Baudolino Read Free

those men who go to the fairs and the marketplaces with a Monky and may be he would lay his hands on me and he didnt like that idea but that gentleman said he was a grand comes palatinus and among the Alamans there werent any
Sodomiten
    what are these sodomiten my father asked and I explained theyre kypioni shit he said kypioni are everywhere but when the Gentleman pulled out another five Coins after the two of the night before then he forgot everything and said son go then and maybe this is a piece of luck for you and may be for us too since one way or another these Alamans are always around our partts and this means you can come and see us now and then and I said I swear I will and I was ready to leave but I still felt a lump in my throat because I saw my mother crying like I was going off to die
    et so we left and the Gentleman told me to take him to where the Castrum of the imperials was and I said thats easy you just follow the sun that is go where it comes from
    and as we were going and could already see the tents a company of horsemen arrived all decked out and when they see us they fall on their knees and lower their pikes and their banners and raise their swords why what can this be I asked myself and they started yelling Chaiser
Kaisar
here and
Keiser
there and
Sanctissimus Rex
and they kissed that gentlemans hand and my jaw almost fell off because my mouth was open so wide like an oven because it was only then I understood the gentleman with the red beard was the emperor Fridericus in flesh and blood and I had been telling him madeup stories all night like he was any old asshole
    now he'll have them cut off my head I say to myself but still I cost
him VII coins and if hed wanted to cut my head off he would of done it last night gratis et amoredei
    et he said dont be afraid of anything its all right Im bearing news of a great Vision little puer tell us all the vision you had in the wood and I drop down like I had the falling sickness and my eyes open wide and theres foam on my mouth and I yell I saw I saw and I tell the whole storey of Saint Baudolino who made the prophecy to me and they all praise Dominnus Domine Deus and say Miraculo miraculo
gottstehmirbei
    and with them there were also the messengers of Terdona who hadnt yet decided whether to surrender but when they heard me they lay flat on the ground and said if even the saints were against them then they better surrender because it couldnt go on anyway
    et then I saw the Derthonesi who were all coming out of the City men women and children et vetuli too and they were crying while the alamans carried them away like they were beeccie that is berbices and sheep everywhere and the people of Pavia who cheered and entered Turtona like lunnatics with faggots and hammers and clubs and picks because tearing a city down to the ground was enough to make them come
    et towards evening I saw on the hill a great smoke and Terdona or Derthona was just about gone and this is how war is as my father Galiaudo says its an ugly animal war is
    but better them than us
    et in the evening the Emperor comes back all happy to the Tabernacula and gives me a slap on the cheek like my father never did and then he calls a gentleman who turned out to be the good canon Rahewinus and tells him he wants me to learn to write and the abacus and even gramar which then I didnt know what it was but now slowly I learn and my father Galiaudo never immagined such a thing
    what a great thing to be a man of learning and who would ever have thought it
    gratis agimus domini dominus I mean thanks to the Lord
    all the same writing a story makes you sweat even in winter also Im afraid because the lamp has gone out and as the man said my thumb akes

2. Baudolino meets Niketas Choniates
    "What's this?" Niketas asked, after he had turned the parchment over in his hands and tried to read a few lines.
    "It's my first attempt at writing," Baudolino answered, "and ever since I wrote it—I was fourteen, I think,