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And thus absorbed I lost sight (and only later was 1 to realise this) of how bizarre was all that inveighing against merchants by a mer­chant's daughter, and above all how unexpected those protestations of horror for lucre in the mouth of a courtesan.

And in addition to being blind to such strange behaviour, I was almost deaf, too, to the rhythmic drumming of Cristofano's knuckles on Cloridia's door. She, however, responded promptly to his courte­ous request to enter and invited the physician in. He had sought me everywhere. He needed my help in preparing a decoction: Brenozzi was complaining of a great pain in the jaw and had requested a rem­edy. Thus was I unwillingly snatched away from my first colloquy with the only feminine guest of the Donzello.

We at once took leave of one another. With the eyes of hope I strove to discover in her countenance some trace of sadness at our separation, and that despite my descrying—as I was closing the door—the most horrible scar on her wrist, which disfigured her al­most as far as the back of her hand.

Cristofano brought me down to the kitchen, where he instructed me to find a number of seeds, herbs and a new candle. He then made me heat a cooking pot with a little water while he reduced the in­gredients to powder and sieved them, and when the water was hot enough, we put in the fine mixture which immediately gave off a most agreeable aroma. While I was preparing the fire for the decoction,

I asked him whether it was true, as I had heard say, that I could use white wine also for cleaning and whitening my teeth.

"Of course, and you would attain a good, indeed, a perfect result, if you only were to use it as a mouth-wash. If, however, you should mix it with white clay, you would see a very fine effect which will greatly please the young ladies. You must rub it into the teeth and gums, ideally with a piece of scarlet such as that over Cloridia's bed, on which you were sitting."

I feigned not to have noticed the double allusion and hastened to change the subject, asking Cristofano if he had ever heard tell of his Tuscan compatriots, such as the Calandrini, the Burlamacchi, the Tensini, and others (although in reality there were a couple of names which I could not recall without distorting them). And, while he or­dered me to put the mixture of herbs and wax into the cooking pot, Cristofano replied that, yes, some of those names were quite well known in Tuscany. They were, however, all so bound up with trade with Holland, where they had bought lands, villas and palaces, that in Tuscany they were known as the
infiamengati
—the new Flemings. Some had made their fortune, had married into and had become kinsmen of noble families of that country; others were crushed under the weight of their debts and of them no more news had been heard. Others had died in ships that had sunk among the Arctic ice floes of Archangel or in the waters of Malabar. Others had eventually grown rich, and at an advanced age had preferred to return to their own land, where they were accorded well-merited honours: like Francesco Feroni, a poor dyer from Empoli, who had begun by trading with Guinea old sheets, bright buntings from Delft, cotton canvas, Venetian beads, quantities of spir­its, Spanish wines and strong beer. With his trade, he had grown so rich that in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany he was famous even before his return home, also for having served as an excellent ambassador of the Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici, in the United Provinces. When at length he did decide to return to Tuscany, the Grand Duke himself had him appointed his Depositary-General, thus arousing the envy of all Florence. Feroni had brought back conspicuous wealth to Tuscany, and had purchased a splendid villa in the country of Bellavista, and despite all the evil that the Florentines could say of him, he could count himself fortunate to have returned to his home country and have escaped all dangers.

"Such as going down with one's ship?"

"Not only that, my boy! Certain trades involve enormous risks."

I should have liked to ask him what he meant, but the decoction was ready and Cristofano told me to bring it to Brenozzi in his little chamber on the second floor. Following the doctor's instructions, I recommended the Venetian to inhale the steam while it was still hot, with his mouth wide open: after such a treatment, his jaw would hurt far less or not at all. Afterwards, Brenozzi was to leave the cooking pot outside his door for collection. Thanks to his toothache, I was spared his garrulousness. Thus I could return at once to the kitchen to resume my conversation with the physician before he regained his apartment. It was, however, Abbot Melani whom I found there.

I struggled to hide my consternation. The brief time I had spent with Cloridia, concluding with the disquieting vision of her martyred wrist, together with her singular diatribe against merchants, made me feel a desperate need to interrogate Cristofano further. The doc­tor, however, following his own prescription, had prudently regained his chamber without waiting for me. And now Atto Melani, whom I found rummaging carelessly in the pantry, had come to oppress my thoughts yet further. I pointed out to him that his disobedience of the physician's instructions endangered all of us and it would be my duty to advise Cristofano; it was, moreover, not yet time for sup­per and I would in any case soon be busy preparing the wherewithal to satisfy the appetite of our honourable guests, if only (and here I cast a meaningful eye on the slice of bread which Melani held in his hand)... if only I could dispose freely of the larder.

Abbot Melani tried to conceal his own embarrassment, and re­plied that he had been looking for me to tell me certain things which were on his mind, but I cut him off and told him that I was tired of having to listen to him when we were all obviously in dire danger, nor did I yet know what he really wanted or was looking for, and I did not wish to be party to goings-on of which I did not understand the purpose and that the time had now come for him to explain himself and to dispel all possible doubts, for I had heard gossip concerning him which did not do him honour, and before placing myself at his service, I demanded adequate explanations.

The meeting with Cloridia must have endowed me with new and fresh talents, for my audacious discourse seemed to catch Abbot Melani utterly unprepared. He said he was surprised that someone in the hostelry should think that he could dare dishonour him without paying the price and demanded, without great conviction, that I reveal the name of that insolent fellow.

He then swore that he in no way intended to abuse of my services and affected utter astonishment: had I perhaps forgotten that he and I together were seeking to discover the unknown thief of Pellegri­no's keys and of my little pearls? And indeed, before all that, was it not urgently necessary that we should understand if there was any connection between those events and the assassination of Monsieur de Mourai, and how all that related—if indeed there were any rela­tion—to the misadventures which had befallen my master and the young Bedfordi? Did I no longer fear, he reproved me, for the lives of us all?

Despite the unstoppable flow of his words, it was clear to me that the abbot was becoming muddled.

Encouraged by the success of my sudden sally, I interrupted him impatiently and, with a corner of my heart still turning towards Cloridia, I demanded that Melani explain to me instantly what had brought him to Rome and what his intentions were.

While I felt my pulse pounding hard in my temples and mentally wiped the sweat from my brow at the audacity of my claims, I was utterly taken aback by the reaction of Abbot Melani. Instead of re­jecting the arrogant pretensions of a mere apprentice, his expression changed suddenly and with all simplicity and courtesy he invited me to sit down in a corner of the kitchen so that he could satisfy my just demands. Once we had taken our places, the abbot began to describe to me a series of circumstances which, although they seemed fantas­tic, I must, in the light of what later transpired, take to be true or at least to possess the appearance of truth, and these I shall therefore report as faithfully as possible.

Abbot Melani began by saying that in the last days of August, Col­bert had fallen gravely ill, and was soon so close to death that it was feared this might follow within days. As happens on such occasions, in other words when a statesman who is the repository of many se­crets is approaching the end of his life on earth, Colbert's house in the Richelieu quarter suddenly became the object of the most varied visits, some disinterested, others less so. Among the latter was that of Atto himself, who, thanks to the excellent references which he enjoyed from no less than his Most Christian Majesty in person, had been able without great difficulty to gain access to the four walls of the minister's home. There, the great coming and going of persons of the court calling to pay their last tribute to the dying man (or simply to show their faces) had enabled the abbot to slip quietly out of an antechamber and, circumventing the already lax surveillance, to en­ter the private apartments of the master of the house. Here he had in truth twice come close to being discovered by the servants as he hid behind an arras or under a table.

Somehow escaping discovery, he had in the end entered Col­bert's study where, at last feeling himself to be safe, he had begun to rummage hastily among the letters and documents which were most readily and rapidly accessible. Twice, he had been compelled to break off his inspection, alarmed by the passage of strangers in the nearby corridor. The documents over which he had been able to cast a swift glance seemed practically devoid of interest: correspondence with the Ministry for War, affairs of the navy, letters concerning the Manufactures of France, appointments, accounts, minutes; nothing out of the ordinary. Then, once again he had heard through the door the approach of other visitors. He could not risk the bruiting abroad of the news that Abbot Melani had been surprised taking advantage of Colbert's illness to go clandestinely through the minister's papers. He had therefore confusedly grabbed and slipped into his breeches a few bunches of correspondence and notes piled in the drawers of the desk and the cabinets, to which he had without great difficulty found the keys.

"But had you permission to do this?"

"To ensure the King's security, every act is permitted," the abbot retorted drily.

He was already scrutinising the shady corridor before leaving the study (for his visit, the abbot had chosen the late afternoon, so as to be able to count on the declining light) when, through the corner of his eye, intuition caused him to catch sight of a small chest in an ob­scure recess half-hidden by the draperies of a heavy curtain and the massive flank of an ebony cupboard.

It lay under a considerable pile of white sheets of paper, on top of which balanced an imposing lectern with a richly carved foot; and on that lectern, a folder tied with a brand-new cord.

"It seemed as yet untouched," explained Atto.

Indeed, Colbert's illness, a violent renal colic, had peaked only a few weeks earlier. For several days, it was said that he had no longer attended to any business; this meant that the folder might still be waiting to be read. The decision was made in a flash: he put down all that he had taken and took the folder with him. Hardly had he picked it up, however, than his eyes again alighted on the pile of blank sheets of paper, deformed by the weight of the lectern

'"A fine place to leave writing paper,' I muttered to myself, attrib­uting such a
betise
to the usual careless servant."

Taking the lectern under his left arm, the abbot tried to look through the still virgin sheets of paper, in case some interesting docu­ment should be hidden there. Nothing. It was paper of excellent quality, smooth and heavy. He did, however, find that some leaves had been cut in a way that was as accurate as it was singular: they all had the same form, like a star with irregular points.

"I thought at first that this might be some senile mania of the
Coluber.
Then I noticed that some of these papers bore marks of rubbing and, on the edge of one of the points, slight striations of what appeared to be black grease. I was still puzzling this over," continued Atto, "when I noticed that the great weight of the lectern was making my arm stiff. I decided to put it down on the writing desk when I remarked with horror that a corner of the delicate lace of my cuffs had been caught in a crudely fashioned joint of the lectern."

When the abbot succeeded in freeing the lace, it bore traces of black grease.

"Ah, you presumptuous little snake-in-the-grass, did you think you could deceive me?" thought Melani with a flash of sudden insight.

And swiftly he picked up one of the still new paper stars. Study­ing it carefully, he placed it on top of one of the used ones, turning it quickly until he could see which was the right point. Then he inserted it in the joint of the lectern. Nothing happened. Nervously, he tried again: still nothing. By then, the star was already crumpled and he had to take another one. This time, he inserted it in the joint with the greatest of care, holding his ear close to the operation, like a master clockmaker listening for the first tick of the mechanism he has returned to new life. And it was precisely a slight click that the abbot heard as soon as the tip of the paper reached the extremity of the slot: one end of the foot of the lectern had sprung open like a drawer, revealing a small cavity. In it lay an envelope bearing the ef­figy of a serpent.