Baudolino Read Online Free PDF Page B

were by ancient pagan sculptors, older even than the Romans. But why? Why?"
    "To melt them down. The first thing you do when you put a city
to the sack is melt down everything you can't carry off. They've set up melting pots everywhere, and you can imagine—with all these fine houses in flames, they're like natural foundries. And you also saw those men in the church; they can't go around showing they've stolen the pyxes and the patens from the tabernacles. Melt everything down: and quickly! A sack," Baudolino explained, like a man who knows a trade well, "is like a grape harvest: you have to divide the tasks. There are those who press the grapes, those who carry off the must in the tuns, those who cook for the others, others who go to fetch the good wine from last year.... A sack is a serious job—at least if you want to make sure that in the city not a stone remains on a stone, as in my Mediolanum days. But for that you'd really want the Pavians; they knew how to make a city disappear. These men here have everything to learn. They pulled down the statue, then sat on it to have a drink, then another man arrived dragging a girl along by the hair and shouting that she was a virgin, and they all had to stick in a finger to see if it was worth it.... In a proper sack you have to clean the place out immediately, house by house, and the fun comes afterwards; otherwise the smartest get all the best stuff. Anyway, my problem was that with people like this I didn't have time to explain that I too was born in the Monferrato region. So there was only one thing to be done. I crouched behind the corner until a knight came into the alley, so drunk he seemed not to know where he was going and was letting his horse carry him. I had only to yank his leg, and he fell down. I took off his helmet, and I dropped a stone on his head...."
    "You killed him?"
    "No. It was friable stone, barely hard enough to leave him unconscious. I took heart because he began vomiting up some purplish liquid. I took off his coat of mail and his shirt, his helmet, weapons, I took his horse, and rode off through the streets until I arrived at the portal of Saint Sophia. I saw them going in with mules, and a group of soldiers passed me carrying off the silver candelabra with their chains as thick as your arm, and they were talking like Lombards.
When I saw that destruction, that wickedness, that greed, I lost my head, because the ones wreaking that ruin were men from my land, devout sons of the pope of Rome...."
    Their torches were sputtering as the two of them talked, but soon they climbed from the cistern into the dead of night and, by way of deserted alleys, they reached the tower of the Genoese.
    They knocked at a door, and someone came down; they were welcomed and fed with rough cordiality. Baudolino seemed to be at home among these people, and he promptly recommended Niketas to them. One man said: "That's easy, we'll take care of it. Go and sleep now." He said this with such confidence that not only Baudolino but Niketas himself passed a serene night.

3. Baudolino explains to Niketas what he wrote as a boy
    The next morning Baudolino collected the cleverest of the Genoese: Pevere, Boiamondo, Grillo, and Taraburlo. Niketas told them where his family could be found, and the men set off. Niketas then asked for some wine and poured a cup for Baudolino. "See if you like this. It's a resinous wine that many Latins find disgusting; they say it tastes of mold." Assured by Baudolino that this Greek nectar was his favorite drink, Niketas settled down to hear his story.
    Baudolino seemed eager to talk, as if to free himself from things he had been keeping inside since God knows when. "Here, Master Niketas," he said, opening a leather bag he carried around his neck and handing him a parchment. "This is the beginning of my story."
    Niketas tried to decipher the words, and though he could read Latin letters he could understand nothing.
    "What is this?" he asked. "I