memory (and to become a gazetteer, you must have a good memory) you would recall that there was some confusion during the last roll- call: when I was called, Cristofano brought Stilone Priaso to the window; when it was Dulcibeni's turn, Cristofano presented Robleda, and so on, all the time pretending that he was making mistakes. In your opinion, after that pantomime, could the Bargello's three men be sure of recognising all the guests at the inn? Bear in mind that the Bargello does not have our effigies, for none of us is the Pope or the King of France."
My silence answered for me.
"Of course, they could recognise no one," the abbot reaffirmed, "apart from the young gentleman with fair hair who protested in a foreign language."
"And so Bedfordi..."
I broke off and had a sudden illumination as I watched Devize disappear through the door of his chamber.
"... plays the guitar, speaks French, and sometimes pretends that he knows English," said Atto with a conspiratorial smile.
"But then Signor Devize went to the window a second time in the place of Bedfordi and I did not realise it!"
"You did not realise it because it was absurd, and absurd things, even when true, are the most difficult to see."
"But the Bargello's men called us one by one," I objected, "when the inn was closed down on suspicion of infection."
"Yes, but that first inspection was too confused and chaotic, because the officials had to see to the blocking of the road and the boarding up of the inn as well. And several days have passed since then. The visual obstacle, namely the grille over the first-floor window, did the rest. I myself, from behind that grille, would not be able to identify any of our jailers with any certainty in a day or two's time. And, speaking of eyes, pray, remind me again: what colour are Bedfordi's?"
I reflected for a moment, and a smile came to my lips: "They are... crossed."
"Exactly. If you think carefully on the matter, his squint is his most distinctive trait. When the three inspectors saw two converging blue eyes looking at them (and here, our Devize played his part well) they had no doubt: it was the Englishman."
I remained lost in silent amazement, turning the matter over and over in my mind.
"And now, go to Cristofano," said Atto, dismissing me. "He will certainly want you to be with him. Do not discuss with him the little tricks which he has helped me to put into effect: he is ashamed of them because he fears he may betray the principles of his art. He is mistaken, but we had better leave him to think as he will."
No sooner had I rejoined him than Cristofano gave me comforting news: he had conferred with the Bargello's men, whom he had assured that the condition of the entire group was good. He had then offered them his personal guarantee that any news of importance would be communicated to an emissary, who would call on the hostelry every morning in order to check on the situation with Cristofano himself. This would free us of the need to appear together for a roll-call, as we had indeed done (and miraculously) hitherto.
"At other times, such frivolity would not have been possible," opined the doctor.
"What do you mean?"
"I know what measures were taken in Rome during the Pestilence of 1656. Scarcely had news been received of suspected cases of infection in Naples, than all roads were closed between the two cities, and all movements of persons and goods with other bordering territories were prohibited. Commissioners were sent to the four parts of the Pontifical State to see to the implementation of public health measures. The coast guards were reinforced, so as to limit or prevent landings by ships, while in Rome a number of the city's gates were immediately barred, and those which remained open were subject to rigorous filtering in order to limit the passage of persons to what was strictly necessary."
"And all this was not sufficient to prevent the infection?"
It was already too late, explained the doctor sadly. A Neapolitan fishmonger, one Antonio Ciothi, had already come to Rome from Naples in the preceding month of March, to escape from an accusation of homicide. He had taken up lodgings in a hostelry at Trastevere, in the Montefiore quarter, when he was suddenly taken ill. The wife of the host (Cristofano had learned these details from conversations with a number of persons who had witnessed these events) had immediately arranged for the fishmonger to be transported to Saint John's Hospital, where the young man died a few hours later. The post-mortem found no cause for alarm. A few days later, however, the wife of the host died, then her mother and her sister. In these cases, too, no tokens were found of infection with the plague, but it was nevertheless decided, in view of the all too clear coincidence, to send the host and all his servants and apprentices to the pest-house. Trastevere was cordoned off from the remainder of the city and the special Congregation for Public Health was convened to deal with the emergency. Commissions were set up for every ward, consisting of prelates, gentlemen, chirurgeons and notaries, who carried out a census of the city's inhabitants, noting their trade, their material conditions and the state of their health, precisely so as to enable the Congregation for Public Health to have a clear view of the situation and to visit and succour such houses as might need assistance, on alternate days.
"But now all the city can think only of the battle for Vienna," observed Cristofano, "and our three inspectors told me that the Pope was seen recently prostrated before the crucifix, weeping in dismay and apprehension for the fate of all Christendom; and when the Pope weeps, so the Romans reason, we must all tremble."
The physician added that the responsibility which he had taken upon himself was extraordinarily grave, and that it fell also upon my shoulders. Henceforth, we must scrutinise with the closest attention every slight variation in our lodgers' health. Moreover, any shortcomings on the part of either of us (and he would certainly report any breaches I might commit) would entail grave penalties for us. In particular, we must at all costs ensure that no one should leave the inn before the end of the quarantine. However, to ensure the necessary control, the two rounds of the watch would continue to make sure that no one would attempt to undo the boards or lower themselves from the windows.
"I shall serve you in all things," I said to Cristofano in order to appease him; yet, I awaited nightfall impatiently.
The otherwise welcome suspension of the roll-call had the unfortunate effect of compromising the plan, hatched out with Atto Melani, of looking into Padre Robleda's Bible. I informed the abbot discreetly of this, slipping a note under his door and returning at once to the kitchen, for I feared that Cristofano (who was moving from one chamber to the next in order to visit his patients) might surprise me in conversation with him.
It was Cristofano himself, however, who called me to the chamber of Pompeo Dulcibeni on the first floor. The gentleman from Fermo had suffered an attack of sciatica. I found him in bed, lying on one side, while he begged the doctor to set him back on his feet as soon as possible.
Cristofano manipulated Dulcibeni's legs pensively. He would raise the one and order me at the same time to bend the other one: with each such movement, the physician would stop and await the patient's reaction. Every now and then, he would cry out, and Cristofano would nod solemnly.
"I see. Here we need a magisterial cataplasm with cantharides. My boy, while I prepare this, anoint all his left side with this balm," said he, handing me a small jar.
He then informed Dulcibeni that he would have to wear a magisterial cataplasm for eight days.
"Eight days! Do you mean that I must remain immobilised for that long?"
"Of course not: the pain will be attenuated a long time before that," retorted the doctor. "Obviously, you will not be able to run. But what does that matter to you? As long as the quarantine lasts, you will not be able to do more than while away the time."
Dulcibeni grumbled somewhat ill-temperedly.
"Take comfort," added Cristofano. "There is one here younger than yourself, yet full of infirmities: Padre Robleda does not show it, but for several days now he has been su
ffering from rheumatism. His must be a delicate constitution, for the inn does not seem damp to me and the weather these days is fine and dry."
I gave a start on hearing these words. My suspicions in regard to Robleda became yet more acute. I saw, meanwhile, that the doctor had taken from his bag a jar full of dead coleoptera. He drew out two of a golden-greenish colour.
"Cantharides, or the Spanish fly," said he, putting the beetles under my nose, "dead and desiccated. They are miraculous as vesicants—and as aphrodisiacs, too."
Saying this, he began to pulverise them carefully over a piece of saturated gauze.
"Ah, the Jesuit has rheumatism," exclaimed Dulcibeni after a while. "So much the better; that way he will leave off sticking his nose into everyone else's business."
"What do you mean?" asked Cristofano, busying himself on his beetles with a little knife.
"Did you not know that the Society of Jesus is a nest of spies?"
My heart leapt into my mouth. I must know more. But Cristofano did not seem to be drawn to the subject and Dulcibeni's assertion was thus on the point of dying unanswered.
"Surely you do not mean that seriously?" I asked forcefully.
"Very much so!" replied Dulcibeni with conviction.
In his opinion, not only were the Jesuits masters of the art of espionage, but they claimed it as a privilege of their order, and whosoever practised that art without their express permission was to be severely punished. Before the Jesuits came into the world, other religious orders had also played a part in the intrigues surrounding the Apostolic See. But since the followers of Saint Ignatius had applied themselves to the exercise of espionage, they had outrun them all. This was because the pontiffs had always had an absolute need to penetrate the most recondite affairs of princes. Knowing that no one had ever succeeded in the business of spying as well as the Jesuits, they made heroes of them. They sent them to all major cities and favoured them with privileges and papal bulls, elevating them above all other orders.
"Excuse me," objected Cristofano, "but how could the Jesuits spy so well? They cannot frequent women, who always gossip too much; they cannot be seen in the company of criminals or persons of low station, and moreover..."
The explanation was simple, replied Dulcibeni: the pontiffs had assigned the sacrament of Confession to the Jesuits, not only in Rome but in all the cities of Europe. Through Confession, the Jesuits could insinuate their way into the minds of all, rich and poor, princes and peasants. But above all, they thereby scrutinised the inclinations and disposition of every counsellor and minister of state: with practised rhetoric, they mined the depths of men's hearts for all the resolutions and reflections which their victims were secretly nurturing.
In order to dedicate themselves entirely to Confession, and to gain ever greater profit from that source, they had obtained from the Holy See the right to exemption from other holy offices. Meanwhile, the victims took the bait. The kings of Spain, for instance, had always used Jesuit confessors and wished their ministers to do likewise in all the lands under Spain's rule. Other princes, who had hitherto lived in good faith and were unaware of the malice of the Jesuits, began to believe that these fathers possessed some special virtue as confessors.
Gradually, they came to follow the example of the kings of Spain and also chose Jesuits as their confessors.
"But someone must surely have exposed them," argued the physician, while he continued to make the carcasses of the cantharides crackle under his little scalpel.
"Of course. But once their game was discovered, they placed themselves at the service of this or that prince, as the opportunity presented itself, always ready to betray them."
That was why everyone loved them and everyone hated them, said Dulcibeni: they were hated because they served everyone as spies, they were loved because no better spies could be found to fulfil the sovereigns' purposes. They were loved, because they offered their services voluntarily as spies; they were hated because they thereby gained the greatest profit for their order and inflicted the greatest damage upon the whole world.
Cristofano applied the magisterial cataplasm to Dulcibeni, sprinkled with little fragments of beetle, and we both took our leave of him. I was absorbed in a jumble of thoughts: first, the physician's reference to Robleda's curious rheumatisms, then the revelation that the Spanish Jesuit had, at the seminary, been trained more to spy than to pray: all confirmed me more in my suspicions about Robleda.
I was about to retire at last (I really needed rest after the exertions of the previous night) when I noticed that the Jesuit had left his chamber, accompanied by Cristofano, in order to go to the pit near the kitchen where it was possible to deposit organic dejections. Faced with so propitious an opportunity, thought and action were one: I moved silently to the second floor and carefully pushed the door of the Jesuit's chamber, slipping inside. But it was too late: I thought I heard Padre Robleda's footsteps climbing back up the stairs.
I rushed out and turned hurriedly towards my own chamber, disappointed by this failure.
On my way, I stopped to call on my master, whom I found sitting up in bed. I had to help him loosen his bowels. He put some confused and listless questions to me concerning his own state of health because, he stammered, the Sienese physician had treated him like a child, hiding the truth from him. I endeavoured in my turn to calm him down, after which I helped him to drink, arranged his bedding as best I could and stroked his head for a long time, until he fell asleep.
Thus I could shut myself into my own room. I took out my little notebook and, in a state of extreme fatigue, I wrote down—in truth, somewhat hurriedly—the latest events.
Once I had retreated to the bed, my need for rest struggled with all the thoughts which came crowding in, striving in vain to arrange themselves into a reasonable and orderly whole. Perhaps the page of the Bible found by Ugonio and Ciacconio had belonged to Robleda, and he had lost it in the underground galleries near the Piazza Navona: it was probably he who had stolen the keys, and in any case, he had access to the tunnels. The assistance which I had given to Abbot Melani had exposed me to unspeakable terrors, as well as the struggle with the loathsome corpisantari. Yet the abbot himself had resolved the situation with the aid of a mere pipe disguised as a pistol: a success which he had then repeated, planning and carrying out the deception of the three emissaries of the Bargello, and thus circumventing the danger of a state of pestilence being declared, with all the frenzied controls to which that would have given rise. My lingering mistrust for Abbot Melani was subtly tempered by thankfulness and admiration, so much so that I awaited with a certain impatience the moment when the search for the thief would resume, almost certainly that very night. I wondered whether the fact that the abbot was suspected of espionage and involvement in political intrigues might not be something of a disadvantage for us all; but then, I thought, it was if anything the contrary: thanks to his cunning, the whole group of guests of the hostelry had been saved from the dreadful prospect of internment in a pest-house. He had, moreover, informed me of his mission, and thus given a token of his trust in me. He had purloined letters from Colbert's house; but such doings were, he affirmed, the direct and ineluctable consequence of his devotion to the French sovereign; nor did proofs exist to the contrary. I rejected with a shiver the sudden appearance, among my lucubrations, of the disgusting mass of human remains which Ciacconio's heap had disgorged onto me, and suddenly felt an overwhelming flood of gratitude for Abbot Melani. Sooner or later, I reflected, finally giving way to the promptings of Morpheus, I would be unable to prevent myself from revealing to the other guests the presence of mind he had shown in dealing with the two corpisantari and holding them at bay with promises and threats in equal measure.
Such, I imagined, must be the actions of a special agent of the King of France, and I only regretted that I had neither the knowledge nor the experience necessary adequately to convey such admirable undertakings: a network of secret passages unde
r the city; an agent of the King of France selflessly and and at great peril hunting down rogues and ruffians; an entire group of gentlemen sequestered as a result of a mysterious death and suspected of infection with the plague; and finally, Superintendent Fouquet, believed dead, yet sighted in Rome by informers of Colbert. Now almost overcome by tiredness, I prayed heaven that I might one day, as a gazetteer, be able to write of similar marvellous events.
The door (which I ought in truth to have closed more carefully) opened on squeaking hinges. I turned towards it just in time to see a shadow hide swiftly behind the wall.
I arose and, leaping from my bed to surprise the intruder, rushed out into the corridor. I saw a figure a few paces from the door. It was Devize, who held his guitar in his hand.
"I was sleeping," I protested, "and Cristofano has forbidden us to leave our chambers."
"Look," said he, pointing towards the object of his visit on the ground.
Suddenly, 1 realised that I was walking on a carpet of small stones, whose crunching had accompanied me from the moment I had left my bed. I felt the ground with the palm of my hand.
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