followed the only direction possible. Hardly had we made that observation, when all changed.
The ground became damp and slippery, the air denser and heavier, and in the gloomy silence of the gallery a distant rustling sound could be heard. We advanced cautiously, while Ciacconio's head rocked from side to side, as though he were suffering. A nauseating odour could be detected, which was, I knew, familiar, but could not as yet identify.
'Sewers,' said Atto Melani.
'Gfrrrlubh,' confirmed Ciacconio.
Ugonio explained that the sewage was disturbing his colleague no little, and making it impossible for him to identify other odours clearly.
A little further on we found ourselves walking through real puddles. The stink, which had at first been indistinct, grew intense. At last we found the cause of all this. In the wall to the left, there was a wide and deep opening, through which poured a flood of black, fetid water. The rivulet followed the slope in the gallery, partly flowing along the sides, partly ending up in the seemingly endless darkness of the passageway. I touched the opposite wall: it was damp and left a fine coating of slime on my fingertips. Our attention was attracted by a detail. On its back in the water before us, and indifferent to our presence, lay a large rat.
'Mortified,' proclaimed Ugonio, nudging it with one foot.
Ciacconio took the rat by the tail with his two clawed fingers and let it hang. From the rat's mouth into the greyish water there ran a fine stream of blood. Ciacconio lowered his head, observing the unexpected phenomenon with an air of surprise.
'Gfrrrlubh,' he commented thoughtfully.
'Mortified, bloodified, maldistempered,' explained Ugonio.
'How does he know that it was ill?' I asked.
'Ciacconio loves these little animals very much, is that not so?' intervened Abbot Melani.
Ciacconio nodded affirmatively, showing with an ingenuous and bestial smile his horrible yellow teeth.
We continued on our way, moving beyond the stretch of gallery soaked by the flood from the sewers. Everything suggested that the leakage was recent and that normally we should have found there no trace of water. As for the rat, this was no lone discovery. We soon came across three more dead rodents, more or less of the same dimensions as the first one. Ciacconio inspected them: all bled abundantly from the mouth because, said the corpisantari, of some undefined illness. Here was yet another encounter with blood: first, the bloodstained page from the Bible, then the phial, now these rats.
Our exploration was interrupted by yet another surprise. This time we found no infiltration, however copious, but a veritable watercourse, which rushed rapidly through a gallery perpendicular to our own and appeared to be fairly deep. This was in all probability an underground river, whose waters were perhaps mixed with some of the waste materials normally borne by the sewers. There was, however, no bad smell like that which had so upset Ciacconio.
With no little disappointment, we had to admit defeat. We could go no further, and a long time had passed since we left the Donzello. It would not do to remain any longer outside the inn, given the risk that our absence might be discovered. Thus, tired and worn, we decided to turn back.
While we turned around, Ciacconio once more sniffed the air suspiciously.
Atto Melani sneezed.
Day the Sixth
16th September, 1683
The return to the Donzello was long, sad and tiring. We came back to our bedchambers with our hands, faces and clothing mud-stained and wet. I threw myself onto my bed exhausted and almost at once fell into a deep sleep.
When I stirred in the morning, I found that I was still lying in the same uncomfortable posture as when I lay down the night before. It was as though my legs were tormented by a thousand swords. I stretched out an arm to raise myself into a sitting position and my hand met the rough, crumpled surface of an object with which I had obviously shared my bed. It was Stilone Priaso's astrological almanack, which I had so precipitously put aside some twenty-four hours before, when Cristofano called me to work.
The night which had just passed had fortunately helped me to forget the tremendous occurrences which the almanack had, by occult means, precisely foretold: the death of Colbert, that of Mourai (rather, of Fouquet) and the presence of a poison; the 'malignant fevers' from which my master and Bedfordi would suffer; the 'hidden treasure' which would come to light at the beginning of the month, or in other words, the letters hidden in Colbert's study and stolen by Atto; the 'subterranean earthquakes and fires' which had resounded through our cellars; and, lastly, the prediction of the siege of Vienna: or, in the words of the gazette, ' battles and assaults against the City', as foreseen by 'Ali and Leopoldus Austriacus'.
Did I wish to know what would happen in the days to come? No, I thought, with a tightening of my stomach, at least for the time being, I did not desire that. I looked instead at the preceding pages and my eyes alighted on the last week of July, from the 22nd until the last day of the month.
This Weeke, News of the World will be received from Jupiter, who governs the ruling House. That being the Third House, he sends many Dispatches, perhaps concerning the lllnesse of a Ruler, who will in the End tearfully quit a Kingdom.
So, at the end of July, the death of a sovereign was expected. I had heard of no such thing and so it was with satisfaction that I saluted the arrival of Cristofano: I would ask him.
But Cristofano knew nothing of this. Once again, he wondered, and inquired of me, how it was that I should be concerned with matters so distant from our present predicament: first, astrology, then, the fortunes of sovereigns. Thanks be to heaven, I had enjoyed sufficient presence of mind to conceal the astrological gazette in my couch in good time. I felt pleased to have discovered an inaccuracy, and one of some importance, in the almanack's hitherto all too precise predictions; this meant that they were not infallible. Secretly, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Cristofano, meanwhile, looked pensively at my eyes. He said that youth was a most happy season in human life, one that tended to unleash all the forces of body and mind. However, he added emphatically, one must not abuse this sudden and sometimes disorderly flowering, thus dissipating its new and almost uncontrollable energies. And while, with concern, he prodded the bags under my eyes, he reminded me that dissipation was above all sinful, as was commerce with women of easy virtue (and here he nodded in the direction of Cloridia's little tower), which could, moreover, lead to the French pox. He knew this well, having had personally to cure many with his authoritative remedies, such as the Great Ointment and Holy Wood. Yet, for health, such commerce was perhaps less inauspicious than solitary dissipation.
'Excuse me,' said I, in an endeavour to deflect the discussion from that thorny subject, 'I have another question: do you perhaps know what illnesses rats suffer from?'
Crisofano laughed. 'That is all we need. 1 can see it all now… One of our guests must have asked you whether there are rats in the hostelry, is that not so?'
My smile was uncertain, neither affirming nor denying.
'Well, I ask you, are there rats in the hostelry?'
'Good heavens, no, I have always cleaned everywhere with the greatest of care.'
'I know, I know. If that were not the case, in other words, if you had found any dead rats, I myself would have put you on your guard.'
'And why is that?'.
'Why my poor boy, rats are always the first to catch the pestilence: Hippocrates recommended that one should never touch them, and in this he was followed by Aristotle, Pliny and Avicenna. The geographer Strabo tells that in ancient Rome the dreadful meaning of rats appearing sick in the streets was well known; for it portends a visitation, and he reminds us that in Italy and Spain, prizes were awarded to whoever killed the greatest number of them. In the Old Testament, the Philistines, being afflicted with a frightful pestilence which affected their posterior
