Veritas (Atto Melani) (102 page)

Joseph, even without recognising her, felt newly attracted to Camilla, so much so that he bestowed on her (as we already knew from Gaetano Orsini) his friendship and confidence. In response to
Joseph’s feelings, the young woman composed an oratorio for him once a year for four years in a row, but refused all payment, a mystery that had aroused my suspicions.

Camilla had now explained this: she had been afraid that if her name ended up in the hands of those in charge of making payments from Joseph’s private coffers or from the funds of the
court employees, they would ask her questions about her identity. With the Viennese mania for bureaucratic precision, sooner or later they would find out who she really was.

And so she preferred to support herself by travelling around the villages of Austria and working as a healer with the spelt-based medicine she had learned from her mother, which fortunately
derived from the same ancient tradition that had inspired the holy abbess Hildegard of Bingen centuries earlier. This allowed Camilla to proclaim herself a disciple of Hildegard, concealing her
Eastern origins. She could not practise in Vienna, since the Examiniert und Approbiert, or university licence, was required. In addition, Cardinal Collonitz remained alive until 1707, so it was
better not to show herself too much in the Caesarean city.

At the end of the previous year, 1710, Joseph had asked her to settle in the capital permanently because he needed her advice. Instead of agreeing to be paid she told him that she no longer felt
able to compose and asked permission to enter a convent. His Majesty placed her in Porta Coeli, opposite the young Countess Pálffy. Eugene of Savoy had managed to set the Countess up in
Strassoldo House, close to his own palace, so that he could make use of her to keep tabs on Joseph.

When the Emperor asked her to arrange an oratorio in honour of the Papal Nuncio, she chose, as I already knew, the last one she had composed,
Sant’ Alessio
. What I did not know as
yet was that this oratorio had a special meaning. Camilla had portrayed herself in it: like Alessio, she had returned without anyone recognising her. Who could say whether Camilla – just like
Alessio, who is recognised by his parents and his betrothed only on the point of death – had revealed herself to Joseph in their last encounter? Cloridia told me that her sister had preferred
not to say anything to her; she prayed night and day to overcome her despair.

The young girls portrayed in the heart-shaped pendant were therefore not my daughters, but Cloridia and Camilla as children. The necklace had belonged to their mother – it was one way for
her to fill the void, both daughters having been prematurely snatched from her – and, after her death, it had remained in the home of Girolamo Giudici, Collonitz’s lieutenant.

The previous day, when Atto, Simonis and I had still not returned from the Place with No Name, Cloridia, in her alarm, had turned to the Chormaisterin. Together they had at once set out from the
convent towards Neugebäu by cart, and then, having realised from afar that something strange was going on, Camilla had suggested taking shelter in the buttery that the nuns of Porta Coeli
owned nearby. On the journey, fearing some intrigue of Abbot Melani’s, Cloridia had finally made up her mind to force open the little chest that he had entrusted me with, on condition that I
should not open it before his departure, and which had remained in her hands. And there she had found what she would never have expected: her own portrait as a child, alongside another child that
Camilla instantly recognised as herself. At that point the Chormaisterin had confessed everything. She already knew the whole story: thanks to Atto, of course.

Here my wife’s tale ended. After asking her to repeat it to me four times, I let her go. The silence I fell back into dried my tears and left room for clearer meditation. Everything
slipped gradually into place. The background to Atto’s and Camilla’s acquaintance, for example.

In Paris, in September 1700, Camilla had told Abbot Melani her own story and that of her mother. Knowing about my wife’s past, Atto had realised that the future Chormaisterin and Cloridia
could not but be daughters of the same mother. He had revealed his intuition to Camilla, but had pretended to have no idea where to find Cloridia . . . whereas he had in fact just returned from
Rome, where for ten days he had met my consort almost daily.

As usual, Melani was looking out for his own interests. He did not want Franz de’ Rossi and Camilla to go to Rome, as they would certainly have done if they had heard that Camilla’s
sister was there. After the intrigues in which he had deceived and exploited me, he certainly did not want Cloridia telling her sister all his misdeeds. Atto would much rather that Franz and
Camilla went back to Vienna, where they could be very useful to him, since the war for the Spanish succession was about to break out. It had not been difficult to find the arguments to persuade
them to remain in the Empire: as Camilla had reported, he had told them that Vienna was the real centre of Italian music, the papacy being in decline, France impoverished by the crazy expenses of
battles and ballets, and the golden age of Cardinal Mazarin long over.

He had backed up his arguments with a white lie: he had said that he was indebted to me and Cloridia (true), and that for this reason he was trying to trace us (false, he knew perfectly well
where to find us: he had just abandoned us at Villa Spada). Finally he had promised Camilla that he would inform her of any progress in his search. In this way he had found a pretext to remain in
contact with Camilla and Franz, in case he should need some favour in Vienna.

And this was yet another of the various reasons that had driven Atto finally to settle his debt, making the bequest to me through a notary in Vienna: he wanted to put an end to the separation
between the two sisters once and for all, and make Camilla meet Cloridia. However, he had interposed another difficulty: he did not want the Chormaisterin to reveal herself to my wife before Atto
himself had left Vienna. “I don’t want to be thanked,” he had said to Camilla with false modesty. The reason was very different: he feared my wife’s rage, once she
discovered that for eleven years Atto had kept them apart.

The old Abbot had hoped to depart from Vienna before the revelation. But events had prevented him from secretly setting off and abandoning us, as he had done in Rome eleven years ago, and
twenty-eight years earlier, when I had first met him. At any other moment I would have assailed him with a barrage of accusations, questions and reprimands; but not now. Even if I wished to,
without the gift of speech I could not. It was better this way: Cloridia, touched by the old castrato’s flimsy subterfuges, had readily forgiven him.

Cloridia’s account also dispelled the last cloud that hung over Atto. We now knew the meaning of the phrase I had heard the Armenian say to Melani, that the house servants had “sold
their master’s heart”: it simply meant that, via the Armenian, Atto had commissioned the theft of the heart-shaped pendant at great expense! It had nothing to do with the Emperor, or
with the Agha’s Armenians.

I laughed wryly to myself at the tangled web that had had me going round in round in circles, amid deliberately created red herrings and misleading clues, while behind my back the whole world
was about to be turned upside down: earth would become water, water earth and the sky fire.

Finally the sound that deadened all thoughts for me faded away and I heard no more than a distant echo. I dozed off.

When I re-awoke I found Atto sitting in an armchair by my bed. Our destinies were now more closely linked than ever. As Vienna had nothing more to offer us, Atto would take us back with him to
Paris. Just a few years earlier he would never have made so generous an offer, but now he had come to the end of his life and intended to die in God’s grace and so was happy to do so. He had
persuaded Cloridia to accept the offer: he would pay us handsomely to enter his service, and he would see to it that our son received a suitable education.

“I’m sure that I’ll soon manage to persuade the Most Christian King to let me go back to Pistoia; then you and your family will come with me,” he had announced.

I had not seen Camilla again. Where had she ended up? I looked at Cloridia and I caressed her damp cheeks, unable to console her. She had found a sister again, flesh of her flesh. But she had
lost the husband she knew. She now had another one; less satisfying, less cheerful, less able to show his love for her, but highly determined. I already felt within me a growing desire to take up a
sword, a very special sword. Soon the time would come.

While the thoughts and reconstructions of the recent past filled my brain, Vienna plunged into sadness. If Joseph had still been alive, that Saturday it would have been the turn
for us artisans and traders, with our respective apprentices, to recite the prayer of the Forty Hours. A very different ceremony awaited us: instead of this oration, we would queue up to go and
honour his dead body. We had heard it from the sisters of Porta Coeli: the poor mangled body of His Caesarean Majesty, embalmed by the court chirurgeons, lay ready for the funeral wake on a bier in
that part of the royal palace called Ritterstube, or Loggia of the Cavaliers. That evening the wake would be inaugurated, but only for the members of the high nobility, who every hour throughout
the night and the next few days would follow one another two by two in paying their last respects to their dead Ceasar. From the next day the body would be displayed to the people as well, who
would swarm into the Loggia of the Cavaliers and would be able to keep watch over the bier from the four altars erected for the occasion until the evening of 20th April, when the exequies would be
held.

And at last I learned where Camilla had ended up. Every day between the hours of ten and eleven and eighteen and nineteen the court musicians would sing Psalm 50 in Latin before the imperial
corpse. By express order of Joseph, who in full possession of his faculties had arranged everything before the end, the exequies would be conducted by the Chormaisterin.

At Atto’s request, Camilla had agreed to take him with her and she had just come back to pick him up. While the Abbot prepared to take his leave of me I made my resistance clear: how could
I fail to attend this last appointment with the Emperor I had seen die? I got out of bed, shaking off Cloridia’s amorous embrace, put on my best clothes and, rejecting my wife’s
warnings with dumb obstinacy, I joined the Chormaisterin and Abbot Melani.

While we were waiting for Camilla to come back with the carriage (he did not want to walk even a few paces), Atto forestalled the question I would have liked to ask him, and which he had seen in
my eyes:

“No, there is no risk in my showing myself. The plan of those damned souls has succeeded, the Emperor is dead. And after a state murder, the conspirators – killers and hirers –
always disappear. The system withdraws into itself; some go away, like Eugene, others remain in hiding to monitor the situation, but the general rule is: for two to four days do not act in any way,
do nothing at all. They will see that we go and watch over the body, but they will not intervene. They know that we can no longer do anything.”

In the Loggia of the Cavaliers, which was decked out for mourning and illuminated by countless candles, archers and trabants mounted guard over the funeral bier. It was placed on three steps and
ornamented with stuccos in burnished gold. Above it hung a baldachin in black velvet with silk fringes.

His Caesarean Majesty was perfect. He lay just where he had so often received visits and honours, and presided over numerous events and ceremonies during his brief life. His clothing and cloak
were in black silk and lacework of the same colour. On his head was a tawny wig and a black hat, by his side a dagger and around his neck a small emblem of the Golden Fleece. The sarcophagus was
spangled with crimson velvet and also ornamented with stuccos in burnished gold. His head lay on a double cushion. The embalmer had worked well. I was struck by the absence of smallpox pimples on
his face: the result of his skill or a sign of foul play?