Now the Huns could be seen driving their way forward, crushing the grasses, amid the victims of their slaughter. Boidi and Cuttica, at opposite sides of the plain, could not understand what was happening, and Gavagai had to be sent to them so they could accelerate the lateral intervention of the blemmyae and the pygmies. The Huns found themselves assaulted from opposite directions, but they had an inspired idea: their vanguard advanced beyond the forces of the fallen skiapods and giants, the rear guard withdrew, and so pygmies on the one hand and blemmyae on the other hurled themselves against each other. The pygmies, seeing those fowls' heads appear from the weeds, unaware of Ardzrouni's ruse, started shouting: "The cranes! The cranes!" and, believing they were confronting their age-old enemy, they forgot about the Huns and riddled the blemmyae host with arrows. Now the blemmyae were defending themselves against the pygmies and, believing themselves betrayed, were shouting: "Death to the heretics!" The pygmies, thinking the blemmyae had turned traitor, and hearing themselves branded with heresy, whereas they considered themselves the sole custodians of the true faith, cried in turn: "Kill the ghosters!" The Huns fell on that brawl and dealt deathblows, one by one, to their enemies, who were still striking one another. Gavagai now reported that he had seen Cuttica trying to arrest the enemies single-handed. But then, overwhelmed, he had fallen under the hoofs of their horses.
Boidi, at the sight of his dying friend, believed both forces lost, leaped on his horse, and tried to ride beyond the nubian barrier to alert them, but the ferns blocked him, as, for that matter, they also made difficulties for the advance of the enemies. With difficulty, Boidi reached the nubians, took his position behind them, and incited them to move, in one body, towards the Huns. But once he found them, thirsting for blood, in front of him, the doomed Circoncellions followed their nature, or, rather, their natural propensity for martyrdom. They thought the moment of sublime sacrifice had arrived, and it was best to hasten it. One after another, they fell to their knees, imploring: "Kill me, kill me!" The Huns could hardly believe their luck; they drew their short, finely honed swords and began slicing off heads of the Circoncellions who crowded around them, stretching their necks and invoking the purifying bloodbath.
Boidi, shaking his fist against the sky, turned and fled towards the hill, reaching it just before the plain burst into flames.
In fact, Boron and Kyot, from the city, warned of the danger, thought to make use of the goats that Ardzrouni had prepared for that stratagem of his, futile in full daylight. They had the tongueless push hundreds of animals, their horns afire, into the plain. The sea of grass was being transformed into a sea of flames. Perhaps Boron and Kyot had thought the flames would confine themselves to drawing a fire barrier, or would drive back the enemy cavalry, but they hadn't considered the direction of the wind. The fire gained strength, but it was spreading towards the city. This development surely favored the Huns, who had only to wait until the grasses were burned, the ashes cool, and then they would have the path free for their final gallop. But, one way or another, it arrested their advance for an hour. The Huns, however, knew they had time. They confined themselves to taking positions at the edges of the fire and, raising their bows to the sky, they shot so many arrows that the sky was darkened, and the arrows fell beyond the barrier, since the Huns couldn't know if other enemies were awaiting them.
One arrow fell, hissing from above and struck the neck of Ardzrouni, who dropped to the ground with a stifled cough, blood issuing from his mouth. Trying to put his hands to his neck and extract the arrow, he saw them gradually covered with whitish patches. Baudolino and the Poet bent over him and whispered to him that the same thing was happening to his face: "You see? Solomon was right," the Poet said to him, "a remedy did exist. Perhaps the Huns' arrows are soaked in a poison that for you is an antidote, and dissolves the effect of those black stones."
"What do I care if I die white or black?" Ardzrouni gasped, and he died, still of uncertain color. More arrows were now falling, thick and fast, and the hill had to be abandoned. They fled towards the city, with the stunned Poet, who said: "It's all over. I gambled a kingdom and lost. We can't expect much from the endurance of the panotians. Our only hope lies in the time the flames grant us. Let's collect our things and escape. To the west the path is still free."
Baudolino, at that moment, had only one thought. The Huns would enter Pdnapetzim and would destroy it, but their mad dash would not stop there; they would press on, towards the lake, and invade the wood of the hypatias. He had to reach it before them. But he couldn't abandon his friends, he had to find them, they all had to collect their belongings, some provisions, prepare for a long flight. "Gavagai! Gavagai!" he shouted, and at once he saw his faithful friend at his side. "Run to the lake, find Hypatia—I don't know how you'll do it, but find her, tell her to be ready. I'll be coming to rescue her!"
"I not know how to do but I find her," the skiapod said and shot off.
Baudolino and the Poet entered the city. News of the defeat had already arrived. Females of every race, with their babes in arms, were running at random through the streets. The terrified panotians, thinking that they now knew how to fly, were jumping into the void. But they had been taught to glide downward, not to hover in the sky, and they quickly found themselves on the ground. Those who desperately tried to flap their ears to move in the air, plummeted, exhausted, and were dashed against the rocks. They found Colandrino, desperate at the failure of his training, Solomon, Boron, and Kyot, who asked news of the others. "They are dead, peace to their spirits," the Poet said angrily. "Hurry! To our quarters," Baudolino cried, "and then to the west!"
When they reached their lodgings, they gathered up everything they could. Going down in great haste, opposite the tower they saw a bustle of eunuchs, loading their belongings on some mules. Praxeas, livid, confronted the friends. "The deacon is dead, and you knew it," he said to Baudolino.
"Dead or alive, you would flee all the same."
"We are leaving. When we reach the pass, we will set off an avalanche, and the path to the Priest's kingdom will be closed forever. Do you want to come with us? If so, you must accept our terms."
Baudolino didn't even ask him what those terms were. "What do I care about your damned Prester John?" he shouted. "I have more important things to think about. Come, friends!"
The others remained dumbfounded. Then Boron and Kyot admitted that their real aim was to find Zosimos again and the Grasal, and Zosimos surely had not yet reached the kingdom and would never arrive there now: Colandrino and Boidi said they had come with Baudolino and they would go with Baudolino; Solomon observed that his ten tribes could be on either side of those mountains, so for him all directions were good. The Poet didn't speak; he seemed to have lost all will, and another had to take the reins of his horse to lead him away.
As they were about to flee, Baudolino saw one of the deacon's two acolytes coming towards him. The man was carrying a case. "It's the sheet with his features," he said. "He wanted you to have it. Put it to good use."
"Are you also fleeing?"
The veiled man said: "Here or there; if a there exists, for us it will be the same. The fate of our master awaits us. We will stay here and infect the Huns."
***
Just outside the city, Baudolino saw a horrible sight. Towards the blue hills some flames were flickering. Somehow, since morning, over several hours, a part of the Huns had begun circling the scene of the battle, and they had already reached the lake.
"Quickly!" Baudolino cried, in despair. "Over there, all of you! Gallop!" The others didn't understand. "Why over there, when they are there already?" asked Boidi. "This way, why not? Perhaps the only escape path remains to the south."
"Suit yourselves. I'm going," Baudolino shouted, beside himself. "He's lost his mind," Colandrino said, imploring the others: "We must follow him to make sure he does himself no harm."
But by now Baudolino was far ahead of them, and, with Hypatia's name on his lips, he was heading for s
ure death.
After half an hour's furious gallop, he stopped, glimpsing a swift form coming towards him. It was Gavagai.
"You be easy," Gavagai said to him. "I seen her. Now she safe." This beautiful news was soon to be transformed into a source of desperation, because this is what Gavagai said: the hypatias had been warned in time of the Huns' arrival, and, in fact, by the satyrs, who had come down from their hills and collected them, and when Gavagai arrived they were already leading the hypatias away, up there, beyond the mountains, where only the satyrs knew how to move, and the Huns would never be able to reach them. Hypatia had waited till the last, as her companions tugged at her arms, hoping for news of Baudolino, and she was unwilling to leave before learning of his fate. Hearing Gavagai's message, she became calm and, smiling through her tears, said to tell him good-bye for her. Trembling, she charged Gavagai to tell Baudolino to flee, because his life was in danger; sobbing, she gave him her last message: she loved him, and they would never see each other again.
Baudolino asked Gavagai if he was crazy, he couldn't let Hypatia go into the mountains, he wanted to take her with him. But Gavagai said it was now too late, and before he could get there, where, for that matter, the Huns were now masters, as everywhere, the hypatias would be beyond reach. Then, mastering his respect for one of the Magi, and putting a hand on his arm, he repeated Hypatia's last message; she would also wait for him, but her first duty was to protect their child: "She said, I forever have with me someone who recalls to me Baudolino." Then, looking up at him, Gavagai asked: "You made child with that female?"
"None of your business," Baudolino said, ungratefully. Gavagai remained silent.
Baudolino was still hesitating when his companions joined him. He realized that he could explain nothing to them, nothing they could understand. Then he tried to convince himself. It was all so rational: the wood was now conquered land, the hypatias had fortunately gained the hills where their salvation lay, Hypatia had rightly sacrificed her love of Baudolino to love of that yet-to-be-born creature he had given her. It was all so heartbreakingly sensible, and there was no other possible choice.
"I had been warned, after all, Master Niketas, that the Demiurge had done things only halfway."
36. Baudolino and the rocs
"Poor, unhappy Baudolino," said Niketas, so moved that he forgot to savor the pig's head, boiled with salt, onions, and garlic, that Theophilactus had preserved throughout the winter in a little keg of sea water. "Once again, every time you happen to conceive a passion for something true, fate punished you."
"After that evening we rode for three days and three nights, never stopping, never eating or drinking. I learned later that my friends performed miracles of cleverness to elude the Huns, who could be encountered anywhere within a range of many miles. I let them lead me. I followed them, and I thought of Hypatia. It's right, I told myself, that it has gone like this. Could I really have taken her with me? Would she have adapted to an unknown world, removed from the innocence of the wood, the familiar warmth of her rites, and the company of her sisters? Would she have renounced being one of the elect, called to redeem the divinity? I would have transformed her into a slave, a wretch. And further, I never asked her age, but perhaps she could have been my daughter twice over. When I abandoned Pndapetzim, I was, I believe, fifty. To her I had appeared young and vigorous, because I was the first man she had seen, but in truth I was approaching old age. I could have given her little, while taking from her everything. I tried to convince myself that things had gone as they had to go. They had to go in a way that left me unhappy forever. If I accepted this, perhaps I would find my peace."
"You weren't tempted to turn back?"
"Every moment, after those first three mindless days. But we had lost our way. The path we had taken wasn't the one by which we had arrived; we made infinite twists and turns, and crossed the same mountain three times, or perhaps they were three different mountains but we were no longer able to distinguish them. The sun alone wasn't enough to orient us, and with us we had neither Ardzrouni nor his map. Perhaps we had circled the great mountain that occupies half of the tabernacle, and we were at the other end of the land. Then we were left without horses. The poor animals had been with us since the beginning of the journey, and had aged with us. We hadn't been aware of this, because in Pndapetzim there were no other horses with which to compare them. Those last three days of precipitous flight exhausted them. Little by little they died, and for us it was almost a blessing, because they had the good sense to leave us, one after the other, in places where we found no food, and we ate their flesh, what little remained clinging to their bones. We continued on foot, and our feet were covered with sores. The only one who never complained was Gavagai, who had never needed horses, and who had on his foot a callus two inches thick. We literally ate locusts, and without honey, unlike the sainted fathers. Then we lost Colandrino."
"The youngest..."
"The least experienced of us. He was looking for food among the rocks; he thrust his hand into a treacherous crevice, and was bitten by a snake. He had just enough breath to tell me good-bye, whispering that I should remain faithful to the memory of his beloved sister, my most beloved wife, so that I would at least make her live in my memory. I had forgotten Colandrina, and once again I felt an adulterer and a traitor, both to Colandrina and to Colandrino."
"And then?"
"Then all goes dark. Master Niketas, I left Pndapetzim, according to my calculations, in the summer of the year of Our Lord 1197. I arrived here at Constantinople last January. Between those dates there were then six and a half years of emptiness, an emptiness in my spirit and perhaps in the world."
"Six years wandering in deserts?"
"One year, or two: who could keep track of time? After the death of Colandrino, months later perhaps, we found ourselves at the foot of some mountains we didn't know how to scale. Of the twelve who had set out, six of us remained, six men and a skiapod. Our clothes in tatters, our bodies wasted, burned by the sun, we had nothing left but our weapons and our knapsacks. We said to ourselves that perhaps we had reached the end of our journey, and it was our fate to die there. Suddenly we saw coming towards us a squad of men on horseback. They were sumptuously dressed, bearing shining arms, with human bodies and dogs' heads."
"They were cynocephali. So they do exist."
"By God's truth. They questioned us, barking; we didn't understand; the one who seemed their leader smiled—it may have been a smile, or a snarl, that bared his sharpened teeth—he gave an order to the others, and they bound us, in single file. The made us cross the mountain along a path that they knew; then, after some hours' march, we descended into a valley surrounded on all sides by another mountain, very high, with a powerful fortress circled by birds of prey that, even from a distance, seemed enormous. I remembered Abdul's old description, and I recognized the fortress of Aloadin."
So it was. The cynocephali made them climb tortuous steps dug into the stone up to that impregnable refuge, then brought them into the castle, where, amid towers and keeps, they could glimpse hanging gardens, and catwalks barred by sturdy gratings. They were handed over to other cynocephali, armed with scourges. Moving along a corridor, Baudolino caught sight, through a window, of a kind of courtyard amid very high walls, where many young men were languishing in chains, and he remembered how Aloadin trained his henchmen to crime, bewitching them with the green honey. Led into a sumptuous hall, they saw an old man, who seemed a centenarian, seated on embroidered cushions: he had a white beard, black eyebrows, and a grim gaze. Alive and powerful when he had captured Abdul, almost half a century earlier, Aloadin was still there controlling his slaves.
He looked at the newcomers with contempt, obviously realizing that these wretches were not good enough for enrollment among his young assassins. He didn't even speak to them. He made a bored gesture to one of his servants, as if to say: Do as you please with them. His curiosity was aroused only by the sight of the skiapod behind the
m. He motioned him to move, gestured to him to raise his foot above his head, and laughed. The six men were taken away, and Gavagai was left with him.
Thus began the long imprisonment of Baudolino, Boron, Kyot, Rabbi Solomon, Boidi, and the Poet, their feet always bound by a chain, which ended in a stone ball. They were employed in servile tasks, sometimes washing the tiles of the floors and walls, sometimes turning the wheels of the mills, sometimes bidden to carry quarters of ram to the rocs.
"They were flying beasts," Baudolino explained to Niketas, "as big as ten eagles put together, with a hooked, sharp beak that in a few instants could strip away the flesh of an ox. Their claws had talons that seemed the prow of a warship. They moved restlessly in a huge cage set on a turret, ready to attack anyone, except one eunuch, who seemed to speak their language and who kept them in order, moving among them as if he were among the chickens in his coop. He was also the only one who could send them out as Aloadin's messengers: he would place on one of them—at the neck and along the back—some sturdy thongs that he ran beneath their wings, to the thongs he attached a basket, or another weight, then he opened a shutter, issued a command to the bird thus equipped, and only that one could fly out of the tower and vanish in the sky. We saw them also return. The eunuch let them in, and detached from their harness a bag or a metal cylinder that apparently contained a message for the lord of the place."