The chaos was such that, fortunately, no one seemed to be paying much attention to anyone else, and thus, not to us either. In the background, the whining of the fiddle was joined by the whistling of a group of rustic flutes and the nasal complaint of bagpipes.
"Look: just take a look at that one," said Atto, pointing out a gaunt-looking young man with a bushy beard and sunken eyes.
Standing on tiptoe, I could just make out this character's face.
"Does that face not seem familiar to you too?"
"Well, yes… I do seem to have seen him before, but I don't recall where. Perhaps we've seen him begging somewhere."
Just next to the young man, almost in the very middle of the throng, three Maggiorenghi suddenly appeared. They had mounted a platform, or perhaps some other kind of dais, hurriedly erected by a group of scruffy half-naked youths. The Maggiorengo in the middle was the head of the Mumpers. The other two raised his arms heavenward and the crowd cheered. We needed no interpreter to understand that this was the new Maggiorengo-General.
Beside the trio appeared the Grand Legator. He was holding a book in his hand. Both Atto and I recognised it: it was his treatise on the Secrets of the Conclave.
"Tut, tut, another Dutchman, what a coincidence."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Use one Dutchman to hunt the other," he replied with a wicked little smile.
While I was trying to understand the Abbot's enigmatic words, a fifth being mounted the platform: Ugonio.
"Take care not to lose us, we must stay close to the platform," Atto warned me.
Then silence fell — or almost.
"My wily, artful friends, you guys and you heels, hear me out, prick up your bells!" began the Maggiorengo of the Mumpers, speaking in a stentorian voice. He was, it seems, beginning his enthronement speech as the new Maggiorengo-Generaclass="underline" a speech in Saint Giles' Greek, of which we would probably understand next to nothing.
Buvat, kneeling, well wrapped in his bedraggled caftan so as to avoid being seen, began rapidly to turn the pages of the glossary of cant. Atto and I did our best to shield him from unwanted attention.
The Maggiorengo-General asked the Grand Legator to pass him Atto's book.
"This breviar is by a froggy autem cull," the Maggiorengo continued, waving the book in the air; "an angler, and his falcon with the harness of little tapers, he wanted to make a razzia: to make up like a carp and whitewash the damned one."
A scandalised and hostile hubbub arose from the crowd.
"I think he said that the book which he's holding in his hand is by a foreign ecclesiastic who wanted to cause trouble and discover the language," Buvat muttered to Atto, continuing to leaf frenetically through the book.
"To discover a language?" repeated Atto. "The Devil, I've got it! The stupid, ignorant jackasses, may God curse them…"
At that moment, I noted with alarm that a young cerretano, barefoot and emaciated, almost completely bald and with his face horribly scarred, bare-chested and with the rest of his body covered only by an old blanket knotted around his waist, was staring perplexedly at Buvat and his little book. Atto, too, became aware of this and fell silent.
"Baste the cull, baste the cull!" screeched a horrendous old man in the crowd, with his face all covered in pustules.
"Siena! Si-e-na! Si-e-na!" the crowd responded, swaying with enthusiasm. Another round of applause followed and many bottles emptied by the mass of cerretani were hurled into the air in jubilation.
"Baste the cull means… Well, they're saying this foreigner should be punished, in other words, he should be killed," whispered Buvat worriedly, still feverishly turning the pages of his glossary. "Siena means yes."
"What a clever idea," commented Atto sarcastically, as he pulled the grimy cowl down more closely over his head, taking care to touch it only with his fingertips.
The half-naked cerretano drew a companion's attention to us. By pure luck, at that moment the movement of the crowd blocked their view. Were they approaching us?
Meanwhile, the Maggiorengo of the Mumpers waited for the applause to die down a little. Moved by an almost primordial instinct, I checked our distance from the entrance, which I supposed must also be the way out. It was still very near.
"And now, my goodly heels," said the orator, "whereas We, Sacred Majesty, great and glorious Emperor, have duly been elected Emperor, King, Chief, Condottiere, Prince, Rector and Guide of the Canters; and whereas such authority as We enjoy appertains not only to His Most Scoundrelly Majesty but to the least canter among our select assembly, We are impelled by our scoundrelly nature to expatiate in this our speech on the pre-eminence and most condign worthiness of the Way of the Canters and all those who follow it."
An ovation resounded through the amphitheatre.
At this point, Buvat was fortunately able to leave off consulting his glossary. The speech was continuing in ordinary language since no strangers could be present to follow it (we, of course, being secretly present): the introduction in the cant language had served mainly to warm up the spirits of those present.
Someone handed a bottle to the Maggiorengo-General, from which he drank voraciously, in great gulps, until he let it fall empty at his feet.
"For a start," he continued, "the society of the canters is more ancient than that of the Baronci, of which Boccaccio speaks, older than the Tower of Nembrotto, and indeed that of Babel. Being ancient, it is of necessity excellent and perfect, and consequently, every single canter is excellent and perfect, so that it follows that its Sovereign will be most excellent and most perfect and almost immortal!"
Waves of applause greeted the eulogy which the new Maggiorengo-General, laughing complacently, heaped upon himself and his subjects. Atto and I exchanged worried glances. We were in the midst of a host of madmen.
"And let us, then, begin from the beginning of this great horrible world," continued the Maggiorengo. "Let us speak of the Golden Age, when Master Saturn was the King of men. What a scoundrelly life was ours back then! All lived in peace, considering the Sovereign as a good father, and he treated them like good children. All lived in freedom and safety, 'midst all manner of contentments and pleasures, eating, drinking and dressing after the manner of good canters, knowing not wealth or possessions, so that this epoch was called by the authorities of the people of canters the Golden Age. Then there were only goodfellows, purloiners free from all malice. Everything was held in common, there was no division of lands, no carving up of things, no separation of houses, no fences around vineyards. No force had ever to be employed in dealings with anyone, there were no disputes, no one stole chickens, no one contended for harvests. Everyone could work the land he wanted to, planting whatever seed he would and training the vines as it pleased him. Every woman was everyman's wife and every male was every woman's husband and of every thing the valiant canters made one great bundle. What a wonderful stallion our good scoundrel Biello would have made in that Golden Age!"
The Maggiorengo-General spoke these last few words turning towards a cerretano seated near him on the podium and pointing him out to the multitude, who applauded him long and loud.