sailors, true, but they go to distant lands and build many new cities, and they know how it’s done.”
“But the Genoese aren’t the kind to do something for nothing,” Baudolino said. “Who paid them?”
“They paid! They’ve already given us a loan of a thousand Genovese
solidi, and they’ve promised another thousand for the coming year.” “And what do you mean by saying you make streets specially designed for warfare?”
“Have Emanuele Trotti explain that to you. It was his idea. You speak: you’re the Poliorcete!”
“What’s the Polior thing?”
This Trotti (who, like Oberto, had the air of a miles, a knight, in other words, a vassal of a certain dignity) said: “A city must resist the enemy, prevent him from scaling the walls, but if unfortunately he does scale them, the city must still be ready to stand up to him, and break his neck. If the enemy, inside the walls, immediately finds a tangle of alleyways where he can slip in, you’ll never catch him again; some go here, some there, and after a while the defenders end up like a mouse. No, the enemy must find an open area under the walls, where he remains exposed long enough to be assailed by arrows and stones from around the corners and from the windows, and before he can move past that space, half of his forces will be done for.”
(True, Niketas sadly interjected, on hearing the story, this is what they should have done in Constantinople; instead, at the base of the walls they allowed that tangle of alleyways to develop…. Yes, Baudolino would have liked to reply, but you’d also need men with balls like my countrymen, and not a bunch of namby-pambies like your weak-kneed imperial guard—but
he remained silent so as not to hurt his interlocutor, and he said: “Be quiet, don’t interrupt Trotti, let me continue.”)
Trotti said: “If the enemy then gets past the open area and slips into the streets, they should not be straight, made with a plumb line, not even if you are inspired by the ancient Romans, who designed a city on a grid. Because with a straight street the enemy always knows what’s awaiting him, but not if the streets are full of corners, or elbows, if you like. The defender waits around the corner, on the ground and on the rooftops, and he always knows what the enemy is doing, because on the next roof there’s another defender, crouching on a corner, who glimpses the enemy and signals to those who haven’t yet seen him. The enemy never knows what’s in store for him, so he slows down his advance. Therefore a good city must have its houses badly arranged, like a crone’s teeth, which seems ugly but is what’s really beautiful. And, finally, you want the false tunnel!”
“You haven’t told us about that yet,” Boidi interjected.
“Naturally. I just heard about it myself from a Genoese who heard it from a Greek, and it was an idea of Belisarius, the general of the emperor Justinian. What does a besieger want? He wants to dig tunnels under the walls that will lead him to the heart of the city. So what is his dream? To find a tunnel already made.
So we promptly dig a tunnel for him, which from outside leads inside the walls. On the outside, we conceal the mouth of the tunnel with rocks and bushes, but not cleverly enough to prevent the enemy from discovering it sooner or later. The end of the tunnel, the one that opens inside the city, must be a passage so narrow that only one man, or at most two, can go through at a time. It is closed with a metal grating, and the first one to reach it will see a square and perhaps the corner of a chapel, a sign that the passage leads right into the city. At the grating you set a guard, and when the enemy arrives, they have to emerge one by one, and as each comes out, the guard fells him….”
“And the enemy are all stupid and they keep coming out, not noticing that those ahead of them are dropping like figs,” Boidi snickered. “Who says enemies are stupid? Calm down. Maybe the idea should be studied a bit more, but it isn’t something to reject.”
Baudolino stepped to one side with Ghini, who was a merchant and must therefore be a man of sense with his feet on the ground, not like those knights, vassals of vassals, who to achieve military fame fling themselves even into lost causes. “Listen to me a minute, Ghini, pass me that wine and tell me something. I’ll go along with the idea that, when you make a city
here, Barbarossa is forced to besiege it to save his reputation, and that gives time to those of the League to strike him from behind after he’s worn himself out with the siege. But the losers in all this are the people of the city.
You’d have me believe that our people will leave the places where, for better or worse, they were getting along, and come here to get themselves killed to please the people of Pavia? You’re telling me that the Genoese, who wouldn’t shell out a penny to ransom their mothers from the Saracen pirates, are giving you money and labor to build a city that, at best, serves the purposes of Milan?”
“Baudolino,” Ghini said, “the story is much more complicated than that. Take a good look at where we are.” He dipped a finger in the wine and began to make marks on the table. “Here’s Genoa, right? And here are Terdona, then Pavia, then Milan. These are rich cities, and Genoa is a port. So Genoa must have free access for its trade with the Lombard cities, right? The passes go through the Lemme valley, then the Orba valley, the Bormida, and the Scrivia. We’re talking about four rivers, aren’t we? And they all intertwine more or less along the shore of the Tanaro. So if you have a bridge over the Tanaro, from there your way is open to trade with the lands of the marquess of Monferrato, and God knows where else.
Is that clear? Now, while Genoa and Pavia were getting along nicely, it was fine for them if these valleys remained without a lord, or else, if the situation demanded, they formed alliances, for example, with Gavi or with Marengo, and things went smoothly…. But with the arrival of this emperor, Pavia on one side and Monferrato on the other, both allied with the empire, Genoa is cut off to the left and also to the right, and if it goes over to Frederick, it can kiss its trade with Milan good-bye.
So they have to remain on good terms with Terdona and Novi, since one will allow them to control the valley of the Scrivia and the other, the Bormida. But you know what happened: the emperor razed Terdona, Pavia seized control of the Terdona region as far as the Appenines, and all our towns went over to the empire, and, by God, I ask you: puny as we were, could we have tried acting strong? What did the Genoese have to give us to persuade us to change sides? Something we’d never dreamed of having: namely, a city, with consuls and soldiers, and a bishop, and walls, a city that collects tolls on transients and goods. You realize, Baudolino, that just by controlling a bridge over the Tanaro you make piles of money, you sit there comfortably and you ask money of one man, a couple of hens from the next, a whole ox from the one after that, and they pay up right away. A city is a gold mine.
Remember how rich the people of Terdona were compared to us in the Palea. And this city, which is good for us, is good also for the League, and good for Genoa, as I was telling you, because, weak as it might be, by the mere fact of being there, it disrupts the schemes of all the others and guarantees that in this area neither Pavia nor the emperor can be master, nor can the marquess of Monferrato….”
“Yes, but then Barbarossa comes along and squashes you like a bug.” “Just a moment. Who says so? The problem is that when he arrives, the city is already there. Then you know well what happens: a siege costs time and money, we make a fine show of submission, he’s happy ( because with such people it’s honor above all) and he goes off somewhere else.”
“But the League people and the Genoese have thrown their money away to build the city, and you tell them to go screw themselves?”
“It depends on when Barbarossa arrives. As you can see, in the space of three months these cities change their allegiance like it was nothing. We sit and wait. Maybe at that moment the League is allied with the emperor.” (“Master Niketas,” Baudolino said, “I swear by my own eyes, six years later, at the siege of the city, there were Genoese slingers. You understand? Genoese! The ones who had helped build it!”)
“Otherwise,” Ghini continued, “we face the siege. Dammit to Hell, in this world you get nothing for nothing. Enough of this talk, come and
