- Baudolino meets the Deacon Johannes
When they were about fifty paces from the tower, they saw a procession emerging from it. First a squad of nubians, but more elaborately clothed than those in the market: from the waist down they were enfolded in white cloths wound tightly around their legs, covered by a little skirt that fell halfway down the thigh; they were barechested, but wore red capes, and at the neck a leather collar in which colored stones were set, not gems but pebbles from a riverbed, arranged like a bright mosaic. On their heads they wore white hoods with many bows. On their arms, wrists, and fingers they had rings and bracelets of woven string. Those in the first row were playing pipes and drums, those in the second held their enormous clubs against their shoulders, those in the third had only bows slung around their necks.
Then there followed a formation of what were surely the eunuchs, in ample and soft robes, made up like women and with turbans that seemed cathedrals. The one in the center carried a tray laden with cakes. Finally, escorted at either side by two nubians waving fans of peacock feathers over his head, came the man who was surely the highest dignitary of this company: his head was covered with a turban as high as two cathedrals, a plait of silken bands of different colors; from his ears hung pendants of colored stone; his arms were decked with bracelets of gaudy feathers. He also wore a garment that reached his feet, and was bound at the waist by a sash of blue silk, a span wide, and on his chest hung a cross of painted wood. He was a man of some age, and the rouge on his lips and the bister on his eyes contradicted his skin, now yellowing and flaccid, calling even more attention to a double chin that quivered at every step he took. His hands were pudgy, with long nails as sharp as blades, painted red.
The procession stopped in front of the visitors, the nubians lined up in double file, while the eunuchs of lesser rank knelt as the one carrying the tray bowed and proffered the food. Baudolino and his men, at first uncertain how to act, dismounted and accepted pieces of cake, which they chewed dutifully, bowing. At their greeting the chief eunuch finally came forward and prostrated himself on the ground, then stood and addressed them in Greek:
“Since the birth of Our Lord Christ Jesus we have waited for your return, and if you are surely those whom we believe you to be, it pains me to know that the twelfth among you, but like you first among all Christians, was driven from his path by inclement Nature.
While I will give orders to our guards to study the horizon ceaselessly in expectation of his arrival, I wish you a happy sojourn in Pndapetzim,” he said in a white voice. “I say this to you in the name of Deacon John, I, Praxeas, supreme chief of the court eunuchs, protonotary of the province, sole vicar of the deacon to the Priest, supreme custodian and logothete of the secret path.” He said this as if even the Magi should be impressed by such high rank. “Give me a break,” murmured Aleramo Scaccabarozzi known as Bonehead. “Just listen at him!”
Baudolino had thought many times about how he would introduce himself to the Priest, but never about how you should present yourself to a chief eunuch in the service of the Priest’s deacon. He decided to follow the line they had established: “Sir,” he said, “I express to you our joy in having reached this noble, rich, and wondrous city of Pndapetzim, the most
beautiful and flourishing we have seen in all our journey.
We come from afar, bearing for Prester John the greatest relic of Christianity, the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. Unfortunately, the devil, in his envy, has unleashed against us the forces of Nature, causing us to lose one of our brothers along the way, the very one who was bearing the gift, along with other tokens of our esteem for Priest Johannes….”
“By which we mean,” the Poet added, “one hundred ingots of solid gold, two hundred great apes, a crown of one thousand pounds of gold with emeralds, ten strands of inestimable pearls, eighty chests of ivory, five elephants, three tamed leopards, thirty anthropophage dogs and thirty fighting bulls, three hundred elephant tusks, a thousand panther skins, and three thousand ebony staves.”
“We had heard of these riches and substances unknown to us which abound in the land where the sun sets,” Praxeas said, his eyes gleaming, “and praise heaven if before leaving this vale of tears I may see them!” “Can’t you keep your shitty mouth shut?” Boidi hissed behind the Poet, punching him in the back. “What if Zosimos arrives now, and they see he’s in even worse shape than us?”
“Shut up yourself,” the Poet snarled, his mouth twisted. “We’ve already said the devil’s at work here, and the devil will have eaten it all up. Except for the Grasal.”
“But we still need a gift, at least one gift, to show that we’re not beggars,” Boidi went on murmuring.
“What about the Baptist’s head?” Baudolino suggested in a whisper.
“We have only five left,” the Poet said, still not moving his lips, “but it doesn’t matter; as long as we stay in the kingdom we certainly can’t pull out the other four.”
Baudolino was the only one who knew that, counting the one he had taken from Abdul, there were still six heads. He took one from his sack and held it out to Praxeas, saying that for the moment—while they awaited the ebony, the leopards, and all those other fine things—they wanted him to deliver to the deacon the only memento left on earth of him who had baptized Our Lord.
Praxeas, deeply moved, accepted that gift, beyond price in his eyes because of the sparkling case, which he assumed was made of that precious yellow substance he had heard so much talk about. Impatient to venerate that sacred relic, and with the air of one who considers his own property any gift made to the deacon, opened it without effort (so it was Abdul’s
head, the seal already broken, Baudolino said to himself), took in his hand the brownish, dried-up skull, product of Ardzrouni’s skill, exclaiming in a choked voice that never in his life had he contemplated a more precious relic.
Then the eunuch asked by what names he should address his venerable guests, because tradition had assigned them so many and no one now knew which ones were right. With great caution, Baudolino replied that at least until they were in the presence of the Priest, they wished to be called the names by which they were known in the distant West, and he gave the real names of each of them. Praxeas admired the evocative sound of names like Ardzrouni and Boidi, he found a loftiness in Baudolino, Colandrino, and Scaccabarozzi, and he dreamed of exotic lands hearing Porcelli and Cuttica named. He said that he respected their reserve, and concluded: “Now enter.
The hour is late, and the deacon will be able to receive you only tomorrow. This evening you will be my guests, and I assure you that never will a banquet be more rich and sumptuous, and you will savor such delicacies
that you will think with contempt of those that have been offered you in the lands where the sun sets.”
“Why, they’re dressed in rags the like of which would make our women torment their husbands to have something better,” the Poet muttered. “We set out and we’ve undergone what we’ve undergone in order to see cascades of emeralds; when we wrote the Priest’s letter, you, Baudolino, were disgusted with topazes, and there they are with a dozen pebbles and a few strings and they think they’re the richest in the world!”
“Shut up. We’ll wait and see,” Baudolino murmured.
Praxeas led them inside the tower, and showed them into a hall without windows, illuminated by burning tripods, with a central carpet full of cups and trays of clay, and a series of cushions along the sides, on which the banqueters crouched with crossed legs. They were served by youths, surely also eunuchs, half-naked and sprinkled with fragrant oils. They offered the guests some pots with aromatic mixtures, in which the eunuchs dipped their fingers, then touched their nostrils and their earlobes. After sprinkling themselves, the eunuchs languidly caressed the youths and invited them to proffer the perfumes to the guests, who bowed to the customs of these people, though the Poet snarled that if one of that crew dared touch him he would knock out all his teeth with one finger.
The supper proceeded in this fashion: great dishes of bread, or, rather, those cakes of theirs; an enormous quantity of boiled greens, among which cabbages abounded, but did not smell because they were treated with various spices; cups of a very hot black sauce, which they called sorq, in which all dipped the cakes, and Porcelli, who was the first to try it, began to cough as if flames were darting from his nose, so then the rest of the band confined themselves to moderate tasting (and then they passed the night burning with an unslakable thirst); a freshwater fish, dry
