The pilgrims agreed, and that was the first crime, because you don’t put on the cross to then go and conquer a city for the Venetians. Meanwhile, Alexius, brother of that Isaac Angelus who had deposed Andronicus to take over power, had had him blinded, exiled him to the coast, and proclaimed himself basileus.”
“That much the Genoese told me at once. It was a confused story, because Isaac’s brother had become Alexius III, but there was also an Alexius, son of Isaac, who had managed to flee, reaching Zara, now in Venetian hands, where he asked the Latin pilgrims to help him regain the throne of his father, promising, in return, assistance in the conquest of the Holy Land.”
“It’s easy to promise what you don’t yet have. Alexius III, for that matter, should have realized that his empire was at risk. But, even if he still had his eyes, he was blinded by ignorance, and by the corruption surrounding him.
Imagine: at a certain point he wanted to have more warships built, but the guardians of the imperial forests would not allow trees to be cut down. On the other hand, Michael Xiphlinus, general of the army, had already sold off sails and rigging, rudders and other parts of the existing ships, to fill his coffers. Meanwhile, at Zara the young Alexius was hailed as emperor by those peoples, and in June of the previous year, the Latins arrived opposite the city.
One hundred ten galleys and seventy ships transporting a thousand men at arms and three thousand foot soldiers, with shields on the vessels’ flanks and banners in the wind and standards on the foc’s’les, paraded through the strait of Saint George, with trumpets blaring and drums rolling, and our men were on the walls to watch the spectacle.
Only a few hurled stones, but more to make noise than to do harm. Only when the Latins tied up directly opposite Pera did that madman Alexius III send out the imperial army. But it, too, was only a parade; in Constantinople we lived in a kind of somnolence. Perhaps you know that the entrance to the Horn was defended by a great chain that joined one bank to the other, but our forces defended it poorly: the Latins broke the chain, entered the port, and disembarked the entire army before the imperial palace of the Blachernae.
Our army came out from the walls, led by the emperor; from the ramparts the ladies watched the show and said that our men seemed angels, with their beautiful armor gleaming in the sun. They realized something was going wrong only when the emperor, instead of engaging in battle, went back into the city.
They understood it even better a few days later, when the Venetians attacked the walls from the sea and some Latins managed to scale them and set fire to the nearest houses. My fellow citizens began to understand after this first fire. What did Alexius III do then? During the night he loaded ten thousand gold pieces on a ship and abandoned the city.”
“And Isaac returned to the throne.”
“Yes, but by now he was old and also blind, and the Latins reminded him he was to share the empire with his son, who had become Alexius IV. With this boy the Latins had established some pacts of which we were still ignorant: the empire of Byzantium returned to Catholic and Roman dominion, the basileus gave the pilgrims one hundred thousand silver marks, provisions for a year, ten thousand horsemen to march on Jerusalem, and a garrison of five hundred knights in the Holy Land.
Isaac realized that there wasn’t enough money in the imperial treasury, and he couldn’t go and tell the clergy and the people that suddenly he was placing himself under the pope of Rome.
Thus a farce began that lasted for months. On the one hand, Isaac and his son, to collect money, sacked the churches; their men, with axes, cut out the images of Christ, and after stripping them of their ornaments, threw them in the fire, and melted down anything they found made of gold or silver.
On the other hand, the Latins, ensconced at Pera, ran freely on this side of the Horn, sat at Isaac’s table, lorded it over the whole city, and did everything to delay their departure.
They said they were waiting to be paid down to the last penny, and the man who was most insistent was Doge Dandolo for his Venetians, but truly I believe that here they had found Paradise, and they were blissfully living at our expense. Not content with taxing the Christians, and perhaps to justify their delay in engaging the Saracens of Jerusalem, some of them went to loot the houses of the Saracens who were peacefully living here in Constantinople, and in this conflict they set the second fire, in which I also lost the most beautiful of my houses.”
“And the two emperors didn’t protest to their allies?”
“At this point they were both hostages in the hands of the Latins, who had made Alexius IV their puppet. Once, when he was in their camp, amusing himself like any ordinary man-at-arms, they took the golden hat from his head and put it on their own heads. Never had a basileus of Byzantium been so humiliated! As for Isaac, he was turning into an idiot. Among gluttonous monks, he raved that he would become emperor of the world and would regain his sight….
Until the populace rose up, and elected Nikolas Kannabos basileus. A good man, but by then the strong man had become Alexius Doukas Murzuphlus, supported by the leaders of the army. So it was easy for him to seize power. Isaac died of a heart attack, Murzuphlus had Kannabos beheaded and Alexius IV strangled, so he became Alexius V.”
“Yes! We arrived just in those days when nobody knew any longer who was in command, whether it was Isaac, Kannabos, Murzuphlus, or the pilgrims; and we couldn’t tell, when someone spoke of Alexius, whether he meant the third, the fourth, or the fifth.
We found the Genoese still living where you also found them, while the houses of the Venetians and the Pisans had been burned in the second fire, and they had withdrawn to Pera. In this unfortunate city, the Poet decided that we had to rebuild our fortunes.”
When anarchy rules, the Poet said, anyone can make himself king. Meanwhile, we had to find some money. The five survivors were tattered, filthy, without resources. The Genoese welcomed them with good heart, but said that a guest is like fish and stinks after three days. The Poet washed himself carefully, trimmed his hair and beard, borrowed some decent clothes from our hosts, and one fine morning went out to collect news in the city.
He came back at evening and said: “Starting today Murzuphlus is basileus; he’s done away with all the others. Apparently, to make himself look good to his subjects, he wants to provoke the Latins, and they consider him a usurper, because they had made their agreements with poor Alexius IV, rest in peace, young as he was, but obviously he was doomed to end badly. The Latins are waiting for Murzuphlus to make a misstep; for the present they continue getting drunk in the taverns, but they are well aware that sooner or later they will kick him out and put the city to the sack.
They already know which gold objects are found in which churches, they also know that the city is full of hidden relics; however, they know that relics are not toys, and their leaders will want to seize them for themselves and take them home to their cities. But since these Greeklings are no better than they are, the pilgrims are wooing this one and that, to secure for themselves now, and on the cheap, the most important relics. Moral of the tale: the man who wants to make his fortune in this city sells relics; one who wants to make
his fortune when he’s back home, buys them.”
“Then the moment has come for us to bring out our Baptist’s heads!” Boidi said, hopefully.
“Boidi, you’re just talking because you have a mouth,” the Poet said.
“First of all, in a single city, you could sell one head at most, because then the news spreads. In the second place, I’ve heard there’s already one Baptist’s head in Constantinople, and maybe even two. Suppose we’d already sold both, and we turn up with a third: they’ll cut our throats. So, as to Baptist’s heads: nothing doing. But looking for relics takes time.
The problem isn’t finding them: it’s making them, identical to those that exist, though no one has yet discovered them. As I was moving around I heard some talk of Christ’s purple cloak, the reed and the pillar of the flagellation, the sponge soaked in gall and wormwood that was offered to Our Lord as he died, only now it’s dry, and the crown of thorns.
A case which once contained a piece of the bread consecrated at the Last Supper, some hairs from the Lord’s beard, the seamless garment of Jesus that the soldiers diced for, the mantle of the Madonna…”
“We have to imagine which are the easiest to counterfeit,” Baudolino said, pensive.
“Exactly,” the Poet said. “You can find a reed anywhere, a pillar is best forgotten because you can’t
