"I have done nothing, nothing!" he protested, struggling not to let go of an old blanket which he had dragged with him and under which he had probably been sleeping until our arrival.
"What a stink," was Sfasciamonti's only comment as he stood the wretch on his feet like an unfortunate marionette, trembling with somnolence and fear.
The catchpoll grasped the old man's right arm and brought his hand up to his chest. He opened it and passed his fingers over it a few times as though to feel the skin. After this bizarre examination, he announced: "All right, you're clean."
Then, without even giving him the time to complain, he seated him on the cart, this time less roughly, but holding tightly onto his arm.
"Do you see these gentlemen?" said he, pointing to us. "They are persons who have no time to waste. Sometimes, two cerretani sleep here — here, just next to you. I am sure that you know something about them."
The old man said nothing.
"The gentlemen would like to speak with someone from among the cerretani.'"
The old man lowered his eyes and remained silent.
"I am a sergeant. If I want, I can break your arm, lock you in a cell and throw away the key," warned Sfasciamonti.
The old man still kept silent. Then he scratched his head, as though he had just been thinking.
"Il Roscio and Il Marcio?" he asked at last.
"And who else?"
"They come here only from time to time, when they have business to see to. But I don't know what they get up to, no, I know nothing of what they do."
"But you have only to tell me where they are tonight," insisted Sfasciamonti, gripping the other's arm more tightly.
"I do not know. They keep changing."
"I'll break your arm."
"Try at Termine."
Sfasciamonti let go at last of the poor man's arm and the fellow hastened to lay his foul blanket under the cart and return to his wretched sleeping place.
As we moved on horseback to our new goal, the catchpoll explained a few details.
"In summer, many sleep out in that place which we have just left. If their hands are calloused, they are mendicants: people who have worked and fallen on hard times. If there are no calluses, then they're cerretani and have never earned a penny from work."
"So that's why you felt the old man's palm," I deduced.
"Of course, the cerretani like to live a life of ease, by cheating and robbing. Now let us go to Termine and see whether we have better luck there. I have known the names of the pair we seek for quite a while now and I simply cannot wait to get my hands on them."
As he said these words, I saw him try to contain his excitement by rolling up his sleeves. He was preparing for the challenge of encountering the two scoundrels and, even more, that of facing up to his secret fear of the cerretani which was, with every passing day, growing more corrosive and insistent.
Finding Il Marcio and Il Roscio called for an improbable degree of luck. The indication provided by the old man could not have been vaguer: Termine, the enormous space where the agricultural produce from the Agro Romano — the plain surrounding the city-was delivered and stored, and which lay just behind the Baths of Diocletian, was by night as deserted as it was vast. We left the Piazza della Rotonda behind us, moving towards Piazza Colonna, whence we proceeded to the Trevi Fountain and Monte Cavallo. From there, we came to the Four Fountains and crossed the Via Felice, entering Via di Porta Pia which brought us right next to Termine.
Our ride was uneventful, apart from a couple of encounters with the night watch in the vicinity of the papal palace of Monte Cavallo. Sfasciamonti presented his credentials and we were duly permitted to go on our way.
The silence was broken only once, when we drew level with the church of San Carlino, by a question from Atto:
"'Teeyooteelai': was that not what the cerretano said to you?"
"Yes, Signor Atto, why?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing."
On reaching our destination, as expected, the panorama of Termine gave no cause for optimism.
When we turned to the right from Via di Porta Pia, there before us loomed the enormous pile of the Apostolic Chamber's granaries, the great building in which the grain destined for bread production was stored. The warehouses on which the survival of the Roman population depended were in the form of a great S which, for almost half its length, adjoined the colossal bulk of the Baths of Diocletian. The ruins of the baths, eroded both by the elements and by human greed, dominated all of the second half of the Piazza di Termine. Within the ancient thermal complex, removing from their pagan origins what had once been refreshing pools and steam baths, there now stood the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Behind this church, whose rustic and irregular facade had, in the most unusual manner, been built from the outer wall of the baths, stretched the bulky mass of the Roman ruins. To the right, one could just descry in the dark the outer wall of the Villa Peretti Montalto, the immense estate, consisting of vineyards, gardens and manors built with such splendour by the late Pope Sixtus V and, a few years ago, on the passing away of his family, bequeathed to the Princes Savelli. Finally, behind those looking towards the granaries, stood a wall behind which was situated the vegetable garden of the monks of Saint Bernard.
No presence, whether human or otherwise, accompanied our arrival. Apart from the colossal shadows of the baths and granaries and the chirping of the cicadas: nothing. The summer night's air was enlivened by the sweet, pungent odour of wheat.
"What now?" I asked, marvelling at the desolation stretching before my eyes.
Atto said nothing. He seemed to be thinking of something else.
"I have a place in mind," said Sfasciamonti, "and I think it is the right one."
We advanced towards the granaries, the walls returning the rhythmic echo of our horses' hooves. Passing close to a great block of ruins, we found ourselves facing a high, irregularly shaped wall, with a tall unguarded doorway set into it.
"When it is not raining, many come here," said Sfasciamonti in a low voice.
We found a hidden tree to which to which we tethered our horses and at last prepared to enter the ruins.
"I warn you," insisted Sfasciamonti as we dismounted, "the people we are about to meet must not be rubbed up the wrong way. If we encounter anyone, let me do all the talking."
Thick though the silence was, with my senses no doubt deceived by the sinister nature of the place, I was, however, practically certain that I had seen an ironic little smile cross Abbot Melani's face, barely illumined by the crescent moon.
We drew near then to the doorway (now, in truth, nothing but a great gaping gap without any doors) leading inside the ruins. As we entered, in a flash of the imagination, I pictured the grandiose gatherings that must have taken place centuries ago in that place: swarms of sweating patricians, but also plebeians, enjoying the steam baths, the inhalations and ablutions, all under the protective wing of those lofty vapour-filled vaults…
Of vaults: there were none; the roof had collapsed. Hardly had I crossed the threshold of the great portal leading to the ruins than my eyes were drawn upwards by the moonlight, and were amazed to find themselves still under the just, indifferent gaze of the stars.
We were in a sort of great arena open to the sky, bounded on four sides by the massive walls of the ancient baths. Time and neglect had robbed them forever of the covering placed sixteen centuries ago by the zealous efforts of architects and masons.
Thanks to the moonlight, we could make our way cautiously through that alien space without constantly tripping over. Here and there, pearly white in the white sidereal glow, lay huge, indolent blocks of stone, columns painfully cast to the ground, voluble capitals and vainglorious pilasters.