I began to fear that I had committed an unpardonable error by agreeing to get involved again with Melani. I had allowed myself to be swept along by events when I ought only to have given myself time to reflect. And perhaps even - why not? - to put the Abbot to the test. Instead, within the space of a single day, Atto had been able to plummet down into my life again as though his coming were the most natural thing in the world. Ah, but the temptation of lucre had been irresistible...
I undressed, and, curling up on one of the pallets that had remained free, I soon slipped into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
".. . They dressed him for the undertakers."
"Where did it happen?"
"In Via dei Coronari. Four or five of them held him up and robbed him of all that he had."
Conspiratorial whispering, not far from me, had torn me from my slumbers. Two servants were clearly commenting on some dreadful assault.
"But what was his trade?"
"Bookbinder."
The breathless rush that followed these tidings did not prove as useful as I had expected.
When, after a breakneck descent of the back stairs, I came and knocked at Abbot Melani's door, I found him already up and on a war footing. Far from being still in bed as I had expected, there he was with ink-stained hands, bending over a pile of papers. He must just have finished writing a letter. He greeted me with a countenance heavy and fraught with dark thoughts.
"I have come to inform you of a matter of extreme gravity."
"I know. Haver, the bookbinder, is dead."
"How did you learn of it?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"And you, how do you know?"
"I just heard tell of it now, upstairs, from two valets."
"Then I have sources better than yours. That catchpoll Sfasciamonti has just been here. 'Twas he who told me."
"At this hour?" I cried out in astonishment.
"I was on the point of sending Buvat to fetch you," retorted the Abbot, ignoring my question. "We have an appointment with the catchpoll down below in the coach-house."
"Are you afraid that this may be connected with the attack upon yourself today?"
"'Tis the same thing as you're thinking of; or else you'd not have come rushing here in the middle of the night."
Without exchanging a word, all three of us went down to the coach-house, where Sfasciamonti was waiting in an old service calash, with a coachman and a team of two horses ready to go.
"A thousand bombs blast 'em!" cried the visibly overexcited catchpoll, while the coachman led the horses out and closed the door behind us. "It seems that things went like this. Poor Haver slept in the mezzanine above the shop. Three or four men entered the shop during the night, some say there were even more of them. We have no idea how they got in. The door was not forced. They tied up the poor wretch and gagged him by stuffing a piece of wool in his mouth, then they searched the place from top to bottom. They took all the money he had and left. After who knows how long, the bookbinder managed to remove the gag and to cry out. He was found in a state of deep shock. He was utterly terrified. While he was telling the tale to all the neighbours, he felt unwell. When the doctor arrived, he found him dead."
"Was he wounded?" I asked.
"I have not seen the body, other sergeants arrived before I could. Now my men are seeking information on the case."
"Are we going to this place?" I asked.
"Almost," replied the Abbot. "We shall be going very near there."
We stopped at Piazza Fiammetta, a short distance from the beginning of the Via dei Coronari. The night was barely lit by a sliver of moon. The air was fresh and pleasant. Sfasciamonti got down and told us to wait there. We looked all around us but saw not a soul. Then a market gardener hove in sight on his cart. Not long after that, a piercing whistle made us jump. It was Sfasciamonti, half concealed in a doorway, from which his rounded belly could, however, just be seen peeping out. He was gesturing to us to join him. We drew near.
"Hey, go easy," we both protested when he dragged us both by brute force into the dank, dark porch.
"Hush!" hissed the catchpoll, flattening himself against the front door behind one of the pilasters framing it.
"Two cerretani, they were stalking you. When they saw me, they hid. Perhaps they've gone now. I must go and see."
"Were they shadowing us?" Atto asked worriedly.
We held our breath. Prudently craning our necks, we caught sight of two ragged and emaciated old tramps, crossing the road.
"You are a dunderhead, Sfasciamonti," whispered Atto, uttering a sigh of relief. "Do you really think those two half-dead wretches could spy on anyone?"
"The cerretani watch over you without giving themselves away. They are secretive," answered the catchpoll without so much as batting an eyelid.
"Very well," cut in Abbot Melani, "have you spoken with the person I told you to find?"
"All in order, by the recoil of a thousand howitzers!" came the catchpoll's immediate reassurance, accompanied by his curious imprecations.
The place was in a side-road giving onto the Via dei Coronari, scarcely a block away from the bookbinder's shop. We arrived there by the most tortuous route, as Atto and Sfasciamonti wanted at all costs to avoid passing in front of the scene of the crime, where there was a risk of encountering the sergeants assigned to the case. Fortunately, darkness was our ally.
"Why are we hiding, Signor Atto? We have nothing to do with the death of the bookbinder," said I.
Melani did not answer me.
"The criminal judge has assigned new officers to the case. I do not know them," announced Sfasciamonti as we left Piazza Fiammetta behind us, setting off towards Piazza San Salvatore in Lauro.
We defiled through the alleyways of the quarter, where Buvat stumbled upon a sleeping congregation of ragged friars, barely managing to avoid falling against a pile of boxes and baskets belonging to street vendors who lay dozing as they awaited dawn and their first customers. Under the cloths and blankets delicious odours betrayed the presence of French lettuces, sweet lupin seeds, fresh waffles and cheese.
The rendezvous was far removed from prying eyes, in the shop of a coronaro, that is, a maker of rosaries. We were welcomed by the artisan, an old man with a face covered in wrinkles who greeted Melani with great deference, as though he were long acquainted with him, and led us towards the back of the shop. We made our way through that cool little den replete with great rosaries made of wood and of bone, of every form and colour, finely interwoven and hanging on the walls or laid on little tables. The coronaro opened a drawer.
"Here you are, Sir," said he respectfully as he handed the Abbot a packet enveloped in blue velvet, which seemed to me to be in the form of a little picture.
After saying this, the coronaro disappeared with Sfasciamonti into the back room. Atto gestured to Buvat that we were to follow them.
I could not understand. Why ever should the death of the bookbinder have led us into that shop of devotional objects to take delivery of what I imagined to be the picture of some saint, presumably to be hung on the wall? I was unable to make a connection between the two things.
Atto guessed my thoughts and, taking me by the arm, deemed the time right for providing me with some initial explanations.
"I had arranged this morning with the bookbinder that he should leave the little book here, with this good man."
So it was not some small picture that the coronaro had brought Melani, but the mysterious little book of which the Abbot was so unwilling to speak.
"I know this coronaro well, he helps me out whenever I need it and I know that I can trust him," he added, without, however, adding what services he might need of a coronaro or giving me the slightest clue as to the nature of the book.
"Since the bookbinder was often absent from his shop, I thought that it would be more convenient to collect it here," continued the Abbot. "After all, I had already paid for the new binding. And I did well so to arrange matters, for otherwise, if I wanted t
o collect my little opuscule, I'd have found myself in a quarrel with some sergeant asking too many questions: whether I knew the bookbinder, how long I'd been acquainted with him, what relations I had with him... Try explaining to him how, at the very moment when I was talking with poor Haver, I was stabbed in the arm by a stranger. They'd never have believed me. I can just imagine the questions: how is it that it happened just then, there must surely be a connection, what were you doing here in Rome, and so on and so forth. In other words, my boy, it does not bear thinking about."
Then Atto beckoned me to follow him. He did not move towards the door but took me into the back room, into which Sfasciamonti had disappeared a few minutes before with the coronaro and Buvat. In the back of the shop, we were awaited by a little woman of about fifty, seated at a worn old table, modest and somewhat poorly dressed. She was talking with Sfasciamonti and the coronaro while Buvat listened as though stunned. When Atto entered, the woman stood up at once out of respect, having realised that here was a gentleman.
"Have you finished?" asked Melani.
The catchpoll and Buvat nodded.
"That woman is a neighbour of poor Haver," Sfasciamonti began to explain to us as we walked away from the shop, leaving
Piazza San Salvatore in Lauro behind us. "She saw everything from a window. She heard someone lamenting and knocking at the binder's door. The latter, who seems to have been a very pious man, opened up straight away but had no time to close the door before two other figures slipped in. They went away half an hour later, carrying off a great pile of paper with them as well as a number of books that had already been bound."
"Poor Haver. And poor fool, too," commented Atto.
"But why they took away papers, we know not," said I, looking at Atto.
"Where the cerretani are involved, one can never understand a thing," interrupted Sfasciamonti, his visage growing dark.
"But how can you be so sure that this was the work of your mendicants?" asked Atto, growing somewhat impatient.
"Experience. When one springs up - and here I speak of the one who was running away and who wounded you - he is invariably followed by others," said the catchpoll gravely.
Atto stopped suddenly, thus bringing all three of us to a stop.
"Come on now, what are you talking about? Sfasciamonti, we cannot go on like this with your half-baked explanations. Kindly tell me once and for all what it is that these mendicants do, these. . . Cerrisani, as you call them."
"Cerretani," Sfasciamonti humbly corrected.
I was sure of it. He would never have admitted it, but even then Atto Melani felt the serpent of fear slide up from his ankles into his guts.
He knew all too well that he had had a physical encounter with one of the strange individuals of whom Sfasciamonti was speaking, and from that encounter he had received a stab wound which was still hurting and hindering him, following which the bookbinder in whose presence all that had taken place had been assaulted that very night in his own shop, and had died. And he had had his own little book bound by that same unfortunate man; coincidences which could have brought pleasure to no one.
"Above all, I want to know," the Abbot added brusquely, his impatient mind struggling with the fatigue of his old limbs, "are they acting on their own behalf or for hire?"
"Do you really think it is so easy to find that out? With the cerretani strange things are always happening. Indeed, only strange things happen."
The catchpoll then began to describe what, as far as he had learned, was the origin of the cerretani, and the real nature of that mysterious confraternity.
"The cerretani. A rabble. They come from Cerreto in Umbria, where they took refuge after fleeing Rome. They were priests, and the higher priests chased them away."
In Cerreto, the account continued, the cerretani chose from among their number a new Upright Man or head priest who divided them up according to their talents, into groups, cells and sects: Rufflers, Clapperdogeons or Fermerdy Beggars, Pailliards, Strollers, Buskers, Bourdons or False Pilgrims, Fraters or Jarkmen, Money Droppers, Rooks, Cunning-men and Cunny-shavers, Counterfeit Cranks, Dommerers, Sky Farmers and Gaggers, Duffers, Sharks or Sharpers, Faulkners, Fators, Saint Peter's Sons, Files, Bulkers, Nippers and Foysters, Hedge Priests or Patricoes, Swigmen, Abram Men, Amusers, Anglers (or Hookers), Chopchurches, Collectors, Pinchers, Swaddlers, Ark Ruffians, Wiper Drawers, Badgers, Bawdy Baskets, Sneaks, Snudges, Cleymers, Cloak Twitchers, Crackers, Flying Porters, Rum Dubbers, Lully Triggers, Leggers, Lumpers, Heavers, Hostelers, Jinglers, Whipjacks, Kid Lays, Queer Plungers, Reliquaries, and so on and so forth.
"How do you manage to remember all those names?"
"With the job I do..."
He went on to explain that the Fraters, who are also known as Jarkmen, counterfeit the seals of pontiffs or prelates - which they call jarks in their gibberish - and show them off, pretending that they have permits to issue indulgences, saving sinners from purgatory and hell and to absolve all sins, in exchange for which they exact payment in gold from the credulous.
"The Cunning-men are so-called because they are false, they pretend to be soothsayers and hoodwink simple villagers, claiming in exchange for money to foresee the future and to be full of the Holy Spirit. The Hedge Priests are false friars or false priests who have never taken either minor or major orders. They go from village to village and say mass, after which they make off with the takings from the collection; as penitence, they impose yet more charity, all of which ends up in their pockets. The Bourdons are false pilgrims who beg for alms on the pretext that they must travel to the Holy Land or to Santiago de Compostela or to Our Lady of Loreto. The Dommerers claim to have relatives or brothers in the hands of the Turks and beg for alms to ransom them, but it is not true. The Swigmen, on the other hand. . ."
"One moment: if the cerretani do all these things, then how come no one stops them?" Atto objected.
"Because they are secretive. They are divided into sects, no one knows how many there are nor where they are."
"But are they sects, as you claim, or just groups of rogues?"
"Both. They are above all rogues, but they have secret rituals which they use to swear fidelity to the group and to tighten the bonds of brotherhood. Thus, if one of them is taken, the others can be sure that he will never talk. Otherwise he could fall victim to a curse. That, at least, is what they believe."
"What rites do they practise?"
"Ah, if only one could know. Black masses, sacrifices, blood pacts and other such things, probably. But no one has ever seen them. They go into the countryside to do such things in isolated places: deconsecrated chapels, abandoned villas. . ."
"Are they numerous, here in Rome?"
"They are especially to be found in Rome."
"And why is that?"
"Because the Pope is here. And where there are popes, there's money. What's more, there are the pilgrims to be gulled. And now, there's the Jubilee: more money and more pilgrims."
"Has no pontiff ever issued an ecclesiastical ban against these sects?" interrupted Atto.
"If a sect - or a group of criminals - is to be prohibited, it must be clearly known," replied Sfasciamonti. "Specific actions must be attributed to it and its members must have names and identities. How can one ban a vague grouping consisting of wretched homeless and nameless vagabonds?"
Atto nodded in silence, thoughtfully scratching the dimple on his chin.
When we returned to the calash, dawn was about to break. Sfasciamonti took leave of us.
"I shall be coming later to the Villa Spada. First I must go home. My mother is expecting me. It is today that I must deliver her provisions, and if I do not come on time, she worries."
"Together?" I exclaimed in astonishment, as I and Buvat looked at one another in unison.
We had barely taken our leave of Sfasciamonti. Abbot Melani had already taken his place in the calash to return to the Villa Spada when, instead of making room for us, he closed the door behind him.
He then held out a letter to me, already closed and sealed. I recognised it at once: it was that letter, the reply to his mysterious Maria.
"But Signor Atto," came Buvat's and my own weak protests, for in truth we both longed for a little rest before facing the new working day.
"Later. Now, be on your way. Buvat will deliver the message. Alone, however, for you," and here, he turned to me, "are not appropriately dressed. I shall have to make you a present of a new suit sooner or later. I shall explain to you where you must go: with Buvat, I'd be wasting my breath."
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