Secretum

Day the Second

8th July, 1700

A few minutes later, Buvat and I were in the street while Atto's calash disappeared into the byways. Thoughts were racing through my head. Was Maria, the Connestabilessa Colonna (for that must indeed be the identity of the mysterious noblewoman with whom Atto had for some time been in secret contact), already in Rome? The Abbot had told me to deliver the letter to the monastery of Santa Maria in Campo Marzio. And yet, had not this same Maria written in her last missive that she had stopped near Rome and would not be arriving until the next day?

The sky was implacably clear. Soon, however, all gave way to the overpowering midsummer heat. Walking was, however, made more difficult not by the closeness but by Buvat's uncertain, absent-minded gait. He advanced with his nose in the air; from time to time he would stop, observing with delight a cupola, a campanile, a plain brick wall.

In the end I decided to break the silence.

"Do you know into whose hands we are to deliver this letter?"

"Oh, not of course those of the Princess. We must pass it to a little nun who is very devoted to her. You know, the Princess herself spent some time here when she was young, for the abbess was her aunt."

"Certainly, the Princess will know Abbot Melani."

"Know him?" said Buvat, laughing, as though the question were one that invited irony.

I kept quiet for a few moments.

"You mean that he knows her well," said I.

"Do you know who the Princess Colonna is?"

"Well, if I remember… if I am not mistaken, she was the wife of the Connestabile Colonna, who died some ten years ago."

"The Princess Colonna," Buvat corrected me, "was, in the first place, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, that great statesman and most refined of politicians, glory of France and of Italy."

"Yes, indeed," I mumbled, embarrassed at my inability to recall to memory what, years before, I had known perfectly well. "And now," I added, trying to extract myself from this discomfiting situation, "on behalf of Abbot Melani, we are about to deliver this letter in all confidence."

"But of course," said Buvat, "Maria Mancini is in Rome incognito!"

"Maria Mancini?"

"That is her maiden name. She cannot bear so much as to hear it pronounced, because the pedigree was not of the highest. The Abbot will be very excited. It is quite some time since he and the Princess last saw one another."

"Quite some time? How long?"

"Thirty years."

This, then, was the mysterious Maria, whose name Atto's lips had murmured in such heart-rending tones. It was she who, years before, had married Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna and, by the excessive freedom of her conduct, had earned herself a reputation as a stubborn and inconstant woman, which still persisted decades later. All this I knew only by hearsay, since the events which gave rise to it had taken place when I was still a little boy.

How was it possible that Atto should not have explained to me precisely to whom the letter confided to Buvat and myself was destined? What was the nature of their relationship? From the letters on which I had spied, I had learned scarcely anything in that regard, while I had learned much about the question of the Spanish succession, a matter evidently close to both their hearts. I must, however, set aside these questionings until later, however fascinating they might be; for now we had reached our goal.

We stood before the Convent of Santa Maria in Campo Marzio.

After knocking at the main entrance, Buvat told the sister who received us that he had a letter to deliver to Sister Caterina in person, which letter he showed her. In compliance with Atto's instructions, I stood aside. After we had waited for a few minutes, another nun came to the door.

"Sister Maria has not yet arrived," said she hurriedly, before snatching the letter from Buvat's hands and swiftly closing the heavy wooden door.

Buvat and I exchanged perplexed glances.

So the mystery was resolved: so secret was the contact between Abbot Melani and the Connestabilessa that letters passed through the convent even though Maria had not yet arrived (and, what was more, she was due to arrive, not at the convent but at the Villa Spada). Delivery was confided to the iron discretion of the nuns.

We then proceeded to the Palazzo Rospigliosi at Monte Cavallo, where Buvat briefly left me waiting in the street while he went to collect his shoes which, the day before, he had forgotten to bring with him to the Villa Spada. I was thus able to admire that imposing and immense building which cut a fine figure on the Quirinal Hill, concerning which I had read that it overflowed with beautiful things and had gardens with stupendous curved terraces and marvellous pleasure pavilions.

On the way back, Melani's secretary kept stopping to look at the surrounding landscape, constraining me to make many detours. What was more, every time he meant to return to the road on which we had been travelling, he invariably and confidently set off in the opposite direction.

"But is this not the way?" he would ask in surprise time and again, unaware of his own distraction and of my efforts to keep him on the right road.

I then recalled that Atto, when introducing me to his secretary, had hinted at one last defect of his. Here was perhaps the moment to take advantage of that. I decided that it would not be difficult to lead Buvat in the wrong direction, since that was where his natural tendency took him.

We crossed a narrow little street in which were trading some of the many poor wretches drawn to Rome by the Jubilee. Within instants, we were surrounded by that motley humanity which a hundred times, a thousand times, one might encounter in the streets, always different yet ever the same: vendors of powders to cure intestinal wind, alum of wine dregs which makes the flame of tapers everlasting, oil of badgers to cure colds, lime paste for killing rats, spectacles with which one can see in the dark. And then there were prodigious characters who fearlessly held in their hands tarantulas, crocodiles, Indian lizards and basilisks; others who danced on a tight rope performing mortal leaps or ran swiftly on their hands, lifted weights with their hair, washed their face with molten lead, had their nose sliced off with a knife or drew from their mouths cords ten yards long.

Suddenly there arrived in the street a little group of decently attired gallants accompanied by as many women, likewise fashionably dressed, and they announced that they wished to perform a play.

The troupe of actors was immediately surrounded by a multitude of small children, women, curious bystanders, minders of other people's business, wastrels, passers-by joking loudly and old men malevolently mumbling yet never leaving off from staring at the scene. The actors produced a few trestles from who knows where and with incredible speed erected a little stage. The most attractive woman in the group which had just arrived stepped forward and began to sing, accompanied on the guitar by one of the actors. They began with a medley of songs and popular jokes and the people, drawn by the free entertainment, came crowding in, most numerous. When the first set of songs had come to an end, and while the people were awaiting the start of the play, there came on stage instead the oldest member of the troupe and, drawing from his pocket a little jar full of dark powder, announced that this was a wondrous medicine, whereupon he began to extol its great and incomparable qualities. Part of the public began to murmur, having realised that the actors were really charlatans and the speaker was the arch-charlatan. However, most of the people remained most attentive to the explication: the powder was none other than a magical quinte essence, capable of instantly rendering its possessor wealthy. On the other hand, when mixed with good oil, it became a miraculous ointment against the scrofula; and when mixed with cat's excrement, it was perfect for preparing plasters and poultices.

While the arch-charlatan was selling the first little jars of powder, enthusiastically acquired by some passing peasants who had listened open-mouthed to the talk, we moved away from the tight, malodorous throng which now packed the side-street and returned to the main road. On arriving in front of a tavern, I made my proposal as though it were some mere passing thought.

"I am sure that, instead of a well-earned rest, you would not be displeased to raise your spirits in another way," said I, tarrying a little.

"Ah… Yes, I do indeed think so," said he, hesitantly, his nose tilting upwards towards a campanile.

Then, catching sight of the tavern's sign, but above hearing the clinking of glasses and the clamour of the drinkers issuing forth from within, his tone changed.

"No, by the powers of darkness, of course not!"

While I dipped the ring cake which I had ordered for breakfast in a glass of good red wine, Buvat resolved to satisfy my curiosity and began at last to reveal to me something of the life of the Connestabilessa.

"In the decade before he died, the last years of his rule in France, Cardinal Mazarin called from Rome to Paris a multitude of kinsmen: two sisters and seven young nieces. And every one of the latter was marriageable."

The nieces of the Cardinal's first sister, Anna Maria and Laura Martinozzi, married the Prince of Conti and the Duke of Modern. Two better matches could not have been hoped for. However, there remained on the Cardinal's hands those nieces for whom it would be harder to find suitable husbands: the daughters of the other sister, the five Mancini sisters: Ortensia, Marianna, Laura, Olimpia and Maria.

They were capricious and astute, cunning and most attractive, and their arrival had set off throughout the court twin passions that mirrored one another: the women's hatred and the men's love. Someone called them mockingly "the Mazarinettes". But they, the Mazarinettes, knew how to mix in the cup of seduction the opposing nectars of innocence and malice, prudence and boldness. Whoever drank from that cup found himself ruled by them according to the exact and implacable science of the passions.

Despite this (perhaps, indeed, because of their ambitious aims) His Eminence succeeded in time in finding the right husbands for them. Laura was taken soon enough by the Due de Mercoeur. Marianna wed the Due de Bouillon. Ortensia fell to the Marquis de la Meilleraye and Olimpia to the Comte de Soissons. A series of marriages that no one could ever have hoped for. Before coming to Paris, these Roman girls were nothing. Now, they were countesses and duchesses, married to princes of the blood royal, to grand masters of the artillery, to descendants of Richelieu and of Henri IV and what was more, immensely wealthy. Their mothers, Mazarin's sisters, belonged to the Roman nobility, but to its most minor ranks.

"Of course, the Mancini family is of the most ancient nobility," the secretary insisted. "It stretches back to before the year one thousand, but the family has never enjoyed the affluence befitting the flower of the aristocracy. Their names betray this: Martinozzi, Mancini…" he chanted, stressing the ozzi and the ini. "Anyone can see that these are not high-sounding names."

Despite the girls' temperament, all the marriages of the Mazarinettes were, when all is said and done, arranged and celebrated without excessive difficulties. Only one niece brought Mazarin a veritable mountain of difficulties: Maria.

She had arrived in Paris at the age of fourteen, when the young Louis was one year older. She took up lodgings in the palace of her uncle, almost stunned by the pomp and luxury which, during the years of the Fronde, had excited the people's enmity against the Cardinal. At first, the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, treated her benevolently, as indeed she did Mazarin's other nieces, almost as though they were of the same blood.

"One day, the mother of the Mancini girls fell gravely ill and His Majesty went with a certain regularity to visit the sick woman. Here, every time, he found Maria. Of course, in the beginning, everything was rather formal: 'I am so pained at your noble mother's ill health,' etcetera, etcetera; 'Oh, Your Majesty, despite the sad occasion, I am most honoured by your words, and so on,'" said Buvat, miming first royal concern, then womanish modesty.

In the end, Maria's mother died and, on the day of the funeral, some persons noted that the freedom with which the young girl spoke with the Sovereign was considerably greater than when her mother had enjoyed good health.

On the very evening of Maria's mother's funeral, a ballet with a prophetic title was performed at court, L'Amour Malade. Louis, as was his wont when young, was among the dancers. In the great hall of the Louvre, before the entire court, Louis' royal pirouettes opened the first of ten entrees, each of which represented a remedy to cure the languishing deity.

No few courtiers noticed that Louis's steps were livelier than usual, his breath longer, his leaps more ample, his look firmer and more expressive, as though an invisible force sustained him, whispering to him the secret remedy whereby love is first cured and at last triumphant.

At court, no one, among all the King's noble companions of the same age, was able to treat with him on a basis of true friendship. He was too irascible and proud, too serious even when he smiled, and too smiling when he commanded. Whenever they spoke with him, young women, in the grip of awe and embarrassment, hid behind the heavy mantle of curtsies and formalities.

Only Maria was not afraid of Louis. When, in the King's presence, all others trembled with fear (and the desire to be chosen by him), the young Italian girl played the game of love with the same tranquil malice as she might have employed with any good-looking young man.

In public, he was icy and distant; only she distracted and, often without even realising it, melted the mask of indifference, transforming it into that of desire. He was dying to grant her every confidence, as etiquette forbade him to, and even found himself stammering, blushing and comically at a loss for words.

"His Majesty was observed," swore Buvat, "at night, before going to sleep, tormented by the memory of minute yet insufferable embarrassments, and he bit his pillow when he remembered how some witty sally of Maria's had caused him first to laugh, then to stutter painfully, losing both his royal composure and the right moment in which to say: 'I love you'."

Events again took the upper hand because of an illness. At the end of 1658 in Calais, after a series of exceedingly fatiguing voyages and inspections, and perhaps because of the bad air which troubles the humours, Louis became seriously ill. The fever was most violent and persistent, and for a fortnight all Paris feared for the Sovereign's life. Thanks to the skill of a provincial physician, Louis recovered in the end. Upon his return to Paris, the gossip on all court tongues soon came to his ears: in all the city, the eyes which had wept the most, the mouth that had most invoked his name and the hands most joined in prayer for his recovery had been Maria's.

Instead of an open declaration (which none could dare utter to a Sovereign) Maria had thus sent Louis an involuntary and far more potent message, and the whole court, through its whispering, was suggesting to the King: she loves you, and you know it.

In the months that followed, the court sojourned at Fontainebleau, where Mazarin, who still held the reins of government, kept the young Sovereign entertained each day with new diversions: excursions by carriage, plays and trips on the water followed one another without a break, and, whether in his carriage, on the park's drives or on its lawns, Louis' path kept crossing that of Maria. They sought one another constantly and were forever finding one another.

"Permit me to ask you a question," I interrupted him. "How come you know all these details so well? These events took place over forty years ago."

"Abbot Melani knows these things better than anyone else," was his sole reply.

"Ah, I see. So he has also told you all about that period, as he told me," said I, deliberately exaggerating, "about the secret missions he carried out for Mazarin, concerning Fouquet…"

I had purposely mentioned two well-hidden secrets from Melani's past: his friendship (which he himself had revealed to me seventeen years previously) with Superintendent Fouquet, France's Minister of Finance, who was persecuted by the Most Christian King, and the fact (learned from others) that Atto had been a secret agent in the service of Mazarin.

I seemed to detect a sudden flash of surprise in Buvat's expression. He probably thought that Abbot Melani had confided the most precious secrets to me and I must therefore be worthy of his trust.

"He will then have also told you," he added, "that he himself was deeply in love with Maria, obviously without anything taking place between the two of them, and that when reasons of state constrained the King to marry the Infanta of Spain, she left Paris and came to Rome, where she married the Constable Colonna. In Rome, she and the Abbot continued to frequent one another, seeing as he had arrived there shortly afterwards. And they still correspond. The Abbot has never forgotten her."

I brought the glass to my lips and drank deeply, seeking to cover my face as much as possible so that my surprise should not be visible. I had succeeded in making Buvat believe that I knew enough about what had taken place behind the scenes in Atto's life, so that he could talk freely with me. I must not let him see that I was learning all this from him for the first time.

So Atto had been in love with Maria, and at the very time when she was courting the young King of France. Now that explained his sighs, thought I to myself, when at the Villa Spada he received that letter from the Connestabilessa!

I recalled then, while ordering another ring cake, a far-off conversation from seventeen years before, at the time when I had made Atto's acquaintance: a conversation between the guests at the inn where I was working. And I remembered how it had then been mentioned that Atto had been the confidant of a niece of Mazarin, with whom the King was madly in love, so much so that he wanted to marry her. Now I knew who that niece of Mazarin's was.

Suddenly, we were interrupted by a scene all too common in establishments like that in which we sat. A quartet of mendicants had entered in order to beg, provoking the wrath of mine host and mute discontent among the other customers. One of the intruders began to exchange insults with a pair of young men seated near us and, within moments, a brawl broke out, so that we were forced to move in order to avoid getting involved. What with the vagabonds, the tavern's customers, the host and his apprentice, there must have been some ten persons involved in the struggle. In the confusion, they fell against our table and nearly knocked over the jug of wine.

Fortunately, once the row had died down and the mendicants had gone on their way, we saw that our jug was still there and we could once more sit down. I heard the master of the house muttering for a long time after that against the flood of beggars unleashed on Rome during Jubilees.

"Ah yes, I too knew that Abbot Melani was very much in love with Maria Mancini," I lied, in the hope of getting something more out of Buvat.

"So much in love that, the moment she had gone, he went every day to visit her sister Ortensia," continued Buvat, pouring wine into our glasses. "So much so that he incurred the wrath of her husband, the Due de La Meilleraye, a bigoted and violent fellow, who sent ruffians to hunt him down and give him a beating, thus causing him to leave France."

"Ah yes, the Due de La Meilleraye," I repeated while drinking, again remembering what I had heard years ago from the guests at my inn.

"The Abbot who, it seems, could not do without contact with one of the Mazarinettes, took advantage of the situation to go to Rome and find Maria, with the King's blessing — and a fat payment. But now I think it is time we were on our way," said Buvat, seeing that we had by now emptied the whole jug of wine. "Several hours have passed now and the Signor Abbot will be wondering what has become of me," said he, asking the host for the bill.

Having hired two nags, we rode to the Villa Spada without exchanging another word. I was beset by great somnolence, while

Buvat was suffering from fits of giddiness caused, said he, by the unseemly hour at which the Abbot had got him out of bed. I too realised with surprise that I was exhausted: the events of the day — and the night — before were perhaps beginning to be too much for me. I was no longer the fresh young prentice I had once been. I had barely the strength to take my leave of Buvat with a nod in lieu of salutation, after which I mounted my mule and let myself be borne back to my little house. I already knew that I would still not find Cloridia there. That blessed delivery was still keeping everyone waiting. As I let myself fall back on the bed and slip into drowsiness, I rejoiced at the thought that we would be meeting again that very evening at the Villa Spada, where the arrival was expected of the Princess of Forano in an advanced state of pregnancy. For safety's sake, Cloridia's presence would certainly have been requested. Then I gave in to sleep.

I was awoken in a most disagreeable and, to say the least, unex pected manner. Heavy and hostile forces were shaking me, accompanied by a thunderous, peremptory and insistent voice. Any attempt to return to the immaterial world of dreams and to resist these unwanted calls from the world would have been quite in vain.

"Wake up, wake up, I beg you!"

I opened my eyes, which were at once painfully hurt by the light of the sun. My head was hurting as it had never done in my whole life. My shoulder was being shaken by a servant of the Villa Spada, whom I recognised with difficulty because of the great pain in my head and my difficulty in keeping my eyes open.

"What are you doing here and… how did you get in? "I asked weakly.

"I came to deliver a note from Abbot Melani and when I got here I found the door open. Are you all right?"

"So so… the door was open?"

"As far as I was concerned, I meant only to knock, believe me," he replied with the deference which he believed to be my due in my capacity as the addressee of a message from a guest of such distinction as Abbot Melani, "but then I dared enter in order to make sure that nothing had happened to you. I think that you have been the victim of robbers."

I looked around me. The room in which I had been sleeping was in the most utter chaos. Clothes, blankets, furniture, shoes, the bedpan, the night pot, Cloridia's obstetrical instruments, even the crucifix which normally hung above the conjugal bed, were scattered all over the place, on the bed, on the floor. A glass lay shattered near the threshold.

"Did you notice nothing on your return home?"

"No, I… I think that all was in order…"

"Then it happened while you were sleeping. But your sleep must have been very heavy… Would you like me to help you tidy up?"

"No, it does not matter. Where is the message?"

As soon as the servant had gone on his way, I tried to overcome the shock by putting a little order in the house. Instead, I only increased my surprise and disquiet. The other rooms too, the kitchen, the pantry, even the cellar, had been violently turned upside down. Someone had entered the house while I was sleeping and had looked everywhere in search of something hidden. All the worse for them, I thought: the only objects of value were buried under a tree and only I and my wife knew where that was. After a good half hour spent putting things back in order, I realised that in fact nothing of any importance was missing. I sat down on the bed, still tormented by my aching head and by fatigue.

Someone had entered my house in broad daylight, I repeated to myself. Had I noticed anything on my return? I could remember nothing. It was then, still half befuddled, that I realised I had not yet read the message sent me by Atto. I opened it and remained all agape:

Buvat drugged and robbed.

Join me at once.

"But it is obvious, you have both been slipped some narcotic," said Abbot Melani, nervously pacing up and down his apartment at the Villa Spada.

Buvat was seated in a corner with two huge bags under his eyes, apparently incapable even of yawning.

"It is not possible that you should not have heard the thieves when they were turning your whole house upside down," continued Abbot Melani, turning to me, "nor is it possible that Buvat should not have been aware of someone lifting his mattress, throwing him to the ground, rummaging through the blankets and finally stripping him of everything, including his money and leaving him half naked. No, all that is not possible without the help of a powerful sleeping draught."

Buvat nodded timidly, without managing to conceal his feelings of guilt and shame at what had happened. So Buvat, too, on his return from our mission in town, had fallen into a leaden sleep. The Abbot was right: we had been drugged.

"But how did they manage it?" trilled Melani, looking at us.

Buvat and I looked at one another with vacant, tired eyes: we had not the slightest idea how.

"And did they make no attempt to enter your chamber?" I asked Atto.

"No. Perhaps because I, instead of going to pothouses," said he emphatically, casting a meaningful look at us, "stayed wide awake and worked."

"But did you hear nothing?"

"Nothing whatever. And that is the strangest thing. Of course, I had bolted the door communicating with Buvat's little room. Whoever did it must have been a real magician."

"Perhaps Sfasciamonti will not yet have returned, but the other catchpolls of the villa will surely have seen…" said I.

"The catchpolls, the catchpolls…" he chanted excitedly. "They know only how to drink and to enrich the brothels. They'll have let in some strumpet who, after taking care of the guards, helped the thieves. We know how these things are done."

"How very strange," I observed; "and all this only a few hours after the horrible assault on the bookbinder. Could the two things be connected?"

"Good heavens, I really do hope not!" exclaimed Buvat with a start, for he had no wish to be, however indirectly, the cause of someone's death.

"Of course, they were looking for something which could be in the hands of one or other of you," replied Atto. "The proof is that, among all the apartments in the great house, they wormed their way in only here. I put a few discreet questions to the servants, but it all meant nothing to them. No one had disturbed them."

"We must advise Don Paschatio Melchiorri at once," I exclaimed.

"Never," Atto cut me off. "At least, not until we have clearer ideas about this affair."

"But someone has got into the great house! We could all be in danger! And it is my duty to inform Cardinal Spada, my master…"

"Yes… And thus you'd cause a general alarm, the guests would protest at the villa's lack of protection and they would all leave. So, adieu to the nuptial celebrations. Is that what you want?"

Abbot Melani was so accustomed to having a dirty conscience that in murky cases like this it mattered not that he himself was the victim; he feared nevertheless that he might have something to hide and invariably opted for secrecy. I was, however, bound to admit that his objections were far from unfounded: I dared not so much as to consider that I might have risked ruining the nuptials of Cardinal Fabrizio's nephew. So I resigned myself to seconding the Abbot.

"But what were they looking for?" said I, changing the subject.

"If you do not know, I too have no idea. The thieves' objective concerns me, obviously, as I am the only one who knows both of you. Now, however…"

"Yes?"

"I must think, and think deeply. Let us take things in order. There are other knots to be untied first, and who knows if, once that has done, we may not find our way to this? You, my boy, will now accompany me."

"Where?"

"On board, as I promised you."

After a quick visit to the kitchens to pick up something on which to lunch, we left the Villa Spada in the greatest secrecy; we cut across the vineyard while avoiding the main avenue and surreptitiously gained the entrance gate. While we were taking that irregular route and dirtying our shoes with the soil of the vineyard, Atto must have sensed on the back of his neck the warm breath of my curiosity.

"Very well, this is what we are about," he exclaimed, going straight to the point. "Your master must board something in the company of Spinola di San Cesareo and a certain A."

"I remember perfectly."

"So the first problem, contrary to what you might imagine, is not the place of the meeting, but who will be taking part in it."

"You mean, who A is."

"Exactly. Because only once we know the state and the prerogatives of the participants to a secret meeting shall we be able to discover the place where it is to be held. If it is a prince meeting with two ordinary burghers, it will take place on the prince's estates, for he certainly will not discommode himself for the sake of two inferiors; if it is between two thieves and an honest man, it will surely be in a place chosen by the thieves, who are used to plotting at secret meetings, and so on."

"Fine, I understand what you are telling me," said I with a hint of impatience, while we made our way painfully through the mud.

"Right. We have two cardinals. One warns the other and tells him that he will personally contact a third party. The latter will certainly be one of their peers, otherwise your master would have used other terms in his message, for instance: 'Let us meet on board tomorrow. A too will be present,' to stress the fact that this third person is not of their rank. However, what he did say was: 'I shall advise A.' Is that not so?"

"Yes, that is so," I confirmed as we crept out from the gate of the villa.

"How can I put it? This time, I shall advise him, don't you worry about it. In other words, that message makes me think that all three are involved and there may be frequent, familiar and customary relations between them."

"Agreed. So?"

"So, it is a third cardinal."

"Are you sure of that?"

"By no means; but it is the only clue we have to work on. Now, look at this."

Fortunately, we were far enough from the gates of the villa not to be descried by its inhabitants. With a rapid gesture, he drew from a pocket a half-crumpled sheet of paper, folded down the middle. I opened it.

"Well, I ask you, how many cardinals' names begin with the letter A'?"

"Signor Atto, what are you showing me?" I asked, troubled by that strange document. Was Atto perhaps involving me in some sort of espionage?"

"Just read. These are the cardinals who will elect the next pontiff. Which ones begin with A'?"

"Acciaoli, Albani, Altieri, Archinto and Astalli," I read from the first lines.

He folded the paper at once and at once replaced it in the pocket from which it has come, while we continued on our way.

We were now right in front of the San Pancrazio Gate from which one leaves the city to the east, by the Via Aurelia. I watched Atto for an instant darting glances all around us, for he too did not desire to arouse too much attention. To be surprised while in possession of such a document might give rise to accusations of espionage, with dreadful consequences.

"Let us see then," said he with a great easy smile, as though we were speaking of any trivial matter. I realised that he was relaxing the muscles of his face for our imminent meeting with the guards at the San Pancrazio Gate, through which we were about to continue his chosen itinerary, the destination of which he had not as yet revealed.

"Astalli is Papal Legate to Ferrara, he is not in Rome at this moment and he will come, if he does come, only for the conclave. Archinto is in Milan, too far off to come to your master's festivities. Acciaioli, the first on the list, is not as far as I know a good friend of the Spada family."

"So there remain only Altieri and Albani."

"Exactly. Altieri fits in very well with our hypothesis, for, like Spada, he is one of the cardinals created by Pope Clement X of blessed memory. But Albani fits even better for reasons of political equilibrium."

"What do you mean?"

"Simple: a secret meeting between three cardinals only makes sense if it is a meeting of the representatives of as many different factions. Well, Spinola is regarded as the favourite of the Empire. Spada, however, being Secretary of State to a Neapolitan Pope, thus belongs to a Spanish fief, and may therefore be regarded as close to Spain. Albani, on the other hand, is regarded by many as being a friend of France. So we have here a little synod meeting in preparation for the conclave. That is why your master is so uneasy at this time: that lecture to the Major-Domo, that nervous, worried air.."

"A milkmaid mentioned that Cardinal Spada is forever moving back and forth between an ambassador and a cardinal, about matters relating to a papal breve," I recalled, surprised that I too possessed interesting information which I had not yet, however, been able to exploit.

"Excellent. Unless I am mistaken, Albani is Secretary for Breves, is he not?" concluded Melani, sounding most satisfied.

He was not mistaken; I had heard this mentioned by two ladies during last night's meal.

At that juncture, we broke off, having come within sight of the guards of the San Pancrazio Gate who obviously knew me well because, living outside the walls, I passed through the gate in one direction or the other every single day. To be in a gentleman's company was an added advantage. We were allowed through without any problem.

"You have still not told me where we are going," said I, although a certain idea was already forming in the ramblings of my imagination.

"Well, our three cardinals are to hold their little meeting on board a vessel. On the Tiber, perhaps?"

"That does not seem very likely."

"To tell the truth, it might well be so, if they really wanted to keep out of sight of prying eyes. The fact is, however, that they have a far more convenient place on dry land, and just here, a stone's throw from the Villa Spada. We are almost there. Perhaps you have heard tell of this; it is called the Vessel."

After all Atto's deductions, that was the name I was expecting.

"Of course I have heard of it," I replied. "I walk by it every day on my way from home to the Villa Spada, but I realised that it might be a meeting place for the three cardinals only after you had set forth your considerations," I admitted, "and then I knew that the expression 'on board' was just a play on words…"

Atto began to walk faster, registering my diplomatic declaration of inferiority with a mute smile.

"You will see," he resumed, "it is a truly singular place. It is a site, as perhaps you may know, which is fairly closely bound up with France, and that makes the encounter between Spinola and your master Spada even more interesting: a Hispanophile cardinal and a friend of the Empire attending a clandestine meeting in a French house."

"In sum, it is a meeting to choose the next pope. If the third party proves to be Albani, the Francophile, one might say that France is running the affair."

"Now we shall go and take a look," said he without answering me. "The meeting will certainly have taken place at dawn, the hour for occult machinations, and it will be all over by now. But we might still be able to trace some interesting information. And yet…"

"And yet?"

"A coincidence. Very strange. Something rather bizarre is kept in the Vessel. Objects which… well, it is an old story which I shall tell you sooner or later."

Just as Atto was pronouncing these last syllables, we reached our destination and I had to postpone any request for an elucidation.

The place we were about to enter was not far distant from my rural habitation, and was to play a great part in the events which I shall be recounting; it was known to many but truly known by few. Officially, it bore the name of Villa Benedetti from the name of a certain Benedetti, of whom I knew only that he had, decades before, had the edifice built with great luxury and pomp. Because of its singular form, which made it resemble a sailing ship, the structure was also known to the local people as the Villa of the Vessel, or simply, the Vessel.

I have already said that it was known to everyone, and not just to the people of the neighbourhood; for in fact the villa enjoyed a strange notoriety. All the inhabitants of the neighbourhood knew that, after the death of its builder, some ten years ago, the palazzo and its garden had passed as a legacy to a kinsman of Cardinal Mazarin; yet the Cardinal's relative had never set foot there, so that the villa had become a forgotten place. Yet it had not been abandoned: at nightfall, lights could be seen there, and during the day, the shadows of people. From the street, one could hear music wafting through the air, the footsteps of people, gentle laughter. Perpetual was the soft plashing of a fountain, with the occasional counterpoint of a lackey's rapid paces on the gravel of the courtyard.

No visitor, however, was ever seen to enter or to leave. Never did a carriage halt before the villa to set down guests of note, nor was any servant ever seen to go out in order to fetch provisions for the kitchens or firewood for winter. Everyone knew that there must be someone within, yet he was never seen.

It was as though the Vessel was animated by a secret life, independent of any contact with the outside world. It seemed to shelter within its bounds mysterious faceless gentlemen, like the gods of some minor Olympus, caring nothing for men's society and content with their mysterious privacy. Around it, an arcane aura discouraged the curious and inspired a certain unease even in those who, like myself, passed by the villa at least once a day.

The location of the Vessel, on the other hand, could not have been finer or more desirable, overlooking the Via Aurelia from the sweet heights of the Janiculum Hill. Situated right on the boundary between city and countryside, the building enjoyed perfect air and the most agreeable and varied views, without the eye having to go begging for them. Although it rose among the gentle, modest heights of the hill, yet the Vessel had a proud and unblemished appearance: more than a villa, it seemed truly a castle. At first sight, one might say, a seagoing castle. The prow (as I was soon to see) was the double stairway of the fagade, set in the green of the garden, which, with a double symmetrical and converging curve, led to a little terrace, the faithful image of an upper deck. The poop, at the opposite end, was represented by a low semicircular facade, within which a covered loggia with spacious arched windows gave onto the Via di Porta San Pancrazio behind. The ship itself consisted of the four habitable storeys, graceful and airy in design, overlooked by four turrets, in turn made perfect by as many banners, almost like pennants raised on the masts of a ship under sail.

The Vessel rose thus proudly, well above the ridge and the tops of the surrounding trees, so that it could be seen even from afar; and it mattered not that the garden was not so big, as, moreover, a Latin motto placed above the entrance proclaimed, which time and again I had had occasion to read in passing:

Agri tantum quo fruamur

Non quo oneremur.

In other words, its creator recommended the possession of just so much land as sufficed for the enjoyment thereof, rather than wasting money on the acquisition of great estates. This motto, which smacked of ancient rural wisdom, was merely the prelude to much, so much else, which we were to find within.

Atto halted, scrutinising the distant bifurcation in the Via di Porta San Pancrazio, opening the view onto the Casino Corsini.

"I know that the Vessel was built by a certain Benedetti," I resumed as we discreetly explored the road, "but who was he?"

"One of Mazarin's trusted men. He acted as his agent here in Rome. He purchased pictures, books and precious objects in his name. In time, he became something of a connoisseur. He maintained contacts with Bernini, Algardi and Poussin… I do not know whether those names mean anything to you."

"Of course they do, Signor Atto. These are great artists."

Benedetti had a flair for architecture, Atto continued, although not himself an architect. Sometimes he would undertake projects that were large for him. For example, he had proposed building a grand stairway up the hill between the Piazza di Spagna and Trinita dei Monti, but this led to nothing. Occasionally, however, he found ways of realising his ideas. It was, for example, his design which was adopted for the catafalque for the Cardinal's funeral held here in Rome. It was rather heavy and excessively pompous, but not ugly. Benedetti was a fine amateur.

"Perhaps he had a hand in the design of the Vessel, too," said I, wondering out loud.

"Indeed, it is said that the villa is his own work, far more than that of the architects whom he hired. And that is the truth."

"Did you know him well?"

"I helped him when he came to France, a little over thirty years ago, precisely because of the Vessel. When he died, he bequeathed me a few little things out of gratitude. A couple of nice little pictures."

We now stood before the wall surrounding the villa. He looked westward, screwing up his eyes a little against the afternoon glare.

"He had come to visit Vaux-le-Vicomte, the chateau of my friend Nicolas Fouquet. I accompanied him, and he revealed to me that he intended to draw on it as an inspiration for his own villa. But enough chatter now, we have arrived. You will be able to see with your own eyes, and to judge for yourself, if you so desire."

We approached the entrance gate, which was of admirable and unusual design. There rose up before us the poop of the Vessel: a great covered loggia rounded in shape, with luminous arcades, looking onto the road in which we stood. From the loggia came the gentle plashing of a little fountain. The poop was supported by the outer wall, which in turn was skilfully sculpted in the form of a reef, with windows and doors sunk into it like marine grottoes and inlets. The Vessel, afloat on imaginary waves, seemed thus to be anchored beside a cliff. In the midst of pines, oleanders, clover and daisies, on the Janiculum Hill, one beheld that delicious and absurd vision of a ship at its moorings.

No one seemed to be keeping watch over the gate to the villa. Nor, as it proved, was there anyone present. Hardly had we passed through the door than we found ourselves in a vestibule which in turn opened onto a garden.

Atto and I advanced cautiously, sure that from one moment to the next someone would come to meet us. From within the villa, voices could be heard, rendered diffuse by the distance; then the echo of a woman's laugh. No one came.

We found ourselves in an ample courtyard with, to our right, the majestically projecting hull of the Vessel. In the centre, a graceful fountain, animated by fine jeux d'eau, politely recited its effervescent logorrhoea, quietly plashing.

We stopped and glanced around us to find our bearings. In front of us and to the left stretched the park, which we began cautiously to explore. There were long, long hedges and vases containing citrus and other precious fruit trees set out in rows alongside; a staircase with nine separate sets of steps; espaliered roses and lines of trees trained across a few pergolas arranged in checkerboard pattern; various fruit trees, likewise espaliered; and then a little grove. The jets of a second fountain, placed on a terrace in the centre of the first floor of the building, provided an elegant and ever new counterpoint.

"Should we not announce our presence?"

"Not yet. We are trespassing on private property, I know, but there was no one guarding it. We shall, if asked, justify our presence by our desire to pay a tribute to the owner of this fine villa. In other words, we shall play dumb in order to avoid having to pay the entry fee, as the saying goes."

"For how long?" I asked, worried about the possibility of getting myself into trouble so close to my own home and to the Villa Spada.

"Until we discover something interesting about the meeting of the three cardinals. And now stop asking questions."

Before us stretched a drive covered by a great pergola of various exquisite grapes.

"The grape, a Christian symbol of rebirth: thus Benedetti welcomed his visitors," observed Melani.

The pergola ended, as we had occasion to observe, before a fine fresco of Rome Triumphant.

To approach the building would have exposed us too much; someone would have arrived sooner or later to interrupt our unauthorised inspection of the premises. Walking among the shady drives of the park, we gradually came on the contrary to feel protected and lulled by the afternoon calm, by the scent of the citrus fruit and the quiet burbling of the fountains.

Wandering around the gardens, we found a clearing with two little pyramids. On the sides of each was inscribed a dedication. On the first, one could read:

GENII AMOENITATI

Qui procul a cur is ille laetus.

Si vis esse talis,

Esto ruralis.

"Well, my boy, here's something for you," came Atto's friendly challenge.

"I'd say: 'To the amenity of Genius. Blessed he who is free from cares; if you too desire this, live in the country.'"

The other pyramid bore a similar epigraph:

AMICITIAE FELICITATI

In secunda, et in adverse fortuna,

Nil solidius amico:

Hunc facilius in rure

Quam in aula invenies.

'"To the joys of Friendship. In good times and in bad, nothing is more reliable than a friend: but you'll find one more easily in the country than at Court'," I translated.

For a few seconds, we stayed silent before the two pyramids, each — or so I thought — secretly curious about the thoughts of the other. Whatever cogitations could those maxims suggest to Atto? Genius and friendship… If I had had to say which genius was dominant in him, I'd have thought at once of his two true passions: politics and intrigue. And friendship? Abbot Melani was fond of me, of that I had become certain when I discovered my little pearls secretly concealed close to his heart, sewn like an ex voto into the scapular of Our Lady of the Carmel. But, apart from that, had Atto ever, even for one moment, been my friend, a true, disinterested friend, as he liked to show so ostentatiously whenever it suited him?

Suddenly, a sinuous melody was heard in the distance: a strange song, like that of a grave siren, which seemed to come, now from a flute, now from a viola da gamba, sometimes even from a woman's voice.

"They are making music in the villa," I observed.

Atto listened attentively.

"No, it is not coming from the villa, but from somewhere around here."

We searched the park with our eyes in vain. The wind rose suddenly, with a rustling whisper raising from the drives and bushes a colourless mantle of dead leaves, premature victims of the heat.

Now the melody seemed again to be issuing from the house.

"There, it is coming from there," Atto corrected himself.

He pointed at a window to the side of the entrance courtyard, facing west, which we could see through the foliage of the trees. We turned to face it.

Thus, for the first time, we came within a few paces of the building, just under the windows, from which anyone could not only see but hear us; yet we continued to wander around undisturbed. I was incredulous that no one should have intercepted us and, little by little, I came to feel myself boldly at ease with that place which had hitherto been unknown and mysterious to me.

Our whole attention was focused on what was taking place above us, on that window (in fact, the only open one) from which the music seemed to be coming. Once again, however, the invisible cloak of silence seemed to descend on the park and on us.

"It seems that they are amusing themselves by staying hidden," joked Atto.

Thus we were able the better to admire the architecture of the Vessel. The fagade under which we stood was divided into three orders; the surface was broken by a recess which at ground level was filled by a fine portico, framed by arches and columns, above which, at first-floor level, there was a terrace. We reached the portico.

"Signor Atto, look here."

I pointed out to Atto that, above each of the lunettes of the portico, there was a Latin inscription. There were four of these in all:

AERIS SALUBRITAS

LOCI SUBLIMITAS

URBIS VICINITAS

DOMUS COMMODITAS

'"Here, the air is healthy, the place is sublime, the city's nearby, the house is commodious,'" Atto translated. "A veritable hymn by Elpidio Benedetti to his villa."

There were two other similar inscriptions above the two doors in the facade:

Agricola semper in proximum annum dives est

Laudato ingentia Rura, exiguum colito

'"The farmer is always rich… next year. Let great fields be praised, and small ones, cultivated.' Amusing. Look, here too there are inscriptions everywhere."

Atto invited me to enter the portico. There, running my eyes over the fagades, I found other proverbs, rather faded but most numerous, almost like a creeper that had invaded the walls, grouped three by three on each pilaster.

I drew near to the first inscription and read:

Discretion is the mother of virtue.

Not all men of letters are learned.

Better a good friend than a hundred kinsmen.

One enemy is too many, and a hundred friends are not enough.

A wise man and a madman know more than a wise man alone.

It matters more to know how to live than to know how to speak.

One thing is born of another, and the World governs it.

With scant brains is the World governed.

The World is governed by opinions.

At either side of the loggia stood two half-pilasters, each with its corresponding proverb:

At court, no one enjoys himself more than the jesters.

In his villa, the wise man best finds contemplation, and pleasure.

"I knew of the inscriptions at the Vessel," said Atto then, as he discovered them alongside me, "but I could never have imagined that there could be so many of them, and painted everywhere. A truly remarkable piece of work. Bravo Benedetti! Even if they're not all flour from his own sack," he concluded with a malicious smile.

"What do you mean?"

'"The World is governed by opinions,'" Atto once more recited in an insidious, strident voice, pulling down his clothes as though to mimic a surplice, his eyebrows arched in a severe ex pression and two fingers under his nose as though to ape a pair of moustaches.

"His Eminence Cardinal Mazarin?" I guessed.

"One of his favourite phrases. He never wrote it down, as he did with so many others."

"And which other maxims do you recognise here?"

"Let's see… 'Discretion is the mother of virtue': that was by my late lamented friend Pope Clement IX. Then… 'Better one good friend than a hundred kinsmen.' Her Majesty Anne of Austria, the late mother of the Most Christian King, would often repeat that… Did you say something?"

"No, Signor Atto."

"Are you sure? I could have sworn I heard something like… a whisper… Yes, that's it."

We looked all around us for a moment, vaguely perturbed. Seeing nothing, we could but continue the visit while, quietly, almost inaudibly, the melody we had heard before began again.

"A folia" commented the Abbot.

"Yes, it is all rather weird in here," I concurred.

"But what do you think I meant? I am speaking of the melody we're listening to: these are variations on the theme of the folia. Or at least that is what it sounds like, from the little one can hear of it."

I said nothing, not knowing what the theme of the folia might be, in music.

"It is a popular tune of Portuguese origin, originally a dance," said Atto, answering my tacit query, "and it is quite well known. It is all based on what one might call a musical canvas, a very simple musical warp and weave, on which musicians improvise a great number of variations and the most virtuosic counterpoints."

We stayed a while again listening to the melody, which gradually unfolded as a deep, severe motif gave way to a warm, brilliant one, then to melancholy. This music was always fickle, forever on the move.

"It is very beautiful," I murmured breathlessly, while the enchantment of the music began to make my head spin.

"It is the basso ostinato, it, too, varied, which accompanies the counterpoint. This always captivates dreamy natures like yours," sniggered Atto. "However, in this case, you are perfectly right.

Until now, I had always believed there were no better variations on the folia than those of maestro Marais at Versailles; however, these ones in the Italian manner are enchanting. The composer is really excellent, whoever he may be."

"But who first composed the folia? ' I asked, beset by curiosity, while the music vanished into thin air.

"Everyone and no one. As I told you, it is a popular melody, a very ancient dance. Its origins are lost in the mists of time. Even the name "folly" is mysterious. But let me read now, here there's something by Lorenzo de' Medici," Atto continued, preparing to peruse a few verses, then breaking off suddenly.

"Did you hear that?" he hissed.

I had indeed heard it. Two voices. One masculine, the other feminine. Quite close to us. Then, footsteps on the gravel.

We looked all around us. There was no one.

"Well, after all, we are here on a friendly visit," said he, releasing the breath we had both been holding back. "There's no reason to be afraid."

Once again we resumed our exploration. I had been impressed by those verses on the walls of the vessel which enjoined one to withdraw from the world's vanities and to seek truth and wisdom in the safe harbour of nature and friendship. How curious, I thought, to find in this very place, when we were on the trail of the secret meeting of three cardinals, thoughts and words which exhorted us to accord no value to the cares of politics and business. I had withdrawn far from worldly things; I had renounced my ambition to become a gazetteer and had enclosed myself in my little field with Cloridia. Seventeen years later, Atto was still attached to these things, quite intensely! Only now (but this might be an illusion) had these verses, with their suave insistence on the vanity of sublunary things, seemed to awaken in his countenance a shadow of doubt, of reflection and regret.

"These verses… You know them, you reread them for the hundredth time, and yet they still seem to have something to tell you," he murmured, almost as though speaking to himself.

We read, between the arches, fine verses on the seasons by Marino, Tasso and Alemanni, and distiches by Ovid. Our attention was then caught by a series of wise maxims on the wall between the windows:

He who loses faith has nothing else to lose

He who has no friends will have no great luck

He who promises in a hurry spends a long time regretting

He who always laughs often misleads

He who seeks to mislead is often misled

Whoever wants to speak ill of others should think first of himself

Whosoever well conjectures guesses well

He who acquires a reputation acquires stuff

He who wants enough friends finds few

He who nothing ventures nothing gains

He who thinks he knows most understands least

"Curses!" Atto hissed all of a sudden. "What's wrong?"

"How could you not have heard? A sharp noise, here, right in front of me."

"In truth… Yes, I heard it too, like a branch breaking." "A branch breaking on its own? Now, that would be really interesting," he remarked ironically, looking around himself with a hint of annoyance.

I was unwilling to admit it, but our exploration seemed to be taking place along two parallel tracks: the inscriptions which we deciphered and the mysterious noises which beleaguered us, as though those two heterogeneous realities, the written word and the murmurings of the unknown, were in truth but calling out to one another.

Yet again, we summoned up our courage and moved on. The list of maxims continued in the second embrasure:

H e who wants everything dies of rage

He who is unused to lying thinks that everyone tells the truth

He who is inured to doing evil thinks of nothing else

He who pays debts builds up capital

He who wants enough should not ask for too little

He who looks at every feather will never make a bed

He who has no discretion deserves no respect

He who esteems not is not esteemed

He who buys in time buys cheaply

He who fears not is in danger He who sows virtue harvests fame

And in the third space:

BEWARE

Of a poor Alchemist

Of a sick Physician

Of sudden wrath

Of a Madman provoked

Of the hatred of Lords

Of the company of Traitors

Of the Dog that barks

Of the Man who speaks not

Of dealings with Thieves

Of a new hostelry

Of an old Whore

Of problems by night

Of Judges' opinions

Of Physicians' doubts

Of Spice Vendors' recipes

Of Notaries' et ceteras

Of Women's diseases

Of Strumpets' tears

Of Merchants' lies

Of Thieves within the household

Of a Maidservant corrupted

Of the fury of the Populace

"One must beware of old strumpets and judges' opinions, why, that's for sure," Atto assented with a little smile.

Finally, in the fourth embrasure, another set of wise maxims was inscribed:

THREE KINDS OF PERSONS ARE ODIOUS

The proud Pauper

The Rich and Avaricious

The mad Dotard

THREE KINDS OF MEN TO FLEE FROM

Singers

Old Men

The Lovelorn

THREE THINGS DIRTY THE HOUSE

Chickens

Dogs

Women

THREE THINGS MAKE A MAN SHREWD

The transports of love

A question

A quarrel

THREE THINGS ARE DESIRABLE

Health

A good reputation

Wealth

THREE THINGS ARE VERY FIRM

Suspicion which, once it has entered, will never depart

The wind, which will not enter where it sees no exit Loyalty which, once it has gone, never returns

THREE THINGS TO DIE OF

Waiting, when no one comes

Being in bed, and not sleeping Serving, without enjoyment

THREE THINGS ARE SATISFIED

The Miller's Cock

The Butcher's Cat

The Host's Prentice

"Bah, these are not on the same level as the rest," muttered Atto, who probably had not appreciated the saying that singers and old men, categories to which he belonged, were best avoided.

"But," I asked, with my mind cluttered up by so many sayings, "in your opinion, what are all these inscriptions here for?"

He did not reply. Obviously, he was asking himself the same question and did not want to admit to being in the same ignorance as I, whom he regarded as inexpert in the things of this world.

The wind, which had already been rising for some time, suddenly grew stronger; then, after a few moments, almost violent. Capricious eddies rose gaily, stirring bushes, earth, insects. A cloud of dust buffeted my face, blinding me. I leaned against the trunk of a tree, rubbing my eyes. Only long moments later did I recover my vision. When I could see again, the scene had changed sharply. Atto too was wiping his eyelids with a handkerchief to remove the dirt which had likewise deprived him of his sight. My head was spinning; for a few instants, the world, and with it the villa, had been taken away from us by that tremendous gust, the like of which I had never in all these years come across on the Janiculum.

I raised my eyes. The clouds, which had hitherto been lazily trailing behind one another in a sky furrowed with the orange, rose and lilac of the approaching sunset had now become the powerful, livid masters of the heavenly vault. The horizon, grown opaque and milky, shone limpid and strangely formless. The music seemed now to be coming from the great open space at the entrance to the park.

Then all became clean and clear again. As suddenly as it had vanished, the diurnal luminary reappeared, projecting a fine, golden ray onto the facade of the Vessel. For a few instants, a light breeze wafted the notes of the folia across to us.

"Curious," said Atto, dusting down his badly soiled shoes. "This music comes and goes, comes and goes. 'Tis as though it were nowhere and everywhere. In the palaces of great lords there sometimes exist rooms constructed using stonemasons' artifices deliberately conceived so as to multiply the points at which music can be heard, thus creating the illusion that the musicians are somewhere other than the place where they really are. But I have never heard of a garden endowed with the same qualities."

"You are right," I assented, "it is as though the melody were simply, how can one put it… in the air."

Suddenly, we heard two voices and silvery feminine laughter. These must have been the same voices as we had already heard, which had strangely been accompanied by no human presence.

The view was blocked by a tall hedge. Atto arranged the pleats of his justaucorps, making himself presentable and ready to answer to any question. At one point, the hedge was thinner and through it we at last discovered, two almost transparent figures, and with them, two faces.

The first was a gentleman no longer in the first flower of youth, yet vigorous, and — although the apparition was fleeting — I was struck by his open expression, his gentle lineaments, and his decisive yet courteous manners. He was conversing amiably with a young girl, to whom he seemed to be proffering reassurance. Was hers the woman's laugh we had heard when we made our entry to the Vessel?

"… I shall be grateful to you for the rest of my life. You are my truest friend," said she.

They were dressed in the French manner, and yet (I would not have known how to explain exactly why) there was something singular about them. They remained so unaware of our presence that it seemed as though, protected by the barrier, we were spying on them.

They turned slightly, and then I could see the girl's face well. Her complexion was smoother than a crystal; her skin was not in truth extremely white, but combining candour with sanguine vivacity, blending fair and brown, it made her seem a new Venus (because, as the proverb says, brown does not diminish beauty but rather augments it). The oval of her face was not elongated, but possessed rather a roundness that equalled all the beauty of the celestial spheres. Her hair, almost disdaining the gold so common in this world, was of lustrous raven black with deepest blue reflections, and not a hint of coarseness to it; if anything, it seemed black only to presage the obsequies of whosoever should be caught up in its inexorable snares. The forehead was high and large, well in proportion with her other charms; her eyebrows were dark, but while in others this might have rendered the regard over-haughty, when her iris was revealed, it was like clouds giving way to the sun after a shower.

I looked at her, stealing the view from the accidental gap between the leaves, and those great eyes, round rather than slit, incomparable in their vivacity, capable of ferocity but not of rancour, seemed to me the sweetest and most cruel of instruments: fatal comets, casting pitiless amorous rays capable of blinding even the most lynx-like; yet, for all that, not harsh, because accompanied by myriad marks of innocent tenderness. Her lips were of animated coral, such that cinnabar could not be lovelier in colour, and vivacious. Her nose was perfectly proportioned and the whole aspect of her head was of incomparable majesty, supported by the marvellous pedestal of her neck beneath which rose two hills of Iblis, if not two apples of Paris, which would have sufficed for her to be declared instantly the Goddess of Beauty. Her arms were so lusciously rounded that it would have been impossible to pinch them; her hand (of a sudden, she raised it to her chin) was an admirable accomplishment of nature, the fingers being perfectly proportioned and with a whiteness comparable only to that of milk.

So many and admirable were the maiden's movements and actions that if only to be able to make this crude and imperfect description I have considered them one by one, so delightful and attractive were they: her laughter so moving and yet without the slightest affectation, her voice so insinuating, her gestures so harmonious with what she was saying (or seemed to be saying) that even hearing her without seeing her, anyone would have found something that went straight to his heart.

It was then, and only then that, after having grasped nothing more of the conversation between the twain than those thanks — "I shall be grateful to you for the rest of my life. You are my truest friend.. " — which could imply everything or nothing whatever, that Atto, tugging at my arm, caught my attention.

I turned. He was as pale as if he had suffered an indisposition. He gestured that I was to go along the hedge with him and appear before the two strangers. He set out nervously before me, compelling me to follow him at a trot. Arriving at the end of the drive, he stopped.

"Look and tell me if they are still there."

I obeyed.

"No, Signor Atto, I no longer can see them. They must have moved."

"Look for them."

He sat down on a wall and seemed suddenly to have grown old and tired.

I offered no resistance to his command, since the magnificent vision of the maiden had been enough to spur my courage and curiosity. If someone had surprised me, well, I would have improvised, saying that I was in the service of a gentleman, a subject of His Most Christian Majesty King Louis the Fourteenth of France, who had permitted himself to traverse the confines of the villa solely out of a desire to render a tribute to the owner, whoever he might be. And, besides, had not the Vessel always been a French establishment in Rome?

After exploring in vain the drive in which the gentleman and the maiden had appeared, I made my way into a side-path, then another and yet another, each time emerging in the end in the great central courtyard. To no avail: the two seemed to have vanished into nothingness. Perhaps they had entered the villa, I thought; indeed, they must have done so.

When I rejoined Abbot Melani, he seemed to have recovered some colour.

"Do you feel better?" I asked.

"Yes, yes, of course. It is nothing, simply… a passing impres sion."

Nevertheless he seemed still to be in a state of shock. It was almost as though someone had just apprised him of grave and un expected tidings. While remaining comfortably seated, he leaned on his stick.

"If you feel better, perhaps we can go," I ventured to suggest.

"No, no, we are fine here, really. And besides, we are in no hurry. How thirsty I am. I really am so very thirsty."

We approached one of the two fountains, where he quenched his thirst, while I helped him not to lose his balance. We then returned to the drives, casting an eye back from time to time on the Vessel, which had fallen silent. Atto had taken me by the arm, leaning discreetly on it.

"As I told you, the villa belonged to Elpidio Benedetti, who bequeathed it to a relative of Mazarin," he reminded me. "But you do not know who this person was. I shall tell you. Filippo Giuliano Mancini, Duke of Nevers, brother to one of the most famous women in France: Maria Mancini, the Connestabilessa Colonna."

I raised my eyes. No longer would I need to think up subterfuges to extract half-truths from Buvat: the Abbot was at last about to raise the veil on the mysterious Maria.

I seemed for an instant to hear the distant melody of the folia coming from the villa. It was not the same folia as before. This time it was more inward and learned, distant and detached; a viola da gamba, perhaps, or even a voix humaine, a voice both elegiac and crepuscular.

But Atto did not seem to hear it. Briefly, he fell silent, almost as though to draw within himself the bowstring of feelings, and to shoot skilfully the arrow of narration.

"Remember, my boy, a heart yearns for another heart once in a lifetime, and that is all."

I knew to what he was referring. Buvat had mentioned it to me: the first love of the Most Christian King had also been his greatest. And the woman in question was none other than Maria Mancini, Cardinal Mazarin's niece. But reasons of state had brought that story to an abrupt end.

"Louis played his card with Maria and lost," he continued, without even realising that he had begun to refer to his king with such familiarity. It was a grand passion, and it was repressed, crushed, trodden under foot, in defiance of all the laws of nature and of love. Although this was all well circumscribed in place and in time, and between two spirits only, the reaction of the forces that had been unnaturally repressed was beyond measure. That strangled love, my boy, was to bring the avenging angels down on the world: war, famine, hunger and death. The destiny of individuals and entire peoples, the history of France and of Europe: all has been trampled by the revenging wrath of the furies which emerged from the ashes of that love."

This was the revenge of history for that destiny denied, for that wrong undergone; small, when measured by the yardstick of reason. Immense, however, if calculated by that of the heart. Indeed, with no one else, not even with the Queen Mother Anne, had the young king ever enjoyed an understanding comparable to that which he experienced with Maria.

"Usually, the gift of reciprocal and lasting understanding between hearts is granted to gentle spirits," declaimed Abbot Melani. "In other words, to those who allow their passions to grow only in humble and orderly gardens. To those men and women whose hearts are like unto the magnificent exuberance of the forest it is given to know only passions as absolute as they are fleeting, straw fires capable of lighting up a moonless night, yet which last but the space of that night."

Well, continued Atto, this did not apply to Louis and Maria. Their passion burned fiercely but tenaciously. And it was from that passion that there sprung an ineffable, secret complicity of hearts which united them after a manner that would never be seen in other places or at other times.

Because of this, the world hated them. Alas, they were then still too green: their skin, and especially that of the young King, was too thin to withstand the cunning, the venom and the subtle ferocity of the court.

Not that the Sovereign was so young: when he fell in love with Maria, he was already twenty. Yet, at that no longer so tender age the King was not yet married, nor even betrothed.

"A most unusual thing, contrary to all custom!" exclaimed Abbot Melani. "Usually one does not wait so long to marry a young king. All the more so, given that the royal family of France had not many heirs to the throne: after Philippe, the King's brother, and his uncle Gaston of Orleans, who was old and sick, the first Prince of the Blood was the Grand Conde, the serpent in the family's bosom, the rebel of the Fronde, defeated and now in the service of the Spanish foe…"

But Anne and Mazarin were biding their time, taking care to keep Louis's head under a canopy of blissful ignorance so that they could reign undisturbed. The young Sovereign was aware of nothing; he loved entertainments, ballets and music, and he let Mazarin govern. Louis seemed never to turn his thoughts to the future and the inevitable, tremendous responsibilities of government. He seemed to be as slack and apathetic as his father, that Louis XIII whom he had scarcely known. Even the three years of exile during the Fronde, at the tender age of ten, when he had already lost his father, did not seem to have caused him more than a momentary, infantile homesickness.

"Excuse me," I interrupted him, "but how is it possible that from so meek and unwarlike a being there should have emerged the Most Christian King?"

"That is a mystery and no one can explain it except by the facts which I am about to recount to you. It has always been said that he changed because of the Fronde and that it was the revolt of the people and the nobles that dictated the reaction of the years that followed. Stuff and nonsense! Ten years passed between the Fronde and the sharp change in the King's soul. So that was not what caused it. His Majesty remained a timid, dreamy youth until 1660, almost until he married. Within the space of a single year he had already become the inflexible Sover eign of whom you too have heard so much. And do you know what took place in that year?"

"The forced separation from Mistress Mancini?" I asked rhetorically, while Atto nodded in confirmation.

"What hatred was turned against those two poor young people: the hatred of the Queen Mother, that of Mazarin…"

"But how was that possible? The Cardinal her uncle should have been well pleased."

"Ah, there's much that could be said on that subject… For the time being, it will suffice that you should know this: despite the fact that the Cardinal showed great skill in convincing everyone at court that he was placing every obstacle in the way of that love, out of his supposed sense of family honour, duty to the monarchy and so on and so forth, I never swallowed any of that. I knew Mazarin perfectly well, his forebears were Sicilian and from the Abruzzi; for him, the only thing that counted was personal profit and the rank of his family. That is all."

Atto made a gesture as though to say that he knew all about it. Then he continued his narration.

"As I was telling you, they all bitterly detested that love, but as they dared not blame the King, they nurtured a singular hatred for poor Maria, who was, moreover, already disliked both at court and within her own family."

"Why ever was that?"

"She was hated at court because she was Italian: they had had more than enough, what with all the Italians whom Mazarin had brought over to Paris," said Atto, who had himself been one of those Italians. "And in her family, she had been abhorred since her first cry; when she was born, her father compiled her horoscope and saw with horror that she was destined to be the cause of rebellions and calamities, even a war. Being obsessed with astrology — a passion which was to become one of Maria's — even on his deathbed, he recommended her mother to be on her guard against her."

Maria's mother needed no persuading: she tormented her throughout her childhood. She never failed to remind her of her defects, even physical ones ("Invisible details," Atto insisted.) She did not even want her to accompany her to Paris with her other children, and yielded only to Maria's repeated and heartfelt pleas. The maiden was then aged fourteen. Once at court, her mother isolated her as much as possible, confining her to her chamber, while her younger sisters were allowed to approach the Queen. On her deathbed, she emulated her husband: after recommending her other children to her brother the Cardinal, she begged him to place Maria, her third child, in a convent, reminding him of her father's astrological prediction.

Her mother's animosity wounded her to the quick, Abbot Melani gravely commented, and, together with that unmistakably masculine air which Maria was wont at times adopt with her intimates — her laughter sometimes a trifle too ribald, her gait perhaps too heavy and martial, those scathing jibes of hers that always found their mark but which would perhaps have been more at home in the mouth of a soldier of fortune than on the docile lips of a young maiden — all these things betrayed how little faith in her own feminine nature Maria had gained from her mother's instruction.

"Yet she was so very feminine!" exclaimed Atto.

He looked around him, as though seeking a special corner of the park, a magical place in which a presence, some entity, might lend substance to his words and from the word make flesh. He turned to look at me.

"I shall tell you more: she was beautiful, indeed perfect, a creature from another world. And that is not my judgement, but the truth. If, however, you were to refer to anyone who knew her — with the possible exception of her husband Lorenzo Onofrio, may God keep him in glory — you may be quite sure that they would be shocked to hear that and would dissent. And do you know why? Because her movements in no way accorded with her womanly qualities. In other words, she did not behave like a beautiful woman."

Not that she was lacking in grace, far from it. But from the moment that she sensed a man's attention focus on her, she felt almost ill. If she was walking, she would begin to limp; if she was seated at table, she would become hunched up; if she was speaking, she would fall silent, not like any timid maiden of her age, no, hers was too prompt and lively a wit. Indeed, one could be certain that, after holding her breath for a moment, she would sally forth with some infelicitous joke accompanied by raucous laughter. These things all chilled the French in her company, for none could guess that this was the expression of her inner lack of ease and thus of her great purity of heart; on the contrary, everyone was ready to despise her as though she were some country wench.

That is why her sinuous swan's neck was disdained as being too thin, her flaming eyes were seen as hard, her thick dark curls as dry and crinkled, and the pallor of her cheeks (induced by the grim, hostile looks of courtiers) was attributed to a naturally wan complexion.

"In truth, Maria's cheeks could not have been further from wan: how many times have I seen them catch fire from the elan and fervour of her young spirit! And the same could be said of her mouth, which was red and large, with perfectly spaced teeth, and yet no painter ever dared depict her as she was, so much did her mouth differ from the thin lips then in fashion, which from close up reminded one of nothing so much as a pigeon's crupper…"

"It is painful to know that so great a beauty should have remained hidden from itself," said I to second Melani's heartfelt eloquence.

"Of course, she did not stay that way all her life. It was maternity that transformed her. When next I saw her in Rome, a young mother, although her broken heart had remained in Paris, her entire being had attained the plenitude of femininity. By becoming a mother herself, she had at last exorcised the icy phantasm of her own mother."

"Your understanding of Maria's true nature was quite immediate," I said.

"I was not alone in this. His Majesty, too, saw it, since he fell in love with her. Even then, despite his limited experience of the fair sex, he was certainly not likely to become besotted with a displeasing face or one that was merely colourless or just acceptable! But, as I have told you, Maria was convinced, because of her mother's cruel judgements, that she was inadequate, sour, unwomanly. In other words: ugly. Oh, if only there had existed a painter magician who could, unseen, have immortalised the image of Maria in a portrait, as she was at that time! I'd have paid with my blood to commission such a picture, for when Maria was truly herself, forgetting her fears, she was magnificent. To immortalise her in an instant, when she was living according to her true nature: that would have been the necessary miracle. And not the portraits which were made at court, which express nothing but the embarrassment with which she posed before the painter, with a drawn smile and an unnatural pose: as she thought herself to be and not as she was."

At the time of her amours with Louis, Maria still felt herself to be, not the nightingale she truly was, but a screech owl croaking on a branch. But that was by no means a bad thing. It was indeed because of this that, as soon as she arrived in France, she plunged into her studies, convinced that she must make up for her lack of grace by dint of knowledge. From barely a year and a half of education at the Convent of the Visitation, she drew far greater profit than her sisters and cousins who were enclosed there with her. Her impeccable French, with the exotic charm of Italian inflections, a show of culture in all fields (which was really in Maria's case far more than a mere show), a visceral love for the literature of chivalry and for poetry — which she loved to recite aloud — and lastly a passion for ancient history, all these things placed her immeasurably above the vainglorious ladies of the court who permitted themselves to judge her so spitefully.

And thus, when she made her debut at court, Maria revealed an intellect and wit far beyond her years. Her temperament, which could not conceive of love without a challenge, soon enough found in the Sovereign much raw material which cried out only to be worked on.

"As is the case with so many young men, the intellect was ripe, and yet he was still a little child; matter still inert, yet ready to be modelled, primordial essence which invokes the enlightened wisdom of a feminine spirit, at once elevated and strong," added Atto, raising his finger to heaven in a gesture of teaching, as though in comprehension of feminine essence rather than of women themselves.

"The maker and the work of art, Hephaistos and the shield of Achilles: that was how Maria and Louis were for one another. Like that Achaean shield, he was already exquisitely fashioned; she could have given him that divine spark of strength, goodness and justice which issue only from a happy and gratified heart."

That evocation seemed to lacerate Atto's heart and soul, but not because he, who had once been enamoured of Maria, had harnessed himself to telling of her love for an unbeatable rival. His real torment, I seemed to see, was different. The elevation of the masculine material by feminine spirit about which he was now instructing me, he, Atto the eunuch, had had to accomplish in solitude, on himself.

"That boiling and formless lava had to be forged into wisdom," he continued, "into insight and purity of soul, into discernment, even into trust in one's fellow man, so that he should be as pure as a dove and as prudent as a serpent, to use the words of the Evangelist. None more than the Most Christian King was suited for such an inclination of spirit and intellect," he chanted melodiously.

This was then the royal road marked out for the fiery young King by Maria's lively vision. Maria was the first serious thing that Louis desired. She was refused him.

He clamoured for her with all the breath in his body, but did not upset the constituted order. Still unaware of his own power,

Louis had remained immersed in the romantic vapours of adolescence: a protracted lethargy in which his mother Anne and the Cardinal had taken care to keep him, for their own convenience.

"And you, then, think that the Most Christian King suffered so much from this that his soul is still scarred by it?"

"Worse than that. To suffer, one must have a heart, and he renounced his own. He was left — how can one put it — a stranger to himself. Only thus was he able to emerge from the abyss of despair into which that curtailed passion had cast him. But one cannot with impunity renounce one's own heart. Saint Augustine reminds us that the absence of the good generates evil."

Thus, it was not long before coldness and cruelty took the place of suffering in the King's young heart. In a cruel volte-face, while love could have brought forth the best qualities from his nature, love denied brought forth the worst in him.

"His reign became, and remains to this day, the reign of tyranny, of suspicion, of the arbitrary, of futility raised to the rank of virtue," he whispered in a barely audible voice, aware that the words which he had just pronounced could, if they reached hostile ears, be the cause of his downfall.

He took his handkerchief and wiped his forehead and his lips with it, wearily dabbing the drops of perspiration from his face.

"All the women he had after that were despised by him," he then said with renewed passion, "as happened to his wife Maria Teresa; or venerated, but then set aside, like his mother. Or merely lusted after, like his many mistresses."

In every one of them, Louis sought Maria. But no longer having a heart to respond to, precisely because of that old loss, in reality he never sought after the soul of any of them, even when it would have been worth doing so, as with poor Mademoiselle de la Valliere. And, almost without realising it, he allowed no woman to take the place of that old love; indeed, he ended up by becoming openly misogynistic. He forbade his wife Maria Teresa to attend the Royal Council, which according to tradition was her due, and immediately after his marriage he even removed his mother Anne of Austria from it. Even if he paid her a compliment when, shortly after her death, he said that she had been "a good King", an indication of how insulting the feminine appellation seemed to him. All in all, he treated every one of his mistresses with extreme cruelty.

"In 1664, he said to his ministers: 'I order you all, if you should ever see a woman, whoever she may be, gain influence over me and govern me, to put me on my guard: I shall be rid of her within twenty-four hours.' And he had been married for three years."

"Excuse the question," I interrupted, "but how could Louis think of marrying Maria, who was not of royal blood?"

"A legitimate, but unfounded doubt. And here I shall grant you a little revelation: were you aware that His Most Christian Majesty is no longer a widower, but has taken wife again?"

"It is true that I no longer read the gazettes, but I am sure that if there were a new Queen of France, I'd have learned it just walking down the street!" I exclaimed in astonishment.

"There is in fact no Queen. This is a secret marriage, even if it is an open secret. It took place one night seventeen years ago, not long after you and I left one another and I returned to Paris. And I can assure you the august spouse is, to put it kindly, not presentable in society. A small example: when she was little, she even asked for charity."

The King, with Madame de Maintenon (for that was the name of the chosen one) had wished to accomplish what twenty-four years before had been refused him — or rather, what he had not had the courage to do: a marriage desired only by him, against the wishes of all others.

"But this gesture of his was by then only an empty shell," groaned Atto sadly. "La Maintenon is no Mancini. Her hair does not 'smell of heather' as the young King was wont to repeat, in ecstasy before the exuberant locks of my Maria. And this belated marriage," concluded Atto with conviction, "was nothing but a silent and distant homage to the first and only love of his life, while the 'secret' spouse (everyone knows this but no one dares breathe a word of it) gained from the marriage more than anything else the rages and bilious humour of the King who made it clear to her that he could be rid of her whenever the fancy took him. So now, la Maintenon, unlike Maria, cannot take the liberty of proffering the least word of advice to the King without being bitterly upbraided for all her pains. It remained to her only to boast of that, as though she had been confined to the shadows of her own volition," added the Abbot with obvious scorn.

The Most Christian King, secretly married! And what was more, or so it seemed, to a woman of lowly origins. How had that been possible? A thousand questions were on the tip of my tongue, but Atto was already continuing his tale.

"All this, in short, to tell you that in my opinion the King of France would have been prepared to marry Maria. But you must remember above all," Atto insisted, "that Louis was at that time King in name only. In fact it was Cardinal Mazarin and the Queen Mother who reigned. Nothing, but nothing, in the absolute deference which Louis showed for His Eminence and his mother gave any hint that things might change. Louis might perfectly well have spent his whole life like his father Louis XIII, leaving the affairs of state in the hands of his minister."

Atto was sure that not even Louis thought matters might sooner or later change. At twenty-one years of age, he was still taking shelter under his mama's skirts in the Cardinal's shadow, like a callow youth. Yet the King had reached his majority five years earlier! His mother's Regency had long since ended.

Louis never opposed the matrimonial plans which Mazarin prepared for him, first with Marguerite of Savoy and then with the Infanta of Spain, having already seen how fleeting such political promises could be. What was more, in twenty years of life, he had never once rebelled against his tutors, not even so much as raising a single "if" or "but".

But above all, the Abbot declaimed, what did he care for political wrangling or for the web of matrimonial manoeuvres which Mazarin was weaving around him? Louis did not live in everyday reality: it was too vulgar and squalid for him, or so he thought.

When they became friends, Maria read Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men to the young King; she too, born with a warrior's heart, dreamed of one day becoming an "illustrious man". As for Louis, anxious to escape from the political wilderness to which Mazarin had exiled him, he plunged headlong into those tales and at last felt himself to be a hero.

From that moment on his thoughts took on a different colouring, one both bloodier and truer, encompassing the distant events of the Fronde, the humiliations endured by his family at the hands of the populace in revolt, those tragic days which had, without his even realising it, robbed him of childhood's carefree joys.

Maria loved poetry and recited it well, with style and sensitivity. She recommended that Louis read romances and verse: from the historians of the ancient world like Herodotus to poems chivalrous and bucolic. He filled his pockets with them, enjoyed them, and showed powers of discernment which astonished the court, where no one was aware that he possessed such qualities.

He was transformed, gay, conversing with everyone; he emerged from the gilded apathy that had hitherto held him in subjugation and took a lively part in discussions about this or that book. Superimposing their own faces and names on the protagonists of their reading, Louis and Maria projected themselves into a universe of romance in which they felt themselves to be the heroes.

On a fine sunny morning, Louis commanded that a picnic should be held at a remote and rocky place called Franchard, and with him he brought a whole orchestra. Upon arriving, Louis descended from his carriage, filled his lungs with the fine air of the hills and, without thinking twice, set off to climb to the top of the hill. He seemed somewhat excited; everyone looked at him with a mixture of anxiety and disapproval. Maria followed him, while he held her arm chivalrously during the climb up those steep and rugged rocks. As soon as he reached the summit, Louis ordered the orchestra and the court to join him there; a desire which was fulfilled at the cost of no little effort and risk. As they grazed their knees on the stones, the courtiers cast disconcerted and impatient glances at one another. No King of France had ever set out to climb mountains like a goat, least of all with an orchestra and the whole court. Nor would Louis have done it, they thought, if it had not been for that woman, that Italian.

On another day, at Bois-le-Vicomte, Maria and Louis were walking along a tree-lined avenue. At a certain point, perhaps to help her, he held out his arm to her. Maria stretched out her hand, which lightly struck the pommel of the King's sword. Louis then drew the sword which had dared stand in the way of Maria's hand and cast it as far as he was able, in order to punish it. An act of puerile chivalry, which soon did the rounds at court.

Louis, with the ingenuousness of his passion, was making a fool of himself, even if no one had the courage to tell him so, and it was the common opinion that no adult sentiment could possibly underlie such childish behaviour.

"But the courtiers were wrong," I cried out.

"They were both wrong and right," Atto corrected me. "That love, as neither the King nor Maria dared yet call the enthusiasm which drew them to one another, did at times take on the infantile and pathetic tones of a juvenile infatuation; that I cannot deny. But this was only because Louis, too long and too closely guarded by his mother and the Cardinal, was at the age of twenty living for the first time, and suddenly, in chaotic and disorderly confusion, what his heart should already have experienced at the age of sixteen."

At the age of sixteen, however, Louis XIV had experienced only the most pallid initiation to venery. The Queen had opposed this, while his godfather had been a party to it: an old chambermaid, a few docile and willing servant girls, even a maid of honour, and a superficial friendship with a sister of Maria's. But nothing — Mazarin took good care — nothing that might touch the King's heart. Only his meeting with Maria had opened the gates of love, and Louis was no longer willing to go back on that.

All the anxieties, the intemperance, the blushes, the theatrical gestures: all the torments of burgeoning pubescence the young King suffered with Maria, at an age when a monarch has usually put such things behind him and his heart has already experienced the roughness and hardness of the art of reigning.

Likewise, Atto continued, the inexpert and imprudent youth consumes his ardour like a blaze devouring straw; he suffers from furious infatuations, for a real damsel or for the heroine of some fairy tale, and for both he feels prepared to slice the globe in two with a sword. Only, the volubility of his young heart soon tears him away from these things and he then drinks of Lethe's waters of oblivion. Next, it all begins anew: new dreams, new attachments, new passions, new senseless words, in the divine madness of those brief years of passage when the future has not the slightest importance.

But all things are destined to dissolve, one after the other, in the oblivion of a new present. Approaching the age of twenty, there remains only a confused reminiscence, a vague sensation of pleasure mixed with danger: the new man will keep a safe distance from those impetuous currents, and turning his mind to the future, will place on his heart the leash of good sense; with that good sense, choosing the mother of his children, and loving her with a heart filled with conjugal devotion.

"The heart knows no commands, Signor Atto," was my only comment.

"A King's heart is different."

When Louis, thanks to Maria, awoke from his overlong lethargy, he had the misfortune to meet the woman of his life too early and too late; he was too inexpert to know how to gain her for himself, too adult to forget her. His heart was in turmoil for her, his mind was subjugated by her. Reasons of state were still no more than a thought in the background, both remote and obscure.

I knew very well what Atto was thinking of when he expressed himself in those terms: not only of the youth of the Most Christian King but of his own; those years of glory as a castrato singer touring Europe, caught between music, espionage, the faithful service of great lords, with danger breathing down his neck and a secret amorous passion which set his senses ablaze.

It was then, as I penetrated his fervour with that oblique intuition, that, puffing up his chest, he sang a plaintive melody.

Se dardo pungente d'un guardo lucente il sen mi feri, se in pena d'amore si strugge 'I mio core la notte ed il di… [1]

Whose that lucent look was that had wounded the breast of Abbot Melani was all too clear to me. It was almost as though he, by the power of thought, had taken on Louis's flesh, as a warrior dons a coat of armour, to taste the joys and sufferings of that amorous passion which was denied him.

Atto sang in a feeble, breathless voice. Seventeen years had gone by since I had last heard him. At that time, his voice, once so famous because well tempered and powerful, was already reduced to perhaps half of its former vigour, if not less. Yet the airs which he sang, those of his master Luigi Rossi (Le Seigneur Luigi, as he called him) had lost nothing of their enchantment.

That thread of a voice was still celestial, swift, superfine, capable of speaking to the heart a thousand times better than an entire school of sages could speak to the intellect. Gone were the body and power of his song, yet there remained, vulnerable but intact, only its intimate and ineffable beauty.

Now Atto was repeating those verses, as though their words held for him some hidden, painful meaning:

Se un volto divino quest'alma rubo, se amar e destino resista chi puo!*

The Abbot was still tormented by the memory of Maria. He felt that he had looked upon her through Louis's eyes, he had brushed her with his palms, kissed her with his lips and even experienced with the King's heart the desperate distress of separation. Sensations which for Atto, year after year, had become more true, more real than if he had known them in his own flesh. He, the eunuch, being unable to attain Maria, had in the end possessed her through the King.

Thus was consumed and renewed that bizarre love among three, between two souls separated forever and a third, the jealous custodian of their past. To me was granted the unique and secret honour of being witness to this. * I f features divine / Stole this soul away, / If Fate Love entwines, / Resist then who may!

Melani suddenly broke off singing and, with a quick jump, showing that he had recovered his vigour, leapt down from the little wall which had afforded him rest and support.

"And now, let us go into the villa. There must be someone in there who will at last have us arrested," said he laughing.

I found it hard to break the enchantment which the image of Maria, evoked by the Abbot in words and in song, had wrought in my spirit.

"Was that an air by your master, Le Seigneur Luigi?"

"I see that you have not forgotten," he replied. "No, this is by Francesco Cavalli, from his Giasone. I think that was the opera most played in the past half-century."

Saying this, Atto left me and walked ahead of me; he was un willing to say more.

Jason, or jealousy. 1 had never heard that famous opera, but I knew very well the celebrated Greek myth of the jealousy of Medea, queen of Colchis, for Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, and his love for Hypsipyle, queen of Lemnos. Another love triangle.

We moved towards the north side of the villa, opposite that overlooking the road. A distich was inscribed above the entrance gate:

Si te, ut saepe solet, species haec decipit alta;

Nec me, nec Caros decipit arcta Domus.

Once again, I had the curious, inexpressible sensation that the words painted or carved on the walls of the villa referred to, or even mirrored, some unknown reality.

We tried the door. It was open. At the moment of grasping the door handle, I seemed to hear a hurried sound of footsteps and movement, as though someone inside had risen suddenly from a chair. I looked at Atto; if he too had heard something, he showed no sign of it.

We crossed the threshold. Within, no one.

"No vestige of the three eminences, as far as one can see," I commented.

"I certainly was not expecting to find any still here. Yet, some trace of the meeting might have been left behind: a message, who knows, perhaps some notes… I would need only to know in which room they met. Such details are always very, very useful. The villa is large… let's see. It seems as though no one has any intention of keeping an eye on it. So much the better for us."

We found a large oblong room illuminated by the light from windows on either side. At the opposite end, a closed door. This large hall was apparently intended for summer luncheons. Through an open window blew the sweet and melancholy west wind. In an adjoining room, one could see a table for playing trucco, or billiards, if you prefer.

Cautiously, we moved a few paces forward, keeping an eye on the door opposite, from which we imagined that someone might issue sooner or later.

In the middle of the room, a great round table was very much in evidence on which was enthroned a large tray in fine inlaid silver poplar wood. We approached. Atto cautiously pushed the tray, which rotated.

"A brilliant idea," he commented. "The servings can pass from one guest to another, without troubling one's neighbour or needing to pay a carver. Benedetti appreciated the comforts of life, I'd say. Someone must have left the room a short while before us," he added after a pause.

"How can you be so sure of that?"

"There are footprints here on the floor. His shoes were dirty with earth."

We split up, while I explored the part of the room where we had entered, while Atto saw to the rest.

I observed that in two places where the walls protruded into the room, cupboards were built in, painted in the same colours as those walls, thus discreetly concealing articles for the table and the wine cellar. I opened the drawers. They were full of fine silver, with cutlery of all forms and dimensions for every purpose, including devices for scaling fish and long, well-sharpened knives for serving meat and game. Copious and variegated were the services of goblets, chalices, beakers, drinking bowls, large glasses, wooden cups, wine carafes and decanters, large and small, punchbowls for refreshments, jugs for water, cups for broths and hot beverages, all in glass decorated, gilded and painted with delightful figures of animals, cherubs or floral motifs. The master of the villa must have loved the pleasures of the eye no less than those of the table, all to be enjoyed in the salubrious air of the Janiculum Hill and among the verdure of vineyards and gardens. The Vessel, despite its strange isolation, was truly a villa built for great pleasures.

Against a wall, near one of the cupboards, I noticed a vertical brass tube which began at a man's height with a flaring opening like that of a trumpet and which ran up until it disappeared into the ceiling. Atto noticed my questioning look.

"That tube is another of the conveniences of the villa," he explained. "It is used to communicate with the servants on the other floors, without having to take the trouble to go and look for them. One need only talk into them and one's voice issues from the openings on other floors."

I moved a few paces. On every one of the shutters of the windows were painted medallions portraying illustrious Roman women: Pompea, Caesar's third wife; Servilia, Octavian's first wife; Drusilla, the sister of Caligula; Messalina, Claudius' fifth wife; and many others including Cossutia and Cornelia, Martia, Aurelia and Calpurnia (I counted thirty-two in all), each celebrated with solemn Latin inscriptions setting out their name, family and spouse.

We realised that above the arches and in the embrasures were other sayings, all alluding to the female sex, and they were most numerous, so many that these pages would not suffice to set out a tenth part of them:

Of women the quinte element is a natural raving

It is easier to find pleasure in absence than silence in women's midst

Woman laughs when she can, and cries when she will

Women and hens annoy the neighbours

Man and woman in a tight place are like straw near the fire

Interest usually, rather than love, rules women's hearts

"Everything here is dedicated to feminine qualities and to the pleasures of the table. This is the great hall of women and the palate," said Atto, while I examined a medallion with the profile of Plautia Hercanulilla.

Until that moment, so intent had we been on finding traces of the presence of the three august members of the Sacred College of Cardinals (and we had indeed discovered footprints) that we had not deigned to accord our attention to what was most interesting in this hall: the rich collection of paintings hung on the walls. Atto stood by my side as I focused on the paintings, realising that the only subject of the collection was, as might have been expected, a set of graceful women's faces.

Abbot Melani began to pass rapidly from one picture to the next without even needing to read the names on the frames, which showed the identity of the ladies in question. He knew each face to perfection (and meant to show that off), having seen them either in the flesh or in so many other portraits, and he told me their names.

"Her Majesty Anne of Austria, the late, lamented mother of the Most Christian King," he recited, almost as though he were presenting her to me in flesh and blood, showing me the sweet, haughty face of the deceased sovereign, that rather penetrating look, the forehead not excessively high, the round but noble neck embraced with loving respect by the low-cut organza collar of her sumptuous black taffeta gown, enriched by a bodice of pleated brocade on which the diaphanous royal hands were limply abandoned.

"As I had occasion to tell you when we met, the Queen Mother loved my singing, I could say, in no ordinary way," he added with a touch of vanity, adjusting his wig with a rapid and discreet gesture. "Above all, sad arias, sung in the evening."

He then passed on to the portraits of the Princess Palatine, Countess Marescotti, and the late lamented Henrietta, sister- in-law of the Most Christian King, all so nobly and realistically depicted that it seemed as though they might just have lunched at the great table nearby.

It was then that we came to the last portrait, a little in the shade by comparison with the others, yet still visible.

Since our regard is subject to desire, while the word is ruled by the intellect, my eyes were swifter to embrace that feminine visage and to recognise it among my memories than was Abbot Melani to announce her name.

That was why, when he said: "Madama Maria Mancini," I had already recognised her. It was without a doubt the young maiden we had glimpsed through the hedge, in the park.

"Of course, all this was the play of your imagination," said Atto, after listening to my explanation, as we left the great hall, taking a door to the left. "You were unduly influenced by an agreeable and unexpected encounter. That can happen, and I can assure you that when I was your age it happened often."

When proffering those words, he turned his head away from me.

"Still, I do not understand where the maiden and her companion can have disappeared to," I objected.

Atto did not reply. On the walls of the chamber there were various prints in the form of pictures which, using a skilful optical illusion, represented ancient bas-reliefs with singular grace and lightness. What was more, here too was a series of portraits, this time, of men.

Here also, the openings in the wall were ornamented with sayings concerning life at court.

THE GOOD COURTIER To acquire merit:

Serve with punctuality and modesty

Always speak well of your Lord and ill of no one

Praise without excess

Practise with the best

Listen more than you speak

Love good men

Win over the bad

Speak gently

Operate promptly

Neither trust someone nor mistrust everyone

Neither reveal your own secret nor listen willingly to those of others

Do not interrupt others' speeches and be not prolix in your own

Believe those who are more learned than yourself

Do not undertake things greater than you

Do not believe easily or answer without thinking

Suffer, and dissimulate

THE COURT

In Courts, there are always some wolves in sheep's clothing

Against treachery in Courts there is no better remedy than withdrawal and distance

The Court often takes light from the streets

The Court and satisfaction are two excessively great extremes

In the air of the Court the wind of ambition must of necessity blow

The affairs of Courts do not always move at the speed desired by the most zealous

In Courts, even the most sincere friendships are not exempt from the poison of false suspicions

Most courtiers are monsters with two tongues and two hearts.

"Yet, to me she does seem to be the same young maiden!" I decided to insist, while Atto was pointing his nose in the air to read the maxims. "Are you sure that today Maria Mancini is nearly sixty years of age? The maiden we saw… well, I tell you, she is identical to the woman in the picture, but seems rather young."

He stopped reading brusquely and looked me straight in the eye.

"Do you think I could be mistaken?"

He turned his eyes away from mine and turned to the pictures, to explain them for me. The subjects of the pictures were this time illustrious names from France and from Italy: pontiffs, poets, men of science, sovereigns and their consorts, ministers of state.

"His Holiness the late Pope Alexander VII; His Holiness the late Pope Clement IX, the Cavalier Bernini, the Cavaliere Cassiano del Pozzo; the Cavalier Marino; His Majesty the late King Louis XIII; His Reigning Majesty Louis XIV.."

While he reviewed the list of names, passing hurriedly from one picture to the next, it seemed to me that Atto was still annoyed by my question about the age of Maria Mancini. In reality, he must be right: I could not have seen Maria in the park, not only because she had not yet reached Rome, but because, being the same age as the Most Christian King, she must, like the Sovereign, be sixty years of age or more.

"His Eminence the late Cardinal Richelieu; His Eminence the late Cardinal Mazarin; the deceased Minister Colbert; the deceased Superintendent Fouquet…"

He stopped.

'"Suffer, and dissimulate'…" said he to himself, repeating one of the maxims he had just read on the walls of the room.

"I beg your pardon?"

'"Most courtiers are monsters with two tongues and two hearts'!" he smiled, quoting another of the maxims theatrically, as though he wished to mask some unwelcome thought with a joke.

"It is getting late," the Abbot commented as soon as we had left the Vessel, scrutinising the violet of the sky.

The search of the premises had not led to much. Apart from a few footprints, we had found no trace of the three cardinals and in any case there was not enough time to explore the whole villa.

"Now, go back and work in the gardens at Spada. Keep your mouth closed and behave as though nothing had happened."

"To tell the truth, I must repair the damage done by the thief before Cloridia returns…"

"For that I shall reimburse you at double its value, so your little wife will soon be consoled. You must be present this evening, after Vespers. Now, be on your way!" he exhorted me rather brusquely.

Atto was nervous, very nervous.