Veritas (Atto Melani) (90 page)

I threw it onto the ground impatiently and went on to read the pamphlet which accompanied the gazette. However, it only brought news from places that were distant and wholly unknown to me, like
Mietavia, capital of a certain Duchy of Curlandia. Right at the end I found the latest news from Vienna:

The Most August Emperor having been ill with Smallpox since Wednesday, Prayers have been ordained and published since Sunday . . .

Things I already knew. I read on:

These days have seen the departure for the Low Countries by Postal Diligence of the Caesarean General Sergeant Count Gundacchero of Althan.

So Count Althan had already set off: which made it all the stranger that Prince Eugene was still lingering here. Perhaps the next day he really would leave, as he had announced.

That was the end of the Viennese news. I looked at the page again: there was something odd, like a false or missing note. Missing? Of course! The news of the Augustinian monk arrested for murder
and rape! The Italian newspaper said nothing about it.

“Cloridia! The Diary of Vienna! Where’s the Diary of Vienna?” I exclaimed, leaping from my chair.

“Here it is, here it is!” my consort said, pointing to the table by my side, where she always placed the paper that she bought at the Red Porcupine.

I could not find the news in the German-language gazette either.

Penicek had told me the previous day that it was on everyone’s lips and he was surprised we knew nothing about it. But there was not a word about it in the gazettes. I went over to
Cloridia, who had started brushing my work clothes and asked if she had heard anything about it, but she shook her head and looked surprised: at the palace of the Most Serene Prince they were
usually the first to hear every little item of gossip – and if a monk had been arrested . . .! That was not the only thing. She had not heard a word about the serious crimes he was supposed
to have committed either.

“Odd!” remarked my wife. “Who told you about it?”

“Penicek.”

“Ah.”

“Do you think he invented it, perhaps to . . .?”

At that moment, from the pocket of the trousers Cloridia was holding, fell a small object. It was the little box Atto had given to me.

“What is it?” asked Cloridia, retrieving it.

I told her that, according to Abbot Melani, it contained the explanation of his meeting with the Armenian. However, he had made me promise not to open it before he left Vienna.

“And suppose it were empty?” she objected.

I felt myself turn pale. I shook it slightly. An object of some sort rattled within. I heaved a sigh of relief.

“All right, the Abbot has put something inside,” she admitted. “But are you really sure that it will explain his meeting with the Armenian? Maybe it’s just a
pebble.”

I was on tenterhooks.

“I’m tempted to open it,” I said.

“You’d be breaking your word.”

“So what should I do?” I asked disconsolately.

“I’m almost sure your Abbot was sincere, this time. I’ve still got a few doubts, I’ll admit, but the moment you suspect anything you can always force it open.”

I was sitting in my usual place in the Caesarean chapel: it was time for the rehearsal of
Sant’ Alessio.
This evening the orchestra was playing with more
intensity of purpose than usual, the performance of the oratorio being imminent.

After Ugonio’s tragicomic death – may he rest with God – the musicians had turned back into the innocent artists I had always really believed them to be. And yet I looked at
Camilla de’ Rossi’s back as she waved her arm to coax a more intense vibrato from the violins, or a gentler muttering from the violas, and I asked myself some questions.

Why had she lied about Anton de’ Rossi? Rossis are not necessarily all related to one another, she had said. But the ex-chamberlain of Cardinal Collonitz was indeed related to her deceased
husband Franz. Cardinal Collonitz was the same man who years ago had baptised the Turkish girl who had been rejected by the nuns of Porta Coeli; it was Camilla herself who had told us about it.
Franz and Anton de’ Rossi, Franz and Camilla, Anton de’ Rossi and Collonitz, but also Collonitz and Porta Coeli, and finally Porta Coeli and Camilla. What logic, if any, lay concealed
amid all this tangle?

And why on earth, as I had been told by Gaetano Orsini (whom I only now knew to be harmless and therefore trustworthy), had the Chormaisterin never let herself be paid for the work she did for
the Emperor? People who do not work for money, I argued, receive some other kind of recompense. What was hers? When Joseph had asked her to give up her job as a healer with spelt, she was no longer
able to support herself and, rather than get paid for her musical compositions, she had asked His Caesarean Majesty to be allowed to stay at the convent of Porta Coeli, which was more like a
punishment than a recompense.

Years earlier, Camilla and her husband Franz had arrived in the distant capital of the Kingdom of France to meet . . . Atto Melani. Was the journey undertaken for the purpose of meeting the
pupil of Seigneur Luigi – or the spy of the Most Christian King? Could one really believe that Camilla had nothing to do with the shady dealings in which Atto had always been entangled? I
noticed that Cloridia was looking at me gloomily: she knew my cogitations and shared them, but her heart wavered between them and her affection for the Chormaisterin.

From the mouth of the soprano, the plump Maria Landini whom I had believed just the previous day to be capable of the vilest crimes, Alessio’s spouse mellifluously sang the wonders of
love:

No, it was not possible. It was clear that behind Camilla’s fabrications something lay hidden. I observed the Chormaisterin as she conducted, and I pondered.

As I heard the soprano’s words on the eternal flame of the passions, I told myself that doubt is just like love, a flame that torments and blazes incessantly. My
perplexities about the Chormaisterin’s musicians had vanished. But my burning doubts about this woman grew more painful by the hour. Porta Coeli and Camilla had been the starting point of my
stay in Vienna. Now, after a thousand bloody adventures, everything seemed to lead back to the convent and to the enigmatic composer.

With regard to the students’ deaths, we no longer had any clue to follow. But with regard to the Emperor’s mysterious illness there were still far too many questions left unanswered:
what bound Camilla to Joseph the Victorious? What recompense did the Chormaisterin expect for the service she was rendering His Caesarean Majesty?

I could not say why, but I felt that the next day would bring a little light to my intellect, now befuddled by the bewildering labyrinth of events.

Day the Eighth
T
HURSDAY
, 16
^TH
A
PRIL
1711

The next day it was again impossible to shake Abbot Melani from his slumber. At dawn I returned to his rooms, and Domenico tried to prevent me from even entering, protesting
that his uncle was in no fit condition. I did not give up, and after a short argument I managed to force my way in and approach his bed.

Unfortunately Atto’s nephew was right: on account of the previous day’s excessive exertions, and above all the emotions aroused, the Abbot was in an almost catatonic state. I managed
to wake him and speak to him for a minute or two, but all I got was a dazed stare and a few muttered words. Even though I knew that Domenico would be listening to my words, I tried to communicate
to Atto the gist of my most recent conversation with Cloridia: in all probability the Turks had arrived in Vienna with intents that were far from evil. Indeed, they wished to collaborate in healing
the Emperor, and so his theorem was wrong, his suspicions about Eugene unfounded. But it was no use. After a while Atto closed his eyes again and turned away from me. Domenico, vexed and worried by
my insistence, all but kicked me out.

Back in my rooms, I received the expected summons from the imperial chamber: that afternoon my assistant and I were to meet the authorities at the Place with No Name, where we would dictate a
report on the events that had taken place there and sign it.

Meanwhile Cloridia had returned in great agitation after a brief excursion.

“The Most Serene Prince’s carriage has left his palace. He has set off for the front again,” she announced gravely.

The man who had plagued our thoughts for over a week was returning to his old job: the outer struggle against the French enemy, and the inner one between Dog Nose, Madame l’Ancienne and
the Captain of Death.

But we had a job to do. It was almost seven o’clock: time for our appointment with Opalinski.

It was a short journey, but it was at once interrupted by a wholly unexpected encounter.

“Eh, Italian chimney-sweep! Stop, wait!” a familiar voice addressed me.

At first I did not recognise him. His head was bandaged, and he was leaning on a stick. As he came towards me I thought I was seeing a ghost.

“Frosch!” I exclaimed.

If he was not a ghost, the keeper of the Place with No Name had risked becoming one. Ceaselessly rubbing the bandages on his head, he told us what had happened when the animals went on the
rampage and held us hostage in the ball stadium. While we were working in the mansion of Neugebäu, Frosch was in his usual place close to the animal cages. After which, as often happens in the
case of sudden assaults, he could remember nothing. All he knew was that someone (it was impossible to say whether it was just one person or several) had taken him by surprise and bludgeoned him.
He had remained unconscious for an indefinite period. He had only woken when Pup had licked his face with his trunk.

“Pup?”

“Yes,” answered Frosch, as if that pet name were the most obvious thing in the world for the elephant, probably hoping we would ask no questions about the secret he had kept all that
time within the walls of the mansion.

When he re-awoke, the keeper went on, he had taken stock of the disaster, which could only have been caused deliberately. Weaving his way miraculously among the maddened animals in the drenching
rain, his blood-soaked head throbbing painfully, the keeper had managed to bar all the exits from the Place with No Name, after which he had asked at the nearest farm for help.

Frosch recounted the whole story in great detail, speaking slowly and peppering his speech with frequent curses. He was still in pain and had clearly been drawing frequently on his bottle of
Slibowitz schnaps. It was growing very late, but there was no way to get the befuddled keeper of the Place with No Name to be more succinct.