"I had arranged this morning with the bookbinder that he should leave the little book here, with this good man."
So it was not some small picture that the coronaro had brought Melani, but the mysterious little book of which the Abbot was so unwilling to speak.
"I know this coronaro well, he helps me out whenever I need it and I know that I can trust him," he added, without, however, adding what services he might need of a coronaro or giving me the slightest clue as to the nature of the book.
"Since the bookbinder was often absent from his shop, I thought that it would be more convenient to collect it here," continued the Abbot. "After all, I had already paid for the new binding. And I did well so to arrange matters, for otherwise, if I wanted to collect my little opuscule, I'd have found myself in a quarrel with some sergeant asking too many questions: whether I knew the bookbinder, how long I'd been acquainted with him, what relations I had with him… Try explaining to him how, at the very moment when I was talking with poor Haver, I was stabbed in the arm by a stranger. They'd never have believed me. I can just imagine the questions: how is it that it happened just then, there must surely be a connec tion, what were you doing here in Rome, and so on and so forth. In other words, my boy, it does not bear thinking about."
Then Atto beckoned me to follow him. He did not move towards the door but took me into the back room, into which Sfasciamonti had disappeared a few minutes before with the coronaro and Buvat. In the back of the shop, we were awaited by a little woman of about fifty, seated at a worn old table, modest and somewhat poorly dressed. She was talking with Sfasciamonti and the coronaro while Buvat listened as though stunned. When Atto entered, the woman stood up at once out of respect, having realised that here was a gentleman.
"Have you finished?" asked Melani.
The catchpoll and Buvat nodded.
"That woman is a neighbour of poor Haver," Sfasciamonti be gan to explain to us as we walked away from the shop, leaving
Piazza San Salvatore in Lauro behind us. "She saw everything from a window. She heard someone lamenting and knocking at the binder's door. The latter, who seems to have been a very pious man, opened up straight away but had no time to close the door before two other figures slipped in. They went away half an hour later, carrying off a great pile of paper with them as well as a number of books that had already been bound."
"Poor Haver. And poor fool, too," commented Atto.
"But why they took away papers, we know not," said I, looking at Atto.
"Where the cerretani are involved, one can never understand a thing," interrupted Sfasciamonti, his visage growing dark.
"But how can you be so sure that this was the work of your mendicants?" asked Atto, growing somewhat impatient.
"Experience. When one springs up — and here I speak of the one who was running away and who wounded you — he is invariably followed by others," said the catchpoll gravely.
Atto stopped suddenly, thus bringing all three of us to a stop.
"Come on now, what are you talking about? Sfasciamonti, we cannot go on like this with your half-baked explanations. Kindly tell me once and for all what it is that these mendicants do, these… Cerrisani, as you call them."
"Cerretani," Sfasciamonti humbly corrected.
I was sure of it. He would never have admitted it, but even then Atto Melani felt the serpent of fear slide up from his ankles into his guts.
He knew all too well that he had had a physical encounter with one of the strange individuals of whom Sfasciamonti was speaking, and from that encounter he had received a stab wound which was still hurting and hindering him, following which the bookbinder in whose presence all that had taken place had been assaulted that very night in his own shop, and had died. And he had had his own little book bound by that same unfortunate man; coincidences which could have brought pleasure to no one.
"Above all, I want to know," the Abbot added brusquely, his impatient mind struggling with the fatigue of his old limbs, "are they acting on their own behalf or for hire?"
"Do you really think it is so easy to find that out? With the cerretani strange things are always happening. Indeed, only strange things happen."
The catchpoll then began to describe what, as far as he had learned, was the origin of the cerretani, and the real nature of that mysterious confraternity.
"The cerretani. A rabble. They come from Cerreto in Umbria, where they took refuge after fleeing Rome. They were priests, and the higher priests chased them away."
In Cerreto, the account continued, the cerretani chose from among their number a new Upright Man or head priest who di vided them up according to their talents, into groups, cells and sects: Rufflers, Clapperdogeons or Fermerdy Beggars, Pailliards, Strollers, Buskers, Bourdons or False Pilgrims, Fraters or Jarkmen, Money Droppers, Rooks, Cunning-men and Cunny-shavers, Counterfeit Cranks, Dommerers, Sky Farmers and Gaggers, Duffers, Sharks or Sharpers, Faulkners, Fators, Saint Peter's Sons, Files, Bulkers, Nippers and Foysters, Hedge Priests or Patricoes, Swigmen, Abram Men, Amusers, Anglers (or Hookers), Chopchurches, Collectors, Pinchers, Swaddlers, Ark Ruffians, Wiper Drawers, Badgers, Bawdy Baskets, Sneaks, Snudges, Cleymers, Cloak Twitchers, Crackers, Flying Porters, Rum Dubbers, Lully Triggers, Leggers, Lumpers, Heavers, Hostelers, Jinglers, Whipjacks, Kid Lays, Queer Plungers, Reliquaries, and so on and so forth.
"How do you manage to remember all those names?"
"With the job I do…"
He went on to explain that the Fraters, who are also known as Jarkmen, counterfeit the seals of pontiffs or prelates — which they call jarks in their gibberish — and show them off, pretending that they have permits to issue indulgences, saving sinners from purgatory and hell and to absolve all sins, in exchange for which they exact payment in gold from the credulous.
"The Cunning-men are so-called because they are false, they pretend to be soothsayers and hoodwink simple villagers, claim ing in exchange for money to foresee the future and to be full of the Holy Spirit. The Hedge Priests are false friars or false priests who have never taken either minor or major orders. They go from village to village and say mass, after which they make off with the takings from the collection; as penitence, they impose yet more charity, all of which ends up in their pockets. The Bourdons are false pilgrims who beg for alms on the pretext that they must travel to the Holy Land or to Santiago de Compostela or to Our Lady of Loreto. The Dommerers claim to have relatives or brothers in the hands of the Turks and beg for alms to ransom them, but it is not true. The Swigmen, on the other hand…"
"One moment: if the cerretani do all these things, then how come no one stops them?" Atto objected.
"Because they are secretive. They are divided into sects, no one knows how many there are nor where they are."
"But are they sects, as you claim, or just groups of rogues?"
"Both. They are above all rogues, but they have secret rituals which they use to swear fidelity to the group and to tighten the bonds of brotherhood. Thus, if one of them is taken, the others can be sure that he will never talk. Otherwise he could fall victim to a curse. That, at least, is what they believe."
"What rites do they practise?"
"Ah, if only one could know. Black masses, sacrifices, blood pacts and other such things, probably. But no one has ever seen them. They go into the countryside to do such things in isolated places: deconsecrated chapels, abandoned villas…"
"Are they numerous, here in Rome?"
"They are especially to be found in Rome."
"And why is that?"
"Because the Pope is here. And where there are popes, there's money. What's more, there are the pilgrims to be gulled. And now, there's the Jubilee: more money and more pilgrims."