capable of a lack of good manners, or even a mindless act of madness. I was an unknown quantity to them. But at first they tolerated my presence, only occasionally casting worried glances my way. Then gradually, as the night wore on, the room began to clear. Whether it was my foreign presence, or the call of more important pursuits, such as servicing a mistress before returning home to the wife, or cutting open a full purse and robbing someone better off, I know not. Suffice it to say that eventually the only customers of the drinking den were Nick Zuliani and a big bear of a Mongol dressed in the dark red silk shirt and fur-trimmed jacket of a Keshikten guard. Where he had been sitting had made his presence invisible to me when the tavern was full. But as the other drinkers left, I could see him, and he could see me. I should have been warned off as soon as I saw what he was, but the fact he was well in his cups, and therefore incapable of making sense of what was about to happen, drove me on.
I pushed myself up from the low stool I had inhabited for the last hour or so and, swaying a little unsteadily on my feet to pretend a greater drunkenness than was true, made my way over to where the Mongol had planted himself. He was on a similar stool to mine, and stuck behind a small table. In the way of all inveterate drinkers embarking on a long session, he had managed to wedge himself in place with the furniture. He would not fall over, even when totally incapable of rational thought. Being well down the road to that state, I thought he was ripe for the picking. Bleary-eyed, he looked up as I approached.
What he saw was a tall, red-haired man, thickly bearded in that manly way that the Chinee consider shockingly animalistic and foreign. He would have guessed I was in my thirties, despite the fine tracery of lines at the corners of my eyes and mouth that made me look older. My cheekbones are high and deeply tanned in the way of seafarers. My green eyes, too, had the faraway look of a sailor. Though some said they could also see in them the distant stare of a man with deep pains buried in his soul. The truth of that I will tell you about later. At this very moment I smiled the smile of a fellow drinker, and flopped down next to him. He seemed to tolerate my barbarian presence, not even suggesting by a wrinkling of the nose that he had smelled something off. The less polite Chinee were prone to do that to foreigners, the Mongols less so. I called for some more rotgut and gestured to my new friend that he could take his share. In the way of a Westerner I stuck out my hand, and offered him my name.
‘Tomasso.’
I wasn’t about to give him my real name, now, was I? The beefy Mongol grunted, took my hand and squeezed hard.
‘Mongotai.’
I gasped and retrieved my mangled fingers from his grasp. He grinned, exposing broken and blackened teeth. I decided to keep well away from his exhalations as even the rotgut wouldn’t be enough to mask the stink from a mouthful of teeth that bad. I poured him a drink from the white porcelain jug, and began my spiel. I had been in this part of the world long enough to have a good grasp of the Mongol tongue, you see. Now was my chance to test it to the limit.
‘I’ve had some luck today. I sold a blade that I bought for next to nothing, and made a tidy profit. I’m flush with money, and willing to test my luck further. How about you? Do you feel lucky?’
Mongotai grunted and threw the brew in his bowl down his throat.
‘You speak funny.’
I thought, well, that’s OK, your breath smells funny. But he was a mark, so I kept my thoughts about his oral hygiene to myself. Besides, I had washed as recently as three weeks ago, and smelled as sweet as a khan’s concubine. In fact, I had been scrubbed by a woman who had almost become one of the Great Khan’s concubines. Her name is Gurbesu, and she had been part of an annual batch of Kungurat girls sent to Kubilai Khan as tribute. And that would have been her fate, except for a chance encounter en-route with an adventurer called Nick Zuliani. I stole her virginity before she got to Kubilai’s summer palace at Xanadu, rendering her useless for his purposes. Once her state was known, she had been smuggled out of the Inner Palace by her chaperone before she embarrassed everyone in front of the Khan. But that’s another story, which you may have heard me tell before. Gurbesu was dark-skinned and with a thick mane of hair so black that when it was oiled it was darker than the darkest night in the Desert of Lop. But I digress. I will return to my complicated love life later, if you like. It makes for exciting reading. For now, I must content you with explaining how I fleeced the smelly Mongol. And ended up with him hounding me out of Khan-balik.
He had said I spoke funny. I suppose I did to his ears. I poured more rice wine into his bowl.
‘Maybe this will help you understand me.’
He grunted, and swilled it down in one gulp. I leaned closer, as though I had a great secret to impart to my new-found friend.
‘Have you heard of the pot game?’
He looked puzzled, and my hopes were raised. If he had heard of it, I would not be able to play the con on him. I drank down my rice wine, and wiped the bowl clean with my sleeve. I then placed the bowl on the table between us.
‘This is the pot. We each put an equal amount of money in it, say fifty yuan, and then bid on the pot.’
The Mongol’s beady eyes gleamed at the idea of gaming with a red-haired foreigner. Mongols love gambling, and can’t resist an opportunity to indulge. Their innate sense of superiority makes them overconfident, particularly with foreigners. He was cocksure he could take me, drunk or not. He pulled out a pouch from his fur-trimmed coat and threw the requisite coins in the bowl. I did the same, matching his money with my own.
‘Now, there is a hundred yuan in the bowl. We each bid in turn, and whoever bids the highest gets the pot.’
Mongotai could not take his eyes off the pile of shiny coins in the bowl, so I offered to start the bidding.
‘With a hundred in there, I reckon it must be worth offering forty as my starting bid.’
Mongotai snorted in derision.
‘I bid fifty.’
I grimaced, as though going any higher would cause me a pain in my purse.
‘OK. I’m going to bid really high to get this hundred. I bid seventy.’
I fiddled nervously with the little pile of coins in my fist, as if I was short of funds. I could see the rice wine befuddled brain working hard behind the screwed-up buttons of eyes in the centre of Mongotai’s face. He grinned, reckoning he had me on the run. He laughed a short barking laugh.
‘Eighty!’
I threw up my hands in defeat.
‘That’s too rich! You are too good for me. You win. Give me eighty yuan and you can have the pot.’
Eagerly, the poor fool paid over his eighty, and gathered in the hundred in the stained rice wine bowl. I got up, shook his hand and left the gloomy tavern.
The first rule of the quick con is to get away as soon as you have fleeced the mark in case he spots how it was done. Did you see how it worked? Half of the pot was his money already, so he gave me eighty to buy back his fifty along with my fifty. That left me thirty up on the deal. Unfortunately, it was in the street that I made my big mistake. I stopped to count my coins before I was well clear of the tavern. Suddenly I heard a roar like the sound of a gale ripping at the sturdy sails of a trading vessel bound for Venice, tearing them to shreds. And bringing down the mast in the process.
Mongotai must have been brighter than I thought. He had just worked out the scam. He came out of the tavern so fast that the flimsy walls trembled as though an earthquake was ravaging the city. I took to my heels and ran before he could catch me.
‘Where’ve you been, Nick? Chu-Tsai is looking for you. He says it’s urgent. And why are you out of breath?’
Gurbesu’s shapely figure was a pleasant sight after the hairy demon that was Mongotai. But her face was distorted into a mask of disapproval. She must have smelled the stink of cheap rice wine on me when I tried to plant a kiss on her full, red lips. She pushed me away, and not for the first time I thought of my lost love in Venice. Caterina Dolfin was fair where Gurbesu was dark, and slim and boyish compared to the Kungurat girl’s rounded voluptuousness. But I had not seen fair Cat in a number of years, and she was a thousand miles and a lifetime away. So I put Cat out of my mind, and grabbed at Gurbesu’s accommodating hips, pulling her to me. This time she didn’t protest so much. That was the attractive thing about her — she could not resist my charms for long.
‘So many questions. I am out of breath because I thought of you and ran all the way home. As for Chu-Tsai, he can wait. I have some business far more urgent with you, my dear.’
The silken surfaces of our Chinee clothes slid enticingly over one another as we embraced. Gurbesu sighed
