"Advantages?" repeated the other, somewhat confused.
"Those protected by the catchpolls can work, if you will pardon the improper term, even on feast days. The others they keep checks on, obliging them to rest during religious festivals, in accordance with the law. So those ones lose earnings. Do I explain myself clearly?"
"Well, that's a fine one," said the other, wiping his forehead with a white lace handkerchief in a voice that expressed a mixture of surprise, curiosity and a hint of prurience.
"Come," said the first one. "Let us go and take a look at the game of blind man's buff."
They rose from their armchairs and took one another by the arm with familiar courtesy, moving towards the nearby outer wall bordering the Barberini estate; there, they would certainly be turning to the left, towards the little grove where the game would be at its height.
I looked around me. There could be no question of leaving my post and abruptly or suddenly abandoning the other waiters in the tent. Don Paschatio would certainly receive notice of such a thing; hitherto, I had enjoyed almost complete freedom of movement, except for those occasional duties as a supernumerary, whenever there was a shortage of personnel. If I were to be counted among the deserters, that would only be the start of my troubles. Perhaps the matter might even be brought to the attention of Cardinal Spada in person and I would lose my job; or else the permission to serve Atto might be revoked.
Just as I was reviewing all these pessimistic prospects, I found the solution. A lady with a decolletage after the French style, with a great white veil on her shoulders, was being served a generous portion of blood orange juice in a crystal bowl. Next to her, the Marchese Delia Penna awaited his turn. Swiftly I took a carafe of lemonade from the table and rushed to serve the Marchese.
"But what are you doing, boy?"
In rushing to serve the gentleman, I deliberately jogged my colleague's arm, with the result that he sprinkled red juice on the lady's immaculate veil. Surprised and angered, the lady promptly protested.
"Oh heavens, what have 1 done! Permit me to remedy this, the veil must be washed at once, I shall see to this in person," said I, snatching the veil from her shoulders and rushing towards the great house; a move executed with such rapidity that the victim and the onlookers were left with no time to react. The school of Atto, master of false accidents, had yielded its first fruit. A few moments later, I placed the veil in the hands of a maidservant, with the request to wash it and return it to me in person. That task was the pretext I needed to abandon my post at the pavilion.
Immediately after that, I was in the vicinity of the little grove, on the trail of the two monsignors overheard moments before. How, I wondered, was I to spy on them without being discovered? At last I caught sight of them walking between the box and laurel hedges and continuing their earlier conversation. I was jubilant: the good old rules of Master Tranquillo Romauli had offered me the solution. Near the statues, the hedges had been left not more than a yard high. Elsewhere, they were higher. The precise height of those hedges, neither too low nor as high as those in a maze, provided me with a decisive advantage: they concealed even the top of my head, while leaving the others uncovered from the shoulders upwards. I could see without being seen, spy without being spied on.
I stopped behind a hedge, ready to listen, when a voice made me jump.
"Cuckoo! You are here, you naughty girl, I know."
"Hee hee hee hee!" responded a feminine laugh.
The Penitentiary Major, Cardinal Colloredo, was groping his way, impeded by his voluminous cassock, with his eyes covered with a big red bandage and his hands, adorned with huge topaz and ruby-incrusted rings, stretched out before him in search of his prey. A few paces beyond, hidden behind a little tree, a young high-born maiden wearing a lovely cream-coloured gown and with a heavy diadem of emeralds around her neck awaited Colloredo's approach with trepidation.
"That is not fair! You are breaking the rules," the young woman chanted, for the ancient wearer of the purple, pretending to wipe the perspiration from his brow, had raised the blindfold a little from his eyes.
Suddenly, a nobleman wearing a showy French periwig, whom I was able to identify without a shadow of a doubt as the Marchese Andrea Santacroce, burst out from the surrounding bushes. He grasped the maiden firmly, pressing his chest hard against her back, and kissed her passionately on the neck, like a gander covering a goose and biting her sensually from behind.
"You are mad," I heard her moan, as she freed herself from the embrace. "The others are coming."
Just then, indeed, another blindfolded player was approaching that part of the wood, driving the other players before him, as happens when the prey is driven forward by the beaters on a hunt. Santacroce disappeared as rapidly as he had materialised. The damsel cast one last languid glance at him.
I concealed myself even more thoroughly in the grass, terrified of the prospect of being discovered and taken for a spy on clandestine trysts.
"I know that you're nearby, ha ha!" came the happy chant of the Chairman of the Victualling Board, Monsignor Grimaldi, blindfolded with a big yellow handkerchief.
Before him moved a little group of guests who were enjoying themselves provoking him, keeping very close but never allowing themselves to get caught. The ladies caressed him with fans, the men tickled his belly with a little finger, then were gone in a trice, some under the sheltering foliage of loquat or marine cherry bushes, some taking refuge under the friendly fronds of a young example of those strange trees, the palms, which were for the first time planted by Pope Pius IV in the garden before the Villa Pia and had since made such an impression that their exotic mops were now to be found throughout the Holy City. Grimaldi bounded forward, sure of surprising the nearest player, the Cardinal Vicar Gaspare Carpegna. Instead, he collided with the trunk of the palm tree, causing great mirth in all the group.
The Cardinal Vicar, who had escaped the assault by a hair's breadth, leaned contentedly against a wall, when from this came a spray of water which caught him straight in the face, soaking his collar and his purple cape. An even heartier burst of general laughter followed.
In order to make the games richer in surprises, Cardinal Spada had arranged that little water devices were to be scattered throughout the property, which would be activated by the unwitting passer-by, unleashing sprays, spouts, buckets and downpours for the joy of gay, fun-loving souls. The wall on which Carpegna had leaned, inadvertently pressing on a lever, was in reality a wooden panel leaning against a tree and covered with bricks, behind which was concealed a hydraulic machine equipped with a spout aimed at the activator.
"Cardinal Carpegna was hoping to get away, and instead… he got a wetting, ha ha!" commented Cardinal Negroni who, however, promptly tripped over a vertical cord which tipped a bucket of water on an overhead branch onto his head, giving him abundant copious cold shower.
More laughter followed and I took advantage of the diversion to move a little further away. I was on the point of giving up my bold project of espionage and returning to the great house when I recognised the two monsignori whom I sought, as they distractedly observed that jovial pastime. As I expected, they did not notice me, absorbed as they still were in their discussions.
"The catchpolls protect fugitives and persons who have been served summons," said the first, as they slowly strolled towards the fishpond under the fountain, "yet they imprison people with a mere civil debt for insolvency. And what is one to say of those convicted in absentia who are arrested and arrive in prison half dead? All the doctrinal texts make it quite clear that torture is licit, but at the end of proceedings, not the beginning."