Imprimatur

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  Hardly had I returned to my chamber than I changed in a rush and hid my dirty, mud-stained clothing. At once, I betook myself to Cristo-fano's apartment, ready to justify my absence by an improbable visit to the cellars. Too exhausted to worry, I was ready to face questions and objections for which I was utterly unable to find a reply.

  Cristofano, however, was sleeping. Perhaps still exhausted by the crisis of the day before, he had gone to bed without even closing his door. He lay clumsily sprawled across the bed, half-dressed.

  I took care not to awaken him. The sun was low on the horizon; I still had time for something before the appointment we had fixed with Devize in Bedfordi's chamber: to sleep.

  Contrary to my expectations, this sleep did not restore me. My rest was troubled by tormented and convulsed dreams, in which I relived those terrible moments when I was under the capsized bark; then those disquieting discoveries on the islet of the Mithraeum, and lastly, the nightmare of the Cloaca Maxima, in which I believed that I had met with death. That was why, when Cristofano's fists pounded on my door, I arose almost wearier than before.

  The physician did not seem to be in good form either. Two heavy bluish bags under the eyes marked his weary countenance; his gaze was watery and distant, and his posture, which I usually found so solid and erect, was slightly bent. He neither greeted me nor asked me anything, thank heavens, about the previous night.

  On the contrary, I found myself reminding him that we would soon have to make the usual arrangements for our guests' breakfast. First, however, we must turn our minds to the emergency. It was time to put Robleda's theories to the test: Bedfordi's infection would, this time, be treated by the notes of Devize's guitar. I went to inform the Jesuit that we were about to follow his advice. We called Devize and we then went to the adjoining chamber, where the poor Englishman lay.

  The young musician had brought his little stool with him so that he could play in the corridor without entering the sickroom and thus risking his own health. The door would remain open, so that the gui­tar's (we hoped) beneficent sound could penetrate within. Cristo­fano, however, posted himself right by Bedfordi's bed, in order to observe the patient's reactions, if any.

  I stood discreetly in the corridor, a few yards from the musician. Devize sat on his little stool, sought the most comfortable position and began to tune his instrument. He soon broke off and warmed his hands with an allemande. This, he followed with a courante, after which he turned to a severe sarabande. He stopped again to tune and asked Cristofano for news of the patient.

  "Nothing new."

  The concert continued with a gavotte and a gigue.

  "Nothing new—nothing, nothing, nothing. He does not seem even to hear," said the doctor, both discouraged and impatient.

  It was then that Devize at last played what I had long awaited, the one piece which, among all the dances I had heard him perform, seemed capable of capturing the attention and the heart of all the guests at the inn: the superb rondeau which his master Francesco Corbetta had written for Maria Teresa, Queen of France.

  As I suspected, I was not alone in awaiting those fatally fascinat­ing notes. Devize executed the rondeau once, then again, and then a third time, as though to let it be understood that, to him, too, those notes were—for unknown reasons—most sweet and delectable. We all remained in silence, rapt in like manner. We had listened to this music so many times, yet we could never hear it enough.

  But while we were listening to the rondeau for the fourth time, my pleasure in the sounds gave way to something utterly unexpected. Lulled by the cyclical repetition of the ritornello, I suddenly thought: what was it that Devize had said about it on the first day? The al­ternate strophes of the rondeau "contain ever new harmonic assays, which all conclude in an unexpected fashion, almost as though alien to good musical doctrine. And after reaching its apogee, the rondeau brusquely enters its finale."

  And what had Abbot Melani read in the letter from Kircher? That the plague, too, is cyclical and "there is in the final stages something unexpected, mysterious, foreign to medical doctrine: after reaching the height of its strength, the disease senescit ab abrupto, or suddenly begins to come to an end."

  The words used by Devize to describe the rondeau were almost identical to those used by Kircher when speaking of the plague.

  I waited until the music ended and at last put the question which I should have asked long—too long—before: "Signor Devize, has this rondeau a name?"

  "Yes, 'Les Barricades Mysterieuses'," he pronounced slowly.

  I remained silent.

  "In Italian, one says... barricate misteriose, mysterious barricades," he added, as though to fill the silence.

  I froze, utterly speechless.

  Mysterious barricades, les barricades mysterieuses: were those not the same obscure words which Atto Melani had muttered in his sleep the afternoon before?

  I had no time to answer my own question. Already, my mind was galloping out of control towards other mysterious barricades, the arcanae obices of Kircher's letter...

  My thoughts were swept away. Cast into a sea of suspicion and illusion by the exasperating buzz which those two Latin words had left in my mind, I was seized by vertigo. I rose suddenly to my feet and rushed straight to my chamber, under the astonished gaze of Cristo­fano and Devize, who was just beginning to play the same piece once more.

  I slammed the door behind me, crushed by the weight of that discovery and by all the consequences which, like the most ruinous of avalanches, it carried with it.

  The terrible mystery of Kircher's arcanae obices, the mysterious obstacles which concealed the secretum vitae, had at last taken form before my very eyes.

  I needed a pause for reflection, in total solitude, in my own room; not so much in order to clarify my ideas as to understand with whom I could share them.

  Atto and I were on the trail of those arcanae obices or "mysterious barricades" which had the supreme capacity to overcome the pes­tilence, as mentioned by Kircher in the ravings of his last letter to Superintendent Fouquet; then, I had heard the abbot, in his sleep, name the still unidentified barricades mysterieuses in the language of his chosen country. And now, when I asked Devize the name of the rondeau which he was playing in order to heal the plague-ridden Bed­fordi, I learned that its very title was "Les Barricades Mysterieuses". Someone knew far more than he was prepared to admit.

  "But you really have no idea about anything!" exclaimed Abbot Mel­ani.

  I had just awoken him from a deep sleep in order to obtain explanations and suddenly the fire of the news had rendered incandescent both his words and his gestures. He asked me to repeat my account word for word: about Devize who was playing the rondeau for Bedfordi's health and who had freely confessed to me that the music was entitled "Les Barricades Mysterieuses".

  "Pardon me, but you must leave me a few minutes in which to reflect," said he, almost overcome by what I had told him.

  "Yet you know that I desire your explanations, and that..."

  "Yes, of course, of course, but now please let me think."

  So, I had to leave him and again to knock at his door a few minutes later. From his eyes, which had regained their vigilance and pugnac­ity, I would have thought that he had never slept.

  "Just at this moment when we are near to the truth, you have cho­sen to become my enemy," he began, in almost heartbroken tones.

  "Not your enemy," I hastened to correct him, "but you must understand that..."

  "Enough," he interrupted me. "Just try to reason for one mo­ment."

  "If you will permit me, Signor Atto, this time I am able to reason perfectly well. And I say to myself: how is it possible that you should know the title of that rondeau, and that it should also be the transla­tion of arcanae obices?"

  I felt proud to have that most sagacious of beings with his back to the wall. I stared at him suspiciously and accusingly.

  "Have you finished?"

  "Yes."

  "Very
well," said he at length, "now let me speak. In my sleep, you heard me murmur 'barricades mysterieuses’ if I have understood you correctly."

  "Exactly."

  "Well, as you know, that is more or less a translation of arcanae obices."

  "Indeed. And I want to know once and for all how you knew..."

  "Be quiet, be quiet, that is not the point."

  "But you..."

  "Trust me just this one last time. What I am about to tell you will make you change your mind."

  "Signor Atto, I cannot follow these mysteries any longer, and be­sides..."

  "You need follow nothing. We are there already. The secret of the arcanae obices lies here between us, and perhaps it is more yours than mine."

  "What do you mean?"

  "That you have seen it, or better, heard it more often than I."

  "Pardon me?"

  "The secretum vitae which protects against the plague is in that music."

  This time, it was I who needed time to get used to the shocking news. In the marvellous rondeau which had so fascinated me, lay the centre of the mystery of Kircher and Fouquet, of the Sun King and Maria Teresa.

  Atto gave me time to blush, a helpless prey to surprise, and to stammer defencelessly: "But I thought... it is not possible."

  "That is what I too said to myself initially, but if you think about the matter, you will understand. Just follow my reasoning: have I not told you that Corbetta, Devize's master, was expert at encrypting messages into his music?"

  "Yes, that is true."

  "Good. And Devize himself told you that the rondeau 'Les Barri­cades Mysterieuses' was composed by Corbetta and that, before he died, he presented it to Queen Maria Teresa."

  "That, too, is true."

  "Well, the dedication of the rondeau, which you saw with your own eyes, is 'à Mademoiselle': the wife of Lauzun. Lauzun was in prison with Fouquet; and Fouquet had received the secret of the plague from Kircher. Now Fouquet, when he was still Superintendent, must have commissioned Corbetta to encrypt in music the secretum vitae (or arcanae obices or mysterious barricades, if you prefer) which brings salvation from the pestilence."

  "But you told me that Kircher too knew how to encrypt messages in music."

  "Certainly. Indeed, I do not exclude the possibility that Kircher may have passed on to Fouquet the secretum vitae already encrypted in a musical score. It is, however, probable that such music was still at a rather rough, preparatory stage. Do you remember what Devize told you? Corbetta created the rondeau, rearranging it on the basis of an earlier melody. I am sure he was referring to Kircher. Not only that: Devize himself, playing it again and again on his guitar, may have so perfected its performance that it became quite impossible to suspect that so sublime a harmony might conceal a message in ciphers. In­credible, is it not? I myself find it difficult to believe."

  "And it is in the form of a rondeau that the Superintendent must jealously have conserved the secretum vitae."

  "Yes, that music somehow survived all the misadventures which befell my friend Nicolas."

  "Until in Pinerol..."

  "... he confided it to Lauzun. But do you know what I think about this? That it was Lauzun himself who wrote the dedication 'à Mademoiselle'. He will have given it to his wife to pass on to Queen Maria Teresa."

  "Yet Devize told me that the score was a gift from Corbetta to the Queen."

  "A tall story, and one of no importance. A way of complicating a simple tale for you: the truth is that, after Corbetta, and before Maria Teresa came into possession of that rondeau, it passed through the hands of Fouquet, Lauzun and Mademoiselle."

  "One thing does not make sense to me, Signor Atto: did you not suspect that Lauzun was imprisoned at Pinerol near to the Superintendent in order to extract the secret from him?"

  "Perhaps Lauzun served two masters. Instead of spying on and betraying Fouquet, he may have preferred to talk openly to him— also because the Squirrel was most perspicacious. Thus, Lauzun will have helped him to win his own freedom from the King in exchange for the secretum morbi. But, and this would do him honour, he will have avoided revealing to His Most Christian Majesty the fact that Fouquet also possessed the secretum vitae, in other words, the rondeau. On the contrary, he and Mademoiselle will have availed themselves of the opportunity to revenge themselves on the King and to place the precious antidote to the plague in the hands of His Majesty's enemies: beginning, and it pains me greatly to say this, with his wife Maria Teresa, may the Lord keep her in His Glory."

  I remained deep in thought, going over in my mind all the notions which Atto had set before me.

  "There is truly something strange in that music," I observed, drawing all the threads of my memory together. "It is as though it... came and went, always the same, yet always different. I cannot ex­plain this well, but it brings to mind what Kircher wrote about the pestilence: the distemper moves away, then returns; and in the end, it dies just when it has reached its paroxysm. It is as though... that music spoke of this."

  "Indeed? So much the better. That there is in this music some­thing mysterious and indefinable, I too, had thought, ever since I first heard it."

  In the heat of our discussion, I had completely forgotten the rea­son for my calling upon Abbot Melani: to obtain an explanation of those words which he had pronounced in his sleep. Yet again, how­ever, Atto would not let me speak.

  "Listen to me. Two unresolved problems remain: first of all, to whom could the antidote of the secretum vitae against the secretum morbi, and thus against His Most Christian Majesty, be useful? Secondly: whatever is Dulcibeni plotting? How is it that he was travelling with Devize and Fouquet before my poor friend,"—and here, Atto's voice again broke un­der the weight of emotion—"came to die at your hostelry?"

  I was about to remind him that he had also to discover to whom or to what Fouquet's strange death was attributable, and what had be­come of my little pearls, when the abbot, paternally cupping my chin in the palm of his hand, continued: "Now I ask you, if I had known at what door to knock in order to find the arcanae obices mentioned by Kircher, would I have wasted all this time just for the pleasure of your company?"

  "Well, perhaps not."

  "Certainly not: I would have set my sights directly upon Devize and the secret of his rondeau. Perhaps I would have succeeded without too much difficulty: it is possible that Devize himself does not know what is embedded in the rondeau of the 'Barricades Mysterieuses'. And we could forget about Corbetta, Lauzun, Mademoiselle and all that hor­ribly complicated tale."At that precise moment, our eyes met.

  "No, my boy. I must admit it, you are most precious to me, but I do not intend to deceive you in order to obtain your services. Now, however, Abbot Melani must ask you to make one last sacrifice. Will you still obey me?"

  I was spared a reply by the echo of a scream: I had no difficulty in identifying the voice of Cristofano.

  I left Abbot Melani and ran directly to Bedfordi's chamber.

  "Triumph! Wonder! Victory!" the doctor kept repeating, his face purple with emotion, his hand on his heart and his back against the wall to prevent himself from falling.

  The young Englishman, Eduardus Bedfordi, was sitting on the edge of his bed, coughing noisily.

  "Could I have a drink of water?" he asked in a hoarse voice, as though he had awoken from a long sleep.

  A quarter of an hour later, all the lodgers were gathered around the stunned Devize, before Bedfordi's door. Jubilant and breathless at the happy surprise, the inhabitants of the Donzello had all flowed like a little torrent into the corridor on the first floor, and now they were bombarding one another with exclamations of amazement and questions to which they did not even expect an answer. They dared not yet approach Cristofano and the newly revived Englishman: the doctor had meanwhile regained his self-control and was meticulously examining his patient. His response was not long in coming: "He is well. He is very well, by Jove! I'd say that he has never been better!" exclaimed Cristofano,
allowing himself to give way to an outburst of liberating laughter, which spread to all the others.

  Unlike Signor Pellegrino, my master, Bedfordi had immediately recovered his normal consciousness. He asked what had happened and why he was bandaged everywhere and suffering such pain in all his members: the excision of the tokens and the incisions for bleed­ing him had played havoc with his young body.

  He remembered nothing; and to every question that was put to him, by Brenozzi in the first place, he would react with bewilder­ment, opening his eyes wide and wearily shaking his head.

  Looking more closely, I saw that not all were in the same humour. The rejoicing of Padre Robleda, Brenozzi, Stilone Priaso and my

  Cloridia (who regaled me with a lovely smile) were in contrast to the absorbed silence of Devize and Dulcibeni's waxen pallor. I observed Abbot Melani, lost in thought, ask something of Cristofano. He then withdrew and returned up the stairs.