arch-confraternity; but the Pontiff had ('strangefully', commented Ugonio) failed as yet to respond to that request.
'They rob, they deceive, they smuggle, and then they behave like so many church mice,' Atto whispered to me.
Ugonio then fell silent, leaving the floor to Baronio. At last the uninterrupted bustling of the corpisantari — perennially intent upon scratching, scraping away dead skin and scurf, coughing and spitting, and toothlessly chewing away at invisible and disgusting aliments- ceased.
Baronio puffed up his chest, pointed severely upwards and, pointing a clawed index heavenward, declaimed: 'Gfrrrlubh!'
'Extraordinary,' Atto Melani commented icily, 'they all speak the same… language.'
'It is no linguafrank, it is a vote,' Ugonio intervened with some irritation, perhaps understanding that Atto was subtly deriding his leader.
Thus we learned that the limited lexical capacity of the corpisantari was a consequence, not of ignorance or stupidity but of a pious vow.
'Until the sacral object is disgoverned, we have voted not to verbalise,' said Ugonio, who then explained that he alone was free of that pledge so as to be able to maintain contacts between the community of the corpisantari and the outside world.
'Ah yes, and what would this sacred object be which you so ardently seek?'
'Ampoule with the true Sanguine Domini Nostri,' said Ugonio, while the rest of the troop made the sign of the cross as one man.
'Yours is indeed a noble and holy quest,' said Atto, turning to Baronio with a smile.
'Pray that they should never be released from that vow,' he then whispered to me so as not to be overheard, 'or in Rome they will all end up talking like Ugonio.'
'That is improbabilious,' Ugonio replied unexpectedly, 'whereinasmuch the undersignified is Germanic.'
'Are you German?' asked Atto in astonishment.
'I proveniate from Vindobona,' came the corpisantaro' s stiff reply.
'Ah, so you were born in Vienna,' translated the abbot. 'That would account for your speaking so…'
'… I commandeer the italic tongue, not as an immigrunter, but as if 'twere my own motherlingo,' Ugonio hastened to add, 'and am most gratificated to your worshipful decisionality for the complement of esteem wherewith you do adub me.'
Once he had finished with complimenting himself for his awkward and ramshackle eloquence, Ugonio explained to his companions what was at stake: a dubious individual, lodging at our hostelry, had excogitated a plan to assassinate His Holiness Innocent XI using pestiferous leeches, and that at a time when in Vienna the fate of Christendom hung in the balance. The dastardly plot was to be enacted that very night.
The corpisantari received the news with expressions of profound indignation, approaching panic. A brief but excited debate took place, which Ugonio summarised for us. Plafonio proposed that they should withdraw in prayer and beg for the intercession of the Most High. Gallonio, on the other hand, favoured a diplomatic initiative: a delegation of corpisantari should visit Dulcibeni and request that he desist from his plan. Stellonio joined the discussion, expressing a very different opinion: they should enter the Donzello, capture Dulcibeni and execute him without further ado. Grufonio observed that such a scheme would provoke disagreeable counter-actions, such as the arrival of the Pontifical Guards. Marronio added that entry into premises shut up on grounds of suspected pestilence would thereafter incur undeniable risks. Svetonio pointed out that such an action would in any case be of no use for the purpose of foiling Dulcibeni's plot: if Tiracorda visited the Pope (and here Grufonio once more made the sign of the cross) all was lost. Tiracorda must therefore be stopped at all costs. The entire body of corpisantari then turned to Baronio, who harangued them efficaciously: 'Gfrrrlubh!'
Baronio's rabble then began to jump up and down and to grunt in a furious, warlike manner; whereupon, as we watched, it dispersed and transformed itself, forming double ranks, like a band of soldiers, all marching into conduit C in the direction of Tiracorda's house.
Atto and I witnessed all this impotently, quite out of our depth; Ugonio, who had remained with us together with his usual companion, had to explain to us what was happening: the corpisantari had decided to intercept Tiracorda come what may. They would position themselves in the little roads around the old Archiater's, house, in order to ambush his carriage when it set out for the pontifical palace of Monte Gavallo.
'And we, Signor Atto, what shall we do to stop Tiracorda?' I asked, seized by agitation and the desire to fight with all my might against whoever threatened the life of the Vicar of Christ.
The abbot, however, was not listening to me. Instead, he simply replied to Ugonio's explanation with the words: 'Ah, so that is how matters stand,' proffered in a colourless voice.
He had lost all control over the situation and did not seem very pleased about that.
'Well then, what are we to do?'
'Tiracorda must be stopped, that is for sure,' said Melani, striving to regain a decisive demeanour. 'While Baronio and the others control the surface, we shall look after the underground galleries. Look here.'
Under our eyes, he stretched out a newly revised version of the map of the underground city which he had drawn up previously but lost in the disaster of the Cloaca Maxima. The new map also showed conduit C, including the intersection with the little subterranean river leading to Dulcibeni's elaboratory and the Cloaca Maxima. The continuation of conduit D was also visible, up to the exit in Tiracorda's stables, just next to the Donzello.
'In order to intercept Tiracorda, it will not suffice to control the streets around the Via dell'Orso,' explained Atto. 'We simply cannot ignore the possibility that the doctor may, in the interests of secrecy, prefer to pass through the underground galleries, taking conduits D, C, B and A, in that order, and emerging on the banks of the Tiber.'
'But why?'
'He might, for example, travel some way by boat, moving upstream to the harbour of Ripetta. That would lengthen his itinerary but make it almost impossible to follow him. Or he might surface at some point unknown to us. It will be as well if we divide our tasks so as to be ready for all contingencies: Ugonio and Ciacconio will keep an eye on galleries A, B, C and D.'
'Will that not be rather too much for the two of them on their own?'
'They are not two, but three: there is also Ciacconio's nose. You and I, my boy, shall explore the part of conduit B where we have never yet been; just to make quite sure that Tiracorda cannot get by that way.'
'And Dulcibeni?' I asked. 'Do you not fear that he too may be wandering underground?'
'No. He has done all that he could: to infect the leeches. Now it will suffice that Tiracorda should visit the Pope and apply those leeches.'
Ugonio and Ciacconio departed at once, almost at a run, taking conduit C in the reverse direction. As we began our march, I found myself unable, however, to contain my overpowering curiosity: 'Signor Atto, you are an agent of the King of France.'
He looked askance at me. 'Yes, and what are you getting at?'
'Well, it is just that… after all, this Pope is surely no friend of the Most Christian King, and yet you wish to save him, is that not so?'
He stopped. 'Have you ever seen a man beheaded?'
'No.'
'Well, you should know that when the head is rolling down from the scaffold, its tongue can still move. That is why no prince is ever content when one of his peers dies. He fears that rolling head and the dangerous things which that tongue might utter.'
'Then, sovereigns never have anyone killed.'
'Well, that is not exactly the case… they may do so, where the Crown itself is in jeopardy. But politics, and remember this, my boy, real politics consists of balances, not bloodshed.'
I observed him surreptitiously; the uncertainty in his voice, the pallor of his face, his shifty eyes, all betrayed the return of Abbot Melani's fears: despite his fine words, I had clearly detected his fumbling. The corpisantari had left him no time for reflection: they had rapidly taken the initiative and were organising the rescue of Innocent XI; an heroic enterprise which Atto had not undertaken with such celerity and into which he had now been catapulted by surprise. There was now no turning back. He tried to mask his unease by hastening his steps, thus showing me only his stiff and nervous back.
