charger, and like the image we saw reflected in the mirrors,' said I, illustrating my idea, myself surprised by the theory which had suddenly arisen in my mind. 'After all, Capitor did say 'Two in one', did she not?'
'Yes, but she was referring only to the figures on the charger; and that, my boy, is the one and only Tetrachion in this tale, for what we thought we saw in the penthouse at the Vessel was merely an optical illusion — or have you forgotten?'
He turned his back on me, signifying that the conversation was at an end, and returned to the window.
'Is she still there?' I asked.
'Yes. She always loved gardens, man's hand bending the beauties of nature to his will and surpassing them,' said he with a tremor in his voice.
'Perhaps it is time for you to go down…'
'No. Not now,' he retorted at once, revealing which thoughts had triumphed in that cruel inner battle which had taken place before my eyes; 'I shall see her tomorrow.'
'But perhaps you could…'
'My mind is made up. Please leave me alone now. I have many things to deal with.'
Evening the Ninth
15th July 1700
'One moment, please, all of you, one moment. Let us leave off from chewing, let us hold our tongues, let us curb our appetites! Let none rest on the laurels of their ill-conquered lunch! And let no one forget our kind Lord who, in offering us such a treat, is lavishing all these good things on us without a thought for the morrow, thus demonstrating with wise liberality the splendid generosity of his soul. Permit me then to raise my glass and dedicate this toast to our master, the most eminent, munificent and excellent Cardinal Spada, and to wish him the most magnificent and ever-increasing good fortune!'
While a gay concert of clapping, cries of jubilation and the sound of clinking glasses accompanied the end of this short speech, he who had pronounced it, namely the Secretary for Protocol of the Spada household, Carl' Antonio Filippi, sprawled on one of the day-beds in the garden, then rolled up his sleeves and began to gorge himself on fried trout covered with lilies and stuffed with apricocks, candies, sugar and cinnamon and triumphally garnished with slices of lemon.
The wine flowed fresh down my throat, but I wanted to keep my lips wet with it and pressed them against Cloridia's; while the two little ones who are the fruit of our union played at our feet, I kissed her tenderly, whispering sweet nothings, love pleasantries and other secret things.
All around us the servants' banquet was in full, free and joyous progress: Cardinal Spada had allowed the servants to celebrate and enjoy themselves in the august park of the villa and even to pass the night in the Turkish pavilions, caressed by Armenian silks, which had until a few hours previously received the noble guests invited to the nuptial celebrations. This generous decision had provided Secretary Filippi, the author of the speeches given in the Spada household on important occasions, with yet another opportunity to display his mastery of impromptu eloquence and the whole company with a rare chance to feast like lords.
I had not yet told my sagacious little wife the truth about the mad night at Saint Peter's: doing my very best to gloss over the dangers to which I had exposed myself, I strung out a sketchy, improbable account of that adventure, which she pretended to believe out of the kindness of her heart, aided and abetted by the festive atmosphere. From time to time, she would innocently pose me some trick question and I would invariably fall into the trap. But such was her joy to have me back by her side that she showed no great keenness to dig any deeper with her questioning: on that evening she took delight in using her tongue to caress rather than to scourge.
The Secretary for Letters of the Spada family, Abbot Giuliano Borghi, was seated at a sumptuously laid table with Don Tibaldutio, Don Paschatio, the Venerable Dean Giovanni Griffi, Master Cupbearer Germano Hondadei, Auditor Giovanni Gamba and Aide de Camp Ottavio Valletti, all busily engaged in devouring a dish of soles pan-fried in butter and stuffed with pulped fish, marzipan, tellins and mostacciolo. True, these were leftovers, but marinated in gravy and their own good juices, they can sometimes taste even better.
Footmen, lackeys, sub-deacons, coachmen, assistant coachmen and grooms, sitting around a simpler table, were sipping with evident pleasure and surprise at a soup of prawns, truffles, prunes, mantis crabs, lemon juice, muscatel wine and spices, with bread crusts garnished with prawns' shells stuffed with foie gras interspersed with little pastries alia Mazzarino, coated with pistachios.
Another yet more humble group comprising porters, wardrobe servants, gardeners, prentices and assistants was gaily assembled around a souffle full of pulped bass, tench and eel, pork crackling, capers, asparagus tips, prunes, poached egg yokes and slices of citron.
All the servants, even cooks and scullions, were seated under the stars or under cover in the Turkish pavilions, freely commenting on all the effort they had expended during those days.
As though the world had been turned upside down, the servants were the gentry and the gentry were bereft of assistance: all the illustrious guests had departed or were taking their leave, and none was any longer paying any attention to goings-on at the villa. Cardinal Spada, for his part, had returned to affairs of state.
After a week's unremitting labour, the humble company was relaxing and gossiping, commenting on all that had happened in town — whether important or frivolous — during the past few days. At the Apostolic Palace of the Quirinale, with the pontifical choir in attendance, mass had been sung by Cardinal Moriggia (whom by now everyone at Villa Spada knew well, especially Caesar Augustus, who had liberally covered him with insults); during Vespers in the church of the Madonna at Monte Santo, a beam had collapsed, killing a member of the choir; His Holiness, on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of his pontificate, had received the Sacred College of Cardinals and the ambassadors, who had proffered him their wishes for a long reign (knowing full well that this could never happen).
Some of the chatter smacked of a return to normality. Everything, not only the celebrations, seemed to be over and done with. Maria had come but, thanks to Abbot Melani's eccentric behaviour, we had been able to descry her only from afar. If she had never come, might it not have been the same? Atto's treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave had remained in the hands of the cerretani, and perhaps it had already been handed over to Lamberg, if not to Albani in person. Thus, Atto was under the sword of Damocles. What was more, the three cardinals whom we had so carefully stalked had always evaded us and only on the last occasion had we been able to understand why: but too late.
Lastly we had, it was true, tried to understand what the Tetrachion was, but the arcane atmosphere at the Vessel and the apparitions we had witnessed there had misled us; instead of the monster announced by popular prophecies and Capitor's bizarre charger, we had seen our own effigies, reflected in distorting mirrors. We had tried everything, and nothing had succeeded. We had been defeated by adverse conditions, our own incapacity and by human weakness.
Lastly, and worst of all, the Abbot had hidden the truth from me about the three cardinals and what they up to when we followed them: the dying King of Spain had requested the Pope's assistance in resolving the problem of the succession to the throne and the Pope had instructed the three to draw up the reply. I had taken part in a hunt without knowing what quarry we were pursuing.
Of course, I understood perfectly well that, given his prudence and his mistrustful nature, Atto could not always reveal to me what he was plotting: all the more so in that his principal reason for coming to Villa Spada concerned something very different: the secret correspondence between the Connestabilessa and the Most Christian King.
Nevertheless, his stubborn silence on the Spanish question had made me feel like a marionette who could not be trusted with secrets. The worst of this was that I could not even blame him for his behaviour: I myself had betrayed his trust by reading his correspondence with Maria, and that forced me to remain silent.
We had amply fed at the gentlemen's table. Cloridia absented herself briefly to put the little girls to bed alongside the children of the other servants. Returning to me, she took me by the hand and guided me towards the pavilions. There, under cover of the late hour and guided by the braziers giving off their odours of pungent spices — and protected by the fact that most souls were overcome by so much imbibing of sugary liqueurs — the chaos of
