Imprimatur

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  "But that is terrible," I commented, horrified. "All that, just from the bite of a tarantula?"

  "Of course," confirmed Robleda, "and that is without mentioning other extraordinary magnetic effects: the bite of the red tarantula causes the victim to become red in the face, green tarantulas make one turn green, and striped ones likewise cause the victim to come out in stripes, while aquatic ones induce a desire for water, those which dwell in hot places induce choler, and so on and so forth."

  "And how is it cured?" I asked, growing curious.

  "Perfecting the primitive knowledge of certain peasants from Taranto," said Robleda, rummaging in his drawers and then proudly showing us a leaf of paper, "Padre Kircher prepared an antidote."

  He showed us a crumpled half-sheet of paper, covered in notes and pentagrams. We observed him with perplexity and no little sus­picion,

  "And with what does one play?"

  "Well, the Tarantini perform it with tambourines, lyres, zith­ers, dulcimers and flutes; and, obviously, with guitars, like that of Devize."

  "In short," the physician retorted perplexedly, "you are saying that Devize could cure Bedfordi with this music."

  "Oh no, this is good only for the bite of the tarantula. We shall have to use something else."

  "Another music?" I asked.

  "We shall have to use trial and error. We shall leave the choice to Devize. But remember, my sons: in desperate cases, the only true succour comes from the Lord; and," added Padre Robleda, "no one has ever discovered an antidote for the pestilence."

  "You are right, Padre," I heard Cristofano say, while obscurely I remembered the arcanae obices. "And I wish to place my entire confidence in the theories of your colleague Kircher."

  The physician, as he freely admitted, no longer knew to which saint to address himself; yet, still hoping that his cures might, sooner or later, have a beneficial effect upon Bedfordi, he would not deprive his moribund patient of one last desperate attempt. He therefore informed me that we would, for the time being, delay informing the other guests of the Englishman's desperate condition.

  Later, when I was already serving dinner, Cristofano told me that he had set an appointment with Devize for the morrow. The French musician, whose chamber was next to that of Bedfordi, would only have to play his guitar in the Englishman's doorway.

  "So, do we take leave of one another until morning, Signor Cristo­fano?"

  "No, I have fixed the appointment with Devize immediately be­fore luncheon. That is the ideal time: the sun is high and the energy of the musical vibrations can spread to the maximum. Good night, my boy."

  Night the Eighth

  Between the 18th & 19th September, 1683

  *

  "Closed! It is closed, damn it!"

  That was to be expected, I thought, while Atto Melani pushed uselessly against the trapdoor that led to Tiracorda's stables. Already, when we were marching through the galleries, escorted by the sub­dued muttering of Ugonio and Ciacconio, this latest nocturnal expe­dition to the house of Tiracorda seemed to me destined to fail. Dul­cibeni had discovered that we were keeping an eye on him. Perhaps he did not imagine that we had already spied upon him in Tiracorda's study, but he would never have wished to run the risk of being ob­served while conducting strange trafficking with (or against) his old friend. And indeed, after entering his fellow-countryman's home, he had made sure that the trapdoor was locked.

  "Excuse me, Signor Abbot," said I while Atto wiped his hands nervously, "but perhaps it is better like this. If tonight Dulcibeni notices nothing strange while he is playing at riddles with Tiracorda, perhaps tomorrow we shall find our way free."

  "Not a bit of it," replied Atto crossly, "he knows now that he is un­der observation. If he intends to accomplish something strange, he will do it as early as possible: even tonight; or tomorrow, at the latest."

  "And so?"

  "And so, we must find a way of entering Tiracorda's house, even if I really do not know how. We would need..."

  "Gfrrrlubh," interrupted Ciacconio, stepping forward.

  Ugonio looked at him frowning, as though in reproof.

  "At last, a volunteer," commented Abbot Melani, satisfied.

  A few minutes later, we were divided into two unequal groups. Atto, Ugonio and I marched along gallery C, in the direction of the underground river. Ciacconio, on the other hand, had climbed to the surface up the well which led from the same conduit to the Piazza della Rotonda, near the Pantheon. He had not been willing to explain to us how he intended to effect his entry into the house of Tiracorda. We had patiently explained to him, down to the smallest details, how the physician's house was laid out, but only at the very end did the corpisantaro candidly declare that the information would be absolutely of no use to him. We had even provided him with a sketch of the house, including the disposition of the windows; but, hardly had we separated than we heard resounding in the gallery a frenetic, goat­like sound of mastication. The life of our sketch, on which Ciacconio was horribly banqueting, had been all too brief.

  "Do you think he will succeed?" I asked Abbot Melani.

  "I have not the least idea. We explained to them ad nauseam every single corner of the house, but it is as though he already knew what to do. I cannot bear them, those two."

  In the meantime, we were rapidly advancing towards the small underground river where, two nights previously, we had seen Dulci­beni mysteriously disappear. We passed close to the old and nauseat­ing carcasses of the rats, and very soon we heard the sound of the subterranean watercourse. This time we were better equipped: at Atto's request, the corpisantari had brought with them a long and robust rope, a few iron nails, a hammer and a few long staves. These would be useful for the perilous and somewhat unwise operation which Atto intended at all costs to perform: to ford the river.

  We stood for who knows how long, pensively observing the water­course, which seemed more black, fetid and threatening than ever. I shivered, imagining a ruinous fall into that disgusting and hostile current. Even Ugonio seemed worried. I sought to bolster up my courage by addressing a silent prayer to the Lord.

  Suddenly, however, I saw Atto move away from me and direct his gaze towards a point where the right-hand wall of the gallery formed an angle with the channel through which the river ran. For a few moments, Atto remained immobile opposite the corner between the two conduits. Then he stretched out a hand along the wall of the fluvial gallery.

  "What are you doing?" I called out in alarm, seeing him lean dan­gerously towards the river.

  "Keep quiet," he whispered, groping ever more eagerly at the wall, as though he were seeking something.

  I was about to run to his assistance, fearing that he might lose his balance. It was precisely then that I saw him at last retreat from this dangerous exposure, grasping something in his left hand. It was a little painter of the kind which fishermen use to moor their boats on the Tiber. Atto began to pull on the cord, gradually coiling it. When at last there seemed to be resistance at the far end, Atto invited Ugonio and myself to look at the little river. Just in front of us, faintly illumi­nated by the light of the lantern, there floated a flat-bottomed boat.

  "I think that by now even you will have understood," said Abbot Melani soon afterwards, as we navigated in silence, driven by the current.

  "No, I really do not," I admitted. "How did you manage to dis­cover the boat?"

  "It is simple. Dulcibeni had two possibilities: to cross the river or to go down it by boat. In order to take the river, however, he needed to have a boat moored at the point where the two galleries intersect. When we arrived, there was no trace of any boat; but, if there had been one, it would surely have been subject to the pull of the cur­rent."

  "So, if it was secured by a rope," I guessed, "it would be pulled downstream by the current into the gallery to our right, where it flows down towards the Tiber."

  "Exactly. The mooring had therefore to be secured to a point situ­ated to the right in relation
to gallery C, in other words, in the direc­tion of the current. Had it been otherwise, we should have seen the hawser stretched from left to right, towards the boat. That was why I looked for the cord on the right. It was secured to an iron hook, which had been placed there who knows how long ago."

  While I meditated upon this new proof of Abbot Melani's sagac­ity, Ugonio increased our pace by pulling gently on the two oars with which the boat was equipped. The bare landscape illuminated by our lantern was dull and monotonous. On the vaulted stone roof of the gallery, we heard the echo of the waves lapping against our fragile bark.

  "But you were not sure that Dulcibeni had used a boat," I sud­denly objected. "You said: 'Now, if there had been one...'"

  "Sometimes, in order to know the truth, it is necessary to presup­pose it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It frequently happens like this in affairs of state: in the presence of inexplicable or illogical facts, one must figure out what must have been the indispensable condition which determined them, however incredible it may be."

  "I do not understand."

  "The most absurd truths, my boy, which are also the blackest ones, never leave any traces. Remember that."

  "Does that mean that they will never be discovered?"

  "Not necessarily. There are two possibilities: the first is that there may be someone who knows or who has understood, but who has no proof."

  "And what then?" I asked, understanding very little of the abbot's words.

  "He then constructs the proof which he does not have, so that the truth comes to the surface," replied Atto candidly.

  "Do you mean that one can encounter false proofs of real facts?" I asked, open-mouthed.

  "Bravo. But do not be surprised. You must not fall into the com­mon error of believing, once it has been discovered that a document or a proof was counterfeited, that its content, too, is false. The con­trary is likely to be true. Remember that when you become a gazet­teer: often the most horrendous and unacceptable truths are con­tained in false documents."

  "And what if even those are not available?"

  "At that point, and this is the second assumption, it remains only to make suppositions, as I told you at the outset, and then to verify whether one's reasoning holds."

  "If so, one must reason thus in order to understand the secretum pestis."

  "Not yet," replied Melani. "First, one must understand the role of each of the actors, and above all the comedy which they are inter­preting. And I believe that I have found it."

  I looked at him in silence, with an expression which betrayed my impatience.

  "It is a conspiracy against His Most Christian Majesty," exclaimed Atto solemnly.

  "And who would be behind such a plot?"

  "Why, that is clear: his wife, the Queen."

  Seeing my incredulity, Atto was obliged to refresh my memory. Louis XIV had imprisoned Fouquet in order to extort from him the secret of the plague. Around Fouquet, however, moved personages who, like the Superintendent, had been humiliated or ruined by the Sover­eign. First among these was Lauzun, imprisoned at Pinerol together with Fouquet and used as a spy; then, there was Mademoiselle, His Majesty's wealthy cousin, whom the King had forbidden to marry Lauzun. Moreover, Devize, who had accompanied Fouquet to the Donzello, was faithful to Queen Maria Teresa, who had suffered all manner of infidelities, vexations and overbearing behaviour on the part of Louis XIV

  "But all this is no sufficient basis for holding that all of them plot­ted against the Most Christian King," said I, interrupting him to voice my doubts.

  "That is true, but I ask you to consider: the King wants the secret of the pestilence. Fouquet refuses to give it to him, probably affirm­ing that he knows nothing of it. When the letter full of Kircher's rav­ings which we have found on Dulcibeni comes into Colbert's posses­sion, Fouquet can no longer deny all knowledge, on pain of his own life and that of his family. In the end, he reaches an agreement with the King and leaves Pinerol in exchange for the secretum pestis. Thus far, are we in agreement?"

  "Yes. Agreed."

  "Well, at this point, the King has triumphed. Do you suppose that, after twenty years of rigorous imprisonment and reduced to in­digence, Fouquet will be content?"

  "No."

  "Would it have been human for him to gain some small satisfac­tion at the King's expense, before disappearing?"

  "Why, yes."

  "Exactly. Now, imagine: your immensely powerful enemy extorts from you the secret of the pestilence. He wants it at all costs, because he yearns to become even more powerful. However, he does not re­alise that you are also in possession of the secret of the antidote, the secretum vitae. If you cannot use that yourself, what will you do?"

  "I could give it to someone... to a foe of my own enemy."

  "Very good. And Fouquet had any number of such persons at his disposal, all ready to take their revenge on the Sun King: beginning with Lauzun."

  "But why, in your opinion, did Louis XIV not realise that Fouquet also possessed the antidote to the pestilence?"

  "This is my theory. As you will recall, in Kircher's letter, I also read secretum vitae arcanae obices celant or, in other words, the secret of life is concealed in mysterious obstacles, while the secret of the transmission of the pestilence is not. Well, I maintain that Fouquet was unable to deny that he knew the secretum morbi but succeeded in keeping to himself the secret of the antidote, adducing as a pre­text—thanks to that phrase—that Kircher had hidden it from him too. This must have been quite easy for the Superintendent, seeing that the King's main interest was, if I know him well, how to spread the plague, not how to combat it."

  "That does all seem rather complicated."

  "But, it works. Now, consider this: with the secret of the pes­tilence in his hands, for whom might Louis XIV have been able to cause a few headaches?"

  "Well, above all for the Empire," said I, thinking of what Brenozzi had told me.

  "Very good. And perhaps for Spain too, with whom France has been at war for centuries. Is that not correct?"

  "That is possible," I admitted, without understanding what Atto was getting at.

  "But the Empire is in the hands of the Habsburgs, and Spain too. To what royal house does Queen Maria Teresa belong?"

  "To the Habsburgs!"

  "There we are: if we are to impose some order on the facts, we must therefore assume that Maria Teresa received, and used, the secretum vitae against Louis XIV Fouquet may have given the secretum vitae to Lauzun, who will have passed it on to his beloved Mademoi­selle, and she to the Queen."

  "A queen, acting in the shadows against the King her husband," I reflected aloud, "why, that is unheard of."

  "There too, you are mistaken," said Atto, "for there is a prece­dent."

  In 1637, said the abbot, a year before the birth of Louis XIV the secret services of the French Crown intercepted a letter from the Spanish ambassador in Brussels. The letter was addressed to Queen Anne of Austria, sister of King Philip IV of Spain and consort of King Louis XIII, in other words, the mother of the Sun King. From the missive, it was clear that Anne of Austria was in secret correspondence with her former country; and that, at a time when France and Spain were in open conflict. The King and Cardinal Richelieu ordered thor­ough but discreet inquiries. Thus, it was discovered that the Queen visited a certain convent in Paris rather too frequently: officially, to pray; but in reality, to exchange letters with Madrid and with the Spanish ambassadors in England and Flanders.

  Anne denied that she had been engaged in espionage. She was then summoned for a private interview with Richelieu: the Queen risked imprisonment, the Cardinal warned icily, but a simple confes­sion would save her. Louis XIII would pardon her only in exchange for a complete account of the news which she had learned in her secret correspondence with the Spaniards. The letters of Anne of Austria did not, indeed, relate solely to the usual complaints about the life of the court of Paris (where Anne was rather unhappy, as Ma
ria Teresa was also to be). The Queen of France was exchanging precious po­litical information with the Spaniards, perhaps in the belief that this could bring about an early end to the war. It was, however, against the interests of her kingdom. Anne confessed in full.

  "In 1659, during the negotiations which led up to the Peace of the Pyrenees on the Isle of Pheasants," continued Atto, "Anne at last met her brother, King Philip IV of Spain, again. They had not seen each other for forty-five years. They had separated painfully when she, as a young princess barely sixteen years of age, had left for France forever. Anne tenderly embraced and kissed her brother. Philip, however, drew away from his sister's lips, looking her in the eyes. She said: 'Will you pardon me for having been such a good Frenchwoman?' 'You have my esteem,' said he. Ever since Anne had ceased to spy on his account, her brother had ceased to love her."