Secretum

'Interesting,' observed Atto. 'This is our thief's favourite method.'

'Today there's the wedding,' the catchpoll continued, 'so I shall not be able to get away. We must wait until evening. I'd like to put some questions to a couple of wretches. Let us then meet tonight after the nuptial banquet. You, my boy, will come with me.'

I looked at Atto, hesitating.

'No,' he said, guessing that I had some hesitation about running yet more risks, 'the matter concerns me personally… therefore I too shall come.'

I had been caught out: in point of fact, Cloridia would have wished me to stop going out at night on behalf of Melani. Atto had offered to come, but in my company! And if an old man like him took this upon himself, I bethought myself with some embarrassment, why could not I do likewise?

The catchpoll explained the objective to us.

'Interesting… Most interesting,' commented Atto at the end.

'Who told you? Speak! From whom did you learn this?'

The attack came the moment we were alone. He grabbed me by the collar and hurled me against the wall. His was the modest strength of an old man, yet surprise, the respect which I nevertheless felt for him, and which caused me to hesitate, as well as fatigue from the night before, all prevented me from facing up to him as I ought.

'Tell me!' he screamed in my face one last time.

Then he looked behind him out of the corner of his eyes, towards the door of the chamber, fearing that he might have been overheard. He relaxed his grip, while I myself, whose sole reaction had been to grasp those almost skeletal wrists to prevent him from strangling me, broke free.

'But what has got into you?' I protested.

'You must tell me who spoke to you of the Tetrachion,' said he in a firm, icy voice, as though he were reclaiming possession of something that belonged to him.

I therefore told him that a chambermaid at the Spanish Embassy had made some obscure connection between the incident which had befallen Atto and the death of the bookbinder and the coming of the Tetrachion, who was said to be no less than the legitimate heir to the Spanish throne. When I referred to the illness of the Catholic King, and to the fact that he was on the point of dying childless, I had to make a considerable effort to avoid betraying the fact that I had learned all this from Maria's letters.

'Well, well, I see that you know the main things about the Spanish succession. Obviously, you have taken up reading gazettes once more,' he commented.

'Er, yes, Signor Atto. My wife does, however, hope to have further details in the next few days,' I concluded, hoping that he had calmed down.

'Of that, I have no doubt. Don't imagine that you are going to get away with this so lightly,' he said acidly.

I was incredulous. After all the services which I had rendered him, Atto was treating me like the most sordid of traitors.

'Anyway,' I burst out at last, 'who or what the deuce is this Tetrachion?'

'That is not the problem.'

'Then, what is?'

'The problem is: where is he?'

He opened the door and went out, beckoning me to follow him.

'Things could not go on like that forever,' he began.

We were approaching the gate of the Villa Spada, in the midst of a chaotic and excited multitude of workmen, seamstresses, porters and lackeys.

He had decided to respond to my questions with facts, and was heading for an unknown destination; but with words too, taking up again the thread of the narration which he had interrupted the day before.

Gradually, as the King reached manhood, Atto narrated, Mazarin's position was becoming more delicate with every passing day. He knew that he would not be able to keep his sovereign forever in a state of blissful, nebulous ignorance of matters of state and the facts of life. After being the absolute master, what place would the Cardinal occupy under a young, vigorous monarch in full possession of his powers? Mazarin thought anxiously of this again and again during long journeys by carriage, while distractedly receiving postulants, in every single free moment that work left him and last of all, in bed, as he awaited sleep and his most pressing thoughts performed their last furious dance. Meanwhile, despite the Queen Mother's complaints about Maria, he raised not a finger to separate the young King from his niece…

'The King saw this and took it in, interpreting this silence as consent. And of one thing you may be certain: the Cardinal absolutely did not want to see his niece in the humiliating role of royal mistress when Louis took himself a wife!'

'In other words, Louis had the illusion that the Cardinal would let him marry her,' I conjectured.

''Twas more than an illusion. Once the King even went so far as to call Maria 'my Queen' in the presence of others. The whole court, led by the Queen Mother, cried scandal. Louis's sole response, however, was to acquire from the Queen of England a splendid necklace of huge pearls which was, moreover, one of the English crown jewels: it was to be his betrothal gift to Maria. Was it not, moreover, true that, a year previously, the hand of Maria's younger sister Ortensia had been requested by the English King Charles II? The negotiations failed later, but only because the British sovereign wanted, in addition to a dowry in money, the fief of Dunkirk, which Mazarin did not feel able to yield. So Louis's hopes were not by any means groundless.'

At court, meanwhile, the couple's every sigh was spied upon and reported to Anne of Austria. A mordant comment by Maria, a word out of turn or her all-too-spontaneous laughter, all were at once transformed by courtiers' gossip into a caprice or insolence inviting loud censure. A passing glance by the young King at some damsel was enough to make the courtiers exult against Maria Mancini.

Very soon, an expedition was organised: everyone was off to Lyons, for the presentation to the King of a young maiden, Margaret of Savoy, a possible candidate for Louis's hand. He obeyed, but he took Maria with him and carefully avoided any contact with the Queen Mother. Every evening during the journey, instead of having dinner, the King performed in a ballet, having partaken of an abundant afternoon meal, so as to avoid dining with his mother. Then he would play at cards with Maria.

We had, I saw, left the Villa Spada and we were making our way towards the San Pancrazio Gate.

At the meeting with Margaret of Savoy, Atto continued, Louis was as cold as a mannequin. He had eyes and ears only for Maria. They were inseparable. During stages on the journey, he at first followed her carriage on horseback then acted as her coachman; in the end, he fell into the habit of joining her as a passenger. On moonlit nights, Louis would walk up and down until late under the windows of Mazarin's niece. When he attended some play, he would want her by his side, on a specially made platform. Those who accompanied them on their walks were by now accustomed to staying behind and leaving the lovelorn pair alone, a few yards ahead of them, so as not to disturb them. By now, they spoke of nothing else at court. The Cardinal and the Queen Mother, however, said nothing and let it be.

The whole court was stupefied by the disrespectful behaviour of the young King. The negotiations soon broke down and poor Margaret wept at the disgrace. Then came the surprise: a secret envoy arrived from Madrid. The Spanish King offered Louis the hand of his daughter Maria Teresa, Infanta of Spain.

'It seems almost as though you kept a diary of those days,' I ventured, dissimulating my curiosity, for I was aware of Atto's aptitude for gathering information which he would then put to various quite unforeseeable uses.

'A diary, a diary!' he replied with some annoyance, 'I was on an official diplomatic mission, in the retinue of Cardinal Mazarin, the purpose of which was to conclude with Spain the Peace of the Pyrenees; I registered every single detail with my eyes and ears, that's all there is to it. This was part of my duties.'

Once the court had returned to Paris from Lyons, in February 1659, Louis's first thought was to celebrate the failure of the meeting with Margaret of Savoy.

'At the gathering, you could see festive costumes echancres after the fashion of the peasants of Bressannes, a small town through which the royal progress had passed on its way to Lyons, with manchettes and collerettes en toile ecrue, a la verite un peu plus fine,' said Atto, showing off with a delighted and malicious little smile, in a mixture of French and Italian. 'Mademoiselle and Monsieur were attired en toile d'argent with pink passepoils,