The Journeyer

I was understandably bewildered by the several and rapid changes of topic under discussion. The Khakhan was not chastising us, but interrogating us, and on a matter until now unsuspected by me. I might have been sufficiently astonished to hear a man say vakh to a gift of trinkets that would purchase any duchy in Europe. But I was more astonished to learn that my father and uncle had all this time been engaged on a project more secret and important than just the procurement of missionaries.

“The maps are safe, Sire,” said my father. “It never occurred to Kaidu to think of any such things. And Mafio and I believe we have compiled the best maps yet done of the western and central regions of this continent— especially those regions held by the Ilkhan Kaidu.”

“Good … good … murmured Kubilai. “The maps drawn by the Han are unsurpassable, but they confine themselves to the Han lands. Those maps we captured from them in earlier years much aided the Mongol conquest of Kithai, and they will be of equal use as we march south against the Sung. But the Han have always ignored everything beyond their own borders as unworthy of consideration. If you have done your work well, then for the first time I have maps of the entire Silk Road into the farther reaches of my empire.”

Beaming with satisfaction, he looked about him and caught sight of me. Perhaps he took my vapid gawking for a look of stricken conscience, for he beamed even more broadly and spoke directly to me. “I have already promised, young Polo, never to use the maps in any Mongol campaign against the territory or the holdings of the Dogato of Venice.”

Then, turning again to my father and uncle, he said, “I will later arrange a private audience for us to sit together and examine the maps. In the meantime, a separate chamber and staff of servants have been appointed for each of you, conveniently close to my own in the main palace residence.” He added, rather as an afterthought, “Your nephew may reside in either suite, as you choose.”

(It is a curious thing, but for all Kubilai’s acuity in every other area of human knowledge and experience, he never, through all the years I knew him, bothered to remember of which elder Polo I was the son and of which the nephew.)

“For tonight,” he went on, “I have ordered a banquet of welcome, at which you will meet two other visitors newly come from the West, and we will all together discuss the vexing question of my insubordinate cousin Kaidu. Now Lin-ngan waits outside to escort you to your new quarters.”

We all began a ko-tou, and again—as he always would do—he bade us rise before we had prostrated ourselves very deeply, and he said, “Until tonight, friends Polo,” and we took our leave.

2

AS I say, that was my first realization that my father and uncle, in their assiduous making of maps, had been working at least partly for the Khan Kubilai—and this is the first time I have ever publicly revealed that fact. I did not mention it in the earlier chronicle of my travels and theirs, because at that time my father was still alive, and I hesitated to impute any suspicion that he might have served the Mongol Horde in ways inimical to our Christian West. However, as all men know, the Mongols never again have invaded or threatened the West. Our foremost enemies for many years have continued to be the Muslim Saracens, and the Mongols have frequently been our friendly allies against them.

Meanwhile, as my father and uncle all along intended, Venice and the rest of Europe have profited from increased trade with the East, a trade much facilitated by the copies of all our maps of the Silk Road which we Polos brought home from there. So I no longer see any need to maintain the slightly preposterous fiction that Nicolo and Mafio Polo crossed and recrossed the whole extent of Asia simply to herd a flock of priests with them. And not in that other book, or ever, have I tried to keep secret the fact that I, Marco Polo, also became an agent and journeyer and observer and mapmaker for the Khan Kubilai. But I will here tell the beginning of my becoming so well regarded by the Khakhan that he entrusted me with such missions.

It was at that night’s welcoming banquet that I first attracted his notice. But it could have happened—and almost did—that Kubilai’s first attention to me might have been a command that I deliver myself to the Fondler, with my neck in my sphincter.

The banquet was laid in the largest hall of the main palace building, a hall which, one of the table servants boasted to me, would accommodate six thousand diners at a single seating. The high ceiling was held up on pillars that seemed made of solid gold, twisted and convoluted, inset with gems and jade. The walls were paneled alternately in rich carved woods and fine embossed leathers, and hung with Persian qali and Han scroll paintings and Mongol trophies of the hunt. Those included the mounted heads of snarling lions and spotted pards and great- horned artak (“Marco’s sheep”) and large bearlike creatures called da-mao-xiong, the mounted heads of which were startlingly snow-white except for black ears and black masks about the eyes.

The trophies were probably of the Khakhan’s own hunts, for he was famous for his love of the chase, and spent every spare day in forest or field. Even here in the banquet hall, his affection for that manliest of sports was evident, for the guests seated closest to him were his dearest hunting partners. On either arm of his thronelike chair was perched a hooded hunting falcon, and to each of the chair’s two front legs was tethered a hunting cat called a chita. The chita resembles a spotted pard, but is much smaller in size and proportionately much longer in the legs. It is different from all other cats in that it cannot climb a tree, and is even more different in that it will willingly chase and pull down game at its master’s bidding. Here, however, the chitas and the falcons sat quietly, now and then politely accepting tidbits which Kubilai fed to them with his own fingers.

There were not six thousand persons present on that particular night, so the hall was partitioned by screens of black and gold and red lacquer, to make a more intimate enclosure for rather fewer people. Still, there must have been close on two hundred of us, plus as many servants and a constantly changing crew of musicians and entertainers. That many people breathing and sweating, and the savory steams from the hot foods served, should have made even that huge hall rather warm on that late-summer night. But, although we were screened about and all the outer doors were shut, the hall had a cool breeze mysteriously blowing through it. Not until some while later did I learn by what ingeniously simple means that coolness was effected. But there were other mysteries in that dining hall which made me goggle and thrill and wonder, and for them I never did manage to find adequate explanation.

For example, in the middle of all the many tables stood a tall artificial tree, crafted of silver, its multiple limbs and branches and twigs hung with beaten-silver leaves that fluttered gently in the hall’s artificial breeze. Around the tree’s silver-barked trunk were coiled four golden serpents. Their tails were twined among the upper branches and their heads snaked downward to poise, open-mouthed, above four immense porcelain vases. The vases were molded in the shape of fantastic lions with their heads thrown back and their mouths also wide. There were some other artificial creatures in the room; on several tables, including the one at which we guest Polos sat, was a life- sized peacock made of gold, its tail feathers finely articulated and colored by inlaid enamels. Now, the mystery about those objects was this. When the Khan Kubilai called for drink—and only when he called aloud, not when anyone else did—those several animals of precious metals did wondrous things. I will tell what they did, though I scarcely expect to be believed.

“Kumis!” Kubilai would bellow, and one of the golden serpents coiled about the silver tree would suddenly gush from its mouth a flow of pearly liquid into the mouth of the lion vase set below. A servant would bring the vase to the Khakhan’s table and pour the beverage into his jewel-encrusted goblet and the goblets of other guests. They would sip and verify that it was indeed the mare’s-milk kumis, and they would all clap their hands in applause of that marvel, and immediately another marvelous thing would occur. The golden peacock on the table—and every golden peacock in the room—would likewise applaud, raising and beating its golden wings, erecting and fanning out its splendid tail.

“Arkhi!” the Khakhan would shout next, and the second serpent on the tree would disgorge its measure into the second lion vase, and a servant would bring the drink and we all would find it to be that finer and tastier grade of kumis called arkhi. And we would applaud and so would the peacocks. And those animated creatures, the liquor- spouting serpents and the exuberant birds, they worked, mind you, without any human agency. I several times went close to observe them, both while they were performing and while they were at rest, and I could find no wires or strings or levers that might have been manipulated from a distance.

“Mao-tai!” the Khakhan would shout next, and the whole activity would be repeated, from serpent spout to lion vase to peacock fanning. The liquor dispensed by the third serpent, mao-tai, was new to me: a yellowish, slightly syrupy beverage of a tingling flavor. The Mongol diner at my elbow cautioned me to beware of its potency, which he demonstrated. He took a tiny porcelain cup of the liquor and applied to it the flame of one of the table