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even if we can't reach the Neorion we can walk underground to the Prosphorion. However," he added, in anguish, as if he were just remembering another errand, "I can't come with you. I will show you the way, but then I have to turn back. I have to save my family, who are hiding in a little church behind Saint Irene. You know"—he seemed to be apologizing—"my palace was destroyed in the second fire, the one in August."
    "Master Niketas, you're mad. First, you bring me down here, making me abandon my horse, when—even without you—I could have reached the Neorion through the streets. Second, you believe you can reach your family before being stopped by another pair of sergeants like those I found you with. Even if you succeeded, then what would you do? Sooner or later someone will root you out, and if you do collect your family and set off, where will you go?"
    "I have friends in Selymbria," Niketas said, puzzled.
    "I don't know where that is, but to reach it you first have to get out of the city. Listen to me: you're no good to your family. On the other hand, where I will take you, we'll find some friends, Genoese who decide which way the wind blows in this city. They're used to dealing with Saracens, Jews, monks, the imperial guard, Persian merchants, and now with these Latin pilgrims. They're smart people; you tell them where your family is and tomorrow they'll bring them to where we are. I don't know how they'll do it, but do it they will. They would do it in any case for me, since I'm an old friend, and for the love of God, but all the same they're Genoese, and if you give them a little present, so much the better. Then we'll stay there till things calm down. A sack normally doesn't last more than a few days. You can trust me, I've seen plenty of them. Afterwards, you can go to Selymbria or wherever you like."
    Deeply moved, Niketas thanked him. And as they resumed their way, he asked why Baudolino was in the city if he wasn't a pilgrim.
    "I arrived when the Latins had already landed on the opposite shore, with some other people ... who are no longer with us. We came from very far away."
    "Why didn't you leave the city? You would have had time."
    Baudolino hesitated before answering. "Because ... because I had to stay here in order to understand something."
    "Have you understood it?"
    "Unfortunately, yes. But only today."
    "Another question: why are you devoting yourself so to me?"
    "What else should a good Christian do? But, actually, you're right. I could have freed you from that pair and then let you go off on your own, and instead here I am, sticking to you like a leech. You see, Master Niketas, I know that you are a writer of stories, just as Bishop Otto of Freising was. But when I knew Bishop Otto, I was only a boy and I had no story, I wanted to know only the stories of others. Now I might have a story of my own, though I've lost everything I had written down about my past and, what's more, when I try to recall it, my thoughts become all confused. It's not that I don't remember the facts, but I'm not able to give them a meaning. After everything that's happened to me today I have to talk to somebody, or else I'll go crazy."
    "What happened to you today?" Niketas asked, plowing ahead in the water. He was younger than Baudolino, but his life as a scholar and courtier had made him fat, lazy, and weak.
    "I killed a man. It was the man who almost fifteen years ago assassinated my adoptive father, the best of kings, the emperor Frederick."
    "But Frederick drowned, in Cilicia!"
    "So everyone believed. But he was assassinated. Master Niketas, you saw me wield my sword in anger this evening in Saint Sophia, but I must tell you that in all my life I had never shed anyone's blood. I am a man of peace. This time I had to kill: I was the only one who could render justice."
    "You will tell it all to me. But first tell me how you arrived so providentially in Saint Sophia to save my life."
    "As the pilgrims were