Secretum

Evening the Second

8th July, 1700

While I was making my way towards the garden shed in order to collect my tools, I reflected that Atto had not once asked me about Cloridia: how she was, when he would be seeing her again, what she was doing now, and so on. Never a word, and not even now that he had mentioned her did he take the trouble to ask me anything, however circumstantial, about her. And this despite the fact that he had read in the memoir which he had stolen from me the whole incredible story of Cloridia. A story which, many years before, at the time of the Locanda del Donzello, he could never have imagined. Not that they frequented one another at the time. On the contrary, as far as I could recall, they had not exchanged a single word, deliberately ignoring one another. I had never heard Atto pronounce her name, save scornfully. The castrato and the courtesan: I could surely not expect a friendship to be born…

"You are dismissed! Your work is disgusting."

For a moment, my heart almost failed me when that strident voice caught me unawares.

I turned around and saw him a few paces from me, seated on a branch while he stroked his beak with his hooked talons.

"Dismissed, disss — missed!" Caesar Augustus repeated, amusing himself as he was wont to do whenever, between one task and another, I allowed myself a short break. He had probably learned that disagreeable phrase in some shop during his peregrinations across the city.

"What are you doing up there?" I asked him in my turn, irritated by the surprise. "Why do you not get back into your cage?"

He held his peace, as though there was no need to reply and rocked his head rhythmically to show his displeasure. It was one of those days, frequent during changes in the seasons, when Caesar Augustus was melancholy and irritable. Days on which, to vent his anxieties, he would always end up by doing something awful.

Giving immediate and troublesome substance to his malaise, Caesar Augustus went into action. He took flight, sped past brushing my face, turned, plummeted down, landed next to me and, with his beak, boldly seized the small sickle which I had left on the ground.

"No, for goodness sake, give that back to me at once!"

"Dismiss him, dismiss him!" he repeated again with a malign glint in his little round eyes. The small sickle, grasped firmly in his beak, in no way prevented him from imitating the human voice to perfection, the sound issuing, not from the throat, like ours, but from some unimaginable guttural cavity. He spread his great white wings, beating them clumsily in the still summer air, and took off.

In a few instants I lost sight of him; but not only because he had rapidly disappeared over the horizon. While watching Caesar Augustus's departure, I had in fact been distracted by a small detail. Out of the corner of my eye, I seemed for a few fleeting moments to catch a glimpse of a shadow observing me from behind a hedge. But it was very hot, perhaps I was mistaken.

"Move aside, boy."

I was at once roused from such ephemeral impressions by that firm and impatient voice ordering me to stand aside. Making their way between the hedges of the little drive were two valets escorting a third person: in lay apparel His Eminence Cardinal Spada was advancing, his expression even more livid than the day before.

I bowed respectfully while the trio passed me and proceeded towards the gates of the villa. When I rose and dusted down my breeches, I seemed again to hear rustling and once more had the indefinable impression that I was being watched by malign and inquiring eyes. I looked all around me, but without catching sight even vaguely of the dark silhouette which I could have sworn I had seen only moments before, moving behind the surrounding hedges. While at the end of the drive Cardinal Spada disappeared from sight with his two escorts, above their heads I saw instead Caesar Augustus fluttering silently.

Once I had finished my work trimming the hedge and accomplished my duties at the aviary, I realised that no little time remained to me before my appointment with Abbot Melani after Vespers.

I decided to make a quick visit home. There, alas, I found the same painful chaos to which, only a few hours before, I had awoken. For a few moments I fell a prey to anguish as I saw with what rabid fury those faceless strangers had with impunity disrupted the fine order of Cloridia's and my alcove.

When I had rearranged everything properly, I returned to the Villa Spada. There, in the garden, the heat was rather oppressive. I took off my shirt and curled up in the shade of a tall beech, in a little secret place on the heights, under the outer wall, where I and Cloridia were wont to meet during brief pauses in our work, away from curious glances. From that point, one looked out over the drive below, but, concealed by the leaves, it was almost impossible to be seen. The act of putting our possessions back in order after the devastation wrought by the vandals had made the absence of my sweet wife all the more bitter. And as I sighed and moaned with nostalgia and impatience at the thought of her, 1 found myself thinking of the amours of the Sun King with Maria Mancini, and of the strange passion which seemed to unite Maria and Atto who, after thirty years in voluminous and secret epistolary correspondence, had still never again seen one another.

In truth everything surrounding Atto was bizarre, unusual, arcane. What could one say of the strange phenomena at the Vessel? And was there a connection between the death of the bookbinder, Atto's wounding and the strange circumstances in which this had taken place? On top of all that, there was the extremely troubling fact of the double raid on Buvat and myself, after we had both been safely drugged.

Again, I felt confusion, even desperation clutching at my breast. The languor of love for my Cloridia had given way to fear.

What was really happening? Were we perhaps the victims, as Melani had written to the Connestabilessa, of some pro-imperial plot? Or was this to do with the cerretani, as Sfasciamonti maintained? Or both things at once?

I began once more to reprove myself for having let myself get caught up again in the Abbot's webs. This time, in truth, even he seemed to be groping in the dark. What was more, I had seen him confused and upset during our strange visit to the Vessel. My thoughts then returned confusedly to Maria, and I recalled that she now seemed to be residing in Madrid. In Spain, the very place where, as I had learned from the letters between the two, the fate of the world was now being played out…

Suddenly, a sensation of warm silk enveloped my naked back and drew me softly from the grey torpor into which I had slipped unawares. A murmur soothed my ears:

"Is there room for me?"

I opened my eyes: my Cloridia had returned.

When we were sated with silent kisses and by our embrace in the warm light of sunset, Cloridia began.

"You haven't asked me how it went. If you only knew what an adventure it has been!"

For days and days, my wife who, as I have said, had for years been exercising the profession of midwife, had stayed far from me and from our conjugal bed in order to assist an expectant mother. Now she had returned and I could not wait to tell her everything and to receive comfort and counsel from her. She, however, seemed as impatient as I to tell me her latest news. So I considered that it would be better to let her speak first. Once the natural womanly loquacity of my Cloridia had been placated, I would have all the time I needed to tell her of the sudden reappearance of Abbot Melani and of my torments.

"The little ones?" I asked before all else, for our two daugh ters had gone with their mother to assist her.

"Have no fear, they're down below snoring happily with the other servant girls."

"Then," I said with feigned enthusiasm, "tell me all!"

"The factor of the Barberini farm is now the father of a fine, plump and well-formed infant. Healthy and with everything in the right place just as God ordered!" she murmured proudly. "Only…"

"Yes," said I, hoping that she would not prolong her account.

"Er, he was born after five months."

"What, that's not possible!" I exclaimed in a strangulated voice, pretending surprise, although I knew full well what she was leading up to.

"Those were the very words which the factor cried out when his poor wife was in the travails of childbirth. And yet, it is possible, my love. I spent hours and hours calming down that great ignorant beast and convincing him that, while it is true that the time assigned for a human birth is normally nine months, there are, however, cases of births in the fifth month, just as, on the other hand, there are births that take place only in the twelfth month…"

I freed myself from my wife's embrace and looked her in the eyes.

"… Pliny bore witness before a tribunal in defence of a woman," Cloridia continued candidly, "whose consort had returned from the wars only five months previously, and swore that it was possible to give birth after only five months. It is, moreover, true that, according to Massurius, under the Praetorship of Lucius Papirius, a sentence was pronounced against someone in a certain controversy concerning heredity, because his mother attested that she had been pregnant for thirteen months; but it is also incontrovertible that the great Avicenna saved a mother from stoning by giving testimony before a judge that it is also possible to give birth after fourteen months."

I was trembling from my anxiety to speak to her.

"Cloridia, listen, I have so many things to tell you…"

But she was not listening. The air was still warm and my beautiful spouse, after all those days of absence, seemed no less so.

"I was good, was I not?" she interrupted me as though she had not heard me, pressing her cool bosom against my chest. "I explained to that madman that, among all animals, man is the only one to have an indeterminate period before coming into this world. Beasts all have a fixed time: the elephant always gives birth in the second year, the cow in the first, the horse and the donkey in the eleventh month and the pig and the dog in the fourth, the cat in the third, while the hen always hatches her chicks after twenty days' brooding, and finally, the sheep and the goat drop their young in the fifth month…"

Indeed, their husbands — I commented to myself — Master Ram and Master Billygoat, both have a fine pair of horns on their heads.

My Cloridia was utterly incorrigible. I had lost all count of the number of cases of dubious paternity resolved by the midwife's skills of my consort. In her love for children (whoever their father might be) and their mothers (whatever the fidelity of which they were capable), Cloridia did everything possible, swearing and forswearing, in order to convince suspicious husbands. She would stop at nothing. With a ready tongue, a smile on her lips and the most open expression in the world, she would furnish clarifications and examples in abundance for all husbands: from the freshly discharged soldier to the shepherd who had been absent for the transhumance, to the travelling vendor, even the grim mother-in-law or the meddlesome sister-in-law. And she was invariably believed, in despite of the sage's law that one should not believe all that is said by someone who talks much, for in many arguments one can almost always find lies.

Not only that: fearing that the infant, when he grew, might show too much of a resemblance to a neighbour or some other person above suspicion, Cloridia, even before the confinement, and immediately afterwards, would with tireless loquacity instruct the new father and the wary relatives, explaining that a woman's imagination could render her newborn child similar to a thing seen or imagined during coitus. She was always delighted, upon her return after a confinement, to tell me how, when and before what audience she had prepared her favourite story. In all those years, she had repeated it to me perhaps a thousand times, at every confinement spicing it with new or invented details, each time attributing to herself new ideas and discoveries. She loved that I admired her and took pride in her deeds, and the way in which I laughed when she wanted me to laugh and pretended to be surprised when she expected that. My desire was to see her gay and satisfied, and I played along for her.

Nevertheless, that afternoon, I simply could not do it. I had so much, indeed, too much, to tell her and I desperately needed her advice.

"I told the factor: 'Do you perhaps not know the story told by Heliodorus which shows how the imagination can produce creatures similar to the thing imagined? It is known the world over! Listen here,' I told him: 'Heliodorus tells, in the book of his Aethiop histories, how a beautiful white-skinned girl was born of a black mother and father, namely Idaspe, King of Aethiopia, and his Queen Persina. And this was a consequence only of the thought, or rather, the imagination of the mother, with whom the King conjoined in a chamber in which were depicted many actions of white men and women, and in particular the amours of Andromeda and Perseus; the Queen took such delight in the sight of Andromeda in the act of venery…"'

Obviously, I knew the rest of the tale inside out, and while, docilely but distractedly, I accepted Cloridia's sweet pressures on my body, I repeated mentally after her: the Queen took such delight in the sight of Andromeda in the act of venery that she became pregnant with a maiden similar to her; this explanation was given by the Gymnosophists who were the most learned men in that land. And Aristotle confirms…

I could console myself, I thought as I impatiently awaited the end of the tale: if the great Hippocrates, and Pliny and Avicenna too, had had the impudence to perjure themselves before a judge, coolly inventing such tali stories in order to save the lives of a mother and her child, my spouse was in good company.

"Alciatus, and before him Quintilian," continued Cloridia while she disarranged my clothing and gave ampler freedom to her appetites, "freed another woman from the same accusation who had given birth to a black daughter, her husband being white, because there was in her chamber the painted figure of an Aethiopian."

"And then? Did you tell him the tale of Jacob's sheep?" I asked her in order to please her, as I was beginning to fear the outcome of her manoeuvres.

"Obviously," she replied, without allowing herself to be distracted from her intentions.

"And your theory that even mere food could influence the appearance of the newborn child?" I asked, caressing the palms of her hands with my lips, so as to keep her under control and to distract her from the inspection which she was obstinately intent upon carrying out.

"Mmm, no," she replied with a hint of embarrassment. "Do you remember, when I attended the confinement of the wife of that Swiss coffee-house owner? Well, when I tried to assuage the suspicions of the husband, explaining to him that in animals one finds more resemblance than in men, because they eat always the same food, while men eat different foods, he replied with an ugly expression that in his part of the world Alpine men and women ate nothing but chestnuts and watered-down goat's milk, despite which they were born with the same differences as ourselves."

"And what did you say to that?"

"I still managed, using the story of feminine imagination. I swore that it was universally known to be true, indeed most certain, that a strong imagination and the fixed thought of a woman could mark the body of her child with the semblance and image of the thing desired. Do we not see every day infants who are born marked with pig's skin, or wine, or grapes, or other similar stains? A strong imagination can then mark in a woman's womb a body already fully formed, so much as to imprint the most varied forms on its skin, for these represent the woman's thoughts. So in the end I told him: 'You who exploit your poor wife night and day serving coffee at table now have your just deserts: the poor thing, by dint of spending so much time looking at coffee, has produced for you a son of the same colour!'"

Alack and alas. As we can read in the works of Cesare Baronio, the great Tertullian, a man of great fame, let himself be persuaded by a vile woman of no account that the souls of the just were coloured. Then just imagine my sharp-witted and erudite Cloridia allowing herself to be caught out by some cuckold coffee-house proprietor and, what's worse, with the thick skull of a Switzer. With this mute consideration, I accepted with resignation the account of my lady's prowess, while she in the meanwhile had resumed her effusions.

"Is a man's imagination worth nothing?" I asked, feigning astonishment and surprise in order to free myself a little of her over-active embrace.

"Here, there arises a considerable doubt. According to Aristotle, yes. According to Empedocles and Hippocrates, whose view I praise, a man's imagination will succumb to a woman's, which is most vehement," said she, while she acted most vehemently. "Save in a single case. That of the wise father with a foolish son. Why should a foolish son sometimes be born of a wise father? It is not possible that the mother should desire this. And yet, yes, that is the case. Most studious husbands are of ever-melancholy humour, and melancholy is sister in the flesh to madness: both especially hated by women when it comes to lovemaking. It may then be that during the carnal act their imagination may run to desiring a happy fool rather than a melancholy sage. Quite apart from the fact that distracted husbands do not pay sufficient attention to that task…"

I winced for shame. Cloridia was right. I had not responded to her ardour and had remained melancholy and absent. Not even when she had put all her womanly arts into play, from the most subtle to the most manifest, had she succeeded in calling my anxious member to his sweet and sacrosanct conjugal duties. And to think that only a little earlier I had so longed for her! The Devil take those damned thoughts of the Abbot, the bookbinder and the thieves and all those things which had so horribly cast me down into that pit of anguish.

"Would you then prefer a silly but happy consort, dear wife?" I asked her.

"Well, a happy and foolish man is always a good thing for the quality of the offspring, for he greatly pleases the woman in their encounter and will make her desire wisdom to be united to so much gaiety, so that, through the power of the imagination, she will succeed in generating a son who is both joyful and wise in spirit."

I smiled, embarrassed. She sat up and laced her bodice.

"Come, what's so perturbing you?"

Thus, I was at last able to tell her: of Atto's arrival, the theft of my memoir, the task of serving as the Abbot's biographer during this time and, at last, of my suspicions and lacerating doubts, without forgetting Atto's wounding, the strange death of the bookbinder, as well as the double raid on our home and against Buvat. But above all I told her of the mysterious Maria, who had then turned out to be Madama the Connestabilessa Colonna, with whom Atto was secretly in correspondence, and of the disquieting visit to the Vessel. Lastly, the news of how the incursion had turned our nest upside down caused her a shudder.

"And only now are you telling me?" was Cloridia's sole response as she looked at me wide-eyed, as though she had suddenly discovered that she had married an idiot.

My prickly consort had already forgotten how long I had had inanely to await the end of her chatter. She calmed down quickly enough: learning of the tidy little sum which the Abbot had already paid us put her in a good mood at once.

"And so Abbot Melani is again in these parts, doing damage," commented Cloridia.

My wife had never had much sympathy for the Abbot. Through me, she knew of all the base deeds of which the castrato had been capable, and thus was not in the least impressed either by the diplomat's eloquence or by my experience of countless adventures by his side.

"He sends you his greetings," I lied.

"You may reciprocate," she replied with a hint of scepticism. "And so your castrato abbot has been pining for a woman these thirty years," she added, in a tone halfway between sarcasm and satisfaction. "And what a woman!"

Cloridia, being a good tattler, had already heard tell of Maria

Mancini and knew from high authority of her Roman vicissitudes as the wife of the Constable Colonna.

On the visit to the Vessel and the enigmatic apparition which I had witnessed, she made no comment. I should very much have liked her to enlighten me with her wise opinion, for she had once been so expert in the occult arts such as reading the palm, the science of numbers and guidance by the ardent rod, but my wife passed directly to the next phase: she would ask around, among her women, in order to help us with our inquiries. She would set in motion the powerful and secret network of feminine word of mouth; a thousand eyes would keep vigil — observing, following, memorising for us, shooting astute glances — unseen, behind the deceptive appearance of an expectant mother's calm contemplation or the languid eyelashes of a spouse.

We talked for a long time and as usual she was prodigal with politic advice, wise recommendations and exaggerated praise of my virtues. She knew me well and knew how much encouragement I would be needing.

I had no more doubts. Now that I had told her all and had put my trust in her, my fears had dissolved, and with them the weight which drained my senses of all strength and tumescence.

We lay together and at last we loved each other. In the shade of the great beech, like some new Titirus, I sweetly modulated my flute in honour of my woodland muse.

We had by now been overtaken by nightfall. Freeing myself from my Cloridia's embrace, I discreetly rearranged her apparel and walked slowly towards the great house and my meeting with Abbot Melani.

It was then that, my soul being touched by the grace of conjugal love, I first beheld the gardens of the villa in the gay fullness of their splendour. Cardinal Spada had spared no expense to bestow upon the festivities every imaginable perfection. Villa Spada was smaller and more modest than other noble dwellings, but its master desired that it should for the occasion be among the foremost in the display of magnificence. He had not failed to enhance that which, more than all else, makes Roman villas so very special and different from those in all the rest of the world, namely their unique situation; for, wherever their site may be, there is perforce a most delightful conjunction with the vestiges of ancient Rome.

The statues, marbles, inscriptions and all the other things which ignorant workmen had brought to light in the gardens of Villa Spada were, by order of Cardinal Fabrizio, raised from oblivion in the cellars or under the invasive maidenhair ferns and so arranged as to punctuate the modern gardens with majestic whiteness.

The beautiful concentric flower beds with shrubs along their borders, divided up by radiating drives arranged for the occasion by Tranquillo Romauli, the Master Florist, had been adorned with columns, sarcophagi and steles, while along the outer wall, fragments of capitals alternated with espaliered citrus trees; even at the main gates, above the stairway of a ruin, rose a pergola supported by trellises, as though time, waving the green banner of nature, wished to signify the overthrow and vanity of human endeavours.

But Villa Spada was but a small example: Rome's villas often enclose temples which remain almost intact, or even entire sections of aqueduct. In the Villa Colonna at Monte Cavallo there was for a long time preserved (and then, alas, thoughtlessly demolished) a fine piece of the gigantic Templum Solis. In the Villa Medici on the Pincio, the Templum Fortunae was to be found. In the Villa Giustiniani on the Lateran Hill, the boundary was marked by the aqueduct of Claudius, flanked by other enormous, anonymous ruins. Even the interior of the Mausoleum of Augustus, a glorious and solemn vestige of the greatest of emperors, was transformed into a garden when it was the property of Monsignor Soderini. On the Palatine Hill and on the Celio, villas and ruins, edifices new and old stretched in a single inextricable web. And likewise, the little Gentili Palace backed onto the ancient Aurelian Walls, of which it had even incorporated a tower; while the Orti Farnesiani (the inestimable work of Vignola, Rainaldi and Del Duca) fused harmoniously with the vestiges of the imperial palaces on the Palatine. Even Cardinal Sacchetti, when in his villa in the Pigneto he wished to offer a sepulchre to his favourite ass Grillo, used ancient Roman remains which had come into his hands there, on his own lands, where one had only to sink a spade into the ground to strike marble from the centuries of Cicero and Seneca.

In the Villa Ludovisi a pavilion had been erected for the sole purpose of housing the statues, while at Villa Borghese, Cardinal Scipione had devoted most of the space to his collection of busts and figures.

However, antiquities were not the only items employed for the embellishment of the vineyards and casino of the Villa Spada. The avenues which led to fountains and nymphaeums, as well as the little wood, had been adorned with obelisks, as at the Del Bufalo Garden at Villa Ludovisi; or then there was the obelisk in the Medici Garden, of which I had admired splendid engravings in the books of my late father-in-law. However those at the Villa Spada were ephemeral, made of papier mache in imitation of the admirable architectural designs of the Cavalier Bernini erected in the Piazza Navona or the Piazza di Spagna to celebrate the birth of princes or other worthy events, wonders destined to last only for the duration of a few nights' festivities.

Every Roman villa was a place conceived for repose and pleasure, as in the days of Horace (and so I believe it will still be in the centuries to come), and thus also a venue for games, extravagances and all manner of delightful distractions. And Villa Spada seemed to be rising to the present nuptial occasion as a veritable compendium of all these things.

I would have liked to stop and admire one by one the thousand delights and marvels which the villa offered, but the evening was advancing. Taking leave of my reflections, I hastened on my way to my appointment with Abbot Melani; and with the Connestabilessa who, according to what I had read in her letter to the Abbot, was expected after Vespers.

"Good heavens, dear boy, whatever have you been doing to yourself? I seem to be receiving a delegation of Arcadian shepherds."

I lowered my head in response to Atto's remark and took an embarrassed look at my clothing, crumpled by amorous activity and stained by the grass on which I had lain with my wife.

"Buvat, put some order in these rooms," he ordered his secretary suddenly, as though he were addressing some slovenly manservant. "Wipe the floor with some cloths, and if you can find none, use the sleeves of your jacket, as you never change it. Pile up my papers, and go and get something to eat. And do it quickly, for heaven's sake, I am expecting guests."

Although unaccustomed to performing servants' duties, and wondering why Atto did not instead employ an ordinary valet de chambre, yet Buvat dared not rebel, seeing his master's extreme nervousness. So he began at random to tidy up the Abbot's documents, the ornaments, the remnants of luncheon still strewn on the divan and the numerous piles of books encumbering the floor here and there. Such was Buvat's inexperience that, despite the fact that I gave him a hand, instead of diminishing, the chaos only increased.

I saw that the Abbot was rubbing his injured arm.

"Signor Atto, how is your wound?" I asked.

"It is getting better, but I shall have no peace until I know who reduced me to this state. The strangest things have been happening in the past few days: first, my arm is wounded in the bookbinder's presence, then the poor man's death and, to cap it all, the attempt to rob you two…"

At that moment, someone knocked at the door. Buvat went to open it. I saw him take delivery of a letter from a messenger which, after closing the door, he hastened to hand to Abbot Melani.

Atto broke the seal and read swiftly. Then he stuffed the letter into his pocket and, speaking in a low voice, told us reluctantly of its contents.

"She will no longer be coming. She has had to stop, owing to a light attack of fever. She begs to be excused for her inability to advise me earlier, et cetera, et cetera''

A few minutes later, Abbot Melani showed us the door. The reason, as had also been the case the day before, lay in the letter from the Connestabilessa, which Atto wished to read properly, far from our curious looks.

Once I had closed the door behind us and taken my leave of Buvat, who was going to take a look at the library of the great house, I began to feel ill at ease. What had the Abbot summoned me for if he was now dismissing me without having commanded, asked or said a single thing? Bad news of the Connestabilessa's unexpected delay had indeed arrived; besides which, my task of keeping a chronicle had only just begun the day before. Yet, when I came to think of it, Atto had used me more as an informer (as at dinner the evening before) than as a biographer. Not only that: about the nature of that little book which seemed to lie at the heart of a singular series of misadventures, the Abbot had been distinctly sparing with information. Yet, hardly had he learned of the death of the bookbinder than Atto had rushed in furious haste to recover it.

Buvat had rejoined Melani, who was conversing with other guests in the gardens of Villa Spada when, an hour later, keeping the Abbot under frequent observation with his own spyglass, I set to work looking for the little bound book. When the binder had delivered it to him, it had been wrapped in a blue velvet cloth, and that now made it impossible to identify the appearance and colour of the binding.

I searched the apartment from top to bottom and examined all Abbot Melani's volumes one by one, but alas, not a trace did I find of a newly bound book: all the tomes showed signs of wear and frequent consultation. It was quite clear that Atto had brought with him to the Villa Spada only those books he most needed. Consequently, a brand new binding would certainly have caught my eye. For a few moments, I stopped again to peruse a few pages containing piquant episodes concerning cardinals: these had already proved very useful to me when it came to following the allusions and jokes which the eminences exchanged at dinner. Then I searched everywhere once more, but of that little volume there was no trace. Perhaps the Abbot had lent it to some other guest? If that were the case, the matters dealt with in the book could not be so very confidential.

Atto, as I already knew, feared that he might have been the victim of an anti-French plot, perhaps at the hands of the imperial party. Of this he was, however, not at all convinced. Sfasciamonti's talk of the cerretani, of whom he had never previously heard tell, had made him uncertain. To the Connestabilessa he had written that he wished to request an audience with the Imperial Ambassador, Count von Lamberg, but the latter, who was expected at the Villa Spada, had not yet arrived. He would surely be present on the morrow, at the wedding. Until then, the Abbot — and I — must needs wait.

Otherwise, I found myself thinking once more, what had I learned from Abbot Melani? A conclave was in sight, that he had indeed told me, and had even shown me a list of cardinals written in his own hand; but, apart from that? Where now was the didactic passion of the veteran agent who had imparted so many and such dense teachings to me at the time when I was working as an apprentice at the Locanda del Donzello? And Atto must indeed know plenty about conclaves: he had even boasted of getting a pope elected.

Abbot Melani had really aged, I concluded rather sadly. Now, rather than by word of mouth, I was obtaining clues and news mainly from his personal effects, which I had surreptitiously examined, from his clothing (among which I had discovered my little pearls) and, above all, from the secret correspondence with the Connestabilessa.

Madama la Connestabilessa, the Princess Maria Mancini Col- onna: on her account Atto had spoken with passionate prolixity during our excursion to the Vessel a few hours earlier. But that tale dated back to many, many years ago, and had nothing to do with the forthcoming conclave. Indeed, Atto had been at great pains to keep the "current" state of his relations with the Connestabilessa strictly to himself; he had not yet, for example, breathed a word to me of their common interest in the matter of the Spanish succession. Nor of whatever the Connestabilessa, born in Rome and brought up in Paris, might have to do with the Kingdom of Spain.

At length I gave up my search for the little book bound by the late lamented Haver, plunged my hands again into the Abbot's dirty linen and took out the folder of secret correspondence between him and the Connestabilessa. As on the first occasion, I found the letter from Maria Mancini together with the reply, as yet unsealed, by the Abbot. I scanned rapidly through both: I wanted also to have time to take a glance at the previous missives, which I had set on one side the day before.

The Connestabilessa's letter opened with a reference to the assault suffered by Abbot Melani:

What pain you have caused my heart, my friend! How are you? How is your arm? Is there really any reason to suspect the hand of the cruel Empire behind all this? I pray ardently that you should at least be spared by the hand of the Imperial assassins; for many, far too many, dead men bear a banner marked with the two — headed eagle of Vienna.

Take care, keep looking all around you. I tremble at the idea of your requesting an audience with Count von Lamberg. Do not eat at his table, drink not from the chalice filled by his hand, accept nothing from him, not even a pinch of snuff. Where the dagger failed, poison, the Imperial agents' weapon of choice, might succeed.

Do you always keep on your person the Bezoar stone which I sent you a few years ago? It will preserve you from all things toxic, never forget that!

I turned my mind again to the question: had I not found a pistol among Atto's personal effects? Clearly, he had not taken his own security lightly. The letter continued:

Never forget the horrible death of the Duke of Osuna who, no sooner had he been appointed general in charge of coastal defences in the Mediterranean, began to work for a truce with the French; but alas, after taking a pinch of snuff he was struck down by paresis of the spine and suffocation, and died at three o 'clock in the morning, without having been able to utter a word. And what should we say of the sudden and mysterious death of the Secretary of State, Manuel de Lira, who strove so hard for peace with France? Finally, permit me to remind you, despite the pain which the very thought causes me for reasons well known to you, of the most atrocious crime of all: the late Queen of Spain, our most beloved Marie- Louise of Orleans, the first wife of King Charles II, who never lost an opportunity to convince her consort of the need not to join the league against the Most Christian King, his uncle, and was hated by many in Spain, amongst them, Count Mansfeld, the Ambassador of the Empire.

Do you not recall? The poor Queen was afraid; she had even written to the King of France, begging him for an antidote for poison. But when this reached Madrid, Marie-Louise was already dead.

The evening before — I read in the Connestabilessa's letter — the Sovereign wanted milk, but little was available in the capital. It was said that, at the last moment, the Countess of S, a friend and protegee of the Imperial Ambassador, as well as an exile from France following the Affair of the Poisons, the first victim of which, some thirty years earlier, had been Madame, Marie-Louise's mother, arranged for her to have a little. When the Queen of Spain died in dreadful agony, some swore that the fresh and delicious milk which she had drunk before feeling ill had been prepared at the house of Ambassador Mansfeld. And it was perhaps no coincidence if the Countess of S left suddenly on the morning after the crime, so arranging matters that all trace of her was lost.

I noticed that here Maria Mancini had been at pains to conceal the name of the presumed poisoner, of French origin, yet a member of the imperial party. I would also have liked to know what the reasons "well known" to Atto might have been, which made the memory of the deed so painful for the Connestabilessa, but the letter continued with a heartfelt address to that Silvio, which pseudonym I presumed must, by means of a set of screens behind screens, conceal the person of Abbot Melani himself:

Silvio, Silvio, vain boy, if you imagine this mishap by chance befell, you widely are deceived. These accidents so monstrous and so strange befall us mortals by divine permission. Don't you reflect the Gods by you were slighted, by this your haughty pride and high disdain of love and everything the world deems human? They cannot abhor, although it be in virtue. Now you are mute, who were but now so haughty!

I wondered yet again at the vehemence with which the Connestabilessa hurled indecipherable accusations against Abbot Melani. As though that were not enough, after a few lines of excuses for her own delay (brought about by some slight fever), came the usual note about that so-called Lidio:

You charge me with according scant value to Lidio's presumed felicity. Yet I reply to you that in every matter it behoves us to mark well the end: for oftentimes God gives men a gleam of happiness, and then plunges them into ruin. And to him I repeat: with respect to that whereon you question me, Lidio, I have no answer to give, until I hear that you have closed your life happily.

Who then could this mysterious Lidio be, whom the Connestabilessa addressed through Atto's mediation, employing such impenetrable expressions? And what was the obscure mirror game which, from time to time, caused her to address the Abbot by the name of Silvio?

Nor did I learn much from Atto's reply; I was soon bogged down in a larding of unctuous flattery and affectation:

O that delightful rock on which so oft whole floods of tears and gales of sighs have struck in vain! Must I believe you live and feel some tender strokes of pity for my suff'rings? Is that a human breast, or is it marble?

Your sweetness moves me, my friend, and I tremble with anger at myself for having so improvidently caused you such agitation. Was the fever perhaps my fault too?

My ink tipp'd pen, and you curst arrows (which have pierced her side, so well by me belov'd), ye native brethren, or else for cruelty so called, I'll break you all. No longer darts or arrows shall you remain, but rods with useless wings, headed with steel in vain, lopped of your points and feathers!

And here the Abbot's letter was stained with ink; Atto had actually broken his goose quill, guilty of having written things that had worried the Connestabilessa and perhaps even made her ill. After a moment of sheer astonishment at such vehemence, I resumed my reading. (Melani had obviously found a new pen.)

Wound me then likewise with your plume, I beg of you. Indeed I demand it!

Ah, do not wound, but spare these eyes, these hands, which were the guilty ministers because by an unguilty will they were directed. Here, strike my breast, that enemy to love, foe to all tenderness, this cruel heart which was so harsh to thee. My breast is open.

After that, the tone, relinquishing passion, returned to the realms of common sense. Atto was concerned above all to show courage and boldness in his dealings with Lamberg, and not to betray the anxiety which must, however, be tormenting him.

As for me and my life, fear not, my goodfriend. Of course, I have with me your beautiful oriental stone. How could I ever forget the Bezoar? In France, too, it is esteemed as a protection against malignant fevers and poison. When I am received by the Ambassador, I shall keep it jealously in my pocket, ready to help me in the event of my feeling in any way unwell.

However, when young, I knew Count von Lambergs father well: he was Imperial Ambassador to Madrid just when I was with Cardinal Mazarin at the Isle of Pheasants for the peace treaty between France and Spain. We snatched the hand of the Infanta Maria Teresa, for whom the Emperor Leopold so longed, from under his nose. Indeed, King Philip IV ended up by granting her to Louis XIV after much arm- twisting, so as to be able to gain less humiliating peace terms. And that was mostfortunate: but for this, today the Most Christian King would not be able to lay claim to rights to the Spanish Crown for his nephew the Duke of Anjou. Philip IV did, it is true, make Maria Teresa sign a document renouncing any claim to the Spanish throne (just as Anne of Austria before her had done when she married Louis XIII of France); but since then plenty of jurists have demonstrated that such renunciations are invalid.

All in all, my dear, Lamberg senior rendered Austria the worst of services, just as we rendered France the very best. If the son's abilities are equal to his father's, it is certain that neither I nor French interests in the Spanish succession will be in any danger. However, I shall soon know how matters stand: the arrival of the Imperial Ambassador is expected at any moment. And you? When will you be here?

Silvio was proud, 'tis true, but he venerates the gods, and was one day vanquished by your Cupid. Since then he has ever bowed down before you, calling you his.

Altho' his you were not.

Emotion caused me to raise my eyes after reading those last lines. Poor Abbot Melani: in reminding the Connestabilessa of the love he had borne her for forty years, in the end he was reminding her only of his immutable castrato's condition; Maria had never been his, nor could she ever have been.

As a post scriptum to the letter, a fleeting reference to that Lidio:

I come now to our Lidio. 'Tis enough to speak of him: You have won, for the time being. But what you will receive when we meet will convince you. Then you will change your opinion. You know what value he sets upon your judgement and your satisfaction.

I closed the envelope and began to reflect. Judging by his epistolary exchange with the Connestabilessa, it seemed that Atto's diplomatic interest was concerned solely with the Spanish succession and the risks (including physical ones) connected therewith. Not a word about the forthcoming conclave, for which he had told me that he had come to Rome. Not only that, but, according to the letter, Atto feared that he might be a target for an imperial stiletto (or poison) because of the Spanish succession, while he said absolutely nothing about the conclave, where he would, after all, be defending French rights at the expense of those of Austria. I might even have said that Atto cared nothing for the conclave.

For a moment, I suspended my cogitations: that impression, I told myself, seemed unreasonable, indeed unfounded. I really could not believe that Atto did not care about the conclave that seemed to be approaching.

It seemed absurd. But had I not learned from the Abbot in person, so many years before, to reason on the basis of suppositions and not to back down before truths that seemed utterly improbable? The conclave and the succession… or perhaps the succession and the conclave? Indeed, it seemed as though the success of the conclave depended upon that of the Spanish succession.

I skimmed rapidly through the rest of the correspondence, in the hope of casting some light on the identity of the mysterious Countess of S. The envelopes were all as bulky: confidential and extremely detailed reports on the kingdom of Spain and King Charles II. They were all numbered, with almost invisible figures written in a corner. I opened the first of them. It must have dated from some time previously; the Connestabilessa was writing from the Spanish capital.

Observations which maybe of use in relation to

Spanish affairs

Here in Madrid, everyone wonders what will become of the Kingdom after the death of the Sovereign. Any hope of an heir has long since disappeared; el Rey is ill and they all say that his seed is already dead. With the Sovereign's poor body devoured by illness, all is moving towards the setting of the sun in this Kingdom on which the sun never sets: the power of Spain, the splendour of the Court, even the glorious past is obscured by the miseries of the present time…

I read with surprise those disconsolate, bitter, definitive lines. Who then was Charles II of Spain, el Rey, as the Connestabilessa called him in her letters to Atto? I realised that I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about that dying sovereign and that limitless kingdom. I therefore plunged into the gloomy reading of that report, engulfing myself in the sense of disaster hanging over those lines which, like a skilfully distilled poison, infused my entire spirit during my furtive reading.

Let the curtains be drawn and the shutters closed on ample windows, let the sun be banished from the throne room, let a moonless night descend mercifully upon the Escorial: the body of el Rey is falling horribly apart, my friend, and with it his entire lineage. Let the wind rise and sweep away the foul stench of regal death; we are all drinking from the waters of Lethe, lest proud Spain recall the insult of so repugnant an end.

The Connestabilessa's groan of pain touched me profoundly. I read on: those were not mere metaphors that the letter evoked. Life in the royal palace really was being lived away from the light of day, by the glimmer of the occasional candle: thus they tried to attenuate for courtiers and visiting ambassadors the dreadful spectacle of the King's body and face.

His nose is swollen and cankered, his enormous forehead disfigured by threatening carbuncles, his cheeks livid, his breath stinks of rotten innards.

His eyelids the colour of flayed flesh hood the deep black and bubonic bags of the eyes which now move with difficulty and are half blind. Even his tongue no longer obeys him. His speech is uncertain, reduced for all those who have not frequented him for all his life to a babbling, an incomprehensible mutter.

Exhausted, limp, wheezing — the Connestabilessa recounted in her report — el Rey was subject to continual fainting fits. He would swoon, throwing the court into a panic, then he would recover, suddenly rising to his feet before collapsing on the throne like a marionette without strings. He would switch from somnolence to sudden, exceedingly violent fits of epilepsy. He walked, dragging himself along with great difficulty and could stay standing only if he leaned against a wall, a table, or someone's shoulder. It was an effort for him even to bring his hand to his mouth. Both organs and limbs were worn out. His feet and his knees were ever more swollen. He was becoming dropsical. They tried to cure him with a diet based on cocks and capons fed on serpents; to drink, fresh cow's urine. For several months now, el Rey had been dragging himself from his bed to an armchair and from that back to bed. His body was already in a state of decomposition. And he was only thirty-nine.

I left off reading for a moment: so the King of Spain was barely two years older than me! What horrendous illness could have reduced him to such a state?

I scanned rapidly through those pages in search of a reply.

Attacks of the falling sickness, my friend, are devastating el Rey's flesh more and more with each passing day. At Court, we have by now learned to recognise the warning signs: His Majesty's lower lip first becomes as pale as that of a cadaver, then becomes blotched with red, blue and green. Soon his legs are seized with tremors and then his whole body is shaken by the most painful squirming and spasms: once, twice, ten times.

Charles II of Spain vomited several times a day. The Catholic King's horrible lantern jaw, inherited from his Habsburg ancestors, is not just ugly: when the monarch closes his mouth, his lower set of teeth, which protrude too much, do not meet the upper row. One could easily place a finger between them. King Charles cannot chew. Unfortunately, from his forebears, particularly the Emperor Charles V he also inherited the appetite of a lion. Thus, he ends up eating everything whole. He gulps down goose livers as though he were quaffing water, while the court stands by, gloomy and powerless. Then, a little while after rising from table, he throws up the entire meal. Vomiting is accompanied by fevers and violent headaches which confine him to his bed for days on end. He struggles to follow his counsellors' reasoning, and never smiles. Not even the buffoons, the court dwarves or the marionettes, which once made him laugh so much, can amuse him any more.

Not that his spirit, memory and ready wit have completely abandoned him; but for most of the time he remains taciturn and melancholy, torpid and listless, his days marked by the sad rhythms of asthma.

His subjects have, with time, grown accustomed to having for a sovereign a man reduced to this state. The ambassadors of foreign kingdoms, however, cannot believe their eyes; as soon as they take up their posts and are received at court for the first time, they find themselves facing a man at the point of death, his gaze empty and his speech fading. In his presence, one can find relief only by turning away one's eyes, and one's nose.

I completed my reading with my heart swollen with anxiety and sorrow. All that I had just learned from my clandestine perusal of Atto's papers threw much light on Maria Mancini's letter and the reply from Atto which I had read the day before. The great diplomatic agitation around the Spanish succession was not just so much febrile preparation for future confrontations between the great powers but a war already begun. It was clear that a sovereign in that state might die from one moment to the next. Of the mysterious Countess of S., however, I found no more trace. I would have to take my search further: there was still much correspondence to be read.

I looked up. Outside the window, Atto and Buvat had for some time disappeared over the horizon. I noticed walking down the avenue a lady who showed every sign of advanced pregnancy. This must be the Princess of Forano, that Teresa Strozzi whose health Cloridia had been called to watch over that evening. I dedicated a sweet and rapid thought to my spouse, whom I would soon be seeing again.

It was not prudent to remain any longer in Atto's lodgings; I might have been found out by him, and in any case my prolonged absence from work would sooner or later be noticed. It was better that I should be seen by Don Paschatio, who had, alas, ordered me to be a torchbearer at dinner that evening too. Fortunately, I was exempted from serving at table.

While I carefully returned the letters to their place, a mass of thoughts accumulated in my poor tired head. As ever, I feared that head was too small for great questions of state and too big for the minutiae of diplomacy.

It was clear from her letters that the Connestabilessa habitually resided at the Spanish court; but what could ever have brought her there? The report by Madama the Connestabilessa (who obviously had the most confidential sources at that court) presented a cruel and apocalyptic picture which contrasted singularly with the tender, and in truth somewhat daring words which Atto dedicated to her at the end of the letter. The correspondence was a bizarre chimera, a cross between love and politics, gallantry and diplomacy. Knowing Abbot Melani, at least two of those ways — sentiment and conspiracy — must, however, be leading up to a practical goal. The way of the heart led to the imminent encounter, after thirty years' separation, between Atto and Maria. The way of politics, however, led to a still unknown objective.

If one were to judge by his words, Melani was interested only in the forthcoming conclave; from what I read in those letters, however, the succession to the Spanish throne was a far more burning question. Atto must have some secret project, said I to myself; secret enough, at least, not to wish to reveal it to me.

Yet I too had eyes and ears; I too knew how to snatch precious details, revealing gossip, murmuring and betrayals from the eminences and princes who were then visiting the Villa Spada. Of course, Atto knew how to interpret these with a skill a thousand times greater than my own. Inured to all the dastardy and cunning intrigues of state, a true artist in behind-the-scenes activity, a handful of pebbles was enough to enable him to compose an entire coloured mosaic. I, however, had relative youth on my side. Was it not I who had snatched from the lips of Cardinal Spinola di Santa Cecilia the words which had put us on the trail of the secret meeting between Spada, Albani and the other Spinola?

My overarching intention, however, was to favour Cardinal Spada my master, even if that meant at the same time helping the reckless Abbot Melani. He, a French subject, was acting on behalf of the King of France. I, in the service of a magnanimous cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, would spy in the name of fidelity and gratitude.

Imprudently, I failed to take into account the fact that he had received a mandate from his lord, while I had not.

While exercised by these cogitations, I had by now rejoined the servant who was distributing the Turkish costumes. Now it was time to transform myself into a human candelabrum to illuminate the table of all those gentlemen and eminences and to satisfy my thirst for knowledge of the highest society, drinking at the freshest of fountains: the court of Rome, that school excelling in all forms of dissimulation and guile. I hoped only that to such intellectual refinement there should not, as on the evening before, be added Melani's expediencies, which could cost me dear. Fortunately, that evening's dinner had been announced by the Steward as being a trifle more modest than the inaugural one the evening before: the nuptials were due on the next day and stomachs were until then to be sheltered from any risks of indigestion that might affect participation in and enjoyment of the magnificent nuptial banquet.

While I was getting dressed, I caught sight of my Cloridia moving briskly towards the pergola, resplendent in the fine festive gown which she had been given for her evening in the gardens, keeping vigilant watch over the Princess of Forano. Knowing her to be near at hand gave me a feeling of great peace and serenity. She too saw me and approached briefly to tell me that the Princess did not feel like attending the dinner and was resting under the pergola.

"The little ones?" I asked, since in the event of lying in, Cloridia would need the assistance of our two daughters.

"They are at home. I do not want them wandering about in these parts, at least, not during the festivities. In case of need, I shall send for them."

I mentioned that the Connestabilessa would yet again not be arriving, as well as reporting the contents of the letter which I had just read.

"I already have some information for you," said she, "but now there's no time. Let us meet here this evening."

She kissed my forehead and rushed off, leaving me a prey to curiosity about the news which she had in so short a time already gleaned from her women, as well as full of that admiration which her estimable promptness of spirit always aroused in me.

"… And 'tis most curious, if we come to think of it, that the Jubilee should for the first time have been opened by one pope, yet may, God forbid, be closed by another," slurred Cardinal Moriggia with his mouth full of pike cooked in apple juice, "which is what would happen if the Holy Father were to pass to a better life and a successor be elected before the end of the year."

"Most sad, you must mean, Eminence, most sad," retorted Monsignor d'Aste, Apostolic Commissioner for Arms, choking on his poached turkey alla Suizzera. "This turkey is really excellent; how was it cooked?"

"Larded with tripe, Your Excellency, pricked with cloves and cinnamon, cooked in wine and water, garnished with peaches in syrup, carved and interspersed with slices of lemon and covered with toasted eggs and sugar," the Steward hastened to explain to d'Aste, murmuring the recipe in his ear.

"This evening our greedy little Straccetto is making so bold as to correct those higher than he," whispered Prince Borghese ironically, using the nickname expressly chosen by the Pope who, as Atto had told me, had called D'Aste Monsignor Straccetto (or "little rag") because of his minuscule and unattractive form.

"Most sad, goodness knows, indeed most sad: that is, I think, just what I said," Moriggia defended himself, blushing as he gargled with a fine glass of red wine to clear his throat and free himself of his verbal embarrassment.

"Boor," someone commented without revealing himself, having evidently drunk too much.

Moriggia turned sharply but could not manage to find out who was so rudely insulting him.

"The fried crab is excellent," said D'Aste, trying to change the subject.

"Oh, exquisite," agreed Moriggia.

"Boor," came the insult once again, without anyone being able to identify who had spoken this time either.

"How did the Holy Father's visit to the hospice for poor orphans at San Michele go?" asked Cardinal Moriggia with skilfully simulated interest, in an attempt at distracting attention.

"Oh, magnificently, there was a great crowd and many pious persons who wished to kiss his feet," replied Durazzo.

"Incidentally, the expeditors of the Datary's office have been granted an indult to obtain remission of their sins by visiting the four basilicas once on the same day during the Jubilee."

"Quite right too! Even the prisoners and the infirm enjoy special prerogatives," someone commented from the end of the table.

"A holy and enlightened decision: poor expeditors of the Datary, their condition deserves to be taken into account too," approved Moriggia in turn.

"Boor."

This time, two or three guests turned around to see who dared aim such epithets at a member of the Sacred College. But the flow of conversation continued.

"'Tis a truly extraordinary Jubilee. Never has there been in Rome an atmosphere of such Christian fervour. And never, I'd say, have so many pilgrims been seen; not even on the glorious Jubilee of Pope Clement X. Is it not true, Your Eminence?" said Durazzo, turning to Cardinal Carpegna, who had personally taken part in the prodigious Jubilee celebrations a quarter of a century earlier.

The Carpegna family was among other things related to the Spada, which on that evening conferred even greater attention upon his every word.

"Oh, that was an extraordinary Jubilee, yes, indeed it was," muttered the venerable Cardinal Carpegna, rather bent over his dish and with his mouth full, somewhat befuddled by his great age.

"Tell us, tell us about it, Your Eminence, tell us of some memory that is particularly dear to you," some guests encouraged him.

"Well, well, I remember, for example… Yes, I recall how in the church of Gesu a great machine was erected by Mariani for the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament, and this drew great multitudes of the people. The apparatus, which was, believe me, most beautiful, represented the triumph of the Eucharistic Lamb among the symbols of the New Testament and the Apocalypse, with a vision of the Evangelist John when he was in reclusion on the isle of Patmos. Under the watchful eyes of the Eternal Father, enveloped in a thousand clouds full of celestial spirits and splendours, seven angels were to be seen with seven trumpets; then one saw a divine Lamb holding a book which represented the vision of the Apocalypse, which was moreover sent to John, and to us, by God's love for mankind…"

"True!" approved Durazzo.

"Such holy words!" echoed Monsignor D'Aste.

"Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ," said they all (except those whose mouths were too full of the fried trout that had just been served), crossing themselves (except those whose hands were too involved with glasses of wine, knives and tridents for eating fish).

"There were visions of angelic choirs," continued Carpegna with a somewhat vacant expression, "effigies of the figures symbolising the Four Evangelists, namely the Lion, the Eagle, the Ox and the Man. I remember that the breast of the Lamb was all bloodstained and 'midst silver and golden rays of light his heart opened to display the Holy Eucharist which indeed issues only from God's love for mankind."

"Good, bravo!" approved his neighbours at table.

"But this year's Jubilee too will stand as an example for the centuries to come," said Negroni pompously.

"Oh yes, indubitably: pilgrims keep arriving from all parts of Europe. 'Tis so true that the pure, disinterested work of Holy Mother Church is more powerful than any force on earth."

"Apropos, how is this Jubilee going?" Baron Scarlatti asked Prince Borghese almost inaudibly.

"It could hardly be worse," whispered the other. "There has been a tremendous fall in the number of pilgrims. The Pope is most concerned. Not a penny is reaching the coffers."

Dinner was drawing to a close. Between one yawn and the next, eminences, princes, barons and monsignors were taking leave of one another, moving slowly towards the avenue leading to the main gate and their carriages. In a humbler procession, their secretaries, attendants, retainers, servants and other members of their retinue also moved away from the nearby table set aside for them, and from their more modest fare, in order to escort their illustrious patrons. As the table emptied, we torchbearers were able at last to relax our back and abdominal muscles, which had been so tense all evening long.

No one knew it, but when at long last I removed the ridiculous Ottoman turban and placed my smoking torch on the ground, it was I who was most breathless, not from fatigue but shock.

I had seen him at once and had realised what he was about to get up to. When he had gone on to call Cardinal Moriggia a boor three times over, I was quite sure that he would be most cruelly punished. Instead, his foolishness had been equalled only by his good fortune, and in the dim light of the dinner party, no one had caught sight of him. I moved away from the other servants, towards the outer wall of the villa. Then I heard him call me, with his usual courtesy.

"Boor!"

"As far as I am concerned, 'tis you who are the boor," I replied, speaking in the direction of the part of the garden from which the voice seemed to be coming.

"Dona nobis panem cotidianum," came Caesar Augustus's response from the dark.

He had been flying around throughout dinner above the canopy that covered the table. He surely hoped to get his talons into some fine piece of the delicacies being served, but he must then have realised that it would be impossible to do so without being seen. I had broken into a cold sweat every time that, for the pure pleasure of giving offence, he had insulted Cardinal Moriggia. Yet no one could have imagined that mocking little voice belonged to Caesar Augustus, for the simple reason that, as I have already mentioned, the parrot spoke to no one except myself and everyone regarded him as being dumb.

I advanced a little further onto the meadow, hoping that no one would come seeking me for some last-minute chore.

"Your little play could hardly have been in worse taste," I reproved him, chattering into the darkness. "Next time, they'll wring your neck and make a roast of you. Did you see the dish of quails they served up with the third course? Well, that's what you'll be reduced to."

I heard his wings beating in the dark and then a fluttering of feathers grazed my ear. He landed on a bush a few inches from me. Now at last I could see him, a white feathered phantom with a yellow plume proudly rising from his forehead, almost like some mad flag fluttering the papal colours.

I sat down on the fresh, damp grass, still somewhat over-excited and worn out by those hours spent as a torchbearer. Caesar Augustus stared at me with the usual very obvious expression of one imploring a little food, for pity's sake.

"Et remitte nobis debita nostra," he insisted, again reciting the Lord's Prayer, which he would drag into service in the most woeful tones every time that he was hungry.

"You have eaten perfectly well today, this is sheer greed," said I, cutting him short.

"Clink-clonk, tink," said the diabolical creature, imitating with singular precision the clatter of cutlery on plates, and the joyful clinking of glasses. That was only the latest of his provocations.

"I have had enough of you, now I am going to bed, and I recommend that you do…"

"To whom are you talking, my boy?"

Atto Melani had joined me.

I needed plenty of persuasion to explain to the Abbot the bizarre nature of the animal with whom he had surprised me in conversation. All the more so, as Caesar Augustus had fled into the shadows the moment that he caught sight of Abbot Melani and there was no way in which he could be persuaded to make an appearance.

It was no easy task to persuade Atto that I was not mad, nor was I talking to myself, but that there was a parrot hidden in the dark with which it was possible to communicate, although in the contorted and anomalous manner which was his preference. At the end of my conversation, however, Caesar Augustus, who must have been immobile all this time, watching Atto from the shadows with that mixture of mistrust and curiosity which I knew so well in him whenever he caught sight of a stranger, remained as mute as a fish.

"It must be as you say, my boy, but it seems to me that the creature has no intention of opening its mouth. Eh Caesar Augustus, are you there? What a pompous name! Cra-cra-cra! Come, come on out. Did you really call Moriggia a boor?"

Silence.

"Eh, you old crow, 'tis you I'm addressing. Out with you! Have you nothing to say for yourself?"

The fowl's beak remained sealed, nor were we vouchsafed the honour of seeing him appear.

"Well, when he deigns to show himself and puts on all those fantastic shows of which you have told me, give me a whistle and I'll fly straight to you, ha," sniggered Atto. "But now, let us get down to serious business. I have a couple of things to tell you for tomorrow, before sleep gets the better of…"

"Puella”

Atto looked at me in shock.

"Did you say something?" he asked.

I pointed into the darkness, in the direction of Caesar Augustus, without daring to confess openly that it was he who had offended Atto, calling him by the most insulting name possible for a castrato: puella, or, in Latin, little girl. I remained speechless: it was the first time that the parrot had uttered a word in the presence of others. Despite the insult proffered, I'd have said that Melani was honoured.

"'Tis absurd. I have seen and heard other parrots, all of them excellent. But this one sounded just…"

"… Like talking to a person of flesh and blood, as I've already told you. This time he spoke with the timbre of an old man. But if only you knew how he can imitate women's voices, children crying — not to mention sneezes and coughing."

"Signor Abbot!"

This time, it was a real human voice that was calling for our attention.

"Signor Abbot, are you there? I have been looking for you for over half an hour!"

It was Buvat who, gasping and panting, was searching for his master in the semi-darkness of the garden.

"Signor Abbot, you must come up at once. Your apartment… I think that someone has entered without your permission, while you were dining, and has… We have had thieves!"

"Does anyone else know of this?" asked Atto as we opened the door of his apartment, immersed in darkness.

"No one but yourselves; what's more, your orders…"

"Very well, very well," assented Atto. He had arranged that in the event of an emergency, Buvat was to mention nothing to anyone before speaking to him. I was soon to understand why.

Atto lowered the handle, pushed on the door and entered, lighting his way with a candle.

"But the door has not been forced," I observed in astonishment.

"No, indeed it has not, as I'd have told you if you'd given me time," replied Buvat who, during the wild rush that had followed his announcement had barely had a chance to open his mouth.

I advanced too and entered the apartment. A second and then a third candle were lit, revealing the unmistakeable traces of an incursion. Everything — every object, every ornament — was cast into a general disorder. A chair was turned upside down. Books, gazettes and loose papers of every kind were scattered on the floor. Atto's clothes too had been roughly thrown to the ground or heaped up on the furniture, and it was quite clear that they, too, had been thoroughly searched. A window was open.

"Strange, truly strange," I commented. "Despite all the guards keeping watch over Villa Spada in recent days, the thieves have had no difficulty in getting right here into the great house…"

"You are right. Yet it must have been a swift job," observed Atto after taking a rapid look around. It looks to me as though they have removed only the spyglass. 'Tis a tempting enough object. Apart from that, I think that nothing is missing."

"How do you know?" I asked, given that Atto's survey had lasted only a few seconds.

"Simple: after the attack on you two, I entrusted all my precious things to a servant of the villa. Papers of a certain importance… well, they are not here," said he with a sly expression which I pretended not to notice, since I too knew the hiding place: the dirty linen where I myself had found Maria's letters.

The Abbot then hastened to put his apparel back in order.

"Look at this," he groaned, "how they've crumpled them. One moment…"

Atto was prodding his mauve-grey soutane, within which I knew that he secretly kept the scapular of the Our Lady of the Garmel, the ex voto into which he had sewn my three little pearls.

'"Tis not there any more," he exclaimed. "Oh heavens, I left it in here!"

"What?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

"Er, a… relic. A most precious relic which I was keeping inside here, in a scapular of the Madonna of the Carmel. They have robbed me of it."

My poor little pearls, I lamented inwardly, they seemed fated to be stolen. In any case, this showed that the thieves had been through Abbot Melani's apartment with a fine-tooth comb.

We now stood in the light of the large candelabrum which I had lit, the better to be able to carry out our own thorough check. Abbot Melani, who had suddenly sunk to his knees, shifted the day-bed and raised part of the herringbone parquet underneath it, near the window. He removed one block, then another just next to it, then a third one.

"No… By all the saints!" I heard him swearing in a low voice. "The accursed rogues!"

Buvat and I stayed silent, looking questioningly at one another. Atto stood up, dusted down his elbows and collapsed into an armchair. He stared fixedly before him.

"Dear me, what a disaster. But how is it possible? What sense does it make? Whoever could… I do not understand," he was raving away to himself, shaking his head with one hand clasped to his brow, quite indifferent to our amazed looks.

"This is a grave misfortune," said he, once he had recovered his aplomb, "a serious matter. I have been robbed of some most important papers. At first, I did not even take the trouble to check, so sure was I that no one could get at them. I had replaced the slats of parquet with the greatest of care and skill. I know not how they managed to find them, but that is what they have just done."

"Were they under the parquet?" I asked.

"Exactly. Not even Buvat knew that they were there," said Melani, dismissing forthwith any suspicion of a betrayal.

In the brief moment of silence that followed, Atto must have become aware of the question running through Buvat's head and my own. Since we would have to help him recover the stolen papers, he must needs furnish us with a description, however summary, of their contents.

"It is a confidential report which I have written for His Most Christian Majesty," said he at length.

"And what is it about?" I dared ask.

"The next conclave. And the next pope."

The problems, explained Atto, were two-fold. In the first place, he had promised His Majesty the King of France to deliver the report as soon as possible. The report in Abbot Melani's possession was, however, the only copy in existence and even if he were to labour for months (making superhuman efforts of memory) that would still not suffice to rewrite it. Thus, Atto ran the risk of making a fool of himself in the King's eyes; but that was the least of things.

The report revealed secret circumstances concerning the election of the last pontiffs and prognostications concerning the forthcoming conclave, and it was signed by Atto. Even if it had not been signed, it would in any case be easy to ascribe it to him, thanks to certain circumstances reported in the text.

The document was at that moment in the hands of strangers, and probably hostile ones at that. Atto thus ran the risk of being charged with espionage on behalf of France. It would not be impossible that the charge might be made even graver by accusing him of intending to disseminate the report, so that he would find himself on trial for criminal libel.

"… A crime which, as you know, is punished most severely in Rome," he concluded.

"What are we to do?" asked Buvat, no less concerned than his master.

"Since we cannot report the theft to the Bargello, we shall have to make do with the help of Sfasciamonti. Once you have put things back in some order, you, Buvat, will go and call him. Indeed no, go at once."

Once we were alone, Atto and I spent some time crawling on the floor picking up the scattered pages. Atto uttered not a word. Meanwhile, a suspicion arose in my mind concerning the object of the theft. I decided to take the plunge and ask him.

"Signor Atto, the hiding place which you chose was excellent. How can the thieves have discovered it? And what's more, the door was not forced. Someone must have had a copy of the key. How is that possible?"

"I really do not know. Curses, 'tis a mystery. Now we shall have to place ourselves in the hands of that catchpoll who will torment me with his tales of cerretani or whatever the deuce they call those mendicants, if they really do exist."

"How will you describe your manuscript? Not even to Sfasciamonti can you say exactly what it is about, seeing that one can trust no one."

He remained silent, and fixed his eyes on mine. He guessed what I suspected and realised that he could no longer put off giving me an explanation. He made a grimace of vexation and sighed: he was on the point of imparting, unwillingly, something which I did not know.

In the corridor, Buvat's footsteps were already ringing out, accompanied by Sfasciamonti's more resounding ones. I know not whether by chance or by choice, but Atto spoke at just the moment when the catchpoll opened the door, meaning, at the very last free moment after which I would no longer be able to talk with him freely or to trouble him with questions to which he did not wish to reply.

"The manuscript was freshly bound. It was the little book made by Haver."

Although he still seemed somewhat somnolent, Sfasciamonti listened attentively to the account of what had taken place. He inspected the hiding place under the slats in the floor, made a quick inspection of Atto's lodgings, then asked discreetly the nature of the document that had been stolen, contenting himself with the summary explanation provided by Atto.

"It is a political text. It is of extreme importance and usefulness to me."

"I understand. The book you had bound by Haver, I suppose."

The Abbot could not deny that.

"It is a coincidence," he replied.

"Of course," Sfasciamonti agreed, impassively.

After that, the catchpoll asked whether Melani intended to report the theft to the Bargello or to the Governor of Rome. Since the victim of the theft was a person of note, an edict could be posted all over the city offering a reward for the return of the loot or the capture of the thieves.

"Come now," Atto responded at once, "rewards are worthless. When I was robbed of gold rings and a heart-shaped diamond in the Capuchin monastery at Monte Cavallo, the governor placed an enormous reward on the head of the thieves. Result: nothing whatever."

"I cannot say that you're wrong, Signor Abbot," agreed Sfasciamonti. If I have understood you well, apart from this document, you were robbed only of a spyglass and the scapular of the Carmel."

"Quite."

"You have not yet told me, however, what sort of sacred relic you kept in the scapular. A thorn from the crown of Our Lord Jesus Christ? A piece of wood from the cross? There are plenty of those around, but they are still popular; you know, now that it's the Jubilee…"

"No," Melani replied laconically, having no desire to confess that he had jealously kept my little pearls close to his heart for all those years.

"A piece of clothing, then, or a tooth?"

"Three pearls," Atto admitted at last, glancing at me, "of the Venetian margarita variety."

"A singular relic," observed Sfasciamonti.

"They come from the luminous vestment which Our Lady wore on the day of her apparition on Mount Carmel," explained Atto with the most natural air in the world, while the stupefied sergeant remained utterly unaware of the Abbot's irony. "Will that be enough for you now?"

"Of course," replied Sfasciamonti, recovering his composure after the surprise; "I'd say… Yes. Let us begin by looking for the spyglass."

"The spyglass? But that's of no importance whatever to me!" protested Atto.

"To you, no. But someone else might find it an interesting object, to be resold for a good price. Quite apart from the fact that it is not the kind of thing that passes unobserved. On the other hand, the relic and your political document will be difficult to identify. For anyone who does not know its contents, that little treatise will seem like any other old bundle of papers. It might be in the hands of someone who… well, someone not like yourself."

"In what sense?" asked Buvat.

"In what language was your document written?"

"In French," replied Atto, after a slight hesitation.

' "It might have been stolen by someone who does not know how to read Italian, let alone French. And who therefore will not have the least idea of what he has laid his hands on."

"If that were the case, he would not have gone to the trouble of looking for it down there," commented Atto, pointing to the place where the slats in the parquet had been removed.

"Not necessarily. He may have come upon that hiding place by pure chance and been curious about the care with which your document was stowed away. 'Tis useless to speculate, first we must find that stuff."

"So, what are we to do?"

"Do you know what a good lawyer does when a gang of criminals are arrested?" asked Sfasciamonti.

"What does he do?"

"He lets one of his assistants defend the leader, and he himself takes on one of the ordinary bandits. Thus, the criminal judge cannot determine who the big fish is. We shall do likewise: we shall pretend we are looking for the spyglass, but at the same time we shall be looking for your political document."

"And how shall we look for it?"

"Our first port of call will be one of those persons who resells stolen goods. I know two good ones. If your things have passed through their hands, perhaps they'll help me out. But one can be sure of nothing. We shall have to negotiate."

"Negotiate? If it is a matter of spending some money, so be it, I can surely pay for the favour. But, for heaven's sake, I cannot be seen in the company of persons of ill repute. There are cardinals here, I have connections with…"

"As you wish," Sfasciamonti cut him short politely but firmly. "I can deal with that. You, my boy, could accompany me. Those who steal do not willingly hang onto their loot, it burns their hands. Anything valuable disappears like lightning. We shall have to move fast."

"When, then?"

"Now."

It was thus that I began to become acquainted with Sfasciamonti's truly singular double, nay triple, nature. The imprecations which he was wont to utter, invoking arms and all manner of warlike devices, made him seem like some common braggart, swaggering and blustering, as his very name suggested. Yet, when he spoke of cerretani, his bravado vanished, turning into febrile apprehension, and that great mountain of a man would cower at the first old gaffer passing him by, as had happened when we stopped at the Piazza Fiammetta. Lastly, when confronted, not with the indefinite menace of the cerretani, but with a hard and fast case of crime, he proved to be an excellent sergeant: laconic, consistent and phlegmatic. This he had shown in the investigation of the assault on Haver; and likewise his comportment on the scene of the theft of Atto's papers had been both balanced and attentive. He had abstained from asking particulars of the stolen document and above all he had agreed with Atto about an utterly incredible circumstance: that there was no connection between the death of Haver and the theft in Atto's apartment. It was clear that this could not be the case, yet the catchpoll (whom the responsibility vested in him by Cardinal Spada had transformed almost into a private gendarme) had let it be understood that he was not interested in how matters stood but in how he could turn them to the advantage of the person hiring him.

For the time being, it was impossible to tell which of the three natures (blustering, fearful or penetrating) best corresponded to Sfasciamonti's true character. I imagined, however, that sooner or later time would tell.

For the time being, he was offering Atto his discretion and his assistance; and, what was more, during the hours of night. Atto knew that all that, like the silence which he had bought from me, had its price.

So Sfasciamonti and I set out with all due speed, almost without taking our leave of Atto and his secretary. I would not be able to keep my appointment with Cloridia; I therefore asked Buvat to warn her of this. I prayed silently that she would not be too worried and unwillingly postponed the time when I would learn from her the news gathered from her women.

We left the villa stealthily under the starry mantle of night which, given the late hour and the gloom weighing down on my soul after so many grim events (killings, thefts), seemed no longer protecting but a menace hanging over our helpless heads.

The catchpoll had arranged for one of his grooms to saddle us two horses, and he helped me to mount the smaller of the two. (I have never been a great equestrian.) We straightaway took the road for the city centre. Thus I followed him towards an unknown destination; the speed of Sfasciamonti's mount, weighed down by its corpulent rider, was in truth little greater than my own.

We descended the slope towards the San Pancrazio Gate, leaving to our left the grandiose panorama over the Holy City. Thanks to the dim light of the moon, we could just descry the silhouettes of rooftops, campaniles and cupolas, and, by the faint glimmer from windows, eaves and penthouses, the space where darkness had engulfed a certain basilica or the abyss into which a palace had vanished. It was a sort of capricious game of hide- and-seek played between my sight and the vision which memory retained of that great view by day.

We veered left, towards the Piazza delle Fornaci, then, leaving the Settignano Gate to our right, we moved directly to the Sisto Bridge. Here, the view, hitherto obstructed by the walls of houses and rented apartment buildings, opened up again onto the bed of the Tiber, showing its tarnished course near the riverbanks, while the middle depths remained inky and abundant in piscatorial booty.

At last, we slowed down. After passing Piazza Trinita dei Pellegrini, we found ourselves within a stone's throw of the Piazza San Carlo quarter. Darkness and silence reigned, broken only by sparks from the horseshoes on the flagstones and the echo of pounding hooves. Only from the occasional window did the indistinct glimmer of candles penetrate the motionless air, lighting perhaps a young mother's last labour of the day (mending, nursing, consoling…)

Behind one such window, modestly set into the wall at street level, was our objective.

"Here we are," said Sfasciamonti, dismounting and pointing to a door. "But, please remember, you've never been here. Our man is incognito. No one knows that he sleeps in this house. Even the parish priest, when he does his Easter rounds, feigns ignorance. He accepts a gift of a couple of scudi, in exchange for which the parish records remain clean."

"Whom are we going to visit?" I asked, letting myself fall to the ground from my nag.

"Well, visit isn't the right word. Visits are announced and awaited. This, however, is a surprise, by all the mortars in Asia! Heh," he guffawed.

He stood before the door, pushing his thumbs under his belt and sticking his belly out strangely, breathing out rhythmically as though he were preparing to break the door down with his guts. He knocked. A few instants passed. Then we heard a bolt being shot. The hinges moved.

"Who is it?" asked a voice heavy with suspicion, of which I could not have said whether it was a man's or a woman's.

"Open up, this is Sfasciamonti."

Instead of one of the tender mothers about whom I had been fantasising only moments before, there appeared before us a hunchbacked and ill-formed old woman who, as the catchpoll was later to explain to me, was landlady to our man. The woman did not even attempt to protest at the late hour; she seemed to be acquainted with my companion and knew that it was useless to talk back. She began to complain weakly only when she saw us mounting the stairs to the next floor.

"But he is sleeping…"

"Exactly," replied Sfasciamonti, grabbing the candle from her hand to light our way and thus leaving the poor woman in the dark.

After climbing two flights of stairs, we found ourselves on a landing which gave in turn onto a closed door. The candle, which the catchpoll had handed to me, cast a sinister light on our faces from underneath.

We knocked. No answer.

"He's not sleeping. Otherwise he'd have replied. He always keeps one eye open," murmured my companion. "This is Sfasciamonti, open up!"

We waited a few moments. A key turned in the lock. The door opened up a mere crack.

"What is it?"

The catchpoll was right. The occupant of the room stood fully dressed with his nose protruding from the crack in the door. Faint candlelight glimmered from within. Weak though the light was, I could distinguish the man's features at once: an enormous rat's nose, long and swollen, with a pair of little black eyes surmounted by long, thick crow-black eyebrows; below these, an ugly, drooling and contorted mouth clumsily framing an undisciplined row of yellowing rabbit-like teeth.

"Let us in, Maltese."

The little man who answered to that curious name (which in truth derived from the fact that he came from the island of Malta) sat down on a chair, without inviting us to take a seat, which we nevertheless did, for want of better, on his bed. He lit a third candle, the light from which gave the place a less cavernous appearance. I took a quick look around. The chamber was in reality a disorderly hovel, the furniture consisting of the bed on which we were sitting, our host's chair, a little table, a chest, a few old wooden cases and a heap of old papers half abandoned in a corner.

The Maltese seemed very nervous. He stayed seated, hunched up, his eyes avoiding contact, playing with a button of his shirt, plainly scared by the visit and anxious that we should be off as soon as possible. From the conversation, I understood that the two had shared a long acquaintance, in which they had always played the same parts: the man with the big stick and the man on the wrong end of the stick.

"We are assisting a person of note, a French abbot. They have taken some things of his to which he is very attached. He is a guest at the Villa Spada. Do you know anything?"

"Villa Spada at Porta San Pancrazio, of course. The Spadas' place."

"Stop pretending you're a fool. I asked you if you know anything about the theft."

The Maltese took one glance at me, then another, questioning one at my companion.

"He's a friend, Sfasciamonti reassured him. Behave as though he were not here."

The Maltese fell silent. Then he shook his head.

"I know nothing."

"They've robbed him of an object he absolutely wants to have back: a spyglass."

"I know nothing and I've seen no one. Today I've been here all the time."

"The injured party, the French abbot, is prepared to pay to recover what belongs to him. As I said, it matters greatly to him."

"I am sorry, if I knew something, I'd tell you. I really have heard nothing."

We were disappointed, but we did not insist. From our man's timorous, rat-like frown, there did seem to emanate something like sincerity. We rose.

"Then it will be better to go and ask Monsignor Pallavicini," added Sfasciamonti carelessly. "I shall request an audience with him. Moreover, he has just dined at the Villa Spada."

The name of the Governor of Rome had the desired effect. We were about to leave when the Maltese's question stopped us on the threshold.

"Sfasciamonti, what is a spyglass?"

As our host did not know what a telescope was, we had to explain to him that it was a tubular optical apparatus, equipped with lenses, with which one could see distant objects close, and so on. Sfasciamonti's description was pretty crude and even somewhat uncertain, and I had to help him with it. In the end, the Maltese had given his reply: there was someone who might know something.

"'Tis someone who buys only strange objects that are difficult to resell: antiquities, various instruments. And he seems to have a great passion for relics. Now, with the Jubilee, he has become very rich: I've heard tell that he has done excellent business. He has cronies who trade on his behalf, but no one ever sees him. I don't know why, perhaps he does not live in town. I have never had dealings with him. They call him the German."

The grimace which Sfasciamonti could not suppress betrayed his disquiet.

"I know that a short while ago he bought something similar to the spyglass which you are looking for," continued the Maltese, "a device with lenses that can move, for seeing things bigger — or smaller — I know not which."

Sfasciamonti assented: we were on the right track.

"I don't even recall who told me," concluded the other, "but I think I know who bought it for him. They call him Chiavarino."

"I know him," said Sfasciamonti.

Five minutes later, we were in the street, setting out in search of the mysterious personages named by the receiver. Sfasciamonti murmured curses against his informer.

'"I know nothing, I know nothing.' That's that, nothing! When he heard the Governor's name, he got cold feet and asked what a spyglass was."

"But did he really not know?"

"People like the Maltese are scum. They buy the loot from others' thefts for a couple of lire and pass them on to others. They don't know how to do anything else. They're animals; their only merit lies in shouldering the risk of being the first to buy after the crime. That's why they often pass for the authors of the theft, which they are not. Those who buy from him, however, are better acquainted with the value of goods. The Chiavarino's in another class, he's very well known in the criminal fraternity. He's a murderer and thief many times over."

I had been struck by the catchpoll's expression the moment he heard the name of the Chiavarino's principal.

"And the German? Have you ever heard of him?"

"Of course, they've been talking of him for ages," replied Sfasciamonti. "Now, with the Jubilee…"

"And what do they say?"

"They don't even know whether he exists. They say he's in cahoots with the cerretani. Others say that the German's an invention of us catchpolls and that when we can't manage to find who's guilty of the theft of some valuables or the defrauding of some pilgrims, we blame it on him."

"And is that true?"

"Come, come!" he snapped, taking offence, "I believe that the German exists, just as I believe that the cerretani exist. Only, no one's really interested in finding him."

"And why is that?"

"Perhaps he has done some favour to someone important. That's how Rome works. It must not be too clean, or too dirty. The sergeants and the Governor must be able to boast of keeping the town clean, otherwise what are they there for? But we also need the dirt to be there, fine dirt and plenty of it. Otherwise what are we there for?" quoth he, guffawing. "And then, have you seen how the Maltese gets away with it? If something's stolen off someone influential, he's there to give us a hand. In exchange, the Governor leaves him in peace, even though he knows perfectly well where he lives and could have him arrested at any time."

To the considerations already expressed concerning Sfasciamonti, another was to be added. He did not mince his words (and I was to have other demonstrations of that) when describing the misconduct and unsavoury doings of his colleagues and even the Governor. Some might have taken him for a bad defender of public order, incapable of fidelity and attachment to the secular institutions of Holy Mother Church. I, for my part, did not see it that way. If he was capable of seeing evil wherever it was, and admitting as much, even to myself, that was a sign that his character tended naturally to plain speaking and simplicity. The roughness of soul necessary for the operation which we were conducting was, moreover, not lacking. He had indeed revealed to me from the outset that he wanted in the end to undertake investigations on the cerretani, but the Governor and his fellow-sergeants would not let him. That he should be in some way in cahoots with proven criminals like the Maltese, or perhaps the Chiavarino, whom we were going to meet, well, I considered that to be a necessary part of his work. The main thing was that he should, at the bottom of his heart, be honest. I was to discover only far later that such thinking was not far removed from the truth, yet at the same time utterly mistaken.

As we were walking, I noticed that Sfasciamonti, who had just gone so boldly into the receiver's den, had begun to look around and behind himself with a certain frequency. We reached Piazza Montanara, then turned right into an alleyway.

"'Tis here."

It was a little two-storey house whose occupants seemed to be sunk in nocturnal repose. We stopped at the front door and then followed the instructions of the Maltese: we knocked three times loudly, three times gently and then again, loudly.

It seemed almost as though no one had come to the door, when behind it we heard a muffled voice.

"Yes?"

"We're looking for Chiavarino."

They made us wait outside, without telling us whether the person we sought would be coming or not, and not even whether our request would be honoured.

"Who's looking for him at this time of night?" we heard at last from another voice.

"Friends."

"Speak, then."

Our man must have been there behind the door, but did not seem to want to open up.

"This evening at the Villa Spada on the Janiculum, a spyglass was stolen. The owner is someone dear to us, and he's willing to pay well to have it back."

"What is a spyglass?"

We repeated in a few words the explanation given to the Maltese: the lenses that make you see little or enlarged, the metal device, and so on and so forth. This was followed by a few moments' silence.

"How much is the owner willing to pay?" asked the voice.

"Whatever's necessary."

"I shall have to ask a friend. Come back tomorrow after Vespers."

"Very well," replied the catchpoll, after a moment's hesitation, "we shall return tomorrow."

We moved off a few yards, whereupon Sfasciamonti pointed to the first side-road and there we stood guard keeping a close watch on the Chiavarino's house.

"He is not willing to conclude the deal. He told me to return tomorrow. Does he take me for a fool? By then the stolen goods will be a thousand miles from here."

"Are we waiting for him to come out?" I asked with no little trepidation, thinking of the homicides which Chiavarino had to his name.

"Exactly. Let us see where he goes. He'll suspect that the goods are too hot to handle and that he'd be wise to be rid of them as soon as possible. If I were him, I'd not move from my house. But, like the Maltese, he's a fugitive, and he'll be pretty nervous."

The prognosis proved correct. Within ten minutes, a hesitant figure peeped out from the Chiavarino's doorway, looked all around and ventured into the street. The moonlight was really too weak to be able to tell with any certainty, but he did seem to have something, a sort of package, under his arm.

We followed him from a fairly prudent distance, religiously attentive to making not the least noise. We both knew that our quarry must be carrying a knife. Better to lose him than our lives, I thought.

First, he took the road to Campo di Fiore, so that we thought he was going to the Maltese, whose secret dwelling lay more or less in that direction. Then, however, he continued through the Piazza de' Pollaioli and, after that, Piazza Pasquino.

Chiavarino, who was fortunate enough not to encounter any rounds of the watch, at length entered the Piazza Navona. Just at that instant, what remained of the moon was covered by an untimely cloud. Although the light was almost non-existent, we took the precaution of stopping behind the corner of Palazzo Pamphili, at the entrance to the piazza. Thence, we scanned the great esplanade divided into three by the great central fountain of the Cavalier Bernini and two other fountains at the opposite ends. The piazza seemed empty. We looked more carefully, but in vain. We had lost him.

"A curse on all lazy sentries," grunted Sfasciamonti.

Just then, we heard a rapid pattering of footsteps in front of us. Someone was running to our right at great speed. Chiavarino must have become aware of our presence and was in full flight.

"The fountain, he was behind the fountain!" exclaimed Sfasciamonti, alluding to the nearer of the two great complexes of aquatic statues which stand at either end of Piazza Navona.

Even now, I could not say what hidden virtue of the soul (or rather, what weakness and false audacity) caused me to emulate Sfasciamonti, who was already following the fugitive to the right.

For quite a while, I managed to keep up with the perspiring mass of the catchpoll who, despite the fact that he was giving his all, was losing ground.

"To the left, he's gone to the left!" yelled Sfasciamonti, his voice broken by his efforts.

Hardly had I turned to the left than, to my great surprise, I saw that the pursuit was about to come to an end. The fugitive, who had hitherto kept up and even increased his lead, had fallen.

Sfasciamonti was almost on top of his prey when the man recovered his senses: skilfully dodging, he rolled to one side so that Sfasciamonti went flying into the void and fell in his turn. Although exhausted, the fugitive ran once more in the direction of the Theatre of Pompey; at that moment, I too had almost reached him. I was, however, distracted by an unexpected event: our man had left a parcel on the ground, so that when I arrived, I found myself at an equal distance between the object and the man who had got rid of it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that only then was Sfasciamonti rising to his feet with something of a limp.

"You, go ahead!" he exhorted me, breaking once more into a run.

It was pure folly on my part unhesitatingly to follow that order in circumstances in which, given the extreme excitement that reigned, no one could possibly discern the consequences of his acts. So I did not leave off from running even when I saw the individual hesitate between right and left, then, quite unexpectedly, rush into a doorway which he perhaps already knew to be open. I crossed myself mentally and, hastening through the door in my turn, heard his footsteps on the stairs and rushed headlong after him.

The mad upward pursuit, amongst the inky shadows of the stairway, as I tripped clumsily on the steps in an effort to keep my balance, running with hands outstretched before me into clammy landing walls, all seems to me today the height of idiocy which could have resulted in something far worse than what in fact happened. It was scant consolation to hear Sfasciamonti's approaching footsteps, still far below.

I do not know, and perhaps I never shall, whether the man we were following already knew where the steps of that building led. Nevertheless, it came as no small surprise to me to see, in the last stretch of the staircase, the steps becoming, first bluish, then grey, and in the end whitish. Thus it was that, suddenly, almost forgetting what 1 was doing there and what awaited me, Dawn's rosy fingers gently parted my eyes and showed me, free at last of dependence on candles and torches, the precious spectacle of a new day being born.

I had opened a door at the top of the stairs. At first, it was only half open, then I was on a terrace. Above and all around I was engulfed by the harsh clarity of morn: first light had already appeared when I caught up with Sfasciamonti at Campo de Fiore but, so immersed was I in action that I was almost unaware of it.

What happened next took place in a flash. I was completely out of breath. Rather than fall to the ground, I bent over, with my hands on my knees. Then I heard Sfasciamonti's voice, which seemed to come from the floor below.

"Forget it boy, 'tis no spyglass…"

I turned around and saw him. He had hidden behind me; now he faced me. He collared me and thrust me against the penthouse wall, gripping me tightly. His knife was pointed at my belly. It was pointless to move; if I struggled he would stab me.

He was ill-dressed and he stank. He had pitch black eyes and a pockmarked skin. He might have been thirty years old — thirty badly lived years; thirty years of prison, hunger and nights spent sleeping in the open. He looked at me through one eye only. The other squinted like that of a stray cat.

Thanks, perhaps, to faculties unnaturally intensified by closeness to death, I read in his expression… indecision: should he kill at once and face the other, or run yet again? But if so, where? The terrace was in fact a mere corridor running around the penthouse at the top of the staircase. In a lightning flash of intuition, I understood how stupid I had been: I had followed him until he felt forced to kill me.

"'Tis an accursed, what do you call the things?…" Sfasciamonti's voice thundered, still coming from the stairs, but now very near us.

The corner of the eye that stared at me had sought an escape route. I could see that it had found none.

Two, perhaps three seconds, and I would know the feeling of a cold blade in my liver. I had an idea.

"The German will kill you," I managed to say, despite having my neck half crushed in his grip.

He hesitated. I felt his hand tremble.

Then it happened. Under Sfasciamonti's elephantine weight the door swung open with unbelievable violence, like armour- plated lighthouse doors smashed by the force of the raging sea. It struck my assailant's shoulder, and he tottered from the blow. Turning over and over in the air, the knife shot up between our two faces and fell to the ground with a clatter.

"A mackeroscopp!" exclaimed Sfasciamonti triumphantly, bursting onto the terrace and shaking at arm's length a half- broken metal device, while my adversary, shocked by the blow he'd received, prepared to make a break towards the left.

Sfasciamonti saw his face and yelled, with an undertone of indignation: "But you're not Chiavarino!"

We threw ourselves onto the stranger, but it was precisely in so doing that I tripped over a large brick. I rolled over on the ground and all my strength was not enough to stop my body's slide to the edge of the terrace. I fell into the abyss of the courtyard, thus suffering just punishment for all that night's demented conduct.

I fell backwards. Before being hurled to my death thirty or forty feet below, I had time to behold the dumb stupor stamped on Sfasciamonti's face: in a timeless moment, I thought absurdly that such was perhaps the sentiment (and not pain or desperation) that seizes us at the instant when we witness the imminent death of another man. Poor Sfasciamonti, I thought, just after saving me from being stabbed he again lost me.

Despite the singularity of that instant, my memory retained a detail which the catchpoll failed to notice. While I was falling to my death, just before disappearing into the abyss, the fugitive replied to the threat I had uttered moments before.

"Teeyooteelie."

Then with the sky, framed by the four walls of the courtyard, swallowing me up ever faster, faster, I offered a heartfelt prayer to the Almighty for the forgiveness of my sins, and, with heart and spirit turning to my Cloridia, I awaited the end.