"Oh, that was an extraordinary Jubilee, yes, indeed it was," muttered the venerable Cardinal Carpegna, rather bent over his dish and with his mouth full, somewhat befuddled by his great age.
"Tell us, tell us about it, Your Eminence, tell us of some memory that is particularly dear to you," some guests encouraged him.
"Well, well, I remember, for example. . . Yes, I recall how in the church of Gesu a great machine was erected by Mariani for the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament, and this drew great multitudes of the people. The apparatus, which was, believe me, most beautiful, represented the triumph of the Eucharistic Lamb among the symbols of the New Testament and the Apocalypse, with a vision of the Evangelist John when he was in reclusion on the isle of Patmos. Under the watchful eyes of the Eternal Father, enveloped in a thousand clouds full of celestial spirits and splendours, seven angels were to be seen with seven trumpets; then one saw a divine Lamb holding a book which represented the vision of the Apocalypse, which was moreover sent to John, and to us, by God's love for mankind. . ."
"True!" approved Durazzo.
"Such holy words!" echoed Monsignor D'Aste.
"Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ," said they all (except those whose mouths were too full of the fried trout that had just been served), crossing themselves (except those whose hands were too involved with glasses of wine, knives and tridents for eating fish).
"There were visions of angelic choirs," continued Carpegna with a somewhat vacant expression, "effigies of the figures symbolising the Four Evangelists, namely the Lion, the Eagle, the Ox and the Man. I remember that the breast of the Lamb was all bloodstained and 'midst silver and golden rays of light his heart opened to display the Holy Eucharist which indeed issues only from God's love for mankind."
"Good, bravo!" approved his neighbours at table.
"But this year's Jubilee too will stand as an example for the centuries to come," said Negroni pompously.
"Oh yes, indubitably: pilgrims keep arriving from all parts of Europe. 'Tis so true that the pure, disinterested work of Holy Mother Church is more powerful than any force on earth."
"Apropos, how is this Jubilee going?" Baron Scarlatti asked Prince Borghese almost inaudibly.
"It could hardly be worse," whispered the other. "There has been a tremendous fall in the number of pilgrims. The Pope is most concerned. Not a penny is reaching the coffers."
Dinner was drawing to a close. Between one yawn and the next, eminences, princes, barons and monsignors were taking leave of one another, moving slowly towards the avenue leading to the main gate and their carriages. In a humbler procession, their secretaries, attendants, retainers, servants and other members of their retinue also moved away from the nearby table set aside for them, and from their more modest fare, in order to escort their illustrious patrons. As the table emptied, we torchbearers were able at last to relax our back and abdominal muscles, which had been so tense all evening long.
No one knew it, but when at long last I removed the ridiculous Ottoman turban and placed my smoking torch on the ground, it was I who was most breathless, not from fatigue but shock.
I had seen him at once and had realised what he was about to get up to. When he had gone on to call Cardinal Moriggia a boor three times over, I was quite sure that he would be most cruelly punished. Instead, his foolishness had been equalled only by his good fortune, and in the dim light of the dinner party, no one had caught sight of him. I moved away from the other servants, towards the outer wall of the villa. Then I heard him call me, with his usual courtesy.
"Boor!"
"As far as I am concerned, 'tis you who are the boor," I replied, speaking in the direction of the part of the garden from which the voice seemed to be coming.
"Dona nobis panem cotidianum," came Caesar Augustus's response from the dark.
He had been flying around throughout dinner above the canopy that covered the table. He surely hoped to get his talons into some fine piece of the delicacies being served, but he must then have realised that it would be impossible to do so without being seen. I had broken into a cold sweat every time that, for the pure pleasure of giving offence, he had insulted Cardinal Moriggia. Yet no one could have imagined that mocking little voice belonged to Caesar Augustus, for the simple reason that, as I have already mentioned, the parrot spoke to no one except myself and everyone regarded him as being dumb.
I advanced a little further onto the meadow, hoping that no one would come seeking me for some last-minute chore.
"Your little play could hardly have been in worse taste," I reproved him, chattering into the darkness. "Next time, they'll wring your neck and make a roast of you. Did you see the dish of quails they served up with the third course? Well, that's what you'll be reduced to."
I heard his wings beating in the dark and then a fluttering of feathers grazed my ear. He landed on a bush a few inches from me. Now at last I could see him, a white feathered phantom with a yellow plume proudly rising from his forehead, almost like some mad flag fluttering the papal colours.
I sat down on the fresh, damp grass, still somewhat over-excited and worn out by those hours spent as a torchbearer. Caesar Augustus stared at me with the usual very obvious expression of one imploring a little food, for pity's sake.
"Et remitte nobis debita nostra," he insisted, again reciting the Lord's Prayer, which he would drag into service in the most woeful tones every time that he was hungry.
"You have eaten perfectly well today, this is sheer greed," said I, cutting him short.
"Clink-clonk, tink," said the diabolical creature, imitating with singular precision the clatter of cutlery on plates, and the joyful clinking of glasses. That was only the latest of his provocations.
"I have had enough of you, now I am going to bed, and I recommend that you do. . ."
"To whom are you talking, my boy?"
Atto Melani had joined me.
I needed plenty of persuasion to explain to the Abbot the bizarre nature of the animal with whom he had surprised me in conversation. All the more so, as Caesar Augustus had fled into the shadows the moment that he caught sight of Abbot Melani and there was no way in which he could be persuaded to make an appearance.
It was no easy task to persuade Atto that I was not mad, nor was I talking to myself, but that there was a parrot hidden in the dark with which it was possible to communicate, although in the contorted and anomalous manner which was his preference. At the end of my conversation, however, Caesar Augustus, who must have been immobile all this time, watching Atto from the shadows with that mixture of mistrust and curiosity which I knew so well in him whenever he caught sight of a stranger, remained as mute as a fish.
"It must be as you say, my boy, but it seems to me that the creature has no intention of opening its mouth. Eh Caesar Augustus, are you there? What a pompous name! Cra-cra-cra! Come, come on out. Did you really call Moriggia a boor?"
Silence.
"Eh, you old crow, 'tis you I'm addressing. Out with you! Have you nothing to say for yourself?"
The fowl's beak remained sealed, nor were we vouchsafed the honour of seeing him appear.
"Well, when he deigns to show himself and puts on all those fantastic shows of which you have told me, give me a whistle and I'll fly straight to you, ha," sniggered Atto. "But now, let us get down to serious business. I have a couple of things to tell you for tomorrow, before sleep gets the better of. . ."
"Puella”
Atto looked at me in shock.
"Did you say something?" he asked.
I pointed into the darkness, in the direction of Caesar Augustus, without daring to confess openly that it was he who had offended Atto, calling him by the most insulting name possible for a castrato: puella, or, in Latin, little girl. I remained speechless: it was the first time that the parrot had uttered a word in the presence of others. Despite the insult proffered, I'd have said that Melani was honoured.
"'Tis absurd. I have seen and heard other parrots, all of the
m excellent. But this one sounded just. . ."
"... Like talking to a person of flesh and blood, as I've already told you. This time he spoke with the timbre of an old man. But if only you knew how he can imitate women's voices, children crying - not to mention sneezes and coughing."
"Signor Abbot!"
This time, it was a real human voice that was calling for our attention.
"Signor Abbot, are you there? I have been looking for you for over half an hour!"
It was Buvat who, gasping and panting, was searching for his master in the semi-darkness of the garden.
"Signor Abbot, you must come up at once. Your apartment. . . I think that someone has entered without your permission, while you were dining, and has... We have had thieves!"
"Does anyone else know of this?" asked Atto as we opened the door of his apartment, immersed in darkness.
"No one but yourselves; what's more, your orders. .."
"Very well, very well," assented Atto. He had arranged that in the event of an emergency, Buvat was to mention nothing to anyone before speaking to him. I was soon to understand why.
Atto lowered the handle, pushed on the door and entered, lighting his way with a candle.
"But the door has not been forced," I observed in astonishment.
"No, indeed it has not, as I'd have told you if you'd given me time," replied Buvat who, during the wild rush that had followed his announcement had barely had a chance to open his mouth.
I advanced too and entered the apartment. A second and then a third candle were lit, revealing the unmistakeable traces of an incursion. Everything - every object, every ornament - was cast into a general disorder. A chair was turned upside down. Books, gazettes and loose papers of every kind were scattered on the floor. Atto's clothes too had been roughly thrown to the ground or heaped up on the furniture, and it was quite clear that they, too, had been thoroughly searched. A window was open.
"Strange, truly strange," I commented. "Despite all the guards keeping watch over Villa Spada in recent days, the thieves have had no difficulty in getting right here into the great house. .."
"You are right. Yet it must have been a swift job," observed Atto after taking a rapid look around. It looks to me as though they have removed only the spyglass. 'Tis a tempting enough object. Apart from that, I think that nothing is missing."
"How do you know?" I asked, given that Atto's survey had lasted only a few seconds.
"Simple: after the attack on you two, I entrusted all my precious things to a servant of the villa. Papers of a certain importance. . . well, they are not here," said he with a sly expression which I pretended not to notice, since I too knew the hiding place: the dirty linen where I myself had found Maria's letters.
The Abbot then hastened to put his apparel back in order.
"Look at this," he groaned, "how they've crumpled them. One moment. .."
Atto was prodding his mauve-grey soutane, within which I knew that he secretly kept the scapular of the Our Lady of the Garmel, the ex voto into which he had sewn my three little pearls.
'"Tis not there any more," he exclaimed. "Oh heavens, I left it in here!"
"What?" I asked, feigning ignorance.
"Er, a. . . relic. A most precious relic which I was keeping inside here, in a scapular of the Madonna of the Carmel. They have robbed me of it."
My poor little pearls, I lamented inwardly, they seemed fated to be stolen. In any case, this showed that the thieves had been through Abbot Melani's apartment with a fine-tooth comb.
We now stood in the light of the large candelabrum which I had lit, the better to be able to carry out our own thorough check. Abbot Melani, who had suddenly sunk to his knees, shifted the day-bed and raised part of the herringbone parquet underneath it, near the window. He removed one block, then another just next to it, then a third one.
"No... By all the saints!" I heard him swearing in a low voice. "The accursed rogues!"
Buvat and I stayed silent, looking questioningly at one another. Atto stood up, dusted down his elbows and collapsed into an armchair. He stared fixedly before him.
"Dear me, what a disaster. But how is it possible? What sense does it make? Whoever could. . . I do not understand," he was raving away to himself, shaking his head with one hand clasped to his brow, quite indifferent to our amazed looks.
"This is a grave misfortune," said he, once he had recovered his aplomb, "a serious matter. I have been robbed of some most important papers. At first, I did not even take the trouble to check, so sure was I that no one could get at them. I had replaced the slats of parquet with the greatest of care and skill. I know not how they managed to find them, but that is what they have just done."
"Were they under the parquet?" I asked.
"Exactly. Not even Buvat knew that they were there," said Melani, dismissing forthwith any suspicion of a betrayal.
In the brief moment of silence that followed, Atto must have become aware of the question running through Buvat's head and my own. Since we would have to help him recover the stolen papers, he must needs furnish us with a description, however summary, of their contents.
"It is a confidential report which I have written for His Most Christian Majesty," said he at length.
"And what is it about?" I dared ask.
"The next conclave. And the next pope."
The problems, explained Atto, were two-fold. In the first place, he had promised His Majesty the King of France to deliver the report as soon as possible. The report in Abbot Melani's possession was, however, the only copy in existence and even if he were to labour for months (making superhuman efforts of memory) that would still not suffice to rewrite it. Thus, Atto ran the risk of making a fool of himself in the King's eyes; but that was the least of things.
The report revealed secret circumstances concerning the election of the last pontiffs and prognostications concerning the forthcoming conclave, and it was signed by Atto. Even if it had not been signed, it would in any case be easy to ascribe it to him, thanks to certain circumstances reported in the text.
The document was at that moment in the hands of strangers, and probably hostile ones at that. Atto thus ran the risk of being charged with espionage on behalf of France. It would not be impossible that the charge might be made even graver by accusing him of intending to disseminate the report, so that he would find himself on trial for criminal libel.
"... A crime which, as you know, is punished most severely in Rome," he concluded.
"What are we to do?" asked Buvat, no less concerned than his master.
"Since we cannot report the theft to the Bargello, we shall have to make do with the help of Sfasciamonti. Once you have put things back in some order, you, Buvat, will go and call him. Indeed no, go at once."
Once we were alone, Atto and I spent some time crawling on the floor picking up the scattered pages. Atto uttered not a word. Meanwhile, a suspicion arose in my mind concerning the object of the theft. I decided to take the plunge and ask him.
"Signor Atto, the hiding place which you chose was excellent. How can the thieves have discovered it? And what's more, the door was not forced. Someone must have had a copy of the key. How is that possible?"
"I really do not know. Curses, 'tis a mystery. Now we shall have to place ourselves in the hands of that catchpoll who will torment me with his tales of cerretani or whatever the deuce they call those mendicants, if they really do exist."
"How will you describe your manuscript? Not even to Sfasciamonti can you say exactly what it is about, seeing that one can trust no one."
He remained silent, and fixed his eyes on mine. He guessed what I suspected and realised that he could no longer put off giving me an explanation. He made a grimace of vexation and sighed: he was on the point of imparting, unwillingly, something which I did not know.
In the corridor, Buvat's footsteps were already ringing out, accompanied by Sfasciamonti's more resounding ones. I know not whether by chance or by choice, but Atto spoke at ju
st the moment when the catchpoll opened the door, meaning, at the very last free moment after which I would no longer be able to talk with him freely or to trouble him with questions to which he did not wish to reply.
"The manuscript was freshly bound. It was the little book made by Haver."
Although he still seemed somewhat somnolent, Sfasciamonti listened attentively to the account of what had taken place. He inspected the hiding place under the slats in the floor, made a quick inspection of Atto's lodgings, then asked discreetly the nature of the document that had been stolen, contenting himself with the summary explanation provided by Atto.
"It is a political text. It is of extreme importance and usefulness to me."
"I understand. The book you had bound by Haver, I suppose."
The Abbot could not deny that.
"It is a coincidence," he replied.
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