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"Sooner or later, we all make the mistake of trusting the wrong person," said he, silencing me with a grimace. "And besides, you have already heard how the Superintendent always trusted his friends too much," he added, shivering a little at his own words. "If, however, you have a taste for doubts, I have a far greater one: when he is bled tonight, the Pope will be infected by Tiracorda's leeches and will die of the pestilence. Why? Only because the Odescalchi did not help Dulcibeni to find his daughter?"

"So, what are you saying?"

"Are you not struck by how flimsy a motive this is for taking the life of a Pontiff?"

"Well,yes, indeed..."

"It amounts to so little, so very little," repeated Atto, "and I have the impression that Dulcibeni must have some other motive for so bold an undertaking. Just now, however, I cannot go beyond that."

While we two were thus reflecting, Ugonio and Ciacconio were also deep in discussion. In the end, Ugonio stood up, as though im­patient to be on his way.

"Concerning the matter of mortal risks, how did you manage to save yourself from the wreck of our bark on the Cloaca Maxima?" he asked the
corpisantaro.

"Sacramentum of salvage, this was done by Baronio."

"Baronio? And who would that be?"

Ugonio looked at us with solemn mien, as though he were about to make a grave announcement: "When and wheresoever, he intervenerates to salvage a personable acquaintance in emergentitious ne­cessity," said he, while his companion invited us with a series of pulls and pushes to rise and follow him.

Thus, guided by the
corpisantari,
we again set out in the direction of conduit C.

After a few minutes' march, Ugonio and Ciacconio suddenly stopped. We had entered the first part of the gallery, and I seemed to hear a discreet rustling sound grow closer and closer. I became aware, too, of a strong, disagreeable, bestial stench.

Suddenly, Ugonio and Ciacconio bowed down, as though to wor­ship an invisible deity. From the thick darkness of the gallery, I could just descry a number of greyish outlines, jumping up and down.

"Gfrrrlubh," proffered Ciacconio, deferentially.

"Baronio, of all the
corpisantari
, Excellentissimus, Caporal and Conducentor," announced Ugonio solemnly.

That the people of darkness who formed the
corpisantari
might be fairly numerous was doubtless foreseeable; but that it should be guided by a recognised chief to whom the stinking mass of seekers after relics accorded prestige, authority and quasi-thaumaturgical powers—that, we really had not expected.

And yet here was the novelty which now faced us. The mysteri­ous Baronio had come to meet us, almost as though he had sensed our approach, surrounded by a dense group of followers. They were a motley crowd—if one can use the word motley for shades only of grey and of brown—composed of individuals not too dissimilar to Ugonio and Ciacconio: attired at best in miserable and dusty cloaks, their hands and faces concealed by cowls and over-long sleeves, the acolytes of Ugonio, Ciacconio and Baronio formed the most fright­ful rabble conceivable to the mind of man. The penetrating stench which I had smelled before the meeting was no more and no less than the clarion call that heralded their coming.

Baronio stepped forward. He could be distinguished by the fact that he was slightly taller than those who accompanied him.

Hardly had we met, however, than there occurred something unforeseeable: the head of the
corpisantari
made a rapid withdrawal and two of his stunted adepts instantly stepped in to form a shield before him. Hedgehog-like, the entire assembly of
corpisantari
formed into a phalanx, emitting a rumble of mistrustful mutterings.

"Gfrrrlubh," then spoke forth Ciacconio, and suddenly the group appeared to lower their guard.

"You scarified Baronio: he misbegot you for a daemunculus sub-terraneus," said Ugonio, "but I did reinsure him, and can conswear, that you are a goodlious comrade-in-harms."

The head of the
corpisantari
had taken me for one of those little demons which—according to their bizarre beliefs—inhabit the subterranean darkness and whom the searchers after relics have never seen but of whose existence they are horribly certain. Ugonio ex­plained to me that such beings, who were said to inhabit the vast regions under the ground, had been amply described by Nicephorus, Caspar Schott, Fortunius Licetus, Johannes Eusebius Nierembergius and by Kircher himself, who broadly discussed the nature and cus­toms of the
daemunculi subterranei,
as well as of the Cyclops, the giants, pygmies, monopods, tritons, sirens, satyrs, cynocephali and acephaii (or dog-headed and headless beings).

Now, however, there was nothing to be feared. Ugonio and Ciac­conio stood guarantors for me and for Atto. The other
corpisantari
were therefore presented to us, answering (although my memory may betray me) to such appellations as Gallonio, Stellonio, Marronio, Salonio, Plafonio, Scacconio, Grufonio, Polonio, Svetonio and Antonio.

"Such an honour," said Atto, restraining his ironic disgust only with the greatest of difficulty.

Ugonio explained that it was Baronio who had guided the group which came to his assistance when our little bark had capsized, leav­ing us at the mercy of the Cloaca Maxima. Now, too, the head of the
corpisantari
had mysteriously perceived (by virtue, perhaps, of the same miraculous olfactory sensibility possessed by Ciacconio, or of other out-of-the-ordinary faculties) that Ugonio wished to meet him, and he had come to the encounter from the deep bowels of the earth; or perhaps, more simply, from the trapdoor which led into the underground tunnels from the Pantheon.

The
corpisantari
seemed to be united by bonds of brotherhood and Christian solidarity. Through the mediation of a cardinal with a passionate interest in relics, they had informally petitioned the Pope for the right to form an arch-confraternity; but the Pontiff had ("strangefully", commented Ugonio) failed as yet to respond to that request.

"They rob, they deceive, they smuggle, and then they behave like so many church mice," Atto whispered to me.

Ugonio then fell silent, leaving the floor to Baronio. At last the uninterrupted bustling of the
corpisantari
—perennially intent upon scratching, scraping away dead skin and scurf, coughing and spitting, and toothlessly chewing away at invisible and disgusting aliments— ceased.

Baronio puffed up his chest, pointed severely upwards and, point­ing a clawed index heavenward, declaimed: "Gfrrrlubh!"

"Extraordinary," Atto Melani commented icily, "they all speak the same... language."

"It is no linguafrank, it is a vote," Ugonio intervened with some irritation, perhaps understanding that Atto was subtly deriding his leader.

Thus we learned that the limited lexical capacity of the
corp­isantari
was a consequence, not of ignorance or stupidity but of a pious vow.

"Until the sacral object is disgoverned, we have voted not to verbalise," said Ugonio, who then explained that he alone was free of that pledge so as to be able to maintain contacts between the com­munity of the
corpisantari
and the outside world.

"Ah yes, and what would this sacred object be which you so ar­dently seek?"

"Ampoule with the true Sanguine Domini Nostri," said Ugonio, while the rest of the troop made the sign of the cross as one man.

"Yours is indeed a noble and holy quest," said Atto, turning to Baronio with a smile.

"Pray that they should never be released from that vow," he then whispered to me so as not to be overheard, "or in Rome they will all end up talking like Ugonio."

"That is improbabilious," Ugonio replied unexpectedly, "whereinasmuch the undersignified is Germanic."

"Are you German?" asked Atto in astonishment.

"I proveniate from Vindobona," came the
corpisantaro'
s stiff reply.

"Ah, so you were born in Vienna," translated the abbot. "That would account for your speaking so..."

"... I commandeer the italic tongue, not as an immigrunter, but as if 'twere my own motherlingo," Ugonio hastened to add, "and am most gratificated to your worshipful decisionality for the comple­ment of esteem wherewith you do adub me."

Once he had finished with complimenting himself for his awk­ward and ramshackle eloquence, Ugonio explained to his companions what was at stake: a dubious individual, lodging at our hostelry, had excogitated a plan to assassinate His Holiness Innocent XI using pestiferous leeches, and that at a time when in Vienna the fate of Christendom hung in the balance. The dastardly plot was to be enacted that very night.

The
corpisantari
received the news with expressions of profound indignation, approaching panic. A brief but excited debate took place, which Ugonio summarised for us. Plafonio proposed that they should withdraw in prayer and beg for the intercession of the Most High. Gallonio, on the other hand, favoured a diplomatic initiative: a delegation of
corpisantari
should visit Dulcibeni and request that he desist from his plan. Stellonio joined the discussion, expressing a very different opinion: they should enter the Donzello, capture Dulcibeni and execute him without further ado. Grufonio observed that such a scheme would provoke disagreeable counter-actions, such as the arrival of the Pontifical Guards. Marronio added that entry into premises shut up on grounds of suspected pestilence would thereafter incur undeniable risks. Svetonio pointed out that such an action would in any case be of no use for the purpose of foil­ing Dulcibeni's plot: if Tiracorda visited the Pope (and here Grufonio once more made the sign of the cross) all was lost. Tiracorda must therefore be stopped at all costs. The entire body of
corp­isantari
then turned to Baronio, who harangued them efficaciously: "Gfrrrlubh!"

Baronio's rabble then began to jump up and down and to grunt in a furious, warlike manner; whereupon, as we watched, it dispersed and transformed itself, forming double ranks, like a band of soldiers, all marching into conduit C in the direction of Tiracorda's house.

Atto and I witnessed all this impotently, quite out of our depth; Ugonio, who had remained with us together with his usual compan­ion, had to explain to us what was happening: the
corpisantari
had decided to intercept Tiracorda come what may. They would position themselves in the little roads around the old
Archiater's,
house, in or­der to ambush his carriage when it set out for the pontifical palace of Monte Gavallo.

"And we, Signor Atto, what shall we do to stop Tiracorda?" I asked, seized by agitation and the desire to fight with all my might against whoever threatened the life of the Vicar of Christ.

The abbot, however, was not listening to me. Instead, he simply replied to Ugonio's explanation with the words: "Ah, so that is how matters stand," proffered in a colourless voice.

He had lost all control over the situation and did not seem very pleased about that.

"Well then, what are we to do?"

"Tiracorda must be stopped, that is for sure," said Melani, striv­ing to regain a decisive demeanour. "While Baronio and the others control the surface, we shall look after the underground galleries. Look here."

Under our eyes, he stretched out a newly revised version of the map of the underground city which he had drawn up previously but lost in the disaster of the Cloaca Maxima. The new map also showed conduit C, including the intersection with the little subterranean river leading to Dulcibeni's elaboratory and the Cloaca Maxima. The continuation of conduit D was also visible, up to the exit in Tiracor­da's stables, just next to the Donzello.

"In order to intercept Tiracorda, it will not suffice to control the streets around the Via dell'Orso," explained Atto. "We simply cannot ignore the possibility that the doctor may, in the interests of secrecy, prefer to pass through the underground galleries, taking conduits D, C, B and A, in that order, and emerging on the banks of the Tiber."

"But why?"