little ones in the villa's kitchens, after which I was to accompany them home and put them to bed. I snatched a few moments of her time to show her Melani's written promise. Her eyes opened wide.
'If I did not see it here, in black and white, I could never believe it,' she exclaimed, whereupon she jumped for joy, embracing and kissing me.
But time was short. Before rushing off, Cloridia passed me a snippet of information, overheard during the celebrations by her usual faithful informers among the maidservants.
'This evening, Cardinal Albani too will be coming to dinner, if that interests you,' said she with a wink as she ran on her way.
Albani. Atto and I had searched for him in vain at the Vessel; and now he was coming to us.
''Tis said that Cardinal Bonvisi is not in the best of health,' chimed in old Cardinal Colloredo who, in his capacity as Grand Penitentiary, or Confessor to the Cardinals, was always well informed about everything.
The nuptial banquet was already at its height when, after evening's shadows had fallen, I was called by Don Paschatio, the Major-Domo, once more to hold one of the torches lighting the table, in the place of one of the lackeys who was feeling unwell. After donning my janissary's costume, I arrived at the sumptuous dinner grasping the torch. The spouses with their respective families and Cardinal Spada, the tutelary deity of the festivities, were prudently seated at a separate table. For the master of the house, this measure, which was, moreover, traditional, fulfilled two purposes: to honour the bride's family and to avoid becoming embroiled in political conversations that might give rise to dissension; although unavoidable at a gathering which brought together no fewer than eighteen cardinals, such talk would have been out of place coming from the mouth of the Pontifical Secretary of State.
All around us, on serving tables lit up by yet more great threeand four-branched candelabra, were set shining silver goblets for beverages, crystal carafes, bowls for washing hands, salt cellars, trenchers, jugs, chalices and salvers, great beakers, chargers heaped up with prune jelly, chunks of black umber, huge mullet with raspberries cut into roundels, all sparkling and reflecting silver and golden light. Then came a table loaded with fish, another with all manner of fowls of the air, yet another with good fresh green vegetables, and a last one with fruit and candies which were all a pleasure for the eyes, that being, indeed, their sole purpose, for I knew that the dishes destined to be eaten were different and even more succulent than that rich display of God's bounty.
Upon hearing the bad news of Cardinal Bonvisi's indisposition, all shook their heads, affecting to be afflicted thereby.
'Yes, 'tis true, he is not very well. He himself wrote telling me that last week,' Abbot Melani broke in, thus declaring his friendship for Bonvisi, who went so far as to confide his personal news to him.
'But I am counting upon his swift recovery, so that… because I care for his health,' said Colloredo, for an instant betraying the hope that Bonvisi would be well enough to take part in the conclave which all knew to be approaching.
Colloredo was not to know that Bonvisi would die within a few weeks, on 25th August, and that he himself would not survive more than two years. In a flash of clairvoyance, he added with absorbed thoughtful expression: 'On 13th June, Cardinal Maidalchini left us, and on 3rd March, Casanate.'
An icy breeze ran down the backs of many cardinals present, no few of whom were advanced in years.
In the meantime, the second part of the fourth course had been served. In an effort to restore the palate and prepare it for further exercises in gluttony, a sherbet of blackcurrants and redcurrants had been served, together with slices of lemon. Then came the fried trout accompanied by sweetmeats from Parona and filled with sour cherries in syrup and citrus juice; pastries stuffed with sturgeon and foie gras asparagus tips, capers, prunes, sour grapes, boiled egg yolks, lemon juice, flour and butter, borne to table under a perforated silver dome and sprinkled with sugar; turtles in pottage, cooked in their shells after their heads had been cut off (boiled thus, very little spices are needed), with toasted almonds, more foie gras, sweet- smelling herbs, muscatel wine and crumbled spiced cake, decorated with serpent-shaped tortiglioni sweetmeats from Orvieto, all served under a cover with a generous sprinkling of sugar and many stuffed half-eggs.
'Your Excellency should not turn his thoughts to such sad things on an occasion as gay as this magnificent wedding,' said Cardinal Moriggia, whom Caesar Augustus had on the first evening called a boor. 'It suffices, moreover, to remember the virtues of those who have passed away; there is no need to learn by heart the dates when they died.'
'I would not have done so,' replied Colloredo, 'but, you know, when the question of the 19th arose…'
No one dared open their mouth at that juncture; everyone knew what he was talking about, even I, having read it in the court notices among Atto's papers. It had happened the year before that three cardinals had passed away at an exact interval of one month after one another: Giovanni Delfino, Patriarch of Aquileia, on 19th July; Cardinal Aguirre on 19th August and Cardinal Fernandez de Cordoba, Grand Inquisitor of Spain, on 19th September. Obviously, until the 19th October, every cardinal in Europe lived in terror of a possible prolongation of the series, this time affecting him. Fortunately, however, no such thing had transpired and the next to depart had been Cardinal Pallavicino who had broken that unlucky sequence by departing this life on the 11th February. The Sacred College had given a great sigh of relief.
'Dear Delfino, as far as I knew him as a man and as a cardinal, would have made an excellent pontiff,' said Atto, pronouncing the name which was in all minds and thus revealing another of his intimate acquaintances among the wearers of the purple. ''Tis a pity that, through someone's excess of zeal, matters should have gone otherwise.'
The atmosphere became heavy.
'There exist certain o-ver-zeal-ous individuals, ever ready to give counsel, even to complete strangers, so long as they can cast mud at respectable persons,' he added carelessly.
From heavy, the air became leaden. The word 'zealous' which Atto had so heavily emphasised, was a reference to the party of Cardinal Zelanti, called the 'Zealots' because they preached the independence of the Sacred College from the influence of foreign powers. To this party, both Colloredo and Negroni belonged.
As I knew from my instructive reading of Abbot Melani's court notices, at the previous conclave, nine years before, Cardinal Delfino, Atto's friend and the candidate favoured by all the crowns, was on the point of being elected pope. The Zealots then, being unable to stomach the foreign powers making their own pope, had resorted to the worst possible stratagems in order to destroy that candidacy. As Atto had allusively mentioned, Colloredo had written to the Sun King's confessor, Pere Lachaise (to whom the Cardinal had never written before) in order to canvass for the candidature of Cardinal Barbarigo, another Zealot.
Negroni had then spread the rumour that Delfino had in his youth even killed a man with a poker; which he had indeed done, but only to defend himself from a thief who had broken into his house and was attacking him with a dagger. In the end, malign tongues had prevailed, and, in the place of Cardinal Delfino, the election went to Cardinal Pignatelli, the Pope whose imminent death was now expected.
'The fact, however, remains that our present Pontiff Innocent XII is a saintly, good and wise pope,' said Cardinal Negroni, meaning, for those who were familiar with what had taken place behind the scenes, that the sabotage at Delfino's expense had not done any great harm; Atto said nothing.
'This is, moreover, proven by the Romanum decet Pontificem,' added Negroni, referring to the constitution whereby Innocent XII had, soon after his election, forbidden the relatives of popes from enriching themselves at the expense of the Church. 'And I know not how many would have had the courage to do what he did.'
This was yet another allusion to Delfino: in order to prevent his election, the Zealots had it cried out on the rooftops that he had a mass of nephews and intended to enrich them all from the coffers of the Vatican.
The wedding table had fallen silent. Nothing could be heard except the sound of jaws patiently chewing the 'English' pie of grilled mullet in salsa bastarda, with little sweetmeats and prune jelly, garnished with lemon slices and candied cinnamon sticks. Decidedly, the Curia's disputes had gained the better of the wedding.
The tensions created by that skirmish, however subtly it had been conducted, had been almost contagiously transmitted to us torchbearers too; now I was perspiring even more copiously. None dared interrupt the venomous verbal duel between Atto and Negroni.
'Oh, what you say is ungenerous towards the previous pontiff,' replied Atto with a little smirk. 'If Prince Odescalchi were here tonight, I know not what he would have to say about your words. He, the nephew of Pope Innocent XI, who reigned before the present pontiff and Alexander VIII, was never made a cardinal, because his uncle did not wish to be accused of favouring his kinsmen.'
'And what of it?' asked Negroni.
'How can one put it, Excellency? So many things are bruited abroad — clearly all malicious gossip. It is said
