Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part two, chapter 7

"So, tell me, The Old Man," said the Duke, when they entered the studio, and sure that they were alone.

The birro, bowed down, began: "As I said to your Excellency, they were strangled in prison an hour ago, and I believe that at this moment they pull them on the fork of the Four Songs, to expose them... They didn't expect it to be so soon. This morning they had the rope, but "they held: they were men of "belly" - as they say. At eighteen hours I brought the order and the sentence was beautiful and given. I warned the executioner.

The jailer says: "You must go and call the chaplain, you cannot die like beasts."

"Very fair!" I say.

A boy is sent, but the chaplain was in bed with a fever. Then I have a great idea. What if I confess? What they did not say under the torment of the rope, they will say under the secret of confession. I tell the truth, that, no matter how magnificent the idea was, I did not immediately resolve myself, because I thought that those unfortunates would die without sacrament; but then I reflected that with confession or without confession they were already destined for hell and that I would know things of great importance for the health and tranquillity of the kingdom.

If I commit a sin, His Eminence will absolve me in grace of the service that I can render.

Then I said, "Don't worry. I will send you a priest, as I see it, who is chaplain of the agonizing. It will help them to die well."

I left in a hurry and returned to the flying chair, disguised as a priest. I can assure your Excellency that if I had seen myself in a mirror, I would have met myself to kiss my hand. I was more a priest than a priest. The jailer took me to the chapel where they had transported the condemned. I began by confessing the Host the Uncle Rosario the "Masticoso." He was a tough man, Your Excellency. I threatened him with all the pains of hell if he hadn't revealed it.

He said to me, "Father, I must accuse myself of my only sins, not those of others."

"But are you Beato Paolo?"

"If I said no, I'd tell a lie."

"And what do these Beati Paoli do?"

"I can't say..."

"You're going to hell."

"The Lord will have mercy on me..."

"Tell the truth: think that you must appear before God and give account of your whole life: and God knows everything, and it is useless to hide..."

Do you know what that villain said to me?

"If you know everything, what do you need me to say it?"

There was no verse. You will unravel all my eloquence, but in vain, it ended up in a dumbness to make despair. He only agreed that he had housed two people. Your Excellency knows who I am... that the person who entrusted them to him had cause for hatred against a high character; that those two people knew serious things against your Excellency..."

Don Raimondo whispered inside, but had enough strength to dominate himself and as Matteo Lo Vecchio had stopped, he smiled at him:

"Continue. This is beginning to be interesting."

"More than that he didn't say. He confessed his repentance, asked for forgiveness of his transgressions, and only left me to crucify him, hoping to obtain more with the sacristan. And I didn't hope in vain. The fear of death had incarnated the sacristan. What he knew confessed to me and I am persuaded that he said everything he knew..."

"And what did he say?" asked the Duke of Motta.

"He confirmed to me that Don Girolamo Ammirata is one of the leaders of the sect, and that the Beati Paoli were moved by him against your Excellency, we do not know for what purpose. He said that they instructed a trial, a real trial against your Excellency, with the testimonies of that Andrea and Peppa la Sarda, to which they were to add the most serious ones of Giuseppico. Between Don Girolamo and Andrea they had made an unimaginable story against the responsibility of your Excellency: they accused him..."

The birro stopped unsolved.

"Say, say without awe," said the Duke with an effort not to betray his emotion, but not to conceal his pallor.

"Here it is: according to the confession of the sacrist, your Excellency would be guilty of murders and usurpations... to the detriment of the legitimate son of the good memory of Fr. Emanuele his brother and the Beati Paoli had set in motion to do justice in their own way."

Don Raimondo was deadly, but he tried to laugh.

"Oh, the miserable," he said.

Matteo Lo Vecchio said: "I urged the sacristian to tell me everything for the health of the soul: "The wider and more widespread the confession will be, and the more merit you will have with God!..." But there was no need for much exhortation. The villain had taken the air in the revelations, and he did not stop. I pressed for the interest of Don Girolamo Ammirata, if it was a vengeance and for what supposedly offended, but he could not tell me. "Is Don Girolamo the boss?" "No." "And who's the boss?" "We don't know him." "How can I not? Do you know?" "It is so: we always see him disguised and only when there is solemn judgment; and then we are all disguised and no longer recognize ourselves. After all, each of us knows no more than four or five companions with whom he is in constant contact. Don Girolamo knows everyone." "And are there many?" "Many: hundreds!" "And where do you gather?" "Everywhere" "In the sacristy of St. Matthew?" "Even." "And in Zi' Rosario's shop?" "Sometimes, in three or four." "And where is Don Girolamo Admired?" "To Saint Cyrus, with Andrew."

"Huh!" exclaimed Don Raimondo, frightened; "is he alive?"

"Excellency, yes. That villain must have seven spirits like cats. It's an extraordinary thing... I asked if Don Girolamo knew that they were arrested and he said yes; if they were in relationship with him, and he confirmed this to me too. I went back to ask where the Tribunal was most properly located, but he said he didn't know. "How don't you know?" "I'm a novice. Novices enter the court only blindfolded. They blindfold us behind the church of the "Canceddi" in San Cosmo. One of our "professed" comrades leads us. "What time are you getting together?" "At midnight." "Do you have any conventional signs to recognize you?" "Yeah." "And passwords?" "Even." He confessed to me. I hired him with all my heart, because the poor man seemed repentant and grieved. After half an hour the executioner came in with the helpers and hanged them at the fork of the courtyard.

Now we are in possession of several valuable news: only that we act with caution and we will have in our hands in the first place Don Girolamo and Andrea, and then also that mysterious leader that no one knows..."

Don Raimondo had been overwhelmed by all those revelations, but more than anything to the living knowledge of Andrea that he considered his worst enemy, and to the knowledge that Matteo Lo Vecchio now knew his secret. He understood that the birro had not revealed to him all the confession of the sacristian and that, either by reserve or by calculation, he had silenced the most difficult and compromising points. He was in the hands of the birro, who was not only a precious man, now, but also a fearsome man, who had to keep friend and faithful and compromise, if necessary, to prevent him from harming or taking advantage. He was a cunning matriculate man.

He was satisfied with the work of the birro, praised him, filled his hat with shields.

"You are a man of gold and His Majesty must be grateful for your zeal. You deserve an office greater than what you have and to be used in things of greater importance: I will speak of it to the king! Bravo! Make sure you have that admired one in your hands, because it would be a flow for us and for justice and a danger for the kingdom, if it were to escape us again. I'll get you a blank order."

Matteo Lo Vecchio came out of the palace stealing his hands, satisfied with himself. He was sure to hold in his power the Duke of Motta, and the ambitious thoughts shook him through his brain, which encouraged him to go all the way.

The enterprise responded to the attitudes of his spirit, for he had the passion of his craft and what he had come to discover was enough to fall in love with his work.

When he arrived at the Crucichio del Capo he stopped a little' unsolved: sure, to get home sooner he would have to go down to St. Cosmo. But it was after midnight and, although a great desire to spy suggested that he take that road, caution warned him instead that he would not be without danger. Midnight had already passed, and in those districts he could have had some unpleasant encounters.

So he took off for Saint Augustine: the tour was long, but the roads were easier and safer.

The moon shone in the clear sky like a silver bowl and lit the silent and deserted streets. Only stray dogs, grumbling, lingered among the garbage piled up here and there.

On the street, he'd be almanacking.

"What remains a mystery is why Don Girolamo Admirata has ordered this net to catch you the Duke. For money? And you didn't have to pull things that long. It was enough to let him know that he owned that secret, to sell it to him at a high price... (He made, saying, resonate the shields he had filled his pockets with)... And without danger... And then it turns out the rational was all about denouncing the duke. Denunciate him? Why? For whose benefit? So there has to be someone. Where?"

This question was asked again a hundred times, shaking his eyes and corrugating his forehead, as if to strain his brain to penetrate into that darkness. Perhaps he could not come to the conclusion that entering the house of Don Girolamo and surprising his intimate life: there he would find the ban of the skein. How do you penetrate? It was necessary to study its habits, to gain the confidence of the family... There was that boy... Yeah. A manly and overly lively boy: he wasn't to be trusted. Ah, for a kiss! How didn't you think of that before? What about that girl, the grim one, the painter's daughter? And the painter, who was half an idiot? With his clairvoyance as a sharp cop and insightful, he began to stare at a whole plan in his brain, studying, criticizing and correcting the parts, mentally, as he went forward quickly, beating the bat on the paved, which resonated in the night.

He came to the Four Songs.

The moon loomed over the beautiful square, in which the fountains muttered softly from the four metal mouths. Everything appeared distinct in the sweet cerulean light: the statues of the seasons with their symbols, the kings inside the niches, firm in their imperious gesture, the holy virgins, to whom the whiteness of the marble in the lunar languor gave a celestial vapority; and more on the four eagles, with the wings open, as if they wanted to elevate the flight.

Matteo Lo Vecchio heard a whistle and then a hasty disperse of steps, as of people fleeing.

He said to himself, "They'll be cashiers." What sluts!"

But when he was in the middle of the square and looked around, he was amazed and open-mouthed before the gallows. The ropes hung loose; a ladder rested on the axis, but the corpses were gone.

"What does that mean?"

Under the shadow of the fountain he seemed to see something, like a pile of rags. He approached and bowed down. With ever increasing amazement he realized that it was the corpse of the sacristan of St. Matthew, covered with a cloak.

He got up and looked at the ladder, then looked around himself once more, and again leaned, took off his cloak, and began to observe it carefully not without feeling a sense of mysterious dismay.

Suddenly he threw a cry of terror: of the hands they held him vigorously by the arms and a handkerchief threw his mouth. He saw himself surrounded by eight men, dressed in a black sack as Disciplined, with their faces covered in the mask, armed with daggers.

A threatening voice told him: "If you make a gesture, if you try to shout, you are a dead man. Unarm him!"

Two of those men took his sword and guns.

The same voice said: "It is Matteo Lo Vecchio, the birro..."

"Hang him!" suggested another voice. A murmur of approval accepted the proposal, but the voice he had spoken for the first one replied:

"No. It's not his time... Bring the dead away."

Eight arms lifted the corpse in a moment, rewinding it in the mantle: the sad procession quickly crossed the square, scattered in the Largo dei Musici.

Matteo Lo Vecchio followed him with his eye and noticed, around the corner of the palace, the head of a horse. Shortly thereafter, the horse moved: Matthew saw a chariot coming out, marveling that it made no noise.

The horse was riding and the wheels wrapped in straw. Two of those men jumped on the wagon, which crossed the Four Songs and turned along the New Road towards St. Antoninus: the other two returned to the gallows before which he waited for the rest of the strange and mysterious company.

Matteo Lo Vecchio was sweating cold. There was no doubt that he had fallen into the hands of the Beati Paoli, to avoid whom he had made that long tour; and he expected now, at any moment, to be killed.

He who seemed to be the leader of the company said, "Take him off!"

The birrus tried to defend himself, and more than life, to defend the silver that puffed his pockets, but the tips of the daggers shook leftly before his eyes: shouting could not because gagged: flee, neither, because not only was it surrounded, but also because, with handkerchiefs and scarves, they now tied his legs. She saw herself tearing off her robe and undercoat. The shields tinned.

"Ah! ah! The birro has certainly cut off someone!..."

"Get that money off him..."

"It will be the blood of the poor."

"Let's give it to the poor..."

Matteo Lo Vecchio had remained in brache and shirt, bruised, trembling, with his eyes wide open, agitated by fear, spite, greed.

"Dear mine, on these forks who knows how many you will have sent with your "infamous". We want you to feel like you're up there. We will only extend this pleasure to you so that you can remember it all your life."

Matthew was puffing, wiggling with his eyes, shaking, gurgling under the handkerchief that gagged him, gagging.

They dropped down the ropes that had supported the hanged; with one they tied the birro by their hands and feet, they passed the other by one of the heads around the chest, under the armpits; the other head they carried, up the ladder, they put it in the pulley attached to the horizontal beam.

When everything was ready, "Lift!" cried the chief.

Matthew suddenly saw himself dizzyingly pulled up, suspended in the void, banged between the two vertical axes by the pulling itself and by the instinctive moving of the legs that, feeling missing the ground, sought in space a point of support.

They pulled him up almost to make him touch the pulley with his head and then fixed the rope at the foot of the gallows and he remained suspended in the void, turning around him, now from the right now from the left.

"Good night, Matteo Lo Vecchio!

With that ironic cry the masked men left for the New Road, taking away the ladder, squealing and turning back and forth. Then their steps went out: the silence spread on the streets. On the gallows, gloomy pendulous fruit, that living body remained, with its eyes barred, roaring darkly under the gag, and waiting in vain for help.

He saw only some dog wandering around sniffing around the gallows and, as if for a supreme pleasure, lifting his hip.