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Then he dismissed me suddenly, on the pretext that it was time for his evening orations. He made as if to rise from his bed.

'But I have not yet finished: I must apply a poultice now,' I objected.

He lay down again without a protest. He seemed to be lost in contemplation.

Following Cristofano's notes, I took a piece of crystalline arsenic and wrapped it in a piece of sendal. I approached the Jesuit and placed the poultice above his breast. I had to wait for it to dry, after which I twice again wet it with vinegar.

'Please do not, however, listen to all the malevolent gossip which has been spread about Pope Innocent, ever since the time of the Lady Olimpia,' he continued, while I attended to the operation.

'What gossip?'

'Oh, nothing, nothing: it is all just poison. And more powerful than that which killed our poor Mourai.'

He fell silent then, with a mysterious and, to me, suspect air.

I became alarmed. Why had the Jesuit remembered the poison which had perhaps killed the old Frenchman? Was it only a casual comparison, as it seemed? Or did the mysterious allusion conceal something else, or had it, perhaps, to do with the Donzello's no less mysterious underground passages? I said to myself that I was being silly, yet that word-poison-kept turning around in my head.

'Pardon me, Padre, what did you mean?'

'It would be better for you to remain in your ignorance,' said he, cutting me short distractedly.

'Who is Lady Olimpia?' I insisted.

'Do not tell me that you have never heard speak of the Papess,' he murmured, turning to look at me in astonishment.

'The Papess?'

It was thus that Robleda, lying on his side supported by an elbow and with an air of granting me an immense favour, began to recount to me in an almost inaudible voice that Pope Innocent XI had been made a cardinal by Pope Innocent X Pamphili, almost forty years earlier. The latter had reigned with great pomp and magnificence, thus consigning to oblivion a number of disagreeable deeds which had taken place under the previous pontificate, that of Urban VIII Barberini. Someone, however-and here the Jesuit's tone descended by another octave-someone had observed that Pope Innocent X, of the Pamphili family, and his brother's wife, Olimpia Maidalchini were linked by bonds of mutual sympathy. It was murmured (all calumnies, of course) that the closeness between the two was excessive and suspect, even between two close relatives for whom affection and warmth and so many other things (quoth he, looking into my eyes for the space of a lightning flash) would be completely natural. The intimacy which Pope Pamphili granted to his sister-in-law was, however, such that she frequented his chambers at all hours of the day and night, put her nose into his affairs and interfered even in matters of state: she arranged audiences, granted privileges, assumed responsibility for taking decisions in the Pope's name. It was surely not beauty that gave Donna Olimpia her dominance. Her appearance was, indeed, particularly repugnant, although combined with the incredible force of an almost virile temperament. The ambassadors of foreign powers were continually sending her presents, aware of the power which she exercised in the Holy See. The Pontiff himself was, however, weak, submissive, of melancholy humour. Gossip in Rome ran rife, and some made a joke of the Pope, sending him anonymously a medal with his sister-in-law dressed as Pope, tiara and all; and, on the other side, Innocent X in women's clothing, with a needle and thread in his hand.

The cardinals rebelled against this indecorous situation, succeeding for a while in having the woman removed, but after that she managed to regain the saddle and to accompany the Pope even to the tomb; and that, after her own fashion: she concealed the Pontiff's death from the people for a good two days, so that she would have time to remove everything of value from the papal apartments. Meanwhile, the poor lifeless body was left alone in a room, a prey to the rats, while no one came forward to see to the burial. The funeral eventually took place amidst the indifference of the cardinals and the mockery and jibes of the common people.

Now, Donna Olimpia loved to play at cards, and it is said that one evening, in a gay assembly of ladies and cavaliers at her table, she found herself in the company of a young cleric who, when all other competitors had withdrawn from the game, accepted Donna Olimpia's challenge to play against her. And it is also said that there gathered around them a great crowd of people, to watch so unusual a contest. And for more than an hour, the two confronted one another, with no thought for time or money, occasioning great gaiety among those present; and, at the end of the evening, Donna Olimpia returned home with a sum of money of which the exact total has never been known, but which was by all accounts enormous. Likewise, rumour had it that the unknown young man, who in truth almost always held better cards than his adversary, was gracious enough so to arrange matters as to reveal those cards distractedly to a servant of Donna Olimpia, so that he lost all the decisive hands, without however (as chivalry requires) allowing anyone to see that, not even the winner; thus confronting his grave defeat with magnificent indifference. Anyway, soon after that, Pope Pamphili made a cardinal of that cleric, who went by the name of Benedetto Odescalchi, and attained the purple in the flower of youth, at the age of thirty-four years.

I had in the meanwhile completed my massage with the ointment.

'But remember,' Robleda warned me hastily in a voice that had returned to normal, while he cleaned the poultice off his chest, 'this is all gossip. There exist no material proofs of that episode.'

Hardly had I left Padre Robleda's chamber than I experienced a sense of unease, which not even I could explain to myself, as I thought back over my conversation with that flabby, purple-faced priest. No supernatural talent was needed to understand that the Jesuit regarded Our Lord Pope Innocent XI, not as an upright, honest and saintly pontiff, but no less than a friend and accomplice of the Jansenists; all for the purpose of thwarting the designs of the King of France, with whom he had clashed. Furthermore, he saw him as consumed by unhealthy material appetites, avidity and avarice; and even as having corrupted Donna Olimpia to obtain his Cardinal's hat. But, I reasoned, if such a portrait were truthful, how could Our Lord Pope Innocent XI be the same person who had restored austerity, decorum and frugality to the heart of Holy Mother Church? How could he be the same person who for decades had extended charity to the poor, wherever he found them? How could he be the same man who had enjoined the princes of Europe to unite their forces against the Turks? It was a fact that previous pontiffs had showered their nephews and families with presents, while he had broken off that unseemly tradition; it was a fact that he had restored a healthy balance to the Apostolic Chamber; and finally, it was a fact that Vienna itself was resisting the advance of the Ottoman tide thanks to the efforts of Pope Innocent.

No, what that gossiping poltroon of a Jesuit had told me was simply not possible. Had I not, moreover, immediately suspected his manner of saying and not saying, and that capricious doctrine of the Jesuits which legitimised sin? And I too was guilty of having allowed myself to listen to him, even at a certain point encouraging him to continue, led astray by Robleda's casual and misleading mention of the poisoning of Signor di Mourai. This was all, I thought remorsefully, the fault of Atto Melani's attitude to investigation and the craft of spying, and of my desire to emulate him: a perverse passion which had made me fall into the snares of the Evil One and had disposed my ears to hearken to his whispers of calumny.

I returned to the kitchen where I found on the sideboard an anonymous note, clearly addressed to me: three knocks on the door be ready

Night the Third

Between the 13th and 14th September, 1683

A little over an hour later, after Cristofano had taken a last look at my master, Abbot Melani knocked three times at my door. I was intent upon my little diary: I hid it carefully under the mattress before admitting him.

'A drop of oil,' said the abbot enigmatically, immediately after entering.

I suddenly remembered how, when we last met, he had noticed a drop of oil on my forehead, which he had taken on a fingertip and brought to his tongue.

'Tell me, what oil do you use for the lamps?'

'The College of Cardinals has commanded that oil mixed with wine lees is always to be…'

'I did not ask you what you are supposed to use but what you do use, when your master,' and he pointed to him, 'is resting in his bed.'