Veritas (Atto Melani) (83 page)

We took up our work at the point where we had left off the previous occasion. We entered the mansion by the main door and once again started with the large rooms on the ground floor. On the
previous occasion we had finished the central entrance hall and the two side rooms. We went to the left, crossed the great terrace and reached the western keep, access to which was by a door. It
was locked.

“We’ll have to get the keys from Frosch,” I remarked. “Meanwhile we’ll try on the opposite side.”

In the meantime I was trying to describe to Abbot Melani the wonders of the view that could be enjoyed from the terrace, the grandiose conception of the architect, the touching personal
involvement of Maximilian, who must have followed the project from its outset to its realisation.

As we walked away, I thought I heard, from a direction that could not be identified, a noise – a long, shrill rumbling sound that I had heard before. But it was such a vague sensation that
I did not dare to ask the others for confirmation, lest they should take me for a visionary or a coward. So we re-crossed the three entrance halls, and then came out into the open air again, onto
the terrace in the opposite wing, finally reaching the eastern keep. Here the door was open.

Inside we found a broad space that resembled a large chapel.

“I think it was to be set aside for divine service,” Simonis confirmed, “if only Maximilian had been able to finish it.”

We set down to work. The job did not take long. As soon as it was over we went to the outside of the mansion and re-entered by the eastern keep. From here we visited the whole of the
semi-basement floor. It was in the eastern keep, according to Frosch, that Rudolph the Mad had carried out his experiments in magic and alchemy. However, we found no obvious signs of ovens,
alembics or other such devilries. If that had once been the place where Rudolph celebrated his follies, time must have mercifully cancelled all traces. The ghosts that the Viennese (but also the
chimney-sweeps, my fellow countrymen) fantasised about had left no marks of their presence.

Proceeding towards the central point of the house, we found the next room was a long gallery with round vaults, lit by broad, low windows that opened on the north side.

“This was where Maximilian wanted to set up his antiquarium, his collection of marvels. On the walls he wanted to display triumphal monuments, statues, tapestries and trophies,”
explained Simonis.

All we could see, however, was a bare stone corridor, made just a little more graceful by the fine curves of the ceiling. Every stone, I was saying to myself, seemed to express melancholy at its
unfulfilled destiny, when Abbot Melani interrupted my thoughts.

“Did you catch that?”

“What?” said Simonis.

“Four times. It was repeated four times.”

“A strange sound, right?” I said, thinking of the curious noise, halfway between an acute trumpet and a percussion instrument, which I had heard from the terrace.

“Not a sound: a vibration. Like the firing of a cannon, but muffled.”

Simonis and I exchanged glances. It was no surprise that Atto should have heard a noise that was imperceptible to us: blind people are known for the acuteness of their tympani. But it could be
something else: bizarre perceptions could also be attributed, alas, to the wandering mind of an old man.

Having completed our work of inspection and maintenance, we had come to the middle of the semi-basement. Just above our heads, on the ground-floor level, was the mansion’s main entrance.
From the point where we stood a couple of ramps descended underground, leading to a door that gave onto the rear of Neugebäu. From there we had a view that took in the gardens and the large
fish pond to the north, and which widened out gloriously to the fields and woods beyond.

When we had finished our short reconnaissance, we went back towards the ramp and then towards the centre of the semi-basement. We began to explore the west wing. We had just begun to examine the
southern wall when the strange phenomenon re-occurred.

“Did you hear that?” asked Atto, perturbed again.

This time I had heard something too. A hollow and indistinct thud, as if above and around us a giant had gently set a Cyclopic bass drum vibrating. Simonis, however, had not noticed
anything.

“We must finish the job,” said my assistant, vaguely vexed that his hearing was not sharp enough.

“You’re right,” I agreed, hoping that I had been mistaken, or that work might magically wipe from my mind all memories of the arcane signal.

Rummaging in a bag of tools for a broom, and groping among a thousand irons of all kinds, my fingertips touched a quadrangular-shaped object. It was Hristo Hadji-Tanjov’s chessboard, still
wrapped in the little bag that its ill-fated owner had thrust it into.

In order not to risk losing it, I had put it among our tools, which I always put away securely. I pulled it out and dusted off the object that had saved my life three days earlier, but
unfortunately not that of its owner. Simonis and I exchanged mournful glances.

“Poor friend,” whispered Simonis.

“He realised long before Penicek that the meaning of the Agha’s phrase all lay in
soli soli soli
,” I said.

“What did you say?” Atto said with a start.

I explained how the chessboard had come into my hands, and I told him what Hristo had said to Simonis: our chess-playing friend believed that the secret of the Agha’s phrase all lay in the
repetition of those three mysterious words
soli soli soli
. When we had found Hristo’s corpse, I added, the poor lad was clutching a white chess king in his fist. Finally, in his
chessboard I had found a note that referred to checkmate.

“Yes, Hristo on the very day of his death had mentioned that he thought the words
soli soli soli
– that is, ‘all alone’ – were connected with
checkmate,” explained Simonis.

Abbot Melani quivered as if he had been stung by a wasp and stood up.

“Just a moment. Have I got this right? On the day of the audience the Agha said to Eugene that the Turks had arrived
soli soli soli
?”

“Certainly, what’s new about that?”

“Wha-a-a-t? And you never told me?”

“Told you what?”

“That the Agha’s phrase contained the words
soli soli soli
!”

Atto muttered a series of unrepeatable expletives to himself, as if to spare me a direct insult. Then he spoke aloud again:

“Just what were you thinking of? You realise what you’ve done?” he said vehemently.

I still did not understand. Simonis was listening in bewilderment too.

“To tell the truth, Signor Atto, I’m sure I did tell you. Didn’t I explain that the Agha said ‘We’ve come all alone to the Golden Apple’?”

“Just a moment: the phrase was in Latin, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Say it to me.”

“
Soli soli soli ad pomum venimus aureum
.”

“And you, you ass, you ignorant beast, you translate
soli soli soli
as ‘all alone’? The Agha’s phrase means something quite different, curse it.”

It had been a venial sin, but it had serious consequences all the same.

While we made our way back to the ball stadium for something to eat, now that the first part of the job was over, Atto began to explain.

Cloridia and I had believed that
soli soli soli
was just the repetition of a single term, which meant ‘alone’, and so we had given Atto the translation directly, ‘all
alone’, or ‘truly alone’, not mentioning the original version.

Abbot Melani was raging. His legs trembled with anger, he muttered and mumbled swear words and curses, every so often addressing me with an accusing forefinger upraised.

“You young people . . . you’re . . . all irresponsible, that’s what you are! All you can do is get flustered and create disasters. Oh, if you only had a tenth of the brainpower
and concentration needed for such things! And I brought you all the way here to Vienna so that you might help me!”

“Be careful, Signor Atto.” I suddenly pulled him back by his arm.

While the old castrato was getting so worked up, before we started down the spiral staircase that led to the ball stadium and the animal cages, we noticed something truly bizarre. In the large
eastern courtyard lay a huge stinking pile of dung.

“Good heavens, it must have been Mustafa,” I said, holding my nose.

“I didn’t think lions did such big ones,” remarked Simonis with amusement.

Atto calmed down at last. We made him sit down on the stairs. With his hands quivering from the sudden surge of anger, he finally made up his mind to explain how things were.

“
Soli soli soli
is not just the stupid repetition of the word
soli
. On the contrary. It’s a very famous Latin motto.”

I listened in utter amazement.

“And if you had had the good manners to repeat to me literally the Agha’s Latin phrase,” Abbot Melani insisted, “instead of providing your own witless interpretation, we
would have saved days and days of useless toil.”

“So what does
soli soli soli
mean then?” I asked.

“The first
soli
is the dative singular of the adjective
solus
, ‘alone’, and so it means ‘to the only one’. The second is the dative of the noun
sol
, ‘sun’. The third is the genitive of
solum,
‘earth’, and so it means ‘of the earth’.”

“And so
soli soli soli
means . . . ‘To the only sun of the earth’.”

“Exactly. Or ‘to the only sun of the soil’, if you prefer. In France it is a well-known saying, because His Majesty has had it engraved on his army’s cannons. The Sun
King likes to remind everyone of his power. But he did not invent the phrase – it was used, for example, by Nostradamus, in some of his woolly wafflings. And Nostradamus must have stolen it
in turn from the ancient Romans.”

“And why?”

“
Soli soli soli
is often found on sundials. It was probably an old Latin custom, which was handed down over the centuries. In any case its origin does not concern us. There are
countless similar sayings, like
sol solus solo salo
, which means ‘only the sun commands the earth and the sea’, or ‘
sol solus non soli
, that is to say,
‘the sun is just one for all’, or again
sol solus soles solari
, ‘only the sun consoles without a pause’.”

As he spoke, Atto had got up again and started moving so we had now descended to the lower depths. We at once looked for Frosch to ask him if he had any water or wine to sell us, in particular
because after his harangue Atto now felt thirsty, but the keeper was nowhere to be found. Near the entrance to the stable we found the tools and wooden planks with which he was mending the door. We
heard a noise from far end of the ball stadium, where the birdcages were stacked. At once the birds became animated and the stadium was filled with their twittering.

“So the story of the Circassian has got nothing to do with it,” I reflected aloud. “But why would the Agha have chosen this saying?” I asked, as we all three headed
towards the ball stadium.

“Maybe it was a way of paying homage to Eugene,” hazarded Simonis. “Perhaps the Agha just wanted to say, ‘We have come to the only sun of the earth’.”

“Unlikely,” replied Atto. “Eugene is not the sun of anything. He is the commander-in-chief of the imperial armies, and that’s all.
Soli soli soli
clearly refers
to a sovereign.”

“And so to the Emperor,” I deduced. “But why use this saying in an audience with Eugene, instead of with the Emperor?”

Atto said nothing but looked thoughtful.

“Maybe the phrase has a double meaning,” observed Simonis.

“And what would that be?”

“Let’s see . . . instead of ‘to the only sun of the earth’, it could be translated as ‘to the lonely sun of the earth’.”

“And isn’t that the same thing?”

“No. This second formulation would mean ‘to the solitary sun of the earth’, that is, to the Emperor,” explained Simonis.

“And why would he be lonely?” I asked in surprise.

But I could get no answer. We had entered the ball stadium. The great arena, surrounded by high walls stretching upwards to the sky, was alive with the shrill squawking of the birds. Parrots and
parakeets strained their uvulas to the utmost, filling the bowl of the stadium with strident screeches.

“Why on earth are the birds making all this row, boy?” Abbot Melani asked me, having to raise his voice to be heard.

We heard two or three heavy blows, like a mallet striking wooden boards. I explained to Atto that Frosch, concealed among the cages, was probably hammering nails into planks for the new stable
door (even though it was not clear why he should be doing it among the birdcages).

The din, already deafening, was made almost unbearable by the reverberation of a new series of hammer blows.

“Curse it, these wretched birds are unbearable,” said Atto again, trying to block his ears with his hands.

Protecting my own eardrums with my hands, I had almost reached the small birdcages when I noticed they were set right up against the wall, and so there could be no one behind them, certainly no
Frosch, making those vexatious noises.

“Simonis!” I called my assistant, who had stayed behind with Atto.

“Look, Signor Master, look!” he echoed me, calling my attention in turn.

He was looking towards the opposite end of the great space, towards the doorway into the ball stadium, the one we had just entered by.

We were no longer alone. An enormous hairy biped, as tall and broad as two human beings, was baring its slavering canines and, even though I could not hear it on account of the racket made by
the birds, was bestially snarling at us. Then it dropped on all fours and came bounding towards us, preparing to attack.

I knew nothing about ferocious animals, but instinct told me that it was enraged by hunger. Petrified, I observed the approaching beast, and with a last shred of awareness I heard the invisible
blacksmith rekindle chaos among the birds with new hammer blows, and then I heard a final screech – and only then did I realise that there was at least one other door giving onto the stadium,
diametrically opposite the one that the bear had entered by.