Baudolino (37 page)

"You were lying to your father."

"I was acting for his good, and the good of the empire."

"You didn't ask yourself what would happen if Frederick really reached the Priest, handed him the Grasal, and the Priest widened his eyes, wondering what this bowl was that he had never seen before? Frederick would have become not the glory but the laughingstock of Christendom."

"Master Niketas, you know men better than I. Imagine: you are Prester John, a great emperor of the West kneels at your feet, and hands you such a relic, saying it is rightfully yours, and you start snickering and saying you've never seen that tavern bowl before? Come now! I'm not saying the Priest would have pretended to recognize it. I'm saying that, dazzled by the glory that would fall on him, its acknowledged custodian, he would have recognized it at once, believing
he had always possessed it. And so I took to Frederick, as a most precious object, the bowl of my father Gagliaudo, and I swear to you that at that moment I felt like the celebrant of a sacred rite. I handed over the gift and the memory of my carnal father to my spiritual father, and my carnal father was right: that most humble thing, with which he had communicated all his life as a sinner, was truly, spiritually the cup used by poor Christ, who was heading for death, for the redemption of all sinners. In saying the Mass, doesn't the priest take the most common bread and the most common wine and make them become the body and blood of Our Lord?"

"But you weren't a priest."

"And, in fact, I didn't say that the object was the blood of Christ, I said only that it had contained that blood. I wasn't usurping any sacramental power. I was bearing witness."

"False witness."

"No. You told me that, believing a relic true, you catch its scent. We believe that we, only we, need God, but often God needs us. At that moment I believed it was necessary to help him. That cup must truly have existed, if Our Lord had used it. If it had been lost, it had been through the fault of some worthless man. I was restoring the Grasal to Christianity. God would not have contradicted me. The proof is that even my companions believed in it immediately. The sacred vessel was there, before their eyes, now in the hands of Frederick, who raised it to heaven as if he were in ecstasy, and Boron knelt, seeing for the first time the object over which he had long raved, Kyot said at once that he seemed to see a great light, Rabbi Solomon admitted that—even if Christ were not the true Messiah awaited by his people—surely this receptacle emanated a fragrance, as of incense, Zosimos widened his visionary eyes and blessed himself backwards several times, as you schismatics do, Abdul was trembling in every limb and murmured that possessing the sacred relic was equivalent to having conquered all the kingdoms beyond the sea—and it was clear
that he would have liked to donate it as a token of love to his faraway princess. I had tears in my eyes, and was asking myself why heaven had chosen me as mediator of that portentous event. As for the Poet, frowning, he chewed his nails. I knew what he was thinking: that I had been a fool, that Frederick was old and would never be able to derive advantage from that treasure, and we might as well have kept it for ourselves, and if we had set off towards the lands of the north, they would have bestowed a kingdom on us. Confronted by the obvious weakness of the emperor, he was returning to his fantasies of power. But I was almost consoled because I understood that, reacting like this, he also considered the Grasal a genuine object."

Frederick devoutly enclosed the cup in a coffer, hanging the key around his neck, and Baudolino thought that he himself had acted well, because at that instant he had the impression that not only the Poet but all his other friends would have been ready to steal that object, to rush towards their own personal dreams.

Afterwards, the emperor affirmed that now, truly, it was necessary to set out. An expedition of conquest had to be prepared carefully. In the following year Frederick sent ambassadors to Saladin, and sought encounters with envoys of Stephen Nemanya, prince of the Serbs, to arrange passage through their territories.

While the kings of England and France were deciding to leave by sea, in May of 1189, Frederick had gone overland from Ratisbon with fifteen thousand horsemen and fifteen thousand squires; some were saying that in the plains of Hungary he passed in review sixty thousand horsemen and a hundred thousand foot soldiers. Others were even to speak of six hundred thousand pilgrims. Perhaps all were exaggerating, even Baudolino was in no position to say how many they really were; perhaps in all they came to twenty thousand men, but in any case it was a great army. Without anyone's going out and counting them one by one, from a distance they were a tented horde whose beginning you could see but not their end.

To avoid the massacres and lootings of the previous expeditions, the emperor would not have them followed by those swarms of outcasts who, a hundred years earlier, had shed so much blood in Jerusalem. This was something to be done properly, by men who knew how a war is waged, not by wretches who set off with the excuse of winning Paradise and came home with the spoils of some Jew whose throat they had cut along the way. Frederick accepted only those who could support themselves for two years, and the poor soldiers received three silver marks for food during the journey. If you want to liberate Jerusalem, you have to spend what it takes.

Many Italians had joined the venture. There were the Cremonese with Bishop Sicardo, the men of Brescia, of Verona with Cardinal Adelardo, and even some Alessandrians, including old friends of Baudolino like Boidi, Cuttica of Quargnento, Porcelli, Aleramo Scaccabarozzi known as Bonehead, Colandrino the brother of Colandrina, who was therefore a brother-in-law, and also one of the Trotti men, Pozzi, Ghilini, Lanzavecchia, Peri, Inviziati, Gambarini, and Cermelli, all at their own expense or supported by their city.

Theirs was a sumptuous departure along the Danube to Vienna; at Breslava, in June, they met the king of Hungary. Then they entered the Bulgarian forest. In July they met the prince of the Serbs, who sought an alliance against Byzantium.

"I believe that this meeting," Baudolino said, "worried your basileus Isaac. He feared that the army wanted to conquer Constantinople."

"He wasn't mistaken."

"He was mistaken by fifteen years. At that time, Frederick really did want to reach Jerusalem."

"But we were uneasy."

"I understand. An immense foreign army was about to cross your territory, and you were concerned. But you certainly made our life difficult. We arrived at Serdica and we didn't find the promised supplies. Around Philippopolis we were confronted by your troops, and
then they retreated in full flight, as happened in every conflict during those months."

"You know that, at that time, I was governor of Philippopolis. We received conflicting news from the court. At one point the basileus ordered us to construct a girdle of walls and to dig a moat, to oppose your arrival, then immediately after we had done that, an order came that we were to destroy everything, so the city wouldn't serve as a haven for your people."

"You blocked the mountain passes, having trees chopped down. You attacked our men singly if they went off to look for food."

"You were sacking our lands."

"Because you weren't providing the promised rations. Your people lowered food from the walls in baskets, but they mixed lime and other poisonous substances in the bread. During that journey the emperor received a letter from Sybille, former queen of Jerusalem, who informed him that Saladin, to halt the advance of the Christians, had sent to the emperor of Byzantium bushels of poisoned grain, and a pot of wine so heavily poisoned that a slave of Isaac's, forced to sniff it, died on the spot."

"Fairy tales."

"When Frederick sent ambassadors to Constantinople, your basileus made them remain standing, then imprisoned them."

"Afterwards they were sent back to Frederick."

"When we entered Philippopolis, we found it empty, because all had slipped away. You weren't there either."

"It was my duty to evade capture."

"That may be. But it was after our entry into Philippopolis that your emperor changed his tone. That is where we encountered the Armenian community."

"The Armenians considered you brothers. They are schismatics like you, they don't venerate the holy images, they use unleavened bread."

"They are good Christians. Some of them spoke at once in the
name of their prince, Leo, guaranteeing passage and assistance through their country. But things weren't that simple, as we learned at Adrianopolis, when ambassadors arrived from the Seleucian sultan of Iconium, Kilidj Arslan, who proclaimed himself lord of the Turks and the Syrians, and also of the Armenians. Who was in command? And where?"

"Kilidj was trying to halt the supremacy of Saladin, and wanted to conquer the Christian kingdom of Armenia, so he was hoping that Frederick could help him. The Armenians were confident that Frederick could contain Kilidj's demands. Our Isaac, still smarting from the defeat suffered at the hands of the Seljuks at Miriokephalon, hoped that Frederick would clash with Kilidj, but he wouldn't have been displeased if there had also been conflict with the Armenians, who were causing our empire no little trouble. That's why, when he learned that both the Seljuks and the Armenians were guaranteeing Frederick passage through their lands, he realized he should not halt that march but encourage it, allowing him to cross the Propontis. He was sending him against our enemies and away from us."

"My poor father. I don't know if he suspected he was a weapon in the hands of a tangle of interwoven enemies. Or perhaps he did understand, but hoped he could defeat them all. What I do know is that, glimpsing the possibility of an alliance with a Christian kingdom, the Armenian, beyond Byzantium, Frederick was eagerly thinking of his final goal. He dreamed (and I, with him) that the Armenians would be able to open the road for him towards the kingdom of Prester John.... In any case, it's as you said: after the envoys from the Seljuks and the Armenians, your Isaac gave us the ships. And it was, in fact, at Gallipolis, which you people call Kallioupolis, that I saw you, when in the name of your basileus, you offered us the vessels."

"It was not an easy decision on our part," Niketas said. "The basileus risked turning Saladin against him. He had to send messengers to him to explain the reasons for our concessions. A great lord, Saladin, he understood at once, and bore us no ill will. I repeat, from
the Turks we have nothing to fear: our problem is with your schismatics, always."

Niketas and Baudolino agreed that there was no point in exchanging recriminations or explanations of that bygone episode. Perhaps Isaac was right: every Christian pilgrim who passed through Byzantium was always tempted to stop there, where there were so many beautiful things to conquer, without going and risking too much before the walls of Jerusalem. But Frederick truly wanted to go on.

They arrived at Gallipolis and, while it wasn't Constantinople, the army was seduced by that festive place, the port full of galleys and dromons, ready to take on board horses, horsemen, and victuals. It was not the work of a day, and meanwhile our friends had time on their hands. From the beginning of the journey Baudolino had decided to employ Zosimos for something useful, and forced him to teach Greek to the group. "In the place where we are going," he said, "nobody knows Latin, to say nothing of German, Provençal, or my language. With Greek, there's always some hope of making yourself understood." And so, between visits to the bordello and the reading of some texts of the fathers of the Eastern church, the waiting was not burdensome.

In the port there was a vast market, and they decided to venture into it, conquered by the distant gleaming and the odor of spices. Zosimos, whom they had freed so that he could be their guide (but under the vigilant surveillance of Boron, who didn't take his eyes off him for a second), now warned them: "You Latin and Alaman barbarians are ignorant of the civilization of us Romans. You should know that in our markets, at first glance, you wouldn't want to buy anything because they ask too much, and if you immediately pay what they ask, it's not that they take you for fools, because they already know you are fools, but they are offended because the merchant's joy is bargaining. So offer two coins when they ask ten, they'll come down to seven, you offer three and they come down to five, you
stick to three, until they give in, weeping and swearing they'll end up homeless with all their family. At that point, go ahead and buy, but you should know that the object was worth one coin."

"Then why should we buy?" the Poet asked.

"Because they also have a right to live, and three coins for what is worth one represents an honest trade. But I must give you another warning: not only do merchants have a right to live, but so do thieves, and since they can't rob one another, they'll try to rob you. If you prevent them, that's your right; but if they succeed, you mustn't complain. So I advise you to carry little money in your purse, just the amount you've decided to spend, and no more."

Instructed by a guide so wise in local ways, our friends ventured into a tide of people stinking of garlic, like all Greeklings. Baudolino bought himself two Arab daggers, well made, to keep at either side of his belt, to be extracted rapidly, as he crossed his arms. Abdul found a little transparent box that contained a lock of hair (God knows whose, but it was clear whom he had in mind). Solomon called the others in a loud voice when he discovered the tent of a Persian selling miraculous potions. The vendor of elixirs displayed a phial that, according to him, contained a very potent drug that, taken in small doses, stimulated the vital spirits, but if drained quickly could cause death. Then he held up a similar phial, which, however, contained the most powerful of antidotes, capable of canceling the action of any poison. Solomon, who dabbled also in the art of medicine, like all Jews, bought the antidote. Belonging to a race more clever than the Romei, he managed to pay one coin instead of the ten asked, and he was tormented by the fear of having paid at least double the value.