amusedly, not caring that I showed how little I appreciated his joke.
We were muddied, our brow and our bodies befouled by disgusting sweat. Suddenly, the abbot screamed. A shapeless, rapid and furtive being fell upon my back, sliding clumsily down my right leg before plunging back into the darkness. I twisted my body, raising my arms in terror to protect my head, simultaneously ready to beg for mercy and blindly to defend myself.
Atto understood that the danger, if danger there had been, had lasted the space of a lightning flash. 'Strange that we should not have met with any before,' he commented as soon as he had regained his composure. 'One can see that we really are off the beaten track.'
An enormous river rat, disturbed by our arrival, had chosen to climb over us rather than be driven backwards. In its mad leap, it had clung to Abbot Melani's arm while he leaned against the wall, and had then fallen with all its weight onto my back, paralysing me with terror. We stopped, silent and fearful, until our breathing recovered its normal rhythm. We then resumed our ascent, until the steps began at intervals to be replaced by horizontal brick platforms, each one longer than the one before. Fortunately, we had a good supply of oil: contravening the repeated prohibitions issued by the College of Cardinals, I had decided also to use good edible oil.
We felt that we had reached the final stretch. By now we were walking up a gently ascending slope which made us forget the fatigue and the fears which we had only just traversed. We debouched suddenly in a quadrangular space which was no longer excavated but built in masonry. It looked very much like a storeroom or the cellar of a palace.
'We have returned among men,' said the abbot, greeting our new surroundings.
From here, a last stairway led upwards, very steep but equipped with a rope handrail, secured to the right- hand wall by a series of iron rings. We climbed up to the top.
'Curses,' hissed the abbot.
I understood at once what he meant. At the top of the stairs there was, as might be expected, a doorway. The door was quite solid, and it was closed.
Here was a good opportunity to take a rest, even in so inhospitable a place, and to reflect upon our situation. The little door was bolted with a rusty iron bar running into the wall. From the draught we felt coming through it, there was no difficulty in guessing that it gave onto the open air.
'Now I shall say nothing. You, explain all this,' invited the abbot.
'The door is closed from the inside. Yet…' I struggled to make my deduction, 'the thief did not leave the gallery. But since we did not meet him nor did we find any junction with another gallery, the conclusion must be that he did not take the same route as ourselves.'
'Very well. Then, where did he go?'
'Perhaps he did not even descend into the well behind the closet,' I suggested, without for one moment believing that.
'Mmmh,' grumbled Atto. 'So where did he hide then?'
He went back down the stairs and turned rapidly round the storeroom. In a corner, an old half-rotten boat confirmed the suspicion which I had nourished from the moment of our arrival there: we were close to the banks of the Tiber. I opened the door, not without difficulty working the bolt. Illuminated by faint moonbeams, the beginning of a pathway was visible. Lower down, the river ran past, and I instinctively drew back from the chasm. The fresh, damp wind blew into the store-room, causing us to breathe deeply. Just outside the door, another uncertain path seemed to fork off to the right, where it vanished into the muddy riverbanks.
The abbot anticipated my thoughts: 'If we flee now, they will capture us without fail.'
'In other words,' I moaned disconsolately, 'we have come all this way for nothing.'
'Quite the contrary,' retorted Atto impassively. 'Now we know this way out, should we ever need it. We have found no trace of the thief who, however, did not take this route. We have missed some other possibility, either through an oversight or through our incapacity. Let us now turn back, before someone becomes aware of our absence.'
The return to the inn was as painful and twice as tiring as the outward journey. Deprived of the hunter's instinct that had then driven us (or so it was, at least, for Abbot Melani), we dragged ourselves forward, suffering even more from the anfractuosities of the way, although my travelling companion was unwilling to admit it.
Once we had climbed back up the first well, with great relief leaving behind us the infernal underground passage, we regained the little closet. The abbot, visibly frustrated by this fruitless expedition, dismissed me with a few hurried instructions for the following day.
'Tomorrow, if you wish, you may advise the other guests that someone has stolen the second copy of the keys, or at least that they have been mislaid. Of course, we shall say nothing of our discovery or of our attempt to identify the thief. As soon as we have an opportunity, we shall consult together separately from the others, in the kitchen or in some other secure place, and we shall keep each other informed of any news.'
I nodded lazily, because of my fatigue, but above all because of the doubts I still secretly harboured concerning Abbot Melani. During our return through the gallery, I had again changed my mind about him: I said to myself that, even if the gossip about him was excessive and malevolent, there did nevertheless remain obscure areas in his past; and so, now that the hunt for the thief had failed, I no longer intended to act as his servant and informer and thus to embroil myself in murky, and perhaps even perilous, affairs. And, even if it were true that Superintendent Fouquet, whose companion Melani had been, had been no more than too splendid a Maecenas, victim of the regal jealousy of Louis XIV and the envy of Colbert, it could still not be denied, I repeated to myself as we forged our tiresome way through the darkness, that here I was, in cahoots with one accustomed to the cunning, the sophistries and the thousand guiles of the court of Paris.
I knew how serious the quarrel was between our good Pope, Innocent XI, and the court of France. At the time, I was unable to tell why there should be such bitterness between Rome and Paris. But from the people's discourse and from those who were better informed about political affairs, I had clearly understood that whoever would faithfully serve our pontiff could not, and must not, be a friend of the French court.
And then, was not all that ardour in pursuing the supposed thief of the keys in itself suspect? Why take up that pursuit, so full of unknown consequences and dangers, rather than simply letting events take their course and telling the other guests at once of the keys' disappearance? And what if the abbot knew far more than he had confided in me? Perhaps he already had a precise idea of where the keys were hidden. And what if he himself had been the thief and had simply tried to distract my attention in order to be able to act more at ease, perhaps that very night? Even my beloved master had concealed from me the existence of the gallery, so why should a stranger like Abbot Melani have confided his real intentions to me?
I therefore gave the abbot my broad promise that I would follow his instructions, but did what I could to disengage myself from him as quickly as possible, taking back my lantern and closing myself at once into my chamber, where I intended to resume filling my little diary with the many occurrences of the day.
Signor Pellegrino was sleeping placidly, his breathing almost completely calmed. More than two hours had passed since we entered the horrid subterranean gallery, perhaps no more remained before it would be time to rise, and I was at the limit of my strength. It was by pure chance that, an instant before putting out the light, I glanced at my master's breeches and noticed the lost keys in plain view on his belt.
Day the Third
13th September, 1683
Through the window streamed the sun's friendly rays, flooding the chamber with whiteness and spreading a pure, blessed light even over the sweaty, suffering face of poor Signor Pellegrino, abandoned in his bed. The door opened and the smiling face of Abbot Melani peered around it.
'It is time to go, my boy.'
'Where are the other guests?'
'They are all in the kitchen, listening to Devize play the trumpet.'
How strange: I had not known that the guitarist was also a virtuoso on that resounding instrument; and why, then, was the silvery and penetrating sound of the brass not audible on the upper floors?
