Baudolino (12 page)

"Then I learned," Baudolino said to Niketas, "that Rahewin had written to a Parisian scholar, begging him to ask the Victoriens for those manuscripts, but the scholars obviously found no trace of them. They accused their librarian of negligence, and the poor man had to swear that he had never seen them. I imagine, in the end, some canon, to put matters right, really did compose those texts and I hope that someday someone will come upon them."

Meanwhile, the Poet kept him informed of the exploits of Frederick. The Italian communes were not keeping faith with all the oaths they had sworn at the Diet of Roncaglia. According to the pacts, the unruly cities were to demolish their walls and destroy their war machines; but instead the citizens pretended to fill in the moats around the cities, and the moats were still there. Frederick sent envoys to Crema, to enjoin them to act quickly, and the people of Crema threatened to kill the imperial envoys, who would really have been killed if they hadn't run off. Then to Milan they actually sent Rainald and a Palatine count, to name the podestà, because the Milanese could not claim to acknowledge the imperial rights and then elect their consuls on their own. And there, too, both envoys nearly lost their skins, and they were no ordinary messengers, but the chancellor of the empire and one of the counts of the Palace! Still not content, the Milanese besieged the castle of Trezzo and put the garrison in chains. Finally, they again attacked Lodi, and when they touched Lodi, the emperor flew into a blind rage. And so, to set an example, he lay siege to Crema.

In the beginning the siege proceeded according to the rules of a war among Christians. The Cremasques, helped by the Milanese, made some good sorties and captured many imperial prisoners. The Cremonese (who in their hatred of Crema were then siding with the empire, along with Pavia and Lodi) built very powerful war machines—which had cost the life of more besiegers than of besieged, but that is
the way things went. There were fine clashes, as the Poet recounted with gusto, and everyone recalled how the emperor made the Lodigiani give him two hundred empty hogsheads, which were then filled with earth and wood the Lodigiani had brought in more than two thousand wagons, so that it was possible to pass with the
magli,
the so-called cats, to hammer at the walls.

But when they attacked with the greatest of the wooden towers, one built by the Cremonesi, and the besieged began catapulting so many stones that the tower risked collapse, the emperor lost his head in his great fury. He ordered some Crema and Milanese prisoners brought, and had them bound to the front and sides of the tower. He thought that the besieged, seeing before them their brothers, cousins, sons, and fathers, would not dare shoot. He failed to calculate the great fury of the Cremasques—both those on the walls and those bound outside them. It was the latter who shouted to their brothers not to give in, and those on the walls, clenching their teeth, tears in their eyes, executioners of their own kin, continued assailing the tower, killing nine of their people.

Milanese students arriving in Paris swore to Baudolino that some children had also been tied to the tower, but the Poet assured him that the rumor was false. The fact remains that at this point even the emperor was affected, and ordered the other prisoners to be untied. But Cremasques and Milanese, maddened by their comrades' end, brought Lodigiani and Alaman prisoners from the city, placed them on the ramparts, and killed them in cold blood before Frederick's eyes. He then ordered two Crema prisoners carried below the walls and, below the walls, he tried them as perjurers and traitors, sentencing them to death. The Crema leaders sent word that if Frederick hanged their men, they would hang any men of his they were still holding hostage. Frederick replied that he would like to see them do that, and he hanged the two prisoners. The only reply of the Crema men was to hang
coram populo
all their hostages. Frederick, who by now had lost the power of reason, had all the Cremaschi he still held
brought out, ordered a forest of gallows to be raised before the city, and was about to hang them all. Bishops and abbots rushed to the scene of the torture, begging him, who should be the fountainhead of mercy, not to emulate the wickedness of his enemies. Frederick was touched by this intervention, but he could not take back his assertion, hence he decided to execute at least nine of those unfortunates.

Hearing these things, Baudolino wept. He was by nature a man of peace, and the idea that his beloved adoptive father had stained himself with such crimes convinced him to remain in Paris to study and, in a very obscure way, without his realizing it, persuaded him that it was not unlawful to love the empress. He resumed writing letters, more and more impassioned, and replies that would make a hermit yearn. Only now he no longer showed anything to his friends.

Still feeling guilty, he resolved to do something for the glory of his master. Otto, as a sacred bequest, had left him the task of bringing Prester John forth from the shadows of heresy. So Baudolino devoted himself to the search for the Priest, unknown, and yet, as Otto had testified, surely notorious.

Having completed the years of trivium and quadrivium, Baudolino and Abdul had been educated in disputation, so first of all they asked themselves: Does a Prester John really exist? But they began asking themselves this question in circumstances that Baudolino was reluctant to explain to Niketas.

After the Poet left, Abdul now lived with Baudolino. One evening coming home, he found Abdul alone, singing a beautiful song, in which he dreamed of meeting his distant princess, but as she drew closer, he seemed to be receding. Baudolino wondered whether it was the music or the words, as the image of Beatrice, which had appeared to him with the song, faded from his gaze into the void. Abdul sang, and never had his singing seemed so seductive.

The song came to an end. Abdul fell back, exhausted. For a moment Baudolino feared the boy was going to faint. He bent over him,
but Abdul raised a hand, as if in reassurance, and laughed softly for no reason. His whole body trembled, as if he had a fever. Still laughing, Abdul asked to be left alone; he would calm down, he knew well what was happening. Pressed by Baudolino's questions, he finally decided to confess his secret.

"Listen, my friend. I have eaten a little green honey, just a little. I know it's a diabolical temptation, but sometimes I need it, to sing. Listen, and don't reproach me. In early childhood in the Holy Land I heard a marvelous and terrible story. It was said that not far from Antioch there lived a race of Saracens, dwelling among the mountains in a castle that only the eagles could reach. Their lord was named Aloadin and he inspired the greatest fear in the Saracen princes, and in the Christian as well. In fact, in the center of his castle, according to the story, there was a garden full of every kind of fruit and flower, where little canals flowed, filled with wine or milk or honey and water, and all around danced maidens of incomparable beauty. In the garden only certain youths could live, whom Aloadin had ordered abducted, and in that place of delights he trained them only to pleasure. And I say pleasure because, as I heard my elders whisper—and, disturbed, I would blush—those maidens were generous and ready to satisfy those guests, procuring them ineffable joys, also debilitating, I imagine. So, naturally, those who entered that place would never want to leave it, not at any price."

"No fool, your Aloadin, or whatever he was called." Baudolino smiled as he passed a moist cloth over his friend's brow.

"You think that," Abdul said, "because you don't know the whole story. Some fine morning one of these youths woke up in a sordid, sun-filled yard, where he found himself in chains. After a few days of suffering, he was brought into Aloadin's presence; he threw himself at the master's feet, threatening suicide and imploring to be restored to the delights without which he could no longer live. Aloadin then revealed to the youth that he had fallen into disfavor with the prophet and could regain favor only if he declared himself willing to carry out
a great mission. Aloadin gave him a golden dagger and told him to set forth, to journey to the court of a certain lord, Aloadin's enemy, and kill him. In this way the youth would gain what he wished, and if he were to die in the enterprise, he would be raised into Paradise, in every way identical with the place from which he had been excluded, or if anything, still better. And this is why Aloadin had very great power and frightened all the princes in the region, whether Moors or Christians, because his messengers were prepared for any sacrifice."

"Then," Baudolino commented, "better one of these fine taverns in Paris, and their girls, whom you can have without paying a forfeit. But what does this story have to do with you?"

"This. When I was ten years old I was carried off by Aloadin's men. And I remained there for five years."

"And at the age of ten you enjoyed all those maidens you're telling me about? And then you were sent to kill somebody? Abdul, what are you saying?" Baudolino was worried.

"I was too little to be admitted immediately to the company of the happy youths, so I was assigned as a servant to a eunuch of the castle who supervised their pleasures. But hear what I discovered: for five years I never saw any gardens, because the youths were always chained all together in that sun-baked yard. Every morning the eunuch took from a certain cupboard some silver pots that contained a paste as thick as honey, but of a greenish color; he passed in front of each of the prisoners and fed him that substance. They tasted it and began to recount to themselves and to the others all the delights listed in the legend. You understand? They spent the day with eyes open, smiling, blissful. Towards evening they felt tired, they began to laugh, sometimes softly, sometimes raucously, then they would fall asleep. So, as I slowly grew, I understood the deceit to which they were subjected by Aloadin: they lived in chains, with the illusion that they were living in Paradise, and rather than lose this bliss, they became the instruments of their master's vengeance. If they returned safe from
their missions, they were put in chains again, but they began again to see and feel the dreams produced by the green honey."

"And you?"

"One night, while the others were sleeping, I sneaked into the place where they kept the silver pots of green honey, and I tasted it. Taste, did I say? I gulped down two spoonfuls and I began to see wondrous things...."

"Did you feel you were in the garden?"

"No. Maybe the others dreamed of the garden because, when they arrived, Aloadin told them about the garden. I believe the green honey makes you see what you want from the bottom of your heart. I found myself in the desert, or, rather, in an oasis, and I saw a splendid caravan arriving, the camels all decked with plumes, and a host of Moors with colored turbans, beating on drums and clashing cymbals. Behind them, on a baldachin carried by four giants, there she was, the princess. I can't tell you what she was like, she was so ... how can I say it?...so dazzling that I recall only the dazzle, a dazzling splendor...."

"But what was her face like? Was she beautiful?"

"I didn't see her face; she was veiled."

"But ... then whom did you fall in love with?"

"With her, because I couldn't see her. In my heart, here—you understand?—there was an infinite sweetness, a languor that has never since died. The caravan moved off towards the dunes, and I realized that the vision would never again return. I told myself that I should have followed that creature, but towards morning I began to laugh, with what I believed was joy, while it was the effect of the green honey when its power dies. When I woke the sun was already high, and the eunuch almost caught me still dozing in that place. Since then I have told myself that I should have fled, to find again the distant princess."

"But you realized it was only the effect of the green honey..."

"Yes, the vision was an illusion, but what I now felt inside was not; it was true desire. When you feel it, it's not an illusion. It's real."

"But it was the desire of an illusion."

"By then I wanted never to lose that desire. It was worth devoting my life to it."

Abdul eventually managed to find an avenue of escape from the castle, and to rejoin his family, who had by then given him up for lost. Concerned about the revenge of Aloadin, Abdul's father sent him away from the Holy Land, to Paris. Before fleeing from Aloadin, Abdul had seized one of the pots of green honey, but, as he explained to Baudolino, he had never tasted it again, for fear that the cursed substance would carry him back to that same oasis, to relive infinitely his ecstasy. He was not sure he could bear the emotion. At this point the princess was with him, and nobody could take her away from him. Better to dream of her as a goal than to possess her in a false memory.

Then, as time went on, to find strength for his songs, in which the princess appeared, present in her distance, he had ventured to taste the honey, just barely, on the tip of a spoon, only enough to sense the flavor on his tongue. He had some ecstasies of brief duration, and this is what he had done that evening.

Abdul's story fascinated Baudolino, and he was tempted by the possibility of having a vision, however brief, in which the empress would appear. Abdul could not deny him that taste. Baudolino sensed only a slight torpor, and the desire to laugh. But he felt his mind stimulated, and, curiously, not by Beatrice, but by Prester John. So he asked himself if the true object of his desire was not that inaccessible realm, more than the mistress of his heart. So it had been that night. Abdul, almost free of the effect of the honey, and Baudolino, slightly inebriated, had resumed discussing the Priest, posing for themselves the question of his existence. And as it seemed that the virtue of the green honey was to make tangible that which has never been seen, they decided the Priest did exist.

He exists, Baudolino decided, because there are no reasons opposing his existence. He exists, Abdul agreed, because a cleric had
told him that, beyond the land of the Medes and the Persians, there are Christian kings who fight the pagans of those regions.