Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part two, chapter 8

The Ortolani who at dawn came from the Porta Nuova and Porta S. Antonino to the leaf market, were the first to see that man suspended at the fork by the armpits and gagged, who no longer understood whether he was alive or dead and stopped amazed at that new kind of hanging. They brought the news to the nearby market that was already rising and then a crowd of curious, shopkeepers, porters, brats, ran to the Four Songs to see the new show.

Someone recognized him.

"It's Matteo Lo Vecchio."

But he never said that! Those who knew the birro, who had to say with him, and had not recognized him, now pictured him; they marveled, and rejoiced, and squealed. They wondered if he was alive or dead. He seemed dead, because he had lost consciousness and kept his head recline on his chest. But someone noticed she was breathing.

"He's alive! He's alive!"

Who, then, had treated him like that? Oh, what a wonderful find! Someone shouted fierce ridicule:

"Are you doing well upstairs, Don Matteo?"

And then twenty, and fifty voices were left unto the furious furies, and to the grossest and cruelest faces: The noise called for other people; in short, the Four Songs filled themselves with a cheerful crowd: Goatmen, carters, porters, peasants; the name of the suspended passed through all mouths, all wondered if he was alive and who could perform that fierce prank or vengeance and each threw a word, a motto, a facecy, an insult. Above the noise sounded a clearer voice than the others:

"Don Matteo, have you had breakfast? No? Then take this loaf."

He flew a torso of cabbage and struck in the chest the poor birro, which seemed to be rediscovered. Now he had reopened his eyes with an expression of anguish, fear, exhaustion. That bullet made him glide. The shout of joy of the crowd terrified him; two, three other murmurs flew and after them, among the screams, the laughs, the insults, mischievous oranges, roots, sods of mud, everything that happened in the hands of that multitude, angry with the joy of being able to vent against a birro.

Matteo Lo Vecchio made efforts to free his mouth from the handkerchief, roding it with his teeth in a spasm of pain, anger and terror; in the effort he made his face swelled. he transformed, he lost every human expression: It got scary. The infitive rain; the face, the hair, the clothes covered themselves with mud, the earth, the juices, the lords: Every blow that went to the mark raised laughter, yelling, and yelling that made the gallows tremble.

Matteo Lo Vecchio again lost his senses and did not hear the infamous proposal that someone more ferocious had launched: "Let's burn his feet!..."

He didn't hear and he didn't see: But the noise had called the guards of the nearby Palazzo del Pretore, who ran with spades shouting; they stopped those wretchmen and prevented their cruelty. They pitched birri and soldiers, as if a riot had broken out. With the kick of the rifles, of the alabards, with the clubs, they rejected the crowd back, freed the hanged from that ferocious mob, and when they had pulled the rope, they dropped it down, removed his gag, untied his arms and legs. The rejected crowd, held back, displeased with that deliverance, shouted:

"Let him die! Birro is!... Infamous is!..."

A guard soaked a piece in the fountain and defiled the face of Matteo Lo Vecchio, who was gathered to that cooler, opened his eyes and let a groan escape.

"Let's get him to the hospital."

They went to get a sedan, put it in there and secured it with a belt, as was the case with the corpses, and took it away.

The whole city soon learned that singular event: that two true slain men had been taken from the forks, and Matthew the Elder had been suspended in their stead; and the amazement, the wrinkled or cheerful comments occupied a population that had nothing to do. A thousand assumptions were made: Someone attributed the blow to the Beati Paoli.

Don Raimondo was dismayed, but even more so when on his table, in the study, he found another of those mysterious letters that filled him with terror and that showed him his impotence in front of the dark sect.

"You can increase the number of your crimes, don't already push away the ax that hangs on your stump. Four more victims demand revenge. Woe to you!"

He shook his hands desperately and exclaimed with anguish:

"So I will not be able with one blow to annihilate this dark and terrible enemy?"

And his thought focused on Don Girolamo Ammirata and Andrea, free and dominating from the shadows. "Where were they? To St. Ciro? But that district, at the foot of Mount Gryphon, offers impenetrable hiding places. It is necessary to have under hand a powerful force to invade all those countryside, from the bridge of the Admiral to Misilmeri, to Bagheria."

The revelations of Matteo Lo Vecchio came back to his mind. Of course, the key to the mystery was in the house of the admirer and you had to go look for it. Perhaps it was wrong to get rid so early of those secondary figures that had overshadowed him, and that could have been precious instruments. Unfortunately the fear had advised him badly and who knows what secrets had descended in the silence of the tomb with Zi' Rosario and with the sacristano, with Giuseppico and Peppa la Sarda. Too much haste! Too much haste!... He began to look for a way to follow; the need to defend himself seemed more urgent to him now, as the noise raised by the hanging of Matteo Lo Vecchio and the disappearance of the two executed, could lead to the discovery of what Don Raimondo feared most.

Living in suspicion did not seem the time, every day, to go to the royal secretariat, to take the orders of his Majesty or to confer with the king; but at the same time, to set foot on the door of the Palace was invaded by a great fear that made his legs shake and pushed him back. That morning he rushed faster to be if not the first, at least among the first to bring news of the event; but more than usual fear stopped him before the door and it took a violent effort to keep his cold and impenetrable mask on his face and enter with sufficient ease.

The Marquis of St. Thomas was just gathering papers and documents for the usual relationship to the king, waiting for him to call him. As soon as he saw the duke:

"Oh!" he said, "Your Ladyship Illustrissima comes about. I have here among others a plea to His Majesty for a woman, who begs the king's kindness to grant her an audience... So far there is nothing extraordinary; all the supplications resemble each other, but this one adds something else: He says that he invokes the justice and protection of the King, Our Lord, over an orphan, to whom a relative, noble, rich, who has entered the Court and has public offices, has taken away not only wealth but also the name with various crimes... It doesn't say anything more precise, reserving to manifest and reveal everything, verbally to the king... Your Lordship knows all the nobility and all the judiciary of the kingdom... and perhaps it might help me to clarify something."

Don Raimondo felt pale but answered with a firm voice:

"To my knowledge, of none of the nobility have I ever heard of such a thing: It will be one of the many slanders spreading out of revenge. Who is the supplicant, if it is not indiscreet to know? Perhaps the name might give some light on the truthfulness and the end of the charge."

The Marquis of St. Thomas took a look at the cards, chose one, looked at it at the bottom and read:

"Francesca Ammirata; lives in the plan of St. Cosmo.

The Duke of Motta had to gather all his strength so as not to send a cry of fear and keep his calm and reserved appearance. He felt a dip of blood in his brain, which for a moment removed his sight and speech.

The Marquis of St. Thomas looked at the leaves and did not see that sudden disturbance and interpreted the short silence as the gathering of memory.

"Well?" he said shortly after raising his head.

"Well," answered Fr Raimondo, who had regained his dominion: "I know where she comes from; when I have told Your Ladyship Illustrissima who she is Francesca Ammirata, she will not need to add anything else."

"Who then is she?"

"The wife of such an admired Jerome, rational of the Great Hospital, already arrested again and now fugitive and sought by justice because it is believed with foundation, and the testimonies of the last trial confirm it, one of the leaders of the famous sect of the Beati Paoli... It doesn't take long to understand that that supplication will be a maneuver of that gloomy coven of scumbags, who knows for what purposes: probably to mislead justice, or to insure with a pretext for important revelations and denunciations, impunity to the said Don Girolamo, guilty of several crimes."

The Marquis of St. Thomas looked with astonishment.

"But couldn't the executioner captain, the city captain, the S.Offizio himself, get their hands on this cult? Almost, I would almost be tempted to believe that it doesn't exist..."

"Oh!... But if all of us are threatened and sometimes we experience the effects of the threats of the Beati Paoli!...

It takes extraordinary means, having white paper from His Majesty, that God looks, delegate a person of wrist and smell up."

The Marquis thought a little.

"She's okay," he said; "in Messina we'll talk about it: For now let's put this beg to sleep."

"Or rather, with your permission, you should give her more provision..."

"What, for example?"

"To have Mrs. Francesca admired and the whole family arrested; it would be the only means to have her husband and husband in their hands another terrible subject, who also escaped justice: a man named Andrea..."

"The vigilante captain can do it..."

"He doesn't, for fear..."

"Fear of the Beati Paoli?"

"Maybe: but more because he fears that of that arrest you may be interested in people of respect, who, besieging the king of supplications, would snatch from his mercy some concession..."

"The king leaves for Messina."

"Oh, they'd go and bother him there. This is not new, and I know my fellow citizens. Certainly there will be those who used the sect to exercise some of his vengeance and it is quite natural that, to save himself, he does everything to save the sect... The king should be prevented from being bothered and, as I said a moment ago, giving white paper to someone..."

"Your Ladyship Illustrissima had already begun and seemed to have in his power the leaders of the sect. There were those convictions..."

"Yes, but the bosses are still free. Have you seen to what extent they push their boldness? They prevent the justice of his course and mistreat the faithful servants of His Majesty... I have been forced so far to suggest and pass orders, not to act..."

"It's true. You have to give her full powers..."

"But I must leave... I must follow the king to Messina..."

"What does that mean? In the meantime, you could order the arrests that Your Ladyship suggests... I'll tell the king later. Let me do it."

Don Raimondo came out of the Royal Palace in part satisfied and rejoicing with himself, in part with the soul tormented by suspicion. He was right because in time he had averted the danger that Mrs. Francesca Admirata would be received by the king and had obtained that fullness of powers he wanted to use to crush his enemies: However, she doubted that, if she did not have time to suppress it, Mrs Francesca, through some of the governors of the hospital, who belonged to the flower of the nobility, would have succeeded in bringing to the king her petitions and her complaints.

When he came home, he called the lady's maid Gabriella:

"Tell my wife that I want to talk to her; beg her to encourage me in my study."

Donna Gabriella at that time tasted the ambitious joy of a gift from Her Majesty the King; in naming her Lady of the Queen, she was worthy to send her a small diamond clasp with royal weapons, frieze and sign of the charge, to be pinned on the left shoulder and the gift was accompanied by an evocative desire. The king, through his elder waiter, had sent these precise words to her: that he would be happy to pin with his hands the emblem on the beautiful shoulder of the Duchess lady.

So she was in that happy disposition of mind in which she almost felt the need to radiate her joy around herself, so that the husbandly message, no matter how much the air of a novelty and knew of serious, did not worry her and made her surrender to the invitation of Don Raimondo with a care that amazed the duke.

When she saw her enter the studio, fresh and smiling, full of enchantment, Don Raimondo shrouded! Oh, she was too beautiful and charming! He seemed to recline inside a very bitter bite; nevertheless he hinted at his wife to sit on the sofa, with a gesture full of thoughtful courtesy, and sat before her, on a high chair, with her shoulders in the window, so as to leave her face in the shade.

"Forgive me if I've made you trouble here. I would have come to your room, but... (and here it became gallant) I realize I was right not to come, because today you are extraordinarily beautiful and seductive..."

Donna Gabriella smiled.

"Furthermore," continued the Duke, "we must talk about business, rather than a very serious business and this seems to me the most suitable place and less exposed to prying eyes."

The Duchess looked at her husband with amazement: that long preamble was a clue that it really was very serious; he looked intently at his husband and, despite the shadow, it seemed to her that the wrinkle, a wrinkle that usually crossed his forehead between the two eyebrows, was deeper than usual.

"What is it, then?"

He did not answer, but in turn asked: "Don't you think it would be necessary to ask the king for an audience to thank him for the honor he does to us?"

Donna Gabriella whispered and blushed: Did the husband know that she had received a gift and a message? He murmured: "Oh, God, it would seem to me..."

"I'm glad we agree. Now listen to me."

And he began to speak in a low, calm and cold voice, amidst the amazement of Gabriella, in that severe, dark and silent study.