Baudolino

by Umberto Eco

  "Yes, but then Barbarossa comes along and squashes you like a bug."

  "Just a moment. Who says so? The problem is that when he arrives, the city is already there. Then you know well what happens: a siege costs time and money, we make a fine show of submission, he's happy ( because with such people it's honor above all) and he goes off somewhere else."

  "But the League people and the Genoese have thrown their money away to build the city, and you tell them to go screw themselves?"

  "It depends on when Barbarossa arrives. As you can see, in the space of three months these cities change their allegiance like it was nothing. We sit and wait. Maybe at that moment the League is allied with the emperor." ("Master Niketas," Baudolino said, "I swear by my own eyes, six years later, at the siege of the city, there were Genoese slingers. You understand? Genoese! The ones who had helped build it!")

  "Otherwise," Ghini continued, "we face the siege. Dammit to Hell, in this world you get nothing for nothing. Enough of this talk, come and see."

  He took Baudolino by the hand and led him out of the tavern. Evening had fallen, and it had turned colder. They came out into a little square, from which, it seemed, at least three streets should lead, but only two corners were built, with low houses, a single story, the roofs of straw. The little square was illuminated by lights coming from the surrounding windows, and by a few braziers kept burning by vendors, who were crying: "Hey, you women! Hey! The holy night is beginning and you surely don't want your husband not to find something tasty on the table." Near what would become the third corner was a knife grinder, who made the knives squeak as he sprinkled the wheel. Farther on, at a stand, a woman was selling chickpea flour, dried figs, and carobs, and a shepherd wearing a fleece jacket held a little basket. "Right here, ladies! Good fresh cheese," he shouted. In an empty space between two houses, two men were discussing the sale of a pig. In the background, a pair of girls were lazily leaning against a door, their teeth chattering, their shawls allowing a glimpse of an ample low-cut bodice; one of them said to Baudolino: "What a pretty boy you are! Why don't you come spend Christmas with me, and I'll teach you how to make the beast with eight paws?"

  They turned the corner and found a wool carder, crying in a loud voice that this was their last chance for mattresses and paillasses, to sleep warm, and not freeze like the Baby Jesus, and next to him a waterman was shouting, and as they continued along the streets, still roughly laid out, they could see doorways where a carpenter was working his plane, and over there a smith striking his anvil in a festival of sparks, and farther on another man taking loaves from an oven that glowed like the mouth of Hell; and merchants were arriving from afar to do business on this new frontier, also people who usually lived in the forest: charcoal burners, honey gatherers, peddlers of ashes for soap, collectors of bark for making cord or tanning leather, vendors of rabbit skins, jailbird faces who assembled in the new settlement thinking they would find profit there, and the blind and the halt and the maimed and the scrofulous, for whom begging in the streets of a town, and during the holy holidays, promised to be richer than wandering along the deserted roads of the countryside.

  The first snowflakes were beginning to fall; they grew thicker, and for the first time there was a layer of white on those young roofs, though no one could know if they were capable of bearing the weight. At a certain point Baudolino, remembering his invention in conquered Milan, opened his eyes wide: three merchants entering on three asses through an arch in the wall seemed to him to be the Magi; they were followed by their servants, carrying pots and precious stuffs. Behind them, beyond the Tanaro, he thought he could make out some flocks descending the slopes of the silvered hill, the shepherds playing bagpipes, and caravans of Oriental camels with Moors wearing great varicolor-striped turbans. On the hill sparse fires were dying under the twinkling snow, more persistent now, but to Baudolino one of them seemed a great caudate star, which moved in the sky towards the city that was wailing in birth pangs.

  "You see what a city is?" Ghini said to him. "And if it's like this before it's even finished, imagine what will happen afterwards: it's another life. Every day you see new people—for the merchants, just think, it's like having the Heavenly Jerusalem; for the knights, since the emperor forbade them to sell lands so as not to divide the fief, and they were bored to death in the countryside, now they command companies of bowmen, they ride out in parades, they give orders left and right. But things don't prosper just for the gentry and the merchants: it's a providence also for a man like your father, who doesn't have much land but has some livestock, and people arrive in the city and ask him for stock and pay cash; they're beginning to sell for ready money and not through barter. I don't know if you understand what that means: if you exchange two chickens for three rabbits sooner or later you have to eat them, otherwise they grow too old, whereas two coins you can hide under your mattress and they're good ten years from now, and if you're lucky they stay there even if enemies come into your house. Besides, it's happened in Milan and in Lodi and Pavia, and it will also happen here with us: it's not that the Ghinis or the Aularis have to keep their mouths shut and only the Guascos or the Trottis give the orders. We're all part of those who make the decisions; here you can become important even if you're not a noble, and this is the fine thing about a city, and it's specially fine for one who isn't noble, and is ready to get himself killed, if he really has to (but it's better not), because his sons can go around saying: My name is Ghini and even if your name is Trotti, you're still shit."

  Obviously, at this point Niketas asked Baudolino what this city was called. What a talent that Baudolino had as a storyteller, having kept that revelation in suspense until this moment! The city didn't yet have a name, except a generic Civitas Nova, which was a genus name, not an individuum. The choice of name would depend on another question, and no small one: legitimation. How does a new city, without history and without nobility, gain the right to exist? Ideally by imperial investiture, just as the emperor can create a knight or a baron; but here we were dealing with a city born against the emperor's wishes. So? Baudolino and Ghini went back to the tavern, as all there were debating that very question.

  "If this city is born outside the imperial law, it can only become legitimate through some other law, just as strong and ancient."

  "And where will we find that?"

  "Why, in the Constitutum Constantini, in the donation that the emperor Constantine made to the church, giving it the right to govern territories. We donate the city to the pope and, seeing that at this moment there are two popes around, we donate it to the one who is siding with the League, that is to say, Alexander III. As we said before at Lodi, months ago, the city will be called Alessandria, and it will be a papal fief."

  "First of all, at Lodi you should have kept quiet, because we hadn't yet decided anything," Boidi said, "but that's not the point. As names go, it's a beautiful name, or at least it's no uglier than a lot of others. But what sticks in my craw is that here we bust our behinds to make a city and then we present it to the pope, who already has so many. And that way we'll have to pay him tribute, and any way you look at it, it's still money that we lose, so we might as well be paying the emperor."

  "Boidi, don't be dumb, as usual," Cuttica said to him. "First, the emperor doesn't want the city, not even if they make him a present of it; and if he was ready to accept it, then it wasn't worth it. Second, it's one thing not to pay taxes to the emperor, who then comes and chops you to pieces, as he did with Milan; and it's another thing not to pay them to the pope, who's a thousand miles away and, with all the problems he has, he's not likely to send an army just to collect small change. Third..."

  Baudolino spoke up: "If you'll allow me to express an opinion, I've studied in Paris and I have some experience of how you make letters and diplomas; there are all sorts of ways of making presents. You draw up a document that says Alessandria is being founded in honor of Alexander the pope and consecrated to Saint Peter, for example. As proof, you
build a cathedral to Saint Peter on allodial land, which has no feudal obligations. And you build it with money contributed by all the people of the city. After which you make a gift of it to the pope, with all the formulas that your notaries find most suitable and most binding. You flavor it with expressions of filial devotion and all those things, you send the parchment to the pope, and you receive all his benedictions. Anybody who later scrutinizes that document will see that, in the final analysis, you've given him only the cathedral and not the rest of the city, and I can't see a pope coming here to take away his cathedral and carry it to Rome."

  "It sounds magnificent to me," Oberto said, and all agreed. "We'll do what Baudolino says, as he seems to me very clever and I really hope he'll stay here to give us more good advice, since he's also a grand Paris scholar."

  Here Baudolino had to resolve the most embarrassing part of that fine day: namely, reveal, without anyone being able to reproach him, since they too had been imperials until a short time past, that he was a ministerial of Frederick, to whom he was bound by filial affection—and then to tell the whole story of those thirteen wondrous years, while Gagliaudo did nothing but murmur: "If they would've told me, I'd never believe it" and "Just think: he looked like a worse fool than the others, and here he really is somebody."

  "Not all ills come to harm," Boidi said then. "Alessandria isn't yet finished, and we already have one of us at the imperial court. Dear Baudolino, you mustn't betray your emperor, since you love him so much, and he loves you. But you will remain at his side and stand up for us whenever necessary. This is the land where you were born and nobody can blame you if you try to defend it, within the limits of loyalty, of course."

  "Still, for tonight it would be best if you went to see that sainted woman your mother and slept at Frascheta," Oberto said delicately, "and tomorrow you leave, without staying here to see how the streets are made and how thick the walls are. We're sure that, out of love for your natural father, if you were to learn one day that we were in great danger, you would send us word. But if you have the heart to do this, who knows? Maybe for the same reason one day you would not warn your adoptive father of some machination of ours too painful for him. In any case, the less you know, the better."

  "Yes, my son," Gagliaudo said then, "after all the troubles you've caused me, do at least this one good thing. I have to stay here, because, as you see, we're discussing serious matters, but don't leave your mother alone on this night, for if she sees you, in her great joy she won't see anything else, and she won't notice that I'm not there. Go, and I'll tell you something else: you even have my blessing, for God only knows when we'll see each other again."

  "Very well," Baudolino said. "In a single day I find a city and I lose it. Oh, son of a bitch! Do you realize—if I want to see my father again, I'll have to come and lay siege to him?"

  ***

  That, Baudolino explained to Niketas, was more or less what happened. On the other hand, there was no way of doing it differently, a sign that those were truly difficult times.

  "And then?" Niketas asked.

  "I set out to find my house. The snow on the ground came up to my knees, what fell from the sky was now a chaos that made your eyeballs spin and slashed your face, the fires of the Civitas Nova had disappeared, and between the white below and the white above I couldn't figure out what direction to take. I thought I could remember the old paths, but at this point there weren't any paths, and you couldn't tell what was solid ground and what was swamp. Obviously, to build the houses, they had cut down entire groves and I could no longer find even the shapes of those trees that once I had known by heart. I was lost, like Frederick the night he met me, only now it was snow and not fog, for if it had been fog, I'd still have found my way. Fine thing, Baudolino, I said to myself, you get lost on your own ground; my mamma was right to say that those who can read and write are stupider than those who can't, and now what do I do? Do I stop here and eat my mule, or tomorrow morning, after they dig and dig, will they find me looking like a rabbit's skin left out overnight in the hard of winter?"

  If Baudolino was there to tell the story, it meant that he survived, but through a near-miracle. Because while he was proceeding, without direction, he glimpsed once again a star in the sky, very pale, but still visible, and he followed it, until he realized he was in a low valley and the star seemed high because he was low, but once he climbed the slope, the light grew ever brighter before him, until he realized that it came from one of those sheds where they keep the livestock when there isn't enough room in the house. In the shed was a cow, and a frightened ass braying, a woman with her hands between the legs of a sheep, and the sheep producing a lamb, bleating its heart out.

  He stopped on the threshold to wait for the lamb to emerge, before he kicked the ass out of the way, and rushed to lay his head in the woman's lap, crying: "Dearest mother!" For a moment the woman was stunned, then she pulled up his head, turning it towards the fire, and she started to cry, stroking his hair and murmuring between her sighs, "O Lord, O Lord, two lambs in a single night, one being born and the other coming back from the devil's own land: it's like having Christmas and Easter together, but it's too much for my poor heart. Hold me, I'm about to faint. That's enough, Baudolino. I've heated water in the pot to wash this poor little creature. Can't you see you're getting blood all over you? But where did you get those clothes that look like a gentleman's? You haven't stolen them, have you, you rascal?"

  For Baudolino it was as if he heard angels singing.

  14. Baudolino saves Alessandria with his father's cow

  "And so, to see your father again you had to besiege him?" Niketas said, towards evening, as he invited his guest to taste some sweets of yeast flour, shaped to look like flowers or plants or other objects.

  "Not exactly: the siege was six years later. After witnessing the birth of the city, I went back to Frederick and told him what I had seen. Before I had even finished speaking, he was already in a roaring fury. He shouted that a city is born only with the emperor's consent, and if it's born without that consent it must be razed before they can finish building it, otherwise anyone can grant consent in place of the emperor, and that spelled the end of the nomen imperii. Then he calmed down, but I knew him well: he wouldn't forgive. Luckily, for about six years he was occupied with other matters. He entrusted me with various missions, including that of sounding out the intentions of the Alessandrians. So I went twice to Alessandria to see if my fellow citizens wanted to concede anything. In fact, they were ready to concede a great deal, but the truth is that Frederick wanted only one thing: the city had to disappear into the vacuum from which it had come. You can imagine the Alessandrians! I don't dare repeat to you what they told me to say to him.... I realized that those journeys were only a pretext to spend as little time as possible at court, because it was a source of constant suffering to meet the empress and to maintain my vow...."

  "Which you did maintain?" Niketas asked, almost as an affirmation.

  "Which I did maintain, and forever, Master Niketas. I may be a counterfeiter of parchments, but I know what honor is. She helped me. Motherhood had transformed her. Or at least that was the impression she wanted to give, and I never understood what she felt for me. I suffered, and yet I was grateful to her for the way she helped me behave with dignity."

  Baudolino by now was over thirty, and tempted to consider the Prester John letter a youthful caprice, a fine exercise in epistolary rhetoric, a jocus, a ludibrium. He had found the Poet again, who, after the death of Rainald, had remained without a patron, and you know what happens at court in such cases: you're no longer worth anything, and there are those who start saying your poems were never all that great. Gnawed by bitterness and rancor, the Poet had spent some ill-considered years in Pavia, resuming the only activities in which he shone, namely, drinking and reciting the poems of Baudolino (especially one verse, prophetic, that went quis Papie demorans castus habeatur, can he who lives in Pavia be chaste?). Baudolino brought
his friend back to court, and in his company the Poet appeared as one of Frederick's men. Further, the Poet's father had died meanwhile, he had come into his inheritance, and even the enemies of the deceased Rainald no longer saw him as a parasite, but as another miles, and no more dissipated than the others.

  Together, they relived the days of the letter, each complimenting the other on that great achievement. Considering a game as a game does not mean ceasing to play it. Baudolino still felt a yearning for the kingdom he had never seen, and from time to time, alone, he would recite the letter to himself, aloud, continuing to perfect the style.

  ***

  "The proof that I couldn't forget the letter is that I managed to convince Frederick to invite my Parisian friends to court, all of them together, telling him that in the chancellery of an emperor it was good to have people who were familiar with other countries, their languages and their customs. To be truthful, since Frederick was employing me more and more as a confidential messenger in various situations, I wanted to create my little personal court, the Poet, Abdul, Boron, Kyot, and Rabbi Solomon."