in ambush for him; yet Atto's fear, which had at last become fully manifest, was no longer such a mystery to me. No longer did I envy him his secret mission, his relations in many courts, his skills as a man of action and intrigue.
He had come to Rome in order to serve the King of France and to investigate a mystery. Now he knew that, if he would resolve that mystery, he must investigate the King himself.
Day the Eighth
18th September, 1683
I awoke the next day gnawed by a certain febrile anxiety. Despite the long-drawn-out reflections in which Atto and I had engaged the night before and the little sleep which I had, yet again, allowed myself, I was perfectly vigilant and ready for action. What I might be able to do was in reality not very clear to me: too many mysteries haunted the inn and their sheer number prevented me from resolving any of them. Threatening or unattainable presences (Louis XIY Colbert, Queen Maria Teresa, Kircher himself) had made their way into the hostelry and into our lives. The scourge of the pestilence had not yet left off from tormenting and terrifying us; some of our guests had, moreover, for days now assumed guises and comportments which were at once indecipherable and enigmatic. As though all that were not enough, the astrological almanack purloined from Stilone Priaso promised disastrous and death-dealing events for the days to come.
As I descended the stairs on my way to the kitchen, I heard the voice of Atto Melani resounding, quietly yet agonisingly:
Infelice pensier, chi tie conforta?
Ohime!
Chi tie consiglia?…*
Atto, too, must have felt confused and discouraged-and that, far more than me! I hastened on my way, deliberately refusing to dwell upon such disheartening thoughts. As usual, I diligently assisted Cristofano in the kitchen and in serving meals. I had prepared snails boiled and lightly fried in oil, with ground garlic, mint, parsley, spices and a slice of lemon; and these were greatly appreciated.
Unhappy thought,
Who can give comfort for't?
Alas!
Who can give counsel?
I worked with a will, almost as though I were sustained by an excess of vital heat. This beneficial disposition of body and soul was crowned by an event as joyous as it was unexpected.
'Cloridia has asked for you,' announced Cristofano after luncheon. 'You are to go directly to her chamber.'
The reason for that call (and this, Cristofano knew) was completely frivolous. I found Cloridia with her bodice half-unlaced and her head bent over the tub, washing her hair. The chamber was inundated with the effluvia of sweet essences. Stunned, I heard her ask me to pour onto her head the vinegar contained in a phial which lay upon her dressing table: later, I learned that she used it to make her tresses more lustrous.
While I went about this, I recalled the doubts which I had entertained about Cloridia's parting words at our previous encounter. Speaking to me of the extraordinary numerological coincidences between her date of birth and that of Rome, she had mentioned a wrong suffered in connection with her return to this city. She had then explained to me that she had found her way to the Donzello by following a certain virga ardentis (or ardent rod) which was also called 'trembling' or 'protruding'. This, also because of the equivocal gesture with which she had accompanied her explanation, I had taken to be an indecent allusion. I had then promised myself that I would find out what she really meant. And now, the same Cloridia had suddenly called me and provided me with the opportunity to put my question.
'Pass me the towel. No, not that one, the smaller coarse linen towel,' she commanded me, while twisting her hair.
I obeyed. She wrapped her hair in the cloth, after drying her shoulders.
'Would you comb my hair now?' she asked in honeyed tones. 'It is so curly that it is almost impossible for me to disentangle it alone without pulling it.'
I was happy to undertake so agreeable a service. She sat with her back to me, still half-free from the laces of her bodice, and explained to me that I should begin at the tips and then work back to the roots of her hair. This seemed to me to be the right time to ask her to recount to me what had brought her to the Donzello, and I reminded her of what she had told me last time that we met. Cloridia agreed.
'Then, what is the ardent or trembling rod, Monna Cloridia? I asked.
'Thy rod and thy staff do comfort me,' she recited. 'Psalm 22.'
I breathed a sigh of relief.
'Are you not acquainted with this? It is simply a forked hazel branch, about a foot and a half long and a finger's breadth thick, cut not more than one year before. It is also known as the rod of Pallas, the Caduceus of Mercury, Circe's wand, Aaron's rod and Jacob's staff. Then there are other names: the divine, the lucent, protruding, transcendent, cadent or superior rod: all names given it by the Italians who work in the quicksilver mines of Trent and the Tyrol. It is akin to the Augur's Rod of the Romans, who used it in the place of the sceptre; to the rod which Moses used to smite the rock and bring forth water; to the rod of Asahuerus, King of the Medes and Persians, from whom Esther, once she had kissed its tip, obtained all that she asked.'
And she plunged into an explanation of rare and lucid doctrine; for, as I well recalled, Cloridia was no mere strumpet, she was a courtesan: and no woman lived who could couple such sublime erudition with the amatory arts.
'The rod has been used for over two hundred years to discover metals, and for a century, to find water. But everyone knows that. Since time immemorial, however, it has been used to capture criminals and assassins in great numbers in the most distant countries: in the lands of Edom, Sarmatia, Getulia, Gothland, Rhaetia, Raphia, Hibernia, Sleasia, Lower Cirenaica, Marmaris, Mantiana, Confluentia, Prufuik, Alexandria Major, Argenton, Frisia, Gaeta, Cuspia, Livonia, Casperia, Serica, Brixia, Trabezond, Syria, Cilicia, Mutina, Arabia Felix, Malines in Brabant, Liburnia, Slavonia, Oxiana, Pamphilia, Garamantia and finally Lydia, which was formerly known as Maeonia, where flow the rivers Hermes and Pactolus, famed in poesy and song. In Gedrosia, an assassin was even followed for more than forty-five leagues over land and over thirty leagues by sea and arrested at last. With the rod, they had found out the bed in which he had slept, the table where he had eaten, his cooking pots and crockery.'
Thus I learned from Cloridia that the mysterious rod works thanks to the porousness of bodies which constantly give off impalpable particles through a process of continual emanation. Somewhere between visible bodies and inconceivable and unintelligible beings there exists a median category of volatile agents, which are rather subtle and active, and are called corpuscles, or particles of matter, atoms or subtle matter.
These corpuscles are most mysterious but exceedingly useful. They may be an emanation of the very substance from which they originate, or else they may be a third substance, which the brain, (the receptacle thereof), distributes through the nerves and muscles to produce the various movements. In other cases, however, such corpuscles are present in the air near to the irradiating matter which uses the air as a vehicle whereby to conduct its own imprint to the absorbent matter.
'That is, for example, how bell and clapper function, imprinting an impulse on the nearby air, which in turn presses against other air, and so on, until it strikes our ear, which registers the sensation of the sound,' explained Cloridia.
Now, it was such corpuscles which produced sympathy and antipathy, and even love.
'Indeed, the search for a thief or an assassin will be based upon antipathy. In the market at Amsterdam, I saw a herd of pigs grunt angrily at a butcher the moment that he approached them, all striving to hurl themselves at him, as far as the tethers tied around their necks would allow. This was because those swine had perceived the
