Baudolino

by Umberto Eco

  "Therefore you didn't sin."

  "I sinned because I kept them hidden in this consecrated place. I kept waiting for a sign from heaven, and it did not come. Now I don't want these vandals to find them. They might divide up the treasure to confer an extraordinary dignity on some of the very cities that today are destroying us. Please, get rid of every trace of my past weakness. Seek help, come before evening and take away these dubious relics. With little effort you can surely win Paradise, and to me that seems no small thing."

  "You see, Master Niketas, I remembered then that Otto had spoken to me about the Magi in connection with Prester John. To be sure, if that poor old priest had displayed them as if they had appeared from nowhere, nobody would have believed him. But does a relic, to be true, have to date back to the saint or to the event of which it was part?"

  "No, of course not. Many relics that are preserved here in Constantinople are of very suspect origin, but the worshiper who kisses them perceives supernatural aromas wafting from them. It is faith that makes them true, not they who make faith true."

  "Precisely. I also thought that a relic is valid if it finds its proper place in a true story. Outside the story of Prester John, those Magi could have been the trick of some rug merchant; within the true story of John they became genuine testimony. A door is not a door if it does not have a building around it; otherwise it would be only a hole—no, what am I saying?—not even a hole, because a void without something surrounding it is not a void. I understood then that I had the story in which the Magi could have a meaning. I thought that if I said something about Prester John to the emperor to lure him to the Orient, having the confirmation of the Magi, who surely came from the Orient, would support my argument. These poor three kings were asleep in their sarcophagus, letting the Pavesi and the Lodigiani tear to pieces the city that unwittingly housed them. They owed it nothing, they were only there in transit, as at an inn, waiting to go elsewhere; after all, they were rovers by nature—hadn't they set out from God knows where to follow a star? It was up to me to give those three bodies a new Bethlehem."

  Baudolino knew that a good relic could change the fate of a city, cause it to become the destination of uninterrupted pilgrimage, transform a simple church into a shrine. Who might be interested in the Magi? Rainald came to mind: he had been given the archbishopric of Cologne, but he had still to go there for his official consecration. To enter one's own cathedral with the three Magi would be a great deed. Was Rainald looking for symbols of imperial power? Here he had, within reach, not one but three kings, who had also been priests.

  He asked the old man if he could see the bodies. The priest required Baudolino's help, because they had to shift the lid of the sarcophagus until they had uncovered the box in which the bodies were kept.

  It was hard work, but it was worth it. O wonder! The bodies of the three kings seemed still alive, even though the skin had dried and become like parchment. But it had not darkened, as happens with mummified bodies. Two of the Magi had faces almost milky, one with a great white beard down to his chest, the beard still intact even if stiffened, like spun sugar; the second was beardless. The third was the color of ebony, not because of the passing of time, but because he must have had dark skin while still alive: he seemed a wooden statue, and even had a kind of crack in his left cheek. He had a short beard and a pair of fleshy lips, bared to reveal only two teeth, feral and white. All three were staring, their great, dazed eyes wide, the pupils glistening like glass. They were enfolded in cloaks, one white, one green, and one purple, and from the cloaks trousers emerged, in barbarian style, but of pure damask embroidered with rows of pearls.

  Baudolino quickly returned to the imperial encampment, and rushed to speak with Rainald. The chancellor realized at once the value of Baudolino's discovery, and said: "It must all be done in secret, and quickly. We can't carry away the box; it would be too noticeable. If someone else here were to be aware of what you have found, he wouldn't hesitate to steal it from us, to take it to his own city. I'll have three coffins made, of plain wood, and during the night we'll carry them outside the walls, saying they contain the bodies of three dear friends fallen in the siege. There will be just you, the Poet, and a servant of mine. Then we'll leave them where we put them, without haste. Before I can take them to Cologne, authentic documentation will have to be produced, regarding the origin of the relics and of the Magi themselves. Tomorrow you will return to Paris, where you know learned people, and you will find out whatever you can about their story."

  During the night the three kings were carried to a crypt in the church of San Giorgio, outside the walls. Rainald wanted to see them, and he then exploded in a series of imprecations unworthy of an archbishop: "With these breeches? And this cap that looks a jester's!"

  "Lord Rainald, apparently this is how they dressed then, the wise men of the Orient. Years ago I was in Ravenna and I saw a mosaic where on the robe of the empress Theodora the three Magi are depicted more or less like this."

  "Exactly. Things that can convince the Greeklings of Byzantium. But can you imagine me presenting myself in Cologne with the Magi dressed like buffoons? We must change their clothes."

  "How?" the Poet asked.

  "How? I've allowed you to eat and drink like a feudal lord for writing two or three verses a year, and you don't know how to dress those who first adored Our Lord Jesus Christ? Dress them the way people imagine they were dressed, like bishops, like a pope, an archimandrite. Do it!"

  "The cathedral and the bishopric have been sacked. Maybe we can recover some holy vestments. I'll try," the Poet said.

  It was a terrible night. The vestments were found, and also something resembling three tiaras, but the problem was to strip the three mummies. While the faces seemed still alive, the bodies—except the hands, totally desiccated—were reduced to a framework of withes and straw, which came apart at every attempt to remove the clothing. "No matter," Rainald said, "once the box is in Cologne, nobody will open it. Put some sticks inside, anything that will keep them straight, the way you do with scarecrows. With all due reverence, mind you."

  "Dear Lord Jesus," the Poet complained, "even in my most drunken state would I ever have imagined I'd be sticking anything up a Magi's ass?"

  "Shut up and dress them," Baudolino said. "We're working for the glory of the empire." The Poet let out some horrible blasphemies, but the Magi finally looked like cardinals of the Holy Roman Apostolic Church.

  The next day Baudolino set forth on his journey. In Paris, Abdul, who knew a great deal about matters of the Orient, put him in touch with a canon of Saint Victoire, who knew even more.

  "Eh, the Magi!" he said. "Tradition refers to them constantly, and many of the Fathers have spoken of them, but three of the Gospels are silent on the subject, and the quotations from Isaiah and other prophets are unrevealing: some have read them as referring to the Magi, but they could have been referring to something else. Who were they? What were their real names? Some say Hormizd of Seleucia, king of Persia; Jazdegerd and Peroz, kings of Sheba. Others say Hor, Basander, Karundas. But according to other, highly credible authors, they are called Melkon, Gaspar, and Balthasar, or else Melco, Caspare, and Fadizzarda. Or even Magalath, Galgalath, and Saracin. Or perhaps Appelius, Amrus, and Damascus..."

  "Appelius and Damascus are beautiful; they suggest distant lands," Abdul said, looking vaguely into space.

  "And why not Karundas?" Baudolino rebutted. "We're not here to find three names that please you; we want three real names."

  The canon continued: "I would tend towards Bithisarea, Melichior, and Gastapha: the first was king of Godolia and Sheba; the second, king of Nubia and Arabia; the third, king of Tharsis and the island of Egriseula. Did they know one another before undertaking the journey? No; they met in Jerusalem and miraculously recognized one another. But some say they were wise men who lived on Mount Victorial or Mount Vaus, from whose peak they studied the signs in the heavens, and to Mount Victorial they returned after the visi
t to Jesus, and later they joined the apostle Thomas to evangelize the Indies, except that they were twelve, not three."

  "Twelve Magi? Isn't that too many?"

  "Even John Chrysostom says as much. According to others, their names would be Zhrwndd, Hwrmzd, Awstsp, Arsk, Zrwnd, Aryhw, Arthsyst, Astnbwzn, Mhrwq, Ahsrs, Nsrdyh, and Mrwdk. But you have to be careful, because Origen says that there were three of them, like the sons of Noah, and three like the three Indias from which they came."

  "There may well have been twelve Magi," Baudolino remarked, "but in Milan three were found, and we have to construct an acceptable story based on three. Let's say they were called Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar, which seem to me names more easily pronounced than those awful sneezes our venerable master emitted just now. The problem is: how did they arrive in Milan."

  "It doesn't seem a problem to me," the canon said, "since they did arrive there. I'm convinced that their grave was found on Mount Victorial by Queen Helen, the mother of Constantine. A woman capable of finding the True Cross would also have been able to discover the true Magi. And Helen took the bodies to Constantinople, to Saint Sophia."

  "No, no. Otherwise the emperor of the Orient will want to know how we took them away from him," said Abdul.

  "Never fear," said the canon. "If they were in the basilica of Sant'Eustorgio, surely that sainted man had brought them there, when he set out from Byzantium to occupy the bishop's seat in Milan at the time of the emperor Mauritius, and long before Charlemagne lived in our land. Eustorgio couldn't have stolen the Magi, so he must have received them as a gift from the basileus of the empire of the Orient."

  With such a well-constructed story, Baudolino returned at the year's end to Rainald, and reminded him that, according to Otto, the Magi were surely ancestors of Prester John, whom they had invested with their dignity and function. Whence came the power of Prester John over all three Indias, or at least over one of them.

  Rainald had completely forgotten those words of Otto, but on hearing mention of a priest who ruled over an empire, a king with priestly functions, pope and monarch at the same time, he was now convinced he had put Alexander III in difficulties: the Magi kings and priests; king and priest John: what a wondrous figure, allegory, augury, prophecy, herald of that imperial dignity that Rainald, step by step, was creating around Frederick!

  "Baudolino," he said at once, "I'll deal with the Magi now; you must think about Prester John. From what you tell me, for the moment we have only rumors, and that's not enough. We need a document that will attest to his existence, that says who he is, where he is, how he lives."

  "And where will I find that?"

  "If you can't find it, make it. The emperor has allowed you to study, and this is the moment to put your talents to use. And to win yourself knighthood, just as soon as you have ended your studies, which, if you ask me, have gone on too long."

  "You understand, Master Niketas?" Baudolino said. "Now Prester John for me had become a duty, not a game. And I was to seek him no longer in memory of Otto, but to obey an order of Rainald's. As my father, Gagliaudo, used to say, I've always been contrary by nature. If I'm ordered to do something, I promptly lose any desire to do it. I obeyed Rainald and went immediately back to Paris, but it was to avoid having to encounter the empress. Abdul had resumed writing songs, and I noticed the pot of green honey was now half empty. I talked to him again about the adventure of the Magi, and he strummed his instrument and chanted: Let no one be amazed if I, you know—love her who will never see me—my heart knows no other-love—except for what I have never seen—nor can any other joy make me laugh—and I know not what good will come to me—ha, ha. Ha ha, I gave up arguing with him about my plans and, as far as Prester John was concerned, for about a year I did nothing more."

  "And the Magi?"

  "Rainald took the relics to Cologne two years later, but he was generous. Some time back he had been provost of the cathedral of Hildesheim, and so before sealing the remains of the kings in their box in Cologne, he had a finger cut from each one and sent them, as a donation, to his old church. However, in that same period, Rainald had to resolve other problems, and not small ones. Just two months before he could celebrate his triumph in Cologne, the antipope, Victor, died. Almost everyone heaved a sigh of relief: this would automatically put things back in order, and perhaps Frederick would have a reconciliation with Alexander. But it was that schism that kept Rainald alive. You understand, Master Niketas? With two popes he counted for more than with one pope. So he invented a new antipope, Paschal III, organizing a parody of a conclave with a few ecclesiastics he collected practically off the street. Frederick wasn't convinced. He said to me—"

  "You had gone back to him?"

  Baudolino sighed. "Yes, for a few days. In that same year the empress had borne Frederick a son."

  "What did you feel?"

  "I realized I had to forget her definitively. I fasted for seven days, drinking only water, because I had read somewhere that it purifies the spirit, and in the end provokes visions."

  "Is that true?"

  "Very true. But the visions were of her. Then I decided I had to see that baby, to establish the difference between the dream and the vision. So I went back to court. More than two years had gone by since that magnificent and awful day, and since then we had never seen each other. I told myself then that, even if I couldn't resign myself to loving Beatrice as a mother, I would consider that child a brother. But I looked at that little thing in the cradle, and I couldn't dispel the thought that, if matters had gone just a little differently, he could have been my son. In any case I still risked feeling incestuous."

  Frederick meanwhile was troubled by quite different problems. He said to Rainald that half a pope was scant guaranty of his rights, that the Magi were all well and good, but they weren't enough, because having found the Magi did not necessarily mean being descended from them. The pope, lucky man, could trace his origins back to Peter, and Peter had been designated by Jesus himself, but what could the holy and Roman emperor do? Trace his origins to Caesar, who was, after all, a pagan?

  Baudolino then pulled out the first idea that came into his head, namely, that Frederick could have his origins date back to Charlemagne. "But Charlemagne was anointed by the pope: so we're back where we started," Frederick replied.

  "Unless you have him made a saint," Baudolino said. Frederick admonished him to think before he uttered nonsense. "It's not nonsense," replied Baudolino, who had not so much thought as visualized the scene that his idea could engender. "Listen: you go to Aix-la-Chapelle, to Charlemagne's tomb, you have his remains exhumed, you put them in a fine reliquary in the midst of the Palatine Chapel and, in your presence, with a suite of loyal bishops, including Master Rainald, who as archbishop of Cologne is also the metropolitan of that province, and with a bull from Pope Paschal that legitimizes you, you proclaim Charlemagne saint. You understand? You proclaim saint the founder of the holy Roman empire, once he is a saint he is superior to the pope, and you, as his legitimate successor, are of the race of a saint, freed from any authority, even that of one who claims to excommunicate you."

  "By Charlemagne's beard!" Frederick said, the hairs of his own beard bristling with excitement. "Did you hear that, Rainald? As always, the boy's right!"

  And so it happened, even though not until the end of the following year, because certain things require time if they are to be prepared properly.

  Niketas observed that as an idea it was insane, and Baudolino answered that, nevertheless, it had worked. And he looked at Niketas with pride. It's only natural, Niketas thought; your vanity is boundless, you have even made Charlemagne a saint. From Baudolino anything could be expected. "And after that?" he asked.

  "While Frederick and Rainald were preparing to canonize Charlemagne, little by little I realized that neither he nor the Magi were enough. All four of them were safely in Paradise; at least the Magi surely were, and we could hope for Charlemagne as well, otherwise at Aix-la-Chapelle
we'd made a fine mess. But still it took something more, here on this earth, where the emperor could say, Here I am, and this sanctions my power. And the only thing the emperor could find on this earth was the kingdom of Prester John."

  11. Baudolino constructs a palace for Prester John

  On the Friday morning, three of the Genoese—Pevere, Boiamondo, and Grillo—came to confirm what could very clearly be seen even from a distance: the fire had gone out, as if by itself, because nobody had taken much trouble to fight it. But this did not mean they could now venture into Constantinople. On the contrary, enabled to move more easily through the streets and squares, the pilgrims had intensified their search for wealthy citizens, and amid the still-warm ruins they demolished what little remained standing, searching for those treasures that had eluded the first looting. Niketas sighed, disconsolate, and asked for some Samos wine. He also wanted them to toast for him, in just a hint of oil, some sesame seeds that he could chew slowly between sips, and then he asked also for some walnuts and pistachios, the better to follow the story that he invited Baudolino to continue.

  One day the Poet was sent by Rainald on some mission to Paris, and he took advantage of the occasion to return to the delights of the taverns with Baudolino and Abdul. He also met Boron, but those fantasies about the Earthly Paradise seemed to hold little interest for him. The years spent at court had changed him, Baudolino noted. He had hardened; he never ceased clinking cups gaily, but he seemed to control himself, to shun excess, to remain on his guard, like someone lying in wait for his prey, ready to spring.

  "Baudolino," he said one day, "you are wasting time. What was to be learned here in Paris, we have learned. But all these great doctors would shit in their pants if tomorrow I presented myself at a dispute in full ministerial regalia, with a sword at my side. At court I have learned a few things: if you are with great men, you also become great; great men in reality are very small; power is everything, and there is no reason why one day you could not seize it yourself, at least in part. You must know how to wait, of course, but not let your opportunity escape."