11th July, 1700
"On your feet, curses! On your feet, I said!"
It could not have been a worse awakening. Someone had seized me and was shaking me, yelling unpleasantly and dragging me back into the world of the awake, but at the cost of a great headache.
My eyes were still half-closed when I heard the words which made clear to me the identity of my assailant.
"I've been waiting for you to wake up for centuries! Someone here is in possession of the most important information. You must act, and act at once. This is an ord… Well, this is my firm will, and not just mine."
Abbot Melani's words (for it was obviously he) alluded to the menacing and iron-willed figure of the Most Christian King, whom he had by now learned to evoke astutely, sometimes dressed for the part of Maria Mancini's ill-starred suitor, sometimes, as now, presenting the inflexible tyrant to whose will all must blindly bend.
"A moment, I am just…" I mumbled in protest, my mouth still all gummed up, turning over in the blankets to get away from his tugging.
"Not one second more," said he, seizing my clothes from a nearby chair where I had left them and hurling them at me.
While freeing myself from his grasp, the first thing I looked at in the light of day was Atto, and he in turn stared at me with fiery, stabbing eyes. I noticed with no little curiosity that he had not come empty-handed. Against the chair he had leaned a bizarre collection of wooden and iron tools which seemed to me as familiar as they were out of place in a bedchamber.
Dressing hurriedly, I opened my eyes properly and realised what this was all about. Among the long-handled tools, I recognised a rake, a shovel, a hoe and a broom. In a heavy box with a handle, there were piled up a trowel, a bucket, a dibble, a pronged grubber, a sickle, shears, knives, a few pots and brushes. I recognised them.
"These gardening tools belong to the Villa Spada. What do you want to do with them?"
"What matters is what you will do," said he, rudely shoving all that hardware into my hands, so that it was a miracle that I did not drop the whole lot, and motioning me to follow him out of the door. "Now, however, there's an emergency Today is Sunday and the first thing we must do is go to mass, otherwise our absence will be noticed. Get a move on: Don Tibaldutio is about to begin the service."
Villa Spada was astir with preparations for the fifth day of celebrations. On the evening before, dinner must have gone on until all hours, for when I was going to sleep one could not hear the sound of guests' carriages leaving the villa. Nevertheless, that morning the servants were already busy going about their duties: sweeping, cleaning, tidying, cooking, preparing, decorating, repainting and retouching. As we left my little room, all around us maidservants, ushers and menservants were rushing. Some of them looked at me enviously, since for days now that mysterious Frenchman had been relieving me of a great deal of work. Atto spurred me on, poking the pommel of his walking stick painfully between my shoulder blades. By a mere hair's breadth we avoided encountering Don Paschatio (whom we heard a short distance away, lamenting the disloyalty of an absent seamstress), thus avoiding the command to execute some urgent duties. Laden down as I was with all kinds of implements, I proceeded clumsily, at the risk of falling, tripping on the rake I was carrying or being knocked over by some weary scullion.
Once I had laid down the box of tools in the garden hut, we both at last entered the chapel, curiously full of all kinds of worshippers, from the eminences lodging at the villa down to the humblest menials (discreetly to one side), just as Don Tibaldutio's service was beginning. I took part in the rite wholeheartedly, inwardly begging the Lord also to pardon Abbot Melani, who was present at holy mass out of pure self-interest.
Once out of the chapel, Atto nonchalantly bestowed salutations right and left, but at the same time he had resumed poking me cruelly in the back.
"Get a move on, damn you," he hissed at me while smiling sweetly at Cardinal Durazzo.
"Now, would you kindly tell me what has got into you?" I protested while, once more burdened with the equipment, I followed him to the flower beds at the entrance to the villa. "What the deuce is it that's so urgent?"
"Shhh! There he is, 'tis just as well he has not gone," whispered Atto while inviting me to remain silent and indicating with his nose an individual bending over one of the two rows of flower beds lining the avenue giving access to the villa.
"But that is the Master Florist," said I.
"What is his name?"
"Tranquillo Romauli. He is the grandson of a famous gardener, and works here at the Villa Spada. I know him well. His late lamented spouse was a great midwife, who taught Cloridia and who presided over the birth of our two daughters. I have often been commanded by Don Paschatio to act as his assistant.
"Ah, yes, I was forgetting: you too are an expert on plants…" muttered the Abbot, recalling the humiliation he had suffered at my hands at the Vessel the day before, over the supposed flowers from the mythical garden of Adonis. "Well, be prepared for a surprise, Tranquillo Romauli knows of the Tetrachion."
In overexcited tones and employing lofty phrases, Abbot Melani explained to me how, that morning, he had awoken rather early, when Aurora was stretching her arms with a yawn and abandoning the conjugal bed she shared with Sunset. All night, he had been assailed by a thousand questions to which the previous day had given rise and left unanswered. The entire villa was still blessedly sleeping; the bluish first light of morn was penetrated only by the light of some furtive lamp issuing from the windows of those who, like Melani, wished to spy on the day in its secret youth. Atto had then descended to the garden in order to take a salutary walk and inhale the innocent and perfect air of the dawning day which only the idle despise.
"I wandered through the entire garden, without noticing anything suspicious," said he, thus betraying that the purpose of his walk was to spy and stick his nose into others' business. "I had reached the little grove when I saw him there, a few paces in front of me. He was busy using a pair of shears on a flower bed."
"That is his trade. So, what of it?"
"We spoke of this and that: the weather, the humidity, how lovely these flowers are, how I hoped it would not be so hot today, and so on and so forth. Then he named it."
"What, the Tetrachion?"
"Shhh! Do you want everyone to overhear you?" murmured Atto, darting nervous looks in all directions.
After the brief colloquy which he had described to me, Abbot Melani had moved on. He was only a short distance away when he had heard the Master Florist, no doubt thinking himself alone and therefore unheard, murmur a number of confused phrases. Then, still sitting, he had turned his eyes to heaven and had clearly pronounced the words which had thrown Atto into a state of such extreme alarm.
"'… and then the Tetrachion.' He said that, do you understand?"
"But this is incredible! What can he know of such things? The Master Florist has always seemed to me a spirit far removed from the things of politics. Not to speak of such… unusual matters as that of the Tetrachion."
"Usual or unusual, there's something behind this," Atto cut me short. "However unbelievable it may seem, he does know something. Perhaps he even wanted me to overhear him. It cannot be pure chance that he should have uttered those few words a few paces away from me, today of all days."
"Are you quite sure that you heard correctly?"
"Absolutely sure. Indeed, do you know what I think? This brings to mind the secret password of which your wife spoke."
"Cloridia did tell me that sooner or later she would have further information."
"Excellent. Except that, instead of reaching her, the information has come directly to us, in other words to the real interested parties, through the Master Florist."
"Passing Cloridia by? I find that hard to believe. In her circles, she is venerated. She assists at births all over Rome, and the women have no secrets from her."
"Yes, so long as they are mere women's gossip. But in an affair like this, no one would prefer some midwife to a diplomatic agent of His Majesty the Most Christian King," retorted Atto with ruffled pride.
"Perhaps I could try talking with the Master Florist, in order to see whether…"
"You could? Why, you must find out what he knows about the Tetrachion. Now, I shall be on my way. It is a fortunate coincidence that you should already have worked for him," said he, pointing at him and meaning that I was to commence my investigations there and then.
"Signor Atto, we shall need time to…"
"I do not wish to listen to ifs and buts. You are to begin forthwith. Stand next to him with all these implements and pretend that you mean to work. We shall meet at lunchtime. I must settle some rather urgent correspondence. I expect you to do your duty."
He set off at a determined pace for the great house. He had left me no choice.
In truth, I should have preferred to go first to the kitchen and get myself something to eat; but Master Tranquillo had already caught sight of me and I did not wish to give him the impression that I had something to hide. I therefore went up to him, wearing the least hypocritical smile of which I was capable.
Tranquillo Romauli, who had been named after his grandfather, that most skilled and distinguished of floriculturists, welcomed me benevolently. His physical presence contrasted curiously with the silent and sober art of gardening. He was a great fat bear of a man with a thick, bristling beard, black hair and vaguely obtuse little eyes surmounted by a pair of tangled, bushy eyebrows. He had a strong jaw and a big stomach, swelled up by many and generous bouts of eating, and this made him at once imposing and comically ridiculous when he reached out his great paws to prune the leaves of some tiny sick seedling. Above all, owing to some previous illness of the auditory organs, he had become rather hard of hearing, and his booming voice made every conversation an exchange of shouts, at the end of which the person speaking to him was left no less deaf than the Master Florist. To find out from him what he knew of the Tetrachion, if ever he was prepared to reveal that, would be no easy matter. A conversation with Romauli could practically never be settled in a few easy exchanges; although his character was exquisite, he was the most verbose individual, garrulous to the point of being insufferable and obsessed with one exclusive, all-embracing, mind-dulling topic: flowers and gardening. His science was so vast and profound that he had come to be regarded as a sort of walking encyclopaedia of flower cultivation. It was said that he could recite the whole of Father Ferrari's De florum cultura and that he knew by heart the origins, history and design of every vegetable or flower garden in Rome.
After a few brief exchanges of pleasantries, he asked me if I had nothing to do that morning.
"Oh well… nothing in particular, to tell the truth."
"Really? Then you must be the only person here at the Villa Spada without some business to attend to. I imagine, however, that all those implements which you are holding in your arms must be there for some purpose," said he, pointing at the tools which Atto had heaped onto me.
"Of course…" said I guiltily. "I was hoping to be able to make myself useful in some way."
"Very well, your wish has already come true," he replied with satisfaction, picking up a wooden case full of other tools and motioning that I was to follow him.
We were, he explained, on our way to the flower beds near the chapel of the villa. It was a fine day; the fresh early morning breeze seemed to be holding an amiable dialogue with the twittering of the birds and with the multiform ranks of clouds which observed placidly from on high the eternal round of terrestrial vanities. Our footsteps echoed softly on the fine gravel of the drives while the sun, still low on the horizon, warmed us with its first timid rays.
This delightful arrangement of the natural elements, however, completely escaped Tranquiilo Romauii who was, as ever, utterly preoccupied with the concerns of his art and had already begun to instruct me.
"Don Paschatio has ordered me to plant jasmine," he began in querulous tones. "Yet, I had told him quite clearly that the noblest garden has no place for jasmine. Neither our own yellow home-grown variety, of course, nor the common white lily. And even if there were any place for suchlike, they should take second place to the vermilion or orange Turk's head lily. These days, all sense has been lost of what is to be cultivated in a garden. 'Tis a veritable scandal."
"You are right, it is the most serious matter. So, you were saying that jasmine is unworthy of the best gardens?" said I, feigning interest.
"Let us say that pride of place is to be accorded to the 'silver goblet' or white narcissus, whichever one prefers to call it," he resumed, raising his voice. "Or to the double narcissus of Constantinople, which produces a set of ten or twelve flowers, to the Ragusa narcissus, the yellow narcissus or the starry variety; or again to the frasium, which resembles a rose, or a lettuce, to the ultramontane, which has the virtues of a double yellow rose, or to the sweetest smelling jonquils, with a perfume like that of jasmine, tempered by and mixed with the scent of orange blossom."
"I understand," said I, smothering a yawn and trying to see how I could place a word about the Tetrachion without arousing suspicion.
Meanwhile, we had moved around to the far side of the great house and had almost arrived at the flower beds near the chapel. The weight and bulk of my load was causing me to sway; inwardly, I was cursing Atto.
"I know that what I am about to say to you will sound obvious," added the Master Florist, "yet I shall never tire of repeating that it is a mistake of the moderns to neglect the false narcissus, also known as the trumpet lily because of its long, trumpet-shaped calyx. Likewise, greater use should be made of Indian narcissi, especially the Donnabella, which first became acclimatised to Italy in the gardens of the Prince of Caserta, and the spherical lilied narcissus which could not flower in France but, becoming at last a guest of Rome's amenity and majesty, here opened its flowers, almost like a sweet smile, in the happy plantations of my grandfather. And then, let them choose the crocus, the colchicum, the imperial crown, the iris, cyclamens, anemones, ranunculus, asphodels, peonies, fritellaria, lilies of the valley, carnations and tulips."
"The Dutch tulip?" I asked, if only to avoid the dialogue turning into a monologue.
"But of course! In no other plant does nature jest so freely or with so great a variety of colours, so much so that, years ago, someone enumerated over two hundred different colours. But take care," said he, stopping and looking me fixedly in the eyes with a severe mien.
"Yes, Master Florist?" I replied, stopping dead, dropping all the hardware I was carrying and fearing that I must somehow have said or done something displeasing.
"My boy," he admonished, in fact quite oblivious of me and absorbed in his own train of thought, "be sure not to forget that, alongside those I have named is the passion fruit, which is a native of Peru and is to be trained on cane trellises, Indian yucca, jasmine from Catalonia and Arabia and, lastly, the American variety which, it seems, some call quamoclit."
From this last assertion 1 realised that Tranquillo Romauli, even when he fixed his eyes on yours, had the eyes of his mind focused solely upon the sole true interest of his life: the loving care of plants and flowers.
"And now, to work," said he, handing me his box and beginning to scoop at the earth of the flower bed with his bare hands. "Hand me the implements one at a time, as I request them. First, the straight-edge."
I rummaged in the box and almost at once found the long stick which was used for aligning the sides of the flower beds. I gave it to him.
"Give me the little jar with the seeds."
"Here you are."
"Sprinkler."
"Yes."
"Pruning knife."
"By your leave."
"Pronged grubber."
"Yes."
"Dibber."
"Yes."
"Cannon."
"Take it."
He turned the tool around in his hands and stood up with a start.
"I don't believe it. 'Tis not possible!" he said to himself, biting on the knuckles of his right hand: I had made a mistake.
"But my boy!" he exploded, opening wide his arms and addressing me in the grave, commiserative tones of a priest lecturing a sinner. "How many times must I tell you that this is an extractor, not a cannon, which is four times bigger?"
I durst not reply, conscious of the gravity of the misdeed.
"Forgive me, I thought…" I struggled to justify myself, hastily returning the extractor to the box and pulling out the cylinder for transplanting known as a cannon.
"No excuses. Let us attend to our work now. I see that you have already brought some pots with you," said he, regaining his composure and preparing to extract the seedlings which he meant to transplant.
While Tranquillo dug up and replanted, delicately moving the soil, carefully watering the turf and lovingly positioning the new bulbs, I searched my mind desperately for ways of steering the conversation away from flowers towards what concerned me.
"Abbot Melani told me that you had an interesting and profitable conversation today."
"Abbot who? All… you mean the gentleman from Pistoia; or
France, was it not? He quite appreciated the way in which I had placed colours in my flower beds," said he, while cleaning the plants bordering the beds with a little brush and ridding them of the specks of earth scattered during the transplanting.
"Exactly, 'tis of him that I speak."
"Very well, 'tis no surprise that he should have expressed such pleasure. One must always so arrange matters that colours respond symmetrically to one another, and that I have done, as we did in the good old days at Duke Caetani's gardens at Cisterna: each bed must be filled with at least two or three sorts of flowers, differing among themselves in nature and in colour, and so arranged, frontally or sideways, that those which resemble or are the same as each other, although separated, correspond with one another."
"Precisely, and Abbot Melani said that…"
"But mind you!" he warned, brandishing the copper watering can severely. "One can never, I repeat, never, mix ranunculus, Spanish jonquils and tulips, for that would produce disharmony and deformity. My grandfather, Tranquillo Romauli of blessed memory, who kept one of the finest gardens in Rome (ah yes, indeed, one of the few true exemplars of the art, such as are no longer to be found nowadays), as I was saying, my grandfather would always insist particularly on that point." Here, he sighed with exaggerated melancholy.
"Ah yes, you are quite right," said I, at the same time holding back another yawn, disappointed at my inability to break through the Master Florist's verbal wall.
A couple of servants passed behind us with as many baskets full of freshly killed and plucked poultry. They groaned, discreetly casting sardonic smiles of sympathy in my direction, for the Master Florist's terrible logorrhoea was well known at Villa Spada, and justifiably feared.
It only remained for me to risk my all.
"Well, Abbot Melani told me that he greatly appreciated his conversation with you," said I as rapidly as I was able to, "and he would be glad to renew the pleasure at your earliest opportunity."
"Ah yes?"
He had at last responded: a good sign.
"Yes, you know, the Abbot is very troubled. Death is hanging over El Escorial…"
He looked at me pensively, without uttering a word. Perhaps he had understood the allusion: the King of Spain's sickness, the succession to the throne, the Tetrachion…
"You are well informed," said he, speaking in unexpectedly grave tones. "The Escorial is drying up, son, while Versailles… and now Schonbrunn too…" he hinted, leaving his sentence unfinished.
That was the signal, said I to myself. He knew. And he had also referred to the most famous gardens of France and the Empire, the two contenders for the Spanish succession.
"We have a heavy burden to carry," he concluded enigmatically.
He had spoken of "we"; he was probably also referring to others: the order passed on byword of mouth, as suspected by Abbot Melani. And now he wanted to free himself of the secret that weighed upon his soul.
"I agree," I replied.
He nodded with a mute smile of secret understanding.
"If the Abbot, your protector, is truly so concerned for the fate of the Escorial, we shall surely have much to talk of, he and I."
"That would be truly opportune," said I, taking my tone from his last words.
"Provided that he is correctly informed," Romauli made clear. "Otherwise, it would all be just a waste of breath."
"You need have no doubts," I reassured him, without, however, having understood the meaning of his warning.
As I walked towards the great house, mentally repeating the conversation with the Master Florist, I had just turned a corner when I heard the sound of two persons' footsteps behind me on the gravel, accompanied by as many voices.
"… And what Abbot Melani dared to do was quite unheard of, on that point I am completely in agreement. But Albani's reaction was even more surprising."
Someone was talking about Atto. The voice was that of an old man of high birth. I could not miss the opportunity. 1 hid behind a hedge, preparing myself to listen to the content of that conversation.
"So many suspected him of being excessively Francophile," the voice continued, "and yet he gave Melani a good drubbing. So now he passes for a moderate, equidistant between the French and the Spaniards."
"Tis incredible how quickly a man's reputation can change," echoed a second voice.
"Ah, yes. Of course, for the time being, it will not profit him much. He is far too young to be made pope. But everything is useful for keeping afloat, an art of which Albani is a past-master. Heh!"
I almost crawled behind the hedge, thus stalking unseen the pair who were out taking their morning walk. These were clearly two guests who had spent the night at the villa; they might, in all probability, be two cardinals, but their voices were, alas, not sufficiently familiar for me to be able to identify to whom they belonged. The reconnaissance was also made more difficult for me by the rustling of the nearby shrubs, which from time to time made perfect vigilance impossible.
"And what about the note they were passing to one another? Is what I was told yesterday true?"
"I checked and they told me that, yes, it was quite true. The parrot stole the message and went off to read it in his nest, heh! Albani did not show it, but he was desperate. He charged two of his servants with searching for the bird high and low, without showing themselves, for no one was to know how important the matter was. One of the two was, however, seen by the Major- Domo climbing up a tree in the garden and ingenuously explained to him what he was up to, so that the news was bruited abroad. No one knows where the bird is."
Although I pricked up my ears as much as I was able to, I was unable to overhear anything else, for the hedge along which I was moving turned to the right, while the two turned off to the left. I remained a while crouching on the ground, waiting for the pair to move away. I was already recapitulating with secret euphoria all the urgent news to be reported to Atto: the Master Florist who had promised, however obliquely, to reveal to him all that he knew about the Tetrachion; Albani desperate at the loss of his note, which therefore did contain really precious information, for no one else's eyes; and lastly, the political speculation on the two altercations between Atto and Albani who, it seems, had, precisely as a result of this, rid himself of his uncomfortable reputation as a vassal of the French.
What I did not know was that I would not be telling him any of these things in the immediate future.
"… to read it in his nest, heh!"
I was already on my feet and gave a violent start. I crouched down once more, terrified of being caught spying. It was the voice of one of the two cardinals overheard a few moments earlier. How could he have turned around without my realising it?
"Everything's useful for keeping afloat, eh?!"
I grew pale. My ears could not betray me. The cardinal was behind me.
I turned around and saw him just as he was opening his wings and taking off, insolently showing me the plumage of his tail, his talons and the piece of paper which for many hours now had been held tightly in their grasp.
I rejoined Atto in his apartment, where he awaited news of my conversation with the Master Florist; as soon as he knew of the most recent development, namely the appearance of Caesar Augustus, we rushed into the garden, exploring above all the area around the tool shed where I had seen the bird not long before. There was no trace, however.
"The aviary," I suggested.
We hastened there with our hearts in our mouths, anxious to pass unobserved among the servants at work and the eminences out walking. In the aviary, too, there was no sign of Caesar Augustus. Helpless, I looked at the flocks of nightingales, lapwings, starlings, partridges, francolins, pheasants, ortolans, green linnets, blackbirds, calandra larks, chaffinches, turtle-doves and hawfinches. Blissfully unaware, they pecked away at seeds and salad leaves, without a care for our concerns. Even if they knew where the parrot was hiding at that moment, they could do no more than stare at us with their vacant eyes. I was already regretting the fact that the wretched parrot was the only one among them to have the gift of speech when I noticed that a young francolin kept looking upwards, apparently worried by something. I knew that vivacious and impertinent bird perfectly well, for often, when I was feeding the aviary, it would perch on my arm, pecking in the palm of my hand at the dry bread of which it was inordinately fond and which it hated me to distribute to its companions. Now it was showing the same signs of disquiet, twittering away with its beak pointing upwards. Then I understood and I too looked up there.
"Everything's useful for keeping afloat, eh?!" repeated Caesar Augustus when he saw that he had been found out.
He was perched at the very top of the aviary, but on the outside: above that graceful little cupola of metal netting which crowned the entire structure of that prison for birds. Since the moment of his flight, obviously, Caesar Augustus' regular ration of food had not been placed before his personal cage. He must therefore have stolen somewhere the piece of bread which he was pecking at on that pinnacle, while the francolin looked enviously on.
"Come here at once, and give us that piece of paper," I ordered him, taking care, however, not to call too loud for fear of being overheard by the other servants.
His sole response was to fly off and perch on a nearby tree, but without his usual nonchalance. It was quite clear that he meant to provoke us; he had probably taken a dislike to one of us and it was not hard to see who that might be.
"He seemed to have some trouble perching, he must still have that note hooked onto one of his claws," I said to Atto.
"Let us hope that it does not fall who knows where, and that the solution soon comes."
"The solution?"
"I have sent Buvat to find a specialist. He went on horseback with one of the servants. Fortunately, your colleague had all the necessary details but I hope there will be no delay, otherwise we shall soon have everyone gathering around us, starting with the Major-Domo."
I was on the point of asking him what he meant by the term "specialist" when events anticipated my words. Buvat appeared behind a hedge, announcing his arrival.
"Thank heavens!" exclaimed Melani.
Thanks, perhaps, to some obscure premonitory faculty, Caesar Augustus flew off at precisely that moment in the direction of the vegetable garden of the excellent Barberini estate, which shared a long border with the Villa Spada.
"Do the Barberini have armed guards in their garden next door?"
"Not to the best of my knowledge."
"Very well," said Atto, "our friend will not go far."
Just at that moment, in the opposite quadrant of the sky, there appeared a sharp and rapid shadow which, although distant, appeared to be aiming menacingly at the fluttering outline of Caesar Augustus. The latter must have become aware of this, for he turned suddenly downwards to the left, perhaps in the direction of some thicket. The fast-moving shadow then disappeared from the luminous blue bowl of the sky.
"Come, I shall introduce you to the specialist," said Atto, "or rather, to employ the correct term, the falconer, for that is what he prefers to be called."
We found him waiting for us as soon as we left the Villa Spada. He was a truly strange and singular individual: tall and thin, with long crow-black hair, black, rapacious eyes and an aquiline nose. Across his shoulders, he carried a big sack containing all his equipment. He was accompanied by a fine big hunting dog which looked keen to see action.
I looked questioningly at Atto while we accompanied the falconer towards the aviary and the place from which Caesar Augustus had just taken flight.
"Engaging in no hunt absurd, we'll use a falcon, not a cuckoo bird," he jovially declaimed, miming the pose of a bard. "I got the idea from that mad eccentric Albicastro with his endless quotations from that moral poem on madness."
Just at that moment, the falconer glanced up at the ample vault of heaven and whistled twice. At once there plunged from on high a whirlwind of feathers, plumes and talons which, slowing its descent with an acrobatic turn, landed among us, coming to rest on its master's arm, stretched upwards to show the hawk where to land. The man's right arm bore a coarse leather glove to protect it from being maimed by the bird's talons. I looked at the creature with a mixture of admiration and horror, as it settled comfortably between the wrist and the elbow, contentedly testing its solid perch with its talons, while its master covered its head with a leather hood. The falconer had trained his bird well, for, after freeing it who knows where, he had only to call it to bring it back to him.
"Rather than going after cranes, we shall hunt the parrot," announced Atto, "and with the best of arms, a falcon."
We returned to the villa, silently hoping that no one would ask us what we were doing or why. Fate was friendly to us. We met only one of Sfasciamonti's friends, on guard, who let us pass without posing any questions, although he did look at us somewhat curiously.
"It is horrible," I protested, as we straddled the wall bordering the Barberini estate, towards which Caesar Augustus had flown. "It will massacre him."
"Massacre, massacre…" chanted Atto smugly as we got him over the wall with the help of a stool. "Let us say that we shall teach him a lesson. The note belongs to us, the parrot knows that perfectly well. I could, to tell the truth, have used this method from the start, but you would never have agreed."
"What makes you think that I shall agree now?"
"The emergency. The parrot is no longer obeying any orders, the situation is out of control. Remember, my boy, emergencies call for uncomfortable decisions. And if there is no emergency, one must await, or even, if needs be, create one. That is an old technique employed by all men in government, which I have often had occasion to observe during the course of my career as a counsellor," said Atto with a disarming little smile, betraying a certain contentment that Caesar Augustus' petulant disobedience allowed him recourse to strong measures.
We jumped down from the wall; this was the natural continuation of a Roman wall, fortified with towers further to the left, which extended down almost as far as Piazza San Cosimato. Scrambling from the stool, the dog followed us over the barrier.
"Say what you will, the fact remains that the falcon is bloodthirsty," I protested. "I know perfectly well what it is capable of. Once I saw one during training catch a hen and split it asunder, tearing its heart from its breast still beating."
Meanwhile, the falconer had unhooded the falcon and released it. The hawk had climbed rapidly to a considerable height where it appeared as little more than a dark spot in the sky.
"Perhaps it won't ill-treat him too much," sniggered Melani. "In any case, the only thing that matters to us is the note. If he lets go of it, he'll come to no harm."
"You speak as though the falcon could understand what he's doing. Birds are beasts. They have neither intellect nor heart," I replied.
"Enough of that, boy," the falconer broke in.
He spoke with a northern accent, perhaps from Bologna, or Vicenza, where I knew that falconers had always been in abundance.
"Your ignorance is equalled only by the courage of my falcon," he told me in a harsh voice. "You say that birds have no pity. Do you not know that the great Palamedes, imitating the flight of cranes, which fly in V or A formation, or grouped to form many other letters, composed the characters from which came the alphabet, as Saint Jerome writes, and that from the imitation of the wise living of these cranes, or grues, comes the latin verb congruere, which means literally to be congruent, or coherent."
"No, I did not know that, but…"
While he imparted these notions to me, above our heads the falcon traced a series of threatening circles in search of his victim.
We advanced cautiously through the long grass, looking for traces of Caesar Augustus. Atto and the falconer were sure of tracking him down. I was rather less sure, but I thought that if that were to happen, I should be able to make the parrot understand that it would be in its best interests to return Albani's note, on pains of suffering the cruellest of combats. We all stood there with our noses pointing up in the air, waiting for something to happen. The hound sniffed feverishly at trees, looking halfway up, watching the slightest movements.
"And how can you say that birds have no heart? They practise gratitude, fidelity and justice far better than men. The sparrow- hawk captures a little bird to help with its digestion and keeps it alive all night close to its belly, whereupon, out of gratitude, it frees it instead of devouring it. Geese are even more modest than a young maiden: they couple only when they know that no one can see them and, afterwards, they wash thoroughly. Crows practice only marital love. Widowed, a turtledove will never mate again. Swallows always feed each of their fledglings fairly and equally. Are human beings capable of that? Furthermore, among fowls, the males are loquacious and the females taciturn: the contrary of men and, when one comes to think of it, far better. Lastly, geese, although rather inclined to gossip, when they know that an eagle is approaching, resist the temptation to honk and thus be discovered by putting a stone in their beaks.
"They even assist us when we are ill: there is no better way of ridding oneself of stomach ache than to place on it a live duck. For pains in the ribs, you need only eat an Austrian parrot; those with weak stomachs should eat swan's, eagle's or cormorant's meat; the dropsy is treated with powder of burned bats, while for many distempers one takes swallows' nests dissolved in water, nor is there an end to the remedies which poultry breeders generously offer us, and… One moment."
The falconer had at last broken off. Everything happened suddenly. The dog barked loudly and pointed: he had found the quarry. From a nearby shrub we heard a loud rustling, then the beating of wings. Caesar Augustus, brilliantly white and fluffed- up with his yellow crest, escaped from the thicket and took to the air. The dog barked loudly but the falconer held him back from following and cried out:
"Look! Look!"
Hearing that call, the falcon knew that its time had come. Instinctively, it directed its beak downwards and plunged towards Caesar Augustus who had fortunately, although three times slower than his aggressor, gained a good start. He was flying towards the fortified Roman wall; the raptor corrected the angle of its attack as it drew closer. It was like a projectile, ready to plant the tip of its beak into the flesh of its victim, or to brake at the last moment, then turn and wound it with its deadly talons. It would only remain then for it to follow the disorderly fall, diving at last onto the poor injured and defenceless body on the ground and slaughtering it with two or three decisive blows to the breast.
The parrot hastened towards the great wall, behind which it presumably hoped to find shelter at least from the first attack.
"Caesar Augustus," I cried, hoping that he might hear me, but then I realised that everything was happening too fast for human senses.
The falcon was drawing ever closer. Twenty yards; fifteen; ten; seven. All of us, three men and a dog, stared breathlessly at the scene. The wall was too far off. The parrot could never make it that far. Only an instant and it would all be over. I awaited the impact.
"No," the falconer hissed angrily.
He had made it. At the very last moment, Caesar Augustus had opted for a nearer refuge. He had hidden himself in a group of trees thick enough to discourage the falcon, who slowed down and at once regained height.
"Caesar Augustus!" I called again, approaching at a run. "Let go of the paper and all will be well!"
We tried but failed to find the outline of the parrot among the branches. He had hidden really well, as the falconer, too, was forced to admit.
"You promised that you would give him time to ponder," I protested vigorously to Atto.
"I am sorry. I did not realise that things would go so quickly. Nevertheless, he has had all the time he needed for thinking."
"Thinking? But he'll be utterly terrified."
The events that followed proved me to have been utterly mistaken.
While we were exploring around and under the thick clump of trees, a sudden, lacerating double whistle broke the silence. We looked at one another. It was the falconer's whistle, yet he seemed as astonished as we.
"I did not… did not do it. I never whistled," he stammered.
Instinctively, he looked upward.
"The glove, damn it," he cursed, seeing that his faithful pupil, hearing the call, was promptly returning and was looking for his forearm. So the falconer had to pull on his leather glove in furious haste and only just caught the flying beast in time. It was then, out of the corner of my eye, that I saw the white and yellow spot gliding silently to the left, once again in the direction of the Roman wall. Atto too realised this a few (important) moments later.
The parrot had imitated the falconer's whistle perfectly, thus causing the predator to return to its master, down below. Caesar Augustus had thus gained enough time to get away, before his enemy could gain height and, with that, the ability to attack.
"That way!" exclaimed Melani, turning to the falconer.
The wasted time had given Caesar Augustus a distinct advantage. The falcon was once again freed and once again had to gain height. The dog was barking wildly.
"Can your bird not attack at once?" asked Atto, running towards the point where Caesar Augustus had disappeared from sight.
"He has first to gain height. He does not attack horizontally like a goshawk!" replied the falconer, as offended as if he had been asked to attend a wedding dressed in rags.
This gave rise to a wretched, disorderly chase downhill along the Roman walls, following the road that traverses the Barberini property up to Piazza Cosimato. Behind the ancient walls, rhythmically punctuated by antique watchtowers, Caesar Augustus's yellow crest would reappear from time to time. He could not fly higher than the falcon, as herons do to dodge such attacks. He had, however, perfectly understood the enemy's weak points and was employing delaying tactics: flying low and passing very rapidly from a tree to a crack in the wall, then vice versa, alternating brief but lightning sorties with the repeated whistle which he had heard the falconer use and had at once learned to imitate to perfection. The falcon could only obey the commands which he had been taught from his very first training, and with every whistle he came back to his master, who was, understandably, almost out of his mind. A couple of times, Caesar Augustus also used the falconer's "Look! Look!" hunting signal, throwing the adversary into such confusion that, if its master had not got it away from there with yells and curses, it might have turned its warlike attentions to a couple of innocent sparrows fluttering in the vicinity.
The last part of the road was flanked on both sides by two ordinary walls and no longer by Roman ruins. I turned around to look for Atto: we had lost him. Caesar Augustus, too, was nowhere to be seen. I did, however, hope that he would have continued along the same trajectory as he had followed hitherto. In that case, as soon as we reached the first open space, we might perhaps have caught sight of him. It was thus that we came to the front of the convent of the nuns of Saint Francis, in Piazza San Cosimato. Abbot Melani arrived some time later, completely out of breath (despite the fact that he had left off running very early on) and sat down by the roadside:
The hunter wastes much time at stalking
The game he's after, riding, walking,
He combs through hill and dale and hedge, Conceals h imself am ong the sedge,
Oft scares away more than he gets
If he's been slipshod with his nets.
"Thus Albicastro would have mocked me with his beloved Brant, if he had seen the state I am in," Melani sighed philosophically, huffing and puffing like a pair of bellows.
I noticed that the Abbot, as I had discovered many years previously, had a taste for citing quotations on the most varied occasions. Only, especially at difficult moments like this, he no longer had breath enough to sing them; and so, instead of the little songs of Le Seigneur Luigi, his one-time master, he preferred to quote verses.
I then turned to contemplate the piazza. To my surprise, notwithstanding the fact that it was very early on Sunday morning, Piazza San Cosimato was full of people. His Holiness (but this I was to discover only later) had decided freely to grant the little boys and girls of Rome the Jubilee indulgence and the remission of sins, subject only to visiting the Vatican Basilica. For this reason, the children of various quarters were preparing to visit the Vatican in procession, with so many little standards, crosses and crucifixes. The maidens were all dressed in the most splendid lace surplices, and with garlands on their heads, each decorated for some particular devotion. The affecting little procession was attended and guided by the parents and by the nuns of the Convent of Saint Francis, all of whom were crowding into the piazza and witnessed our arrival, all dusty and fatigued, with no little surprise.
The falconer was at his wits' end.
"He is not coming back, I cannot see him," he blubbered.
He had lost sight of his falcon. He feared that he might have been abandoned, as sometimes happen with raptors apparently tamed by their masters yet still in their hearts wild and proud.
"There he is!" cried Atto.
"The falcon?" asked the falconer, his face lighting up.
"No, the parrot."
I too had seen. Caesar Augustus, who must have been rather tired too, had just left a cornice and begun to glide in the direction of the nearby Piazza San Callisto. Atto was by now exhausted, while the falconer had thoughts only for his pupil. Only I and the dog were prepared to follow the parrot, with the opposite intentions: I, to save him, he, to slaughter.
The dog barked like mad and charged to the attack, terrifying and scattering all the children from the ranks of the procession, amidst whom I too plunged in pursuit of the parrot, sowing further confusion and provoking the anguished reproofs of the nuns.
By now Caesar Augustus was flying wearily, perching ever more frequently on windowsills, little shrines and balconies, then flying off only when fear of the dog, which bared its teeth angrily, forced him to seek some new refuge. I could not even ask him to land on the ground and give himself up. The dog was always ahead of me, barking wildly and leaping up furiously, simply longing to get its teeth into the poor fugitive. The passers-by watched in shock as our screaming scrimmage, an extraordinary chimera composed of fleeing wings, biting fangs and legs coming to the rescue, made its way forward.
Several times, I narrowed my eyes, peering into the distance: the bird still seemed to have that wretched scrap of paper hanging onto a talon. After covering a considerable part of the Via di Santa Maria in Trastevere, our bizarre trio turned left and came at last to the bridge of the San Bartolomeo island.
Caesar Augustus landed on a windowsill at the corner, just where the bridge begins. He was quite high up, and the dog (which had perhaps realised by now that it had lost all trace of its master) was beginning to tire of that exhausting, absurd circus. It looked at the parrot, which nothing now seemed likely to shift from its position of safety. To my left stood the San Bartolomeo bridge and, beyond it, that beautiful island, the one single piece of insular territory which completes and embellishes the impetuous flow of fair Tiber. The dog at last turned on its heels, not without one last outburst of rage and disappointment.
"So, do you want to come down? We are alone now."
In the parrot's eyes, I read his willingness to surrender at last to a friend. He was on the point of coming down. Instead, one last cruel reversal intervened.
An old woman who lived in the house had come to the window. She had seen him. Taken aback by the unusual features of that bizarre and beautiful creature, yet incapable of appreciating such splendour and rendered nervous by her own stupidity, the hag tried brutally to drive him away, threatening to strike him. The poor fowl fled, borne on the wind which in that place generously accompanies the current of the river.
I saw him successfully gain height, like some new falcon, dipping and again rising, until he gave way at last to the caprices of the eddying winds and disappeared from view, a drop in the sea of lost desires.
I returned to the Villa Spada covered in sweat, worn out and embittered. I was to report at once to Abbot Melani with the bad news. He, however, had not yet returned. He must surely be resting, on the way back, from the exertions of the parrot hunt: an ordeal at his age, exacerbated by his painful arm. I decided that, rather than endure a discussion and Atto's complaints, it would be best to slip a note under the door of his apartment reporting on the negative outcome of the hunt. However, even before leaving him that message, I knew as soon as I set foot in the villa that the afternoon would be filled with chores, and yet more occasions for over-exertion.
The wedding festivities included a ludic entertainment: a great game of blind man's buff in the gardens of the villa. Eminences, princes, gentlemen and noble ladies were to challenge one another in joyous competition: hiding, following, finding and getting lost once more among the hedges and avenues of the park, vying for who was to show the greatest sagacity, speed and skill. The game could be played only in a place where vision, access and even hearing were obstructed, making for ease of concealment and difficulty in discovering those hiding: the magnificent gardens of Villa Spada, now rendered almost labyrinthine by decorations ephemeral and floral.
I was advised that my services would be required by Don Paschatio on this occasion, in view of a temporary shortage of staff. No fewer than four servants had deserted the Major-Domo, giving such more or less imaginative excuses as a fit of melancholy humour and the sudden death of a dear aunt.
The day had grown cloudy, the temperature had gone down a little and so the game was to begin not too late. I hastened to find some sustenance in the kitchens; it was by now time for luncheon and the hunt for Caesar Augustus had left me ravenous. I found some leftovers of turkey and toasted eggs, by now grown cold, but a delight both for my taste-buds and for my stomach.
I was still chewing on some little bones when one of Don Paschatio's assistants instructed me to don livery and report to the junction between the avenue alongside the secret garden and that which led through the vines down to the fountain. At that crossroads, a place of refreshment had been set up, with fresh waters, orange juice, lemonade, selections of fruit and vegetables, freshly cut bread and good preserves, all in the shade of a great pentagonal white and blue-striped pavilion, the pilasters of which were decorated with great wooden shields bearing the family arms of the spouses' families, the Rocci and the Spada. All this had been provided to slake the thirst of the players of blind man's buff, overheated by all that running around, but also for the sake of those taking no part in the game and preferring to stay idly stretched out on the great white canvas armchairs in the shade of the pavilion.
Making my way to my post, I could but admire once more the infinite caprices granted by the good architect of nature, of which, now that the work of gardening had been completed, I kept discovering new and admirable details. As in every garden all things must be pleasant, in the Villa Spada, every element had been bent to the pleasure of the eye and the intellect, starting with the order of woods and vegetation; for the art of building is a matter of more than the architecture of walls and roofs and comprises hedges, walks and avenues, meadows, porticoes, pergolas, palm trees, flower beds and kitchen gardens. The greatest villas possessed splendid tree-lined avenues, and it is true that we had none such. Therefore, to give a better tone to the walks, along the edges were aligned rows of noble box shrubs, privets and acanthus.
Barrel-vaulted pergolas gently introduced the shy, admiring visitor to the confluence between one avenue and another, or to crossroads under verdant bosky cupolas. Espaliered laurels were trained as canopies, symmetrically tonsured and seven or even fifteen feet high, vying with sheltering holm-oaks, myrtle bushes shaped like umbrellas or sugar loaves, as well as with complete ephemeral wooden buildings, all covered with a mantle of vegetation, and rows of columns in green with festoons and wreaths providing a frame for the orchestra. From a semicircular platform, a small ensemble of string players filled the air with a melodious counterpoint, a joyous game of hide-and-seek between trills and pizzicati that seemed to anticipate the game to which the guests had been invited.
Here, a few paces distant from the platform of the little orchestra, I had been detailed to serve, mixing orange juice and lemon, slicing bread, taking care of the armchairs and providing whatever else might please the excellencies and eminences present or passing by.
As soon as I arrived, I began boldly mixing juices and filling glasses, running from one guest to another like a bee buzzing from flower to flower in the morning.
Once I had done my duty waiting upon them, I placed myself at the gentlemen's service, standing beside one of the wooden pillars of the pavilion before which the other waiters stood like so many Lot's wives. Under the white and sky-blue wing of the great linen tent the guests stood and chattered, laughing and joking, or sat ensconced in armchairs. A few paces away from me, a few middle-aged monsignors calmed with lemonade tongues over-exercised with gossip.
It was at that moment that I realised I was in luck. Next to me stood the two monsignors whom I had, during the Academy, overheard discussing a certain plan to reform the corps of sergeants. From what I could gather, the discussion was continuing:
"… And so now, things should get a move on."
"But this idea is twenty years old, surely they do not intend to implement it now?"
"On the contrary, that does appear to be the case. I was told by my brother who is still an auditor of the Rota but is close to Cardinal Cenci."
"And what does Cenci know of it?"
"He knows, he knows. Here in Rome, at a certain level, the matter is common knowledge. It seems that the time is ripe; if the Pope lives a few more months, the reform will be carried through."
I listened to those two like Diana drawing her bow against a fleeing stag.
"But it is absolutely just that this should be done," continued the first speaker. "You and I, who are decent persons, have never seen the proud cohort of catchpolls entering a tavern or wine-shop at night, for at night we sleep and do not go out wine- bibbing in taverns. But everyone knows perfectly well what takes place. First the catchpolls get roaring drunk, befoul everything and create pandemonium, then off they go without so much as a goodnight. And if the innkeeper is so ill-advised as to ask to be paid, they spit in his face as though he had committed lese-majeste, treat him worse than some back-street assassin and the night afterwards they return to take their revenge. They arrange for some strumpet to enter the hostelry, or a pair of ruffian friends of theirs, and get them to play cards with unstamped playing cards. Then they enter, pretending to be there for a police check, find the cards, or the strumpet, and everyone is thrown into prison: the host, the waiters and anyone who happens to be in the tavern at the time, thus ruining the establishment and the innkeeper's family."
"I know, I know," replied the other, "these tricks are as old as the world."
"And do you think that a trivial matter?" insisted the first speaker. "It appears that the catchpolls exact a tithe, 'the gratuity', they call it, not only from all traders and hawkers but even from artists. What is more, they take a cut from all the harlots, and not only that. They rent rooms and sublet them to the same women of the town at a high price, so that they take money off them twice over. If the harlots refuse, they lose all their advantages."
"Advantages?" repeated the other, somewhat confused.
"Those protected by the catchpolls can work, if you will pardon the improper term, even on feast days. The others they keep checks on, obliging them to rest during religious festivals, in accordance with the law. So those ones lose earnings. Do I explain myself clearly?"
"Well, that's a fine one," said the other, wiping his forehead with a white lace handkerchief in a voice that expressed a mixture of surprise, curiosity and a hint of prurience.
"Come," said the first one. "Let us go and take a look at the game of blind man's buff."
They rose from their armchairs and took one another by the arm with familiar courtesy, moving towards the nearby outer wall bordering the Barberini estate; there, they would certainly be turning to the left, towards the little grove where the game would be at its height.
I looked around me. There could be no question of leaving my post and abruptly or suddenly abandoning the other waiters in the tent. Don Paschatio would certainly receive notice of such a thing; hitherto, I had enjoyed almost complete freedom of movement, except for those occasional duties as a supernumerary, whenever there was a shortage of personnel. If I were to be counted among the deserters, that would only be the start of my troubles. Perhaps the matter might even be brought to the attention of Cardinal Spada in person and I would lose my job; or else the permission to serve Atto might be revoked.
Just as I was reviewing all these pessimistic prospects, I found the solution. A lady with a decolletage after the French style, with a great white veil on her shoulders, was being served a generous portion of blood orange juice in a crystal bowl. Next to her, the Marchese Delia Penna awaited his turn. Swiftly I took a carafe of lemonade from the table and rushed to serve the Marchese.
"But what are you doing, boy?"
In rushing to serve the gentleman, I deliberately jogged my colleague's arm, with the result that he sprinkled red juice on the lady's immaculate veil. Surprised and angered, the lady promptly protested.
"Oh heavens, what have 1 done! Permit me to remedy this, the veil must be washed at once, I shall see to this in person," said I, snatching the veil from her shoulders and rushing towards the great house; a move executed with such rapidity that the victim and the onlookers were left with no time to react. The school of Atto, master of false accidents, had yielded its first fruit. A few moments later, I placed the veil in the hands of a maidservant, with the request to wash it and return it to me in person. That task was the pretext I needed to abandon my post at the pavilion.
Immediately after that, I was in the vicinity of the little grove, on the trail of the two monsignors overheard moments before. How, I wondered, was I to spy on them without being discovered? At last I caught sight of them walking between the box and laurel hedges and continuing their earlier conversation. I was jubilant: the good old rules of Master Tranquillo Romauli had offered me the solution. Near the statues, the hedges had been left not more than a yard high. Elsewhere, they were higher. The precise height of those hedges, neither too low nor as high as those in a maze, provided me with a decisive advantage: they concealed even the top of my head, while leaving the others uncovered from the shoulders upwards. I could see without being seen, spy without being spied on.
I stopped behind a hedge, ready to listen, when a voice made me jump.
"Cuckoo! You are here, you naughty girl, I know."
"Hee hee hee hee!" responded a feminine laugh.
The Penitentiary Major, Cardinal Colloredo, was groping his way, impeded by his voluminous cassock, with his eyes covered with a big red bandage and his hands, adorned with huge topaz and ruby-incrusted rings, stretched out before him in search of his prey. A few paces beyond, hidden behind a little tree, a young high-born maiden wearing a lovely cream-coloured gown and with a heavy diadem of emeralds around her neck awaited Colloredo's approach with trepidation.
"That is not fair! You are breaking the rules," the young woman chanted, for the ancient wearer of the purple, pretending to wipe the perspiration from his brow, had raised the blindfold a little from his eyes.
Suddenly, a nobleman wearing a showy French periwig, whom I was able to identify without a shadow of a doubt as the Marchese Andrea Santacroce, burst out from the surrounding bushes. He grasped the maiden firmly, pressing his chest hard against her back, and kissed her passionately on the neck, like a gander covering a goose and biting her sensually from behind.
"You are mad," I heard her moan, as she freed herself from the embrace. "The others are coming."
Just then, indeed, another blindfolded player was approaching that part of the wood, driving the other players before him, as happens when the prey is driven forward by the beaters on a hunt. Santacroce disappeared as rapidly as he had materialised. The damsel cast one last languid glance at him.
I concealed myself even more thoroughly in the grass, terrified of the prospect of being discovered and taken for a spy on clandestine trysts.
"I know that you're nearby, ha ha!" came the happy chant of the Chairman of the Victualling Board, Monsignor Grimaldi, blindfolded with a big yellow handkerchief.
Before him moved a little group of guests who were enjoying themselves provoking him, keeping very close but never allowing themselves to get caught. The ladies caressed him with fans, the men tickled his belly with a little finger, then were gone in a trice, some under the sheltering foliage of loquat or marine cherry bushes, some taking refuge under the friendly fronds of a young example of those strange trees, the palms, which were for the first time planted by Pope Pius IV in the garden before the Villa Pia and had since made such an impression that their exotic mops were now to be found throughout the Holy City. Grimaldi bounded forward, sure of surprising the nearest player, the Cardinal Vicar Gaspare Carpegna. Instead, he collided with the trunk of the palm tree, causing great mirth in all the group.
The Cardinal Vicar, who had escaped the assault by a hair's breadth, leaned contentedly against a wall, when from this came a spray of water which caught him straight in the face, soaking his collar and his purple cape. An even heartier burst of general laughter followed.
In order to make the games richer in surprises, Cardinal Spada had arranged that little water devices were to be scattered throughout the property, which would be activated by the unwitting passer-by, unleashing sprays, spouts, buckets and downpours for the joy of gay, fun-loving souls. The wall on which Carpegna had leaned, inadvertently pressing on a lever, was in reality a wooden panel leaning against a tree and covered with bricks, behind which was concealed a hydraulic machine equipped with a spout aimed at the activator.
"Cardinal Carpegna was hoping to get away, and instead… he got a wetting, ha ha!" commented Cardinal Negroni who, however, promptly tripped over a vertical cord which tipped a bucket of water on an overhead branch onto his head, giving him abundant copious cold shower.
More laughter followed and I took advantage of the diversion to move a little further away. I was on the point of giving up my bold project of espionage and returning to the great house when I recognised the two monsignori whom I sought, as they distractedly observed that jovial pastime. As I expected, they did not notice me, absorbed as they still were in their discussions.
"The catchpolls protect fugitives and persons who have been served summons," said the first, as they slowly strolled towards the fishpond under the fountain, "yet they imprison people with a mere civil debt for insolvency. And what is one to say of those convicted in absentia who are arrested and arrive in prison half dead? All the doctrinal texts make it quite clear that torture is licit, but at the end of proceedings, not the beginning."
"And how about illegal arrests? No one says anything about these but they are exceedingly frequent. People are arrested in the middle of the night, interrogated, maltreated and thrown into the cells for no good reason. I tell you roundly that, as long as all this remains unchanged, pilgrims and foreigners are bound to leave Rome scandalised, ascribing the crimes of the sergeants to the persons who worthily preside over public administration."
"The Pope, the Secretary of State, the Governor…" added the other, stopping by the feet of the Triton to admire the water-lilies, the marsh marigold with its yellow double flowers and the whitepetalled trefoil, all limply abandoned on the surface of the waters.
"Of course, and they will spread the word everywhere in foreign countries, to the great dishonour and discredit of the Holy Apostolic See."
Prolonged and forced immobility behind a mere box hedge, although thick and as high as a young boy, was both risky and uncomfortable. The danger of being found out by some player of blind man's buff entering the walk where I was eavesdropping gave me cold sweats. Such was the tension in my legs, what with my concern not to make the slightest sound on the gravel, that my calf muscles were close to cramp.
Suddenly, my heart stopped: the hedge was no longer there. Or rather, it had shifted. It had gradually moved out of alignment and it was now extending to my left, leaving me without cover. By pure luck, the two monsignors were facing away from me, and so did not see me. I felt as desperate and defenceless as a pig at the gates of a slaughterhouse. Leaping, I took refuge in the shade of a jasmine espalier. I saw the two monsignors break off and look in my direction with an amazed expression on their faces; I prayed to the Lord and lowered my head.
I raised my eyes. They were not looking at me but at the hedge which, to their astonishment, was trotting off in the direction of Cardinal Nerli, an individual who was, as I have had cause to mention, disliked by many. We followed the scene from a distance. Nerli was blindfolded and following a lady.
Then it happened. From the upper half of the promenading bush came an iron tube which sprinkled Nerli with a light jet of water, eliciting from him a cry of alarm. Then the ball of leaves and bushes ran off, trotting out of the wood. All the company was convulsed with hilarity. The Cardinal tore the blindfold from his eyes.
"What a splendid joke, Eminence, do you not think?" cried a number of members of the Sacred College, running up to congratulate Nerli, who was as white as a sheet. Judging by their laughter, they had taken a malicious pleasure in the game.
"Ah yes, really a delightful trick," commented one of the ladies present, "and how elegant that little squirt was, so well done!"
The Cardinal, scarlet with embarrassment and irritation, did not seem to share this view.
"Eminence, do not be a spoil-sport," said one of the damsels present. "Put back your blindfold at once, for the game must go
Lost in all that great verdant sea and in the smile of the lady who was speaking to him, Cardinal Nerli's eye and mind willingly resigned themselves to sweet shipwreck. The magnificence of the gardens softened his soul, its perfumes loosened his heart and lightened his head. The prelate allowed himself to be gently blindfolded and the game resumed without a care.
The two monsignori commented on the innocent pastimes of the other guests with mute disapprobation. I in the meantime made sure that the espalier of jasmine which I was hiding behind was not also equipped with a tenant and legs. Soon, however, the pair resumed their promenade in order to get away from the noise of the players. For a while, they walked in silence. They went through immense pergolas, mounted on cross-beams and pilasters, so that those passing underneath saw almost a brand new sky, viewed through green-tinted lenses. For brief instants, their eyes caught sight of nearby peach trees, artichoke plants, pear trees, rows of lemon trees, orange groves, cypresses and holm-oaks which played hide-and-seek with the visitor's eyes since, as Leon Battista Alberti puts it, without mystery there can be no beauty. Dodging behind lemon trees and box hedges, I did not let them out of my sight or hearing.
"But let us get back to our subject," resumed the second of the pair, emboldened after listening to his companion's arguments. "What you tell me is true, and you are quite right. I shall even go further: because of the catchpolls' abuses, or simply their incompetence, the courts of law and the protocols of the civil notaries are full of cases that have had to be dismissed. When they do on occasion catch someone who deserves to end up behind bars, they ill-treat him so brutally, neglecting to collect evidence correctly, that the defence lawyers manage to get the proceedings suspended or even halted. Nevertheless, I do not hold out any high hopes for this reform. You know better than I that there is no point in trying to reason with these catchpolls."
"Of course there's no point in reasoning with them; but by now, we are no longer talking of catchpolls but of common thieves paid by the Apostolic Chamber! Every one of them is wretchedly poor before enrolling. The wages they receive are not enough to live on; a corporal receives six scudi, a catchpoll, four and a half. Now, let us suppose that with some honest work the corporal can earn another three scudi and the catchpoll another two."
"Very well, let us suppose that for the sake of argument."
"How do you explain, then, that if you enter their homes you will find it filled with luxury furniture? Their wives rival great ladies in their apparel and jewellery. And if they have no wife, you will find them surrounded by a brace of harlots, to which you may add gambling, drinking, gluttony and all manner of vices: not even forty scudi a month could pay for all that. It is quite plain that all that money can only come from robbery, do you not think so?"
"Of course I think so and I second your every word."
Meanwhile, we could hear the distant cries of the ladies, calling for an end to the game and inviting everyone to come and picnic, and rest, before dinner. The pair went through the gate to the secret garden, in search of quiet. I waited for them to move a little further in, among the elms and Capocotta poplars, and then I too entered, concealing myself to one side, behind a row of zibibbo vines.
"And so, this reform project?" asked the same one as before.
"It is simple and sensible. First, by means of a special bull, abolish all the functions of the Bargello, of every tribunal, both in Rome and in the country. Dismiss lieutenants, corporals, ranks of standard bearers and clerks and the like, all of which offices are usually also conferred on the sergeants."
"You are an optimist. Do you really believe that so crude and radical a reform will be approved by His Holiness, given his present state of health?"
"We shall see, we shall see. But you have not heard the rest. In the first place, the number of catchpolls will be reduced. Then the Mantellone, or President of Justice, if you prefer that title, will command sergeants from several tribunals, which, as you well know, is not at present possible. For the purposes of patrols and arrests, the catchpolls could be accompanied by a few soldiers, as is already the practice in many kingdoms and republics. All in all, about two hundred catchpolls will be dismissed."
"And in their place?"
"Perfectly simple: replace them with soldiers."
While I was returning to the great house to fetch the noblewoman's veil, cleansed of orange stains and ready to be returned to its owner, innumerable thoughts rushed into my mind. Of course, I was not unaware that the catchpolls were in part a miserable, ill-born and unfortunate rabble. Never, however, had I heard all the depraved commercial activities of the officers of the law listed all together, one after the other. Corrupt they were, indeed. But that was the least of their iniquities. The sergeants, so I had heard, practised far worse outrages, which reduced the law to the theatre of deceit and order to the handmaid of abuse.
My thoughts turned to Sfasciamonti: it was no surprise that he had to encourage his colleagues to investigate the cerretani. Why, I wondered, should they go out of their way to discover the secrets of the sects of mendicants if they already had to go to such lengths to conceal their own?
Of course, Sfasciamonti had shown himself to be familiar with the worst practices: falsifying police reports, arresting people unjustly, lying, threatening those detained for questioning. He would even have been prepared to have Il Roscio kept illicitly in prison. But all that was, I thought, in order to arrive at a goal that was in itself praiseworthy: to combat the cerretano scum and find out what had become of Abbot Melani's manuscript, the telescope and the relic. If these were the methods necessary to arrive at the truth, they were perhaps less than ideal; but they could doubtless be accepted.
When I arrived at Atto's lodgings, I was already awaited for my report.
"It is about time. Where on earth have you been?" he asked me, while getting Buvat to spread an ointment on his arm.
I then told him of the many vicissitudes which had kept me busy, including those before the hunt for Caesar Augustus which I had not yet had occasion to report on: the conversation with the Master Florist, Albani's desperation at the loss of his note, stolen by the parrot; and finally, the scandal caused by the repeated argument between Atto himself and Albani, thanks to which the Secretary for Breves was ridding himself of his inconvenient reputation for fidelity to France.
The Abbot received these three items of news with excitement, amusement and thoughtful silence, respectively.
"So the Master Florist is prepared to talk. That is good, very good. Only, he said that I should be correctly informed before meeting him: in what sense? He will surely not be of the imperial party."
"Signor Abbot," Buvat intervened, "with your permission, I have an idea."
"Yes?"
"What if the Tetrachion, which Romauli mentioned, were the flower of some household? The arms of noble houses are full of beasts with the most singular names such as the dragon, the gryphon, the siren and the unicorn, and it may be that plants follow the same pattern."
"Ah yes, it could come from some family coat of arms!" Atto jumped up, bespattering his poor secretary's clothing with the ointment from his arm. "All the more so in that the Master Florist knows all about flowers. You are a genius, Buvat. Perhaps Romauli hoped that I should be well informed before I meet him because he does not wish to name names and so he expects that, when I go and talk with him, I should already know what family is hidden behind the Tetrachion."
"So," I asked, "would this provide the proof of the heir to the Spanish throne, as Ambassador Uzeda's maid said? And if that is the case, what would that have to do with the fact that Capitor named the dish after a heraldic flower?"
"I have not the faintest idea, my boy," replied Melani, overexcitedly, "but Romauli does seem to intend to provide us with useful information."
Having said this, Abbot Melani sent his secretary off to search through the official registers of recognised arms for a hypothetical noble shield bearing a flower named Tetrachion.
"You can start at once in the library of the villa. You may be sure that they will have the precious opus of Pasquali Alidosi, which is illustrated with woodcuts of the arms, and that of Dolfi, which has the advantage of being more recent. After that, Buvat, you will resume work on that other matter."
"When am I to copy your reply to the letter from Madama the Connestabilessa?" asked the secretary.
"Afterwards."
Once Buvat had left, not in truth that keen to set to work again at that hour (which he ordinarily dedicated to repose in the company of a fine bottle of wine), I would have liked to ask Atto what else he had in mind for his secretary, who had, for a couple of days, been largely out of sight. But the Abbot spoke first:
"And now let us pass from the vegetalia to the animalia. So Albani is much troubled through the fault of your parrot," said he, referring to what I had told him not long before. "Ha, so much the worse for him!"
"And what do you think of the comments they have been making on him?"
He looked at me with a grave expression on his face, but uttered not a word.
"We must be vigilant in all directions, without excluding anything," said he in the end.
I nodded, at a loss for words, without understanding what he might mean by that all-embracing phrase which clearly said all and nothing, like most political statements. He had not wished to comment on Albani's new public image. Perhaps, I thought, he too did not know where that might lead, but did not wish to admit it.
Ignorant as I was of matters of state, I was mistaken.