Imprimatur

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  A pair of guards who were more cut off from the group, almost paralysed with surprise, were the first to suffer the blows, scratches, kicks and bites of the three corpisantari arriving from the Arch of Constantine. The clash came in a chaotic scrimmage of legs, arms, heads bestially grasped, a rudimentary brawl devoid of any military orderliness. The blows dealt out were, however, certainly not mortal, seeing that the victims, although badly thrashed, soon beat an in­decorous retreat towards the street that leads to San Giovanni. Two other guards (those, in fact, who in all probability were on the point of entering the Colosseum in order to arrest us), terrorised by the filthy corpisantaro band, made off without so much as a blow, running as fast as their legs would carry them in the direction of San Pietro in Vincoli, followed by a bunch of verminous attackers, among whose cries I seemed to discern the unmistakeable eloquence of Ugonio.

  Matters, however, went differently for the two guards near to Tiracorda's carriage: one of the pair defended himself ably with his sabre, succeeding in keeping a trio of corpisantari effectively in check. Meanwhile, his companion, the only one on horseback, hauled up to the saddle a third, plump and clumsy personage who (unless my eyes deceived me) had a bag hanging from his neck. It was Tiracorda, whom the guard had doubtless recognised as the victim of the crimi­nal events of the night, and had decided to bear to safety. Hardly had the horse carrying the two ridden off towards the sanctuary of Monte Cavallo than the guard who remained on foot resigned himself to flight, disappearing into the darkness. The Colosseum returned to the realm of silence.

  My attention switched back to Atto and Dulcibeni, who had also been distracted by the real battle which had taken place before our eyes.

  "It is all over, Melani," said the latter. "You have won, with your subterranean monsters, with your mania for spying and intrigue, with that insane curiosity which makes you crawl like a bedbug under the clothing of princes. Now, I shall open this bag and give you its con­tents, which the little prentice here would perhaps like to lay his hands on even more than you."

  "Yes, it is all over," repeated Atto with a weary sigh.

  He had almost reached the end of the wall and was a few yards now from Dulcibeni's feet. Soon, he would be able to climb onto the outer wall of the Colosseum and stand face to face with his antago­nist.

  I was not, however, of the same opinion as the abbot: it was by no means all over. We had stalked, followed, investigated, reasoned for nights and nights. All in order to find the answer to one question above all others: who had poisoned Nicolas Fouquet, and how? I was astounded that among the thousand questions which Atto had put to Dulcibeni, that was the one question for which he had found no time. But, if he did not ask it, I was still there.

  "Why kill the Superintendent too, Signor Pompeo?" I dared then to ask.

  Dulcibeni raised his eyes to heaven and burst into lugubrious laughter.

  "Ask that question of your dear Abbot, my boy!" he exclaimed. "Ask him how come his dear friend Fouquet felt ill after his foot bath. Get him to tell you also why Abbot Melani became so agitated and why he tormented the poor man with his questions and would not even let him die in peace. And then... ask him what was so potent in the water of Fouquet's foot bath, ask him which poisons kill so perfidiously."

  I looked instinctively at Atto, who said nothing, as though caught off balance.

  "But you..." he tried feebly to interrupt.

  "I put one of my little mice to swim in that water," Dulcibeni continued, "and after a few moments, I saw him perish in the most horrible way imaginable. A powerful poison, Abbot Melani, and a treacherous one: well dissolved in a foot bath, it penetrates through the skin and under the toenails without leaving a trace, and ascends through the body to the bowels, inexorably destroying them. A true work of art, such as only the French master perfumers can create, is that not so?"

  I recalled then that, on my second visit to Fouquet's body, Cristo­fano had found on the floor, next to the basin containing the foot bath, a few pools of water; this, despite the fact that I myself had dried the floor carefully that very morning. In taking his sample, Dul­cibeni must have spilled a little. I shivered when I remembered that I had touched a few drops of that fatal liquid: too little, fortunately, to suffer even so much as a slight malaise.

  Then, turning to Atto, Dulcibeni added: "Did the Most Christian King perhaps entrust a very special task to you, Signor Abbot Atto Melani? Something terrible, but which you could not refuse? A proof of supreme fidelity to the King?"

  "Enough of that, I cannot permit such talk!" warned Atto, at last hauling himself up onto the great wall surrounding the Colosseum.

  "What vile lies against Fouquet did the Most Christian King feed to you when he commanded you to eliminate him?" insisted Dulcibeni. "You obeyed, squalid slave that you are. But then, when he was dying in your arms, the Superintendent murmured something to you which you did not expect. I can imagine it, yes: some reference to obscure secrets, a few babbled phrases which perhaps no one could ever have understood. But it was enough for you to realise that you were a pawn in a game the existence of which you did not so much as suspect."

  "You are raving, Dulcibeni, I do not..." Atto tried once again to interrupt him.

  "Ah! You are under no obligation to say anything: those words will remain forever a secret between you and Fouquet, that is not what matters," cried Dulcibeni, facing the wind which was growing ever more impetuous. "But at that moment, you understood that the King had lied to and exploited you. And you began to fear for yourself. Then you got it into your head to investigate all the guests at the inn: you were trying desperately to discover the real reason why you had been sent to kill your friend."

  "You are mad, Dulcibeni, you are mad and you are trying to accuse me in order to cover up your own guilt, you are..."

  "And you, boy," Dulcibeni interrupted him, turning again to­wards me, "ask your abbot, too: why were Fouquet's last words " ‘Ahi, dunqu ‘è pur vero' “? Is that not strangely reminiscent of an aria famous in the Superintendent's golden days? Abbot Melani, you cannot have failed to recognise it: tell me, how many times did you sing it in his presence? And he meant to remind you of those words, as he died with the pain of your betrayal. Like Julius Caesar, when he saw that among the ruffians who were stabbing him was his beloved Brutus."

  Atto had ceased to respond. He had climbed onto the great wall, and now he and Dulcibeni confronted one another. But the abbot's silence had another cause: Dulcibeni was about to open the box of leeches.

  "I promised you, and I always keep my promises," said Dulcibeni. "The contents are all yours."

  Then he approached the edge of the wall and turned the little chest upside down, opening it onto the void.

  But from the chest (even I could see this from a distance) came nothing. It was empty.

  Dulcibeni laughed.

  "Poor imbecile," said he to Melani, "did you really believe that I would waste all this time for the sole pleasure of being insulted by you?"

  Instinctively, my eyes and Atto's sought each other, sharing the same thought: Dulcibeni had drawn us up there for the sole purpose of creating a diversion. He had left the leeches in the carriage before fleeing into the Colosseum.

  "Now they are on their way with their master, bound for the veins of the Pope," he added mockingly, "and no one can stop them."

  Atto sat down, overcome; Dulcibeni dropped the chest into the void, outside the Colosseum. A few seconds later, we heard a sad, muffled thump.

  Dulcibeni took advantage of the respite to take his snuffbox out once more and treat himself to a great sniff of mamacocoa, then he threw the little box into the void too, turning his arm in a gesture at once triumphal and derisive.

  It was that last throw, however, that cost him his balance. We saw him sway a little, then try to regain an erect position, at last bending to the right, where the great wooden cross stood.

  It all happened in a matter of moments. He brought his hand to his head, as th
ough assailed by a sharp, cruel pain, or a sudden loss of control, and collided with the cross, the presence of which—1 thought—he had not in any way foreseen.

  The collision with the wooden symbol deprived him of his already precarious equilibrium. I saw his body fall into the Colosseum, in instants dropping the height of many men placed one above the other. Fortunately—and this saved his life—the first impact was with a slightly sloping brick shelf. Then Dulcibeni's body landed on a great stone slab, which received it mercifully, as a riverbed receives the wrecks of ships overcome by the force of the tempest.

  Only with the help of the other corpisantari were we able to raise the inert body of Dulcibeni. He was alive, and a few minutes later, he even regained consciousness.

  "My legs... I can no longer feel them," were his first words.

  Under the guidance of Baronio, the corpisantari found a handcart nearby, perhaps left there by some fruit vendor. It was old and rickety, but, thanks to the united forces of the corpisantari, we managed to use it to transport Dulcibeni's poor injured body. Of course, Atto and I could have abandoned the wounded man among the ruins of the Colosseum, but we at once agreed that so to do would be pointlessly cruel and dangerous; he would sooner or later be found and, what was more, would be missing from the roll-call at the inn, thus inevitably provoking an inquiry on the part of Cristofano, and then, by the authorities.

  I felt relieved by our shared decision to save Dulcibeni: the melancholy and tragic history of his daughter had not left me in­different.

  The march back to the Donzello was interminable and funereal. We followed the most tortuous of routes and the strangest short­cuts in order to avoid once again being surprised by the Bargello's men. The corpisantari, taciturn and peevish, were disheartened by their failure to prevent Tiracorda from escaping with the leeches and mortified both by the bitterness of defeat and the fear that, by the morrow, the Pope might be mortally infected. On the other hand, Dulcibeni's desperate condition inspired no one with the idea of denouncing him; the savage assault which the corpisantari had just inflicted upon the Bargello's men counselled prudence and silence. It would be in all our best interests that there should remain in the minds of the guardians of order only memories of this night, but no traces.

  In order not to form too large and visible a group, most of the corpisantari left us, not without a hurriedly grunted farewell. Seven of us remained: Ugonio, Ciacconio, Polonio, Grufonio, Atto, Dulcibeni (loaded onto the hand-cart) and myself.

  We proceeded in a group, taking turns to push the cart. We were near to the Gesu church, in the vicinity of the Pantheon, where we were to regain the underground galleries in order to return to the Donzello. I noticed that Ciacconio was not keeping up with us and had fallen behind. I observed him: he was walking with difficulty and dragging his feet. I drew this to the attention of those at the front of the group and we waited for Ciacconio to catch up with us.

  "All the haste leaves him windified," commented Ugonio.

  It did not seem to me that Ciacconio was merely exhausted. Hardly had he rejoined us than he leaned against the cart, then sat down on the ground, with his back to the wall, and remained motion­less. His breathing was short and light.

  "Ciacconio, what is wrong with you?"

  "Gfrrrlubh," he replied, pointing to the left-hand side of his belly.

  "Are you tired, or unwell?"

  "Gfrrrlubh," he replied, repeating the same gesture, and seeming to have nothing to add to that.

  Instinctively (and despite the fact that any bodily contact with the corpisantari was to be regarded as far from desirable) I touched Ciacconio's clothing at the place which he had indicated. It seemed damp.

  I shifted the folds of material a little and became aware of a disagreeable but familiar odour. Everyone had meanwhile gathered round, and it was Abbot Melani who drew even closer. He touched Ciacconio's clothing and brought his hand to his nose.

  "Blood. Good heavens, let us open his clothing!" he said, nerv­ously undoing the cord which kept Ciacconio's old overcoat closed. He had a wound just halfway up his belly, from which blood was seep­ing continuously and had already stained a great patch of material. The wound was most grave, the haemorrhage copious, and I was as­tounded that Ciacconio should still have had the strength to walk until now.

  "My God, he needs help, he cannot come with us," I said, shocked through and through by our discovery.

  There was a long moment's silence. It was all too easy to under­stand what thoughts were traversing the mind of the group. The ball which had struck Ciacconio had come from Dulcibeni's pistol. Without intending it, he had mortally wounded the unfortunate corpisantaro.

  "Gfrrrlubh," said Ciacconio, then, pointing out with one hand the road which we were following and gesturing that we should continue on our way. Ugonio knelt down and drew near to him. There followed a rapid and unintelligible parley between the two, during which Ugo­nio twice raised his voice as though to convince his companion of his own opinion. Ciacconio, however, repeated the same murmur again and again, each time more feebly and breathlessly.

  It was then that Atto understood what was about to happen: "My God, no, we cannot leave him here. Call your friends," he said, turn­ing to Ugonio. "Let them come and fetch him. We must do some­thing, call someone, a chirurgeon..."

  "Gfrrrlubh," said Ciacconio in a slight, resigned whisper, which fell among us as the most definitive human reasoning of which one could conceive.

  Ugonio, for his part, laid his hand gently on his companion's shoul­der, then stood up as though the conversation were at an end. Polo- nio and Grufonio then approached the wounded man and exchanged confused and mysterious arguments with him in an uninterrupted murmur. At length, they all knelt down together and began to pray.

  "Oh no," I wept, "it cannot, it must not be."

  Even Atto, who had hitherto manifested so little sympathy for the corpisantari and their bizarre qualities, could not contain his emo­tion. I saw him draw aside and hide his face and I noticed that his shoulders were shaken by convulsive movements. In silent, liberat­ing sobs, the abbot was at last releasing his pain: for Ciacconio, for Fouquet, for Vienna, for himself; a traitor perhaps, but one betrayed, and alone. And, while I bethought myself of Dulcibeni's last myste­rious words about the death of Fouquet, I felt dark shadows gather between Atto and myself.

  In the end, we all went down on bended knee to pray, while Ciacconio's breathing became ever shorter and more suffocated; until Grufonio left briefly, to warn (or so I surmised) the rest of the corpisantari who, within a few minutes, arrived. Soon they would remove the poor body and accord it a decent burial.

  It was then, before my eyes, that the last heartrending seconds of Ciacconio's life ran out. While his companions gathered around him, Ugonio compassionately supported the head of the dying man; with a gesture, he invited us all to keep silent and interrupt our prayers. The quiet of the night fell over the scene and we could heart the last words of the corpisantaro: "Gfrrrlubh."

  I looked questioningly at Ugonio who, between sobs, translated: "Lachrymae in pluvia."

  Then the poor man ceased breathing.

  There was no need for further explanations. In those words, Ciacconio had carved his own fleeting adventure on earth: we are as teardrops in the rain; hardly shed, and already lost in the great flow of mortality.

  After Ciacconio's remains had been borne away by his friends, we went again on our way with our hearts weighed down by bitter, inde­scribable pain. I walked with bowed head, as though propelled by a force outside of me. My suffering was such that during the remainder of our march, I had not even the courage to look at poor Ugonio, fear­ing that I would be unable to hold back my tears. All the adventures which we had faced together with the two corpisantari returned to mind: our explorations of the subterranean maze, the beating of Sti­lone Priaso, the incursions into Tiracorda's house... I imagined then how many other vicissitudes he must have shared with Ciacconio, and, confronting his st
ate of mind with my own, I understood how desperately he would miss his friend.

  Such was our mourning that it overshadowed all my memories of the rest of the journey: the return underground, the exhausting march through the tunnels, the conveyance into the hostelry, then into his chamber, of Dulcibeni. In order to hoist him up, we had to cobble together a sort of stretcher, removing a few planks from the cart which we had used on the surface. The injured man, now fever­ish and semi-conscious, aware only of having suffered grave and per­haps irreversible wounds, was thus transported, tied up like a sausage in its skin, and raised from one trapdoor to another, from one stair to the next, and only at the cost of inhuman efforts by twelve arms: four corpisantari, Atto and I.

  It was already dawn when the corpisantari took their leave of us, disappearing into the little closet. Obviously, I feared that Cristofano might hear the passing of our cortege, however quiet, above all when we hauled Dulcibeni up into the little room and then down the stairs of the hostelry to the first floor. When, however, we passed in front of his chamber, we heard only the peaceful, regular vibration of his snores.