Perhaps to find new themes for his songs, Abdul jealously copied the letters, to reread them at night in Saint Victoire. Then one day he realized that someone had stolen them from him, and he feared that by now some dissolute canon, after having lubriciously spelled them out at night, had thrown them among the thousand manuscripts of the abbey. Shuddering, Baudolino locked his correspondence in his trunk, and from that day on he wrote no further missives, so as not to compromise his correspondent.
Having, in any case, to release his adolescent fervor, Baudolino then took to writing verses. While in the letters he had spoken of his wholly pure love, in these new writings he practiced that tavern poetry with which the clerics of the period vaunted their dissolute and carefree life, not without some melancholy reference to their wasting of it.
Wishing to give Niketas evidence of his talent, he recited a few hemistichs:
Feror ego veluti—sine nauta navis,
ut per vias aeris—vaga fertur avis ...
Quidquit Venus imperat—labor est suavis,
quae nunquam in cordibus—habitat ignavis.
Realizing that Niketas did not clearly understand the Latin, he made a rough translation: "I am derelict like a ship without a helmsman, like a bird along the pathways of the sky.... But what pleasant toil it is to obey the commands of Venus, unknown to common souls."
Baudolino showed these and other verses to the Poet, who flushed with envy and shame, and wept, confessing the aridity that dried up his imagination, cursing his impotence, shouting that he would have preferred not to know how to penetrate a woman than to find himself so incapable of expressing what he felt inside—and that it was exactly what Baudolino had expressed so well, making the Poet wonder if his friend had not read his heart. Then he observed how proud his father would be if he were able to compose such beautiful verses, for one day or another he would have to justify to his family and to the world the acquired nickname of Poet, which, while it flattered him, made him feel a poeta gloriosus, a braggart, who steals a dignity that is not his.
Seeing him in such despair, Baudolino pressed the parchment between the youth's hands, offering him the poems so he could display them as his own. A precious gift, because it so happened that Baudolino, to have something new to tell Beatrice, had actually sent her the verses, attributing them to his friend. Beatrice had read them to Frederick. Rainald of Dassel, a lover of literature, though always taken up with palace intrigues, heard them and said he would like to have the Poet in his service....
In that same year Rainald was raised to the lofty office of archbishop of Cologne; and to the Poet the notion of becoming official poet to an archbishop and thus, as he put it, half-joking and half-swaggering, the archpoet, did not displease him, not least because he had very little desire to study; the paternal funds in Paris never sufficed, and he had got the idea—not mistaken—that a court poet ate and drank all day long without a thought for anything else.
But to be a court poet you have to write poems. Baudolino promised to write at least a dozen for him, but not all at once. "You see," he said, "great poets are not always diarrhoic, sometimes they're styptic, and those are the greater ones. You must seem tormented by the Muses, able to distill only one couplet every now and then. With the ones I'll give you, you can keep going for quite a few months, but allow me some time, because while I'm not styptic, I'm not diarrhoic either. So postpone your departure and send a few verses to Rainald, to whet his appetite. For the present it's a good idea for you to introduce yourself with a dedication, a eulogy of your benefactor.
He thought about it all one night, then gave the Poet some verses for Rainald:
Presul discretissime—veniam te precor,
morte bona morior—dulci nece necor,
meum pectum sauciat—puellarum decor,
et quas tacto nequeo—saltem chorde mechor.
Which is to say: "Most noble bishop, forgive me, for I face a happy death and am consumed by such a sweet wound: maidens' beauty pierces my heart, and those whom I cannot touch, I possess at least in my thoughts."
Niketas remarked that Latin bishops found pleasure in things that were not very holy, but Baudolino told him that he should first understand what a Latin bishop was: it was not required that he necessarily be a sainted man, especially if he was also chancellor of the empire. And second, who Rainald was: a little bit bishop and very much chancellor, certainly a lover of poetry, but still more inclined to use a poet's talents also for his own political ends, as he would subsequently do.
"And so the Poet became famous thanks to your verses."
"That's right. For almost a year the Poet sent Rainald letters overflowing with devotion, accompanying verses that I wrote for him from time to time. Finally Rainald insisted that this unusual talent should join him at any price. The Poet set off with a good provision of verses, enough to supply him for at least a year, however styptic he might seem. It was a triumph. I've never understood how anyone can be proud of a fame received as alms from another, but the Poet was content."
"Speaking of amazement: I ask myself what pleasure you can have felt, seeing your creations attributed to someone else. Isn't it atrocious that a father should give away, as alms, the fruit of his loins?"
"The fate of a tavern poem is to pass from one mouth to another: it is happiness to hear it sung, and it would be egoism to want to exhibit it only to increase one's own glory."
"I don't believe you're that humble. You are happy to have been once again the Prince of Falsehood, and you flaunt it, just as you hope that one day someone will find your love letters among the jumble of papers in Saint Victoire and attribute them to God knows whom."
"I don't mean to seem humble. I like making things happen, and to be the only one who knows they are my doing."
"The question doesn't change, my friend," Niketas said. "Indulgently, I suggested you wanted to be the Prince of Falsehood, and now you make me realize you would like to be God Almighty."
8. Baudolino in the Earthly Paradise
Baudolino was studying in Paris but he kept abreast of what was happening in Italy and in Germany. Rahewin, obeying the orders of Otto, had continued writing the Gesta Friderici; but, having now reached the end of the fourth book, he had decided to stop, because it seemed to him blasphemous to exceed the number of the Gospels. He left the court, satisfied, his duty done, and was dying of boredom in a Bavarian monastery. Baudolino wrote him of his free access to the endless library of Saint Victoire, and Rahewin asked him to indicate a few rare treatises that could enhance his knowledge.
Sharing Otto's opinion of the poor canon's scant imagination, Baudolino considered it useful to nourish it a bit. After sending him a few titles of codices he had seen, he also mentioned others of his own invention, such as De optimitate triparum of the Venerable Bede, an Ars honesti petandi, a De modo cacandi, a De castramentandis crinibus, and a De patria diabolorum—all works that provoked the amazement and the curiosity of the good canon, who hastened to ask for copies of these unknown treasures of learning. A service that Baudolino would have done him willingly, to heal his remorse for the parchment of Otto that he had scraped, but he simply did not know what to copy, and he had to invent the excuse that those works were, indeed, in the abbey of Saint Victoire, but were in odor of heresy and the canons would not allow anyone to see them.
"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 w
as 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?"