I was struck by Atto's hesitation in explaining why Count Lamberg should have wanted to filch his treatise. I had my own good reasons for this. From my clandestine reading of the correspondence between Atto and Maria, I knew that the conclave was not the only game involving the Pope, as Atto was trying to get me to believe. There was also the matter of the Spanish succession.
And precisely that aspect of the question remained unclear to me. Why had Atto, in reconstructing all that had happened to him (the theft, the wound to his arm) failed to make any reference whatever to the Spanish succession? Yet Lamberg, the Ambassador of the Habsburgs, must take a lively interest in the question, seeing that the House of Austria aspired to place one of its members on the Spanish throne!
I pretended to be satisfied with Abbot Melani's explanation and for the rest of the way we rode in silence.Gloomy and sinister was the place where our meeting was to be held, and perfectly in keeping with Ugonio's lugubrious cowled silhouette which awaited us in the midst of the expanse of tombstones. Some nocturnal raptor disturbed the air with its eldritch screeches; the air of that warm night, almost as though impregnated with some black secretions from mortal remains, was in that neglected churchyard even denser, murkier, more torrid. Ugonio had chosen well: for a clandestine meeting, there could be no better place than the harlots' cemetery.
The corpisantaro approached, staggering under the weight of a great jute sack which he bore on his shoulders.
"What have you in there?" asked Atto.
"A merest ineptitude of nothingnesses. Jubilleous objectitions."
Atto circled him and prodded the sack with his hands. The loot creaked and clattered as though the bag had been crammed to the limit with all manner of objects: wooden, metal and bone.
"So business is thriving now that there's the Jubilee?"
Ugonio nodded with false modesty.
"This is a lady's hand mirror," Abbot Melani diagnosed, groping at a corner of the sack, "stolen from some poor dame as she prayed in church. The little purseful of coin just next to it will be the proceeds of alms obtained from the ingenuous by one of your dirty tricks, or else your ruffian's fee for taking a group of pilgrims exhausted by their travels to some overpriced doss-house. This must be a most holy sacrament filched from some distracted parish priest; and this must be a crucifix, perhaps lifted off some confraternity during their visit to the four basilicas, am I not right?"
The corpisantaro could not suppress a bestial half-smiling grimace which betrayed shame at the unmasking of his evildoing and gloating delight at the opportunities which the Jubilee offered him for satisfying his base appetites. He then drew a little book out from his greatcoat and handed it to Melani. It was in rather poor condition, and poorly bound; judging by its size it could not contain more than eighty pages. Atto opened it at the frontispiece as I craned over and read:
A new way of understanding the cant lingo.
Or how to speak St Giles' Greek newly brought up to date in Alphabetical Order.
A work no less pleasant than useful MDXLV
In Ferrara by Giovanmaria di Michieli and Antonio Maria di Sivieri, Companions.
Anno MDXLV
"Aha!" the Abbot jubilated, flourishing it under Buvat's nose.
"What is it?" I asked.
"What my good secretary was supposed to find: a glossary enabling one to understand the canters' language - or Saint Giles' Greek, if you prefer. It will help us to understand what the cerretani are saying. 'Tis a good thing that I also asked Ugonio to find this somewhere," replied Atto, slipping a couple of silver coins into the corpisantaro's claws.
"I bestole it off a goodlious old friendly," declared Ugonio with a mean snigger.
"From what I can see, it is an old edition; I doubt if it will be very reliable," interjected Atto's secretary, nervously scrutinising the book.
"Silence Buvat, and read it to me," the Abbot cut him short.
We began to leaf through the pages:
A
There followed all the letters of the alphabet, each with its double list of words from ordinary language and a translation into the jargon of the cerretani, and vice versa.
'"Tis a truly strange glossary," insisted Buvat, looking sceptical. "It mixes words with phrases, and then it makes for all kinds of confusion. 'Albert', the name of a person, means 'egg'. 'Anticrot' means 'God' and 'Christ', but also 'Ambassador'."
"It is still better than nothing," said Melani, silencing him. "Come now, let us test it. What did that cerretano, Il Marcio, cry out when we went to get him and II Roscio?"
'"The saffrons...' and then 'buy the violets'," I said.
We leafed through the book and soon found what we were looking for.
"There, do you see?" Atto gloated, turning to his secretary. "As I thought, the saffrons are the police. To buy violets means to make a run for it. Il Marcio warned Il Roscio that we were in the vicinity. This book is by no means useless. But there's something else you must lend me. I'm sure you must have many copies of what I need," said Atto to the corpisantaro, miming with his hand the gesture of someone turning a key in a lock.
Ugonio understood at once. Nodding with a sordid, knowing smile, he pulled out from the old greatcoat a huge iron ring from which hung, clinking against one another, dozens and dozens of old keys of every kind, shape and size. This was the secret arsenal of which I have already spoken, giving the corpisantari access to all the cellars of Rome for their subterranean searching for the sacred relics from the sale of which they lived; but often, they were also used to enter and rob private residences.
"Good, very good," commented Atto, inspecting the heavy bunch. "In Palazzo Spada these will surely prove useful."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Sfasciamonti, like every good catchpoll, could not wait to squeeze some information from the corpisantaro in his turn. He was still somewhat disoriented by that animal-like being, half mole and half weasel, so different from the ordinary criminals he had known; he came to the point, confronting him brutally.
"So, what did you learn?"
"I parleyfied with two Maggiorenghi," replied the corpisantaro. "The treaticise is to be presented to the Grand Legator, who in turn will present it ad Albanum."
I saw Atto grow pale. The tidings were doubly grave. Not only had the cerretani given Atto's treatise to a mysterious Grand Legator, but the latter would be presenting it to a certain Albanum. And who might that be if not Cardinal Albani, His Holiness's powerful Secretary for Breves, the man with whom Atto had already had two venomous verbal clashes at Villa Spada?
"Until Thursday, where will they be keeping my treatise?"
"In the Sacred Ball."
"The Sacred Ball?"
I looked at Sfasciamonti. His face wore the same astonished, dumbfounded expression as Atto Melani's.
"Thus have they verbalised," continued Ugonio, hunching his shoulders. "Then the Grand Legator will exposition ad Albanum the insinuation, accusation and perquisition against the treaticise."
"Who is this Grand Legator?"
"I know not. I scented that they do not want to verbalise this to me."
Some coins (no few of them) moved rapidly from Atto's hands into those of Ugonio. As he slipped them clinking into a greasy little purse, the corpisantaro pulled his cowl well over his forehead, preparing to disappear into the shadows.
"Your treaticise corroborates a periculous and suspifect sapience," said he to Atto before leaving.
"What do you mean?"
"When they affabulate thereupon, the Maggiorenghi become tempestiphilious and agitabundant. . . almost neuromaniacal. Have a care, Your Enormity. And kindly refract from requestifying me to reference more and more news and ulteriorities to you: I don't want to end up with a broken colon-bone."
On our way back, I dared not so much as address a word to Atto. This was no time for such things. From what we could glean from Ugonio's tortuous account, the cerretani did not care one bit for what Atto had written in those pages. We
gathered that they intended on Thursday to bring the matter to the attention of a mysterious Grand Legator. The latter would go and see Albanum, in other words Cardinal Albani, with a formal summons against Atto.
So, who was this Grand Legator, if not Count Lamberg? A person of such elevated lineage could, after all, only be referred to obliquely; just as the cerretani had done.
What would Albani then do? Would he in turn report Atto as a French spy? After the arguments which had flared up between the two at Villa Spada, nothing would be easier for the astute Cardinal than to denounce Abbot Melani, his political adversary (for as such he could now be described) and crush him, causing him endless trouble, including perhaps an immediate arrest for espionage and political conspiracy.
More and more questions beset us: what the deuce could the Sacred Ball be, in which, according to Ugonio, Atto's treatise was to be kept until Thursday, and where was it to be found? Sfasciamonti was silent: he too seemed quite unable to help us resolve the enigma.
"I was forgetting. Lamberg has agreed to receive me," announced Melani.
"How did he inform you?"
"Did you see me hand him a note when chocolate was being served?"
"Yes. I remember that he replied, 'Very well, very well.' So, in that little note, did you request an audience?"
"Precisely. Subsequently, I asked his secretary, and he arranged the appointment: I shall visit Lamberg on Thursday."
As he pronounced that last fateful word, the day on which Atto would perhaps learn the truth about his stabbing, I heard a slight tremor in his voice. Watching him as he rode his nag, I knew that his soul was weighed down by yet another great anxiety. He felt himself to be at the mercy of two giants, Count Lamberg, the Imperial Ambassador, and Cardinal Albani, the Secretary for Breves.
And to think that he had come to Rome (or so he had told me) to take the helm at the conclave and to make his mark on the fate of the papacy! The navigator had become a castaway; and destiny, which he had meant to tame, was crushing the barque of his soul as cruel Scylla had done with the ship of Ulysses.
Day the Seventh
13th JULY, 1700
*
"Mistress Cloridia, I seek Mistress Cloridia! Open up at once!"
I know not for how long they had been knocking at the door of my little house. When I at last opened my eyes, I saw that it was still pitch dark. My wife had already put on her gown and was on her way to the door.
I dressed with all speed, while the sparkling freshness of the air suggested that we were in the hours immediately before first light, when the temperature sinks to its lowest. I rejoined Cloridia. In the doorway stood a little boy who had just alighted from a barouche; the wife of the Deputy Steward of Palazzo Spada needed her midwife: her waters had broken.
"Please hurry, quickly, Mistress Cloridia," the boy insisted. "One of the palace guards has paid me to come and fetch you. The lady's alone with her husband and doesn't know what to do. You're needed urgently."
"This we could have done without, we really could have done without," muttered my wife, stamping on the ground, while she gathered her equipment in a furious hurry. "Go and wake up the little ones," she ordered me, "and join us at once at Villa Spada."
"At Palazzo Spada, you mean," said I, correcting her.
"At the villa," she said. "We shall meet by the back entrance; and be sure to bring your big sackcloth cape with you."
"But I'm not cold."
"Do as I tell you and stop wasting my time," Cloridia retorted angrily, literally beside herself at my sluggishness in emergencies.
Still dazed and somnolent, I stared vacantly at my wife as she moved from side to side of the room, picking up a towel here and a jar of oil there. She stopped one moment to think, then took from the trunk a camisole and petticoat which she herself had worn when pregnant, wrapped them up in a bundle with a pair of clogs and other articles of clothing and in the twinkling of an eye leapt onto the barouche and urged the boy towards Villa Spada.
"The knitted stockings, too? Ah, no, that I cannot bear. Find another solution, Monna Cloridia."
"Do you want the Deputy Steward to ask me how it is that my assistant is wearing fine red abbot's stockings under her skirts?"
When I arrived at my appointment with Cloridia, I could not believe what the moon's grey reflection presented to my eyes: Atto, with his smooth, flaccid face half concealed under a white midwife's bonnet, and dressed in large women's clothes left over from my wife's last pregnancy, was mounting a last, vain resistance to Cloridia's expert hands as they lifted the skirts of his disguise.
Cloridia had dressed him well for the part of an old midwife and now, having discovered that under that attire the Abbot had secretly kept his favourite red stockings, was making him change them for a pair of knitted hempen ones of the kind worn by women of the people. It was these that had provoked Atto's rebellion. The old castrato, who had sung the most varied feminine roles in half the world's theatres, was not so ill at ease dressed up as a midwife; but, like a real prima donna, could not bear the vulgarity of those knitted stockings of the sort worn by any common woman.
"Would you rather go barefoot in your clogs, like a beggar woman?" Cloridia rebuked him impatiently.
"Good idea, you'd make a perfect cerretana," I interrupted, making fun of Atto by way of greeting, whereupon we exchanged winks.
While the barouche waited outside the gates, my consort rapidly summed up the situation. Unfortunately, her herbs had acted earlier than expected: Cloridia had counted on having the morning free in which to inform us about what she had been able to see and study at the palace the day before.
"So now we have no time," said she anxiously. "Anyway, I have learned that on the first floor there's a gallery, which is kept locked, and which Father Virgilio in person had built. It contains various objects, including the Flemish globe you mentioned to me yesterday. Perhaps you will find what you are looking for in that gallery. The Deputy Steward's lodgings are on the ground floor, on the right-hand side of the vestibule with its three small aisles; you'll find the stairs immediately after that. The rest I shall show you when we get there."
We moved towards the gates, followed by the little girls. During the ride, Cloridia explained her plan to me.
"I shall tell the Deputy Steward that, as his wife is fat, I have had to bring a trusty old midwife with me, as well as my daughters," and here she pointed at Atto, "because I need someone who, together with the husband, can hold the woman down while I induce her to give birth, while our two little ones look after the instruments, towels and all the rest."
From her little smile, it was, however, quite clear that Atto would need to make no great effort to mimic a woman's voice and movements more than convincingly.
Atto, then, was to pretend to be an assistant midwife; the thing was far from being without danger, even without considering the disgust which it caused the Abbot. How the deuce had Cloridia persuaded him to attempt this masquerade? I regretted not having been present when my consort was using her powers of persuasion.
"This is all very well," retorted Melani, "but you still have not explained to me how I am supposed to get away from the Deputy Steward's lodgings. I'd not want to run the risk of having to provide real assistance throughout the delivery and then having to return empty-handed."
"Trust me," murmured Cloridia, for we were already approaching the gate. "There's no time to explain it to you now, but I'll make sure you know when the time comes to leave me."
"But. . ." Atto tried to say.
"Hush, now."
"And what about me?" I asked.
"You, pretend to take your leave of us and, while I distract the boy who's driving the barouche, put on your cape and get onto the back axle."
My sweet wife had not thought any disguise necessary for me; ah yes, I thought with a trace of melancholy, my small size made it easy for me to slip in concealed. . .
Once they had all got down from the barouche, I leapt up as swi
ftly and stealthily as possible and hid myself behind it. Fortunately, I thought with a smile, the presence of my two little ones in the barouche, well behaved but not without vivacity, created so much noise that it helped keep my presence hidden from the young driver.
When the carriage entered the palace courtyard, 1 stretched the cape even further over my head. The guards let us pass with a nod.
As Gloridia had advised us, the Deputy Steward and his wife, who had come from Milan not long before the pregnancy to take up service with the Spada family, were temporarily lodging in a small room on the ground floor, which enabled them to keep an eye on the entrance to the palace, now that the servants had all been sent to the wedding at Villa Spada.
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