tabliers et pieces de corsage in black velvet and gold and silver dentelles; while their black velvet hats bore pink, white and fire-coloured plumes and Mademoiselle's neck was covered with rows of pearls too numerous to be counted, and bestrewn with diamonds.
'And there was Mademoiselle de Villcroy, puree de diamants, and
Mademoiselle de Gourdon, all covered in emeralds, accompanied by the Due de Roquelaure, the Comte de Guise, the Marquis de Villeroy and the sparkling Puyguilhem (later to become the notorious Comte de Lauzun), they too costumed and coiffed avec les houlettes de vernis, like the peasants of Bressannes, and this was yet another silent seal which the great architect, Love, placed, 'midst scornful celebrations, upon the failure of Louis's planned nuptials with Margaret of Savoy.
'And the offer in marriage of the Infanta of Spain?' I objected.
'The negotiations had not yet begun. Between the Spaniards and Mazarin, secret contacts were taking place, but only gradually did they become public. All still remained to be decided. What was more,' added Atto pensively, as we went through the San Pancrazio Gate under the watchful eyes of the guards. 'What was more, I have always had the impression that the Cardinal had very different plans from these matrimonial arrangements for bringing Spain to heel and imposing peace on terms entirely favourable to himself. At least, until…'
'Until?'
'In March 1659, something unforeseen took place. Don John of Austria, the King of Spain's bastard son, arrived in Paris. He was coming from Flanders, of which he was the Governor, on his way to Spain. I recall those days very well, because Don John arrived incognito, at Vespers, and at court excitement was at its height. Queen Anne received him in her chambers, and I too was able to be present.'
He was a small man, slight in build, well made, with a fine head and black hair — just a little rotund. Noble was the aspect of his face and agreeable to behold. The Queen treated him with great familiarity and in his presence spoke almost entirely in Spanish. She also presented to him the young King Louis. Don John, however, the son of King Philip of Spain but born of an actress, ever over-proud of his birth, behaved with excessive haughtiness, disappointing and arousing the indignation of the entire court which was playing host to him.
'The same embarrassing situation was repeated the day after,'
Atto recounted, 'after he had had the honour of sleeping in Mazarin's apartments. Don John came at length to the Louvre, where Anne and the Cardinal received him with a friendliness which was not reciprocated. Monsieur, the King's brother, lent him his own guard without receiving the least thanks in return. Everyone was astounded and shocked by the Bastard's effrontery. Yet that was as nothing when compared with what was to happen later.'
'Was there a diplomatic incident?'
Atto drew breath and raised his eyes, almost as though to force the riotous flock of memories into the sheepfold of logical discourse.
'An incident?… Not really. Something else. What I am about to disclose to you is a tale known to very few.'
'Do not worry,' I reassured him, 'I shall tell no one.'
'Good. You do well to behave thus — in your own interest, too.'
'What do you mean?'
'Like all scalding hot information, you can never quite tell what awkward potentialities lie concealed in it.'
Meanwhile, we had covered a good distance along the Via San Pancrazio. I had guessed where we were going. This was confirmed when Atto came to a halt. We were before the entrance.
'It is here. Or at least, it should be,' said Atto, inviting me to cross the threshold of the Vessel.
We stood yet again in the fine courtyard, made gay by the ever renewed gurgling of the fountain. This time, no sign of any human presence came from within the villa; neither music nor even the slightest vague rustling that might stimulate one's imagination.
We advanced towards the tree-lined drives which we had explored on our first visit, near the espaliered citrus trees. After the amiable hubbub at Villa Spada, the silence here seemed designed to dispose Atto even more towards narration. Only a timid breath of wind caressed the foliage on the treetops, the sole witnesses to our presence. As we walked in the park of the Vessel, Abbot Melani spun out the thread of the tale.
Don John, or the Bastard, as many called him, had in his retinue a curious being, a woman who was known to all as Capitor.
'A mangled name, for in reality they called her la pitora or something of the sort — a word which, I believe, means in Spanish 'the cretin'.'
Capitor was mad. Hers, however, was no ordinary madness. It was rumoured that she came from a family of clairvoyant lunatics who, among the folds of a distorted vision, mysteriously captured gleams of occult truth. The Bastard had made of her a sort of domestic animal, an entertainment for the cruel, rough amusement of his soldiery and, sometimes, the gentry.
'Her fame as a clairvoyant, but also as an outlandish, entertaining madwoman, had preceded her to Paris,' said Atto. 'So much so that, soon after his arrival, the Bastard was asked whether he had brought her with him.'
Thus it was that Capitor was presented at the Louvre. She was dressed in men's clothing, with short hair, a plumed hat and a sword. One eye swore at the other: she was, in other words, cross-eyed. Her skin was yellow and full of pock-marks, framed by a mousy mane, with a hooked nose and a dark window in the middle of her front teeth, all of which made her quite phenomenally ugly. Hers was an ungainly, pear-shaped figure, with minuscule withered shoulders, while her hips spread into enormous parentheses, all of which combined to render her disastrous appearance the more droll and ridiculous.
She was always accompanied by a flock of birds of all kinds, which took shelter on her shoulders and in the ample fold of her hat: goldfinches, parrots, canaries, and so on.
'But what was so special about her?'
'She was all day long at the Louvre,' replied Atto, 'where the Queen Mother, the King and his brother had a wonderful time joking and teasing her. She would often respond with strange strings of words, meaningless riddles, queer rhymes and incantations. Often she'd burst out laughing without rhyme or reason, in the midst of a banquet or a speech by a member of the court, just as one would expect from a lunatic. But if someone reproved her, she would at once become as sad as a funeral and, pointing her index finger at her opponent, she would whisper incomprehensible, menacing anathemas. After which she'd again roar with laughter, mocking with odd and truly funny witticisms the poor unfortunate who had thought to punish her. Often, she would play the castanets and dance after the manner of the Spanish gypsies. She would dance in the most curious fashion, without any accompanying music; but she did it with such passion that, more than a dance, it seemed to be an arcane rite. At the end, after the last pirouette, sweating and panting, she would let herself fall to the ground, ending with a raucous cry of victory. Everyone would applaud, bewitched and perturbed by the madwoman's magnetism.'
There was a strange atmosphere in those days, since that indefinable being had arrived at court. While in the beginning everyone thought they could play games with her, it was by now the contrary that had become the norm.
With her bizarre behaviour and her caprices, Capitor amused everyone; with only two exceptions.
'The madwoman had no favourite topics of conversation. Indeed, she had none at all. If she was sad, she stayed in a corner, all dejected, and there was no way of conversing with her. Otherwise, she would wait for someone to ask her something, for example: 'What is the time?' She would reply, if she was on form and she liked the questioner, with some absurd pronouncement, such as: 'Time doesn't wait for time, for otherwise it would have to wait for those who no longer have any time, or to let them die in their non-time. I shall not die, because I am already in Capitor's non-time. You, on the other hand, are in today's time, and that seems fine to you because you have the illusion that you can see it, whereas what you are really seeing is the nothingness of your own non-time. Have you ever thought about that?''
'But that doesn't mean a thing!'
'Indeed it is not supposed to. But, believe me, when that bedevilled madwoman gushed forth her incantations, you'd be taken in like some silly child and suspect there was some sense to it, even some revelation of which only she was capable. And that suspicion was not mistaken.'
'What do you mean?'
'The madwoman, Capitor, had… how can I describe it? Let us say, she had some special faculties. I shall
