Secretum am-2 Read online

  "The Cunning-men are so-called because they are false, they pretend to be soothsayers and hoodwink simple villagers, claim ing in exchange for money to foresee the future and to be full of the Holy Spirit. The Hedge Priests are false friars or false priests who have never taken either minor or major orders. They go from village to village and say mass, after which they make off with the takings from the collection; as penitence, they impose yet more charity, all of which ends up in their pockets. The Bourdons are false pilgrims who beg for alms on the pretext that they must travel to the Holy Land or to Santiago de Compostela or to Our Lady of Loreto. The Dommerers claim to have relatives or brothers in the hands of the Turks and beg for alms to ransom them, but it is not true. The Swigmen, on the other hand…"

  "One moment: if the cerretani do all these things, then how come no one stops them?" Atto objected.

  "Because they are secretive. They are divided into sects, no one knows how many there are nor where they are."

  "But are they sects, as you claim, or just groups of rogues?"

  "Both. They are above all rogues, but they have secret rituals which they use to swear fidelity to the group and to tighten the bonds of brotherhood. Thus, if one of them is taken, the others can be sure that he will never talk. Otherwise he could fall victim to a curse. That, at least, is what they believe."

  "What rites do they practise?"

  "Ah, if only one could know. Black masses, sacrifices, blood pacts and other such things, probably. But no one has ever seen them. They go into the countryside to do such things in isolated places: deconsecrated chapels, abandoned villas…"

  "Are they numerous, here in Rome?"

  "They are especially to be found in Rome."

  "And why is that?"

  "Because the Pope is here. And where there are popes, there's money. What's more, there are the pilgrims to be gulled. And now, there's the Jubilee: more money and more pilgrims."

  "Has no pontiff ever issued an ecclesiastical ban against these sects?" interrupted Atto.

  "If a sect — or a group of criminals — is to be prohibited, it must be clearly known," replied Sfasciamonti. "Specific actions must be attributed to it and its members must have names and identities. How can one ban a vague grouping consisting of wretched homeless and nameless vagabonds?"

  Atto nodded in silence, thoughtfully scratching the dimple on his chin.

  When we returned to the calash, dawn was about to break. Sfasciamonti took leave of us.

  "I shall be coming later to the Villa Spada. First I must go home. My mother is expecting me. It is today that I must deliver her provisions, and if I do not come on time, she worries."

  "Together?" I exclaimed in astonishment, as I and Buvat looked at one another in unison.

  We had barely taken our leave of Sfasciamonti. Abbot Melani had already taken his place in the calash to return to the Villa Spada when, instead of making room for us, he closed the door behind him.

  "You, stay here for the time being," said he laconically.

  He then held out a letter to me, already closed and sealed. I recognised it at once: it was that letter, the reply to his mysterious Maria.

  "But Signor Atto," came Buvat's and my own weak protests, for in truth we both longed for a little rest before facing the new working day.

  "Later. Now, be on your way. Buvat will deliver the message. Alone, however, for you," and here, he turned to me, "are not appropriately dressed. I shall have to make you a present of a new suit sooner or later. I shall explain to you where you must go: with Buvat, I'd be wasting my breath."

  "Permit me to insist," I retorted.

  I quickly read the addressee's name:

  Madama la Connestabilessa Colonna

  My thoughts criss-crossed in my head and I knew not to which I should give precedence. I could not wait to return home and rest (also, to meditate upon the latest disquieting occurrences), but at the same time, I found myself suddenly faced with the revelation of the identity of the mysterious Maria who corresponded with Atto in secret and whose arrival was awaited at the Villa Spada.

  The Connestabilessa Colonna: I knew that name. Indeed, who in Rome had not heard of the Grand Constable and Roman Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, scion of one of the most ancient and noble families in Europe? He had died some ten years previously and she must be the widow…

  "Come, then, let us hear," Atto burst in, interrupting the flow of my thoughts. "What do you want?"

  At that instant, I saw the Abbot's face shift from an attitude of impatience to an expression of stupefaction, as though he had been struck by a lightning-like idea or a sudden memory.

  "How silly of me! Come, sit down with me, my boy," he exclaimed, opening the door for me and offering me a seat. "Of course, we must talk. Come now, tell me all. I suppose that during the night you have had the good taste to set aside a few moments from your well-deserved rest in which to compile for me a detailed account of all that you overheard," said he with the most natural air in the world, without so much as sparing a thought for the fact that we had just spent the night gallivanting across Rome.

  "Heard? Where?"

  "But is it not obvious? At last night's dinner, when I used the pretext of the torch to make you dance that minuet all around the table just in order to place you behind Cardinal Spinola. Come, tell me, what did they say?"

  I was dumbfounded. Atto was admitting to having pretended to mistreat me when he ordered me to draw close to him because, so he said, there was not enough light; and then he had sent me brusquely to the other end of the table on the pretext that the torch was burning his neck. Not only that; the Abbot had arranged the whole thing in order to induce me to listen to the diners' conversations!

  "Really, Signor Atto, I cannot see how any of those conversations could be of interest to anyone. I mean, they spoke of frivolous and unimportant matters…"

  "Unimportant? In every utterance of a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, there is not a single syllable, my boy, that is not imbued with some significance. You may even say that they are all old goats, and I in my turn might even decline to contradict you, but whatever issues from their mouths is always interesting."

  "It may well be as you say, but I… Well, there was just one thing that seemed somewhat curious to me."

  I told him of the misunderstanding that had taken place between the two Cardinals Spinola and how Cardinal Spada's mes sage addressed to the one had been delivered to the other, as well as its content.

  "It said: 'All three on board tomorrow at dawn. I shall tell A.'"

  Atto remained silent and pensive. Then he declared: "That would be interesting; truly interesting, if…" said he to himself, staring meditatively at Buvat sitting hunched up by the side of the road.

  "What do you mean?"

  He stayed silent a moment longer, looking me straight in the eyes, but in reality mentally following the rushing chariot of future events.

  "What a genius I am!" he exclaimed at length, giving me a great slap on the shoulder. "That Abbot Melani is really a genius to have sent you off on the pretext of that torch to stand close to those persons who laugh out of turn and talk too freely."

  I looked at him in astonishment. He had collated past deeds unknown to me and future events which he already saw vividly unfolding before him, while for me they were all thick fog.

  "Well, soon we too shall have to go on board," said he, rubbing and massaging his hands, almost as though to prepare them for the decisive moment.

  "Aboard a boat?" I asked.

  "Meanwhile, go and deliver the letter," Melani commanded impatiently, again opening the carriage door and making me descend with scant ceremony. "All in good time."

  Day the Second

  8th July, 1700

  A few minutes later, Buvat and I were in the street while Atto's calash disappeared into the byways. Thoughts were racing through my head. Was Maria, the Connestabilessa Colonna (for that must indeed be the identity of the mysterious noblewoman with whom At
to had for some time been in secret contact), already in Rome? The Abbot had told me to deliver the letter to the monastery of Santa Maria in Campo Marzio. And yet, had not this same Maria written in her last missive that she had stopped near Rome and would not be arriving until the next day?

  The sky was implacably clear. Soon, however, all gave way to the overpowering midsummer heat. Walking was, however, made more difficult not by the closeness but by Buvat's uncertain, absent-minded gait. He advanced with his nose in the air; from time to time he would stop, observing with delight a cupola, a campanile, a plain brick wall.

  In the end I decided to break the silence.

  "Do you know into whose hands we are to deliver this letter?"

  "Oh, not of course those of the Princess. We must pass it to a little nun who is very devoted to her. You know, the Princess herself spent some time here when she was young, for the abbess was her aunt."

  "Certainly, the Princess will know Abbot Melani."

  "Know him?" said Buvat, laughing, as though the question were one that invited irony.

  I kept quiet for a few moments.

  "You mean that he knows her well," said I.

  "Do you know who the Princess Colonna is?"

  "Well, if I remember… if I am not mistaken, she was the wife of the Connestabile Colonna, who died some ten years ago."

  "The Princess Colonna," Buvat corrected me, "was, in the first place, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, that great statesman and most refined of politicians, glory of France and of Italy."

  "Yes, indeed," I mumbled, embarrassed at my inability to recall to memory what, years before, I had known perfectly well. "And now," I added, trying to extract myself from this discomfiting situation, "on behalf of Abbot Melani, we are about to deliver this letter in all confidence."

  "But of course," said Buvat, "Maria Mancini is in Rome incognito!"

  "Maria Mancini?"

  "That is her maiden name. She cannot bear so much as to hear it pronounced, because the pedigree was not of the highest. The Abbot will be very excited. It is quite some time since he and the Princess last saw one another."

  "Quite some time? How long?"

  "Thirty years."

  This, then, was the mysterious Maria, whose name Atto's lips had murmured in such heart-rending tones. It was she who, years before, had married Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna and, by the excessive freedom of her conduct, had earned herself a reputation as a stubborn and inconstant woman, which still persisted decades later. All this I knew only by hearsay, since the events which gave rise to it had taken place when I was still a little boy.

  How was it possible that Atto should not have explained to me precisely to whom the letter confided to Buvat and myself was destined? What was the nature of their relationship? From the letters on which I had spied, I had learned scarcely anything in that regard, while I had learned much about the question of the Spanish succession, a matter evidently close to both their hearts. I must, however, set aside these questionings until later, however fascinating they might be; for now we had reached our goal.

  We stood before the Convent of Santa Maria in Campo Marzio.

  After knocking at the main entrance, Buvat told the sister who received us that he had a letter to deliver to Sister Caterina in person, which letter he showed her. In compliance with Atto's instructions, I stood aside. After we had waited for a few minutes, another nun came to the door.

  "Sister Maria has not yet arrived," said she hurriedly, before snatching the letter from Buvat's hands and swiftly closing the heavy wooden door.

  Buvat and I exchanged perplexed glances.

  So the mystery was resolved: so secret was the contact between Abbot Melani and the Connestabilessa that letters passed through the convent even though Maria had not yet arrived (and, what was more, she was due to arrive, not at the convent but at the Villa Spada). Delivery was confided to the iron discretion of the nuns.

  We then proceeded to the Palazzo Rospigliosi at Monte Cavallo, where Buvat briefly left me waiting in the street while he went to collect his shoes which, the day before, he had forgotten to bring with him to the Villa Spada. I was thus able to admire that imposing and immense building which cut a fine figure on the Quirinal Hill, concerning which I had read that it overflowed with beautiful things and had gardens with stupendous curved terraces and marvellous pleasure pavilions.

  On the way back, Melani's secretary kept stopping to look at the surrounding landscape, constraining me to make many detours. What was more, every time he meant to return to the road on which we had been travelling, he invariably and confidently set off in the opposite direction.

  "But is this not the way?" he would ask in surprise time and again, unaware of his own distraction and of my efforts to keep him on the right road.

  I then recalled that Atto, when introducing me to his secretary, had hinted at one last defect of his. Here was perhaps the moment to take advantage of that. I decided that it would not be difficult to lead Buvat in the wrong direction, since that was where his natural tendency took him.

  We crossed a narrow little street in which were trading some of the many poor wretches drawn to Rome by the Jubilee. Within instants, we were surrounded by that motley humanity which a hundred times, a thousand times, one might encounter in the streets, always different yet ever the same: vendors of powders to cure intestinal wind, alum of wine dregs which makes the flame of tapers everlasting, oil of badgers to cure colds, lime paste for killing rats, spectacles with which one can see in the dark. And then there were prodigious characters who fearlessly held in their hands tarantulas, crocodiles, Indian lizards and basilisks; others who danced on a tight rope performing mortal leaps or ran swiftly on their hands, lifted weights with their hair, washed their face with molten lead, had their nose sliced off with a knife or drew from their mouths cords ten yards long.

  Suddenly there arrived in the street a little group of decently attired gallants accompanied by as many women, likewise fashionably dressed, and they announced that they wished to perform a play.

  The troupe of actors was immediately surrounded by a multitude of small children, women, curious bystanders, minders of other people's business, wastrels, passers-by joking loudly and old men malevolently mumbling yet never leaving off from staring at the scene. The actors produced a few trestles from who knows where and with incredible speed erected a little stage. The most attractive woman in the group which had just arrived stepped forward and began to sing, accompanied on the guitar by one of the actors. They began with a medley of songs and popular jokes and the people, drawn by the free entertainment, came crowding in, most numerous. When the first set of songs had come to an end, and while the people were awaiting the start of the play, there came on stage instead the oldest member of the troupe and, drawing from his pocket a little jar full of dark powder, announced that this was a wondrous medicine, whereupon he began to extol its great and incomparable qualities. Part of the public began to murmur, having realised that the actors were really charlatans and the speaker was the arch-charlatan. However, most of the people remained most attentive to the explication: the powder was none other than a magical quinte essence, capable of instantly rendering its possessor wealthy. On the other hand, when mixed with good oil, it became a miraculous ointment against the scrofula; and when mixed with cat's excrement, it was perfect for preparing plasters and poultices.

  While the arch-charlatan was selling the first little jars of powder, enthusiastically acquired by some passing peasants who had listened open-mouthed to the talk, we moved away from the tight, malodorous throng which now packed the side-street and returned to the main road. On arriving in front of a tavern, I made my proposal as though it were some mere passing thought.

  "I am sure that, instead of a well-earned rest, you would not be displeased to raise your spirits in another way," said I, tarrying a little.

  "Ah… Yes, I do indeed think so," said he, hesitantly, his nose tilting upwards towards a campanile.

/>   Then, catching sight of the tavern's sign, but above hearing the clinking of glasses and the clamour of the drinkers issuing forth from within, his tone changed.

  "No, by the powers of darkness, of course not!"

  While I dipped the ring cake which I had ordered for breakfast in a glass of good red wine, Buvat resolved to satisfy my curiosity and began at last to reveal to me something of the life of the Connestabilessa.

  "In the decade before he died, the last years of his rule in France, Cardinal Mazarin called from Rome to Paris a multitude of kinsmen: two sisters and seven young nieces. And every one of the latter was marriageable."

  The nieces of the Cardinal's first sister, Anna Maria and Laura Martinozzi, married the Prince of Conti and the Duke of Modern. Two better matches could not have been hoped for. However, there remained on the Cardinal's hands those nieces for whom it would be harder to find suitable husbands: the daughters of the other sister, the five Mancini sisters: Ortensia, Marianna, Laura, Olimpia and Maria.

  They were capricious and astute, cunning and most attractive, and their arrival had set off throughout the court twin passions that mirrored one another: the women's hatred and the men's love. Someone called them mockingly "the Mazarinettes". But they, the Mazarinettes, knew how to mix in the cup of seduction the opposing nectars of innocence and malice, prudence and boldness. Whoever drank from that cup found himself ruled by them according to the exact and implacable science of the passions.

  Despite this (perhaps, indeed, because of their ambitious aims) His Eminence succeeded in time in finding the right husbands for them. Laura was taken soon enough by the Due de Mercoeur. Marianna wed the Due de Bouillon. Ortensia fell to the Marquis de la Meilleraye and Olimpia to the Comte de Soissons. A series of marriages that no one could ever have hoped for. Before coming to Paris, these Roman girls were nothing. Now, they were countesses and duchesses, married to princes of the blood royal, to grand masters of the artillery, to descendants of Richelieu and of Henri IV and what was more, immensely wealthy. Their mothers, Mazarin's sisters, belonged to the Roman nobility, but to its most minor ranks.