“I find file,” Gavagai said.
At night Gavagai had found their weapons and packs, and had brought them to their sleeping quarters. Swords and daggers were rusted, but the friends spent nights cleaning them and sharpening them, rubbing them against the stones of the walls. They had the file. It wasn’t anything special, and they had to spend weeks cutting into the rings that circled their ankles. They succeeded.
Beneath the cracked rings they passed a cord, bound to the chain, and as they shambled around the castle, they appeared shackled as always. A close look would have revealed the deceit, but they had been there so many years that nobody paid any attention, and the cynocephali by now considered them domestic animals.
One evening they learned that the next day they would have to remove some sacks of spoiled meat from the kitchen and take them to the birds. Gavagai alerted them: this was the opportunity they had been awaiting. Next morning they went to collect the sacks. Acting as if they were doing this reluctantly, they passed through their quarters, slipped their weapons amid the meat.
They arrived at the cages, where Gavagai was already present, amusing the eunuch keeper with his somersaults. The rest was easy. They opened the sacks, slipped out their daggers, put all six of them to the keeper’s throat (Solomon looked at them as if what they were doing mattered nothing to him), and Baudolino explained to the eunuch what he was to do.
It seemed there weren’t enough harnesses, but the Poet hinted at cutting off the ears of the eunuch: he had already had more than enough cut off, and he declared himself ready to cooperate. Seven birds were prepared to bear the weight of seven men, or, rather, six men and a skiapod. “I want the strongest one,” the Poet said, “because you”—and he turned to the eunuch—”unfortunately can’t stay here or else you’ll give the alarm, or shout at your beasts to come back.
Another rope will be tied to my belt, and you’ll dangle from that. So my bird must bear the weight of two people.”
Baudolino translated, the eunuch declared himself happy to accompany his captors to the end of the world, but he asked what would then become of him. They assured him that once in Constantinople, he could go on his way. “And hurry up,” the Poet ordered, “because the stink of this cage is unbearable.”
But it took almost an hour to arrange everything properly. Each hung himself carefully from his own raptor, and to his belt the Poet fastened the strap that would bear the eunuch. The only one still not bound was Gavagai, who was watching from the corner of a corridor, making sure no one came to spoil things.
Someone did come. After a long time the guards were surprised to note that the prisoners, sent to feed the birds, had not returned. A group of cynocephali arrived at the end of the corridor, barking with concern. “Dog-heads coming!” Gavagai cried. “You leave right away!”
“Right away my foot,” Baudolino cried. “Come, we’ll have time to strap you up!”
It wasn’t true, and Gavagai knew it. If he fled, the cynocephali would reach the cage before the eunuch could open the shutter and make the birds fly. He shouted to the others to open the cage and leave. In the sacks of meat he had also slipped his fistula. He seized it, along with the three remaining darts. “Skiapod die, but always true to most holy Magi,” he said.
He lay on the floor, raised his foot over his head, which he lowered as he put the fistula to his mouth, blew, and the leading cynocephalos fell dead. While the others were drawing back, Gavagai had time to fell two more of them; then he was left without darts. To restrain the attackers, he held the fistula as if he were still about to blow into it, but the deceit was short-lived. The monsters were upon him and ran him through with their swords.
Meanwhile the Poet had stuck his dagger a short distance into the chin of the eunuch, who, shedding his first blood, had realized what was being asked of him and, though made clumsy by his trappings, he managed to open the shutter. When he saw Gavagai die, the Poet shouted: “It’s finished. Away! Away!” The eunuch gave a command to the rocs, who flung themselves into the air and rose in flight. The cynocephali were entering the cage at that moment, but their rush was arrested by the remaining birds, enraged by the confusion, who began pecking at the newcomers.
All six were in full flight. “Did he give the command for Constantinople?” the Poet asked Baudolino in a loud voice, and Baudolino nodded yes. “Then we don’t need him anymore,” the Poet said. With one slash of his dagger he severed the strap that bound the eunuch to him, and the eunuch plunged into the void. “Now we’ll fly better,” the Poet said. “Gavagai is avenged.”
“And so we flew, Master Niketas, high above desolate plains marked only by the wounds of rivers dried up since time immemorial, cultivated fields, lakes, forests. We clung to the feet of the birds, because we feared the harnesses wouldn’t support us. We flew for a time I cannot calculate, and the palms of our hands were bleeding.
We saw flowing beneath us expanses of sand, lush fertile lands, meadows, and mountain peaks. We flew under the sun, but in the shadow of those long wings that beat the air above our heads. I don’t know how long we flew, even at night, and at an altitude surely denied even to the angels. At a certain point, below us we saw, in a deserted plain, ten hosts—so it seemed to us of people (or were they ants?) proceeding almost parallel towards God knows where. Rabbi Solomon began shouting that they were the ten lost tribes and he wanted to join them.
He tried to make his bird descend, pulling on its feet, trying to direct its flight as with the ropes of a sail or the bar of a rudder, but the bird became enraged, freed itself from his grasp and tried to claw his head.
Solomon! don’t be an asshole, Boidi shouted at him. They’re not your people; they’s just ordinary nomads going they don’t know where! Wasted breath. Seized by a mystical madness, Solomon grew so agitated that he freed himself from his harness, and fell, or, rather, flew, arms wide, through the heavens like an angel of the Almighty, may his name always be blessed, but an angel attracted by a promised land. We saw him grow smaller until his form was confused with those of the ants down below.”
After more time had passed, the rocs, faithful to the order received, arrived within sight of Constantinople, its domes glowing in the sun. They landed where they were supposed to land, and our friends freed themselves from their bonds. One man, however, perhaps the sycophant of Aloadin, came towards them, amazed by this descent of too many messengers. The Poet smiled at him, gripped his sword, and gave a flat blow to the head.
“Benedico te in nomine Aloadini,” he said seraphically, while the man fell down like a sack. “Whoosh! Whoosh!” he then cried at the birds. They seemed to understand the tone of his voice, rose in flight, and disappeared on the horizon.
“We’re home,” Boidi said happily, though he was a thousand miles from his home.
“Let’s hope our Genoese friends are still somewhere around,” Baudolino said. “We’ll hunt for them.”
“You’ll see, our Baptist’s heads will still come in handy,” the Poet said, who seemed suddenly rejuvenated. “We’re back among Christians. We’ve lost Pndapetzim, but we can conquer Constantinople.”
“He didn’t know,” Niketas commented with a sad smile, “that other Christians were already doing just that.”
- Baudolino enriches the treasures of Byzantium
“As soon as we tried to cross the Golden Horn and enter the city, we realized that we were in the strangest situation we had ever seen. It wasn’t a besieged city, because the enemies, though their ships were lying offshore, were encamped at Pera, and many of them were strolling around the city. It wasn’t a conquered city, because along with the invaders wearing the cross on their chests, soldiers of the emperor were seen in the city. In short, the crusaders were in Constantinople, but Constantinople wasn’t theirs.
And when we found my Genoese friends, who were the same ones you later lived with, not even they could explain clearly what had happened or what was about to happen.”
“It was hard to understand also for us,” Niketas said with a sigh of resignation. “And yet one day I will have to write the history of that period. After the sorry outcome of the expedition for the reconquest of Jerusalem attempted by your Frederick and the kings of France and England, more than ten years later the Latins had chosen to try again, under the leadership of great princes like Baudouin of Flanders and Boniface of Monferrato. But they needed a fleet, and they had one built by the Venetians.
I’ve heard you speak scornfully of the greed of the Genoese, but, compared to the Venetians, the people of Genoa are generosity personified. The Latins got their ships, but they didn’t have the money to pay for them, and Dandolo, the Venetian doge (
