Secretum

Evening the Third

9th July, 1700

I ran until my chest was bursting. Helped by the now late afternoon and the first evening breezes, I covered the short yet by no means negligible distance between the Vessel and the Villa Spada at a speed which not even the fear of my own death could have given me. "Cloridia, Cloridia," I kept repeating to myself in anguish, "and the little ones? Where can they be?" The whole of the ground to be covered was quite clear in my mind, carved into it by the scalpel of anxiety: I must take the main entrance of the villa, run up the avenue, enter the great house, take a couple of short cuts inside the house, climb to the first floor, run to the apartments of the Princess of Forano..

Yet, the moment that I came in sight of the walls of the Villa Spada, I saw that it was going to be very difficult.

In front of the villa, absolute chaos reigned. At that moment, on the esplanade before the main gates, for hours already packed with carriages, retainers, hangers-on and servants, the party of one of the principal guests was making its entry: this was Louis Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco and Ambassador of the Most Christian King of France.

I tried to make my way through to the entrance of the villa, but in vain. From the neighbourhood there had gathered a multitude of peasants and plebeians, hungering for the sight of influential personages. All wanted to gain at least a glance at the eminences, princes and ambassadors invited to the nuptials. The crush had been worsened by the flow of persons entering and leaving the villa, under the eyes of two armed guards. Immediately outside the gates, the crowd was indescribable, the hubbub insufferable; one could see nothing for the dust raised by the horses' hooves; the human tide oozed and swelled, repelled in vain by those (coachmen, footmen, members of the escort) struggling to manoeuvre or to make their way into the villa.

"Make way, make way! I am a servant of the Villa Spada, let me through!" I cried out like a madman, struggling to traverse the heaving mass; but no one heard me.

Just then, a carriage moved backwards. Two women managed somehow to dodge it, screaming in terror. One of them fell on top of me. I fell to the ground and, in my attempt to cling on to something, pulled down another unfortunate with me. He in turn pulled down his neighbour, so that I found myself embedded in a bizarre heap of legs and arms; hardly had I regained my feet than I saw the harmless incident had degenerated into a brawl. Two footmen were flailing wildly in all directions with their staffs. Another two coachmen were pushing one another, one drew a knife; a voice rang out calling for the sergeants. The Prince of Monaco's procession ground to a halt, lurching and creaking like one immense carriage.

Ignoring the altercation, I ran again towards my Cloridia with my heart in my mouth; but the carriages barred my way and there was no way of getting through. I put my head down and plunged into the melee, trying to force my way through a forest of legs, boots and clogs. This gained me, first, an elbow in the chest, then a shove from a small boy. Like a ram, I hurled myself headlong, preparing to fight my way through. The boy's great blue eyes stared at me, helpless and shocked. I attacked.

Instead of encountering a soft belly, my forehead met with a surface that enveloped it firmly. It was a hand, enormous and invincible, which grabbed me by the hair and hauled my head up by brute force.

"By all the culverins! What are you doing here, boy? Your wife needs you urgently."

Still holding me by the hair, Sfasciamonti was looking at me in amusement and surprise.

"What has happened to Cloridia?" I screamed.

"To her, nothing. But something good has happened to the Princess of Forano. Now, come."

He raised me up, placing me on his massive shoulders and led me to the gate of the villa. From the height of that mount, I, like some new Hannibal on the back of an elephant, could enjoy a panoramic view of the situation.

The crowd was again becoming noisy and agitated: from his carriage, the Prince of Monaco was throwing money to the people. With a broad theatrical gesture he would hurl dozens of coins from a little purse, showering the heads of the public with shiny denari. His face betrayed all his pleasure at seeing the plebeians at each others' throats, fighting over what, for him, was nothing.

"The Prince of Monaco is truly a blustering jackass," murmured Sfasciamonti as we passed the armed guards at the gates of the villa and entered the grounds at last. "One may throw money to the populace from the balcony of one's own palace, not in front of someone else's villa."

"So," I began, at last a trifle calmer, as I dismounted from Sfasciamonti's shoulders, "is Cloridia well? And how are my little daughters?"

"They are all very well. But did not Buvat tell you? The Princess of Forano has given birth to a fine little boy. While she was assisting the birth, your wife needed help. She called for the little girls and in the meantime asked for you. No one knew where you were, then Cloridia said to look for Abbot Melani. He too was nowhere to be found, so Buvat offered to help. The first thing that they asked him to do was to carry out the bloodstained sheets with which he made his shirt all filthy. Then he became very pale, saying that the sight of blood made him ill, and off he went to fetch you. By the way, where the deuce were you?"

At that very moment our eyebrows arched in amazement, when into the piazza came the procession of the bride, Maria Pulcheria Rocci. The retinue comprised no fewer than eleven carriages and innumerable others sent by cardinals, ambassadors, princes and the principal cavaliers of the court of Rome.

The equestrian procession was led by a team of six which, as everyone knows, is called the Vanguard; there followed the first three teams, that is, carriages, pulling ornamental floats, all of which merit a faithful description (but of which I, owing to my small stature, had only a partial and limited view).

In the first carriage, immediately applauded, sat the bride. The body of the carriage was all gilded, with nude figures representing Autumn and Winter in front and Summer and Spring behind. In the middle sat the Sun enthroned in majesty, the clear bringer of the said seasons, at the foot of which two rivers were depicted whose courses were united in the end, the whole surrounded and embellished by various frolicking cupids.

There followed, as is the custom with noble nuptials, a plain, empty black carriage.

The third carriage, finally, simply upholstered in crimson within and without any retinue, announced with deliberate self- effacement he whose triumph this celebration truly was, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Fabrizio.

From the richness and brave embellishment of the coaches, the Cardinal's generosity was visible for all to see in his gift to his nephew's spouse of so memorable a display of magnificence; but this one could appreciate all the better if one reflected upon the incredible sum which — so the people murmured that evening — that splendid gesture had cost him.

"They speak of twenty thousand scudi," stammered a young lackey, taking advantage of the anonymity to be found in the humble crowd of plebeians, crushed one against the other.

The procession moved into the long avenue leading to the great house, acclaimed by the dense multitude of onlookers lining the route. Arriving at the space before the gracious fagade of the great house, it wheeled to the right, passed the orange trees and at last disappeared from my sight behind the plum orchard, wending its way towards the chapel. I made haste. I wanted to embrace my wife again as soon as possible. I raised my eyes to the first-floor window, where I knew that the Princess of Forano had her lodgings, but could descry nothing. I resolved to go up to the noble lady's door: I could surely not dare to knock but perhaps I might be able somehow to approach Cloridia. I imagined her to be rather busy, what with the infant, the care of the mother and the various recommendations that must needs be made. I found the corridor deserted: everyone had gone down to watch the arrival of the bride. I heard my wife's silvery voice through the half-open door.

"Cleophanes, the unworthy son of the excellent Themisto- cles did not receive his mother's milk and, for the same reason, Xantippos, the son of Pericles; Caligula, son of Germanicus; Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius; Domitian, son of Vespasian; and Absalom, son of David, whom I ought to have mentioned first, all degenerated. Is it a wonder if Aegisthus was an adulterer? He was suckled by a goat! A wolf gave suck to Romulus, whence came the cruel instinct to inveigh against his brother Remus and to ravish the Sabine women as though they were just so many ewes."

I understood at once. I knew my Cloridia's child-rearing repertoire by heart. Her passion, in the hours that followed every successful confinement, was to wax eloquent concerning the extreme importance of feeding the newborn infant at its mother's breast.

"You will agree with me, Princess, that the bond of filial love arises from having been engendered, but is increased by nursing the child with one's own milk," she explained in gentle, persuasive tones.

La Strozzi uttered not a word.

"Examples of this include Graccus, the valorous Roman," continued Cloridia, "whom they arranged to be met first at the gates of Rome on his return from the wars in Asia, by his mother and his nurse at the same time. Thereupon, he brought forth two gifts which he had taken care to procure during the campaign: a silver ring for his mother and a golden girdle for his nurse. To the mother, who was pained to find herself placed behind the nurse, Graccus replied: "You, mother, made me after bearing me nine months in your womb. But, once born, you banished me from your bosom and from your bed. This nurse received me, fondled me and served me, not for nine months but for three full years."

The Princess remained silent.

"This discourse by a pagan should make us blush," insisted Cloridia, "for being born Christians, we make the most perfect profession of faith, founded upon our belief and acts of charity; and if we are taught to love even our enemies, how much more does our faith teach us to love our children?"

"My dear," responded a tired but determined voice, which I imagined to be that of the Princess, "I have already suffered enough for this little one, and for his three brothers, without exhausting myself even further by giving him my milk."

"Oh, listen to me, I beg of you," insisted my indomitable consort, "if only you were to consider the pleasure of which you are depriving your child in banishing him from his mother's bosom, I do not believe for one moment that you would do this. For little ones, there is no pastime as sweet in the whole wide world; no comedy comparable to those tears of impatience and those sudden movements upon touching the breast, and at last, that joyful laugh when the infant opens its mouth and sinks its nose and its whole face into its mother's warm bosom."

The tender images evoked by my beautiful midwife of a spouse did not, however, seem to move the noblewoman.

"Why should I make such a sacrifice," she replied with a hint of impatience in her voice, "only to receive kicks as soon as he's able to make his first footsteps and later ingratitude and presumption when he has grown to manhood?"

"But this is precisely why children nowadays have so little love for their parents," Cloridia dared hotly to venture. "God so decrees that the lack of love at their beginnings reaps scant love once they have grown up."

"My husband has already hired a wet-nurse a long time ago. He has sent for her and she will soon be here. Now, leave me, I wish to rest," said the Princess, brusquely dismissing her.

When Cloridia emerged, red in the face and with clenched fists, she almost failed to notice me. She went rapidly down the back stairs; I followed her. Once we reached the kitchen, she exploded.

"Ah, the politics of modern childbearing!" she thundered, causing several scullery-maids to turn sharply towards us.

"Cloridia, what has happened?" they asked curiously.

"Oh, nothing! It is just that the ineradicably fertile fashion has sprung up," she moved, accompanying her words with great gestures and grimaces, "that mothers who are not of the common herd squeamishly disdain to give their breast to their own offspring, who've so long annoyed them by weighing down their wombs."

Once they had grasped the argument, the scullery-maids began to laugh heartily. One of them, whom I knew to have a two-year-old daughter, drew one breast out from her blouse and squeezed the milk from it, which sprayed forth, showing that she was still nursing her little one at the breast.

"Does that seem vulgar to you?" she exclaimed, laughing broadly.

"Adieu, little ones, adieu!" raged on Cloridia, seeming almost a prophetess and waving her arms as she paced the kitchen, striving to release her suppressed fury at the Princess of Forano. "Those who bore you can no longer bear you, for you made yourselves too odious with that all-too-tiresome pregnancy; too painful did you prove in that pressing child-bearing. The European infant is thus constrained to begin his life's journey on an unknown poop, when 'tis not a bestial one, and to wander on his peregrinations under a degenerate star, depending upon an alien nutriment. Maternal nature, thus disappointed, not to say abjured, is cast aside and milk flees the paps for fear of some deformity or the tedium of discomfort. Here we find the origin of the discrepancies between offspring and parents. The nobility of filial sentiments degenerates even from the cradle when the feeding's wrong. The spirit's genius is weakened when the body's abandoned to bovine rusticity. With milk, we drink down inclinations, and these will be sordid when their origin is a cowshed!"

It was not the first time that I had witnessed such a scene. The tale was forever repeating itself: whenever Cloridia assisted at the confinement of a noblewoman, the joy of the birth always gave way to her anxiety to use every means to convince the new mother to give the infant her own milk, without having recourse to wet-nurses, or worse, to goats or cows. All to no avail: what for a woman of the people was the most natural thing in the world (among other things, for economic reasons) became an unthinkable and outrageous chore in the eyes of a countess. And my Cloridia, who had herself given suck to our two daughters for the first three years of their lives, suffered from seeing this more than she could say and was ill-resigned to it.

After at last relinquishing her indignation with a sigh of resignation, she turned to me and, with a beautiful smile, embraced me.

"Where had you got to? Hardly had the Princess lost her waters than I sent for the little ones, but I urgently needed help and that poor lad, that Buvat, almost died of fear on seeing blood."

"I know, forgive me, but I have an excellent piece of news," said I, wishing to inform her of the agreement I had reached with Atto concerning the dowry for our little girls.

"Forget it, you will tell me later. Now let us put on our costumes, I would not miss seeing the bride for anything in the world."

We retainers and servants of the Villa Spada had indeed been permitted by the Major-Domo, Don Paschatio Melchiorri, to attend the wedding, but attired in peasants' fine festive costumes specially made up for us. Thus, we would provide a rustic setting for the celebration of the nuptials, in perfect harmony with our rural setting.

I arrived first. Cloridia stayed behind to wait for our two little lasses whom she had allowed to join us for the occasion so that they too would get a brief glimpse of the spouses.

When I arrived at the little chapel, the wedding ceremony had already been underway for quite some time. Don Tibaldu- tio was about to launch into the homily. They were all gathered together in the sacristy, where the wedding proper traditionally took place, the men behind the bridegroom, the women behind the bride. Don Tibaldutio began:

"We are gathered here, most illustrious and excellent signories, to celebrate a union. And union is the greatest treasure of human life. That, I shall shortly demonstrate to you. Four are the things which preserve the states of the world above all else. The first of these is religion. And, as we can readily observe, where there is no religion, there is no fear of God, and no justice. And where there is no justice, there is no peace. And where there's no peace, there is no union. And where there is no union, there can be no true state. Surely from this we can see how important is religion and a proper fear of Almighty God, upon whom all our actions depend. For such is His divine goodness that He gives us being and well-being in this world and, in the next, eternal rest. The second thing in order of importance is justice, whereby the wicked and villainous are punished and the good rewarded. And, by means of justice, the peace is preserved: something most necessary for the preservation of states. The third thing is peace itself, without which states could not endure: for where there is no peace, there is no union. The fourth and last thing, and the most important of all, is therefore union itself, without which religion would be weak, justice perturbed and peace unenforceable. Wherefore, if there's no union in the state, religion will be little practised, justice will sleep and the peace will fall apart."

While the sermon continued, I observed the spouses. From where I stood, I could, however, see very little of the bride's wedding gown and headdress. From time to time, I would cast a glance in the direction of the maidservants among whom I was expecting to see my Cloridia; and very soon she did indeed appear, bringing our two little ones with her. My spouse was lovelier than ever in her hymeneal white, red and gold peasant's costume. Nor were my daughters less lovely: they were both perfectly attired in costumes specially sewn for them by their mother: the elder in a reversible yellow gown with sleeves of pink damask embroidered with false gold thread, and the little one with a flesh-coloured mocaiale garnished with dark blue trimmings. In their hands they held little twigs covered in white flowers which were to be joyfully waved at the end of the ceremony by them and the other female servants of the Villa Spada in the retinue of the bride.

"Where there is no union," declared the chaplain, fervently, "there reigns enmity, the cause of all ruination in the world, as I shall now prove with the authority of ancient history. The first enmity that ever was took place in heaven between the Greatest Good and Lucifer; the second, between Adam and the serpent; the third, between Cain and Abel; the fourth, between Joseph and his brothers; the fifth, between Pompey and Caesar; the sixth between Alexander and Darius; the seventh, between Mark Antony and Caesar Augustus: all of which examples of enmity were the cause of the most dreadful ruin. Union is therefore the greatest fortress and treasure of human life, and preserves all the world's states. But, how is this union to be attained? The philosopher opined that husband and wife must correspond to one another in body, in other words that they must experience a mutual physical attraction; and that produces infinite and most beautiful effects. It is also, however, true that there must be correspondence between souls, whereupon the most excellent fruits will be produced."

I noticed of a sudden that Cloridia and her friends were chattering most intensely among themselves and, with their hands before their mouths, struggling hard to restrain their laughter. I was able to understand the cause of this a little later, when the bride turned briefly in my direction and I was able momentarily to catch sight of her features: Maria Pulcheria Rocci was, despite her name, hardly a model of pulchritude; to be more precise, she was indeed rather ugly.

"It was not by chance that the ancients were accustomed to light five lamps when celebrating nuptials," continued the chaplain, "as they held it for certain that the figure three, an uneven number, symbolised the spiritual form, and even numbers, like two, the material. Matrimony must, in short, involve a congruous connubial blending of form and matter, in which man, a being spiritual and active, and woman, who is passive and material, can be recognised. Indeed, the ancients, when conducting ceremonies matrimonial, would traditionally make the man touch fire and the woman, water, signifying that fire illumines and water receives the light; but also that fire by its nature purges and water cleanses, so that from this custom we may also infer something more, namely that matrimony must be clear, pure, chaste and celebrated between similar beings."

Olive pockmarked skin, lips so fine as to seem non-existent, cheeks swollen and pallid, a low forehead, small lustreless eyes: all these things gave Maria Pulcheria Rocci the profile and colouring of a turbot.

Don Tibaldutio's reference to mutual physical attraction could hardly have been less opportune, I thought with some mirth; but the laughter died in my throat when an inner voice reminded me that I, with my stature, could hardly be accounted an Adonis…

My vague gaze wandered towards Cloridia. For a long time I dwelt on her lovely image: skin with the sweetness of violets; sacred, gently smiling spouse and mother. Yet, she had chosen me, and had chosen freely. The same could hardly be said of the bridegroom, Clemente Spada: the reasons which had led him at last to wed the unlovely Rocci maiden must have been founded upon considerations far more prosaic than those which had first so adventurously and tenderly united Cloridia and myself.

"Matrimony must be approached with love," Don Tibaldutio warned at last, becoming aware of some yawning among the illustrious congregation, "nor must the laws and customs ordered by our Holy Mother the Catholic Christian Church in anyway be contravened. Marriage must be held indissoluble and conserved with faith, as a sacrament. Above all, the use of matrimony must be to procreate and to avoid the sin of incontinence. Whosoever has any other view thereof does not deserve to be accounted a Christian."

After the long sermon with which the chaplain greeted the spouses, the nuptial rite was at last celebrated.

"The ring on the finger, the necklace on the bosom, the crown on the head," Don Tibaldutio recited solemnly, while some maids of honour placed the three objects on the spouses' bench for the blessing. "The ring denotes the purity of the act, just as giving one's hand bears witness to the limpidity of the spouse's faith. The necklace manifests sincerity of heart; and the crown, clarity of mind, for in the head dwells the perspicacity of the intellect."

It was then, during Don Tibaldutio's blessing that I saw him: resplendent and coruscating among the two-headed eagles of the imperial banners, attired rigorously in the Spanish style as a mark of his fidelity to the House of Habsburg, the Count von Lamberg, Imperial Ambassador to the pontifical court, was following the ceremony with severe faith and the profile of a sphinx. I sought Atto with my eyes and at once I found him: his forehead showing pearls of perspiration, a face covered with an over-generous coating of ceruse and cheeks shining with carmine red, beribboned ad absurdum with tassels and fringes of yellow and red (his favourite colours). Abbot Melani's tense, inquisitive gaze did not leave von Lamberg for one moment. The Ambassador, meanwhile, far more severely adorned in lead-coloured brocade with rigid silver lace trimmings, showed no sign of being aware of the spasmodic attention focused upon his person and stared indifferently in the direction of the chaplain. My mind moved to those mysterious deaths at the Spanish court and the suspicion of poisoning that hung over his party and to Maria Mancini's fears for Atto's life. The Abbot had written of his intention to confront the Ambassador face to face. Would von Lamberg grant him an audience?

Dismissed with the swarm of other retainers at the end of the nuptial ceremony, I saw my consort coming towards me with our two little girls skipping around her, like Diana surrounded by her nymphs. With their flowering branches they had been part of the festive procession that accompanied the bride towards her new married life and they were still overexcited by the honour bestowed upon them. The orchestra accompanied the exodus of guests with a sublime melodic paean by Maestro Corelli, a most sweet counterpart to Don Tibaldutio's homily.

Cloridia, who had to go and take a look at the Princess of Forano's infant, left me the task of feeding our two little ones in the villa's kitchens, after which I was to accompany them home and put them to bed. I snatched a few moments of her time to show her Melani's written promise. Her eyes opened wide.

"If I did not see it here, in black and white, I could never believe it," she exclaimed, whereupon she jumped for joy, embracing and kissing me.

But time was short. Before rushing off, Cloridia passed me a snippet of information, overheard during the celebrations by her usual faithful informers among the maidservants.

"This evening, Cardinal Albani too will be coming to dinner, if that interests you," said she with a wink as she ran on her way.

Albani. Atto and I had searched for him in vain at the Vessel; and now he was coming to us.

"'Tis said that Cardinal Bonvisi is not in the best of health," chimed in old Cardinal Colloredo who, in his capacity as Grand Penitentiary, or Confessor to the Cardinals, was always well informed about everything.

The nuptial banquet was already at its height when, after evening's shadows had fallen, I was called by Don Paschatio, the Major-Domo, once more to hold one of the torches lighting the table, in the place of one of the lackeys who was feeling unwell. After donning my janissary's costume, I arrived at the sumptuous dinner grasping the torch. The spouses with their respective families and Cardinal Spada, the tutelary deity of the festivities, were prudently seated at a separate table. For the master of the house, this measure, which was, moreover, traditional, fulfilled two purposes: to honour the bride's family and to avoid becoming embroiled in political conversations that might give rise to dissension; although unavoidable at a gathering which brought together no fewer than eighteen cardinals, such talk would have been out of place coming from the mouth of the Pontifical Secretary of State.

All around us, on serving tables lit up by yet more great threeand four-branched candelabra, were set shining silver goblets for beverages, crystal carafes, bowls for washing hands, salt cellars, trenchers, jugs, chalices and salvers, great beakers, chargers heaped up with prune jelly, chunks of black umber, huge mullet with raspberries cut into roundels, all sparkling and reflecting silver and golden light. Then came a table loaded with fish, another with all manner of fowls of the air, yet another with good fresh green vegetables, and a last one with fruit and candies which were all a pleasure for the eyes, that being, indeed, their sole purpose, for I knew that the dishes destined to be eaten were different and even more succulent than that rich display of God's bounty.

Upon hearing the bad news of Cardinal Bonvisi's indisposition, all shook their heads, affecting to be afflicted thereby.

"Yes, 'tis true, he is not very well. He himself wrote telling me that last week," Abbot Melani broke in, thus declaring his friendship for Bonvisi, who went so far as to confide his personal news to him.

"But I am counting upon his swift recovery, so that… because I care for his health," said Colloredo, for an instant betraying the hope that Bonvisi would be well enough to take part in the conclave which all knew to be approaching.

Colloredo was not to know that Bonvisi would die within a few weeks, on 25th August, and that he himself would not survive more than two years. In a flash of clairvoyance, he added with absorbed thoughtful expression: "On 13th June, Cardinal Maidalchini left us, and on 3rd March, Casanate."

An icy breeze ran down the backs of many cardinals present, no few of whom were advanced in years.

In the meantime, the second part of the fourth course had been served. In an effort to restore the palate and prepare it for further exercises in gluttony, a sherbet of blackcurrants and redcurrants had been served, together with slices of lemon. Then came the fried trout accompanied by sweetmeats from Parona and filled with sour cherries in syrup and citrus juice; pastries stuffed with sturgeon and foie gras\ asparagus tips, capers, prunes, sour grapes, boiled egg yolks, lemon juice, flour and butter, borne to table under a perforated silver dome and sprinkled with sugar; turtles in pottage, cooked in their shells after their heads had been cut off (boiled thus, very little spices are needed), with toasted almonds, more foie gras, sweet- smelling herbs, muscatel wine and crumbled spiced cake, decorated with serpent-shaped tortiglioni sweetmeats from Orvieto, all served under a cover with a generous sprinkling of sugar and many stuffed half-eggs.

"Your Excellency should not turn his thoughts to such sad things on an occasion as gay as this magnificent wedding," said Cardinal Moriggia, whom Caesar Augustus had on the first evening called a boor. "It suffices, moreover, to remember the virtues of those who have passed away; there is no need to learn by heart the dates when they died."

"I would not have done so," replied Colloredo, "but, you know, when the question of the 19th arose…"

No one dared open their mouth at that juncture; everyone knew what he was talking about, even I, having read it in the court notices among Atto's papers. It had happened the year before that three cardinals had passed away at an exact interval of one month after one another: Giovanni Delfino, Patriarch of Aquileia, on 19th July; Cardinal Aguirre on 19th August and Cardinal Fernandez de Cordoba, Grand Inquisitor of Spain, on 19th September. Obviously, until the 19th October, every cardinal in Europe lived in terror of a possible prolongation of the series, this time affecting him. Fortunately, however, no such thing had transpired and the next to depart had been Cardinal Pallavicino who had broken that unlucky sequence by departing this life on the 11th February. The Sacred College had given a great sigh of relief.

"Dear Delfino, as far as I knew him as a man and as a cardinal, would have made an excellent pontiff," said Atto, pronouncing the name which was in all minds and thus revealing another of his intimate acquaintances among the wearers of the purple. "'Tis a pity that, through someone's excess of zeal, matters should have gone otherwise."

The atmosphere became heavy.

"There exist certain o-ver-zeal-ous individuals, ever ready to give counsel, even to complete strangers, so long as they can cast mud at respectable persons," he added carelessly.

From heavy, the air became leaden. The word "zealous" which Atto had so heavily emphasised, was a reference to the party of Cardinal Zelanti, called the "Zealots" because they preached the independence of the Sacred College from the influence of foreign powers. To this party, both Colloredo and Negroni belonged.

As I knew from my instructive reading of Abbot Melani's court notices, at the previous conclave, nine years before, Cardinal Delfino, Atto's friend and the candidate favoured by all the crowns, was on the point of being elected pope. The Zealots then, being unable to stomach the foreign powers making their own pope, had resorted to the worst possible stratagems in order to destroy that candidacy. As Atto had allusively mentioned, Colloredo had written to the Sun King's confessor, Pere Lachaise (to whom the Cardinal had never written before) in order to canvass for the candidature of Cardinal Barbarigo, another Zealot.

Negroni had then spread the rumour that Delfino had in his youth even killed a man with a poker; which he had indeed done, but only to defend himself from a thief who had broken into his house and was attacking him with a dagger. In the end, malign tongues had prevailed, and, in the place of Cardinal Delfino, the election went to Cardinal Pignatelli, the Pope whose imminent death was now expected.

"The fact, however, remains that our present Pontiff Innocent XII is a saintly, good and wise pope," said Cardinal Negroni, meaning, for those who were familiar with what had taken place behind the scenes, that the sabotage at Delfino's expense had not done any great harm; Atto said nothing.

"This is, moreover, proven by the Romanum decet Pontificem," added Negroni, referring to the constitution whereby Innocent XII had, soon after his election, forbidden the relatives of popes from enriching themselves at the expense of the Church. "And I know not how many would have had the courage to do what he did."

This was yet another allusion to Delfino: in order to prevent his election, the Zealots had it cried out on the rooftops that he had a mass of nephews and intended to enrich them all from the coffers of the Vatican.

The wedding table had fallen silent. Nothing could be heard except the sound of jaws patiently chewing the "English" pie of grilled mullet in salsa bastarda, with little sweetmeats and prune jelly, garnished with lemon slices and candied cinnamon sticks. Decidedly, the Curia's disputes had gained the better of the wedding.

The tensions created by that skirmish, however subtly it had been conducted, had been almost contagiously transmitted to us torchbearers too; now I was perspiring even more copiously. None dared interrupt the venomous verbal duel between Atto and Negroni.

"Oh, what you say is ungenerous towards the previous pontiff," replied Atto with a little smirk. "If Prince Odescalchi were here tonight, I know not what he would have to say about your words. He, the nephew of Pope Innocent XI, who reigned before the present pontiff and Alexander VIII, was never made a cardinal, because his uncle did not wish to be accused of favouring his kinsmen."

"And what of it?" asked Negroni.

"How can one put it, Excellency? So many things are bruited abroad — clearly all malicious gossip. It is said that Prince Odescalchi lends money to the Emperor who loses incredible sums gaming, as though it were a mere trifle, and that he offered eight million florins to the Poles to be elected king, as though that were a title to be sold to the highest bidder; and, moreover, that he paid some four hundred and forty thousand Roman scudi to purchase the fiefs of the Orsini… He, the nephew of a pope who fought against nepotism…"

"I repeat: what of it?"

"All this goes to show that, at least in the eyes of the public, it was precisely when an end was put to nepotism that popes' nephews really began to make their fortunes."

The hum of disapproval grew louder; Atto was casting aspersions on Prince Odescalchi, whom some ailment had kept to his house (he was said to be a hypochondriac), but to whom all these words would surely be reported, together with the disrespect for the present Pope who had even officially done away with nepotism: a policy that in fact pleased no one (for all hope one day to be able to take advantage of the world's injustices), although for the sake of appearances they all feigned blind approval.

"It is not my intention to offend His Holiness, heaven forbid!" continued Abbot Melani. "I am thus debating only in order to amuse the august intellects amongst whom I have the quite undeserved honour to find myself this evening. Well, Cardinal Aldobrandini, who was the nephew of Clement VIII, or Cardinal Francesco Barberini, who was the nephew of Urban VIII, and so many other examples one could cite, never lingered among the delights of Rome when it came to going forth to defend the interests of the Church, even volunteering to fight alongside armies in distant lands. Well, I ask myself: can we really say the same thing of…

"Enough, now, Abbot Melani, this is too much."

The speaker was Cardinal Albani. The company was not only amazed by the peremptory tone with which he had silenced Atto. As I had read in the Abbot's piquant court notices, it was Albani who had materially drafted the bull Romanum decet pontificem against nepotism, which had just been mentioned by Cardinal Negroni and, acting together with the master of the house, Cardinal Spada, he was also one of the cardinals who maintained contacts at the highest level between the Holy See and France. What was more, he was regarded as one of the most influential members of the entire Sacred College. He had studied, outshining the best, with the Jesuits of the Collegium Romanum, where the celebrated Hellenist and Hebrew scholar Pierre Poussines had soon noted his gifts for the study of Latin and Greek. While still a young student he had taken on the Latin translation of a homily by Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, astounding all by his precocity. At the same time, he had discovered in a monastery the manuscript of the second part of the Byzantine Greek Menologion of Basil Porphyrogenitus, the loss of which had long been lamented. Continuing the same display of erudition, he had translated the eulogy of Saint Mark the Evangelist by Deacon Procopius which was inscribed by the Bollandist Fathers in the Acta Santorum. In other words, since his earliest youth Albani had shown himself to be the possessor of a most refined and erudite mind, perhaps already presaging future, glorious achievements.

After obtaining his degree in Jurisprudence at Urbino, a lightning career had seen him become, first, governor of Rieti and Viterbo, then, under the two last popes, Secretary for Breves (or confidential correspondence): a most delicate task, reserved for the most penetrating intellects. Among the most important matters entrusted to him were a considerable proportion of relations with France; and this had soon caused him to be accused of being a Francophile. Not without cause: the year before, in 1699, many had clamoured for a bull condemning the French Abbe Fenelon, who was suspected of heresy. Albani had responded by bringing about the breve Cum Alias, in which twenty-three propositions contained in Fenelon's book were condemned, but the word "heresy" was never mentioned. Not only that, but he had hastened to write a letter to Fenelon to instruct him about the ways and means of arranging an appropriate submission, which was so swiftly done as even to obtain the Pope's written praises.

Even if he was far too young to be made pope (he was at the time of the facts I am narrating only just fifty-one years old), Cardinal Albani had been one of the most important collaborators of the three last pontiffs, an influential mediator with France and the actual author of some of the most important doctrinal and policy measures. One peculiarity should be noted: although a cardinal, he was not a priest. He had in fact never yet received the major orders. Such a omission was, however, not unusual among the wearers of the purple, who often arranged for the necessary formalities when a conclave was imminent, so as not to lose (one never knows!) the possibility of being elected to the papal throne. Atto had, in other words, caused a very important personage to lose patience with him, and, what was more, one with the closest links to Cardinal Spada, his host.

"Eminence, I bow down to whatever you may say," said Melani complacently.

"Come now," retorted Albani with a grimace of annoyance, "I am not asking you to bow down. I simply wonder whether you are aware of what you are saying."

"Eminence, from now on I shall in truth say nothing more."

"You cited names and facts. Now, I ask you, have you ever stopped to consider that you are the guest of a Cardinal Secretary of State?"

"In truth, I am honoured."

"Good. And have you ever considered that instead of a Secretary of State, the popes before Innocent XI had a Cardinal-Nephew, who performed the same duties and whom they appointed acting on their personal prerogative, only because he was a kinsman?"

"Really, that has even been done since, at least by Alexander VIII, I'd say."

"Yes, agreed; I meant only to say," Albani admitted somewhat reluctantly, realising that he had made a mistake, "that Pope Innocent XI of happy memory, by whom I had the honour to be appointed Referendary for the Two Signatures, undertook this just reform whereby under the present Pope we may say that not only is there no Cardinal-Nephew but not even a nephew made cardinal."

Moriggia, Durazzo, Negroni and the others laughed, thus backing Albani and forcing Atto into a corner. Indeed His Holiness Innocent XII, the present Pope, had not made any of his nephews a cardinal.

"That will have been destiny; indeed, predestination," replied Atto, biting into a mouthful of sour grape pie with a scattering of Savoy biscuits and candied sugar.

There was a moment's silence, then Albani exploded.

"Do you know what I cannot bear, Abbot Melani? That persons like you, out of Francophile partisanship, should spoil the pleasures of the table, which is something far more noble, for all these eminences and all these princes and gentlemen. To accuse Holy Mother Church of not seeing and not understanding is as absurd as to claim that the King of France is all-seeing and all- powerful!"

Albani may have been regarded as a Francophile, said I to myself, perplexed; but the way in which the Cardinal had rammed Atto's discourse back down his throat seemed utterly at odds with that view.

Atto listened calmly, without losing his composure, patiently slicing the pie in his plate with his fork. I, however, was struggling to prevent my eyes from squinting and thus losing the immobile and pigeon-chested pose required of a torchbearer. The Steward was speechless. Never could he have imagined that, faced with all the delicacies with which he had laden the table, the eminences, instead of dedicating themselves to gluttony, body and soul, should have ended up by arguing. Don Paschatio, half- hidden behind one of the little columns supporting the canopy, was simply terrified. It was the first time in his life that he had had the honour of receiving so many cardinals at table, but all the pleasure had been destroyed by Albani's sudden outburst: a display so unusual among the wearers of the purple as to make the Major-Domo fear he might soon leave, overturning his chair and cursing Villa Spada and all who in it dwelled.

"Come, come, Excellency…" murmured Count Vidaschi, trying to calm him.

"Indeed, these French…" I heard the Prince Borghese murmur.

"All, they're too used to making popes from Paris," replied Baron Scarlatti.

Atto's sally had been somewhat daring. When he spoke of "predestination", he had been referring to a little tome published four years previously, entitled Nodus praedestinationis, the author of which was the late Cardinal Sfondrati and for which Albani had written the preface. Now, Albani was quite erudite, but not in all matters doctrinal, and he had not realised that this book touched on a number of somewhat delicate theological questions, in ways that were not always orthodox. Augustinian and Jansenist circles had called for the book's immediate condemnation by the Holy Office. Then the matter had blown over, but both Pope Innocent XII and Albani had emerged from the affair with no little embarrassment. This was the one and only serious stain on the otherwise immaculate career of Cardinal Albani.

Atto's malign barb drew my attention even more to his strange behaviour that evening. At the previous dinner, he had said practically nothing. How come that he had now yielded to the temptation not only to join in the conversation but to annoy the guests? How dared he permit himself to provoke so impudently a friend and close collaborator of the master of the house? What was more, had not Atto overplayed his French background quite outrageously? Everyone knew, of course, that he was an agent in the service of the Most Christian King; but to make such a display of his partisanship (thus calling down upon himself an open denunciation by Albani) had really been most unwise. At this rate, no one would ever be able to approach him without attracting unwelcome attention. Anyone who talked openly with Melani risked being taken for an open seconder of the French King's ambitions.

Albani had at last calmed down. Not content with the effect he had produced, Atto began speaking yet again.

"Your Excellency is too subtle of understanding not to pardon me if I commit some errors, and too great-hearted not to be indulgent if I briefly recall how Pope Alexander VIII, as I was on the point of saying a few moments ago, had two nephews who were both Secretaries of State: Cardinal Rubini, who formally held the post, and Cardinal Ottoboni, who exercised it de facto. And yet it was he who pronounced those famous words: 'Take heed, for the eleventh hour has sounded.' By this he meant that matters could not go on like this much longer. And he was pope just before the present one! So, you see that…"

"Come, Abbot Melani, do you really want to make these excellencies angry?" Don Giovanni Battista Pamphili interrupted him; having plenty of famous cases of nepotism in his own family and being of a gay and amiable disposition, he easily succeeded in changing the tone and the direction of the conversation. "'Tis true we're in a Jubilee Year, and so must recognise our sins, but our own, not those of others!"

Laughter from those nearby at table thus succeeded in undoing the frowns of a few Zealot cardinals and silencing Atto's unwelcome incitement.

"The Prince of Monaco, the new Ambassador of the Most Christian King of France, made a most dignified entry to the Quirinale a few days ago to salute the Holy Father with a sumptuous, noble and rich equipage, served by an infinite number of prelates and the nobility," broke in Monsignor D'Aste, in an attempt to take part in Pamphili's diversion.

Someone must, however, have counselled him with a kick under the table to avoid at all costs mentioning the word "France", for a brief grimace of pain crossed his face and he fell silent at once without waiting for any answer from his neighbours.

"Monsignor Straccetto will never understand what and when," commented Prince Borghese sotto voce in the ear of Baron Scarlatti.

The Steward, all agitated and bathed in perspiration, ordered that other wines were to be served at once, to create a little movement and distract the table."On Tuesday, the Reverend Father of the Dominicans went in procession to visit the new Padre General of the Franciscans," said Durazzo.

"Yes, that I heard," replied Negroni. "He climbed right to the top of the Ara Coeli Steps with the cross on his shoulders. Heaven knows how fatiguing that must have been. And, speaking of news, I have heard that His Holiness's Privy Chamberlain has left bearing the Most Eminent Monsignor de Noailles his new cardinal's hat, which he is taking all the way to…"

"… Yes, of course, and now they're choosing who is to bring it to the new Cardinals Lamberg and Borgia," said Durazzo, just succeeding in preventing Negroni from mentioning Paris, where the new Cardinal de Noailles was indeed awaiting his hat.

At that juncture, as the end of the nuptial banquet approached, all eyes turned towards the spouses' table: Cardinal Spada had risen, glass in hand, to salute the providential chairborne arrival of the Princess of Forano, the deus ex machina who thus brought the whole embarrassing dispute to a close.

La Strozzi remained seated in her conveyance; although visibly put to the test by her confinement, she had not been willing to forgo the opportunity to embrace the bride who, as Cloridia had mentioned to me, was a good friend of hers.

The child was not there. Needless to say, the Princess had already dumped him upon the wet-nurse. He would soon be arriving with his father. Cardinal Fabrizio greeted the Princess with a toast and a speech.

"Aristotle was mistaken when he said that woman is weak," he began in a facetious tone. "While 'tis true that the females of rapacious animals such as leopards, panthers, bears, lions and the like, are stronger and more robust than the males, I would make another point: namely that women's ways are idle and delightful, and that each of these things is enough to unnerve a Hercules or an Atlas."

Everyone laughed at the sharpness and piquancy of the Secretary of State's observation.

"Nor do 1 agree with Aristotle when he calls woman 'a monster' or 'an accidental animal'. Here, the great man was raving, perhaps because he was angry with his own good wife."

The renewed outburst of laughter had the effect of clearing the air and cheering souls; the tension caused by Abbot Melani had now completely vanished.

"But above all," continued the master of the house in flattering tones, "a woman like the Princess here present may certainly be said to be strong and not weak, and worthy to stand beside Lasthenia of Mantinea and Axiothea of Phlius, Plato's disciples. And while the examples of Panthasilea and Camilla are reputed favourable, those of Zenobia and Fulvia, Antony's wife, to whom Cassius Dio refers in his account of the reign of Augustus, are most true and historical. Likewise most certain is the history of the Amazons' valour and of their empire. And he who knows not of the Sibyls knows nothing. I can surely place these women beside our newly delivered Princess, so that all together, after the Most Holy Madonna, they may be upheld as models of virtue and wisdom for the bride who now sits here before us."

These words were greeted with a round of applause and a toast to wish Maria Pulcheria Rocci every good fortune: as a bride and not a mother, she was in fact less important than the new mother; besides which, the poor thing, with her seaweed- coloured turbot's countenance, was certainly not one to inspire high-flown epithalamia.

"And what should be said of Aspasia, who taught Pericles and Socrates?" the speech continued, "or of the most learned Areta, remembered by Boccaccio? Was she not simultaneously both mother and philosopher? So well did she raise her offspring that she wrote a most useful book on how to instil manners in children, and another, for the use of the children themselves, on the vanity of youth; at the same time, for thirty-five years she taught natural philosophy, having a hundred philosophers for disciples, as well as composing the most erudite works: on the wars of Athens, on the power of tyrants, on Socrates' Republic, on the un- happiness of women, on the vanity of funerary rites, on bees and on the prudence of ants."

Meanwhile, the fifth course was served, usually consisting entirely of fruit. Although I had already eaten, I could not remain indifferent to the dishes of tartufali tartufolati — truffles in a truffle sauce served on crusts of toasted bread with half-lemons, or to the dishes making up an imperial feast of ravioli with butter, cauliflowers, tartuffolo sea urchins, egg yolks, with juice of lemon and cinnamon. Nor were the other poor torchbearers unmoved by such delicacies, yet they must like Tantalus stand by and listen powerlessly to the motions of the great lords and ladies'jaws and palates. Then came the fried Ascoli olives, the Florentine marzolino cheeses and the Spanish olives.

"But was this not to be the fruit course?" Baron Scarlatti discreetly asked the Prince Borghese.

"The fruit is there," replied the other. "Namely, the truffles on toast and in the imperial feast, the citrus cubes inside the fried olives and the orange flowers garnishing the fresh olives."

"Ah, I see," replied Scarlatti laconically, yet remaining unconvinced that subterranean truffles could be described as fresh fruit.

Then, to refresh the palate, bowls of iced pistachios were brought to the table, together with ground pistachios, pistachios in their shells, pistachio cakes, peach pies alla Senese, candied lettuce stalks and, in honour of Cardinal Durazzo, who came of a noble Genoese family, bowls of candied Genoese pears, together with prunes and candied Adam's apples, citrons and medlars, all from Genoa.

At that moment the Princess of Forano's newborn babe arrived, well swaddled in his father's arms.

"Minor mundus," said Cardinal Spada, greeting him with the name "world in miniature" accorded to man by the ancients for the perfection of his composition. Spada blessed the child and prayed that this might be a sign most auspicious.

"May you augur a prolific future for our beloved bride and groom today!" he concluded.

There was yet another toast; the various members of the couple's families then stood up one after another and, turning to the happy pair, they eulogised, magnified, augured, remembered and exhorted as is the custom at such banquets.

The ever-generous mantle of darkness had already fallen some two hours earlier when Sfasciamonti arrived with three saddled horses. All the guests, having been regaled with the utmost sumptuousness, had by now all retired to their beds.

As agreed, Atto and I waited in a sheltered corner not far from the Villa Spada. Buvat, who had tippled somewhat too freely at the nuptial banquet, had likewise abandoned himself to the arms of Morpheus and was snoring in his little room.

"Where are we going?" I asked, while the catchpoll helped, first Atto, then me, to mount.

"Near to the Rotonda," he replied.

Sfasciamonti, as he himself had explained that morning, had received information that should enable us to find two cerretani. These were small fry, but it was already a great deal to lay hands on a sure pair like these. As for their names, they were known as II Roscio and II Marcio: Red and Rotten. Such were the colourful nicknames by which the pair whom we were stalking were known in the Roman underworld.

We moved swiftly and silently towards the Tiber and thence to the city centre. As on the night before, we crossed the river by passing through the island of San Bartolomeo.

As intended, we dismounted a short distance from the Piazza della Rotonda. We found waiting for us there a little man who was kind enough to hold the reins of our horses as we clambered down from them. He was a friend of Sfasciamonti's and would look after our mounts for as long as was necessary.

We moved to a dark corner of the piazza where a number of carts for the transport of goods were stationed, secured to one another with a heavy iron chain. These probably belonged to the poor pedlars working at the market held by day at the Rotonda. It was a cul de sac in which darkness, the fetid odour of rats and damp mildew were omnipresent. Atto and I exchanged a worried look: this looked like the ideal place for an ambush. Sfasciamonti, however, surprised us, moving directly into action.

He handed me the lamp which we had been carrying with us, which somewhat faintly lit the scene. He looked under the carts and shook his head in disappointment. Then he stopped next to one of the carts and leaned on it with both hands. Swinging one leg back, he then launched a great kick into the darkness beneath the cart.

We heard a raucous howl in which anger and surprise were mixed in equal measure.

"Ah, here we are," said the catchpoll with the absent-minded ease of someone looking for a pen in a drawer.

"In the name of the Governor of Rome, Monsignor Ranuzio Pallavicini, come out from there, you miserable dog," he enjoined.

As nothing was happening, he leaned under the cart, reached out with one hand and tugged hard. A hoarse growl of protest was heard, which ended when Sfasciamonti hauled out a human figure without so much as a by-your-leave. It was an emaciated old man dressed in rags with a long yellowish beard under his chin and hair as thin and stubbly as a bunch of spinach. Other details I was for the time being unable to descry owing to the semi-dark- ness, which could not however conceal one detail: the stench of putrefying filth that arose from the poor old man after years of living in extreme want.

"I have done nothing, nothing!" he protested, struggling not to let go of an old blanket which he had dragged with him and under which he had probably been sleeping until our arrival.

"What a stink," was Sfasciamonti's only comment as he stood the wretch on his feet like an unfortunate marionette, trembling with somnolence and fear.

The catchpoll grasped the old man's right arm and brought his hand up to his chest. He opened it and passed his fingers over it a few times as though to feel the skin. After this bizarre examination, he announced: "All right, you're clean."

Then, without even giving him the time to complain, he seated him on the cart, this time less roughly, but holding tightly onto his arm.

"Do you see these gentlemen?" said he, pointing to us. "They are persons who have no time to waste. Sometimes, two cerretani sleep here — here, just next to you. I am sure that you know something about them."

The old man said nothing.

"The gentlemen would like to speak with someone from among the cerretani.'"

The old man lowered his eyes and remained silent.

"I am a sergeant. If I want, I can break your arm, lock you in a cell and throw away the key," warned Sfasciamonti.

The old man still kept silent. Then he scratched his head, as though he had just been thinking.

"Il Roscio and Il Marcio?" he asked at last.

"And who else?"

"They come here only from time to time, when they have business to see to. But I don't know what they get up to, no, I know nothing of what they do."

"But you have only to tell me where they are tonight," insisted Sfasciamonti, gripping the other's arm more tightly.

"I do not know. They keep changing."

"I'll break your arm."

"Try at Termine."

Sfasciamonti let go at last of the poor man's arm and the fellow hastened to lay his foul blanket under the cart and return to his wretched sleeping place.

As we moved on horseback to our new goal, the catchpoll explained a few details.

"In summer, many sleep out in that place which we have just left. If their hands are calloused, they are mendicants: people who have worked and fallen on hard times. If there are no calluses, then they're cerretani and have never earned a penny from work."

"So that's why you felt the old man's palm," I deduced.

"Of course, the cerretani like to live a life of ease, by cheating and robbing. Now let us go to Termine and see whether we have better luck there. I have known the names of the pair we seek for quite a while now and I simply cannot wait to get my hands on them."

As he said these words, I saw him try to contain his excitement by rolling up his sleeves. He was preparing for the challenge of encountering the two scoundrels and, even more, that of facing up to his secret fear of the cerretani which was, with every passing day, growing more corrosive and insistent.

Finding Il Marcio and Il Roscio called for an improbable degree of luck. The indication provided by the old man could not have been vaguer: Termine, the enormous space where the agricultural produce from the Agro Romano — the plain surrounding the city-was delivered and stored, and which lay just behind the Baths of Diocletian, was by night as deserted as it was vast. We left the Piazza della Rotonda behind us, moving towards Piazza Colonna, whence we proceeded to the Trevi Fountain and Monte Cavallo. From there, we came to the Four Fountains and crossed the Via Felice, entering Via di Porta Pia which brought us right next to Termine.

Our ride was uneventful, apart from a couple of encounters with the night watch in the vicinity of the papal palace of Monte Cavallo. Sfasciamonti presented his credentials and we were duly permitted to go on our way.

The silence was broken only once, when we drew level with the church of San Carlino, by a question from Atto:

"'Teeyooteelai': was that not what the cerretano said to you?"

"Yes, Signor Atto, why?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing."

On reaching our destination, as expected, the panorama of Termine gave no cause for optimism.

When we turned to the right from Via di Porta Pia, there before us loomed the enormous pile of the Apostolic Chamber's granaries, the great building in which the grain destined for bread production was stored. The warehouses on which the survival of the Roman population depended were in the form of a great S which, for almost half its length, adjoined the colossal bulk of the Baths of Diocletian. The ruins of the baths, eroded both by the elements and by human greed, dominated all of the second half of the Piazza di Termine. Within the ancient thermal complex, removing from their pagan origins what had once been refreshing pools and steam baths, there now stood the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Behind this church, whose rustic and irregular facade had, in the most unusual manner, been built from the outer wall of the baths, stretched the bulky mass of the Roman ruins. To the right, one could just descry in the dark the outer wall of the Villa Peretti Montalto, the immense estate, consisting of vineyards, gardens and manors built with such splendour by the late Pope Sixtus V and, a few years ago, on the passing away of his family, bequeathed to the Princes Savelli. Finally, behind those looking towards the granaries, stood a wall behind which was situated the vegetable garden of the monks of Saint Bernard.

No presence, whether human or otherwise, accompanied our arrival. Apart from the colossal shadows of the baths and granaries and the chirping of the cicadas: nothing. The summer night's air was enlivened by the sweet, pungent odour of wheat.

"What now?" I asked, marvelling at the desolation stretching before my eyes.

Atto said nothing. He seemed to be thinking of something else.

"I have a place in mind," said Sfasciamonti, "and I think it is the right one."

We advanced towards the granaries, the walls returning the rhythmic echo of our horses' hooves. Passing close to a great block of ruins, we found ourselves facing a high, irregularly shaped wall, with a tall unguarded doorway set into it.

"When it is not raining, many come here," said Sfasciamonti in a low voice.

We found a hidden tree to which to which we tethered our horses and at last prepared to enter the ruins.

"I warn you," insisted Sfasciamonti as we dismounted, "the people we are about to meet must not be rubbed up the wrong way. If we encounter anyone, let me do all the talking."

Thick though the silence was, with my senses no doubt deceived by the sinister nature of the place, I was, however, practically certain that I had seen an ironic little smile cross Abbot Melani's face, barely illumined by the crescent moon.

We drew near then to the doorway (now, in truth, nothing but a great gaping gap without any doors) leading inside the ruins. As we entered, in a flash of the imagination, I pictured the grandiose gatherings that must have taken place centuries ago in that place: swarms of sweating patricians, but also plebeians, enjoying the steam baths, the inhalations and ablutions, all under the protective wing of those lofty vapour-filled vaults…

Of vaults: there were none; the roof had collapsed. Hardly had I crossed the threshold of the great portal leading to the ruins than my eyes were drawn upwards by the moonlight, and were amazed to find themselves still under the just, indifferent gaze of the stars.

We were in a sort of great arena open to the sky, bounded on four sides by the massive walls of the ancient baths. Time and neglect had robbed them forever of the covering placed sixteen centuries ago by the zealous efforts of architects and masons.

Thanks to the moonlight, we could make our way cautiously through that alien space without constantly tripping over. Here and there, pearly white in the white sidereal glow, lay huge, indolent blocks of stone, columns painfully cast to the ground, voluble capitals and vainglorious pilasters.

In the gaps between one piece of wreckage and the next, and between these and the undulations in the terrain, sprawling on heaps of rags and quilts, one could make out the silhouettes of sleeping bodies.

"Cerretani and vagrants: they are scattered all over the place," murmured Sfasciamonti.

"How are we to find those two," I replied in a similarly light whisper, "what were their names… Il Roscio and Il Marcio?"

Instead of answering, the catchpoll broke away from Atto and me and moved towards a mound, behind which one could see a sort of architrave, so gently sunken into the ground that it seemed to have gone to sleep there after centuries of vainly awaiting the return of imperial glories.

For a while, he looked around, searching for some objective, until he found his next victim: a wretched vagabond who lay sleeping at his feet. The latter, however, inured to scenting danger, was not unaware of the catchpoll's threatening presence. He turned once or twice in his sleep and then gave a violent start.

Just before the vagabond could change position, I almost stopped breathing for surprise. Sfasciamonti had sat on the unfortunate fellow. We drew near, looking over our shoulders in fear of some reprisal on the part of the vagabond's companions. Nothing happened; Sfasciamonti had conducted his assault so discreetly that no one, among all those sleeping in the great arena, seemed to have realised a thing.

With one knee, the catchpoll had immobilised his victim's arm. Then he had sat down, planting his massive posterior on the adversary's belly, while with both hands he kept his mouth and eyes closed, thus preventing him from uttering the faintest whimper and from seeing who it was that had overwhelmed him. From the ease with which he had accomplished all this, it was plain that he must have made use of the same technique on previous occasions.

"Il Roscio and Il Marcio — two cerretani — do you know where they are?" he ordered, whispering in the man's ear.

Slowly he raised his hand from a corner of the poor wretch's mouth, allowing him to whisper something.

"Ask that one, under the striped blanket," said he, pointing to someone sleeping not far off.

Sfasciamonti passed rapidly to the other, on whom he practised the same interrogation technique.

"I've not seen them for days," rasped this man, of whose youthful face I caught a glimpse when the catchpoll raised his huge hands. "I don't know whether they're sleeping here tonight. Look over there, beyond the ditch."

He had pointed at a sort of ditch from which a strong stench of urine arose. That was probably where the vagabonds relieved themselves by night. Sfasciamonti loosened his grip, not without warning the young man with a last threatening look. He then moved off towards the ditch. He took one step, two, three. He was already some way off when we heard the scream.

"Roscio, the saffrons! Buy the violets!"

It was the young man whom Sfasciamonti had just interrogated. After crying out, he fled in the direction we had come from, towards the great expanse of Termine.

"Get him!" Sfasciamonti yelled at me, who, having remained a little behind, was closer to the young man.

Meanwhile, other bodies all around me, wrapped in rags and wretched greatcoats, awoke and returned to life. I felt the blood pumping hard in my veins while the air thickened in my throat. That barren space barely lit by the moon teemed with poor beggars, but also with cutthroats. Hunter and prey could exchange their roles at any moment; I began to follow the young man more from the desire to get away than that of catching him.

Sfasciamonti and I had just launched ourselves on the heels of the fugitive, and Atto in turn had got moving, when another shadow rushed forth from the darkness. He was running with some difficulty across the rough terrain towards the main door.

Thanks to the advantage gained by surprise, the pair had soon put no mean distance between us and themselves; once out in the vast space of Termine, I was already making my way towards our horses when I heard Sfasciamonti's voice.

"No, not the horses — on foot!"

He was right. The young man had run immediately to the left, towards the wall behind which, to the east, stretched the immense and grandiose Villa Peretti Montalto.

In a trice, he had already reached the corner between the wall of the villa, Piazza di Termine and the road descending towards Via Felice, and was climbing the boundary wall. Sfasciamonti and I reached the spot a few moments after the youth had jumped down the other side.

"Here, here, there are breaches that they've made!" gasped the catchpoll, pointing out a whole series of holes to me, apparently distributed at random along the surface of the wall, which made it possible to find footholds and thus to scale it rapidly.

So we imitated the fugitive's clever stratagem and in a few moments we were straddling the top of the wall. We looked down: if we were to go any further we should have to jump down no less than twelve feet, in other words, nearly twice Sfasciamonti's height. Meanwhile, in the distance, we could hear the cerretano' s footsteps receding fast down the neighbouring avenue.

With our feet dangling down the wall, like two anglers happily waiting for a pull on the line, we looked impotently at one another. We had lost.

"Curse it," rasped Sfasciamonti, prodding the wall in vain in search of more footholds. "He knows by heart where the breaches are to get down the other side. He had no need to jump."

Once we had got back, we took a look at the great roofless space in which we had carried out our nocturnal ambush on the sleeping beggars. All was quiet; the place was deserted.

"We shall find no one here for months," announced Sfasciamonti.

"Where is Abbot Melani?" I asked.

"He must have followed the other one. But if we had no luck, you can just imagine how he got on…"

"Teehereteeamteeaye!" we then heard chanted by a mellifluous and satisfied-sounding voice.

It was Atto, and he was on horseback. In one hand he held his pistol, in the other, the reins and a tether, which ended around the neck of the person whom we had seen escaping at the moment when the young man had cried out. Sfasciamonti's jaw fell. He had returned empty-handed, while Atto had succeeded.

"Il Roscio," exclaimed the catchpoll, pointing incredulously at the prisoner.

"Gentlemen, may I present you Pompeo di Trevi, alias Il Roscio. He is a cerretano and he is now at our disposal."

"By all the bolted visors, you may say that again!" exclaimed Sfasciamonti approvingly. "We shall now make our way to the prison of Ponte Sisto, where we shall get him to talk. Just one question: what the Devil did you say just now, when you greeted us?"

"That strange word? That's a long story. Now take this wretch and let us tie him up better, then be on our way."

Atto had chosen, as was his wont, to go against the rules and against the dictates of good sense. Instead of following the cerretano on foot, as Sfasciamonti wanted, he had mounted a horse, with difficulty and without any help. Before mounting, however, he had taken care to see which route the fugitive had taken: to the left of the other; in other words, moving north, in the direction of the clear, sweet-smelling countryside of the Castro Pretorio. Spurring on his modest mount, Atto had then set out on the traces of the cerretano. At length he had caught sight of him, by now exhausted by his exertions, in the process of scaling a wall towards citrus groves and vineyards in which he would find easy refuge.

"Another moment and i 'd have lost him. i was too far off to threaten him with the pistol. So I thought I'd yell something at him."

"What?"

"What he was not expecting. Something in his own language."

"His own language? D'you mean the jargon?" Sfasciamonti and I asked in unison.

"Slang, lingo, cant… All stuff and nonsense. No, all teestufftee- andteenonteesense," he replied, laughing, while I and the catchpoll looked dumbly at one another.

On the way out, during our ride from Villa Spada to Termine, Atto had turned over again and again in his mind the mysterious words which the cerretano had uttered when I fell into the courtyard at Campo di Fiore. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration had come to him: to look, not for what made sense but for what made none.

"The jargon used by these ragamuffins is sometimes as stupid and elementary as they themselves are. There's only one principle involved: you stick a foreign element between syllables, as is sometimes done in cipher, to create confusion."

While Atto was explaining this to us, our strange caravan was wending its way across the Piazza dei Pollaioli towards the Ponte Sisto; at its head, Sfasciamonti, to whose horse the cerretano was firmly tethered, with his hands tied behind his back and his legs hobbled in such a way that he could not run; then came Atto's horse and then mine.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"'Tis so simple that i 'm almost ashamed of saying it. They place the syllable "tee" between the others."

"Teeyooteelai… So the cerretano said to me 'you lie'!"

"What had you said to him just before that?"

"For heaven's sake, how am I to remember?… Wait… Ah yes: I told him that the German would kill him."

"And you were indeed lying, you were trying to buy time. And that is what I was trying to do, albeit somewhat differently. When

I greeted you a while ago, I said…"

"Tee-here-tee-am-tee-I. In other words, 'Here am I.'"

"Precisely. So I said something to Il Roscio in Teeese, which is what I've decided to call their stupid language full of tees."

That was the last thing Il Roscio had expected. Hearing the sound of Atto's voice mixed with the threatening clatter of hooves drawing near, his hands froze and he lost his grip, falling heavily to the ground.

"Pardon the question, but what did you say to the cerretano?'

"I acted like you and said the first thing that came into my mind."

"And what was that?"

"Teepateeter teenosteeter. The first two words of the Paternoster."

"But that meant nothing!"

"I know; but he for a moment thought that I was one of his people and was shocked. He fell like a sack of potatoes. Indeed, he hurt himself. At first, he couldn't even get up, so I had time to tie him up. 'Tis just as well that the grooms who equip these horses know what they're doing and provided a good long rope. I trussed him up thoroughly, then tied the end of the rope to the saddle and, just to remind him not to do anything silly, I pointed my pistol at him."

Melani then reconstructed what had taken place at the Baths of Diocletian. The vagabond whom Sfasciamonti had interrogated, sitting on his belly, had given us away.

"That wretch," said the Abbot, turning to the catchpoll with an ironic smile, "Il Marcio pointed out to you when he told you to ask him, but without revealing that he himself was one of the pair you were looking for. And you fell for it."

Sfasciamonti did not reply.

"So it was Il Marcio who screamed out those strange words to

Il Roscio?" I asked.

"Precisely. He called out that 'the Saffrons' were there and that, I think, meant us: the catchpolls."

"He added, 'buy the violets', so that meant 'run for it' or perhaps 'take up arms'," I conjectured.

"I tend to think it meant 'run', seeing how matters developed. This isn't Teeese but some other rather more impenetrable jargon, because one needs some experience of it. But everything's possible."

With the exception of my few questions, Atto's self-satisfied account of how he had captured the cerretano had met with silence, punctuated only by the clip-clop of the horses' hooves on the flagstones.

Sfasciamonti kept quiet, but I could imagine what he was feeling. Proud as he was of his crude catchpoll's abilities, he had seen the tiller of action suddenly snatched from him. Where he had failed, using force and intimidation, Atto had succeeded through intellectual sagacity, plus a pinch of well-deserved luck. It could not have been easy for the representative of the law, already scoffed at by his colleagues in the matter of the cerretani, to see another snatch from before his eyes one of those mysterious scoundrels who drew him as a hound is drawn to the prey when the beat is on, yet inspired in him an all-too-human fear. That, however, was what had just happened: thanks to a mispronounced Pater noster we now had in our hands a member of the mysterious sect.

This was the very reason for another silence: my own. How strange, said I to myself, that in so little time we had arrested a cerretano, while all the catchpolls in Rome, and the Governor, Monsignor Pallavicini himself, denied their very existence. I had it in mind to raise this with Sfasciamonti, but once again events prevented me from so doing. At that very moment it was decided that I was to leave them and make my way to Villa Spada and wake up Buvat (always supposing that he had got over the effects of his tippling) and return with him. Abbot Melani's secretary would, we ail three thought, be able to provide us with precious assistance (although, as I shall later recount, the nature of this assistance was to be somewhat unorthodox).

We were all to meet up at our final destination: the prison of

Ponte Sisto, giving onto the Tiber just under the Janiculum Hill, not far from the Villa Spada. Here, the interrogation of the cerretano was to take place.

The room was in a wretched basement, covered in lichen, sordid and windowless. Only a grate, high on the wall to the left, provided a little air and, in daytime, light.

The cerretano was still bound and in pain, his features blanching for fear of ending up before the hangman. He did not know that his presence in that stinking dungeon was thoroughly illegal. Sfasciamonti had arranged through one of his many friends to usher our entire group discreetly into the prison through a side door. Il Roscio's arrest was against all the rules: the cerretano had committed no crimes, nor was he suspected of any. That did not matter: the time had come for certain dirty games of which, as I shall have cause to tell later, the catchpolls had long been inordinately fond.

Sfasciamonti had procured a long coat and a periwig for Buvat, who was to play the part of a criminal notary and to draw up the charges. The sergeant himself would conduct the interrogation. Atto and I, dressed up to look like officers of the court or deputies, or goodness knows what, would be assisting, feeling safe owing to the secrecy of the ceremony and the prisoner's total ignorance of the law.

There was a table in the basement room, lit by a large candle, and here sat Buvat, solemnly busying himself with paper, pen and inkhorn. In order to lend greater verisimilitude to the scene, Sfasciamonti had taken care of every detail. Next to the candle were placed severe legal tomes such as the Commentaria tertiae partis in secundum librum Decretalium of Abbas Panormitanus, Damhouder's Praxis rerum criminalium and lastly and most threateningly, De maleficiis by Alberto da Gandino. Although all the titles were unintelligible, the volumes had all been placed upright and with their spines facing the prisoner, so that these obscure inscriptions would, supposing that he could read, all imbue his soul with the idea that he was in the hands of a hostile and impenetrable power.

Before the table, next to Il Roscio, stood Sfasciamonti, holding the accused tightly by one end of the rope, while gripping his arm painfully behind his back. The prisoner was a pudgy, stock- ily built youngster, whose little blue eyes, under a rectangular forehead beset by deep horizontal furrows, a sure sign of a dissolute life lived with impunity, were set above two rotund and florid cheeks, which bespoke a coarse, ingenuous nature. Observing him at close quarters, one could understand the origin of his nickname, the Red; for his head was crowned by a thick, bristling plumage of carrot-coloured hair.

Buvat adjusted his oversized wig and, still slightly unsteady from the effects of sleep and wine, cleared his throat a couple of times. Then, he began to write, at the same time chanting aloud the formal clauses which he was consigning to paper:

" Die et cetera et cetera anno et cetera et cetera. Roma. Examinatus init in carceribus Pontis Sixtis… What is it?"

Sfasciamonti had interrupted Buvat's recording to whisper a recommendation in his ear.

"But of course, yes, yes," replied the latter; only later did I learn that, as suggested by the catchpoll, the date of the interrogation was to be left blank, so that the whole report could be filed later under whatever date suited one's purpose.

"Very well, let us begin again," said Buvat, resuming his writing with a stiffly dignified expression. " Examinatus in carceribus Pontis Sixtis, coram et per me Notarium infrascriptum… Your name, young man?"

"Pompeo di Trevi."

"Where exactly is Trevi?" Buvat asked carelessly, thus revealing his limited knowledge of the Papal State, which might have sown suspicion in the mind of the prisoner, if only the latter had not been utterly confused by fear.

"Near to Spoleto," he replied, speaking barely louder than a whisper.

"So we write: Pompeius de Trivio, Spoletanae diocesis, aetatis annorum… How old are you?"

"Sixteen, I think."

"Sexdicem incirca," Buvat continued, 'Et cui delato iuramento de veritate dicenda et interrogate de nomine, patria, exercitio et causa suae carcerationis, respondit."

Sfasciamonti shook the young man and translated the notary's words: "Swear that you will tell the truth and then repeat your name, age and the city in which you were born."

"I swear that I shall tell the truth. Have I not already given my name?"

"Repeat it. This is for the official record. Procedure so demands, we must needs be accurate," pronounced the catchpoll to make the proceedings seem more realistic.

The young man looked around himself, looking somewhat stunned.

"My name is Pompeo, I was born at Trevi, near Spoleto, I may be about sixteen years of age, I have no trade and…"

"That is enough," Sfasciamonti interrupted him, again moving to Buvat's side and whispering something in his ear.

"Ah, very well, very well," answered Buvat.

At that point in the record, the grounds for the arrest were to be entered, but there were no such grounds. On the catchpoll's recommendation, Buvat was therefore to enter a false deposition, namely that the cerretano had been arrested for begging alms during mass.

"Come on now," said the false notary, adjusting his spectacles on his aquiline nose. " Interrogatus an sciat et cognoscat alios pauperes mendicantes in Urbe, et an omnes sint sub una tantum secta an vero sub diversis sectis, et recenseat omnes precise, respondit…"

"I shall go and get the whip," said Sfasciamonti.

"The whip, what for?" said the cerretano with a slight tremor in his voice.

"You are not answering the question."

"I did not understand it," answered the other, who obviously did not know a word of Latin.

"He asked you whether you know other sects in Rome besides that to which you belong," intervened Atto. "He wants to know whether they are all united under a single leadership, and to complete matters, he expects you to provide him with a complete list of all of them."

"But you, however, have no intention of answering," added the catchpoll, taking a pair of keys from a bag, presumably to open up some dungeon equipped with devices to encourage reticent criminals, "and so your back is in need of a good flogging."

Suddenly, the boy threw himself to the ground on his knees, causing Sfasciamonti himself, who was holding him on a tight cord, to sway.

"Gentlemen, please listen," said he in imploring tones, turning first to Buvat, then to the catchpoll. "Among us poor mendicants there are various companies, and this is because they carry out different functions and wear different clothes. I shall tell you everything that I can remember."

There followed a moment's silence. The boy was weeping. Abbot Melani and I were utterly amazed; the first of the mysterious cerretani ever to fall into the hands of the law was not only willing to be interrogated by a criminal notary but refused the ordeal of the scourge and was promising to tell all.

Sfasciamonti made him stand up, his expression momentarily betraying something between surprise and disappointment. Once again, his crude catchpoll's skills would not be needed here.

"Let us give him a seat," said he with forced benevolence, clumsily putting one of his enormous arms around the shoulders of the young miscreant, who was trembling and shaking with tears and terror.

I gave him a stool and the confession began.

"The first is called the Company of the Chop-Churches. They beg for alms in crowded churches, cut purses and bags and steal all they find in them."

I called to mind the episode with the sanpaolaro and the little woman whose purse-strings had been cut. Was that one of these Chop-Churches?

II Roscio stopped and looked at us one by one, studying on our faces the effect of these revelations which must, for him, amount to scarcely less than the desecration of a deity.

"The second is called the Company of Swooners," he continued. "They pretend that they're dying; they lie on the ground, screaming and groaning and begging for alms, but in reality, they're perfectly well. The third is called the Company of Clapperdogeons. They too are healthy, but slothful; they don't like to work so they pound it."

"'Slothful', I understand, but 'pound it'?"

"They go begging," answered II Roscio; then he asked for and obtained a glass of water.

"Go on," said Sfasciamonti.

Beggars and wastrels: was not the morning crowd whom I had for years been meeting with in the streets of Rome composed mainly of suchlike? Perhaps I had in my short life unknowingly come across far more cerretani than I realised.

"The fourth is called the Company of Brothers of the Buskin, or strolling players," continued our hostage; "They lie curled up on the ground, shivering as though they were dying of cold, or scabby with ring-worm, and beg. The fifth is called the Company of Blockheads: they pretend to be idiotic and brainless, they always answer beside the point and go out begging. The sixth is the Company of Abram Coves. They strip naked or half- naked and show their uncovered flesh as and when suits them, and they beg. The seventh is called the Company of the Hedge Priests…"

"One moment, one moment," said Buvat; the pseudo-notary, equipped with too large a pen and unaccustomed to writing fast, was struggling to keep up with the full flow of the confession. He had initially been prepared to draw up a false statement for the record; now, however, he found himself having to write a real one, and a particularly precious one at that. Sfasciamonti kept gesturing to him that he was not to miss a single word. I now knew why: the catchpoll wanted at last to have hard and fast evidence of the existence of the cerretani to show sooner or later to his colleagues or even the Governor.

"Let us do as follows," proposed Atto. "First, tell us the names of the companies, so that we can have an idea of them. Then explain to us what they do."

The young cerretano obeyed and began to rattle off a list, including the companies already mentioned:

Chop-churches

Swooners

Clapperclogeons

Brothers of the Buskin

Tawneymen

Abram Coves

Hedge Priests

Dommerers

Swaddlers

Basket Ants

Watchdogs

Puppets

Bayardeers

Kinchins

Autem morts

Doxies

"Enough, that will do. Which company do you belong to?" asked Atto.

"To the Swooners."

Then Il Roscio spelt out all the infamous deeds of which the cerretano companies were capable but which he had not yet specified. He spoke of the Hedge Priests who disguise themselves as Austin Friars; of the Tawneymen, who pretend to be lunatics, frenzied madmen or possessed by devils, frothing at the mouth and rolling on the ground after eating a soapy mixture. He revealed the tricks of the Dommerers, who bear heavy iron chains around their necks and pretend to speak Turkish, forever repeating "Bran-bran-bran" or "Bre-bre-bre" and claiming to have been prisoners of the infidels. The Swaddlers always go about two by two, pretending to be soldiers, and when they meet some poor defenceless person in the street, they rob him. The Basket Ants are bandits who have fallen on hard times, while the Watchdogs are constables who have likewise been ruined; the Puppets pretend their bodies are shaken by tremendous convulsions, like puppets, because, so they claim, they descend from sinners who were unwilling to kneel before the Most Holy Sacrament, and that is why they are being punished. The Bayardeers rob farm bailiffs when they are delivering bread in the countryside (their name comes from a cant word for a horse, after the famous Bayard). The Kinchins are little boys who live in the streets and sing songs like "O Maria Stella!" while shamelessly begging. Lastly, the Autem Morts and Doxies are women who beg with infants in their arms, with their faces covered: the Autem Morts are married, while the Doxies are single.

"Heavens, what chaos," Atto Melani commented in the end.

"But these cerretani are all beggars after all," I observed.

"And did I not tell you that from the start?" replied Sfasciamonti. "Only, they use mendicancy as a cover for other nefarious activities, such as violence, cheating and robbery…"

"Excuse me, we have an interrogation to complete," said Buvat, calling us to order with the inflexible dignity of a true notary, as he began to transcribe the customary formula.

"Interrogates an pecuniae acquistae sint ipsius quaerentis an vero quilibet teneatur illas consignare suo superiori secundum cuiusque sectam illorum, respondit… So, young man, I repeat: do you keep the money which you earn through mendicancy or other criminal activities for yourself or do you hand it over to your superiors in every company?"

"Sir, whoever earns money, at least among us Swooners, keeps it for himself. Our chief is Gioseppe da Camerino, and he on the contrary gives money to everyone. I have heard it said that the Hedgers and Puppets hold things in common and often meet up at inns or in other places, and that they elect their principals and officers. My companion, who fled in order not to be taken, told me that last week he was in the company of four Brothers of the Buskin, two Hedgers and two Puppets. They all met at a tavern in the Ponte quarter to have a good time together. They had all manner of good things brought to them by mine host, excellent wines and many things to eat. In other words, a meal fit for the nobility. And after the feasting, the host presented the bill and said that the whole meal came to twelve scudi, which the elder of the Hedge Priests paid in coin without uttering a word. And they enjoyed themselves together because they are never short of money, least of all the heads of the companies."

"Where do the members of your company meet?"

"At Piazza Navona, Ponte, Campo di Fiore and in the Piazza della Rotonda."

"Now, tell me whether you go to Confession, take Communion or attend mass?"

"Sir, among us there are few who do so, because, to tell the truth, most are worse than the Lutherans. Apart from that, I swear I know nothing."

"Do you gentlemen have any further questions?" said Buvat, turning to us.

Once again, Sfasciamonti drew near to Buvat in order to whisper in his ear that the next question was not to be placed on the record.

"Ah, yes, yes," the pseudo-notary reassured him. "Very well, my boy, within your company, have you heard of the theft of certain documents, a relic and a telescope from the Villa Spada?"

"Yes, Sir."

We all four looked at one another and this time even Buvat was unable to conceal a look of surprise.

"Go on, go on, for goodness' sake," said Atto with his eyes almost bursting out of his head.

"Sir, I know only that this thing was done by the German. Why, I know not. Since the Jubilee began he has been doing excellent business, mining money in all the streets of Rome."

"And where the Devil are we to find this German?" asked Atto.

The cerretano explained everything.

"I think that is quite clear," commented Sfasciamonti in the end.

All that Il Roscio had spilled out concerning the German related to the search for Atto's personal effects and was therefore omitted from the record, together with many other things said by the young canter that evening.

"If anyone should find this statement on me, I shall be in real trouble," said Sfasciamonti out of the prisoner's hearing. "I shall, for safety's sake, put a fictitious date on it, say, 4th February 1595.

Then I shall place it in the Governor's archives. Only I shall know where to find it, because no one now looks at the documents of the past century. I shall produce it if and when I want to: what's more, with that date, it will prove that the cerretani have existed for a long time, and I shall at last be able to wave this under the noses of all those who've been mocking me."

The next decision was the most difficult, but there was no choice in the matter. The cerretano could not be kept in prison without an arrest summons, or at least a permit from the Bargello; Sfasciamonti had in fact mentioned such a possibility to one of the gaolers, a good friend of his, who had been unwilling so much as to discuss the possibility. There are, said he, so many innocent people in gaol, and so many guilty ones at liberty; but matters such as these must be handled in the right way. Usually, they are organised by the judges, or by those in power, whose orders the former carry out, unbeknownst to the people.

It was, moreover, impossible to hold the criminal (if such he could be called) elsewhere: Villa Spada, which did of course have plenty of space in its cellars, could obviously not be used for this purpose. Nor, it was plain enough, could our private residences.

In order to make the decision seem less improvised, we made Il Roscio wait in a little side-room and pretended to confer together for a while. Then we brought him back, taking care to show long, disappointed faces.

"The notary has spoken with His Excellency the Governor," lied Sfasciamonti, "who has been so good as to reward your willingness to collaborate."

The cerretano cast confused glances in all directions, not understanding what was about to happen.

"Now you will be accompanied to the door. You are free."