Secretum

'Oh fathers!' exclaimed Atto delightedly, as he took the little one in his arms. 'When you return home afflicted by business, what could be sweeter than to see your dear little daughter at the top of the stairs, awaiting you with such a loving, joyful welcome, receiving you with kisses and embraces, telling you so many thoughts and so many things that you are at once freed from all the dark ponderings that weigh down your mind and become jocular and gay even despite yourself?'

Rising in haste, I rushed to tell my daughters not to disturb the Abbot, but Atto halted me with his hand.

'Stop! Do not think that playing with little children is no matter for serious men,' he berated me with a feigned air of reproof, already forgetting his reason for being there, 'for I reply to you that Hercules, as we read in Elianus's works, was wont after the heat of battle to amuse himself playing with little ones; and Socrates was found by Alcibiades playing with children, while Agiselaos would ride a cane to entertain his sons. You should take advantage of my presence to get dressed while I act as nurse for these two little angels. You know what awaits us.'

Whereupon, he let my little ones' curious tiny fingers tug at all those bows and tassels with a seraphic joy and patience of which I would never have imagined Abbot Melani to be capable.

I knew full well what awaited us: the search for the Tetrachion; or better, for the dish donated by Capitor to Mazarin, and which the madwoman had called 'Tetrachion'. According to Cloridia's friend, the maidservant at the Spanish Embassy, that name denoted an 'heir', not further specified, to the throne of the Catholic King of Spain. The same name, however, Atto had heard on the lips ofTranquillo Romauli, Master Florist of the Villa Spada; which was distinctly curious, since Romauli never seemed willing to speak of anything but petals and corollas. Nevertheless, seeing that his late spouse had been a midwife, there was a suspicion that the secret feminine password of which Cloridia had heard tell might come down to us from the lips of the Master Florist himself. When prompted, Romauli had permitted himself a few hints: the Escorial was, he said, growing arid, and he had even let slip an enigmatic reference to Versailles, the residence of the Most Christian King, and to the Viennese Schonbrunn. All this, I had reported in detail to Abbot Melani, and Buvat had advanced the theory that Tetra- chion might be the name of a flower present in some noble coat of arms. However, as the Abbot had just informed me, research in heraldic tomes had turned up no such flower, so that now Atto could not wait to take the conversation with Romauli further.

A dish, an heir, a Master Florist: three tracks, every one of which seemed to lead in a different direction.

'Seeing that your Romauli appears to be the only one to know what or who the Tetrachion is,' said Atto, as though following the thread of my cogitations, 'I should say that we must start from there.'

On our arrival at the villa, I constrained the Abbot to make a little deviation before rejoining Tranquillo Romauli, whom I knew to be intent at that hour on raking the gardens in preparation for the afternoon's festivities. I had to escort the little girls to Cloridia at the great house, so that they could assist her in her midwife's duties with the new mother and infant and, at the same time, receive her loving motherly care.

We found Master Romauli leaning over a flower bed, wielding a pair of shears and a sprinkler. Upon seeing us, his face lit up. After the exchange of the usual pleasantries, it was Atto who came straight to the point.

'My young friend has informed me that you would be glad to pursue discussion of a certain matter,' said Melani with calculated nonchalance. 'But perhaps you may prefer the two of us to remain alone, and therefore…' he added, alluding to the possible desirability of sending me away.

'Oh no, not at all,' replied the Master Florist, 'for me 'tis as though my own son were listening. I beg of you, allow him to stay.'

So Romauli had no hesitation whatever about discussing delicate matters, like that of the Tetrachion, in my presence. All the better, said I to myself; obviously, he felt so sure of his own arguments that he had no fear of the presence of witnesses.

Since the Master Florist had shown no sign of any intention to move from his working position and was still on his knees, in order to facilitate conversation, Atto too had to sit, choosing a little stone bench which was fortunately just in the right place. I looked around; no one was observing us or walking in the vicinity. The conditions were right for squeezing from Romauli all that he knew.

'Very well, honourable Master Florist,' Atto began. 'You must in the first place know that at this present moment, the fate of the Escorial is almost closer to my heart than that of Versailles, of which I have the honour to be a most faithful admirer. Precisely for that reason…'

'Oh, yes, yes, how right you are, Signor Abbot,' broke in the other, working on a low rosebush. 'Could you hold the shears for me one moment?'

Atto obeyed, not without a grimace of surprise and disappointment, while Romauli handled the stem of the plant bare-handed; then he resumed his speech.

'… Precisely for that reason, as I was saying,' continued Melani, 'I am sure that you too will be aware of the gravity of the moment and that it is therefore in the best interests of all… in this field, shall we say, to succeed in resolving this grave, nay this most grave crisis, as painlessly…'

'Here we are,' the other interrupted him, placing in his hand a rose just cut from the bush, 'I know what you want to get down to: the Tetrachion.'

For a moment, the Abbot fell silent with astonishment.

'The Master Florist is most intuitive and a man of few words,' Atto then said in amiable tones, yet looking swiftly all around to make sure that no one was watching us.

'Oh, it was so obvious,' came the reply. 'Our common friend told me that you wished to resume the matter upon which we touched in our first conversation, in which I referred to the Tetrachion and in which I also mentioned the Spanish jonquil and Catalan jasmine. And now you speak to me of the Escorial: one does not need to be a genius to understand what you are leading up to.'

'Ah, yes, of course,' Atto hesitated, somewhat troubled by the rapidity of the other's deductions. 'Very well, this Tetrachion…'

'Let us proceed step by step, Signor Abbot, step by step,' said the Master Florist, pointing at the rose which he had just placed in Atto's hand. Now, smell it!'

Somewhat taken aback, Atto twirled the rose a little in his hand; at length he raised it to his nose, breathing in deeply.

'But it smells of garlic!' he exclaimed with a grimace of disgust.

Tranquillo Romauli laughed delightedly.

'Well, you have just demonstrated that, as with the palate, so with the flower; if the smell is not good, every beauty is insipid and as though 'twere dead. Thus, giving a good odour to a flower that has none, or only a bad one, is as beneficial as the miracle of giving it life.'

'That may be so; but to this… er, impertinent flower,' objected Melani, dabbing his nostrils with a lace handkerchief, and again shivering with disgust, 'death was given, not life.'

'You are exaggerating,' said the Master Florist amiably. 'It is only a medicated flower.'

'Meaning?'

'To treat flowers, one takes sheep's manure, which one then macerates in vinegar, adding musk reduced to powder, civet and ambergris, and in this one bathes the seeds for two or three days. The flower born of this process will smell of fresh and delicious aromas, those of musk and civet, which tone up and revive the nostrils of whosoever brings it to his nose.'

'But this rose stank of garlic!'

'Of course. It was in fact medicated in another way, to make it resistant to parasites. For, as Didymus and Theophrastes teach, it suffices to plant garlic or onions close to any kind of ornamental flower, especially, close to roses, for the latter to be instantly impregnated with a garlicky stink.'

'Disgusting,' Atto muttered to himself. 'However, what has that to do with the Tetrachion?'

'Wait, wait. By means of medication,' continued Romauli, quite unperturbed, 'one can completely remove the bad smell of flowers that are rather disagreeable to the nose, such as the

African marsh marigold or Indian carnation, whichever you prefer to call it. One need only macerate the seeds in rose water and dry them in the sun before sowing. Once the flower has been grown, one must take the seeds and repeat the operation, and so on.'

'Ah, and how much time does it take to arrive at the result?' asked Atto, growing vaguely curious.

'Oh, a trifle. No more than three years.'

'Ah yes, a trifle,' replied Atto, without the other becoming in the least aware of his irony.