purses and many other such knavish and swindling things. They are arrant rogues, forever robbing, loitering and engaging in acts of poltroonery or luxuriousness. I know them well, that I do: those eyes that are too sly, that rotten look, they are all like that. A cerretano who walks looking in front of him, like ordinary people, is certainly on the point of committing some major outrage. I cried out until the other sergeants of the villa heard me. A pity he escaped, or we'd have known more.'
I thought of how Abbot Melani would behave in my place.
'I'll wager that you'll manage to obtain information,' I hazarded, 'and so to discover what became of that cerretano. Abbot Melani, who is lodging here at the Villa Spada, will certainly be most grateful to you,' said I, hoping to arouse the catchpoll's cupidity.
'Of course, I can obtain information. Sfasciamonti always knows whom to ask,' he replied, and I saw shining in his eyes, not so much the hope of gain as professional pride.
Sfasciamonti had resumed his rounds and I was still watching his massive figure merge into the distant curve of the outer wall when I noticed a bizarre young man, as curved and gangling as a crane, coming towards me.
'Excuse me,' he asked in a friendly tone, 'I am secretary to Abbot Melani, I arrived with him this morning. I had to return to the city for a few hours and now I can no longer find my way. How the deuce does one get into the villa? Was there not a door with windows in it here in front?'
I explained to him that there was indeed a door with a window, but that was behind the great house.
'Did you not say that you are secretary to Abbot Melani, if I heard you correctly?' I asked in astonishment, for Atto had said nothing to me about his not being alone.
'Yes, do you know him?'
'About time! Where were you hiding?' snapped Abbot Melani, when I brought his secretary to his apartment.
While escorting him to Atto, I was able to observe him better. He had a great aquiline nose planted between two blue eyes which sheltered behind a pair of spectacles with unusually thick and dirty lenses and were crowned by two fair and bushy eyebrows. On his head, a forelock strove in vain to distract attention from his long, scrawny neck, on which sat an insolently pointed Adam's apple.
'I… went to pay my respects to Cardinal Casanate,' said he by way of an excuse, 'and I tarried awhile too long.'
'Let me guess,' quoth Atto, half in amusement, half in irritation. 'You will have spent plenty of time in the antechamber, they'll have asked you three thousand times who you were and who was sending you. In the end, after yet another half an hour's wait, they will have told you that Casanate was dead.'
'Well, just so…' stammered the other.
'How many times must I insist that you are always to tell me where you are going, when you absent yourself? Cardinal Casanate has been dead these six months now: I knew that and I could have spared you the loss of face. My boy,' said Atto, turning to me, 'this is Buvat, Jean Buvat. He works as a scribe at the Royal Library in Paris and he is a good man. He is somewhat absent-minded and rather too fond of his wine; but he has the honour to serve sometimes in my retinue, and this is one such occasion.'
I did indeed recall that he was a collaborator of Atto's, as the Abbot had told me at the time of our first encounter, and that he was a copyist of extraordinary talent. We saluted one another with an embarrassed nod. His shirt ill tucked into his breeches and ballooning out, and the laces of his sleeves tightened into a knot with no bow were further signs of the young man's distracted nature.
'You speak our language very well,' said I, addressing him in affable tones, in an attempt to make amends for the Abbot's brutality.
'Ah, spoken tongues are not his only talent,' interjected Atto. 'Buvat is at his best with a pen in his hand, but not like you: you create, he copies. And he does that like no other. But of this we shall speak another time. Go and change your clothes, Buvat, you are not presentable.'
Buvat retired without a word into the small adjoining room, where his couch had been arranged among the trunks and portmanteaux.
Since I was there, I spoke to Atto of my conversation with Sfasciamonti.
'Cerretani, you tell me: canters, secret sects. So, according to your catchpoll, that tatterdemalion came accidentally with dagger drawn to try out his blade on my arm. How interesting.'
'Have you another hypothesis?' I asked, seeing his scepticism.
'Oh, no, indeed not. That was just a manner of speaking,' said he, laconically. 'After all, in France too something of the kind exists among mendicants; even if people know of these things only by hearsay and never anything more precise.'
The Abbot had received me with his windows open onto the gardens, wearing a dressing gown as he sat in a fine red velvet armchair beside a table bearing on the remains of a sumptuous luncheon: the bones of a large black umber, still smelling of wild fennel. I was reminded that I had not yet eaten that morning and felt a subtle languor in my stomach.
'I do know of a number of ancient traditions,' continued Atto, massaging his wounded arm, 'but these are things that have now been somewhat lost. Once in Paris, there was the Great Caesar, or King of Thule, the sovereign of those ragamuffins and vagabonds. He would cross the city on a wretched dog-cart, as though mimicking a real sovereign. They say that he had his court, his pages and his vassals in every province. He would even summon the Estates-General.'
'Do you mean an assembly of the people?'
'Exactly, but instead of nobles, priests and ladies, he would summon thousands of the halt, the lame and the blind, thieves, beggars, mountebanks, whores and dwarves… Yes, I mean all manner of beings,' he broke off, hastening to correct himself, 'but please do remove that apron with all those tools, it must be so heavy,' said he, trying to change the subject.
I did not take offence at Abbot Melani's unfortunate expression; well I knew that many of my less fortunate fellows populated the dark lairs of the criminal fraternity, and I was aware that I for my part had been kissed by good fortune.
Buvat had returned, washed, combed and wearing clean clothes, but the sateen of his dark green shoes was visibly threadbare, if not torn; one of the oaken heels was shattered and the buckles dangled, almost completely ripped away from their moorings.
'I left my new shoes behind at the Palazzo Rospigliosi,' he at last summoned up the courage to admit, 'but I promise you that I shall go and retrieve them before evening.'
'Take care not to forget your head, then,' said the Abbot with a sigh of resignation that betrayed contempt, 'and do not waste time loafing around as usual.'
'How is your arm?' I asked.
'Magnificent, I simply adore being sliced up with a sharp blade,' he replied, remembering at last to open the letter which had been delivered to him.
As he read it, a rapid succession of contrasting expressions crossed his features: first he frowned, then his face opened for a few instants in a fleshy and heart-warming smile that caused the dimple on his chin to tremble. At length, he looked pensively out of the window, his gaze lost in the sky. He had grown pale.
'Some bad tidings?' I asked timidly, exchanging a questioning glance with his secretary.
We understood from the vacant look on the Abbot's face that he had heard nothing.
'Maria…' I seemed to hear him murmur, before slipping the badly crumpled letter into the pocket of his dressing gown. Suddenly, Atto Melani looked old and tired again.
'Now go away. You too, please, Buvat. Leave me alone.'
'But… are you sure that you need nothing else?' I asked hesitantly.
'Not now. Kindly return tomorrow evening at nightfall.'
We had left the Abbot's apartments and descended the service stairs, and within moments my forehead and that of Buvat felt again the scorching breath of the afternoon heat.
I was dumbstruck: why had Atto fallen into such grave prostration? Who was the mysterious Maria whose name had so softly touched his lips? Was she a woman of flesh and blood or had he perhaps invoked the Blessed Virgin?
In any case, I thought, as I walked vigorously beside Buvat, it all seemed inexplicable. Atto's faith was certainly not fervent: never — not even at moments of the greatest danger — did I once recall him invoking the
