But he thought that may be this gentleman one of those men who go to the fairs and the marketplaces with a Monky and may be he would lay his hands on me and he didnt like that idea but that gentleman said he was a grand comes palatinus and among the Alamans there werent any Sodomiten what are these sodomiten my father asked and I explained theyre kypioni shit he said kypioni are everywhere but when the Gentleman pulled out another five Coins after the two of the night before then he forgot everything and said son go then and maybe this is a piece of luck for you and may be for us too since one way or another these Alamans are always around our partts and this means you can come and see us now and then and I said I swear I will and I was ready to leave but I still felt a lump in my throat because
I saw my mother crying like I was going off to die et so we left and the Gentleman told me to take him to where the Castrum of the imperials was and I said thats easy you just follow the sun that is go where it comes from and as we were going and could already see the tents a company of horsemen arrived all decked out and when they see us they fall on their knees and lower their pikes and their banners and raise their swords why what can this be I asked myself and they started yelling Chaiser Kaisar here and Keiser there and Sanctissimus Rex and they kissed that gentlemans hand and my jaw almost fell off because my mouth was open so wide like an oven because it was only then I understood the gentleman with the red beard was the emperor Fridericus in flesh and blood and I had been telling him madeup stories all night like he was any old asshole now he’ll have them cut off my head I say to myself but still
I cost him VII coins and if hed wanted to cut my head off he would of done it last night gratis et amoredei et he said dont be afraid of anything its all right Im bearing news of a great Vision little puer tell us all the vision you had in the wood and I drop down like I had the falling sickness and my eyes open wide and theres foam on my mouth and I yell I saw I saw and I tell the whole storey of Saint Baudolino who made the prophecy to me and they all praise Dominnus Domine Deus and say Miraculo miraculo gottstehmirbei and with them there were also the messengers of Terdona who hadnt yet decided whether to surrender but when they heard me they lay flat on the ground and said if even the saints were against them then they better surrender because it couldnt go on anyway et then I saw the Derthonesi who were all coming out of the City men women and children et vetuli too and they were crying while the alamans carried them away like they were beeccie that is berbices and sheep everywhere and the people of Pavia who cheered and entered Turtona like lunnatics with faggots and hammers and clubs and picks because tearing a city down to the ground was enough to make them come et towards evening
I saw on the hill a great smoke and Terdona or Derthona was just about gone and this is how war is as my father Galiaudo says its an ugly animal war is but better them than us et in the evening the Emperor comes back all happy to the Tabernacula and gives me a slap on the cheek like my father never did and then he calls a gentleman who turned out to be the good canon Rahewinus and tells him he wants me to learn to write and the abacus and even gramar which then I didnt know what it was but now slowly I learn and my father Galiaudo never immagined such a thing what a great thing to be a man of learning and who would ever have thought it gratis agimus domini dominus I mean thanks to the Lord all the same writing a story makes you sweat even in winter also Im afraid because the lamp has gone out and as the man said my thumb akes
- Baudolino meets Niketas Choniates
«What’s this?» Niketas asked, after he had turned the parchment over in his hands and tried to read a few lines.
«It’s my first attempt at writing,» Baudolino answered, «and ever since I wrote it—I was fourteen, I think, and was still a boy of the woods—I’ve carried it with me like an amulet.
After I had filled many other parchments, sometimes day by day, I felt I was alive only because in the evening I could tell what had happened to me in the morning.
Then I was content with those monthly ledgers, a few lines, to remind me of the main events.
And I said to myself, when I was further on in years—now, for example—on the basis of these notes I would compose the Gesta Baudolini.
So in the course of my journeys I carried with me the story of my life. But in the escape from the kingdom of Prester John…»
«Prester John? Never heard of him.»
«I’ll tell you more about him—maybe even too much. But as I was saying: During the escape I lost these pages. It was like losing life itself.» «You will tell me what you remember. I receive scraps of events, fragments of actions, and I extract a story from them, woven by a design of Providence. In saving my life you have given me what little future remains to me and I will repay you by giving you back the past you have lost….» «But maybe my story has no meaning.»
«There are no stories without a meaning. And I am one of those men who can find it even where others fail to see it. Afterwards the story becomes the book of the living, like a blaring trumpet that raises from the tomb those who have been dust for centuries…. Still it takes time, you have to consider the events, arrange them in order, find the connections, even the least visible ones. But we have nothing else to do; your Genoese friends say we must wait until the fury of those dogs has calmed down.»
Niketas Choniates, former court orator, supreme judge of the empire, judge of the Veil, logthete of secrets or—as the Latins would have said— chancellor of the basileus of Byzantium as well as historian of many Comneni and Angelus emperors, regarded with curiosity the man facing him. Baudolino had told him that the two of them had met at Gallipoli, in the days of the emperor Frederick, but if Baudolino had been there, he had been surrounded by many other ministerials, whereas Niketas, who was negotiating in the name of the basileus, had been far more visible. Was Baudolino lying? No matter: it was he who had saved Niketas from the fury of the invaders, brought him to a safe place, reunited him with his family, and was now promising to take him out of Constantinople….
Niketas observed his rescuer. In appearance now he seemed not so much a Christian as a Saracen. Face burned by the sun, a livid scar that ran the length of his cheek, a crown of still-tawny hair, which gave him a leonine demeanor. Niketas would soon be even more amazed to learn that this man was over sixty years old. His hands were thick, when he held them clasped on his lap the gnarled knuckles were striking. Peasant’s hands, made more for the spade than the sword.
And yet he spoke fluent Greek, not spitting saliva the way foreigners usually did, and Niketas had, only briefly, heard him address some of the other invaders in a hirsute language of their own, which sounded swift and harsh; this was a man who could use it offensively. For that matter Baudolino had told him the night before that he possessed a gift: he had only to hear two people speaking any language and in no time he was able to speak as they did. A singular gift, which Niketas had believed granted only to the apostles.
Living at court—and at that court—had taught Niketas to evaluate people with calm distrust. What struck him about Baudolino was that, whatever the man said, he would glance
