I saw him rise briefly from the nest lovingly to arrange the surviving eggs with his beak. The hunters who had examined the egg that had fallen from that pine tree were all mistaken: it belonged neither to a riparian swallow nor to a pheasant, nor to a turtle dove or a partridge, but to a parrot.
"Doiiiiinnnnng," went Caesar Augustus, with a pair of accusing eyes, imitating the sound of a crossbow bolt embedding itself in a branch and making it vibrate: the same bolt which, shot by Marchese Lancellotti Ginetti during the hunting party, had caused Caesar Augustus's egg to fall from its nest and had obviously forced him to abandon the pine on the Barberini property for the relative safety of the familiar aviary of Villa Spada.
"I know, I know, for you it must have been quite terrible," I answered.
"One does not shoot at nests, it is both pointless and cruel," said he, repeating the words of the cavalier who, immediately after the incident, had derided Lancellotti Ginetti's bad shooting.
"Lancellotti did not mean to harm you," I tried to explain to him. "Of course, building a new nest and transporting your eggs must have been a terribly difficult job; but, after all, it was only an accident, and you shouldn't have imitated that arquebus shot that so terrified all…"
"Dismiss him!" he replied sharply, descending to cover with loving wings the little whitish spheres containing his brood.
Don Paschatio and the others at the Spada household would never have believed their eyes. I could already imagine the rush to find some other noble Latin name for the fowclass="underline" Livia or Lucretia, Poppea or Messalina? I had known that bird for so long that I had come to treat him almost as an equal, from one male to another. Instead, I had really been dealing with a scornful, rebellious, intractable lady clothed in feathers. I felt almost guilty for having developed these all but comradely feelings; the only extenuating factor was the fact that it is, as is well known, almost impossible to determine the sex of a parrot visually or by touch. To solve the mystery, the only possibility is to wait until, once the right company has been found, it lays eggs or becomes the vigorous defender of the nest.
After a few more moments of stunned surprise, I recovered my aplomb.
"If I know you, I'm prepared to bet that, in addition to the eggs, you transported something else. Do you not have a certain something to return to me, now that you have calmed down?"
He continued to turn his back on me, pretending not to hear.
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about," I insisted.
The bird acted swiftly and apparently with utter unconcern, almost scornfully. With one foot, it scratched inside the nest, extracted it and let it fall. My request had been granted.
Like any other dead leaf, Cardinal Albani's message fluttered crazily down, making a few graceful pirouettes until my hands grasped it.
It was dirty, torn and stank of birds' droppings. How could it have been otherwise, seeing that the parrot, after sating itself chewing the corner dipped in chocolate, had used it for its nest? And, stubborn as he was, after building a nest inside the aviary, he had not failed to bring it with him.
With eager fingers, I opened the scrap of yellow paper. There were just three lines, but they rent my already lacerated soul even more:
Opinion ready.
Wednesday 14th at the Villa T, time to be confirmed.
Arrangements already made for scribe and courier.
My arms grew heavy and fell by my sides. What for anyone else would have been mysterious was for me as clear as daylight and as painful as a fiery arrow.
The Villa T. was obviously the Villa del Torre, where in fact on Wednesday 14th Atto and I had, from the terrace on top of the Vessel, seen the three cardinals. The ready opinion was clearly the document to be copied by the scribe and sent by courier to the King of Spain, whereby the Pope was indicating an heir to the throne.
As I already knew from what I had overheard just before the play at Villa Spada, on Monday 12th the Spanish Ambassador Uzeda and the three cardinals (those four "sly foxes", as they had called them) had convinced the Pope to set up a special congregation to be entrusted to the same Albani, Spada and Spinola. The Pontiff had formally created it two days later, on the 14th July. However, they had already made their decision even on the day when the message was stolen by the parrot, namely Saturday 10th!
It had all been a great sham. If the King of Spain was a dead man walking, the Pope too no longer counted for anything. Albani, Spada and Spinola had dictated the destiny of the world from the Villa Spada, between a cup of chocolate and a hunting party, without anyone knowing anything of it. Atto, the vigilant eye of the King of France, had kept an eye on them from a distance; and I, without knowing it, had seconded him.
Instilling in me a desperate feeling of impotence, Albicastro's words came back to mind: "The world is one enormous banquet, my boy, and the law of banquets is: 'Drink or begone!'"
Would I then never have any other choice? Did the authority invested by God no longer count for anything?
Autumn 1700
About a month had passed since Atto Melani and his secretary had abandoned me. Day after day of hatred, fury and powerlessness had followed. Every night, every single breath had been marked out in seconds by the remorseless clock of humiliation, injured honour and frustration. Perhaps it was no accident that I was tormented by that nasty tertian fever from which I had not suffered for years. It had consoled me little that, about a month before, a notary had come to Villa Spada in search of Atto: he said that the Abbot had instructed him to draw up an act of endowment but had failed to turn up to the appointment at which he was to sign it. Now I had the confirmation: Melani had not premeditated breaking his promise; simply, the instinct to flee had in extremis got the better of him.
Cloridia was sorry for me; despite her anger and humiliation as a mother at being denied her daughters' dowry, she was soon able even to make light of it all. She said that Melani had just been doing his job as a spy and a traitor.
Obviously, I had never set my hand to the memoir for which the Abbot had paid me. He was not really interested in it. I had thought thus to keep the money as partial compensation for the dowry he had failed to make over to my little ones. On 27th September, however, I did take up my pen, impelled by an event the gravity of which put my selfish suffering in the shade. I began to keep a little diary, which I am setting out below.
21th September 1100
The sad day is upon us: Innocent XII has passed away.
On the last day of August he had suffered an alarming relapse, so much so that the Consistory planned for the next day had to be postponed. On 4th September (as I had gradually come to learn from the broadsheets which the Major-Domo read out to the servants) his health had improved, and, with that, hopes had revived for his recovery. Three days later, however, his state again worsened, this time seriously. Yet his constitution was so strong that the illness lasted even longer. On the night of the 23rd and the 24th he was administered the Eucharist. On the 28th, he ordered that he was to be brought to the room where Pope Innocent XI, whom he had so revered, had breathed his last.
The physician Luca Corsi, no whit less capable than his illustrious predecessor Malpighi, had done all in his power. Human assistance was, however, no longer of any avail. Spiritual support was provided by a Capuchin friar to whom the Pope made his general confession.
"Ingredimur via universae carnis", "we are taking the way of all flesh," said he, moving to tears those who accompanied him in his extreme travail.