“Alas, I have none,” Ishaq said dolefully. “I have only three daughters. My wife is a baghlah, and barren. Gentlemen, will you permit me humbly to petition grace upon this supper?” We all bowed our heads, and he muttered, “Allah ekber rakmet,” adding in Venetian, “Allah is great, we thank Him.”
We began helping ourselves to the mutton slices cooked with tomatoes and pearl onions, and to the baked cucumbers stuffed with rice and nuts. As we did so, I said to the landlord, “Excuse me, Sheikh Ishaq. May I ask you a question?”
He nodded affably. “Pleasure me with some command, young Sheikh.”
“That word you used in speaking of your lady wife. Baghlah. I have heard it before. What does it mean?”
He looked a trifle discomfited. “A baghlah is a female mule. The word is also used to speak of a woman likewise infertile. Ah, I perceive that you think it a harsh word for me to use of my wife. And you are right. She is, after all, an excellent woman in other respects. You gentlemen may have noticed how magnificently moonlike is her behind. Wonderfully big and ponderously heavy. It forces her to sit down when she would stand up, and to sit up when she would lie down. Yes, an excellent woman. She also has beautiful hair, though you cannot have seen that. Longer and more luxuriant than my beard. No doubt you are aware that Allah appointed one of His angels to do nothing but stand by His throne and praise Him on that account. The angel has no other employment. He simply and constantly praises Allah for His having dispensed beards to men and long tresses to women.”
When he paused for a moment in his prattle, I said, “I have heard another word. Kus. What is that?”
The servant who was waiting upon us made a strangled noise and Ishaq looked even more discomfited. “That is a very low word for—this is hardly a topic fit for mealtime discussion. I will not repeat the word, but it is a low term for the even lower parts of a woman.”
“And ghunj?” I asked. “What is ghunj?”
The waiter gasped and hurriedly left the room, and Ishaq looked discomfited to the point of distress. “Where have you been spending your time, young Sheikh? That is also a low word. It means—it means the movement a woman makes. A woman or a—that is to say, the passive partner. The word refers to the movement made during —Allah forgive me—during the act of sexual congress.”
Uncle Mafio snorted and said, “My saputelo nephew is eager to acquire new words, that he may be more useful when he travels with us into far regions.”
Ishaq murmured, “As the Prophet has said (peace be upon him): ‘A companion is the best provision for the road.’”
“There are a couple of other words—” I began.
“And, as the saying goes on,” Ishaq growled, “‘Even bad company is better than none.’ But really, young Sheikh Folo, I must decline to translate any more of your acquisitions.”
My father spoke then, and changed the subject to something innocuous, and our meal progressed to the sweet, a conserve of crystallized apricots, dates and citron rind, perfumed with amber. So I did not find out the meaning of those mysterious words tabzir and zambur until a long time afterward. When the meal ended, with qahwah and sharbat to drink, Ishaq again said the grace—unlike us Christians, the infidels do that at the close of a meal as well as at the beginning—“Allah ekber rakmet” and, with an air of relief, left our company.
When, some days later, my father, my uncle and I went again to Acre castle at the summons of the Archdeacon, he met us in assemblage with the Prince and Princess, and also two men wearing the white habits and black mantles of the Order of Friars Preachers of San Domenico. When we had all exchanged greetings, the Archdeacon Visconti introduced the newcomers:
“Fra Nicolo of Vicenza and Fra Guglielmo of Tripoli. They have volunteered to accompany you, Messeri Polo.”
Whatever disappointment he may have felt, my father dissembled, saying only, “I am grateful to you, Brothers, and I welcome you to our party. But may I inquire why you have volunteered to join our mission?”
One of them said, in rather a petulant voice, “Because we are disgusted with the behavior of our Christian fellows here in Acre.”
The other said, in the same tone, “We look forward to the cleaner and purer air of Far Tartary.”
“Thank you, Brothers,” my father said, still politely. “Now, would you excuse our having a private word with His Reverence and Their Royal Highnesses?”
The two friars sniffed as if offended, but left the room. To the Archdeacon, my father then quoted the Bible, “The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few.”
Visconti countered with the quotation, “Where there are two or three gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”
“But, Your Reverence, I asked for priests.”
“And no priest volunteered. These two, however, are Preaching Friars. As such, they are empowered to undertake practically any ecclesiastical task—from founding a church to settling a matrimonial dispute. Their powers of consecration and absolution are somewhat limited, of course, and they cannot confer ordination, but you would have to take along a bishop for that. I am sorry for the fewness of the volunteers, but I cannot in conscience conscript or compel any others. Have you any further complaint?”
My father hesitated, but my uncle boldly spoke up, “Yes, Your Reverence. The friars admit they are not going for any positive purpose. They wish simply to get away from this dissolute city.”
“Just like Saint Paul,” the Archdeacon said drily. “I refer you to the Book of Acts of the Apostles. This city was in those times called Ptolemais, and Paul once set foot here, and evidently he could stand the place for only a single day.”
Princess Eleanor said fervently, “Amen!” and Prince Edward chuckled in sympathy.
“You have your choice,” Visconti said to us. “You can apply elsewhere, or you can await the election of a Pope and apply to him. Or you can accept the services of the two Dominican brothers. They declare that they will be ready and eager to leave on the morrow.”
“We accept them, of course, Your Reverence,” said my father. “And we thank you for your good offices.”
“Now,” said Prince Edward. “You must get beyond the Saracen lands in order to go eastward. There is one best route.”
“We would be gratified to know it,” said Uncle Mafio. He had brought with him the Kitab of al-Idrisi, and he opened it to the pages showing Acre and its environs.
“A good map,” the Prince said approvingly. “Look you, then. To go east from here, you must first go north, to skirt around the Mamluks inland.” Like every other Christian, the Prince held the pages upside down to put north at the top. “But the major ports nearest to the northward: Beirut, Tripoli, Latakia …”—he tapped the gilded dots on the map which represented those seaports—“if they have not already fallen to the Saracens, they are heavily under siege. You must go—let me calculate: more than two hundred English miles—north along the coast. To this place in Lesser Armeniya.” He tapped a spot on the map which apparently did not merit a gilded dot. “There, where the Orontes River debouches into the sea, is the old port of Suvediye. It is inhabited by Christian Armeniyans and peaceable Avedi Arabs, and the Mamluks have not yet got near it.”
“That was once a major port of the Roman Empire, called Selucia,” said the Archdeacon. “It has since been called Ayas and Ajazzo and many other names. Of course, you will go to Suvediye by sea, not along the coast itself.”
“Yes,” said the Prince. “There is an English ship leaving here for Cyprus on tomorrow’s evening tide. I will instruct the captain to go by way of Suvediye, and to take you and your friars along. I will give you a letter to the Ostikan, the governor of Suvediye, bidding him see to your safe conduct.” He directed our attention again to the Kitab. “When you have procured pack animals in Suvediye, you will go inland through the river pass—here—then east to the Euphrates River. You should have an easy journey down the Euphrates valley to Baghdad. And from Baghdad, there are diverse routes to the farther eastward.”
My father and uncle stayed on at the castle while the Prince wrote the letter of safe conduct. But they let me make my farewells to His Reverence and Their Royal Highnesses, so that I might take my leave and spend that last day in Acre as I pleased. I did not see the Archdeacon or the Prince and Princess again, but I did hear news of them. My father, my uncle and I had not been long gone from the Levant when we got word that the Archdeacon Visconti had been elected Pope of the Church of Rome, and had taken the papal name of Gregory X. About the same time, Prince Edward gave up the Crusade as a lost cause, and sailed for home. He had got as far as Sicily when he too received some news: that his father had died and that he was King of England. So, all unknowing, I had been acquainted with two of the men of highest eminence in Europe. But I have never much preened in that brief
