by Rita Monaldi
In a trice, he had already reached the corner between the wall of the villa, Piazza di Termine and the road descending towards Via Felice, and was climbing the boundary wall. Sfasciamonti and I reached the spot a few moments after the youth had jumped down the other side.
"Here, here, there are breaches that they've made!" gasped the catchpoll, pointing out a whole series of holes to me, apparently distributed at random along the surface of the wall, which made it possible to find footholds and thus to scale it rapidly.
So we imitated the fugitive's clever stratagem and in a few moments we were straddling the top of the wall. We looked down: if we were to go any further we should have to jump down no less than twelve feet, in other words, nearly twice Sfasciamonti's height. Meanwhile, in the distance, we could hear the cerretano' s footsteps receding fast down the neighbouring avenue.
With our feet dangling down the wall, like two anglers happily waiting for a pull on the line, we looked impotently at one another. We had lost.
"Curse it," rasped Sfasciamonti, prodding the wall in vain in search of more footholds. "He knows by heart where the breaches are to get down the other side. He had no need to jump."
Once we had got back, we took a look at the great roofless space in which we had carried out our nocturnal ambush on the sleeping beggars. All was quiet; the place was deserted.
"We shall find no one here for months," announced Sfasciamonti.
"Where is Abbot Melani?" I asked.
"He must have followed the other one. But if we had no luck, you can just imagine how he got on…"
"Teehereteeamteeaye!" we then heard chanted by a mellifluous and satisfied-sounding voice.
It was Atto, and he was on horseback. In one hand he held his pistol, in the other, the reins and a tether, which ended around the neck of the person whom we had seen escaping at the moment when the young man had cried out. Sfasciamonti's jaw fell. He had returned empty-handed, while Atto had succeeded.
"Il Roscio," exclaimed the catchpoll, pointing incredulously at the prisoner.
"Gentlemen, may I present you Pompeo di Trevi, alias Il Roscio. He is a cerretano and he is now at our disposal."
"By all the bolted visors, you may say that again!" exclaimed Sfasciamonti approvingly. "We shall now make our way to the prison of Ponte Sisto, where we shall get him to talk. Just one question: what the Devil did you say just now, when you greeted us?"
"That strange word? That's a long story. Now take this wretch and let us tie him up better, then be on our way."
Atto had chosen, as was his wont, to go against the rules and against the dictates of good sense. Instead of following the cerretano on foot, as Sfasciamonti wanted, he had mounted a horse, with difficulty and without any help. Before mounting, however, he had taken care to see which route the fugitive had taken: to the left of the other; in other words, moving north, in the direction of the clear, sweet-smelling countryside of the Castro Pretorio. Spurring on his modest mount, Atto had then set out on the traces of the cerretano. At length he had caught sight of him, by now exhausted by his exertions, in the process of scaling a wall towards citrus groves and vineyards in which he would find easy refuge.
"Another moment and i 'd have lost him. i was too far off to threaten him with the pistol. So I thought I'd yell something at him."
"What?"
"What he was not expecting. Something in his own language."
"His own language? D'you mean the jargon?" Sfasciamonti and I asked in unison.
"Slang, lingo, cant… All stuff and nonsense. No, all teestufftee- andteenonteesense," he replied, laughing, while I and the catchpoll looked dumbly at one another.
On the way out, during our ride from Villa Spada to Termine, Atto had turned over again and again in his mind the mysterious words which the cerretano had uttered when I fell into the courtyard at Campo di Fiore. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration had come to him: to look, not for what made sense but for what made none.
"The jargon used by these ragamuffins is sometimes as stupid and elementary as they themselves are. There's only one principle involved: you stick a foreign element between syllables, as is sometimes done in cipher, to create confusion."
While Atto was explaining this to us, our strange caravan was wending its way across the Piazza dei Pollaioli towards the Ponte Sisto; at its head, Sfasciamonti, to whose horse the cerretano was firmly tethered, with his hands tied behind his back and his legs hobbled in such a way that he could not run; then came Atto's horse and then mine.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"'Tis so simple that i 'm almost ashamed of saying it. They place the syllable "tee" between the others."
"Teeyooteelai… So the cerretano said to me 'you lie'!"
"What had you said to him just before that?"
"For heaven's sake, how am I to remember?… Wait… Ah yes: I told him that the German would kill him."
"And you were indeed lying, you were trying to buy time. And that is what I was trying to do, albeit somewhat differently. When
I greeted you a while ago, I said…"
"Tee-here-tee-am-tee-I. In other words, 'Here am I.'"
"Precisely. So I said something to Il Roscio in Teeese, which is what I've decided to call their stupid language full of tees."
That was the last thing Il Roscio had expected. Hearing the sound of Atto's voice mixed with the threatening clatter of hooves drawing near, his hands froze and he lost his grip, falling heavily to the ground.
"Pardon the question, but what did you say to the cerretano?'
"I acted like you and said the first thing that came into my mind."
"And what was that?"
"Teepateeter teenosteeter. The first two words of the Paternoster."
"But that meant nothing!"
"I know; but he for a moment thought that I was one of his people and was shocked. He fell like a sack of potatoes. Indeed, he hurt himself. At first, he couldn't even get up, so I had time to tie him up. 'Tis just as well that the grooms who equip these horses know what they're doing and provided a good long rope. I trussed him up thoroughly, then tied the end of the rope to the saddle and, just to remind him not to do anything silly, I pointed my pistol at him."
Melani then reconstructed what had taken place at the Baths of Diocletian. The vagabond whom Sfasciamonti had interrogated, sitting on his belly, had given us away.
"That wretch," said the Abbot, turning to the catchpoll with an ironic smile, "Il Marcio pointed out to you when he told you to ask him, but without revealing that he himself was one of the pair you were looking for. And you fell for it."
Sfasciamonti did not reply.
"So it was Il Marcio who screamed out those strange words to
Il Roscio?" I asked.
"Precisely. He called out that 'the Saffrons' were there and that, I think, meant us: the catchpolls."
"He added, 'buy the violets', so that meant 'run for it' or perhaps 'take up arms'," I conjectured.
"I tend to think it meant 'run', seeing how matters developed. This isn't Teeese but some other rather more impenetrable jargon, because one needs some experience of it. But everything's possible."
With the exception of my few questions, Atto's self-satisfied account of how he had captured the cerretano had met with silence, punctuated only by the clip-clop of the horses' hooves on the flagstones.
Sfasciamonti kept quiet, but I could imagine what he was feeling. Proud as he was of his crude catchpoll's abilities, he had seen the tiller of action suddenly snatched from him. Where he had failed, using force and intimidation, Atto had succeeded through intellectual sagacity, plus a pinch of well-deserved luck. It could not have been easy for the representative of the law, already scoffed at by his colleagues in the matter of the cerretani, to see another snatch from before his eyes one of those mysterious scoundrels who drew him as a hound is drawn to the prey when the beat is on, yet inspired in him an all-too-human fear. That, however, was what had just happened: thanks to a mispron
ounced Pater noster we now had in our hands a member of the mysterious sect.
This was the very reason for another silence: my own. How strange, said I to myself, that in so little time we had arrested a cerretano, while all the catchpolls in Rome, and the Governor, Monsignor Pallavicini himself, denied their very existence. I had it in mind to raise this with Sfasciamonti, but once again events prevented me from so doing. At that very moment it was decided that I was to leave them and make my way to Villa Spada and wake up Buvat (always supposing that he had got over the effects of his tippling) and return with him. Abbot Melani's secretary would, we ail three thought, be able to provide us with precious assistance (although, as I shall later recount, the nature of this assistance was to be somewhat unorthodox).
We were all to meet up at our final destination: the prison of
Ponte Sisto, giving onto the Tiber just under the Janiculum Hill, not far from the Villa Spada. Here, the interrogation of the cerretano was to take place.
The room was in a wretched basement, covered in lichen, sordid and windowless. Only a grate, high on the wall to the left, provided a little air and, in daytime, light.
The cerretano was still bound and in pain, his features blanching for fear of ending up before the hangman. He did not know that his presence in that stinking dungeon was thoroughly illegal. Sfasciamonti had arranged through one of his many friends to usher our entire group discreetly into the prison through a side door. Il Roscio's arrest was against all the rules: the cerretano had committed no crimes, nor was he suspected of any. That did not matter: the time had come for certain dirty games of which, as I shall have cause to tell later, the catchpolls had long been inordinately fond.
Sfasciamonti had procured a long coat and a periwig for Buvat, who was to play the part of a criminal notary and to draw up the charges. The sergeant himself would conduct the interrogation. Atto and I, dressed up to look like officers of the court or deputies, or goodness knows what, would be assisting, feeling safe owing to the secrecy of the ceremony and the prisoner's total ignorance of the law.
There was a table in the basement room, lit by a large candle, and here sat Buvat, solemnly busying himself with paper, pen and inkhorn. In order to lend greater verisimilitude to the scene, Sfasciamonti had taken care of every detail. Next to the candle were placed severe legal tomes such as the Commentaria tertiae partis in secundum librum Decretalium of Abbas Panormitanus, Damhouder's Praxis rerum criminalium and lastly and most threateningly, De maleficiis by Alberto da Gandino. Although all the titles were unintelligible, the volumes had all been placed upright and with their spines facing the prisoner, so that these obscure inscriptions would, supposing that he could read, all imbue his soul with the idea that he was in the hands of a hostile and impenetrable power.
Before the table, next to Il Roscio, stood Sfasciamonti, holding the accused tightly by one end of the rope, while gripping his arm painfully behind his back. The prisoner was a pudgy, stock- ily built youngster, whose little blue eyes, under a rectangular forehead beset by deep horizontal furrows, a sure sign of a dissolute life lived with impunity, were set above two rotund and florid cheeks, which bespoke a coarse, ingenuous nature. Observing him at close quarters, one could understand the origin of his nickname, the Red; for his head was crowned by a thick, bristling plumage of carrot-coloured hair.
Buvat adjusted his oversized wig and, still slightly unsteady from the effects of sleep and wine, cleared his throat a couple of times. Then, he began to write, at the same time chanting aloud the formal clauses which he was consigning to paper:
" Die et cetera et cetera anno et cetera et cetera. Roma. Examinatus init in carceribus Pontis Sixtis… What is it?"
Sfasciamonti had interrupted Buvat's recording to whisper a recommendation in his ear.
"But of course, yes, yes," replied the latter; only later did I learn that, as suggested by the catchpoll, the date of the interrogation was to be left blank, so that the whole report could be filed later under whatever date suited one's purpose.
"Very well, let us begin again," said Buvat, resuming his writing with a stiffly dignified expression. " Examinatus in carceribus Pontis Sixtis, coram et per me Notarium infrascriptum… Your name, young man?"
"Pompeo di Trevi."
"Where exactly is Trevi?" Buvat asked carelessly, thus revealing his limited knowledge of the Papal State, which might have sown suspicion in the mind of the prisoner, if only the latter had not been utterly confused by fear.
"Near to Spoleto," he replied, speaking barely louder than a whisper.
"So we write: Pompeius de Trivio, Spoletanae diocesis, aetatis annorum… How old are you?"
"Sixteen, I think."
"Sexdicem incirca," Buvat continued, 'Et cui delato iuramento de veritate dicenda et interrogate de nomine, patria, exercitio et causa suae carcerationis, respondit."
Sfasciamonti shook the young man and translated the notary's words: "Swear that you will tell the truth and then repeat your name, age and the city in which you were born."
"I swear that I shall tell the truth. Have I not already given my name?"
"Repeat it. This is for the official record. Procedure so demands, we must needs be accurate," pronounced the catchpoll to make the proceedings seem more realistic.
The young man looked around himself, looking somewhat stunned.
"My name is Pompeo, I was born at Trevi, near Spoleto, I may be about sixteen years of age, I have no trade and…"
"That is enough," Sfasciamonti interrupted him, again moving to Buvat's side and whispering something in his ear.
"Ah, very well, very well," answered Buvat.
At that point in the record, the grounds for the arrest were to be entered, but there were no such grounds. On the catchpoll's recommendation, Buvat was therefore to enter a false deposition, namely that the cerretano had been arrested for begging alms during mass.
"Come on now," said the false notary, adjusting his spectacles on his aquiline nose. " Interrogatus an sciat et cognoscat alios pauperes mendicantes in Urbe, et an omnes sint sub una tantum secta an vero sub diversis sectis, et recenseat omnes precise, respondit…"
"I shall go and get the whip," said Sfasciamonti.
"The whip, what for?" said the cerretano with a slight tremor in his voice.
"You are not answering the question."
"I did not understand it," answered the other, who obviously did not know a word of Latin.
"He asked you whether you know other sects in Rome besides that to which you belong," intervened Atto. "He wants to know whether they are all united under a single leadership, and to complete matters, he expects you to provide him with a complete list of all of them."
"But you, however, have no intention of answering," added the catchpoll, taking a pair of keys from a bag, presumably to open up some dungeon equipped with devices to encourage reticent criminals, "and so your back is in need of a good flogging."
Suddenly, the boy threw himself to the ground on his knees, causing Sfasciamonti himself, who was holding him on a tight cord, to sway.
"Gentlemen, please listen," said he in imploring tones, turning first to Buvat, then to the catchpoll. "Among us poor mendicants there are various companies, and this is because they carry out different functions and wear different clothes. I shall tell you everything that I can remember."
There followed a moment's silence. The boy was weeping. Abbot Melani and I were utterly amazed; the first of the mysterious cerretani ever to fall into the hands of the law was not only willing to be interrogated by a criminal notary but refused the ordeal of the scourge and was promising to tell all.
Sfasciamonti made him stand up, his expression momentarily betraying something between surprise and disappointment. Once again, his crude catchpoll's skills would not be needed here.
"Let us give him a seat," said he with forced benevolence, clumsily putting one of his enormous arms around the shoulders of the young miscreant, who was trembling and shaking with tears a
nd terror.
I gave him a stool and the confession began.
"The first is called the Company of the Chop-Churches. They beg for alms in crowded churches, cut purses and bags and steal all they find in them."
I called to mind the episode with the sanpaolaro and the little woman whose purse-strings had been cut. Was that one of these Chop-Churches?
II Roscio stopped and looked at us one by one, studying on our faces the effect of these revelations which must, for him, amount to scarcely less than the desecration of a deity.
"The second is called the Company of Swooners," he continued. "They pretend that they're dying; they lie on the ground, screaming and groaning and begging for alms, but in reality, they're perfectly well. The third is called the Company of Clapperdogeons. They too are healthy, but slothful; they don't like to work so they pound it."
"'Slothful', I understand, but 'pound it'?"
"They go begging," answered II Roscio; then he asked for and obtained a glass of water.
"Go on," said Sfasciamonti.
Beggars and wastrels: was not the morning crowd whom I had for years been meeting with in the streets of Rome composed mainly of suchlike? Perhaps I had in my short life unknowingly come across far more cerretani than I realised.
"The fourth is called the Company of Brothers of the Buskin, or strolling players," continued our hostage; "They lie curled up on the ground, shivering as though they were dying of cold, or scabby with ring-worm, and beg. The fifth is called the Company of Blockheads: they pretend to be idiotic and brainless, they always answer beside the point and go out begging. The sixth is the Company of Abram Coves. They strip naked or half- naked and show their uncovered flesh as and when suits them, and they beg. The seventh is called the Company of the Hedge Priests…"
"One moment, one moment," said Buvat; the pseudo-notary, equipped with too large a pen and unaccustomed to writing fast, was struggling to keep up with the full flow of the confession. He had initially been prepared to draw up a false statement for the record; now, however, he found himself having to write a real one, and a particularly precious one at that. Sfasciamonti kept gesturing to him that he was not to miss a single word. I now knew why: the catchpoll wanted at last to have hard and fast evidence of the existence of the cerretani to show sooner or later to his colleagues or even the Governor.
