupied Ulysses' palace," I replied. "But, I repeat, I cannot see what this has to do with…"

"Just wait and hear me out. Telemachus himself masked as folly his boldest act, namely drawing the suitors into the fatal trap: the competition to draw Ulysses' bow. He said: 'Alas, Zeus, son of Cronos, made me mad and here I am laughing and joking like a madman.' And was he not, acting like a lark's mirror, the very first to try that bow which he said only his father could bend? He never gave away his own simulation until the moment when Ulysses seized the bow and massacred the suitors."

"I understand," said I at length. "You pretended to believe Sfasciamonti until we had an advantage over him."

"Exactly. If I had unmasked him earlier, we should never have learned anything from Il Roscio, nor would we have got as far as the German, in other words Ugonio, and so on and so forth. What's more," Atto concluded with a knowing grin, "it would have been complicated to get rid of Sfasciamonti earlier; I couldn't very well fill his buttocks with lead in the middle of the festivities at Villa Spada!"

Meanwhile, the carriage made its way in the first light of dawn. Fatigue weighed down our eyelids inexorably, yet too many questions still beset me.

"Signor Atto," I asked, "why did you swear when Ugonio told you that the Dutch cerretano was going to unglue the cover of your treatise?"

"At long last, you're asking me. The whole thing hangs on that."

"What do you mean 'hangs on that'?"

"It was a matter of wrong targets. When you take aim at the wrong target," said Atto, "you get nothing but trouble."

The first mistaken target had been Cardinal Albani. As we now knew, he had nothing whatever to do with the theft of Atto's treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave.

The second wrong target had been Lamberg. We had believed that the Imperial Ambassador was behind the theft, supposing that he meant to get hold of the secret information which Atto intended for the eyes of the Most Christian King only. That was another mistake.

"Lamberg is nothing but a very pious believer who, instead of trying to be an ambassador, should be at court in Vienna, gobbling down haunches of venison and strudel with soft cheese like all his compatriots, and looking after his tranquil estates. It was not he who ordered the theft of my treatise."

"How can you be so sure of that?"

"I am sure of that because nobody ordered the cerretani to steal the book. It was they who decided to do it."

"They? And why?"

"Do you remember what Ugonio said when we entered his lair at the baths of Agrippina? The cerretani are nervous, he muttered, because someone has stolen their language. That was confirmed by Geronimo, the cerretano whom Sfasciamonti questioned today. At the time, Ugonio's reply made no sense, but that phrase of his kept buzzing around in my head. The new language: is it not true that the cerretani have a secret language or jargon, gibberish, Saint Giles' Greek or whatever you want to call it? As we know, it is something rather more serious than that ridiculous play on words which you heard when you were thrown off that terrace in Campo di Fiore."

"D'you mean… 'teeyooteelie'?"

"Exactly. Until now, their secret language was the jargon which we managed to understand a good deal of thanks to the glossary which Ugonio procured for us. Now, however, precisely because that was beginning to become too well known, they had decided to update it. Do you remember what Buvat told us? This is an ancient language. When, however, it ceases to be impenetrable, they modify it a little, using small tricks of speech, just enough to render it incomprehensible once more. This time, however, someone stole the key to their code, the rules governing it, or something of the sort; just as Geronimo told Sfasciamonti and his worthy companions. Now, that something might be no more than a simple sheet of paper with the instructions for speaking and understanding the revised jargon."

"Yes, I follow you," said I, beginning to understand.

"Well, once they'd suffered this theft, the cerretani would obviously have done everything in their power to recover that magic scrap of paper, do you not think so?"

"Of course."

"Right. And what were they trying with all their might and main to get from me and to hold onto until this very evening?"

"Your treatise! Do you perhaps mean that the secret language of the cerretani is contained in…"

"Oh, not in what I wrote. I know nothing of their language. The sheet of paper is, to be precise, concealed in the volume."

"How?"

"Do you know how they make covers like that with which I asked poor Haver to bind my treatise?"

"By gluing… old papers together! I have it. The instructions for the secret language were glued inside the cover! After all, Ugonio said that the weird Dutch cerretano, the bookbinder, was going to unglue a page."

"Certainly. He was to separate from my cover the page which describes the new rules of the secret language. In fact, the pages which are used for bindings are usually glued to the cover on their written side."

"So that's why they brought an expert all the way from Holland to unglue it. But there's something I still don't understand: how did it come to be there in the first place?"

"What a question! Haver, the bookbinder, put it there. Without knowing it, obviously."

"That's why the cerretani broke into Haver's shop and carried everything off: they were looking for your book!"

"And the poor man died of fright," Atto added sadly. "Only, as you'll recall, when they raided Haver, I had already withdrawn my book and so they got nothing. This they realised only after they'd gone through what they'd looted: mountains of old paper."

"Then they commissioned Ugonio to steal the treatise."

"Quite. The tomb robber went about it with a sure hand. There were no other freshly bound manuscripts in my apartment. Otherwise, it might have been difficult for him to be sure of taking the right book, seeing that neither he nor the cerretani knew what its contents were."

"Yes. But how did the sheet of paper come to be in Haver's shop? And how did the cerretani trace him?"

"You will have to use your memory. Do you perhaps recall that this evening, right next to the rostrum where the Maggiorenghi sat, there was a young man we seemed to have seen somewhere?"

"Yes, but I still can't remember where we came across him. Perhaps we saw him begging somewhere in town. Or perhaps he was among the other mendicants at Termine, that evening when we followed I! Roscio and Geronimo."

"You're wrong. But 'tis hardly surprising. We saw him only for a matter of seconds. Anyway, I saw him better than you, because he sliced up my arm."

"The cerretano Sfasciamonti was chasing in front of Villa Spada!"

"Precisely. It comes as no surprise that he should have been so near the Maggiorenghi this evening, together with Ugonio and that little monster, what was he called?… Ah yes, Drehmannius. That beanpole of a lad, all skin and bones, was carrying the paper with the secret language somewhere. He collided with us and the sheet of paper went flying off into the air and got mixed up with all the other papers. And it ended up in the binding of my book. For the cerretani, with the help of Sfasciamonti, finding Haver's shop will have been child's play."

"But why did the skinny cerretano stab you in front of the villa?"

"He didn't stab me. It was an accident. Sfasciamonti had seen him in the area and knew that he was up to no good. After trying to stop him, he ran after him. The catchpoll had an excellent intuition: after all, the lad was carrying on his person the code for the new secret language. He was probably a courier. We now know that the assembly of the cerretani was imminent and preparations were surely in hand. When he was being chased, the lad unsheathed his knife, in order to defend himself if they caught up with him. That was when he collided with me, causing the wound which still hurts me and losing his knife. In any case, Sfasciamonti took the weapon, probably to be sure that no one else should be able to snatch the investigation off him."

"But why, instead of complicating their lives by stealing your treatise, could the cerretani not simply obtain another copy of their code?"

"It does not even exist, I think."

"And how do you know?"

"You need only add two and two. Buvat told us that, traditionally, only the Maggiorengo-Generai can dictate the new rules. He writes them out in his own hand and the text is read to a general meeting of all the sects who then do whatever is necessary to spread it far and wide. But Ugonio told us that a new Maggiorengo-Generai was to be appointed because the previous one had died. So the only person who knew the contents of that paper, namely its author, was no longer there."

"At that point, however, the general meeting had already been convened, perhaps months earlier," said I, taking up the argument. "Swarms of cerretani were converging from all over Italy and a new code could not be drawn up because there was no time."

"Of course. Even if, given the emergency, they'd wanted to fashion a new secret language in the place of the late Mag- giorengo-General, how do you imagine those beasts dressed in rags could have managed such a thing in less than a week?"

"It is quite incredible," I commented, after a brief pause. "I could never have imagined Sfasciamonti running like that after someone with whom he'd come to terms immediately afterwards."

"On the contrary, it is absolutely obvious. Corrupt catchpolls are always the first to arrive at the scene of a crime or where there's no more than a suspicion that something could take place; they're already counting the money they hope to extort."

He fell silent an instant, wiping the sweat from his forehead with one of his fine lace handkerchiefs.

"Do you think that he will make it?"

"Have no fear. Before shooting him, I got him to turn around for two reasons: because he's a traitor, and traitors are shot in the back; and also because I aimed at his backside, the only part of the body where there's nothing one can fracture and there's almost no likelihood of infection."

Abbot Melani's familiarity with infections caused by firearms caused me to suppose that he had in the past had no little experience of such matters. Like every true spy.

When we arrived, it was already daylight. We arranged to be set down not too near to Villa Spada, so as not to be seen by any of the staff of the villa when we were leaving the carriage.

Atto was exhausted. On his way to his apartment, he had to be supported by myself and Buvat. The servants of the villa, by now inured to our appearing and disappearing at the most absurd hours, pretended not to notice.

Laid on his bed like a dead body, Abbot Melani closed his eyes and prepared for a long sleep. I was on the point of slipping out the door when I saw Atto's nose curl up as it always did in the presence of a bad smell. At the same time, my eyes, no less tired than Atto's limbs, noticed a movement behind the curtains. Looking down, the folds of the curtain failed to conceal a pair of old down-at-heel boots.

"We'll never be free of all this," said I to myself, at once scared and exasperated. The intruder did not budge, perhaps fearing our reaction. Buvat, Atto and I stiffened in turn, waiting for him to make a move.

"Come out from there, whoever you are," said the Abbot, grasping his pistol.

There was a moment's silence.

"To be more medicinal than mendacious, I desiderate to submit to your most subliminal decisionality this most modest production of my hardput industrialising," mumbled a hesitant voice.

The sleeve of a sackcloth cassock stretched out from behind the curtain and held out the remnants of a book that looked as though it had been run over by a hundred carriages.

"My treatise!" said Atto, grasping it and sharply pulling aside the curtain.

Ugonio, in an even sorrier state than usual, wasted no time in idle chatter. He explained that he had escaped from the cerretani only thanks to the Catherine wheel which Buvat had lit just before we escaped from the fray. Once out in the open, he too had carefully avoided the main path, which was why we had not seen him. To return to Rome, he had adventurously purloined a horse from an unguarded stable, at the risk, however, of being caught and slaughtered by the irate owner who had followed him on a filly, armed to the teeth. Now he had come to deliver the promised goods and to receive a last, well-deserved reward.

Abbot Melani was paying no great attention to him, so overcome was he by emotion at recovering his treatise. He opened it and I could at last see with my own eyes the little book for which I had risked life and limb:

Atto proudly read me the frontispiece:

"Secret Memoirs containing the most notable Events of the past four Conclaves, with severall Observations on the Court of Rome."

"I am most factiously in urgent neediness of the ultimate parcel of my emollyment," Ugonio solicited, massaging one shoulder. One of his hands was bandaged and there were bloodstains on his face.

"What happened?" asked Atto, turning from his beloved opus. He was still incredulous that the exceedingly skilful Ugonio should have been caught with his hand literally in the sack when stealing the treatise back for him.

"A nothingness, an utteringly minimous snaggle."

The answer was too evasive not to get on Atto's nerves:

"What does that mean? With all the money I've given you, you let yourself be caught with my treatise in your hand and you call that 'a minor unforeseen contingency'."

The corpisantaro said nothing, but showed clear signs of embarrassment. His wounds spoke for him: when he was filching the book from the cerretani, something had gone askew, nor could he refuse to explain what had happened. He therefore spoke as though at one remove, explaining after his own fashion (that is, in terms somewhat colourful and bizarre) how the Grand Legator Drehmannius had been wearing a little chain around his neck with a most interesting relic hanging from it: a small wooden crucifix from which hung a small box containing a canine tooth which Ugonio, with his unfailing flair, had at once recognised as coming from the sacred jaw of the Dutch Saint Leboin.

"Who cares! You weren't there to…" Atto interrupted him, then suddenly clapped his hand over his mouth. His little eyes narrowed, becoming as sharp as two daggers about to strike.

"Go on," said he.

Amidst ambiguities and fragments of sentences, the confession painfully emerged. Ugonio, despite the fact that he had at great personal risk filched Atto's treatise from the Grand Legator's bag, had proved unable to resist temptation. With a feline movement, he had drawn close to the Dutch canter, whispering some empty compliments in his ear. The chaos provoked by the fireworks was still reigned, transforming the whole assembly into one wild, deafening crucible. With one hand, Ugonio had undone the little chain of the crucifix behind the other's neck, whereupon, pretending to lose his balance, he had practically fallen on top of him ("a most hightly commendable and productifer- ous technique!" he gloated) so that his victim should not notice that he was being robbed. The crucifix had fallen into the Grand Legator's lap, whereupon Ugonio had grabbed and pocketed it.

"Just as I thought," muttered Atto, barely restraining his fury.

As Melani and I well knew, the corpisantari robbed, trafficked and made use of everything they could lay their hands on, but their ruling passion was for holy relics, whether true or false, (and we had witnessed their insane appetite for these things when first we met them seventeen years before). Unfortunately, their unbridled greed for relics all too often got the better of them when there were far more important matters at stake, thus ruining everything. Ugonio's rapacity had all too soon been punished, as he went on to explain, his voice growing more and more feeble with embarrassment.

When, a few minutes later, the Grand Legator scratched his foul mangy chest, he became aware at last of the theft of Saint Leboin's tooth and consequently that of the treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave, which would otherwise have passed unobserved. That was why Ugonio had soon had to run for his life, succeeding in escaping his former allies only by dint of the strength which desperation lent him and with the help of Buvat's Catherine wheel.

"Drehmannius is a silly absent-mindless fellow," the tomb robber smugly concluded, betraying his genuine ape-like inability to forego his favourite fun and games.

"Beast, animal, idiot!" Atto burst out. "I paid you a fortune to get back my treatise, not to go hunting for your rubbish!"

Ugonio did not answer; his expression, which had suddenly become contrite and cringing, hypocritically masked (of this I was certain) that dull, bestial craving for possession which is the mark of primitive natures.

"Just one question, Ugonio: where is the holy relic now?" I asked in my turn, at once horrified and amused by the corpisantaro's extraordinary' rapacity.

Like a peasant taking his best rabbit out from a cage to show buyers, Ugonio swiftly extracted a small box from his cassock: the reliquary containing the tooth of Saint Leboin. He had carried it off.

"But now the cerretani are looking for me very concentratively," said he, with a note of anxiety in his voice which I had never heard before. "I must extrude me out of here pissed haste. I think I shall infibulate myself at Vindobona."

"You're returning to Vienna?" Atto asked in surprise as he slipped a full purse into the hand that was still sound; Ugonio estimated the value of this reward which was, after all, richly deserved, emitting a grunt of approval.

We knew that he came from the capital of the Empire, which explained his precarious grasp of Italian; but we could never have imagined that the cerretani might hunt him down so relentlessly as to make him return there.

"Still, I imagine that, after this Jubilee, you will not lack the means to settle down comfortably in your own land," observed Atto.

Ugonio was unable to suppress a self-satisfied grin.

"To be more medicinal than mendacious, the Jubiliary incomings have been satisfecund and abundiform. I shall low-lie in a quiet, refugious residence and trial not to wasten my economies."

Abbot Melani, despite being a champion cynic, seemed almost sorry to see him go: "Could you not find a temporary refuge in the Kingdom of Naples, a few hours distant from here, and return when the waters have grown calmer?"

"The cerretanici are rootless, murtherous and foxily cunningful," replied the corpisantaro, preparing to leave as he had probably come, through the window. "Most fortunitiously, they have baggered what they most ravened after."

Before making his exit, he pointed at the treatise which Atto at last held in his hands.

As the corpisantaro slipped out of sight (would I ever see him again?) I realised that the cover had in fact been torn off. Then I remembered that when Ugonio was trying to get away from his pursuers, the book had already been seriously damaged.

The cerretani had succeeded: the code of the secret language remained in their hands.