Baudolino

  "Now then," Ardzrouni explained, "here we have no water. Only air. When the inner cylinder is lowered, it compresses the air contained in the alabaster cylinder, expelling it through the hole at the base. When the lever raises it, the cylinder operates a lid that blocks the hole on the inside, so that air that has left the alabaster cylinder cannot reenter. When the inner cylinder is raised completely, it operates another lid that allows air to enter through the tube you can see; it comes from the room I have told you about. When the inner cylinder is lowered again, it expels that air also. Little by little the machine draws all the air from that room and expels it here, so in that room the vacuum is created."

  "And no air enters that room from anywhere else?" Baudolino asked.

  "No. As soon as the machine is set in motion, through the ropes to which the lever is attached, every hole or fissure that might allow air in the room is sealed."

  "But with this machine you could kill a man if he were in that room," Frederick said.

  "I could, but I have never done so. I did put a chicken there. After the experiment I went up to the room and the chicken was dead."

  Boron shook his head and murmured into Baudolino's ear: "Don't trust him. He's lying. If the chicken was dead, it would mean that the vacuum exists. But since it does not exist, the chicken is still alive and kicking. Or if it's dead, it died of overwork." Then he said, raising his voice, to Ardzrouni: "Have you ever heard of animals dying also at the bottom of a well, where candles go out? Some have drawn the conclusion that there is no air down there; there is no air and hence there is a vacuum. On the contrary, at the bottom of wells fine air is lacking but the thick and mephitic air remains, and it suffocates both men and a candle's flame. You breathe the fine air, but the thick remains, which doesn't allow us to inhale it, and that's enough to kill your chicken."

  "Enough," Frederick said. "All these devices are charming, but, except for the mirrors up above, none could be used in a siege or in a battle. So what use are they then? Let's go, I'm hungry. Ardzrouni, you promised me a good supper. It seems to me the time for it has come."

  Ardzrouni bowed and led Frederick and his men into the banquet hall, which, truth to tell, seemed splendid, at least to people who for weeks had eaten the scant provender of the camp. Ardzrouni offered the best of Armenian and Turkish cuisine, including some very sweet cakes that gave his guests the sensation of drowning in honey. As all had agreed, Baudolino and his friends tasted every dish before it was offered to the emperor. Contrary to court protocol (but in war protocol always suffers numerous exceptions) they all sat at the same table, and Frederick drank and ate merrily, as if he were one of them, listening with curiosity to a debate that had begun between Boron and Ardzrouni.

  Boron was saying: "You insist on talking about the vacuum, as if it were a space lacking any other body, even aerial. But a space lacking all bodies cannot exist, because space is a relation among bodies. Further, the vacuum cannot exist because Nature holds it in horror, as all the great philosophers tell us. If you suck air through a reed immersed in water, the water rises because it cannot leave a space empty of air. Furthermore, listen: objects fall towards the earth, and an iron statue falls more rapidly than a piece of cloth. Birds fly because by moving their wings they stir up much air, which supports them in spite of their weight. They are supported by the air just as fish are supported by the water. If the air weren't there, the birds would fall, but—mind you—at the same speed as any other body. Hence, if in the sky there were the vacuum, the stars would have an infinite velocity, because they would not be restrained in their fall, or in their circling, by the air, which resists their immense weight."

  Ardzrouni rebutted: "Who ever told you that the speed of a body is in proportion to its weight? As John Philoponus said, it depends on the movement that is impressed on it. And anyway, tell me this: if there were no vacuum, how would things move? They would bump against the air, which wouldn't allow them to pass."

  "Oh no! When a body moves, the air from the space the body then occupies shifts and fills the space that the body has left! Like two people going in opposite directions along a narrow street: they suck in their bellies, each pressing against the wall, as one gradually slips in one direction, the other slips in the opposite, and finally one man has taken the other's place."

  "Yes, because each of the two, thanks to his own will, impresses a movement on his own body. But it isn't the same with air, which has no will. It moves because of the impetus imposed on it by the body bumping into it. But the impetus generates a movement in time. At the moment when the object moves and imposes an impetus on the air opposite it, the air has not yet moved, and therefore is not yet in the place that the object has just left to press against it. And what is in that place, if only for an instant? The vacuum!"

  Baudolino until then had been amused, following the altercation, but now he had had his fill of it. "Enough!" he said. "Tomorrow perhaps you can try putting another chicken in the upper room. Now, speaking of chickens, let me eat this one, and I hope it was slaughtered in the usual fashion."

  25. Baudolino sees Frederick die twice

  The supper went on until late, and the emperor asked to retire. Baudolino and his friends followed him to his chamber, which they inspected again with attention, by the light of two torches set in the walls. The Poet chose also to take a look at the flue of the fireplace, but it narrowed almost immediately, allowing no room for the passage of a human being. "You're lucky if the smoke can pass through here," he said. They also peered into the little defecation cubbyhole, but nobody could have climbed up from the bottom of the pit.

  By the bed, along with a lamp already lighted, there was a jug of water, and Baudolino insisted on tasting it. The Poet remarked that they could have put a poisonous substance on the pillow where Frederick's mouth would rest while he was sleeping. It would be a good thing, he pointed out, if Frederick were to have an antidote always within reach. You never know....

  Frederick told them not to exaggerate their fear, but Rabbi Solomon humbly asked permission to speak. "My lord," Solomon said, "you know that, even though I am a Jew, I have devoted myself loyally to the mission that will crown your glory. Your life is as dear to me as my very own. Hear me. In Gallipolis I bought a wondrous antidote. Take it," he added, removing the phial from his coat, "it is my gift to you, because in my poor life I will have few occasions to be deceived by powerful enemies. If by chance, one of these nights you were to feel ill, swallow this promptly. If something harmful were served you, it would save you at once."

  "I thank you, Rabbi Solomon," Frederick said, moved, "and we Teutonics were right to protect those of your race, and so we shall continue to do for the coming centuries: I swear this in the name of my people. I accept your beneficent draft, and this is what I will do with it." He drew from his traveling sack the coffer with the Grasal, which now he always carried jealously with him. "Here, you see," he said, "I pour the liquid that you, a Jew, have given me, in the cup that contained the blood of the Lord."

  Solomon bowed, but murmured, perplexed, to Baudolino: "The potion of a Jew becomes the blood of the false Messiah. ... May the Holy One, blessed be he always, forgive me. But, after all, this story of the Messiah is something you gentiles invented, not Yeoshoua of Nazareth, who was a just man, and our rabbis tell us that he studied the Talmud with Rabbi Yeoshoua ben Pera'hia. And besides, I like your emperor. I believe one must obey the impulses of the heart."

  Frederick had picked up the Grasal and was about to replace it in its ark when Kyot interrupted him. That evening all of them felt authorized to address the emperor without being asked: an atmosphere of familiarity had been established between those loyal few and their lord, pent up in a place that they could not yet deem hospitable or hostile. Kyot then said: "Sire, you mustn't think I doubt Rabbi Solomon, but he too could have been deceived. Allow me to taste this liquid."

  "Sire, I beg you, let Kyot do so," Rabbi Solomon said.

  Frederick nodded. K
yot raised the cup, with a celebrant's movement, then held it barely to his mouth, as if in Communion. At that moment it seemed to Baudolino that an intense light spread through the room, but perhaps it was one of the torches that had flared up, at a point where the resin was thicker. For a few moments Kyot remained bowed over the cup, moving his mouth as if to absorb thoroughly the scant amount of liquid he had imbibed. Then he turned, holding the cup to his chest, and put it, delicately, in the ark. He closed that tabernacle slowly, so as not to make the slightest sound.

  "I smell the perfume," Boron was murmuring.

  "You see this glow?" Abdul was saying.

  "All the angels of heaven are descending around us," Zosimos said, convinced, blessing himself backwards.

  "Son of a strumpet," the Poet whispered into Baudolino's ear, "with this pretext he's celebrated his holy Mass with the Grasal, and when he goes home he'll brag from Champagne to Brittany." Baudolino whispered back, telling him not to be malicious, because Kyot had acted truly like one rapt in the highest heavens.

  "Now no one can deflect us," Frederick said, gripped by strong and mystical emotion. "Jerusalem will soon be liberated. And then, we will all go and return this most holy relic to Prester John. Baudolino, I thank you for what you have given me. I am truly king and priest."

  He smiled, yet he was also trembling. That brief ceremony seemed to have overwhelmed him. "I'm tired," he said. "Baudolino, now I will shut myself in that room with the latch. Keep good watch, and thank you also for your devotion. Don't waken me until the sun is high in the sky. Then I will go and swim." And he repeated: "I am terribly tired; I'd like not to wake again for centuries and centuries."

  "A long peaceful night will restore you, dear Father," Baudolino said affectionately. "You don't have to set off at dawn. If the sun is high, the water will not be so cold. Sleep well."

  They went out. Frederick drew the leaves of the door closed, and they heard the click of the latch. They stretched out on the surrounding benches.

  "We don't have an imperial cubbyhole at our disposal," Baudolino said. "Let's go quickly and perform our corporal functions in the courtyard. One at a time, so we won't ever leave this room unmanned. This Ardzrouni may be good, but we can trust only ourselves." After a few minutes, all of them had returned. Baudolino put out the lamp, bade all a good night, and tried to sleep.

  "But I was uneasy, Master Niketas, for no good reason. I fell into an anxious sleep, and I kept waking up after brief, intense dreams, as if interrupting a nightmare. In my drowsiness I saw my poor Colandrina, drinking from a grasal of black stone, then falling dead to the ground. An hour later I heard a sound. The salle d'armes also had a window, from which came a very pale nocturnal light; I believe the moon was in the fourth quarter. I realized it was the Poet, who was going out. Perhaps he hadn't sufficiently emptied his body. Later—I don't know how much later, because I would fall back asleep and then wake again, and each time it seemed to me that only a few minutes had passed, but perhaps this was not true—Boron went out. Then I heard him come back, and I heard Kyot murmur to him that he too was nervous and wanted a breath of air. But after all, my duty was to keep an eye on anyone trying to enter, not on those who left, and I knew that all of us were tense. Then I don't remember, I wasn't aware of when the Poet reentered, but, long before dawn, all were deep in sleep, and so I saw them still, when, at the sun's first rays, I woke for good."

  The salle d'armes was now illuminated by a triumphant morning. Some servants brought wine and bread and local fruits. Though Baudolino warned them not to make a sound, so as not to disturb the emperor, all were in noisy good humor. After an hour had gone by, it seemed to Baudolino that, although Frederick had asked not to be wakened, it was late enough. He knocked at the door, without receiving a reply. He knocked again.

  "He's sleeping heavily." The Poet laughed.

  "I hope he's not unwell," Baudolino ventured.

  They knocked again, louder and louder. Frederick didn't respond.

  "Yesterday he seemed really exhausted," Baudolino said. "He may have had some kind of seizure. Let's break the door open."

  "Keep calm, everybody," the Poet said, "violating the door that protects the emperor's sleep is almost a sacrilege."

  "We'll commit the sacrilege," Baudolino said. "I don't like this."

  In disorder, they hurled themselves against the door, which was sturdy, and the bolt barring it must have been solid.

  "Once more, all together! When I say go," the Poet said, now aware that if an emperor doesn't wake up while they're breaking down his door, his sleep is obviously suspect. The door again resisted. The Poet went and liberated Zosimos, who was sleeping in his chains, and he arranged the group into two lines, so that together they could push forcefully against both leaves. At their fourth attempt the door gave way.

  Then they saw Frederick, lying in the middle of the room, lifeless, almost naked, as he had gone to bed. Beside him was the Grasal, which had rolled on the ground, empty. The fireplace held only some charred remains, as if the fire had been lighted and had finally gone out. The window was shut. The room was dominated by a smell of burnt wood and charcoal. Boron, coughing, went to open the panes and allow some air to come in.

  Thinking that someone had entered, and was still in the room, the Poet and Boron rushed, swords drawn, to examine every corner, while Baudolino, kneeling beside Frederick's body, raised his father's head and gently slapped him. Boidi remembered the cordial he had bought in Gallipolis, opened the mount of his ring, forced the emperor's lips apart, and poured the liquid into his mouth. Frederick remained lifeless. His face was ashen. Rabbi Solomon bent over him, tried to open his eyes, touched his brow, his neck, his wrist, then said, trembling: "This man is dead, may the Holy One, forever blessed be he, have mercy on his soul."

  "Jesus Christ the Lord! That can't be!" Baudolino shouted. Though he had no knowledge of medicine, he realized that Frederick, holy and Roman emperor, guardian of the most Holy Grasal, hope of Christendom, last and legitimate descendant of Caesar Augustus and Charlemagne, was no more. Immediately he wept, covered that wan face with kisses, called himself his beloved son, hoping to be heard, then realized that all was in vain.

  He rose, shouted to his friends to search again everywhere, even under the bed; they looked for secret passages, they sounded every wall, but it was obvious that not only was no one hiding, but no one had ever hidden in that place. Frederick Barbarossa had died in a room hermetically sealed from inside, and protected on the outside by his most devoted son.

  "Call Ardzrouni; he's an expert in the medical art," Baudolino shouted.

  "I'm an expert in the medical art," Rabbi Solomon groaned. "Believe me: your father is dead."

  "My God, my God," Baudolino was beside himself, "my father is dead! Tell the guards, call his son. We must look for his murderers!"

  "Just a moment," the Poet said. "Why are you talking of murder? The room was locked. He's dead. At his feet you see the Grasal, which contained the antidote. Perhaps he felt ill, feared he had been poisoned, and drank. On the other hand, there was a burning fire. Who but he could have lighted it? I know of people who feel a strong pain in the chest, become covered with cold sweat, and try to warm themselves, their teeth chattering. And they die shortly afterwards. Maybe the smoke of the fire worsened his condition."

  "But what was in the Grasal?" Zosimos cried, rolling his eyes and seizing Rabbi Solomon.

  "Stop this, you villain," Baudolino said to him. "You saw yourself that Kyot tasted the liquid."

  "Not enough, not enough," Zosimos repeated, shaking Solomon. "A sip won't make you drunk! You fools, trusting a Jew!"

  "We were fools, but to trust a Greekling like you," the Poet shouted, giving Zosimos a shove and separating him from the poor Rabbi, whose teeth were chattering in fear.

  Meanwhile Kyot had picked up the Grasal and religiously replaced it in its ark.

  "So," Baudolino asked the Poet, "you mean to say he wasn't murdered, and he died b
y the Lord's will?"

  "It's easier to think that than to think of a creature made of air who passed through the door that we were guarding so well."

  "We must call his son, and the guards," Kyot said.

  "No," the Poet said. "Friends, our heads are at stake here. Frederick is dead, and we know that no one could have entered that locked room. But his son, and the others, don't know that. They'll think we're the guilty ones."

  "What a vile idea!" Baudolino said, still weeping.

  The Poet said: "Baudolino, listen. Frederick's son doesn't love you, doesn't love us, and has always distrusted us. We were on guard, the emperor is dead, and so we are responsible. Before we can say a word, the son will have us hanged from some tree, and if there are no trees in this damned valley, he'll have us hanged from the walls. As you know, Baudolino, the son has always considered this Grasal story a plot to drag his father where he should never have gone. He'll kill us, and with one blow he's freed himself of the whole lot of us. And what about his barons? Word that the emperor has been killed will drive them to accuse one another: it will mean massacre. We are the scapegoat for the general good. Who will believe the testimony of a little bastard like you, forgive the expression, of a drunk like me, of a Jew and a schismatic, of three wandering clerks, and of Boidi, who, as an Alessandrian, more than anyone else had every reason to hate Frederick? We're already dead, Baudolino, just like your adoptive father."