Marcio, cry out when we went to get him and II Roscio?'
''The saffrons…' and then 'buy the violets',' I said.
We leafed through the book and soon found what we were looking for.
'There, do you see?' Atto gloated, turning to his secretary. 'As I thought, the saffrons are the police. To buy violets means to make a run for it. Il Marcio warned Il Roscio that we were in the vicinity. This book is by no means useless. But there's something else you must lend me. I'm sure you must have many copies of what I need,' said Atto to the corpisantaro, miming with his hand the gesture of someone turning a key in a lock.
Ugonio understood at once. Nodding with a sordid, knowing smile, he pulled out from the old greatcoat a huge iron ring from which hung, clinking against one another, dozens and dozens of old keys of every kind, shape and size. This was the secret arsenal of which I have already spoken, giving the corpisantari access to all the cellars of Rome for their subterranean searching for the sacred relics from the sale of which they lived; but often, they were also used to enter and rob private residences.
'Good, very good,' commented Atto, inspecting the heavy bunch. 'In Palazzo Spada these will surely prove useful.'
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Sfasciamonti, like every good catchpoll, could not wait to squeeze some information from the corpisantaro in his turn. He was still somewhat disoriented by that animal-like being, half mole and half weasel, so different from the ordinary criminals he had known; he came to the point, confronting him brutally.
'So, what did you learn?'
'I parleyfied with two Maggiorenghi,' replied the corpisantaro. 'The treaticise is to be presented to the Grand Legator, who in turn will present it ad Albanum.'
I saw Atto grow pale. The tidings were doubly grave. Not only had the cerretani given Atto's treatise to a mysterious Grand Legator, but the latter would be presenting it to a certain Albanum. And who might that be if not Cardinal Albani, His Holiness's powerful Secretary for Breves, the man with whom Atto had already had two venomous verbal clashes at Villa Spada?
'Until Thursday, where will they be keeping my treatise?'
'In the Sacred Ball.'
'The Sacred Ball?'
I looked at Sfasciamonti. His face wore the same astonished, dumbfounded expression as Atto Melani's.
'Thus have they verbalised,' continued Ugonio, hunching his shoulders. 'Then the Grand Legator will exposition ad Albanum the insinuation, accusation and perquisition against the treaticise.'
'Who is this Grand Legator?'
'I know not. I scented that they do not want to verbalise this to me.'
Some coins (no few of them) moved rapidly from Atto's hands into those of Ugonio. As he slipped them clinking into a greasy little purse, the corpisantaro pulled his cowl well over his forehead, preparing to disappear into the shadows.
'Your treaticise corroborates a periculous and suspifect sapience,' said he to Atto before leaving.
'What do you mean?'
'When they affabulate thereupon, the Maggiorenghi become tempestiphilious and agitabundant… almost neuromaniacal. Have a care, Your Enormity. And kindly refract from requestifying me to reference more and more news and ulteriorities to you: I don't want to end up with a broken colon-bone.'
On our way back, I dared not so much as address a word to Atto. This was no time for such things. From what we could glean from Ugonio's tortuous account, the cerretani did not care one bit for what Atto had written in those pages. We gathered that they intended on Thursday to bring the matter to the attention of a mysterious Grand Legator. The latter would go and see Albanum, in other words Cardinal Albani, with a formal summons against Atto.
So, who was this Grand Legator, if not Count Lamberg? A person of such elevated lineage could, after all, only be referred to obliquely; just as the cerretani had done.
What would Albani then do? Would he in turn report Atto as a French spy? After the arguments which had flared up between the two at Villa Spada, nothing would be easier for the astute Cardinal than to denounce Abbot Melani, his political adversary (for as such he could now be described) and crush him, causing him endless trouble, including perhaps an immediate arrest for espionage and political conspiracy.
More and more questions beset us: what the deuce could the Sacred Ball be, in which, according to Ugonio, Atto's treatise was to be kept until Thursday, and where was it to be found? Sfasciamonti was silent: he too seemed quite unable to help us resolve the enigma.
'I was forgetting. Lamberg has agreed to receive me,' announced Melani.
'How did he inform you?'
'Did you see me hand him a note when chocolate was being served?'
'Yes. I remember that he replied, 'Very well, very well.' So, in that little note, did you request an audience?'
'Precisely. Subsequently, I asked his secretary, and he arranged the appointment: I shall visit Lamberg on Thursday.'
As he pronounced that last fateful word, the day on which Atto would perhaps learn the truth about his stabbing, I heard a slight tremor in his voice. Watching him as he rode his nag, I knew that his soul was weighed down by yet another great anxiety. He felt himself to be at the mercy of two giants, Count Lamberg, the Imperial Ambassador, and Cardinal Albani, the Secretary for Breves.
And to think that he had come to Rome (or so he had told me) to take the helm at the conclave and to make his mark on the fate of the papacy! The navigator had become a castaway; and destiny, which he had meant to tame, was crushing the barque of his soul as cruel Scylla had done with the ship of Ulysses.
Day the Seventh
13th J ULY, 1700
'Mistress Cloridia, I seek Mistress Cloridia! Open up at once!'
I know not for how long they had been knocking at the door of my little house. When I at last opened my eyes, I saw that it was still pitch dark. My wife had already put on her gown and was on her way to the door.
I dressed with all speed, while the sparkling freshness of the air suggested that we were in the hours immediately before first light, when the temperature sinks to its lowest. I rejoined Cloridia. In the doorway stood a little boy who had just alighted from a barouche; the wife of the Deputy Steward of Palazzo Spada needed her midwife: her waters had broken.
'Please hurry, quickly, Mistress Cloridia,' the boy insisted. 'One of the palace guards has paid me to come and fetch you. The lady's alone with her husband and doesn't know what to do. You're needed urgently.'
'This we could have done without, we really could have done without,' muttered my wife, stamping on the ground, while she gathered her equipment in a furious hurry. 'Go and wake up the little ones,' she ordered me, 'and join us at once at Villa Spada.'
'At Palazzo Spada, you mean,' said I, correcting her.
'At the villa,' she said. 'We shall meet by the back entrance; and be sure to bring your big sackcloth cape with you.'
'But I'm not cold.'
'Do as I tell you and stop wasting my time,' Cloridia retorted angrily, literally beside herself at my sluggishness in emergencies.
Still dazed and somnolent, I stared vacantly at my wife as she moved from side to side of the room, picking up a towel here and a jar of oil there. She stopped one moment to think, then took from the trunk a camisole and petticoat which she herself had worn when pregnant, wrapped them up in a bundle with a pair of clogs and other articles of clothing and in the twinkling of an eye leapt onto the barouche and urged the boy towards Villa Spada.
