Secretum

'Villa Spada is small. If Capitor's great globe were there, you would certainly have seen it.'

'True,' I agreed. 'But wait: I know for certain that Virgilio Spada did possess a large terrestrial globe, among other things, and that, unless I am mistaken, it was made in Flanders.'

'Just like Capitor's.'Exactly. It is now in Palazzo Spada. I have never seen it but I have heard tell of it. I know that visitors come from all the world over to admire the rare and precious collections in the palace; Cardinal Spada is very proud of that. If the globe is in Father Virgilio's museum of curiosities, we shall also find Capitor's dish there. But you should know all this. When we met at the Donzello, I seem to recall that you were writing a guide to Rome…'

'Alas,' sighed Atto with a grimace of displeasure. 'Do you remember when I broke off writing it? Since then I have not added a word. And, among all the palaces I have visited in Rome, that of the Spada is one of the few that I had still to see. Of course, I know from books and from other guides to Rome of the architectural treasures in which it is so rich, but no more than that. Now we shall have to find a way of getting in there.'

'You could take advantage of the visit to the Palazzo to which Cardinal Fabrizio has invited all the guests next Thursday, the last day of the festivities.'

'For the purpose of completing my guide to Rome, that would suit well; but not for finding Capitor's dish. Only three days remain until Thursday. I cannot wait that long. And then, what an idea! Can you imagine me fluttering from room to room like a butterfly, rummaging in chests and opening cabinets, with the house overflowing with guests?' said the Abbot miming with his arms the flight of a curious butterfly.

'Palazzo Spada, did you say? That would be no problem!' said a familiar, silvery voice.

The Abbot started.

'At last we have found them, Signor Buvat! I told you that they would both surely be here, my adorable little husband and your master.'

Cloridia, followed by Buvat, had come looking for me, and had found me.

She had news for us. She had obtained all the information that she needed about where Atto and I were going from our two little ones (who, in their Mama's absence, always kept their ears well pricked up, ready to report all that they had heard in the finest detail), had co-opted Abbot Melani's secretary, who was also looking for us, and had entered the Vessel. Such were the strange circumstances under which Cloridia and Atto, after having avoided one another several times over, met at last. Melani was about to repress a outburst of impatience upon hearing her voice when, turning towards her and seeing her face after so many years, his face suddenly changed its expression.

'Good day to you, Monna Cloridia,' Atto greeted her, bowing, and with unexpectedly good grace, after a few moments of silence.

At the Locanda del Donzello, the old castrato had left a provocative, shameless courtesan of nineteen, and now he found himself facing a radiantly beautiful spouse and mother. My wife was very beautiful, far more so than when he had met her, but it was only at that moment, through the Abbot's admiring look, that I really saw her in all her splendour for the first time, free of the veil of conjugal habit, sweet though that might be. Her locks, no longer blonde and curled with an iron, but naturally brown, fell simply on her neck, freely framing Cloridia's face. Her eyelids free from cosmetics and her pale pink lips gave her a freshness which Atto did not remember in the young harlot of many years before.

'Forgive us for bursting in on you like this,' began my consort, returning Atto's salutation with a curtsy. 'I have news for you. The day after tomorrow, there will be a meeting in these parts between the three cardinals who interest you,' she announced, coming straight to the point.

'When, exactly?' Atto asked at once.

'At midday. Take care, I beg of you,' said Cloridia, with a slight hint of anxiety in her voice.

I smiled to myself. The news was too important for my wife not to pass it on to me. At the same time, my suspicions about Cloridia were now confirmed. Her initial impulse to help us had already cooled: she feared for me.

'Fear not, I shall watch over your husband,' said Melani in honeyed tones, lying brazenly.

'I thank you,' replied my wife, bowing her head slightly. 'How magnificent! This is the first time that I have set foot in the Vessel,' she added at once, looking all around her in astounded admiration.

Fortunately, the beauty of the villa had distracted her from her fears.'Our Buvat cannot say as much. After all, I do not think he saw very much last time he was here,' laughed the Abbot, remembering how Buvat had come to us covered in blood from the Princess of Forano's childbirth.

Atto's secretary did not hear what was said; he was already engrossed in reading the inscriptions on the walls of the room in which we stood.

'This villa is in rather good condition for one that has been abandoned for years: one would say it belonged to the Fortunate Isles, also known as the Isles of Folly, for there that goddess was born, there everything grows without sowing or ploughing, nor is there weariness, old age or disease; not, at least, according to my countryman, the learned Erasmus,' added Cloridia quite spontaneously.

Atto and I gave a start. I was shocked by Cloridia's bold observation. I had not yet had occasion to tell her of the extravagant Dutch musician or his obsessive playing of one tune, the folia, spiced with curious maxims on folly. Yet she seemed to have guessed at all that, and what was more, as though it were the most natural thing in the world: the Vessel and folly. Not only that, she too, who had grown up in Amsterdam, had, like Albicastro, often heard of the encomium which their countryman from Rotterdam had composed in honour of madness. Certainly, I thought, my spouse's long familiarity with the arts of divination must have played its part. Atto seemed of the same opinion:

'You were once a past-mistress at reading the lines of the hand, if I remember rightly,' said he, hiding his unease. 'May I ask you what, in your opinion, bestows eternal youth on this uninhabited villa?'

'Simple: it is what the Greeks so rightly called a 'good state of mind' and which we for our pleasure may call folly.'

'So you possess some arcane art which enables you to judge that the place in which we stand has a soul, a mind of its own?'

'What woman worthy of the name does not possess that art?' replied Cloridia with a facetious smile. 'But now, tell me, I hear that you want to enter Palazzo Spada.'I summarised for her the complicated situation in which we found ourselves (and she listened with many expressions of wonderment); then I explained to her that we should need to search in the museum of the late Virgilio Spada.

'You happen to be talking to the right person: within a few days, the wife of the Deputy Palace Steward is due to give birth. For months now, I have been going regularly to check on her. It will be a long, difficult thing, the woman is very fat and I shall certainly need her husband's help. Thus, the palace will be unguarded.'

'But there will be other servants around,' I observed.

'You seem to have forgotten that they have all been transferred to Villa Spada as reinforcements for this week's festivities,' retorted Gloridia with a sly smile. 'Indeed, I'll tell you more: the Deputy Steward and his wife are temporarily lodging in a room on the ground floor, the better to keep watch now that the palace is empty. They, too, were supposed to be sent to Villa Spada, but because of the pregnancy they were left in the caretaker's lodge. That opens up a golden opportunity for us,' she concluded confidently.

How sure of herself my Cloridia had become, I thought with some amusement. She feared for me when I was going around without her, but if, as now, she could accompany me or be nearby, she became emboldened, almost as though she felt herself to be a powerful goddess whose presence alone sufficed to make me invincible.

'And is there really no one else in the palace?' Atto asked dubiously.

'Of course, the guards are still there, but they make their rounds outside the palace, and that's all,' explained Cloridia.

'We, however, need to enter Palazzo Spada as soon as possible,' objected Atto. 'We cannot wait for your delivery to arrive at its term.'

'And where's the problem? I'll go and visit her today for a check on her progress: a few tisanes with good stimulating herbs… and 'tis done.'Do you mean that you can make her give birth earlier?' I asked, taken aback, for my wife had never told me that midwives had that ability. 'How is that possible?'

'Easy. I shall make her womb sneeze.'

Atto and I fell silent, fearing that Cloridia was mocking us.

'Do you mean that a woman's uterus can sneeze?' the Abbot asked circumspectly.