'Are you quite sure that you heard correctly?'
'Absolutely sure. Indeed, do you know what I think? This brings to mind the secret password of which your wife spoke.'
'Cloridia did tell me that sooner or later she would have further information.'
'Excellent. Except that, instead of reaching her, the information has come directly to us, in other words to the real interested parties, through the Master Florist.'
'Passing Cloridia by? I find that hard to believe. In her circles, she is venerated. She assists at births all over Rome, and the women have no secrets from her.'
'Yes, so long as they are mere women's gossip. But in an affair like this, no one would prefer some midwife to a diplomatic agent of His Majesty the Most Christian King,' retorted Atto with ruffled pride.
'Perhaps I could try talking with the Master Florist, in order to see whether…'
'You could? Why, you must find out what he knows about the Tetrachion. Now, I shall be on my way. It is a fortunate coincidence that you should already have worked for him,' said he, pointing at him and meaning that I was to commence my investigations there and then.
'Signor Atto, we shall need time to…'
'I do not wish to listen to ifs and buts. You are to begin forthwith. Stand next to him with all these implements and pretend that you mean to work. We shall meet at lunchtime. I must settle some rather urgent correspondence. I expect you to do your duty.'
He set off at a determined pace for the great house. He had left me no choice.
In truth, I should have preferred to go first to the kitchen and get myself something to eat; but Master Tranquillo had already caught sight of me and I did not wish to give him the impression that I had something to hide. I therefore went up to him, wearing the least hypocritical smile of which I was capable.
Tranquillo Romauli, who had been named after his grandfather, that most skilled and distinguished of floriculturists, welcomed me benevolently. His physical presence contrasted curiously with the silent and sober art of gardening. He was a great fat bear of a man with a thick, bristling beard, black hair and vaguely obtuse little eyes surmounted by a pair of tangled, bushy eyebrows. He had a strong jaw and a big stomach, swelled up by many and generous bouts of eating, and this made him at once imposing and comically ridiculous when he reached out his great paws to prune the leaves of some tiny sick seedling. Above all, owing to some previous illness of the auditory organs, he had become rather hard of hearing, and his booming voice made every conversation an exchange of shouts, at the end of which the person speaking to him was left no less deaf than the Master Florist. To find out from him what he knew of the Tetrachion, if ever he was prepared to reveal that, would be no easy matter. A conversation with Romauli could practically never be settled in a few easy exchanges; although his character was exquisite, he was the most verbose individual, garrulous to the point of being insufferable and obsessed with one exclusive, all-embracing, mind-dulling topic: flowers and gardening. His science was so vast and profound that he had come to be regarded as a sort of walking encyclopaedia of flower cultivation. It was said that he could recite the whole of Father Ferrari's De florum cultura and that he knew by heart the origins, history and design of every vegetable or flower garden in Rome.
After a few brief exchanges of pleasantries, he asked me if I had nothing to do that morning.
'Oh well… nothing in particular, to tell the truth.'
'Really? Then you must be the only person here at the Villa Spada without some business to attend to. I imagine, however, that all those implements which you are holding in your arms must be there for some purpose,' said he, pointing at the tools which Atto had heaped onto me.
'Of course…' said I guiltily. 'I was hoping to be able to make myself useful in some way.'
'Very well, your wish has already come true,' he replied with satisfaction, picking up a wooden case full of other tools and motioning that I was to follow him.
We were, he explained, on our way to the flower beds near the chapel of the villa. It was a fine day; the fresh early morning breeze seemed to be holding an amiable dialogue with the twittering of the birds and with the multiform ranks of clouds which observed placidly from on high the eternal round of terrestrial vanities. Our footsteps echoed softly on the fine gravel of the drives while the sun, still low on the horizon, warmed us with its first timid rays.
This delightful arrangement of the natural elements, however, completely escaped Tranquiilo Romauii who was, as ever, utterly preoccupied with the concerns of his art and had already begun to instruct me.
'Don Paschatio has ordered me to plant jasmine,' he began in querulous tones. 'Yet, I had told him quite clearly that the noblest garden has no place for jasmine. Neither our own yellow home-grown variety, of course, nor the common white lily. And even if there were any place for suchlike, they should take second place to the vermilion or orange Turk's head lily. These days, all sense has been lost of what is to be cultivated in a garden. 'Tis a veritable scandal.'
'You are right, it is the most serious matter. So, you were saying that jasmine is unworthy of the best gardens?' said I, feigning interest.
'Let us say that pride of place is to be accorded to the 'silver goblet' or white narcissus, whichever one prefers to call it,' he resumed, raising his voice. 'Or to the double narcissus of Constantinople, which produces a set of ten or twelve flowers, to the Ragusa narcissus, the yellow narcissus or the starry variety; or again to the frasium, which resembles a rose, or a lettuce, to the ultramontane, which has the virtues of a double yellow rose, or to the sweetest smelling jonquils, with a perfume like that of jasmine, tempered by and mixed with the scent of orange blossom.'
'I understand,' said I, smothering a yawn and trying to see how I could place a word about the Tetrachion without arousing suspicion.
Meanwhile, we had moved around to the far side of the great house and had almost arrived at the flower beds near the chapel. The weight and bulk of my load was causing me to sway; inwardly, I was cursing Atto.
'I know that what I am about to say to you will sound obvious,' added the Master Florist, 'yet I shall never tire of repeating that it is a mistake of the moderns to neglect the false narcissus, also known as the trumpet lily because of its long, trumpet-shaped calyx. Likewise, greater use should be made of Indian narcissi, especially the Donnabella, which first became acclimatised to Italy in the gardens of the Prince of Caserta, and the spherical lilied narcissus which could not flower in France but, becoming at last a guest of Rome's amenity and majesty, here opened its flowers, almost like a sweet smile, in the happy plantations of my grandfather. And then, let them choose the crocus, the colchicum, the imperial crown, the iris, cyclamens, anemones, ranunculus, asphodels, peonies, fritellaria, lilies of the valley, carnations and tulips.'
'The Dutch tulip?' I asked, if only to avoid the dialogue turning into a monologue.
'But of course! In no other plant does nature jest so freely or with so great a variety of colours, so much so that, years ago, someone enumerated over two hundred different colours. But take care,' said he, stopping and looking me fixedly in the eyes with a severe mien.
'Yes, Master Florist?' I replied, stopping dead, dropping all the hardware I was carrying and fearing that I must somehow have said or done something displeasing.
'My boy,' he admonished, in fact quite oblivious of me and absorbed in his own train of thought, 'be sure not to forget that, alongside those I have named is the passion fruit, which is a native of Peru and is to be trained on cane trellises, Indian yucca, jasmine from Catalonia and Arabia and, lastly, the American variety which, it seems, some call quamoclit.'
From this last assertion 1 realised that Tranquillo Romauli, even when he fixed his eyes on yours, had the eyes of his mind focused solely upon the sole true interest of his life: the loving care of plants and flowers.
'And now, to work,' said he, handing me his box and beginning to scoop at the earth of the flower bed with his bare hands. 'Hand me the implements one at a time, as I request them. First, the straight-edge.'
I rummaged in the box and almost at once found the long stick which was used for aligning the sides of the flower beds. I gave it to him.
'Give me the little jar with the seeds.'
'Here you are.'
'Sprinkler.'
'Yes.'
'Pruning knife.'
'By your leave.'
