Secretum am-2

by Rita Monaldi

  When we reached the villa, however, Atto's secretary had not yet returned.

  "Good! Plainly, the trail which I suggested he should follow has proved fruitful. Perhaps the final details are still missing."

  "Details? What of?" I insisted.

  "Of the accusations whereby we shall nail Lamberg."

  Day the Sixth

  12th J uly, 1700

  "But you never close the door, do you?"

  I opened my eyes. I was at home. The daylight flooded in through the wide-open door of the bedroom, blinding me. Nevertheless, I recognised beyond any doubt the voice which had so disagreeably awakened me: Abbot Melani had come to pay me a visit.

  "Charming, this little house of yours. One can see the feminine touch," he commented.

  That night I had reached my bed dead tired, with just enough strength left in me to make sure that my two daughters were sleeping placidly in their bed, seeing that Cloridia was still spending the night in the apartments of the Princess of Forano.

  "Come on, come on, get up, 1 am in a hurry. We have plenty to do: Buvat found absolutely nothing about that damned Tetrachion in the books on heraldry. We must interrogate Romauli at once."

  "No, that is enough, if you please, Signor Atto. I want to sleep," I replied somewhat brusquely.

  "Are you quite mad?" trilled Atto's castrato voice. I had no time to tell him to lower his voice so as not to disturb my little ones who were sleeping on the floor above. They rose at once and were soon looking in curiously. They stared in astonishment at this curious gentleman, the like of whom they had never seen before, red-stockinged, bewigged, all bedaubed with ceruse and bedizened with lace, braiding and knick-knacks after the French fashion, from his periwig down to his shoe buckles. The little one, who was also the less shy of the pair, ran straight to him, wanting to touch all the marvels with which Abbot Melani's apparel was bedecked.

  "Oh fathers!" exclaimed Atto delightedly, as he took the little one in his arms. "When you return home afflicted by business, what could be sweeter than to see your dear little daughter at the top of the stairs, awaiting you with such a loving, joyful welcome, receiving you with kisses and embraces, telling you so many thoughts and so many things that you are at once freed from all the dark ponderings that weigh down your mind and become jocular and gay even despite yourself?"

  Rising in haste, I rushed to tell my daughters not to disturb the Abbot, but Atto halted me with his hand.

  "Stop! Do not think that playing with little children is no matter for serious men," he berated me with a feigned air of reproof, already forgetting his reason for being there, "for I reply to you that Hercules, as we read in Elianus's works, was wont after the heat of battle to amuse himself playing with little ones; and Socrates was found by Alcibiades playing with children, while Agiselaos would ride a cane to entertain his sons. You should take advantage of my presence to get dressed while I act as nurse for these two little angels. You know what awaits us."

  Whereupon, he let my little ones' curious tiny fingers tug at all those bows and tassels with a seraphic joy and patience of which I would never have imagined Abbot Melani to be capable.

  I knew full well what awaited us: the search for the Tetrachion; or better, for the dish donated by Capitor to Mazarin, and which the madwoman had called "Tetrachion". According to Cloridia's friend, the maidservant at the Spanish Embassy, that name denoted an "heir", not further specified, to the throne of the Catholic King of Spain. The same name, however, Atto had heard on the lips ofTranquillo Romauli, Master Florist of the Villa Spada; which was distinctly curious, since Romauli never seemed willing to speak of anything but petals and corollas. Nevertheless, seeing that his late spouse had been a midwife, there was a suspicion that the secret feminine password of which Cloridia had heard tell might come down to us from the lips of the Master Florist himself. When prompted, Romauli had permitted himself a few hints: the Escorial was, he said, growing arid, and he had even let slip an enigmatic reference to Versailles, the residence of the Most Christian King, and to the Viennese Schonbrunn. All this, I had reported in detail to Abbot Melani, and Buvat had advanced the theory that Tetra- chion might be the name of a flower present in some noble coat of arms. However, as the Abbot had just informed me, research in heraldic tomes had turned up no such flower, so that now Atto could not wait to take the conversation with Romauli further.

  A dish, an heir, a Master Florist: three tracks, every one of which seemed to lead in a different direction.

  "Seeing that your Romauli appears to be the only one to know what or who the Tetrachion is," said Atto, as though following the thread of my cogitations, "I should say that we must start from there."

  On our arrival at the villa, I constrained the Abbot to make a little deviation before rejoining Tranquillo Romauli, whom I knew to be intent at that hour on raking the gardens in preparation for the afternoon's festivities. I had to escort the little girls to Cloridia at the great house, so that they could assist her in her midwife's duties with the new mother and infant and, at the same time, receive her loving motherly care.

  We found Master Romauli leaning over a flower bed, wielding a pair of shears and a sprinkler. Upon seeing us, his face lit up. After the exchange of the usual pleasantries, it was Atto who came straight to the point.

  "My young friend has informed me that you would be glad to pursue discussion of a certain matter," said Melani with calculated nonchalance. "But perhaps you may prefer the two of us to remain alone, and therefore…" he added, alluding to the possible desirability of sending me away.

  "Oh no, not at all," replied the Master Florist, "for me 'tis as though my own son were listening. I beg of you, allow him to stay."

  So Romauli had no hesitation whatever about discussing delicate matters, like that of the Tetrachion, in my presence. All the better, said I to myself; obviously, he felt so sure of his own arguments that he had no fear of the presence of witnesses.

  Since the Master Florist had shown no sign of any intention to move from his working position and was still on his knees, in order to facilitate conversation, Atto too had to sit, choosing a little stone bench which was fortunately just in the right place. I looked around; no one was observing us or walking in the vicinity. The conditions were right for squeezing from Romauli all that he knew.

  "Very well, honourable Master Florist," Atto began. "You must in the first place know that at this present moment, the fate of the Escorial is almost closer to my heart than that of Versailles, of which I have the honour to be a most faithful admirer. Precisely for that reason…"

  "Oh, yes, yes, how right you are, Signor Abbot," broke in the other, working on a low rosebush. "Could you hold the shears for me one moment?"

  Atto obeyed, not without a grimace of surprise and disappointment, while Romauli handled the stem of the plant bare-handed; then he resumed his speech.

  "… Precisely for that reason, as I was saying," continued Melani, "I am sure that you too will be aware of the gravity of the moment and that it is therefore in the best interests of all… in this field, shall we say, to succeed in resolving this grave, nay this most grave crisis, as painlessly…"

  "Here we are," the other interrupted him, placing in his hand a rose just cut from the bush, "I know what you want to get down to: the Tetrachion."

  For a moment, the Abbot fell silent with astonishment.

  "The Master Florist is most intuitive and a man of few words," Atto then said in amiable tones, yet looking swiftly all around to make sure that no one was watching us.

  "Oh, it was so obvious," came the reply. "Our common friend told me that you wished to resume the matter upon which we touched in our first conversation, in which I referred to the Tetrachion and in which I also mentioned the Spanish jonquil and Catalan jasmine. And now you speak to me of the Escorial: one does not need to be a genius to understand what you are leading up to."

  "Ah, yes, of course," Atto hesitated, somewhat troubled by the rapidity of the other's deductio
ns. "Very well, this Tetrachion…"

  "Let us proceed step by step, Signor Abbot, step by step," said the Master Florist, pointing at the rose which he had just placed in Atto's hand. Now, smell it!"

  Somewhat taken aback, Atto twirled the rose a little in his hand; at length he raised it to his nose, breathing in deeply.

  "But it smells of garlic!" he exclaimed with a grimace of disgust.

  Tranquillo Romauli laughed delightedly.

  "Well, you have just demonstrated that, as with the palate, so with the flower; if the smell is not good, every beauty is insipid and as though 'twere dead. Thus, giving a good odour to a flower that has none, or only a bad one, is as beneficial as the miracle of giving it life."

  "That may be so; but to this… er, impertinent flower," objected Melani, dabbing his nostrils with a lace handkerchief, and again shivering with disgust, "death was given, not life."

  "You are exaggerating," said the Master Florist amiably. "It is only a medicated flower."

  "Meaning?"

  "To treat flowers, one takes sheep's manure, which one then macerates in vinegar, adding musk reduced to powder, civet and ambergris, and in this one bathes the seeds for two or three days. The flower born of this process will smell of fresh and delicious aromas, those of musk and civet, which tone up and revive the nostrils of whosoever brings it to his nose."

  "But this rose stank of garlic!"

  "Of course. It was in fact medicated in another way, to make it resistant to parasites. For, as Didymus and Theophrastes teach, it suffices to plant garlic or onions close to any kind of ornamental flower, especially, close to roses, for the latter to be instantly impregnated with a garlicky stink."

  "Disgusting," Atto muttered to himself. "However, what has that to do with the Tetrachion?"

  "Wait, wait. By means of medication," continued Romauli, quite unperturbed, "one can completely remove the bad smell of flowers that are rather disagreeable to the nose, such as the

  African marsh marigold or Indian carnation, whichever you prefer to call it. One need only macerate the seeds in rose water and dry them in the sun before sowing. Once the flower has been grown, one must take the seeds and repeat the operation, and so on."

  "Ah, and how much time does it take to arrive at the result?" asked Atto, growing vaguely curious.

  "Oh, a trifle. No more than three years."

  "Ah yes, a trifle," replied Atto, without the other becoming in the least aware of his irony.

  "And even less time is needed for these little ones," said Romauli, utterly unruffled, jumping lightly up and tiptoeing as he invited Melani to lean over and look into a damp, shady corner behind the bench, between the trunk of a palm and a little wall.

  "But these flowers are… black!" exclaimed Atto.

  He was right: the petals of a group of carnations, hidden in this little cranny (where I had often noticed the Master Florist busying himself of late) were as black as anything I had ever seen.

  "I made them grow there so that they should not be overmuch in evidence, said Romauli.

  "How did you do it?" I asked. "In nature, there are no black flowers."

  "Oh, that is a bagatelle for one versed in the secrets of the art. You take the scaly fruit of the alder, which must first be dry on the tree, reduce it to a very fine powder, and incorporate it in a little sheep's manure, tempered with wine vinegar. You must add salt to correct the astringency of the vinegar and the whole thing will grow soft. Thereupon, you incorporate the roots of the young carnation, and there you have it."

  Atto and I, although bored by the Master Florist's explanations, were both astounded by the amiable and ingenious perversion whereby he obtained floral miracles. Not even to me, his faithful helper, had he revealed the existence of the black carnations. Who knows, I wondered to myself, how many such prodigies he had sown in the flower beds of the Villa Spada. He did in fact confide to us that he had just planted an entire bed with lilies the petals of which were painted with the names of the spouses (SPADA and ROCCI) in letters golden and silver; another, with roses medicated with the rarest of oriental essences, and a third with tulips from bulbs soaked in colours (cerulean, saffron, carmine and suchlike), thus tinted with striations of myriad hues, almost as though a rainbow had come down to earth; yet another, with monstrous plants, born of heterogeneous seeds planted in the same ball of manure, as well as parsley with its leaves infolded in the form of cylinders, obtained by pounding the seeds in a mortar and squashing their meatus, and a thousand other wonders of his art.

  "I cannot wait for the moment," he concluded, "when Cardinal Spada brings the guests to take a look at my little productions."

  "Ah, good. But I still do not see why you no longer wish to speak of the Tetrachion, and I am beginning to wonder whether I may not be wasting your time," said Atto, his tone betraying his real meaning, namely that he was wasting his own time; having said which, he rose from the bench with a decided air.

  I too looked around me in confusion. Was the Master Florist having second thoughts?

  "Yet, we are getting there," he replied. "The gardens of the Escorial are withering miserably, as I had occasion to mention last time we spoke."

  " The gardens of the Escorial, did you say?" Atto asked with a slight start.

  "Many, who are wrongly informed, maintain that those Spanish gardens, which were once so splendid, have no future, because of the climate, which has become icier in winter and more arid in summer. I have read much about those unfortunate gardens, you know. They need only a Master Florist and they would be saved. I have never been in Spain, nor indeed have I ever set foot outside Rome. 1 do, however, love to make comparisons with the gardens ofVersailles, which I know to be quite hardy, despite the damp, unhealthy air of the region, and with the many-coloured flower beds of Schonbrunn, which, I have read, were only recently reclaimed from the harsh conditions of the Vienna woods."

  Abbot Melani turned and looked at me with hatred in his eyes, while the Master Florist carried on with one of his gardening tasks.

  "And I," I tried in a whisper to justify myself, "when I told him that you were worried because death was hovering over the Escorial, thought he might not have understood…"

  "So that is what you said to him. What a refined metaphor, eh?" hissed Atto.

  "I have the solution for saving those gardens," continued Romauli, without realising a thing, "and it is indeed fortunate that you should be here, given your deep interest in the matter, as I have learned from your protege."

  "Yes, but what about the Tetrachion?" I stammered, still hoping to learn something useful from the Master Florist.

  "Precisely. But let us take this step by step. It is a delicate matter," announced Tranquillo Romauli. "Think of anemones. If one wants them to be double, one must select the seeds from flowers which are not early- or late-blooming; they must have suffered neither from heat nor from cold, and thus will produce completely perfect seeds."

  "Double flowers, did you say?" I asked, beginning to imagine, and to fear, what he was getting at.

  "But of course, from a single carnation will come a double one, if a seedling of the former is planted in excellent soil within the thirty days beginning on the 15th of August, Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God, in a warm place that is well protected from the extremes of the summer. From a double carnation will come a quadruple one if one takes two or three seeds of the double species and, having enclosed them in wax, or in a feather that is wider at the base than at the tip, placed them in the ground. That is what I have done, you see."

  Lovingly, he pointed to a few flowers with rather bizarre characteristics: they were carnations of the purest white, with four flowers on the same stem, which bent almost in an arc under their sweet-smelling load.

  "Here is my secret recipe for saving the Escorial. These flowers can resist every variation in temperature and climate; I invented them. These are my tetrachion carnations."

  "Do you mean…" stammered Atto, blanching
and stepping back a little, "that your Tetrachion is… this plant?"

  "Yes, indeed it is, Signor Abbot Melani," said Romauli, rather surprised by Atto's evident disappointment. "They are so noble, these quadruple inflorescences, that I wished to give them an unusual name: tetrachion, from the ancient Greek ' tetra' meaning 'four'. But perhaps you do not share my opinion and my hopes for the Escorial. If that is so, I beg you to tell me at once, lest I bore you any longer; perhaps you might have preferred to visit my elaboratory of flower essences. I myself can take you there. You will come and visit me one of these days, will you not?"

  The conversation with Tranquillo Romauli had cast us into the deepest gloom.

  "A bane on you and your wife!" Abbot Melani began, the moment that we left him. "She promised us heaven knows what information through her supposed network of women, and here we are with a fistful of dead flies."

  I lowered my head and said nothing; Atto was right. In fact, I was beginning to suspect that, after having risked my life to serve Abbot Melani, Cloridia might secretly have changed her mind about the assistance she had at first promised me and decided to provide me with little or no further news, in case such information might spur me to undertake perilous courses of action. Obviously, I said nothing to the Abbot about my suspicions.

  "Clearly, the Master Florist has nothing to do with the women's password," I retorted; "yet he did give us one useful piece of information: Tetrachion means quadruple."

  "But tell me, what the Devil has that to do with Capitor's dish?" cried Melani, hammering each syllable and laughing hysterically.

  "Nothing whatever, Signor Atto, as far as I can see. But, as I said, at least we know now what the word means."

  "I certainly did not need your Master Florist to know that 'tetra ' means 'four' in Greek," the Abbot rejoined angrily.