recounted them to him, seemed to unfold from another point of view, as if he were standing on the top of one of those mountains in ikons, and could see the stones as the apostles on the mountains saw them, and not as the faithful observer did, from below. Besides, he liked questioning the Latins, so different from the Greeks, firstly because of their totally new languages, each different from the other.
Niketas and Baudolino were seated opposite each other, in the little chamber of a tower, with double windows on three sides. One side revealed the Golden Horn and the Pera shore opposite, with the tower of Galata emerging from its procession of hamlets and hovels, from the second pair they could see the canal of the port debouching into the Strait of Saint George, and finally the third pair faced west, and from it all Constantinople should have been visible. But on this morning the delicate color of the sky was darkened by the thick smoke of the palaces and basilicas consumed by the fire.
It was the third fire to strike the city in the last nine months: the first had destroyed storehouses and the stores of the court, from the Blachernae palace to the walls of Constantine, the second had
devoured all the warehouses of the Venetians, the Amalfitan merchants, the Pisans and the Jews, from Perama almost to the shore, sparing only this Genoese quarter almost at the foot of the Acropolis, and now the third fire was raging on all sides.
Down below, there was a veritable river of flame, arches were crashing to the ground, palaces were collapsing, columns were shattered, the fiery globes that rose from the heart of that conflagration consumed the more distant houses, then the flames that had capriciously fed that inferno returned to devour whatever they had previously spared. Above, dense clouds rose, still ruddy at their lower edge with the reflection of the fires, but of a different color, whether through a trick of the rising sun's rays or because of the nature of the spices, the lumber, or other burning material that engendered them. Further, depending on the direction of the wind, from different points in the city, aromas arrived, of nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, and saffron, mustard or gingerâthe world's most beautiful city was burning, yes, but like a brazier of scented condiments.
Baudolino had his back to the third window, and he seemed a dark shadow haloed by the double glow of the day and of the fire. Niketas half-listened to him, while at the same time his mind returned to the events of the previous days.
By now, on this morning of Wednesday, 14th of April of the year of Our Lord 1204âor six thousand seven hundred and twelve since the beginning of the world, as the date was usually calculated in Byzantiumâfor two days the barbarians had definitively been in possession of Constantinople. The Byzantine army, so glittering with its armor and shields and helmets when on parade, and the imperial guard of English and Danish mercenaries, armed with their awful two-edged hatchets, who until Friday had fought bravely and held off the enemy, on Friday gave way, when the enemy finally breached the walls. The victory was so sudden that the victors themselves paused, timorous, towards evening, expecting a counterattack, and to
keep the defenders at bay, set the new fire. But on Tuesday morning the whole city realized that, during the night, the usurper Alexius Ducas Murzuphlus had fled inland. The citizens, now orphaned and defeated, cursed that thief of thrones whom they had fêted till the night before, just as they had flattered him when he had strangled his predecessor, and now did not know what to do. (Cowards, cowards, cowards, how shameful, Niketas lamented at the scandal of that surrender.) They had gathered in a great procession, with the patriarch and priests of every rank in ritual garb, the monks blathering about mercy, ready to sell themselves to the new potentates as they had always sold themselves to
Gene Wentz, B. Abell Jurus