“This is the end,” Frederick said. “I will never bear the shame of this defeat.”
“It was only a skirmish, Father. Anyway, they all believe you are dead. You’ll reappear like Lazarus resurrected, and what was considered a defeat will be considered a miracle by everyone, and they’ll sing a Te Deum.”
In truth, Baudolino was only trying to console a wounded and humiliated old soldier. That day the prestige of the empire had been compromised, rex et sacerdos or not. Unless Frederick were to return on stage in a halo of new glory. And at this point Baudolino couldn’t help recalling Otto’s hopes for the letter of the Priest.
“The fact is, dear Father,” he said, “that from what has happened you should finally learn one thing.”
“And what would you like to teach me, master wise man?”
“You don’t have to learn from me, God forbid, but from heaven. You must consider carefully what Bishop Otto used to say. In this Italy the farther you go the more you get stuck in the mud; you can’t be emperor where there is also a pope; with these cities you will always lose, because you want to impose order, which is a work of artifice, whereas they, on the
contrary, want to live in disorder, which is in accord with nature—or, rather, as the Parisian philosophers would say, is the condition of the yle, the primogenial chaos.
You must turn east, beyond Byzantium, impose the banners of your empire in the Christian lands that extend beyond the kingdoms of the infidels, joining the one, true rex et sacerdos, who has ruled there since the time of the Magi. Only when you have sealed an alliance with him, or he has sworn submission to you, can you return to Rome and treat the pope like your scullion, and the kings of England and France like your stableboys. Only then will your victors of today again be afraid of you.”
Frederick hardly remembered the prophecies of Otto, and Baudolino
had to remind him of them. “That Priest again?” Frederick said. “Does he really exist? And where is he? And how can I move a whole army to go and look for him? I would become Frederick the Foolish, and so I would be remembered through the centuries.”
“No, not if in all the chancelleries of all the Christian kingdoms, Byzantium included, there was a letter in circulation that this Prester John has written to you, to you alone, recognizing you as his only equal, and inviting you to join your two kingdoms.”
And Baudolino, who knew it almost by heart, began reciting in the darkness the letter of Prester John, also explaining what was the most precious relic in the world, which the Priest was sending him in a coffer. “But where is this letter? Do you have a copy of it? Are you sure you didn’t write it yourself?”
“I recomposed it in good Latin, I joined the membra disiecta of things that the wise already knew and said, though nobody listened to them. But everything in that letter is true as Gospel. We might say, if you like, that my hand simply placed the address on it, as if the letter were sent to you.”
“And this Priest could give me the—what did you call it?—the Grasal in which the blood of Our Lord was collected? To be sure, that would be the ultimate, perfect unction…” Frederick murmured.
So that night, along with the fate of Baudolino, the fate of his emperor was also decided, even if neither of the two had yet grasped where they were heading.
As both still daydreamed of a distant realm, towards dawn, near a ditch, they found a horse that had fled the battle and was unable to find his way. With two horses, even though they took a thousand minor roads, the ride to Pavia went much faster. Along the way they encountered bands of retreating imperials, who recognized their lord and emitted shouts of joy.
Since they had plundered the villages they passed through, they had sustenance, and rushed off to inform others who were farther ahead: so two days later Frederick arrived at the gates of Pavia preceded by the joyous news, to find the leaders of the city and his allies awaiting him with great pomp, still unable to believe their eyes.
There was also Beatrice, dressed in mourning, because by then they had told her that her husband was dead.
She was holding her two children by the hand, little Frederick, who was already twelve but looked half that, frail as he had been since birth, and Henry, who on the contrary had inherited all his father’s strength, but on this day was weeping in bewilderment, constantly asking what had happened. Beatrice discerned Frederick in the distance, and moved towards him, sobbing, and embraced him with passion. When he told her he was alive thanks to Baudolino, she noticed that the young man was also there, and she went deep red, then quite pale, then she wept, and finally extended her hand to touch his heart and begged heaven to reward the merit of what he had done, calling him son, friend, brother.
“At that precise moment, Master Niketas,” Baudolino said, “I realized that, by saving the life of my lord, I had paid my debt. But for this very reason I was no longer free to love Beatrice. And thus I realized that I loved her no more. It was like a healed wound, the sight of her aroused welcome memories but no yearning, I felt that I could remain at her side without suffering, or leave her without feeling sorrow.
Perhaps I had finally become a man, and all youthful ardor was spent. I felt no displeasure, only a slight melancholy. I felt like a dove that had billed and cooed without restraint, but now the season of love was over. It was time to move, to go beyond the sea.”
“You were no longer a dove; you’d become a swallow.” “Or a crane.”
- Baudolino is deceived by Zosimos
On Saturday morning Pevere and Grillo came to announce that order was somehow returning in Constantinople. Not so much because the pilgrims’ thirst for looting was sated, but because their leaders had realized that the looters had also seized many venerable relics. A chalice or a damask vestment might be winked at, but the relics should not be dispersed.
So the doge Dandolo had ordered that all the precious objects so far stolen should be brought to Saint Sophia, for fair distribution. Which meant primarily division between pilgrims and Venetians, as the latter were still awaiting payment for having brought the others here on their vessels. Then they would proceed, calculating the value of every piece in silver marks, and the knights would have four parts, the cavalry sergeants two, and the infantry sergeants one. It was easy to imagine the reaction of the soldiery, who were not allowed to seize anything.
There were murmurs that Dandolo’s men had already taken the four gilded bronze horses from the Hippodrome, to send them to Venice; and everyone was in a bad humor. Dandolo’s only reply was to order the search of troops of every rank, and a further search of their quarters in Pera.
One knight of the count of Saint-Pol had been found with a phial upon his person. He said it was a medicine, now dried up, but when they shook it, the warmth of their hands produced the flow of a red liquid, which was obviously the blood that had flowed from the ribs of Our Lord. The knight cried that he had honestly bought that relic from a monk before the sack; but to set an example, he was hanged on the spot, with his shield and its coat of arms around his neck.
“Shit! He looked like a codfish,” Grillo said.
Sadly, Niketas listened to the news, but Baudolino, immediately embarrassed, as if he were guilty, changed the subject and promptly asked if the time had come to leave the city.
“The confusion is still great,” Pevere said, “and you have to be careful. Where did you want to go, Master Niketas?”
“To Selymbria, where we have trusted friends who can take us in.” “Selymbria … not easy,” Pevere said. “It’s to the west, near the Long Walls. Even if we had mules, it’s three days on the road, and maybe more, and with a pregnant woman.” And imagine, too: crossing the city with a fine stable of mules, you look like someone important, and the pilgrims will fall on you like flies.” So the mules had to be prepared outside the city, and their party had to cross the city on foot. They would have to pass the walls of Constantine and then avoid the coast, where surely there were more people, skirt the church of Saint Mocius, and leave by the Pégé gate in the walls of Theodosius.
“It’s not likely to go so well that nobody will stop you,” Pevere said. “Ah,” Grillo commented, “to get it in the ass is a moment’s work, and all these women will make the pilgrims foam at the mouth.”
It still took a full day, since the young women had to be prepared. The leper scene couldn’t be repeated because by now the pilgrims had realized that lepers didn’t roam about inside the city. Some dots, some scabs had to be made on their faces, so they would appear to have scabies, enough to make
