Foaming with anger, the Poet said that in the manuscripts of the Saint Victoire library you could read that those who had traveled in those places did nothing but come upon splendid cities, with temples whose roofs were covered with emeralds, and palaces with golden ceilings, columns with ebony capitals, statues that seemed alive, golden altars with seventy steps, walls of pure sapphire, stones so luminous that they cast more light than torches, mountains of crystal, rivers of diamonds, gardens with trees emanating scented balms that permit the inhabitants to live by simply breathing in their odor, monasteries where only highly colored peacocks are bred, whose flesh does not undergo corruption, and, taken on a journey, that flesh lasts for thirty days or more even under a blazing sun, never causing a bad smell, and then glittering fountains whose water shines like the light of a thunderbolt and, if you put in it a salted fish, the fish would return to life and dart off, a sign that this is the fountain of eternal youth.
But they so far had seen desert, scrub, massifs where you couldn’t even rest on the stones because they would cook your buttocks, the only cities they had encountered were made of wretched hovels inhabited by repugnant rabble, like Colondiophontas, where they had seen the Artabants, men who walk prone like sheep, or like Iambut, where they had hoped to rest after having crossed seared plains, and the women, if not beautiful, weren’t too ugly, but they discovered that, faithful to their husbands, they kept poisonous snakes in their vagina to defend their chastity—and if they had at least mentioned it beforehand, but no: one woman pretended to give herself to the Poet, who came close to having to accept perpetual chastity, and he was lucky because he heard the hiss and sprang back.
Near the Catardese swamps they encountered men with testicles down to their knees, and at Necuveran, people naked as wild animals, who mated in the street like dogs, the father coupled with the daughter and the son with the mother. At Tana they met anthropophagi, who fortunately would not eat foreigners, whom they found revolting, but only their own children.
By the river Arlon they came upon a village where the inhabitants danced around an idol and with sharpened knives inflicted wounds on themselves, in every limb, then the idol was placed on a wagon and borne through the streets, and many of the people joyfully flung themselves under the wagon’s wheels, breaking their bones to the point of death.
At Salibut they crossed a wood infested with fleas as big as frogs, at Cariamaria they met hairy men who barked, and not even Baudolino could understand their language, and women with boar’s teeth, hair to their feet, and a cow’s tail.
These and other most horrendous things had they seen, but the wonders of the East never, as if all those who had written about them were great bastards. Ardzrouni urged patience, because he had also said that before the Earthly Paradise there was a very savage land, but the Poet replied that the savage land was inhabited by ferocious animals, which luckily they hadn’t yet seen, and therefore it was still to come, and if the lands they had in fact seen were the not savage ones, they could imagine the rest. Abdul, more and more feverish, said that it was impossible that his princess would live in such Godforsaken places, and perhaps they had taken the wrong road.
“But I certainly don’t have the strength to turn back, my friends,” he said faintly, “and therefore I believe I will die on the road to happiness.”
“Oh, be quiet. You don’t even know what you’re saying,” the Poet shouted at him. “You made us waste a thousand nights listening to you sing the beauty of your impossible love, and now that you see it really couldn’t be more impossible, you should be happy, in seventh heaven!” Baudolino pulled at his sleeve and whispered to him that Abdul was delirious by now and it was wrong to make him suffer even more.
After a time that seemed endless, they came to Salopatana, a fairly wretched city, where they were received with amazement, the people moving their fingers as if to count the arrivals. Clearly, the fact that they were twelve made an impression: everyone knelt down, except for one man, who ran off to spread the word among the other inhabitants.
A sort of archimandrite came towards them, chanting in Greek and bearing a wooden cross (a far cry from silver crosses encrusted with rubies, the Poet grumbled); he told Baudolino that here they had long awaited the return of the most holy Magi, who for thousands of years had experienced a thousand adventures, after they worshiped the Child in Bethlehem. And this
archimandrite was in fact asking if they were returning to the land of Prester John, from whence they surely came, to relieve him of his long labor and resume the power they had once had over those blessed lands.
Baudolino was exultant. They asked many questions about what lay in store for them, but they realized that these people also did not know where the Priest’s kingdom was, except that they firmly believed that it lay somewhere towards the east. Indeed, since the Magi actually came from down there, the local people were amazed that they themselves did not have accurate information.
“Most holy masters,” the good archimandrite said, “you are surely not like that Byzantine monk who passed through here some time ago, seeking to return to the Priest some relic or other that had been stolen from him. That man had a suspect look, and was undoubtedly a heretic, like all the Greeks of the lands along the sea, because he constantly invoked the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God, and Nestorius, our father and light of truth, has taught us that Mary was the mother only of Christ the man. How would it be possible to think of a God in swaddling clothes, a God two months old, a God on the cross? Only pagans give a mother to their gods!”
“That monk is truly suspect,” the Poet blurted, “and I must tell you that he stole that relic from us.”
“May the Lord punish him. We allowed him to go on his way, not telling him anything of the dangers he would come upon, and therefore he knew nothing of the Abcasia, may God punish him and plunge him into that darkness. And he will surely come upon the manticore and the black rocks of the Bubuctor.”
“My friends,” the Poet murmured, “these people could tell us many valuable things, but they would tell us only because we are the Magi;
however, since we are the Magi, they don’t think it’s necessary to tell us anything. If you’ll heed my advice, we’ll leave here at once; because if we talk with them a little longer we’ll end up making some slip and they’ll understand that we don’t know what the Magi should know. Nor can we offer them a Baptist’s head, because I just can’t see the Magi practicing simony. Let’s clear out fast, because for all that they may be good Christians, nobody can assure us they’re tender with anyone who tries to outsmart them.”
Whereupon the friends took their leave, receiving many provisions as gifts, and wondering about that Abcasia whose darkness can so easily engulf you.
They soon learned what the black rocks of the Bubuctor were. They lay for miles and miles on the bed of that river, and some nomads they met shortly before had explained that whoever touched the rocks became as black as they were. Ardzrouni said, on the contrary, that they must be very precious stones, which the nomads sold at God knows what distant market, and they told this fairy tale to prevent others from collecting them. He had rushed to garner a good supply, and showed the friends how shiny they were and how perfectly shaped by the water. But, as he was speaking, his face, his neck, his hands quickly became as black as ebony; he opened his shirt and his chest was now totally black, he bared his legs and feet, and they also seemed made of coal.
Ardzrouni flung himself naked into the river, rolled around in the water, scraped his skin with gravel from the riverbed. … Nothing could be done. Ardzrouni had become black as night, and you could see only the whites of his eyes and his red lips beneath his beard, also black.
At first, the others laughed themselves sick, while Ardzrouni cursed their mothers; then they tried to console him: “We want to be taken for the Magi, don’t we?” Baudolino said. “Well, at least one of them was black; I swear that one of the three lying in Cologne is black. And now our group becomes even more credible.” Solomon, more considerate, remembered having heard of stones that change the color of the skin, but there are remedies, and Ardzrouni would be even whiter than before. “Yes, in a week of Fridays,” Bonehead sniggered, and the hapless Armenian had to be restrained, because he wanted to tear the man’s ear off with one bite.
One fine day they entered a forest thick with leafy trees, bearing fruit of every description, through
