Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part one, chapter 6

English

The Duke of Motta, a member of the Congress of the Kingdom, the most important institute for the execution of laws and the defense of the chapters or statutes of the monarchy, was in his extensive study, sitting in a high chair with arms, covered with green leather with gold blooms, in front of a large desk whose four feet, between a complicated crouching of foliage, represented griffins from the lion's feet. Bands of cards, which closed in cardboard cases lined with parchment, such as tied with green ribbons, were piled up from here and there, leaving the space just free to a tray, on which stood a bronze inkwell. Other cards, a little more neatly, lay on another table, placed at the window. Around the walls were raised large shelves of carved wood, full of large and small books bound in parchment or leather, such as with the title written for the long in Gothic black characters, such as in gold characters. On the shelves some half-bust, reproduction of ancient marbles, some yellow globe; and on the top of the walls, old blackened canvases, in which flashed some light tone of ivory-colored meats, or white linens. The colour of the wood and of the upholstery, the severity of the carvings, the veiled light and the silence, gave the room a sense of austere recollection, as in a temple. There was like the smell of the high things of intelligence; that I know nothing but the indefinable subjugation of the spirit and invites it to think, and infuses it with the feverish curiosity of knowing.

Don Raimondo Albamonte, Duke of Motta, had a reputation of legal doctrine, and seemed to be the heir of that great tradition of Sicilian jurists who shone on the names of Giovanni Naso, Viperano, Luca Barbieri, Vincenzo Percolla, Corsetto, Muta and Cutelli, collectors and commentators of patriotic law. Called once at a time to cover the high offices of the judiciary, he had been president of the Grand Civil Court and the Criminal Court, and now, for two years, hired to the Congress of the Kingdom, for the protection of the viceroy Don Carlo Antonio Filippo Spinola and Colonna, Marquis de Los Balbases, to whom he had been of great help in the trials for the turbid of 1708.

In the past fifteen years, his face had become more severe, paler, darker eyes. The practice of criminal trials and torture had accentuated the hardness of his jaw, and immobilized the cold mask of his impassible face. The rigidity of his manners, the inflexibleness of his will, in his office relations, towards the equals and the inferiors, had acquired him a reputation of integrity, of which he boasted; ready for another to lay it in the cabinet of the Viceroy, and, without opinion, to turn himself into an instrument of the directed will.

Becoming duke, for lack of direct heirs of his was his brother, and gather into his hands a great Inheritance, he had increased it with two rich marriages,! putting to profit also his office, in how much he gave way to throw his hands on some disputed patrimony or to buy for little confiscated property. But he knew, even in these cases, to keep his austere appearance, and no one doubted his reputation, to which he held.

On the eve of the great events that would take place in the kingdom, he was keen to keep that consideration, aiming for far higher place. In fact, with all the strength, all the tricks of his ambition, he was fighting to be appointed president of the real heritage.

He had contracted the first marriage, just recognized the right to investiture of the feuds, with a Branciforti; but three years later the Duchess died, leaving him a daughter of two years. Don Raimondo remained widowed six years, at the end of which he shot his wife: a La Grua, very noble and very rich, but she was about twenty-two years younger than him. This second marriage, of which the whim and interest had been the authors had remained infecting.

In those days, because of his office, he had a great job: in fact, the Congress of the Kingdom had to put the royal palace in a position of worthy power to receive the new king of Sicily, Vittorio Amedeo, Duke of Savoy. After four centuries, it was the first time that the ancient Norman palace opened its rooms to a king and was not in such condition that it could accommodate him with decorum. Many rooms had fallen almost into ruins, torn up wallpapers, paintings roses from the humid, furniture damaged by old age.

Although the Senate had invoked to itself the furnishing of the royal apartments, nevertheless the task of the Patrimony was not indifferent; and, since it was given as imminent or as already happened the departure by sea of Vittorio Amedeo from Villafranca (at Nice) for Sicily, the work ferved; and Don Raimondo, who naturally wanted to ingratiate the new king, had dedicated himself to it with youthful energy.

After all, a certain enthusiasm was in all spirits. The independence of the kingdom, however assured by Statutes, to which all the monarchs had bowed down and had sworn observance, could not be said fulfilled until it had its own kings and this desire had already had its martyrs. The dream of so many centuries and so many generous breasts, therefore, was about to come true, and this was enough to instill in all hearts the hopes of a rebirth of the glorious monarchy of Sicily.

The kingdom of Sicily was granted to Vittorio Amedeo of Savoy for the act of the Treaty of Utrecht. It is known that the succession of Philip of Bourbon, Louis XIV's nephew, to the throne of Spain, for the death of Charles II, had not been welcomed by the Powers, who in this fact saw an increase in the power of France, or rather of its monarchy, and therefore a more secure and fearsome hegemony. Thus a war had broken out, which was said of succession. Austria, connected with Holland and England, moved against Louis XIV; Vittorio Amedeo took part in the League, and Piedmont became the main theatre of a long and bloody war that failed to favor French weapons. The peace of Utrecht, putting an end to the massacres and competitions, accommodated Europe to the satisfaction of dynastic desires. He recognized Spain to Filippo V; he gave Lombardy, Naples and Sardinia to the emperor of Austria, and Sicily with the royal crown to Vittorio Amedeo. The Bourbon dynasty gained a throne, but the Spanish monarchy lost the rule of half of Italy, for the benefit of the Habsburg dynasty.

Sicily had also suffered from the events of the war. To guard the island, Philip V had sent a body of Spanish, French and Irish, hungry, undressed, raiders more than soldiers: riots, conspiracies, tortures followed. The kingdom, afflicted by famines, agitated, without certainty, divided between the partisans of the ancient dynasty and those of the new, moved by the dreamers of a restored independence from every foreign subjection, in those last years had been shocked by an interdict provoked by the bishop of Lipari; and the interdict had armed civil power against the partisan clergy of the Curia, and thrown the populations into a great religious dismay.

It is understood that, under these conditions, the restoration of the kingdom of Sicily with its own king, deceiving the kingdoms that the new king would naturally carry the seat in the domain of greater dignity, appeared as the end of a painful state, the resurrection of the kingdom, the beginning of a new era, the tranquility of souls, wealth and glory.

To no one, in the flowering of so many hopes, passed by the head that Vittorio Amedeo, of the State that put on his head the royal crown, would make a province of a duchy.

Don Raimondo Albamonte, Duke of Motta, was therefore very tired in those days, but that morning he had other reasons to worry: on his desk he had found a very strange letter of which no one could say where she came from, nor who brought her.

The letter contained only a few short verses:

"Quid detur tibi, aut guid apponatur tibi ad linguam dolosam?

Sagittae potentis acutae; cum carbonibus desolatoriis

Custodiens parvulus Dominus

Dominus solvit compeditos

Dominus pupillum suscipiet, et vias peccatorum disperdet.

Remember Emanuele."

The reading of this name had given him the key to explain the allusions of those verses detached from the psalms and put together; but at the same time he had made him shiver in the blood. For some time now a mysterious letter came to him, with a phrase, a motto, a threat: of course he attributed it to the spirit of vengeance of those who were struck by his sentences, and he did not notice it; but that name launched now, like a bomb, explained to him the occult and persistent persecution, and dismayed him. Was there anyone who owned his secret? He thought of Andrea. But Andrea had been sentenced to the oar for 30 years and was in jail. Besides, what did Andrea know? It was necessary to investigate and go to the end, in order to discover the origin, the origin of those anonymous letters: and there was only a man capable of so much, a cunning and daring algozino, of which justice availed itself on all the most daring occasions. His name was Matteo Lo Vecchio.

Don Raimondo had sent for him, and he was waiting for him in his study, when he was announced the visit of his father Bonaventura from Licodia.

The visit of a friar, especially in a noble house, was not an unusual event; nor did he expose the visitor to the insolences of servitude. Wearing a saio and having the loins surrounded by a cord, was a pass that led to respect and reverence even the masters, for whom, moreover, to show devotion and closeness to the Church was a fashion.

Father Bonaventura was then passed by and welcomed by Don Raimondo with a thoughtful: "Come, come, Father..."

He showed him a high chair at the table, and asked him with pleasure: "To what do I owe the fortune of his visit?"

"I come," said the friar, "to implore the protection of your Excellency for a young man, knowing that I cannot entrust him to a more generous, kind and powerful lord than your Excellency."

Don Raimondo bowed, murmuring: "She exaggerates that little merit, which, by the grace of God, I can have..."

"Our monastery knows for proof the liberality and piety of your Excellency..."

"And this young man?... Is he a novice?"

"All the more, Your Excellency; I believe that it is more suitable to command a company of soldiers than to recite the psalms; perhaps your Excellency will have heard something...

It was a gesture that caused a bit of noise... You know, that young king who beat the Corporal and the city captain's guards to the Messinese inn..."

"Ah! in fact, I heard something... I think he dared to offend the prince of Iraci and the marquis of Santa Croce?..."

"That would seem like appearances... but youth... and a hot youth, Your Excellency, deserves some pity."

"Is a noble man your young man?"

"He... is the natural son of a great lord..."

"Is the father alive?"

"Excellency no: the young man is alone; I picked him up from his mother's arms, killed by the earthquake of Catania..."

Don Raimondo stayed a while and said, "I suppose you've been arrested, and you're coming to intercede for him."

"Excellency, no. On this side the young man runs no danger: the illustrious captain of the city, for his goodness, deigned to accept my prayer..."

"So what?"

"Behold, I have come to pray to your Excellency to put him under his protection, to get him a job worthy of his rank... If he had an inclination to cloistered life, I would not come to disturb your Excellency: although I know by proof that when it comes to doing good, your Excellency is happy, and she is pleased... If you'll allow me, I'll introduce you..."

"But when he wills, Father; lead him, we will see what can be done of him..."

Father Bonaventura rose, bowing down and thanking.

"Your Excellency will do a work of charity greater than he will believe, and God will take it into account..."

"By the way, if it is not a secret of confession, whose son is it?"

The friar was about to say, but he held back: "Your Excellency forgive me..."

"It doesn't matter, no matter you assure me that the father was a gentleman..."

"Of nobility, I daresay, equal to that of the Albamonte..."

"How much better, and the mother?.

"He was not noble. Little gabellots."

"Ah! ah! I understand; some adventure... whims..."

"God forgive them," the friar muttered.

"So we understand, lead it to me... I am curious about this young man, who had the courage to fight with two "titles" of the first of the kingdom, and to put five men of the city captain on the run..."

"When does your Excellency want me to introduce you?"

"Tomorrow... yes, tomorrow at this hour."

He sent the friar with a gesture and accompanied him to the threshold, where he kissed his hand.

The servant who stood in the anteroom behind the door said to him: "Excellency, there is Matthew the Old..."

"Ah!" exclaimed Don Raimondo called to his concerns "let him in."

A minute later the birro entered the studio bowing humbly. He was a man in his 30s, skinny, boney, black, with a fox face and two eyes of cat; an expression of cunning and ferocity, simulation and cynicism, duplicity and greed. Its movements had the elasticity of the felines, but the long hands, thin, looked like claws of raptor.

When he entered, he glanced at him quickly, as if to spy on himself.

"Near him," said Don Raimondo, "I know that you are very capable of discovering the most secret crimes..."

"A little experience..."

"And that you just need the lightest track to unravel the most ruffled skeins. I also know it on evidence. Well, you will have a big prize and my protection, if you come to discover the author of certain letters that for some time have come to me mysteriously."

"If your Excellency gives me one of these letters..."

The duke was a little overwhelmed; then he opened a little bit of his table and got a letter out of it.

"Here's one."

The algozino threw his eyes on it, without even opening it, and said with confidence: "I know where it comes from..."

"Yes?"

"I know the paper and the marks..."

"What marks?"

"Look."

He showed him on the wax of the seal a small cross crossed diagonally by two crude swords.

"Well?" asked the duke.

"This letter is sent by the Beati Paoli."

"The Beati Paoli?"

"Excellency, yes. They always change the seal: but I recognize them."

Don Raimondo closed himself in a moment of silence; finally he asked: "Do you therefore believe that the Beati Paoli really exist?"

"Sure!..."

"Where am I?"

"This God knows: they are everywhere, invisible, invisible, and always present. When less is thought, we have them at the sides, at the back, in the church, on the road, perhaps even in the house; and we do not notice... No one can look at them..."

"Damn it! you make a terrible painting!" observed Don Raimondo with a hint of slight irony, which served to conceal the sense of fear from which he was invaded too.

"Are you afraid?"

The birro lifted its head, smiling, with ferocious eyes.

"Afraid of me? I say to show you the difficulties of the enterprise."

"You will have a prize of forty shields if you discover the author of these letters."

The eyes of Matthew the Elder shone with greed; he bowed down and said: "I will do what I can, Your Excellency, to deserve them, and to deserve his protection: but in the meantime we should be on guard..."

"What do you mean?"

"The warnings of the Beati Paoli are always followed by a few blows. It is prudent that your Excellency never go out without being accompanied by people of his trust and heart. It is well known that when justice was administered, hatred was sown. No one likes to be condemned, even if guilty."

"When will you give me any news?"

"In three days. Your Excellency would you like to give me one of these letters?"

Don Raimondo hesitated for a second and gave it to him.

"Here she is: I entrust her to you."

The algozino put his hand on his chest, swearing; then he took the letter, folded it and put it in a pocket inside the undercoat.

The duke put some silver coins in his hand.

"If you need any doughnuts," he said.

When the birro came out, Don Raimondo remained overwhelmed. He had never thought of that mysterious society, of which we spoke with terror and respect, and whose decrees were executed with an infallible security by hands that no one saw. The Beati Paoli? Why did they have his secret? What did that threatening sentence Donzinus suscipiet pupillum mean, if not an allusion to little Emanuele? From what shadow did he suddenly come forth? Was he alive? It seemed impossible to him: for four or five years he had sent for woman Aloisia and the little one, tormented by a secret fear, shivering within himself at the thought of suddenly seeing the accusing voice of his sister-in-law jump from the unknown. But every search had been unsuccessful. The doubt that Andrea had secured the Duchess or her son had vanished: Andrea arrested, tried, tortured, condemned as alleged abductor, seemed truly unaware of the fate of his masters; and if Don Raimondo wanted him thrown into jail, it was to get away from Palermo a voice that could perhaps accuse him, thinking that in jail a wise stab wound could get rid of him from a relentless enemy. So Andrea could not have been the author of those letters; was he the inspiration? Here's a trail. He felt that it had not appeared to him before, to indicate it to Matteo Lo Vecchio, but then thought that it was better to leave free of initiative to the birro, also to see if he would come with his investigations at the same point.

Meanwhile the warning of the algozino dismayed him. Who would defend him?

Involuntarily he thought to the young man recommended to him by Father Bonaventura. He was, as he seemed, a bold man, whose arm he could trust; but the soul? It was necessary to tie him to himself with a strong appreciation.

"We see he said, "If you make him stop tracking down his kinship and have him acquire the right to bear his father's name?"

And the mind of the man of law fixed his gaze in the intricate forest of law.