So two envoys from the city set out with Baudolino: Anselmo Conzani and Teobaldo, one of the Guascos. They met the emperor at Nuremberg, and the agreement was reached. Even the question of the consuls was resolved promptly; it was only a matter of saving appearances: the Alessandrians should go ahead and elect them; it would suffice if the emperor then appointed them. As for the homage, Baudolino took Frederick aside and said to him: Father, you can’t come yourself; you must send a legate. So you send me. After all, I’m a ministerial, and as such, in your immense kindness, you’ve bestowed on me the sash of knighthood, and I’m a Ritter, as they say here.”
“Yes, but you still belong to the nobility of service; you can have feudal estates but you can’t confer them, and you are not entitled to have vassals, and…”
“What do you think that matters to my compatriots. For them, it’s enough for a man to have a horse and issue orders. They pay homage to your representative, and hence to you, but your representative is me, and I’m one of them, and therefore they don’t have the impression of paying homage to you. Then, if you like, the oaths and all those other things can be made to an imperial chamberlain of yours who is beside me, and they won’t even know who’s the more important. You also have to understand how people are made. If in this way we settle things finally, won’t it be good for all?”
So in mid-March of 1183 the ceremony took place. Baudolino was in dress uniform, and he looked more important than the marquess of Monferrato; his parents devoured him with their eyes, as he, hand on the hilt of his sword, sat astride a white horse that wouldn’t keep still. “He’s decked out like a lord’s dog,” his mother said, dazzled. He was flanked by two ensigns bearing the imperial standards, the imperial chamberlain Rudolph, and many other nobles of the empire, and more bishops than you could count, though at that point nobody was noticing details.
There were also representatives of the other Lombard cities, such as Lanfranco of Como, Siro Salimbene of Pavia, Filippo of Casale, Gerardo of Novara, Pattinerio of Ossona, and Malavisca of Brescia.
When Baudolino had taken his place before the gate of the city, all the Alessandrians filed out, with their little children in their arms and the old men leaning on them, and even the ill were carried out on carts, including the simple-minded and the lame, along with the heroes of the siege who had lost a leg or an arm, or even bare-assed on a plank with wheels, propelling themselves with their hands. Since they didn’t know how long they would have to remain outside, many brought along provisions, some had bread and salami, others, roast chickens, and still others, baskets of fruit, and in the end it all looked like a grand picnic.
Truth to tell, it was very cold, and the fields were covered with frost, so sitting down was torture. Those citizens, now deprived of power, stood erect, stamped their feet, blew on their hands, and someone said: “Can we get this show over with quickly? We’ve left our pots on the stove.”
The emperor’s men entered the city and nobody saw what they did, not even Baudolino, who was outside, waiting for the return procession. At a certain point a bishop came out and announced that this was the city of Caesarea, by grace of the holy and Roman emperor.
The imperials behind Baudolino raised their arms and their standards, cheering the great Frederick. Baudolino spurred his horse to a trot, approached the first line of citizens and, in his position as imperial envoy, announced that to this noble city including the seven towns of Gamondio, Marengo, Bergoglio, Roboreto, Solero, Foro, and Oviglio, the name of Caesarea had been given and he ceded it to the inhabitants of the afore-named places, here gathered, inviting them to take possession of this turreted gift.
The imperial chamberlain listed all the articles of the agreement, but everyone was cold, and they allowed the details of the donation to pass in haste: the regalia, the curadia, the tolls, and all those things that made a treaty valid. “Come, Rudolph,” Baudolino said to the imperial chamberlain, “it’s all a farce anyway and the sooner it’s over the better.”
The exiles took the return path, and they were all there except Oberto del Foro, who hadn’t accepted the shame of this homage. He who had defeated Frederick had delegated in his stead, as nuncii civitatis, Anselmo Conzani and Teobaldo Guasco.
Passing before Baudolino, the nuncii of the new Caesarea swore their solemn oath, though speaking in Latin so horrible that if afterwards they said they had sworn the opposite nobody could have contradicted them.
As for the others, they followed with lazy, grudging salutes, some saying Salve, Baudolino; how are things, Baudolino; hey there, Baudolino; long time no see; well, here we are again, eh? As Gagliaudo went by, he muttered that this thing wasn’t serious, but he was sufficiently sensitive to raise his hat, and inasmuch as he raised it in front of that scapegrace son of his, as an homage it was more effective than if he had licked Frederick’s feet.
When the ceremony was over, both the Lombards and the Teutonics went off as quickly as possible, as if they were ashamed of themselves. Baudolino, on the contrary, followed his fellow-citizens inside the walls and heard some saying:
“Look at this fine city!”
“You know something? It looks just like that other one—what was the name?—that was here before.”
“These Alamans, they’re really geniuses! In no time at all they’ve run up a city that’s a true masterpiece!”
“Just look over there. That house looks exactly like mine! They’ve remade it exactly like it was.”
“Now, boys,” Baudolino shouted, “be thankful you’ve pulled it off without having to pay iugaticum!”
“As for you—don’t put on too many airs! You’ll end up believing what you say!”
It was a beautiful day. Baudolino laid aside all the signs of his power and went off to celebrate. In the cathedral square girls were dancing in a circle. Boidi took Baudolino to the tavern, and in that cave with its aroma of garlic they all went to draw the wine directly from the barrels, because on that day there were to be no more masters or servants, especially the
tavern’s serving wenches, some of whom had already been carried upstairs, but as everyone knows, men are born hunters.
“Blood of Jesus Christ!” Gagliaudo said, pouring a bit of wine on his sleeve, to show that the cloth wouldn’t absorb it and the drop remained compact, with ruby glints, a sign that this was good stuff. “Now we’ll go on calling it Caesarea for a few years, at least on the parchments with seals,”
Boidi whispered to Baudolino, “but then we’ll start calling it what we called it before, and I want to see if anyone cares.”
“Yes,” Baudolino said, “then we’ll call it by its old name, because that’s what that angel Colandrina called it, and now that she’s in Paradise, there’s a risk she might send her benedictions to the wrong address.”
“Master Niketas, I felt almost reconciled to my misfortunes, because from me the son I never had and the wife I had had too briefly at least had received a city that nobody would afterwards oppress. Perhaps,” Baudolino added, inspired by the anise, “one day Alessandria will become the new Constantinople, the third Rome, all towers and basilicas, a wonder of the universe.”
“May God so will,” Niketas wished, raising his cup.
- Baudolino finds Zosimos again
In April, at Constance, the emperor and the League of the Lombard communes signed a final agreement. In June confused reports were arriving from Byzantium.
Manuel had been dead for three years. His son Alexius, hardly more than a child, had succeeded him. A naughty child, Niketas commented, who, still without any knowledge of joys and sorrows, devoted his days to the hunt and to his horses, playing with young boys, while at court various suitors aimed at winning his mother the dowager, covering themselves with perfume like idiots and bedecking themselves with necklaces as women do, others dedicating themselves to squandering public funds, each pursuing his own desires and combating the others—as if an erect supporting column had been removed and everything was tilting the wrong way.
“The omen that had appeared at Manuel’s death was achieved,” Niketas said. “A woman gave birth to a male child with stunted, badly articulated limbs, and an over-large head, and this was a presage of polyarchy, which is the mother of anarchy.”
“What I learned immediately from our spies was that a cousin, Andronicus, was conspiring in the shadows,” Baudolino said.
“He was the son of a brother of Manuel’s father, and was therefore a kind of uncle to little Alexius. Until then he had been in exile, because Manuel considered him untrustworthy, a traitor. Now he slyly ingratiated himself with young Alexius, as if repentant of his past actions, desirous of offering him protection, and little by little he gained increasing power.
Between plots and poisonings, he pursued his ascent to the imperial throne until, when he was by then old, steeped in envy and hatred, he spurred the citizens of Constantinople to revolt, having himself proclaimed basileus.
As he received the sacred Host, he swore he was assuming power to protect his still-young nephew. But immediately afterwards, his evil genius, Stephen Agiochristoforites, strangled the boy Alexius with a bow string. When the wretched boy’s corpse
