In the festive but still somewhat stunned crowd of the cerretani, everyone was asking his neighbour who had had the fine idea of setting off fireworks.
"Let's go, Signor Atto."
"We can't yet. We must wait until. . . Buvat! There you are, damn it! Let's get out of here."
"What about Ugonio?" I asked.
I looked at the platform. The corpisantaro had turned his back on us. The message could not have been clearer. We must leave the amphitheatre on our own; he would take another route.
We hastened towards the secret door.
"Not like that, not like that," whispered Atto. "Look at me."
Instead of turning his head in the opposite direction from the crowd, Abbot Melani was walking backwards, with his face directed towards the platform, so as to merge in with all those around us.
Too late. The half-naked cerretano who had been keeping an eye on us had seen me and Buvat and was now trying to point out our position to a pair of ugly great brutes. The two stared intensely into the teeming multitude in search of our trio. In the end, they identified us and I saw them set off determinedly after us.
"Signor Atto, they've sent two fellows to catch us," I announced, as we continued our difficult task of making our way through the crowd while showing no signs of haste.
The distance between us and the pair who were hunting us down decreased rapidly. Forty paces. Fifteen. The door leading to the secret passage through the rock was in sight. Ten paces from the brutes. Eight.
A sudden violent movement caught my attention. It was behind the pair following us and a little to the right. The outline of Ugonio, advancing with great difficulty, tugged back from behind - then turning to free himself - a hand taking Atto's tome away from him - but he resists, grabs it back, again begins to flee - other hands grasping the book, the binding is torn. ..
"Buvat!" commanded Atto, apparently referring to something already agreed.
I did not understand what he meant. Meanwhile, we were only some six yards from the bully boys. Now I could see them better. They were as dirty as all the others but quite muscular and obtuse-looking. I could tell instinctively that they knew very well how to inflict pain.
"But where am I to... Ah, here!" exclaimed Buvat, practically throwing himself at a cerretano bearing a torch.
The flame was incredibly intense: red, white and yellow as well as some shades of light blue, then the Catherine wheel became animated and spun wildly, flying towards Ugonio and those chasing after him. Buvat had worked most skilfully, hurriedly lighting the fuse at just the right point and aiming the firework perfectly. The crowd split into two like the Red Sea dividing to let the children of Israel pass.
Meanwhile, after the ceremony and the sermon, the time had come for Bacchus to take to the stage. An enormous vat was being transported towards the speakers' rostrum, to enable the revellers to give full rein to their baser instincts. The container, which must have weighed as much as a pair of buffaloes, was being carried by a group of cerretani who were already tipsy and was just in the way of the pair who were after us.
I just had time, as we disappeared into the secret passage, to catch a glimpse of the first of the two brutes, his face contorted with pain and his leg shattered under the huge vat, while the other screamed at the bearers terrorised by our rocket, and tried to co-ordinate their efforts so as to extricate his injured mate. The smoke from the Catherine wheel, which had ended up goodness knows where, was making those nearest to it weep and adding to the confusion. The chaos was total, the panic of the cerretani, too.
I could see nothing else. As the door closed behind us, there blew on my face for the last time, like the breath of a sleeping dragon, the rank, foul stench of the cerretano gathering.
The next sensory impression was the invigorating caress of the night breeze as we took the road back: a long march across fields, on the bare grass, avoiding the path so as to spare ourselves any disagreeable encounters. We kept our ears pricked and our eyes alert for any sign of whether Ugonio had made it to the exit: an all-too-faint hope, as he had been found out. In fact, we heard and saw nothing.
Atto was swearing. His treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave, which had perhaps already caused Haver's death, was still in Ugonio's hands and the last time that we had seen him, he had been in those of the cerretani. The tomb-robber had betrayed them for Atto's money. They would by now have found it on his person and torn him to pieces.
We came to the place where we had left Sfasciamonti, by now exhausted, our nerves shattered by the danger from which we had just escaped, and depressed by the defeat we had suffered. For the last few minutes, Atto had trailed behind us, fiddling with something in his waistcoat, so much so that Buvat and I had had to incite him to catch up with us.
Sfasciamonti came towards us.
"Let's get a move on, it will soon be daybreak," he urged.
"Look out! Behind you!" Atto yelled at him.
The catchpoll spun around, fearing an attack from behind.
Atto approached and pulled something from his waistcoat. The report of the little pistol resounded sharply, almost stridently, in the night.
Sfasciamonti fell forward onto his face with a blind scream of pain.
"Let us go," was all that Abbot Melani said.
I had not the courage to look back and see the sad, corpulent figure of the catchpoll disappear amidst the grass of the field, covered in blood right down to his ankles.
We were five when we left, only three returned. Ugonio was at that moment probably being murdered by the crowd in the amphitheatre, while Sfasciamonti must be dragging himself in search of help in a desperate attempt to survive.
At last, we reached the carriage which was waiting for us behind the haystack, and were on our way. In response to the questioning glance of the coachman, when he noticed the absence of Sfasciamonti (who had hired him) and Ugonio, Atto responded laconically: "They preferred to stay overnight."
Words accompanied by gold coin, which Atto forced into the postillion's hands, thus silencing any further questions.
Once again, as seventeen years before, I found myself sur-reptiously scrutinising the face of Abbot Atto Melani, one-time famous castrato singer, trusted aide to the Medici of Florence, to Mazarin and to a thousand princes throughout Europe, friend of cardinals, popes and sovereigns, and secret agent of the Most Christian King of France, and wondering whether I was not in fact facing a mere rogue, or worse, a professional killer.
He had shot poor Sfasciamonti coldly, cruelly and without showing the least sign of pity. In the face of such determination, no one had dared express the least opposition. Had I protested, perhaps I too would have met the same end.
Now, sitting in the carriage opposite the Abbot, my limbs felt as cold and rigid as marble. Buvat, overcome by emotion, had soon collapsed into heavy, infantile sleep.
Atto relieved me of the need to put questions to him. It was as though he had heard the sound of my thoughts and wanted to silence it.
"It was you who provided me with the necessary elements," said he suddenly. "In the first place, the ease with which the thief got into my apartment. It was you who pointed that out when we inspected the place immediately after the theft. After all, you said, Villa Spada was under close surveillance. And then I asked."
"Whom did you ask?" said I, without understanding what Atto was getting at.
"The thief, obviously: Ugonio. And yes, he told me that, yes, the cerretani had told him that his work would be facilitated, so to speak, by those working in the Villa Spada."
"Sfasciamonti betrayed us," I murmured.
I was unable to accept this. Had Ugonio and his accomplices really carried out the theft with Sfasciamonti's complicity?
"Ugonio might have said that he'd been helped by Sfasciamonti for the sole purpose of calumnying him," I objected. "After all, the catchpolls are the enemies of the corpisantari."
"That's true. But I told him straight away that I suspected Don Paschatio, wi
th whom the corpisantari have no bone to pick. Thus, I avoided the risk of a less-than-genuine answer."
"And what else?"
"Then it was you who again provided me with an interesting factor: the reform of the police, which you heard talk of during the celebrations. If that were to be put into effect, many catchpolls might lose their jobs, including Sfasciamonti. Our man's scared, he wants money, the future is uncertain. And then there's the incredible story of the ball."
"Do you mean when we went to Saint Peter's?"
"It was quite clear that it was he who prevented you from taking my treatise from the ball, where it was hidden - a weird idea but, I must admit, a rather charming one - either by Zabaglia, the foreman at Saint Peter's in cahoots with the cerretani or, more probably, by one of them who'd done him some dirty favour. I pretended I believed him when he told me that he had picked up your inanimate body and carried you back to the Villa Spada all on his own, losing my treatise in the process - what a coincidence!"
"What do you think really happened?"
"He nearly killed himself to get to the ball before you because he wanted to stop you from getting your hands on his quarry. He did not fall accidentally, as it seemed to you, he must have thrown himself onto you with his full weight, knocking you down and giving you a good bash over the head to send you into the world of dreams. Then he took you away with the help of the guards, obviously in collusion with Zabaglia."
I remembered that when I came to my senses after Sfasciamonti had brought me home from the failed expedition to the ball above Saint Peter's, 1 had heard Atto pronounce certain obscure phrases. Now their meaning became quite clear to me.
"That was why you said, if my memory does not betray me, 'No one can escape death like that save with the help of an assiduous practitioner.'You meant that it was Sfasciamonti who saved me from death or capture."
"Exactly."
"You also said: 'Behind every strange or inexplicable death there lies a conspiracy of the state, or of its secret forces.'"
"Yes, and that's not just true of assassinations but of every single theft, every injustice, every massacre, every scandal about which the people complain to high heaven and yet, strangely, no culprits are ever brought to justice. The state can do absolutely anything, if it so desires. It doesn't matter whether it is the King or France, the Pope or the Emperor who's in command. The all-too-easy life of the cerretani here in Rome is a perfect example: they can get away with it only because of the corruption of individual catchpolls or their superiors, the Bargello or the Governor. Or perhaps the state may find it useful to manipulate the cerretani for its own purposes. Or they may hold them in reserve to do so when necessary. Remember, my boy, happy is the criminal who sows terror on behalf of the state: he'll surely never go to prison. But only for as long as he's not privy to too many infamous secrets; when that day comes, he'll meet a bad end."
"Yes, just recently I was told that the halt and the blind belonging to the Company of Saint Elizabeth bribe the catchpolls to be able to beg in peace."
"I'm perfectly aware of that. So why are you surprised if the cerretani pay Sfasciamonti?"
So here, I thought, was the suspicion which had been tormenting me ever since I had learned about the Company of Saint Elizabeth, and which I had never quite been able to put my finger on.
"But why did he help us to get as far as Zabaglia and so to understand that your treatise was inside the ball?"
"Because when I asked him to find the person of whom Don Tibaldutio had spoken, I did not tell him what I meant to do with that information. He himself was curious to know what we wanted it for."
I fell silent, licking the wounds in my soul.
"Sfasciamonti is no fool," the Abbot continued. "He's one of the many catchpolls who's short of money and tread the line between justice and crime. They're always on the lookout for a good source to exploit: assassins on the run, harlots occupying apartments illegally, embezzling tax officials, and so on and so forth. Anyone susceptible to a good extortion racket. Once he's identified his victim, the catchpoll puts on a terrifying face: he pretends that he means to investigate, to arrest or sequester property. Thus, he makes a good impression on his superiors, while in reality he always comes to a stop one step before reaching his supposed goal: when he has to arrest someone, he arrives two minutes too late, when he's interrogating, he conveniently forgets to put the right question; when he's searching premises, he doesn't look in the room where the loot is hidden. In exchange, obviously, the victim shells out a good deal of money. Rogues always set a good deal aside for such contingencies."
"But the cerretani are far too numerous to be afraid of. .."
"... of a fathead like Sfasciamonti? For those engaged in dirty business, every single catchpoll is like a mosquito: if you can't squash him, you try to make sure he stays outside. With money, you can do that, and there are no pointless risks involved. On the contrary, you'll make a friend of him forever, because he'll have every interest in leaving things as they stand. You know the saying: stir the shit and out comes the stink."
I felt bewildered, and said nothing. The coarse but honest catchpoll I thought I knew had turned out to be no better than an astute, corrupt rascal.
"Who knows how long Sfasciamonti's been on the heels of the cerretani?' Atto continued. "Whenever he got too close to the objective and threatened to cause them serious trouble, they'd give him something to keep him happy. And off he'd go back home with his tail between his legs. That's what he did when he interrogated II Roscio and Geronimo: he falsified the data so that it could never be found and would never be used. What judge can accept evidence a century old? Yet the information contained in those records could not be hotter; these things are all taking place here and now: a thorn in the side of the cerretani who want to keep their sects secret and are prepared to pay generously to ensure that stuff does not get around. So he keeps blackmailing them and they keep paying. The catchpolls' pay is risible, you too know that from when you overheard those two prelates at the villa, and that's why the Rome police are so corrupt."
"But is Sfasciamonti not afraid that the cerretani may sooner or later grow tired of this and get rid of him?"
"Kill him? Forget it. A dead catchpoll can cause a whole load of trouble, while buying him off with money resolves everything discreetly and well. Besides, if you kill him, you don't know who may take his place. Perhaps it will be a hard man who takes no bribes and does his job thoroughly."
"When were you sure he was betraying us?"
"After you climbed up to the ball at Saint Peter's. But tonight 1 got the final confirmation: how do you think the cerretani knew that II Roscio had talked, as Geronimo told us?"
"It was Sfasciamonti," I murmured disconsolately.
So, I reflected bitterly, the catchpoll had accompanied us during our investigations, even providing us with some help here and there, only in order to spy on us and keep a check on our activities.
"The funny thing is that, to keep him at my service for the past while I too had to pay him. So he was taking money from both sides: from Abbot Melani and from the cerretani," said he with a bitter smile.
"Did you plan to use the fireworks?"
"Only if our backs were to the wall, in order to create chaos and exploit it. It was Cardinal Spada's idea of rounding off the celebrations with a pyrotechnical display that saved us. Even you did not know what was going to happen in the amphitheatre: I couldn't risk the possibility that you might give something away to Sfasciamonti."
I felt myself blushing. Despite all his expressions of friendship and esteem, at the decisive moment, Atto had treated me like a troublemaker to be trusted with as few secrets as possible. There was nothing to be done about it, I thought: once a spy, always a spy, an outsider with everyone and an enemy to all forms of trust.
"Why did you bring him here with us?"
"To keep a check on him. He thought he was keeping an eye on us, but it was the other way around. I told Ugonio tha
t Sfasciamonti was not to accompany us to the meeting. Thus, he wouldn't get in our way. Of course, he could not object: he knew perfectly well that he'd have raised too many suspicions, had he done so, because I paid him to do what I told him. He may perhaps have tried to get in and give us away, but he doesn't know where the secret passage is."
I stared out into the nothingness. How was it possible? Had I really understood nothing about the people around me? Was Sfasciamonti really that hypocritical and immoral? I called to mind the first time I had met that clumsy but courageous sergeant who claimed he was trying to convince the Governor to put those mysterious cerretani in the dock: the catchpoll who withdrew from the daily struggle only to go and find his mother. . .
"By the way," added Atto, "between visiting libraries, I sent Buvat to put a couple of questions to the parish priest where Sfasciamonti lives. He discovered something really funny."
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