At this point, I felt bound to confess to Abbot Melani that I was not at all sure that I had fully understood the meaning of the letter which we had furtively read in Dulcibeni's chamber.
"Poor boy, you always need someone to tell you what to think. But it does not matter. That will happen, too, when you become a gazetteer."
As he had told me a few days earlier, Atto had met Kircher four years earlier, when he was already a dotard. The letter which we had just read seemed indeed to result from the great man's mental decline: it was addressed to "Monsieur le Surintendant des Finances Nicolas Fouquet", as though nothing had ever happened to the poor Squirrel.
"He had lost all sense of time," said Atto, "like those old men who think that they have become children again and ask for their mothers."
The content of the letter was, however, unequivocal. Kircher felt himself close to departure from this earth and was turning to his old friend Fouquet to thank him one last time. Fouquet, the Jesuit reminded him, had been the only potentate to whom he had confided his theory. The Superintendent had indeed cast himself down at Kircher's feet when the latter had illustrated for him in detail the great discovery of his life: the secretum pestis.
"Perhaps I understand!" I hastened to conclude, "It is the treatise in which Kircher writes of the pestilence. Dulcibeni spoke of it at the very beginning of our quarantine: Kircher wrote that the pestilence depended, not upon miasmas of unhealthy humours, but upon tiny beings, vermiculi animati or something of the sort. Perhaps that is the secret of the pestilence: invisible vermiculi."
"You could not be more mistaken," retorted Atto. "The theory of the vermiculi was never a secret: Kircher published it some thirty years ago in the Scrutinium phisico-medicum contagiosae luis quae pestis dicitur. In the letter in Dulcibeni's possession, there is far more: Kircher announces that he knows how to praevenire, regere et debellare."
"In other words, to prevent, regulate and defeat the pestilence."
"Bravo. And that is the secretum pestis. However, in order not to forget what I did manage to read, before coming to see you, I went into my chamber and there noted down all the most important phrases."
He showed me a few fragmentary words and phrases in Latin, rapidly scribbled onto a sheet of paper:
secretum morbi
morbus crescit sicut mortales
augescit patrimonium senescit ex abrupto
per vices pestis petit et regreditur
ad infinitum renovatur
secretum vitae arcanae obices celant
"According to Kircher," Atto explained, "the plague is born, grows old and dies just like men. It feeds, however, at their expense: when it is young and strong, it endeavours to extend its estate as much as possible, like a cruel ruler exploiting his subjects, and through the infection brings about the massacre of an infinity of victims. Then, suddenly, it weakens and decays, like a poor old man at the end of his strength; and in the end, it dies. The visitation is cyclical: it attacks people and then rests; years later, it again attacks; and so on ad infinitum."
"Then it is a kind of... well, a thing that is forever turning around."
"Precisely: a circular chain."
"But then the plague can never be defeated, as Kircher promised."
"That is not so. The cycle can be modified, by recourse to the secretum pestis."
"And how does that work?"
"I have read that it is divided into two parts: the secretum morbi, to cause the plague; and the secretum vitae, to cure it."
"That means: a pestiferous malefice, and the antidote thereto."
"Precisely so."
"But then, how does it work?"
"I do not know. Indeed, Kircher did not really explain it. He insisted greatly, as far as I could understand from what I was able to read, on a single point. There is in the final stages of the pestilence something unexpected, mysterious, foreign to medical doctrine: after reaching its maximum strength, the disease senescit ab abrupto, or suddenly begins to come to an end."
"I do not understand, it is all strange," I commented. "Why did Kircher not publish his findings?"
"Perhaps he feared that someone might make improper use of them. It would take little to steal so precious a thing, once the manuscript was handed over to the printers. Now, can you imagine the disaster for the whole world if such secrets were to fall into the wrong hands?""He must, then, have greatly esteemed Fouquet to confide such a thing to him alone."
"I can tell you that one needed speak only once with the Squirrel to be won over by him. Kircher added, however, that the secretum vitae is hidden by arcanae obices.
"Arcanae obices? That means 'mysterious obstacles'. But what does it refer to?
"I have not the least idea. Perhaps it is part of the jargon of the alchemists, the spagyrists or the necromancers. Kircher knew religions, rituals, superstitions and devilries from all the world over. Or perhaps arcanae obices is a coded expression which Fouquet could decipher after reading the letter."
"But Fouquet could not receive the letter," I objected, "while he was in prison at Pinerol."
"That is a correct observation. Yet someone must have delivered it to him, since we found it among Dulcibeni's effects. So the decision to allow him to have it was taken by whoever controlled all his correspondence..."
I fell silent, not daring to draw the appropriate conclusions.
"... that is, His Majesty the King of France," said Atto, swallowing, as though he were frightened by his own words.
"But then," I hesitated, "the secretum pestis..."
"Was what the King wanted from Fouquet."
That, I thought, was all that we needed. Scarcely had Atto named him and it was as though the Most Christian King, First-Born and Most Dearly Beloved Son of the Church, had somehow entered the hostelry in a freezing, angry gust, and was about to sweep away all that remained of poor Fouquet within the walls of the Donzello.
"Arcanae obices, arcanae obices" Melani chanted to himself, with his fingers drumming on his knees.
"Signor Atto," I interrupted him, "do you believe that, in the end, Fouquet revealed the secretum pestis to the King?"
"Arcanae... What did you say? I do not know, I really do not know."
"Perhaps Fouquet left prison because he had confessed," I proposed.
"Indeed, had he escaped, the news would have spread at once. I believe that matters must have gone otherwise: when Fouquet was arrested, there were found on him letters from a mysterious prelate which spoke of the secret of the pestilence. Those letters must have been kept by Colbert. If, when I entered the Coluber's study, more time had been given me, I should probably have discovered those too."
"And then?"
"And then began the trial of Fouquet. And now we know why the King and Colbert used every means to prevent Fouquet from being condemned to no more than exile: they wanted him in prison so that they could extort from him the secretum pestis. Moreover, not having understood who the mysterious ecclesiastic might be, they could turn only to Fouquet. Now, if they had understood that it was Kircher..."
"Of what use would the secret of the pestilence have been to them?"
It was all too clear, said Atto, growing fervent: control of the pestilence would have enabled Louis XIV to settle accounts once and for all with his enemies. The dream of using the plague for military purposes was, he said, centuries old. Already Thucydides told how the Athenians, when their city was decimated by the disease, suspected their enemies of the Peloponnesian League of having provoked the visitation by poisoning their wells. In more recent times, the Turks had tried (with scant success) to use the contagion to overcome besieged cities by catapulting infected bodies over the ramparts.
Fouquet held the secret weapon which the Most Christian King would have been more than delighted to use to bring to heel Spain and the Empire and to crush William of Orange and Holland.
His imprisonment had, then, been so rigorous only in order to convince Fouque
t to talk, and to be quite sure that he would not pass the secret to one of his many friends. That was why he was forbidden to write. But Fouquet did not yield.
"Why ever should he have done so?" Abbot Melani asked himself rhetorically. "Keeping the secret to himself was his sole guarantee of remaining alive!"
Perhaps the Superintendent had for years simply denied that he really knew how to disseminate the pestilence; or perhaps he had put up a series of half-truths in order to gain time and to obtain less cruel conditions of imprisonment.
"But then, why was he freed?" I asked.
"The letter from Kircher, by now utterly delirious, had reached Paris and Fouquet could therefore no longer deny all knowledge, thus endangering his own life and that of his family. Perhaps in the end Fouquet did give in and promise the King the Secretum pestis in exchange for his own freedom. After that, however, he did not respect his agreement. That is why, then... Colbert's spies set their sights on him."
"Might not the contrary have been the case?" I asked.
"What do you mean to say?"
"Perhaps it was the King who did not respect the agreement."
"Enough of that. I will not permit you to opine that His Majesty..."
Atto never finished his sentence, caught up in a sudden vortex of who knows what thoughts. I understood that his pride could not bear to hear my hypothesis: that the King might have promised the Superintendent his freedom, while intending to eliminate him immediately afterwards. That had not happened solely because, as I began fervidly to imagine, Fouquet had somehow foreseen the move and succeeded in boldly avoiding the ambush. But perhaps my fantasy was getting the better of me. I studied the abbot's face: his eyes staring straight in front of him, he was following the same reasoning as me, of that I was sure.
"One thing, however, is certain," said he suddenly.
"And what might that be?"
"In Fouquet's flight and in the secretum pestis, other persons are involved: many others. Lauzun, first and foremost, who was surely sent to Pinerol in order to loosen Fouquet's tongue, perhaps against the promise that he would soon return to Mademoiselle, his wealthy little wife. Then, there is Devize, who accompanied Fouquet here to the Donzello. Perhaps Corbetta, Devize's master, is also part of the picture, for, like his pupil, he was utterly devoted to poor Queen Maria Teresa, as well as being an expert in cryptography. Do not forget that the secretum vitae has been somehow concealed in arcanae obices. Bear in mind also that Devize has been lying from the start: do you remember his lies about the theatres in Venice? Last, but not least, we have Dulcibeni, Fouquet's confidant, in whose undergarments lay hidden the letter which speaks of the secretum pestis. He is but a merchant, yet when he speaks of the pestilence, one would think he was Paracelsus."
He stopped to draw breath. His mouth was dry.
"Do you think that Dulcibeni knows the secretum pestis?"
"That is possible. Now, however, it is late, and we should be terminating our discussion."
"All this story strikes me as absurd," said I, trying to calm him. "Do you not fear making too many suppositions?"
"I have already told you. If you would understand matters of state, you must take a different view of facts from that which you employ in the ordinary way. What counts is not what you think, but how. No one knows everything, not even the King. And, when you do not know, you must learn to suppose, and to suppose truths which may at first sight appear to be utterly absurd: you will then discover without fail that it is all dramatically true."
Ashen-faced, he went out, scanning the corridor to the left and the right, as though someone might be lying in ambush for him; yet Atto's fear, which had at last become fully manifest, was no longer such a mystery to me. No longer did I envy him his secret mission, his relations in many courts, his skills as a man of action and intrigue.
He had come to Rome in order to serve the King of France and to investigate a mystery. Now he knew that, if he would resolve that mystery, he must investigate the King himself.
Day the Eighth
18th September, 1683
*
I awoke the next day gnawed by a certain febrile anxiety. Despite the long-drawn-out reflections in which Atto and I had engaged the night before and the little sleep which I had, yet again, allowed myself, I was perfectly vigilant and ready for action. What I might be able to do was in reality not very clear to me: too many mysteries haunted the inn and their sheer number prevented me from resolving any of them. Threatening or unattainable presences (Louis XIY Colbert, Queen Maria Teresa, Kircher himself) had made their way into the hostelry and into our lives. The scourge of the pestilence had not yet left off from tormenting and terrifying us; some of our guests had, moreover, for days now assumed guises and comportments which were at once indecipherable and enigmatic. As though all that were not enough, the astrological almanack purloined from Stilone Priaso promised disastrous and death-dealing events for the days to come.
As I descended the stairs on my way to the kitchen, I heard the voice of Atto Melani resounding, quietly yet agonisingly:
Infelice pensier,
chi tie conforta?
Ohime!
Chi tie consiglia?...*
Atto, too, must have felt confused and discouraged—and that, far more than me! I hastened on my way, deliberately refusing to dwell upon such disheartening thoughts. As usual, I diligently assisted Cristofano in the kitchen and in serving meals. I had prepared snails boiled and lightly fried in oil, with ground garlic, mint, parsley, spices and a slice of lemon; and these were greatly appreciated.
* Unhappy thought, / Who can give comfort for't? / Alas! / Who can give counsel?
I worked with a will, almost as though I were sustained by an excess of vital heat. This beneficial disposition of body and soul was crowned by an event as joyous as it was unexpected.
"Cloridia has asked for you," announced Cristofano after luncheon. "You are to go directly to her chamber."
The reason for that call (and this, Cristofano knew) was completely frivolous. I found Cloridia with her bodice half-unlaced and her head bent over the tub, washing her hair. The chamber was inundated with the effluvia of sweet essences. Stunned, I heard her ask me to pour onto her head the vinegar contained in a phial which lay upon her dressing table: later, I learned that she used it to make her tresses more lustrous.
While I went about this, I recalled the doubts which I had entertained about Cloridia's parting words at our previous encounter. Speaking to me of the extraordinary numerological coincidences between her date of birth and that of Rome, she had mentioned a wrong suffered in connection with her return to this city. She had then explained to me that she had found her way to the Donzello by following a certain virga ardentis (or ardent rod) which was also called "trembling" or "protruding". This, also because of the equivocal gesture with which she had accompanied her explanation, I had taken to be an indecent allusion. I had then promised myself that I would find out what she really meant. And now, the same Cloridia had suddenly called me and provided me with the opportunity to put my question.
"Pass me the towel. No, not that one, the smaller coarse linen towel," she commanded me, while twisting her hair.
I obeyed. She wrapped her hair in the cloth, after drying her shoulders.
"Would you comb my hair now?" she asked in honeyed tones. "It is so curly that it is almost impossible for me to disentangle it alone without pulling it."
I was happy to undertake so agreeable a service. She sat with her back to me, still half-free from the laces of her bodice, and explained to me that I should begin at the tips and then work back to the roots of her hair. This seemed to me to be the right time to ask her to recount to me what had brought her to the Donzello, and I reminded her of what she had told me last time that we met. Cloridia agreed.
"Then, what is the ardent or trembling rod, Monna Cloridia? I asked.
"Thy rod and thy staff do comfort me," she recited. "Psalm 22."
"Are you not acquainted with this? It is simply a forked hazel branch, about a foot and a half long and a finger's breadth thick, cut not more than one year before. It is also known as the rod of Pallas, the Caduceus of Mercury, Circe's wand, Aaron's rod and Jacob's staff. Then there are other names: the divine, the lucent, protruding, transcendent, cadent or superior rod: all names given it by the Italians who work in the quicksilver mines of Trent and the Tyrol. It is akin to the Augur's Rod of the Romans, who used it in the place of the sceptre; to the rod which Moses used to smite the rock and bring forth water; to the rod of Asahuerus, King of the Medes and Persians, from whom Esther, once she had kissed its tip, obtained all that she asked."
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