The Journeyer

bad behavior.”

“Ah, but would that reform him?” asked Kubilai’s voice. “As a good whipping would do?”

“He need not be reformed, Sire, because he would never do such an unmannerly thing in the first place. Take another example: simple honesty. If a man walking along the road discovers an object someone has lost, he will not appropriate it, but stand guard over it. He will relinquish that guard duty to the next comer, and he to the next. That object will be sedulously kept safe until its loser comes back looking for it.”

“You are talking now of happenstance,” said the Khakhan’s voice. “You began with crimes and laws.”

“Very well, Sire, consider an actual tort. If one man is wronged by another, he does not run to a magistrate and demand forced redress. Indeed, the Han have a proverb: advising the dead to avoid damnation and the living to avoid the law court. If a man of the Han disgraces himself, he will take his own life in expiation, as I have seen often happen during the past New Year. If another man does him a grievous wrong, and his conscience does not soon resolve the matter, the victim will go and hang himself outside the guilty man’s door. The disgrace thus conferred on the transgressor is considered far worse than any revenge that could have been inflicted.”

Kubilai inquired drily, “Would you say that that fact gives much satisfaction to the dead man? You call that redress?”

“I am told, Sire, that the malefactor can only remove the taint of that shame by making restitution to the hanged man’s surviving family.”

“So does he under the Khanate’s code of law, Marco. But if anybody has to get hanged, it is he. You may call that severity, but I see nothing unfair about it.”

“Sire, I once remarked that you were rightly to be admired and envied—for the quality of your subjects in general—by every other ruler in the world. But I wonder: how are you regarded by the people themselves? Might you not better secure their affection and fealty if you were not quite so strict in your standards for them?”

“Define that,” he said sharply. “‘Not quite so strict.’”

“Sire, regard my native Republic of Venice. It is patterned on the classical republics of Rome and Greece. In a republic, the citizen has the liberty to be an individual, to shape his own destiny. There are slaves in Venice, true, and class levels. But in theory a stalwart man can rise above his class. On his own, he can climb from poverty and misery to prosperity and ease.”

Chingkim’s quiet voice said, “Does that happen often in Venice?”

“Well,” I said, “I remember one or two who took calculated advantage of their good looks, and thereby married above their station.”

“You call that being stalwart? Here it would be called concubinage.”

“It is only that offhand I cannot think of other instances to cite. But—”

“In Rome or Greece,” said Kubilai, “were there any such instances? Your Western histories, do they record any instances?”

“I honestly cannot say, Sire, not being a scholar of history.”

Chingkim spoke again. “Do you believe it could happen, Marco? That all men could and would make themselves equal and free and rich, if only they were given the liberty to do so?”

“Why not, my Prince? Some of our foremost philosophers have believed it.”

“A man will believe anything that does not cost him anything,” said Kubilai’s voice. “That is another proverb of the Han. Marco, I know what happens when people are set free—and I did not get that knowledge from reading history. I know because I have done that for people myself.”

Some moments passed. Then Chingkim said in an amused tone, “Marco is shocked to silence. But it is true, Marco. I saw my Royal Father employ that tactic one time to conquer a province in the land of To-Bhot. The province resisted our frontal attacks, so the Khakhan simply made announcement to the Bho people: ‘You are free of your former tyrant rulers and oppressors. And I, being a liberal ruler, I give you license to take your rightful places in the world as you deserve.’ And do you know what happened?”

“I hope, my Prince, it made them happy.”

Kubilai gave a laugh that resounded around the wall like the noise of an iron cauldron being pounded with a mallet. He said:

“What happens, Marco Polo, is this. Tell a poor man that he has free permission to rob the rich he has envied for so long. Does he sally forth and ransack the gilded mansion of some lord? No, he seizes the pig owned by his peasant neighbor. Tell a slave that he is set free at last and made the equal of all other men. Perhaps his first display of equality is to murder his former master, but the second thing he does: he acquires a slave. Tell a troop of soldiers, unwillingly impressed into military service, that they may freely desert and go home. Do they, as they go, assassinate the lofty generals who drafted them? No, they butcher the man who was promoted from among them to be their troop sergeant. Tell all the downtrodden that they have free permission to rise up against their most brutal oppressor. Do they march in grand array against their tyrant Wang or Ilkhan? No, they go in a mob and tear to pieces the village moneylender.”

There was another silence. I could think of no comment to make. Finally Chingkim spoke again:

“The ruse worked there in To-Bhot, Marco. It threw the whole province into chaos, and we took it quite easily, and my brother Ukuruji is now Wang of To-Bhot. Of course, nothing is changed for the Bho people, as regards class and privilege and prosperity and liberty. Life goes on there as before.”

I still could think of no comment to make, for the Khakhan and the Prince were obviously not talking just of some ignorant rustics in the backward land of To-Bhot. The opinion they had of the common folk was of all common folk everywhere, and it was no high opinion, but I had no argument with which to controvert it. So we three moved from our places around the Echo Pavilion and went back inside the palace and drank mao-tai together and talked of other things. And I did not again suggest any moderations of the Mongol code of laws, and to this day the decrees proclaimed throughout the Khanate conclude as they did then: “The Khakhan has spoken; tremble, all men, and obey!”

Kubilai never made any comment on the order in which I was calling upon his various ministers, though he might have supposed that I should rightly have commenced with his highest of all: that Chief Minister Achmad-az- Fenaket of whom I have by now so often spoken. But I would have been glad to omit the Arab entirely, especially after I heard so many unpleasant things about him. In fact, I never did seek audience with him, and it was Achmad who impelled our meeting at last. He sent a servant to me with a testy message, requiring me to appear before him and collect my wages from his own hand, in his capacity as Finance Minister. I gathered that he had got annoyed by the money’s having accumulated untouched, and by my having let the New Year season go past without a settling of account. Ever since my being taken into employment by the Khakhan, I had not bothered to inquire by whom I was to be paid, or even how much, for I had so far had no need of a single bagatin—or tsien, as the smallest unit of Kithai currency was called. I was elegantly housed and fed and supplied with everything, and could not imagine how I would spend any money if I had any.

Before I obeyed Achmad’s summons, I went to ask my father if the Compagnia Polo’s enterprises were still being thwarted, and, if so, whether he would like me to broach the subject with the obstructive Arab. Failing to find my father in his suite, I went to my uncle’s. He was reclining on a couch, being shaved by one of his women servants.

“What is this, Uncle Mafio?” I exclaimed. “Getting rid of your journeyer’s beard! Why?”

Through the lather he said, “We shall be dealing mainly with Han merchants, and the Han despise hairiness as a mark of the barbarian. Since all the Arabs of the Ortaq are bearded, I thought Nico and I might enjoy some advantage if one of us was clean-shaven. Also, to be frank, it troubled my vanity that my older brother’s beard is still its natural color, while mine has gone as gray as Nostril’s.”

My uncle, I assumed, was also still keeping his crotch hairless, so I remarked, somewhat waspishly, “Many of the Han shave their heads as well. Are you going to do that, too?”

“And many of them let their hair grow as long as a woman’s,” he said equably. “I may do that. Did you come in here just to criticize my toilet?”

“No, but I think you have answered what I was going to ask. When you say you will be dealing with merchants, I gather it means that you and Father have resolved your differences with the evil Arab Achmad.”

“Yes, and quite pleasantly. He has conceded all the necessary permits. Do not speak of the Chief Minister in such a tone, Marco. He turns out to be—not so bad, after all.”

“I am pleased to hear it,” I said, though not much believing it. “I have to go and see him right now.”