"Only now do you think of telling me this?" he groaned impatiently. "For heaven's sake, did you not realise that you and Buvat were put to sleep by pouring a little sleeping draught into your wine?"
I fell silent, humiliated. It was true, it must have been done like that. The mendicants (obviously a group of cerretani) had organised what looked like a brawl in order to create confusion in the place; thus, they had caused us to leave our table and got in our way while they poured the narcotic into our wine. After that, they had gone off without any further ado.
"Once they had put you to sleep," concluded Atto, calming down a little, "Ugonio and his companions in crime will have entered your house and Buvat's bedchamber. Then, as soon as they were able to, they tried again with me."
"It is a miracle that they crossed the villa boundary and managed to leave with their loot without being seen by anyone," I commented.
"Yes, indeed," said Atto, looking askance at Sfasciamonti, "it really is a miracle."
The catchpoll lowered his eyes in embarrassment. Yes, while I had cut a poor figure, Sfasciamonti ran the risk of passing for an incompetent. Atto, on the other hand, by finding Ugonio, had found out not only who had put me and Buvat out of action with the sleeping draught, but the thief of his treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave and of the relic and the telescope, which he now held tightly in one hand, fuming in equal measure with disdainful rage and warlike satisfaction.
No sooner had we crossed the Tiber than Sfasciamonti announced that he would hasten on his way in order to get back as early as possible, leaving us the advantage of proceeding at a more convenient and moderate pace.
"I shall go on ahead of you, it is getting really late, corps of a thousand maces. My absences from the villa cannot last too long. 1 do not want Cardinal Spada to think I am shirking my duty," he explained.
"Better, far better thus," commented Atto, as soon as we were alone.
"And why?"
"As soon as we get back, we shall have things to do."
"At this hour of night?"
"Buvat should have completed the task I set him."
"What? Searching for the flower among the arms of noble families?"
"Not just that," replied the Abbot laconically.
Yes, Buvat. The evening before, I had seen him again after a prolonged absence, and Melani, after setting him to work searching for traces of the Tetrachion among the noble arms, had requested him also to see to an unspecified "other matter". What could he be up to? During the first few days, his presence had been constant and assiduous. More recently, he would appear briefly, then absent himself again for a long period. Now I knew that Atto had assigned him some task to which the scribe was obviously attending outside the villa. I realised that the Abbot had, for the time being, no intention of revealing to me what was going on behind the scenes.
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.