Secretum

'Please tighten the bandages on my arm even more: those women's dressings are causing me to lose blood,' he requested with a hint of impatience.

So I waited on him and added yet more bandages which the valet de chambre had taken care to provide.

'A French book, Signor Atto?' I resolved at length to ask him, referring to his previous allusion.

'Yes and no,' he replied laconically.

'Ah, perhaps it circulates in France but was printed in Amsterdam, as often happens…' I hazarded, in the hope of extracting something more from him.

'No, no,' he cut me short with a sigh of fatigue, 'really, it is not even a book.'

'An anonymous text, then…' I butted in yet again, scarcely dissimulating my growing curiosity.

I was interrupted by the arrival of the chirurgeon. While the latter was feeling around Atto's arm, giving orders to the valet de chambre, I had a moment in which to reflect.

It was plainly no accident that Atto Melani should have reappeared after seventeen years, asking me, as though it were a mere bagatelle, to be his chronicler; and even less surprising that he should have been among the guests at the nuptials of Cardinal Fabrizio Spada's nephew. The Cardinal was Secretary of State to Pope Innocent XII, who hailed from the Kingdom of Naples, and was consequently of the Spanish party. Pope Innocent was about to die and for months all Rome had been preparing for the conclave. Melani was a French agent: in other words, a wolf in the sheepfold.

I knew the Abbot well and by now I needed few clues to make my mind up about him. One had but to follow one single elementary rule: to think the worst. It always worked. Having learned from my memoir that I worked for the Cardinal Secretary of State, Atto must deliberately have arranged to have himself invited to the Spada celebrations, perhaps taking advantage of his old acquaintance with the Cardinal, to which he had alluded. And now he intended to make use of me, well pleased with the fortuitous circumstance which had placed me where I could serve him. Perhaps he wanted something of me other than a mere chronicle of his feats and deeds with a view to the forthcoming conclave. But whatever could he have in mind this time? That was less easy for me to guess at. One thing was quite clear in my mind: never would I, insofar as my limited means permitted, allow Abbot Melani's plotting in any way to harm my master, Cardinal Spada. In this respect, at least, it was a good thing that Atto had assigned me that task: it enabled me to keep watch over him.

The chirurgeon had meanwhile completed his work, not without extracting from Atto a few hoarse protests at the pain and a fine heap of coin which had to be paid by the wounded man in the temporary absence of the Major- Domo.

'What kind of hospitality is that?' Atto commented acidly 'They stab the guests and then leave them to pay for their cure.'

The Secretary for Protocol of the Villa Spada then arrived at Abbot Melani's bedside, in the absence of Don Paschatio, the Major-Domo, and ordered that he should at once be served luncheon, that two valets should stay to assist him with his meal, so as to give respite to the injured arm, and that his every desire should be satisfied forthwith; he apologised profusely, cursing in the most urbane language the delinquency and mendacity which with every Jubilee invariably reduced the Holy City to little better than a lazaret and assured him that he would be reimbursed immediately, with the necessary interest, and would indeed most certainly be liberally compensated for the grave affront which he had suffered, and said it was as well that they had hired a sergeant to watch over security at the villa during the festivities, but now the Major-Domo would call the catchpoll to account. He continued in this vein for a good quarter of an hour, without realising that Atto was falling asleep. I took advantage of this to leave.

The strange circumstances of the attack on Atto had left in me a turmoil of dismay, mixed with curiosity, and on the pretext of trimming some hedges by the entrance, I grasped the shears which I had in my apron and marched back to the gate.

'Was today's incident not enough for you, boy?'

I turned, or rather, I raised my eyes heavenward.

'The woods around here must be full of cerretani. Do you want to get into trouble yet again?'

It was Sfasciamonti, who was mounting guard.

'Oh, are you keeping watch?'

'Keeping watch, yes, keeping watch. These cerretani are a curse. May God save us from them, by all the stars of morning,' quoth he, looking all around us with a worried air.

Cerretani. his insistence on that sinister-sounding term, the exact meaning of which escaped me, seemed almost an invitation to ask for some explanation.

'What is a cerretano?

'Shhh! Do you want to be overheard by everybody?' hissed Sfasciamonti, seizing my arm violently and dragging me away from the hedge, as though a cerretano might lie concealed under the greenery. He pushed me against the wall of the estate, looking to the right then to the left with an exaggeratedly alarmed demeanour, as though he feared an ambush.

'They are… How can 1 put it? They are starvelings, beggars, vagrants, men of the mobility… Nomads and vagabonds, in other words.'

Far away, in the park, the notes of the orchestral players hired for the wedding mingled with the last hammer blows nailing together scaffolding ephemeral and theatrical.

'Do you mean to say that they are beggars, like the Egyp tians?'

'Well, yes. I mean, no!' he shook himself, almost indignantly. 'But what are you making me say? They are far more, I mean less… The cerretani have a pact with the Devil,' he whispered, making the sign of the cross.

'With the Devil?' I exclaimed incredulously. 'Are they perhaps wanted by the Holy Office?'

Sfasciamonti shook his head and raised his eyes dejectedly to the heavens, as though to emphasise the gravity of the matter.

'If you knew, my boy, if you only knew!'

'But what exactly do they get up to?'

'They ask for charity.'

'Is that all?' I retorted, disappointed. 'Begging is no crime. If they are poor, what fault is it of theirs?'

'Who told you they were poor?'

'Did you not tell me just now that they are mendicants?'

'Yes, but there are those who beg by choice, not only necessity.'

'By choice?' I repeated, laughing, beginning to suspect that within that mountain of muscle called Sfasciamonti there might be no more than half an ounce of brain.

'Or better: for lucre. Begging is one of the best-paying trades in the world, whether you believe that or not. In three hours, they earn more than you can in a month.'

I was speechless.

'Are they many?'

'Certainly. They are everywhere.'

For a moment, I was struck by the certainty with which he replied to my last question. I saw him look about himself and scrutinise the avenue full of carriages and bustling with servants, as though he were afraid of having spoken too freely.

'I have already raised the matter with the Governor of Rome, Monsignor Pallavicini,' he resumed, 'but no one wants to know about this. They say, Sfasciamonti, calm down. Sfasciamonti, go take a drink. But I know it: Rome is full of cerretani and no one sees them. Whenever something ugly happens, it is always their doing.'

'Do you mean that, even before, when you were following that young man and Abbot Melani was wounded…'

'Ah yes, the cerretano wounded him.'

'How do you know that he was a cerretano?'

'I was at the San Pancrazio Gate when I recognised him. The police have been on his heels for some time, but one can never catch these cerretani. I knew at once that he was up to some mis chief, that he had some mission to accomplish. I did not like the fact that he was so close to the Villa Spada, so I followed him.'

'A mission? And what makes you so sure of that?' I asked with a hint of scepticism.

'A cerretano never goes down the street without looking to the right and to the left, in search of people's