Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

  “Let me explain, boy,” he said, squeezing my arm a little tighter.

  Much of the story that Atto had told me was, in fact, true. It was true, that is to say, that at the beginning of the year an anonymous officer had gone to the Spanish court of Madrid, over which reigned Philip of Anjou, grandson of the Most Christian King. It was true that the anonymous officer, before disappearing into thin air, had succeeded in passing to Philip a letter, from which it transpired that Eugene of Savoy was ready to sell himself, in exchange for a large recompense, to the French enemy. And finally it was true that on reading those lines, the young Catholic King of Spain had been flabbergasted.

  But then Atto told me what had followed. Philip had had a copy of the letter sent to his grandfather, the Sun King. The French sovereign had been equally amazed. But his minister Torcy had also examined the letter, and reacted quite differently.

  “Torcy said that Eugene would never have written such a letter. In his opinion the Prince of Savoy would never have been so ingenuous as to offer himself to the enemy, jeopardising all that he had so laboriously achieved by serving the Empire: fame, power, wealth . . .”

  The minister of the Most Christian King was convinced that it was a trap set by Eugene himself, a trick very much in keeping with the condottiero’s twisted, indirect mind: if the French were to contact Eugene, responding positively to the offer contained in the letter, he would at once denounce a plot against himself, orchestrated by some conspirator in Vienna in league with the enemy.

  “And was Torcy right?”

  “Yes and no. The letter is indeed a forgery, as he said. But it was not commissioned by Eugene, who is actually in the dark about this whole story.”

  “And so who . . .”

  I paused, holding my breath. We looked at one another for some long seconds. I raised my eyebrows interrogatively. Atto’s silence was as clear as a written admission.

  “I had hoped,” he went on, his eyes lowered, “that the French secret agents in Vienna would get that letter to the Emperor. I was already prepared to come here myself, to superintend the operation. But the whole thing was blocked. Unfortunately Torcy had persuaded His Majesty to do nothing about it. I have never seen eye to eye with that minister: far too circumspect.”

  At that point, Atto explained, there was nothing he could do but come to Vienna himself and deliver the letter to Joseph I – or, more precisely, to someone who would be able to pass it on to him, like Countess Pálffy.

  “Does France want peace? I am seeking to obtain it,” he said, “and if no one gives me the means, I make shift as best I can.”

  Those words were followed by another silence, broken only by the sound of our feet on the paving stones, the shouts of a group of young boys chasing one another, the subdued laughter of young ladies out strolling and the clatter of a carriage turning a corner. This silence between me and Atto said it all: the decline of Abbot Melani, his last desperate attempt to influence political events, the indifference of the King (attentive, however, to the suggestions of his ministers), the solitude of the old counsellor of the crown, his impotence and his refusal to accept defeat.

  “Of course, foreign ministers still seek me out to obtain secret audience with His Majesty, and to talk of particularly reserved matters – it is difficult to find a trustworthy and esteemed go-between at court,” said Melani, with a fresh surge of pride. “But it’s something quite different to make one’s own advice reach the King’s ears, and persuade him of the best thing to do.”

  Matters were clear: Atto, the King’s trusted servant, was still a good channel for people seeking an audience with the Sovereign or his ministers. But his opinions, at court, were no longer heeded. With the forged letter from Eugene he had once again endeavoured to write a chapter of European history, as he had successfully done in the past. But this time he had had to play a direct role in the game: no one at Versailles paid attention to the old castrato anymore. To put his plan into effect, he had first needed to find a skilful calligrapher (eleven years earlier I had met such a person in his service) to produce the forged letter from Eugene, and then make it reach the King of Spain.

  I already knew Abbot Melani’s technique: it was the same as eleven years earlier, when he had had a forgery made of the will of the dying King Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs. That forgery had enabled a French Bourbon to sit on the Spanish throne. On that occasion who had taken the paper with the false signature all the way to Spain? I had met her myself: Atto Melani’s old friend, the Connestabilessa Maria Mancini, aunt of Eugene of Savoy, former lover of Louis XIV and for a long time a French spy in the Spanish court. I had had first-hand experience (and had been an unwitting instrument) of her and Atto’s secret machinations on behalf of France, and also of the ambiguous mishmash of amorous affairs, politics and espionage that conjoined Maria Mancini, Atto and the Most Christian King. I had seen then just how casually Atto and his friends practised the art of forgery. And only the day before, talking with Cloridia about the bad chocolate that had made him ill, Atto had let it drop that he was still in touch with Maria Mancini.

  It was ironic. Eleven years earlier the three of them – the Abbot, the calligrapher and the Connestabilessa – had been the devisers of a forgery, the last will and testament of the King of Spain, that was to light the fuse of war.

  And now the same three characters wanted to redress that colossal error, and the only scheme they could come up with was to repeat, step by step, exactly the same procedure: to produce and take to Spain a second forgery, the letter from Eugene, so as to put an end to the conflict that had devastated Europe and, what was worse, had brought France to wholly unforeseen ruin.

  But this time they had failed: the fuse once lit could not be extinguished; the course of events, now hurtling forward at an apocalyptic gallop, could not be bridled a second time. And so the decrepit old castrato had had to drag his tired limbs all the way to Vienna to get a copy of the forged letter into the Emperor’s hands, hoping thereby to create such a scandal that Eugene, the enemy of peace, would be divested of all authority.

  “The great French ministers of the past, my friends, are all dead, even those much younger than me,” he said bitterly, to explain why no one listened to him at court anymore. “There are no longer the Pomponnes, the Chamillarts, the de Lionnes, the Le Telliers. I was truly in their confidence. The only one left is that suspicious cur Torcy, who, it just so happens, is the son of Colbert, the Serpent. I can never get Torcy to pass on even the briefest note to His Majesty, let alone a memorandum, like the ones the Most Christian King used to receive from me regularly. Today anyone who wants to do anything good for France has to make shift for himself. And that is what I have done, boy. In your opinion, is Prince Eugene’s reputation worth more than peace?”

  The question was rhetorical, and I did not answer. I was reflecting bitterly on something quite different.

  In the past it had always been I who had uncovered (when already too late) Atto’s lies, and the secret games he had played with my unwitting help.

  This was the first time, in the thirty years I had known him, that I had had the honour of hearing Melani confess directly to his own intrigues. It was a sign that the times had changed, I thought, and the old Abbot did not belong to this new age. Atto was the only survivor of a vanished era: his longevity, far from granting him repose and recompense, had condemned him to sip the bitter chalice of defeat and oblivion.

  Fate had made a toy of him. Just twenty-four hours before the unwitting Abbot set foot in Vienna, the Turks had arrived and the Emperor had fallen ill. A coincidence? No: this was a slap in the face from destiny. In this new era Atto was simply irrelevant; it made no difference whether he was here or not. In the great fresco of the world, Abbot Melani no longer figured.

  I looked with compassion at the poor old man, whose services were no longer required by anyone. He turned his face to me and I thought I saw a grimace of wounded pride, almost as if his eyes had perceived
my pity.

  “Signor Atto, I truly . . .” I tried to rally him, seeking consolatory phrases, but they just would not come to my lips.

  Melani halted me with a dejected wave of his hand, as if to say, “Don’t bother.” We walked on in silence for a while, arm in arm.

  “Now that the Dauphin is also on the point of death, everything is clearer,” he said at last. “Something or someone is plotting against both France and the Empire. Something or someone that is above everything, since the Sun King and Joseph the Victorious are mortal adversaries in the war that is tearing Europe to pieces.”

  “Don’t you think that the Dauphin is really sick with smallpox?”

  “And do you think the Emperor is?” he snapped back, with bitter sarcasm.

  There was no need to say another word. Now that the Grand Dauphin was lying ill, Atto revealed his thoughts: he too had never believed that Joseph the Victorious had smallpox.

  “To pass off poison as a contagious disease is child’s play: not only the arch-doctor at court, Monsieur de Fagon, but all the other doctors of the royal family are totally without experience of such illnesses,” explained Atto, “because as soon as a house is found with smallpox or any other contagion, they are forbidden to go near it, for fear that they might infect a royal prince. Common sense would suggest that in such cases they should consult those doctors in Paris who treat such illnesses daily.”

  “Maybe they have done.”

  “They never do,” he said with a meaningful smile.

  “And so the same thing could have happened at the Caesarean court!” I said, aghast. “The Emperor’s doctors might have just as little experience of smallpox as those of the Grand Dauphin.”

  I had at once suspected that behind Joseph’s illness lay the sinister and secret work of the poisoner, but to hear it directly confirmed by Atto’s voice sent shivers up my spine.

  I could well understand the colic that had seized the poor Abbot two days earlier. It was nothing to do with chocolate from the Connestabilessa! He had collapsed on hearing the news of the Emperor’s illness: the worldly-wise old spy had immediately understood that evil powers, as yet unidentified, were at work, and that France, not being among them, was exposed to the same dangers. In certain games – I had learned this myself – if you are not among the killers, then you will undoubtedly end up among the victims.

  “Boy,” he whispered, suddenly halting and gripping my shoulder, “I was about to succeed, all by myself, in bringing to an end a European war that has raged for eleven years! A group of conspirators, all in league with one another and highly organised, can do much more, and with great ease.”

  “The Turks!” I exclaimed, and told Atto about the strange machinations of the dervish with Ugonio.

  “Ugonio?!?” cried Atto, on hearing the corpisantaro’s name.

  I explained the circumstances in which I had found him.

  “Of course, now I remember; the filthy creature is from Vienna. The world is very small,” he concluded, shaking his head almost incredulously. “After all these years I wouldn’t mind seeing him again – or rather, meeting him again,” he corrected himself sadly, alluding to his blindness.

  From Melani’s surprised reaction I had the confirmation (if I really needed it after his confession) that he was in the dark about everything. I had got it all wrong: the Abbot could not have known anything about the shady dealings between Ugonio and Ciezeber.

  I explained that Cloridia had heard them plotting to get someone’s head. The Abbot listened in a tense silence. While I talked I watched him closely, but his black lenses prevented me from fathoming his innermost secrets. I also reminded him of the mysterious phrase pronounced by the Agha before Prince Eugene, and finally I summed up the strange Ottoman legends about the Golden Apple.

  “Only one thing puzzles me,” I concluded. “What do the Turks have to do with the Grand Dauphin’s sickness? The Sublime Porte has always been allied with France . . .”

  “That does not matter. What matters is the method.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Ottomans, by themselves, would be nothing. Over the centuries, they have always been the military arm of the West, directed against the West itself. Two hundred years ago the King of France, Francis I, suggested to Suleiman the Magnificent that he should attack the Empire in Hungary; the suggestion was taken up, and successfully. In Italy the city of Florence summoned Mehmet II to its aid against Ferdinand I, King of Naples. Venice, to drive the Portuguese, her trading rivals, out of the East, made use of the forces of the Sultan of Egypt. And there are scores of Italian military engineers who have offered their services to the sultans, as long as they were well paid. When Philip II of Spain set out to conquer Portugal, in order to mollify the neighbouring King of Morocco he gave him an estate, thus placing Christian lands in the hands of the Infidels, and he did this with the aim of dispossessing a Catholic king. Even Popes Paul III, Alexander VI and Julius II, when it struck them as opportune, called on Turkish help.”

  I had heard many of these unedifying examples three decades earlier, in 1683, from the same Abbot Melani. Just one episode was missing from the list, and I could understand why he had omitted it: in that very year 1683 the Most Christian King had secretly supported the Turks when they threatened Vienna.

  “The Ottomans are the ideal instrument. In my long life I have seen many of them, including bandits and malefactors.”

  I had no difficulty in believing it; who could say how many shady deals Atto had engaged in with the Infidels at the behest of his king . . .

  “Some of these bandits had faces enlivened with expressions of brutal passion,” Melani went on. “There was no prostration; it is not enough to have a soul, you also have to feel the divine guest’s presence to suffer when it declines, to be ashamed, upset and dejected. Christian criminals, thank God, usually bear on their foreheads signs of their struggle, even if a lost one, against their own perversity. Even the air of triumph that sometimes brightens the face of a hardened criminal, is it not a sign of this struggle? Among the Ottomans, however, the criminal is not a man whose character is any different from that of a wise man. The Turkish bandits had a more confident stare than I did as I looked at them. I could not help but see in them men whose nature was different from ours, men who truly did not know the Christian meaning of the words virtue and vice. No Christian is ignorant of the distinction between vice and virtue; anyone who does not understand it is outside Christianity, and indeed outside simple human nature. But from my dealings with Ottomans, I realised unfortunately that in the bosom of a civilisation almost as ancient as the Christian one, but founded on completely different bases, such a phenomenon existed: the man without a conscience!”

  Atto’s words left me utterly dismayed. I now felt in my body a piercing fear of the Turk, as one dreads a hurricane which destroys people and things but is totally unaware of what it does. As he said, without a conscience. The Abbot was right: the Turks had always been pawns in the hands of the West. Had not Simonis told me that poor Maximilian II, the father of the Place with No Name, had been a victim of the treachery of the Protestant princes, who had incited the Ottoman armies against the Empire? And what had Maximilian’s councillor, Ungnad, been up to, if not scuttling between Vienna and Constantinople, manoeuvring the Turks so as to favour the intrigues against the Emperor?

  “But precisely because the Ottomans are bloodthirsty people, with an inclination for wars of conquest,” I objected, “it’s easy to see that they want to invade Europe.”

  “Bloodthirsty people, with an inclination for war, you say?” asked the Abbot, resuming his walk. “I could tell you things about the Ottoman Empire that you don’t even imagine, and which would change your mind at once. Do you know what the derebeys are?”

  “The dere-what?”

  Like all empires, Atto explained, the Ottoman Empire was based on a feudal system. The Grand Sultan, absolute Sovereign, was represented in the provinces by a network of
rulers, who were, however, far from loyal: the derebeys.

  “They are restless, ferocious lords, forever in revolt against the Sultan. They seize control of the collecting of taxes, which are supposed to be paid to the Sultan; they refuse to respond to the central government’s conscription call, instead enlisting troops for their own personal armies; they have their own standards and wear their own uniforms; and they often go to war against the Sultan himself.”

  Almost all of Asia Minor was subdivided among a small number of such derebeys. Not to mention the mountain territories, Atto went on, where again nobody answered the conscription calls.

  “In the Giaur-Daghda not a single mountain dweller wears the uniform or pays a single para, which is the fortieth of a piastra, to the Sultan’s treasury.”

  Whenever the Sultan tried to reduce them to obedience, the inhabitants of the valleys would all flee to the mountains, leaving the enemy army to wander over their abandoned lands, or they would pour out en masse to confront the Sultan’s men, twenty-five thousand mountaineers against a thousand soldiers, which was enough to put an end to hostilities and re-establish peace with Constantinople. At least until the next recruiting drive or the next tax collection, when the war would inevitably start up all over again.

  “The Ottoman empire has many such peoples. This shows how absurd it is to claim that the Turks are ready to invade the neighbouring nations. The very opposite is true: they have huge internal problems, which would make any act of external war highly inadvisable. The desire to expand at all costs into Europe, as they have done, threatening Vienna, Venice or Hungary, while just a few miles from Constantinople their empire is wholly ungovernable, means that their main aim is not the preservation of the Ottoman Empire, but the destruction of those faithful to Christ and their lands.”

  “But don’t you think that is inevitable? They’re different from us, incompatible by birth with the Christian religion.”