"We have arrivalled at the most suitful moment," murmured Ugonio, motioning us with his hand to follow him in single file.
From another part of the amphitheatre, we saw approaching us a sort of procession, upon seeing which those camped near the brazier stood up dutifully.
"The electrocution has just taken place. The Maggiorenghi are now entrifying with the Grand Legator," said Ugonio pointing to the procession and inviting us to stand aside. "The firstsome is the head of the Company of Mumpers. Behind him are all the adjuncts and conjuncts of the othersome companies: Dommerers, Clapperdogeons, Brothers of the Buskin, Abram Coves, Pistoleros and Tawneymen…"
"So these are the heads of the cerretani companies?" asked Atto, opening his eyes wide, as we prepared to join the procession.
I looked at that vile troop. On the basis of what Il Roscio had told us, I could identify the head of the Dommerers' company. Around his neck, he wore a huge iron chain and he was constantly murmuring "bran-bran-bran"; as I recalled, the speciality of his group was imposture: they claimed to have been prisoners of the Turks and so spoke Turkish. Of course, there was no pigeon to pluck that evening but the Dommerers, like all the other cerretanii, had, after a manner of speaking, come to their general meeting wearing their company uniform.
"And where is the Grand Legator?" he added, looking all around (although the very idea was absurd) for Lamberg's face.
In lieu of an answer, Ugonio moved to the head of the procession of Maggiorenghi. He greeted the head of the Mumpers, an individual with a flowing grey beard and long hair that spilled out from under a showy plumed hat; in accordance with the practice of his sect, he wore the clothes of a nobleman, save that these were unbelievably dirty and threadbare. The Mumpers, as I had just read in Geronimo's statement, were those who begged, saying that they were ruined gentlefolk or artisans. Ugonio knelt in the most unctuous and servile manner, momentarily slowing down the little cortege of Maggiorenghi. Instantly, we pulled our cowls down even lower, fearing that our faces might be seen. Fortunately, we were helped by the intermittent, flaming light of the torches which illuminated the space somewhat irregularly. I looked around me again: the whole place was crawling with cripples and lepers, with men blind, mutilated or emaciated, their bodies half naked, twisted and limping, bearing the marks of flagellation, chains and torture. It was a veritable catalogue of the cerretani' s impostures: all those apparent lacerations, those pustules, that exhausted dragging of legs, were merely the tricks of the trade: not suffering, but art, of which the canters kept the signs even when they were not actually engaging in their scoundrelly activities. Observing more closely, I saw that they were strolling peacefully here and there, downing their cheap wine, laughing and joking without a care in the world. I wavered between horror, fear and wonderment, but there was no time to exchange any comment with Atto. After a brief muttered colloquy, Ugonio returned to us and the procession continued on its way.
"Bemark the Mumper posterior to the Maggiorengo," he whispered.
This was a bald, half-hunchbacked old man, wearing a badly torn artisan's apron and a pair of down-at-heel shoes. He, too, according to the dictates of his sect, begged, pretending to have been an honest workman who had fallen on hard times. On his shoulder, he carried an old bag in which one could just descry the white pages of a small tome.
"He is the Grand Legator," announced Ugonio.
"What!" hissed Atto, his eyes bulging out of his head with surprise.
"He is a brother from Holland. His name is Drehmannius and he's a bit gagafied, he can't even read the foliables he binds, but he is indeed an excellentissimus buchbinder. That's why he's a Mumper. He has the treaty," added Ugonio, with an imperceptible nod in the direction of the contents of the bag on the man's shoulder.
I saw Atto's jaws tighten. What Lamberg? What imperial plot? Now it was all crystal clear: the Grand Legator was no legatus or Ambassador but a legator, in the cerretanis'' dog Latin, that meant he was an ordinary bookbinder! So the treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave, the key to Atto's destiny, was in the hands of that lousy insignificant old Dutchman.
"What's this Dutch bookbinder, Drehmannius or whatever he's called, proposing to do with my treatise?" asked Melani, on tenterhooks.
"To ungluify the binderings. The Maggiorengo has just secreted it to me."
"To unglue the binding?" repeated Melani, utterly at a loss for words. "What the deuce do you mean?"
But we had to stop talking. A tall, imposing cerretano, with filthy, stubby great hands, had drawn near to us, his right eye covered with a black bandage. He called Ugonio to one side and the latter followed him at once.
Thus, we were suddenly without a guide in the very midst of that demented, lawless mass, at the tail of a procession of which we knew neither where it was going nor why. In the middle of that cortege, a group of old men were fighting over a flask of wine. One of them, obviously drunk, came face to face with Atto and belched loudly. Melani turned away in disgust and rummaged instinctively in his overcoat in search of his lace handkerchief, then realised it would be wiser not to seem finicky.
Suddenly, the procession of cerretani, by now distinctly the worse for drink, struck up a bizarre song:
Doing nothing at all is the very best trade.
And when winter comes,
You just lie in the sun,
While in summer, you lie in the shade.
With a branch in your hand, you chase flies away
And the fat meat you eat
And you toss out the lean…
A tramp, bare-chested and all covered in bruises, with filthy bagpipes hanging around his neck and bare feet with long black nails, encouraged by the little chorus, began to sing loud and clear, caring not to keep time with the others:
By lies and by tricks You can live half a year; By tricks and by lies, Live the other half too!
I recognised this: it was the same cerretano doggerel Don Tibal-dutio had taught me.
Suddenly, an icy cold, sliding presence came between the cassock and my neck. I turned sharply
I nearly fainted. A slimy serpent, held in the hand of a disgusting wretch with a fat, greasy, ill-shaven face had licked my defenceless neck. The cerretano roared with coarse laughter and gave me a slap on the shoulder that almost knocked me over. It was all a joke. He then put the serpent in a wicker basket and began to sing in a chorus with three or four of his mates:
We are scum, we are scum,
'Tis for wenching we have come,
From the house of Saint Paul we descend.
We were born, we were born
Far away from this land
With a snake on the bum,
On the bum, on the bum,
And a snake in the hand…
So this was a sanpaolaro, a healer and handler of serpents, like the one I'd seen at work a few days before. To make the meaning of his doggerel quite clear, he put his hand on his privates and accompanied the last verses with obscene rhythmic thrusts of the hips. If he and his companions were not drunk with wine, they surely were with bestial gaiety. A middle-aged tramp had seized a fiddle and was making it moan and whine like a cat on heat. But there was no time to stop and stare. New participants kept arriving in the amphitheatre, multitudes of cerretani were crowding into the arena. Choruses, chaotic ballets, screams and coarse belly laughter resounded everywhere. When we arrived, it was a meeting, now it was one of the circles of hell. The procession had become enormous: there were hundreds and hundreds of vagabonds, almost all bearing torches, and it had begun simply to turn on itself in the arena, imprisoned by the amphitheatre like a mole whose nest has become too tight for it. Curious eyes focused on us. Although well covered by Ugonio's cassocks, we did not have the agile, bestial movements of the corpisantari, nor did we seem to be playing any great part in the carousing. But we had no time to worry. Our attention was distracted by a new development. Other swarms of beggars had gathered around the little procession of the Maggiorenghi, overcrowding the end of the arena where we stood. Elbows, backs and legs struggled like gladiators in agony. It was hard to keep close to Atto and Buvat and not to get dragged off into the crowd.