Ugonio did not answer; his expression, which had suddenly become contrite and cringing, hypocritically masked (of this I was certain) that dull, bestial craving for possession which is the mark of primitive natures.
'Just one question, Ugonio: where is the holy relic now?' I asked in my turn, at once horrified and amused by the corpisantaro's extraordinary' rapacity.
Like a peasant taking his best rabbit out from a cage to show buyers, Ugonio swiftly extracted a small box from his cassock: the reliquary containing the tooth of Saint Leboin. He had carried it off.
'But now the cerretani are looking for me very concentratively,' said he, with a note of anxiety in his voice which I had never heard before. 'I must extrude me out of here pissed haste. I think I shall infibulate myself at Vindobona.'
'You're returning to Vienna?' Atto asked in surprise as he slipped a full purse into the hand that was still sound; Ugonio estimated the value of this reward which was, after all, richly deserved, emitting a grunt of approval.
We knew that he came from the capital of the Empire, which explained his precarious grasp of Italian; but we could never have imagined that the cerretani might hunt him down so relentlessly as to make him return there.
'Still, I imagine that, after this Jubilee, you will not lack the means to settle down comfortably in your own land,' observed Atto.
Ugonio was unable to suppress a self-satisfied grin.
'To be more medicinal than mendacious, the Jubiliary incomings have been satisfecund and abundiform. I shall low-lie in a quiet, refugious residence and trial not to wasten my economies.'
Abbot Melani, despite being a champion cynic, seemed almost sorry to see him go: 'Could you not find a temporary refuge in the Kingdom of Naples, a few hours distant from here, and return when the waters have grown calmer?'
'The cerretanici are rootless, murtherous and foxily cunningful,' replied the corpisantaro, preparing to leave as he had probably come, through the window. 'Most fortunitiously, they have baggered what they most ravened after.'
Before making his exit, he pointed at the treatise which Atto at last held in his hands.
As the corpisantaro slipped out of sight (would I ever see him again?) I realised that the cover had in fact been torn off. Then I remembered that when Ugonio was trying to get away from his pursuers, the book had already been seriously damaged.
The cerretani had succeeded: the code of the secret language remained in their hands.
Day the Tenth
16th J ULY, 1700
On the next day, Abbot Melani had Buvat summon me. I had allowed myself a few hours' sleep during which I had mostly relived the experience at Albano and, going back further, the arrival of the Connestabilessa, Atto Melani's incoherent emotions, and the tale of the sad old age of the Most Christian King who had never forgotten his Maria. On awakening, I had thought especially of the Tetrachion. And I had thought about it for some time.
Atto's secretary brought me a magnificent suit of clothes complete with patent leather shoes. At the end of his stay at Villa Spada, the Abbot was at last putting into practice his original intention to see me well dressed; and I knew why, or better, for whom.
I washed, dressed and combed my hair as well as possible, tying it with the fine blue bow that I had received with the suit.
As I was leaving, Cloridia caught sight of me: 'My goodness, what extravagance! That Abbot of yours is really generous. Let us hope he at last pays out that blessed dowry for the girls.'
'We are to go to the notary this afternoon,' I informed her.
'At long last. I feel that you've more than earned it.'
When I rejoined Atto, from his face one would never have thought that he had lived through the shattering events of the night before. He had recovered that state of nervous artificial calm in which 1 had left him in the afternoon. There was only one difference: he was, to my surprise, at last wearing that mauve- grey soutane with the hood and Abbot's periwig in which I had met him seventeen years before and which he had worn when he came to find me at the Villa Spada. Clothes which, although clean and well ironed, were somewhat outmoded and evoked bygone days.
This was, I thought, right. Was he not perhaps about to embark on a meeting with the past? I felt a surge of gratitude. He had at last decided to go to meet the Connestabilessa wearing the sober clothing which he had also worn when he presented himself to me.
The sole note of vanity was a French-seeming perfume which filled the whole room with a somewhat over- emphatic fragrance.
Atto was seated at his writing desk. He was placing a wax seal on the red ribbon enclosing a letter rolled into a tube. His old hand was trembling and seemed unable to get the better of the curved surface of the paper.
The day was already hot and rather stuffy. Through the window one could hear the chanting of a procession: that of the Arch-Confraternities, wending its way through the nearby streets of Trastevere to the church of the Madonna del Carmine.
Melani caught sight of me and sighed, already exhausted before he had even ventured forth, as always happens when one feels unequal to the task which awaits one or to others' expectations about oneself. He did not even greet me.
'This morning I announced that I would be visiting. We must be there in half an hour,' said he laconically.
'Where?'
'At the nuns' convent on Campo Marzio.'
'Why did she not stay at the villa?'
'From what I could gather, she thought it inopportune. The celebrations are over and Cardinal Spada has very different matters to worry about.'
A carriage awaited us at the entrance. Once we had left, Atto's gaze was soon lost in contemplation of Villa Spada as it receded into the distance.
I guessed, or at least I thought I could understand intuitively, what must have been going through his mind at that moment: the feasting was over, by now the cerretani belonged to the past, he was returning to reality. After seeing the Connestabilessa, he would resume his personal battle, the desire to impose his own stamp on human affairs at the forthcoming conclave. At the same time, he must have been painfully aware of the inexorable passing of time, feeling how hard the springs of the carriage were on his loins, far, far harder than when, as a young castrato decades before, armed only with his own talent and the protection of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, he had looked out over the same city from another carriage, with grasping eyes and an ardent heart, as he came to play his part in the great banquet of music, politics, intrigue and, perhaps, one day, glory.
Within a few months, with the new conclave, he would know whether a lifetime was sufficient to achieve those ambitions. In a few minutes, however, he would know whether a lifetime had been able to cancel out a great love.
When the horses passed in front of the Vessel, Atto leaned out instinctively, looking upwards. I knew what he was thinking of: the Tetrachion.
It was time to talk.
'Why, when Capitor said 'two in one', did she also point to Neptune's sceptre, in other words, the trident?' I asked without warning.
The Abbot turned towards me, surprised.
'What are you getting at?' he asked me, frowning.
'Perhaps she meant that those two figures were united with the sceptre, truly 'two in one'.'
'But what sense would that make?' asked Atto, betraying his impatience at not, for once, thinking as fast as I. He could not know that I had turned that thought over a thousand times in my bed a few hours before.
