which every effort must in the end prove in vain. The macabre song which Capitor had made Atto sing seemed chosen to perturb the Cardinal's already unquiet conscience.
'Myrrh was one of the Three Magi's gifts to Our Lord,' I observed.
'Precisely. It is a symbol of mortality, since it is scattered on corpses,' remarked Melani.
The second present too concealed a recondite message. The incense which it contained, whose penetrating odour Capitor had spread through the air, is indeed used in holy places and the Three Magi gave it to the Christ Child in acknowledgement of his divinity.
Many, then, were the aspects of His Eminence evoked and honoured by those gifts: his charge as a Cardinal and ecclesiastic, represented by incense, and his nature as a mortal man, of which the emblem was myrrh.
'Lastly, the pedestal of the globe, which was in solid gold, was a sign of regal power: a homage to that of Mazarin, the Queen's lover and the absolute master of France, the most magnificent and powerful state in Europe and in the whole world,' Melani commented gravely, 'like unto Our Lord, who is called King of Kings.'
The three objects, in sum, symbolised the three gifts which Our Lord received from the three Magi: gold, incense and myrrh; or the symbols of royal power, divinity and mortality.
'Capitor, His Eminence is grateful to you,' said Queen Anne, dismissing her with benevolent ease, seeking to change the subject and to save everyone from embarrassment. 'Now, let us invite the orchestra in,' she concluded, gesturing that the doors should be opened.
Outside the room, a small crowd of musicians had indeed gathered, whose services Monsieur had commanded, together with a little table so laden as to relieve the guests' stomachs, once their ears had been catered for.
The doors were duly opened and the crowd of players began politely to take their places in the room, filling it with a growing hubbub. At the same time, groups of valets, panting at the effort, were bringing in tables already laid to satisfy the royal appetite. A little further off, there followed the obsequious multitude of courtiers, pressing forward keenly as they waited to be allowed to enter and partake of the remainder of the entertainment.
Louis, Mazarin and the Queen Mother were already distracted by this coming and going when Capitor, who was on the point of making way for the concert and the banquet, fixed her gaze one last time on the Cardinal.
'A virgin who weds the crown brings death,' she declaimed, smiling, in a loud and clear voice, 'which will be accomplished when the moons join the suns at the wedding.'
Then she bowed and disappeared with her faithful retinue of birds into the human clouds of musicians and servants now bursting into the room in joyous disorder.
'Only then did Don John set aside his haughtiness,' said Atto. 'He turned to the Cardinal and the Queen begging their pardon on behalf of the madwoman. He admitted that her performances were supposed to be an entertainment, yet sometimes they were practically incomprehensible and, even when she seemed to overstep the limits of decency, she did not do so out of discourtesy but drawn by her bizarre and inconstant nature, et cetera, et cetera'
A madwoman could be forgiven for some madness, Abbot Melani reasoned, but Capitor's eccentricities that evening seemed all too much like threats; and Don John did not want to be thought of as having commissioned those hostile words.
The mad clairvoyant had made Atto sing a song that spoke of death and its ineluctability. Before that, she had offered the
Cardinal three costly objects, which alluded to his being a Cardinal — which was true — to his being a King, which was almost true, but inopportune, Mazarin being the Queen's secret lover; and lastly that he was destined to die: undeniably true, but no one likes to be reminded of that twice in the same evening.
The sonnet even contained oblique references — to the inconstancy of fortune, the weight of failures — which no one would have dared to mention in the presence of the First Minister of the most powerful kingdom in Europe.
In the end, taking advantage of the arrival of the orchestra and of the valets bearing in the banquet, Capitor had escaped, leaving His Eminence a last menacingly allusive message.
None could have any doubts as to the meaning of those parting words. The crown was quite obviously young Louis. And who could the virgin be if not Maria Mancini?
'The allusion to the virgin, in particular, seemed to refer clearly to Maria, whom the King never knew: carnally, I mean.'
'Really?' I exclaimed in surprise.
'No one believed that, except for myself, obviously, well aware as I was of the extreme innocence of their love, and the Cardinal who was kept informed of every minute of the young King's life. When Maria arrived in Rome and married the Constable Colonna, the latter confided in me not long after their wedding that he had found her to be a virgin and, being aware of what had passed between her and the King of France, had been frankly amazed by that.'
If the marriage between the virgin and the crown were to be concluded, according to Capitor's warning, someone would pay with his life. And, seeing that the prophecy was aimed at Cardinal Mazarin, Maria's tutor and Louis's godfather, and thus arbiter of the destiny of the twain, it was easy to imagine that it was precisely his end that was being predicted, indeed even augured.
Proffered by anyone else, Capitor's words might have seemed mere harmless ravings. In the mouth of that being with her arcane faculties of divination, they sounded all too like the voice of the Black Lady with the ineluctable scythe.
'It is not easy to explain here and now, forty years later,' said the
Abbot. 'When that ugly being opened her mouth, it set one a-shivering. Yet everyone laughed: the foolish because they were amused, the others, out of nervousness.'
Atto, too, during Capitor's mad liturgy, had felt the touch of fear. He, too, had taken part, albeit passively and marginally, in the staging of the show for Mazarin.
Meanwhile, the wind had risen and the sky, which had hitherto been immaculate, seemed to have grown slightly darker.
'You yourself, Signor Atto, told me that Capitor was suspected of speaking as if she had been inspired to by the Spaniards who wanted a marriage between Louis and the Infanta and were consequently hostile to Maria Mancini. If that were the case, Capitor's message would have been, how can one put it?…'
'A perfectly normal threat for political ends? 'Tis true, there were those who saw it in those terms; but I believe that His Eminence was by no means so sure of it. The fact is that, from that moment on, Mazarin's attitude to Maria and the King changed sharply: no sooner had Don John the Bastard departed with his madwoman than the Cardinal became the most bitter enemy of the love between the two young people. There was, however, something else: Capitor called the dish by a Greek name: a word which you too now know.'
'Do you mean?…'
'Tetrachion.'
I was so caught up in the narration that I had almost failed to notice the curious phenomenon which had been taking place for the past few minutes: a sudden, bizarre change in climate, which had also occurred the day before in the very same place.
The wind, which was at first moderate, had found new vigour. The cirrus clouds which had quite unexpectedly begun to darken the vault of heaven swiftly gathered, by now forming a bank, then a cumulus. A powerful gust raised dead leaves and dust from the ground, forcing us to protect our eyes for fear of being blinded. As on the day before, we had to lean against a tree if we were not to lose our balance.
It lasted no more than a few instants. Hardly had the singular little squall blown over than the daylight seemed more joyful and free. With our hands we brushed down our dusty clothes as best we could. I raised my eyes to the sun and was more dazzled than I expected: there was hardly any difference between the light now and when we had left Villa Spada. 'What curious weather there sometimes is here,' commented Atto.
'Now I understand,' I said. 'The first time that you mentioned the Vessel to me you said that there were objects here.'
'Good. Your memory is correct.'
'Capitor's gifts,' I added.
He did not reply. He was moving towards the front door.
''Tis open,' he commented.
