Now, since all the others started laughing and it was clear they were laughing at him, Baudolino (already in a temper from having to act the unarmed merchant on a mule, while in his baggage he kept, carefully wrapped in a bolt of cloth, his courtier’s sword) replied in the Frescheta dialect, which after all this time returned spontaneously to his lips, that he had no need of a machine because, as a rule, his prick, as respectable people called it, was regularly scratched by those sluts of their mothers. The Genoese didn’t understand clearly the meaning of his words, but they guessed their intention.
They abandoned their tasks, one grabbing a stone, another a pick, to form a semicircle around the mule. Fortunately, at that moment some other men were approaching, one of whom looked like a knight, and in a language half Frank and half-Latin, half-Provençal and half God knows what, he told the Genoese that the traveler spoke like a man of these parts, and so they were not to treat him as someone who had no right to pass this way.
He had asked questions like a spy, the Genoese explained, and the knight replied that if the emperor did send spies, so much the better, because it was time he knew that a city had risen here, just to spite him.
And then he said to Baudolino: “I’ve never seen you before, but you look like someone returning home. Have you come to join us?”
“My lord,” Baudolino replied with urbanity, “I was born in Frascheta, but I left it many years ago, and I knew nothing of all that is happening here. My name is Baudolino, son of Gagliaudo Aulari….”
Before he could finish speaking, from the group of newcomers an old man with white hair and beard raised a stick and began shouting: “Wicked, heartless liar, may lightning strike you. How dare you use the name of my poor son Baudolino, son of Gagliaudo, here in person, and Aulari too, who left his home so many years ago with a grand Alaman lord, and after all maybe was one who made monkeys dance because I never heard another word about my poor boy and after all this time he has to be dead, so my sainted wife and I have suffered these thirty years, for the greatest sorrow of our life, that was already miserable enough, but to lose a son is a sorrow no one can know unless he’s suffered it himself!”
At which Baudolino cried: “Dear Father! It’s really you!” His voice broke and tears came to his eyes, but they could not conceal a great happiness. Then he added: “And it hasn’t been thirty years of suffering, because I left only thirteen years ago, and you should be pleased because I’ve spent those years well, and now I’m somebody.”
The old man came over to the mule, looked carefully into Baudolino’s face, and said: “Why, you’re really you! Even if it was thirty years, that jackass look you’ve never lost, so you know what I have to say to you? Maybe you’re now somebody, but you mustn’t wrong your father, and if I said thirty years it’s because to me it’s seemed thirty, and in thirty years you could have sent news, you wretch. You’re the ruin of our family. Get off that animal that you probably stole, and I’ll break this stick over your head!” He seized Baudolino by the boots, trying to pull him down from the mule, but the man who seemed the leader stepped between them. “Come now, Gagliaudo, you find your son again after thirty years—” “Thirteen,” Baudolino said.
“You shut up! The two of us will talk later—you find him after thirty years and in this situation you embrace and thank God, for God’s sake!” Baudolino had already dismounted and was about to fling himself into the arms of Gagliaudo, who was now crying, when the lord who seemed a leader again stepped in and seized Baudolino by the collar: “But if there’s anyone here who has a score to settle it’s me.”
“And who might you be?” Baudolino asked.
“I’m Oberto del Foro, but you don’t know that, and you probably don’t remember anything. I was maybe ten years old and my father deigned to visit yours, to see some calves that were for sale. I was dressed the way a gentleman’s son should be, and my father didn’t want me to go into the stable with him for fear I would get dirty. I was wandering around outside the house, and you were right after me, so dirty and ugly you looked like you’d come out of a dunghill. You faced me, looked at me, and asked me if I wanted to play a game; I stupidly said yes, and you gave me a shove that sent me into the pigs’ trough. When my father saw me in that state, he gave me a whipping because I had spoiled my new clothes.”
“That may be,” Baudolino said, “but it happened thirty years ago….” “First of all, it was thirteen, and since then I’ve thought about it every day, because I’ve never been so humiliated in my life as I was that time, and, growing up, I kept telling myself that if I one day met the son of Gagliaudo, I’d kill him.”
“And you want to kill me now?”
“Not now, no. On the contrary, because we’re all here and we’ve almost finished constructing a city, to fight the emperor when he sets foot again in these parts, so obviously I don’t have time to waste killing you. For thirty years…”
“Thirteen.”
“For thirteen years I’ve had this rage in my heart, and now, at this very moment, strangely enough, it’s gone.”
“Like they say, sometimes…”
“Now don’t try to be smart. Go and embrace your father. Then, if you apologize to me for that day, we can go to a place nearby where they’re celebrating the completion of a building, and in these situations we draw from the keg of the best and, as our old folks used to say, we drink the night away.”
Baudolino found himself in a huge cellar. The city wasn’t yet finished, and already the first tavern was open, in a cave that was all hogsheads and long wooden tables, full of fine mugs, and salami made with ass’s meat, which (Baudolino explained to a horrified Niketas) arrived looking like swollen wineskins; you pierce them with a knife, drop them in some oil and
garlic to fry, and they are a delicacy. And that’s why all those present were in high spirits, stinking and tipsy.
Oberto del Foro announced the return of the son of Gagliaudo Aulari, and immediately some of the men threw themselves on Baudolino, punching his shoulders, as he first widened his eyes, surprised, then responded, in a whirl of recognitions that threatened never to end. “Good Lord, why you’re Scaccabarozzi, and you’re Cuttica of Quargnento—and who are you? No, don’t tell me, I want to guess.
You must be Squarciafichi! And are you Ghini or Porcelli?”
“No, he’s Porcelli, the one who always threw stones at you! I was Ghino Ghini, and to tell the truth I still am. The two of us used to go and slide on the ice, in winter.”
“Good Lord Jesus, it’s true: you’re Ghini! Weren’t you the one who could sell anything, even the dung of your goats, like that time when you passed some off on a pilgrim as the ashes of San Baudolino?”
“That’s right, I did! In fact, now I’m a merchant. Talk about fate! Now look at him—try and say who he is….”
“Why, it’s Merlo! What was it I always used to say to you?”
“You used to say: ‘Lucky Merlo, stupid as you are, you never take offense.’ Now, look at me; instead of taking, I’ve lost…” and he held up his right arm, the hand missing. “At the siege of Milan, ten years ago.”
“Yes, I was going to ask. As far as I know, the people of Gamondio, Bergoglio, and Marengo have always been for the emperor. So how is it you used to be for him and now you’re building a city against him?”
They all started trying to explain, and the only thing Baudolino understood clearly was that around the old castle and the church of Santa Maria of Roboreto a city had risen, made up of people from the neighboring settlements, places like Gamondio, Bergoglio, and Marengo, but with whole families who had come from everywhere, from Rivalta Bormida, from Bassignana or Piovera, to build the houses they would then live in.
So that since May three of them, Rodolfo Nebia, Aleramo of Marengo, and Oberto del Foro had brought to Lodi, to the communes assembled there, the support of the new city, even if it existed, at that moment, more in their intentions than on the banks of the Tanaro. But they had all worked like animals, all summer and autumn, and the city was nearly ready, ready to block the emperor’s path, the day he came down again into Italy, as was his bad habit.
What did they think they were blocking? Baudolino asked, slightly skeptical. “He could simply skirt it….”
“No, no,” they answered, “you don’t know the emperor [Imagine!]. A city that rises without his consent is
