Baudolino

by Umberto Eco

  The giants could be employed well, not at a distance, because of that single eye of theirs, but for close fighting, perhaps jumping out of the grass right after the attack of the skiapods. With their height, they would completely overshadow the tiny horses of the White Huns, able to stop them with a punch on the nose, grabbing their mane with their bare hands, shaking them until the rider fell from his saddle, then finishing him off with a kick, since their feet were twice as big as a skiapod's.

  The employment of the blemmyae, the ponces, and the panotians remained more complicated. Ardzrouni suggested that these last, with those ears, could be used to glide down from above. If birds keep themselves in the air by flapping their wings, why couldn't the panotians do it with their ears. Boron agreed, and luckily they don't flap them in a vacuum. So the panotians were to be kept for the unhappy moment when the White Huns, having overcome the first defenses, entered the city. The panotians would await them in their high cliffside refuges, then would fall on their heads to slit their throats, if they were well trained in the use of the knife, even one made of obsidian. The blemmyae could not be used as lookouts, because in order to see they would have to expose their chests, and in combat this would be suicide. However, cleverly deployed, as an assault force they wouldn't be bad, because the White Hun has been (it was presumed) accustomed to aim at the head and, confronted by an enemy without a head, there would be at least a moment of bewilderment. This moment was what the blemmyae could exploit, falling on the horses with stone axes.

  The ponces were the weak element in the Poet's military science, for how can you send people into the field with their penis on their belly? They would take the first impact on their balls, knocked flat on the ground, crying for their mother. They could, however, be used as sentries, because the friends had discovered that for the ponces that penis was like the antennae of certain insects, which at the slightest shift in the wind or change of temperature, stiffen, and start vibrating. And so they could act as scouts, sent ahead, and then if they all ended up being the first killed, the Poet said, war is war and leaves no room for Christian pity.

  As for the tongueless, the first thought was that they could be left to stew in their own juice because they were so undisciplined; for a general they could create more problems than the enemy. Then it was decided that, after duly scourging them, they could work in the rear lines, helping the younger eunuchs, who, with Solomon, would tend the wounded, while keeping the women and children of every race calm, careful not to stick their head out of their holes.

  Gavagai, at their first encounter, had mentioned the satyrs-that-are-never-seen, and the Poet presumed they could strike with their horns, and leap goatlike on their forked hoofs, but every question concerning this race received only evasive answers. They lived on the mountain, beyond the lake (which one?) and naturally no one had ever seen them. Formally subjects of the Priest, they lived to themselves, never dealing with the others, and so it was as if they did not exist. Oh, well, the Poet said, they might even have curved horns, with the tips turned in or out, and to strike they'd have to lie on their backs or move on all fours; let's be serious about this: you can't conduct a war with goats.

  "Yes, you can conduct a war with goats," Ardzrouni said. He told of a great general who had tied torches to the horns of goats and then sent thousands of them at night into the plains from which the enemies were arriving, making them believe that the defenders had an immense army at their command. Since they had goats with six horns available, the effect would be powerful. Imposing. "That's if the enemy arrives at night," the Poet remarked, skeptically. In any case, Ardzrouni should prepare many goats and many torches. You never know.

  On the basis of these principles, unknown to Vegetius and Frontinus, the training program began. The plain was populated with skiapods, who practiced blowing into their brand-new fistulas, while Porcelli cursed every time they missed the target, and thank God he confined himself to cursing Christ, and for those heretics taking the name in vain of one who was only an adoptive son was not a sin. Colandrino took charge of teaching the panotians to fly, something they had never done, but it seemed as if the Almighty had created them for that very purpose. It was hard to move about the streets of Pndapetzim because, when you least expected it, a panotian would fall on your head. But all had accepted the idea that they were making ready for a war, and nobody complained. Happiest of all were the panotians, so amazed at discovering their incredible talents that by now even the women and children wanted to take part in the enterprise, and the Poet gladly consented.

  Scaccabarozzi trained the giants in the capture of horses, but the only horses around were those of the Magi, and after two or three sessions the animals risked giving up the ghost, so Bonehead turned to the asses. They were even better, because the asses kicked and brayed, and it was harder to catch them by the collar than a galloping horse, and the giants now became masters of this skill. However, they also had to learn how to run, bent over, through the ferns, so as not to be seen immediately by the enemies, and many of them complained because after every drill they had aching backs.

  Boidi trained the pygmies, because a White Hun is not a crane and you had to aim between the eyes. The Poet himself indoctrinated the nubians, who were waiting for nothing better than to die in battle. Solomon looked for venomous potions and kept trying to dip some sharp point into them, but he managed only to put a rabbit to sleep for a few minutes, and another time he inspired a hen to fly. No matter, the Poet said, a White Hun who falls asleep for the duration of a Benedicite or who starts flapping his arms is already a dead Hun. Keep at it.

  Cuttica wore himself out with the blemmyae, teaching them to crawl under a horse and slice his belly with an axe blow, but trying this with an ass was not easy. As for the ponces, since they were part of the quartermaster corps, they were under the care of Boron and Kyot.

  Baudolino informed the deacon of what was happening, and the young man seemed reborn. With the eunuchs' permission, he had himself led out onto the steps and from above he observed the drilling troops. He said he wanted to learn how to mount a horse, to lead his subjects, but immediately he felt faint, perhaps from excess emotion, and the eunuchs conducted him back to the throne, to languish again.

  It was during those days that, partly from curiosity and partly from boredom, Baudolino asked himself where the satyrs-that-are-never-seen might live. He asked everybody, even questioning one of the ponces, though he had never managed to decipher their language. The reply was: "Prug frest frinss sorgdmand strochdt drhds pag brlelang gravot chavygny rusth pkalhdrcg," which wasn't much. Even Gavagai remained vague. Over there, he said, and he pointed to a series of bluish hills to the west, beyond which the distant mountains stood out, but over there was a place no one had ever gone, because the satyrs don't like intruders. "How do the satyrs think?" Baudolino asked, and Gavagai answered that they thought most wrong of all, because they held that there had never been original sin. Men had not become mortal as a result of that sin; they would be so even if Adam had never eaten the apple. So there is no need of redemption, and each can save himself through his own good will. The whole Jesus story served only to offer us an example of a virtuous life and nothing else. "Almost like the heretics of Mahumeth, who believes Jesus is only a prophet."

  Asked why no one ever went to the satyrs' country, Gavagai answered that at the foot of the satyrs' hill there was a wood with a lake, and all were forbidden to go there, because it was inhabited by a race of bad women, all pagans. The eunuchs said that a good Christian does not go there, because he could encounter witchcraft, and no one went. But Gavagai, slyly, described so well the path to that place that it could be thought that he, or some other skiapod, in their dashing all over, had taken a peek there.

  This was enough to stir Baudolino's curiosity. He waited until nobody was paying any attention to him, mounted his horse, and in less than two hours he crossed a vast expanse of brush and reached the edge of the wood. He tied his horse to a tree a
nd entered that green expanse, cool and scented. Stumbling over the roots that surfaced at every step, grazing enormous mushrooms of every color, he finally arrived at the shore of a lake beyond which rose the slopes of the satyrs' hills. It was the sunset hour, the waters of the lake, very clear, were darkening, reflecting the long shadow of the many cypresses that lined it. A deep silence reigned everywhere, not broken even by birds' song.

  While Baudolino was meditating on the shores of that mirror of water, he saw emerge from the wood an animal he had never come upon in his life, but he recognized it immediately. It looked like a horse, a foal, it was all white and its movements were delicate and supple. On its well-shaped muzzle, just above the brow, it had a horn, also white, spiral in form, ending in a sharp point. It was the leocorn or, as Baudolino used to say when he was little, the leoncorn, or unicorn, the monoceros of his childish imaginings. He admired it, holding his breath, when behind it, from the woods, a female form appeared.

  Tall, enfolded in a long garment that gracefully outlined two erect little breasts, the creature walked with the step of a languid cameleopard, and her garment swept the grass that enhanced the lake shore, as if she were gliding over the earth. She had long soft blond hair, which fell to her hips, and a very pure profile, as if she had been modeled after an ivory brooch. Her complexion was a faint pink, and that angelic face was turned towards the lake in an attitude of mute prayer. The unicorn meekly pawed at the ground around her, sometimes raising its face with its little nostrils quivering, to receive a caress.

  Baudolino watched, rapt.

  "You, Master Niketas, must bear in mind that since the beginning of my journey I had not seen a woman worthy of that name. Don't misunderstand me: it was not desire that had overcome me, but a feeling of serene adoration, not just of her but also of the animal, the calm lake, the mountains, the light of that declining day. I felt as if I were in a temple."

  Baudolino was trying, with his words, to describe his vision—something that is surely impossible.

  "You see, there are moments when perfection itself appears in a hand or in a face, in some nuance on the flank of a hill or on the sea's surface, moments when your heart is paralyzed before the miracle of beauty. ... That creature seemed to me at that moment a superb aquatic bird, a heron, or a swan. I said her hair was blond, but no: as the head slowly moved, the hair at times had bluish glints, at other times it seemed to have a light fire running through it. I could see the outline of her bosom, soft and delicate as the breast of a dove. I had become nothing but pure gaze. I saw something ancient, because I knew I was not seeing something beautiful, but beauty itself, like the holy thought of God. I was discovering that perfection, even glimpsing it once, and once only, was something light and lovely. I looked at that form from the distance, but I felt that I had no hold on that image, as happens when you are on in years and you seem to glimpse clear signs on a parchment, but you know that the moment you move closer they will blur, and you will never be able to read the secret that the page was promising you—or, as in dreams, when something you desire appears to you, you reach out, move your fingers in the void, and grasp nothing."

  "I envy you that enchantment."

  "Rather than shatter it, I transformed myself into a statue."

  33. Baudolino meets Hypatia

  But the enchantment was finished. A creature of the woods, the maiden sensed the presence of Baudolino, and turned towards him. She had not an instant of fear, only a bewildered gaze.

  She said in Greek: "Who are you?" When he did not answer, she boldly approached him, examining, studying him closely, without shame and without coyness; and her eyes were like her hair, of shifting color. The unicorn had come to her side, his head lowered, as if to extend his beautiful weapon in the defense of his mistress.

  "You are not from Pndapetzim," she then said. "You are neither a eunuch nor a monster. You are ... a man!" She showed that she recognized a man, as he had recognized the unicorn, from having heard man mentioned many times, but never having seen one. "You are beautiful, a man is beautiful. May I touch you?" She reached out and, with her slender fingers, she stroked his beard and grazed the scar on his face, as Beatrice had done that day. "This was a wound. Are you one of those men who make war? And what is that?"

  "A sword," Baudolino answered, "but I use it in my defense against wild beasts; I am not a man who makes war. My name is Baudolino, and I come from the lands where the sun sets, over there," and he made a vague gesture. He noticed that his hand was trembling. "Who are you?"

  "I'm a hypatia," she said, with the tone of someone amused to hear such a naive question, and she laughed, becoming still more beautiful. Then, remembering that she was speaking with a foreigner: "In this wood, beyond those trees, only we hypatias live. You're not afraid of me, like those of Pndapetzim are?" This time it was Baudolino who smiled: it was she who feared he was afraid. "Do you come here to the lake often?" he asked. "Not always," the hypatia answered. "Our mother does not wish us to come out of the wood alone. But the lake is so beautiful, and Acacios protects me." She pointed to the unicorn. Then she added, with a worried look, "It is late. I must not stay away so long. I should not meet the people of Pndapetzim either, if they come this far. But you are not one of them, you are a man, and no one has ever told me to keep away from men."

  "I'll come back tomorrow," Baudolino dared to say, "but when the sun is high in the sky. Will you be here?"

  "I don't know," the hypatia said, troubled, "perhaps." And she vanished lightly among the trees.

  That night Baudolino couldn't sleep; in any case—he said—he had already dreamed, enough to remember that dream for all his life. However, the next day, just at noon, he took his horse and returned to the lake.

  He waited till evening, not seeing anyone. Dejected, he turned towards home, and at the edge of the city he ran into a group of skiapods who were practicing with their fistulas. He saw Gavagai, who said to him: "You, look!" He aimed the reed up high, fired the dart, and killed a bird, which fell nearby. "I great fighter," Gavagai said, "if White Hun arrive I pass through him!" Baudolino congratulated him, and went off at once to sleep. That night he dreamed of the previous day's encounter and in the morning he told himself that one dream is not enough for a whole life.

  He went back to the lake again. He remained seated by the water, listening to the song of the birds, who were celebrating morning, then the cicadas, at the hour when the noonday devil rages. But it was not hot, the trees spread a delightful coolness, and it cost him no pain to wait there for a few hours. Then she reappeared.

  She sat down beside him and told him she had come back because she wanted to learn more about men. Baudolino didn't know where to begin, and he started describing the place where he was born, the events of Frederick's court, what empires are and kingdoms, how you hunt with a falcon, what a city is and how you build one, the same things he had told the deacon, avoiding grim or lewd stories, and realizing, as he spoke, that men could even be portrayed with affection. She listened to him, her glistening eyes changing color according to her emotion.

  "How well you talk. Do all men tell beautiful stories like you?" No, Baudolino admitted, perhaps he told more and better ones than the others of his race, but among them there were also the poets, who could speak better still. And he began singing one of Abdul's songs. She didn't understand the Provençal words but, like the Abcasia, she was bewitched by the melody. Now her eyes were veiled with dew.

  "Tell me," she asked, blushing slightly, "do men also have their ... their females?" She asked this as if she had understood that what Baudolino sang was addressed to a woman. Yes, indeed, Baudolino answered, just as male skiapods mate with female skiapods, so men mate with women; otherwise they cannot make children, and that's how it is, he added, in the whole universe.

  "That's not true," the hypatia said, laughing, "hypatias are simply hypatias, and there are no—how can I say it?—no hypatios!" And she laughed again, amused at the very idea. Baudolino wondered w
hat it would take to hear her laugh again, because her laughter was the sweetest sound he had ever heard. He was tempted to ask her how hypatias are born, but was afraid of marring her innocence. At this point, however, he did feel encouraged to ask her who the hypatias were.

  "Oh," she said, "it's a long story; I don't know how to tell long stories the way you do. You must realize that a thousand thousand years ago, in a powerful and distant city, there lived a wise and virtuous woman named Hypatia. She had a school of philosophy, which means love of wisdom. But in that city also some bad men lived, who were called Christians; they did not fear the gods, they felt hatred towards philosophy and they particularly could not tolerate the fact that a female should know the truth. One day they seized Hypatia and put her to death amid horrible tortures. Now some of the younger of her female disciples were spared, perhaps because they were believed to be ignorant maidens who were with her only to serve her. They fled, but the Christians by now were everywhere, and the girls had to journey a long time before reaching this place of peace. Here they tried to keep alive what they had learned from their mistress, but they had heard her speak when they were still very young, they were not wise as she had been, and they didn't remember clearly all her teachings. So they told themselves they would live together, apart from the world, to rediscover what Hypatia had really said. Also because God has left shadows of truth in the depths of the heart of each of us, and it is a matter only of bringing them forth, to shine in the light of wisdom, as you free the pulp of a fruit from its skin."