“But how is it possible to forget a relic, considering what one is worth?” Baudolino asked.
“The piety of the populace is fickle. For years they are excited by a sacred memento, and then something even more miraculous arrives and they become enthusiastic about that, while the earlier one is forgotten.” “Which head is the right one?” Boiamondo asked.
“Holy things must not be spoken of in human terms. Whichever of the two relics was given me, I assure you that in bending to kiss it, I would sense the mystical perfume that it emanates, and I would know it was the true head.”
At that moment Pevere also arrived from the city. Extraordinary things were happening. To prevent the soldiery, too, from stealing from the heap in Saint Sophia, the Doge had ordered a first rapid listing of the things collected, and they had also brought in some Greek monks to identify the various relics. Here it was discovered that, after the majority of the pilgrims had been forced to return what they had taken, now in the church there were not only two heads of the Baptist, which they already knew, but two sponges for the gall and wormwood and two crowns of thorns, not to mention other duplications.
A miracle, said Pevere, laughing, with a glance at Baudolino: the most precious among Byzantium’s relics had multiplied, like the loaves and fishes. Some of the pilgrims saw the event as a favorable sign from heaven, and they shouted that, if there was such a wealth of these valuable things, the Doge should allow each man to carry home what he had taken.
“No, it’s a miracle favorable to us,” Theophilus said, “because the Latins will never know which relics are genuine, and they’ll be obliged to leave everything here.”
“I’m not so sure,” Baudolino said. “Each prince or marquess or vassal will be content to take home some holy relic, which will attract crowds of the devout, and donations. But then if there’s a rumor that another, similar relic exists a thousand miles away, they’ll say that one is fake.”
Niketas turned pensive. “I don’t believe in this miracle. The Lord doesn’t confound our minds with the relics of his saints…. Baudolino, in these past months, since your arrival in the city, you haven’t invented some trick with relics, have you?”
“Master Niketas!” Baudolino tried to say in an offended tone. Then he held his hands out, as if to impose calm on his interlocutor. “All right, if I have to tell you everything, the moment will come when I’ll have to tell you a story about relics. I’ll tell it to you later. Anyway, you yourself said just now that holy things mustn’t be spoken of in human terms. But it’s late, and I think that in an hour, under cover of darkness, we can set out. We must be ready.”
Wanting to set out well refreshed, Niketas had, a while ago, ordered Theophilus to prepare a monokythron, which required some time to be cooked properly. It was a bronze pot full of beef and pork, bones not entirely stripped and Phrygian cabbage, saturated with fat. Since there was little time remaining for a lengthy supper, the logothete had abandoned his good habits and was dipping into the pan not with three fingers, but with open hands. It was as if he were consummating his last night of love with the beloved city, virgin, prostitute, and martyr. Baudolino had no appetite and confined himself to sipping the resinous wine, for who knows what he would find in Selymbria.
Niketas asked him if Zosimos played a role in this story of relics, and Baudolino said that he preferred to proceed in order.
“After the horrible things we saw in the city we returned overland, because there wasn’t enough money to pay for the voyage by ship. The confusion of those days allowed Zosimos, with the help of one of those acolytes he was about to abandon, to lay hands on some mules, no telling how. During the journey, after hunting in some forest and with the hospitality of some monasteries along the way, we finally arrived in Venice, and then in the Lombard plain….”
“And Zosimos never tried to escape?”
“He couldn’t. From that time on, even after our return, and always at Frederick’s court and on the journey to Jerusalem we made later, for more than four years he remained in chains. That is, when he was with us, he was free to move, but when we had to leave him alone, he was chained to his bed, to a stake, to a tree, according to where we were, and if we were on horseback, he was tied to the reins in such a way that if he tried to dismount the horse would rear up. Afraid that this would make him forget his obligations, every evening, before he went to sleep, I gave him a slap. By then he knew it was coming and awaited it, like a mother’s kiss, before sleeping.”
During their march the friends had, above all, never ceased prodding Zosimos to reconstruct the map, and he displayed willingness, every day recalling a detail, so that he had already succeeded in calculating the true distances.
“Roughly,” he said, drawing in the dust with one finger, “from Tzinista, the land of silk, to Persia it is fifty days’ march, crossing Persia takes a hundred and fifty days more, from the Persian border to Seleucia thirteen days, from Seleucia to Rome and then to the Iberian land, a hundred and fifty days. More or less, to go from one end of the world to the other, four hundred days’ march, if you do thirty miles a day. Earth, moreover, is more long than wide—and you will recall that in Exodus it is said that in the tabernacle the table must be two cubits long and one cubit wide.
So from north to south you can calculate fifty days from the northern regions to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Alexandria another fifty days, from Alexandria to Ethiopia on the Arabic Gulf, seventy days. In short, more or less two hundred days. Therefore, if you set out from Constantinople towards farthest Indias, calculating that you are proceeding obliquely and will have to stop often to find your way, and who knows how many times you will have to turn back, I reckon you would find Prester John after a year’s journey.”
Speaking of relics, Kyot asked Zosimos if he had heard the Grasal spoken of. He had heard it mentioned, to be sure, and by the Galatians, who lived around Constantinople, people who traditionally knew the stories of the very ancient priests of the extreme north. Kyot asked if he had heard of that Feirefiz who supposedly took the Grasal to Prester John, and Zosimos said that certainly he had heard of him, but Baudolino remained skeptical. “What is this Grasal then?” he asked. “The cup, the cup in which Christ consecrated the bread and the wine; you’ve said that yourself.” Bread in a cup?
No, wine: the bread was on a plate, a patena, a little tray. But what was the Grasal then, the plate or the cup? Both, Zosimos attempted to equivocate. If you thought about it, the Poet suggested, with a fearsome expression, it was the spear with which Longinus had pierced the ribs.
Yes, of course, that must be it. At this point Baudolino gave him a slap, even if it wasn’t yet time to go to bed, but Zosimos defended himself: the stories were vague, yes, but the fact that they circulated also among the Galatians of Byzantium was the proof that this Grasal really existed. And so it went on: of the Grasal the knowledge was always the same, that there was very little knowledge.
“Of course,” Baudolino said, “if we were the ones who bring Frederick the Grasal, and not a gallows-bird like you….”
“You can still take it to him,” Zosimos suggested. “Just find the proper vessel….”
“Ah, so now it’s also a vessel? I’ll put you in that vessel! I’m not a counterfeiter like you!”
Zosimos shrugged and stroked his chin, testing the regrowth of his beard, but it was all the uglier now, for he looked like a catfish, whereas, before, the chin had been shiny and smooth like a ball.
“Furthermore,” Baudolino muttered, “even if we know it’s a chalice or a vase, how can we recognize it when we find it?”
“Oh, you can rest assured,” Kyot spoke up, his eyes lost in the world of his legends, “you’ll see the glow, you’ll sense the perfume….”
“Let’s hope so,” Baudolino said. Rabbi Solomon shook his head: “It must be something you gentiles stole from the Temple in Jerusalem when you sacked it and scattered us through the world.”
They arrived just in time for Henry’s wedding. The second son of Frederick, crowned king of the Romans, was to marry Constance of Altavilla.
The emperor now placed all his hopes in this junior son. Not that he didn’t cherish the older boy. He did. He had even named him king of Swabia, but it was obvious that Frederick loved him with sadness, as happens with children who are born ill. Baudolino saw him: pale, coughing, always blinking his left eyelid as if to chase away a
