I was already on my feet and gave a violent start. I crouched down once more, terrified of being caught spying. It was the voice of one of the two cardinals overheard a few moments earlier. How could he have turned around without my realising it?
'Everything's useful for keeping afloat, eh?!'
I grew pale. My ears could not betray me. The cardinal was behind me.
I turned around and saw him just as he was opening his wings and taking off, insolently showing me the plumage of his tail, his talons and the piece of paper which for many hours now had been held tightly in their grasp.
I rejoined Atto in his apartment, where he awaited news of my conversation with the Master Florist; as soon as he knew of the most recent development, namely the appearance of Caesar Augustus, we rushed into the garden, exploring above all the area around the tool shed where I had seen the bird not long before. There was no trace, however.
'The aviary,' I suggested.
We hastened there with our hearts in our mouths, anxious to pass unobserved among the servants at work and the eminences out walking. In the aviary, too, there was no sign of Caesar Augustus. Helpless, I looked at the flocks of nightingales, lapwings, starlings, partridges, francolins, pheasants, ortolans, green linnets, blackbirds, calandra larks, chaffinches, turtle-doves and hawfinches. Blissfully unaware, they pecked away at seeds and salad leaves, without a care for our concerns. Even if they knew where the parrot was hiding at that moment, they could do no more than stare at us with their vacant eyes. I was already regretting the fact that the wretched parrot was the only one among them to have the gift of speech when I noticed that a young francolin kept looking upwards, apparently worried by something. I knew that vivacious and impertinent bird perfectly well, for often, when I was feeding the aviary, it would perch on my arm, pecking in the palm of my hand at the dry bread of which it was inordinately fond and which it hated me to distribute to its companions. Now it was showing the same signs of disquiet, twittering away with its beak pointing upwards. Then I understood and I too looked up there.
'Everything's useful for keeping afloat, eh?!' repeated Caesar Augustus when he saw that he had been found out.
He was perched at the very top of the aviary, but on the outside: above that graceful little cupola of metal netting which crowned the entire structure of that prison for birds. Since the moment of his flight, obviously, Caesar Augustus' regular ration of food had not been placed before his personal cage. He must therefore have stolen somewhere the piece of bread which he was pecking at on that pinnacle, while the francolin looked enviously on.
'Come here at once, and give us that piece of paper,' I ordered him, taking care, however, not to call too loud for fear of being overheard by the other servants.
His sole response was to fly off and perch on a nearby tree, but without his usual nonchalance. It was quite clear that he meant to provoke us; he had probably taken a dislike to one of us and it was not hard to see who that might be.
'He seemed to have some trouble perching, he must still have that note hooked onto one of his claws,' I said to Atto.
'Let us hope that it does not fall who knows where, and that the solution soon comes.'
'The solution?'
'I have sent Buvat to find a specialist. He went on horseback with one of the servants. Fortunately, your colleague had all the necessary details but I hope there will be no delay, otherwise we shall soon have everyone gathering around us, starting with the Major-Domo.'
I was on the point of asking him what he meant by the term 'specialist' when events anticipated my words. Buvat appeared behind a hedge, announcing his arrival.
'Thank heavens!' exclaimed Melani.
Thanks, perhaps, to some obscure premonitory faculty, Caesar Augustus flew off at precisely that moment in the direction of the vegetable garden of the excellent Barberini estate, which shared a long border with the Villa Spada.
'Do the Barberini have armed guards in their garden next door?'
'Not to the best of my knowledge.'
'Very well,' said Atto, 'our friend will not go far.'
Just at that moment, in the opposite quadrant of the sky, there appeared a sharp and rapid shadow which, although distant, appeared to be aiming menacingly at the fluttering outline of Caesar Augustus. The latter must have become aware of this, for he turned suddenly downwards to the left, perhaps in the direction of some thicket. The fast-moving shadow then disappeared from the luminous blue bowl of the sky.
'Come, I shall introduce you to the specialist,' said Atto, 'or rather, to employ the correct term, the falconer, for that is what he prefers to be called.'
We found him waiting for us as soon as we left the Villa Spada. He was a truly strange and singular individual: tall and thin, with long crow-black hair, black, rapacious eyes and an aquiline nose. Across his shoulders, he carried a big sack containing all his equipment. He was accompanied by a fine big hunting dog which looked keen to see action.
I looked questioningly at Atto while we accompanied the falconer towards the aviary and the place from which Caesar Augustus had just taken flight.
'Engaging in no hunt absurd, we'll use a falcon, not a cuckoo bird,' he jovially declaimed, miming the pose of a bard. 'I got the idea from that mad eccentric Albicastro with his endless quotations from that moral poem on madness.'
Just at that moment, the falconer glanced up at the ample vault of heaven and whistled twice. At once there plunged from on high a whirlwind of feathers, plumes and talons which, slowing its descent with an acrobatic turn, landed among us, coming to rest on its master's arm, stretched upwards to show the hawk where to land. The man's right arm bore a coarse leather glove to protect it from being maimed by the bird's talons. I looked at the creature with a mixture of admiration and horror, as it settled comfortably between the wrist and the elbow, contentedly testing its solid perch with its talons, while its master covered its head with a leather hood. The falconer had trained his bird well, for, after freeing it who knows where, he had only to call it to bring it back to him.
'Rather than going after cranes, we shall hunt the parrot,' announced Atto, 'and with the best of arms, a falcon.'
We returned to the villa, silently hoping that no one would ask us what we were doing or why. Fate was friendly to us. We met only one of Sfasciamonti's friends, on guard, who let us pass without posing any questions, although he did look at us somewhat curiously.
'It is horrible,' I protested, as we straddled the wall bordering the Barberini estate, towards which Caesar Augustus had flown. 'It will massacre him.'
'Massacre, massacre…' chanted Atto smugly as we got him over the wall with the help of a stool. 'Let us say that we shall teach him a lesson. The note belongs to us, the parrot knows that perfectly well. I could, to tell the truth, have used this method from the start, but you would never have agreed.'
'What makes you think that I shall agree now?'
'The emergency. The parrot is no longer obeying any orders, the situation is out of control. Remember, my boy, emergencies call for uncomfortable decisions. And if there is no emergency, one must await, or even, if needs be, create one. That is an old technique employed by all men in government, which I have often had occasion to observe during the course of my career as a counsellor,' said Atto with a disarming little smile, betraying a certain contentment that Caesar Augustus' petulant disobedience allowed him recourse to strong measures.
We jumped down from the wall; this was the natural continuation of a Roman wall, fortified with towers further to the left, which extended down almost as far as Piazza San Cosimato. Scrambling from the stool, the dog followed us over the barrier.
'Say what you will, the fact remains that the falcon is bloodthirsty,' I protested. 'I know perfectly well what it is capable of. Once I saw one during training catch a hen and split it asunder, tearing its heart from its breast still beating.'
Meanwhile, the falconer had unhooded the falcon and released it. The hawk had climbed rapidly to a considerable height where it appeared as little more than a dark spot in the sky.
