Looking for Marco Polo (17 page)

“Marco cleared his throat and spat on the floor as Mustafa had instructed him. Mongols spat a lot, but again the guards were startled, because in Kublai’s tent it was the custom that visitors carried a small vase for spitting so as not to soil the handsome carpets of silk and velvet.

“‘Many in the desert are diseased in the eyes,’ Marco began, ‘from exposure to the constant sun and the fine dust of the desert, or perhaps from the bites of flies that attack the eyes at all hours. The pupil goes cloudy; then the ball becomes like white stone. The women paint around their eyes to prevent the flies’ biting. The men smear on a paste of minerals and oil.

“‘We treated them with an ointment we got in Syria. Some were helped, but none that had lost sight. I brought you a jar, Sire.’

“Kublai opened the jar. Inside was an odorless oily white cream.

“‘How do you use this?’ he asked.

“‘You smear a small bit on the affected place. It soothes.’

“‘Do you know the secret of it?’

“‘What do you mean, Excellency?’

“‘Can you make it?’

“Marco shook his head. ‘The apothecaries in Syria take a rare mineral quarried in the mountains and roast it in the hottest fire they can make. From the ash remaining they prepare this white material, which they mix with rarefied sheep tallow. They call it
tutty.
That is all I know.’

“‘Hah!’ spat Kublai. ‘You lie! You are saving the secret of it for your doctors in Venice. You will show us the trick of making it,’ he said grimly. ‘I will order a hundred of our Chinese who are trained in the healing arts to examine this and make the same. They will test it on you! Now resume your travels,’ he growled.

“Marco clenched his teeth and swallowed hard.

“‘Cotton grows at Lop, Excellency,’ he said. ‘It is the best material for desert garb. There are fields of bushes blooming balls of that rare wool. Behind the low boundary walls of sundried clay there are also palm and vegetable gardens, orchards, and flowers.

“‘At the edge of the desert they have made it green with water led for miles from the Flame Hills in tiled tunnels that look like mounds flung up by gigantic moles. Where the land flattens out, the water is led to the fields and orchards in lined channels laid under the ground. One channel may have two hundred openings.

“‘Everything around is barren, but where the pipes serve, they grow onions, carrots, and spinach. For fruit they have date palms, figs, sweet apples, and white grapes the size of mare tits, which they dry into raisins and send off for trade by the hundredweight on the camel caravans. Their great delicacy, though, they save for themselves: tiny green raisins, green as grass, Sire—these,’ he said, handing the emperor a small cotton sack filled with tiny green fruits bright as jewels.

“Kublai reached out eagerly. He emptied the sack into his palm and began to gobble the raisins in clots, nodding as he chewed.

“‘More!’ he mumbled. ‘More!’

“‘Through those tunnels,’ Marco continued, ‘they water fields of cotton for the fine white fibers they spin and weave into cloths like this, Sire,’ he said, handing Kublai a square of brown, scarlet, and green. ‘Those are the colors of that place.’

“Kublai had a palace full of such things, but it pleased him that the Venetian had thought to bring him a sample. He smiled.

“Marco saw his opportunity. ‘Please, Sire, answer the question I put to you when I arrived: why do you with your thousands on thousands, as you said, demand of us a hundred of our teachers?’

“Kublai sat back. ‘You ask the question my oldest
son should ask,’ he murmured more to himself than to Marco.

“‘Because you can conquer on horseback,’ he replied, ‘but you cannot rule on horseback. Would there have been a Roman Empire without mortar? You need the discipline of shared belief to bind people together. You can force them to submit with a large army, but every time the army moves away, there will be rebels and revolutions. What is required is a force greater than arms. There is no force greater than belief.

“‘Consider, Venetian: it takes five soldiers to contain one rebel. Who are the pope’s warriors? Monks. What are their weapons? Belief. The Buddhists have monks and beliefs, but they do not care about this world. They are like birds—they take what they find, and if they do not find, they go away. As for the followers of Islam, they make terrible subjects! They are all rebels! Even among themselves they fight. You go to any Arab village and ask the first person you meet, “Who is chief here?” and what will he answer? “Me!”

“‘Your people are held together by the pope’s single faith. However he manages it—through fear and hope—it works. Maybe Christianity is the mortar I need. Your priest teachers—if they ever arrive!—will debate the priests of the many religions here and perhaps
show us a better way, teaching our people the orderly faithful habits they have taught the pope’s many different tribes so all of ours will behave as one like his.

“‘So now, Impertinence, get on with your story of crossing the desert.’

“‘Not yet,’ said Marco. ‘How is it you are ruler here?’

“‘Because I am the strongest,’ Kublai roared, seizing his heavy blade. ‘With this I crush my rivals!’ he said as he waved it over Marco’s head.

“‘When my cousin set the people of his region against me, I attacked like lightning. We came five thousand strong on a nine days’ march we made in three without stop.

“‘I rode to battle in a wooden tower carried by four elephants clad in leather armor. My battle platform was filled with crossbowmen, archers, and experts with the catapult and slingshot. Above us flew my banner of the sun and moon carried so high it could be seen on every side.

“‘I had gathered my troop in secret. I surprised my cousin, who had supposed my force much smaller.

“‘When all were lined up for battle, I sent my court jugglers, clowns, and acrobats forward with the musicians as we all began singing at the greatest pitch
of our voices, for I had learned, Venetian, that a man who sings does not know fear.

“‘So my troop marched forward, blind to fear and blind to the bodies of our slaughtered musicians and those others.

“‘When I had won, I had my rival rolled up tight in a carpet and stomped by my elephants so the blood of the imperial Mongol lineage might not be spilled upon the earth. He was, after all, my cousin.’

“‘Do many rebel now?’ Marco wanted to know.

“‘No,’ the emperor replied. ‘Unless things get very bad, people obey because they fear change. For most people, anything is better than change. They prefer the evil they know.’

“Marco nodded slowly. ‘I have another question, Sire. What does it mean to rule?’

“Kublai laughed. ‘I see your mind now! You plan to become a ruler!’

“‘No,’ said Marco. ‘I just want to know what it means to rule.’

“Kublai was silent for a moment. When he started to speak, he looked away.

“‘It means having everything and nothing,’ he said. ‘It means to be hungry in the presence of food, poor in the presence of wealth, lonely in the presence of people, weak in possession of power. Nothing belongs to the
ruler. He owns and acts for his people, giving them what they cannot provide themselves: order above all.

“‘I’ve been in places where there was no order,’ he said. ‘They were dangerous. I don’t ever want to go back to those places. There’s no liberty without order, no happiness. In a free-for-all no man is free, not even the strongest.

“‘The ruler must strive to give his people security in their persons and property; then shelter, food, and water, and finally justice.

“‘Rebellions will happen, foreign armies will attack, wells will fail, locusts and blight will destroy crops—those are things the ruler must do his best to prevent or alleviate, but it is not always in his power to do so. It is always in his power to give justice.

“‘In the end, after order, being heard and getting justice are what matter most to people. When I send out spies and interrogate prisoners taken in war, the first question I ask is, “Where you come from, do you get justice?” No state lasts long where the people do not think so.’

“Kublai fell silent.

“Marco asked, ‘What is your justice, Emperor?’

“‘Everywhere it is the same, Venetian: the fair distribution of whatever goods there are and prompt delivery of fair punishments.

“‘Now! Enough of this!’ the great man exclaimed.

“‘Please, Sire,’ said Marco, ‘just one thing more. What is your most difficult task?’

“Kublai half closed his eyes. ‘To listen. An old Jew merchant from Egypt told me the story of Solomon’s dream when he became king. His god came offering to grant one wish. What did Solomon ask for? “Give me a listening heart to govern my people that I might make out between good and evil.” Listening is my most difficult task.’

“‘Thank you,’ Marco said with a bow.

“The hint of a smile crossed Kublai’s face. He was becoming fond of this foreigner he called Impertinence, and Marco was becoming fond of him. Kublai paid Marco more attention than his father ever had. But he kept the young Venetian prisoner.”

Dusk was gathering on Christmas Eve. There were wisps of Christmas music in the air, along with the smells of good things cooking. The calle was bright with bustling people, shop lights, and excited chatter.

The signora put tall white candles on the tables. For the next two hours she rushed to serve the holiday crowd. Gradually the café emptied as folks headed home to dress for church.

The signora brought coffees and sat down heavily, legs out. “So what does Marco Polo do tonight?” she asked.

“Shegazhou sei!”
the doctor shouted as he leaped up.

Boss barked and the signora screamed.

“That’s what the guards would yell when Kublai approached,” Hornaday said. “It means ‘All go down.’
Everyone in earshot would fall to the ground, even the old and crippled. If you didn’t, or you didn’t go flat enough, the guards would poke you with their spears.

“Marco never did. He and Kublai’s priest and the members of the high court were the only ones who didn’t.

“Part of Kublai’s genius was his ability to pick good people—men and women—to help him govern. Force alone will do for a while,” the doctor said. “If you’re the strongest, you can slaughter your opponents to get your way. In the long run, though, you need to rely on others. Bright people didn’t threaten Kublai: he made them his own. Recognizing that some of his newly conquered Chinese subjects were better tax collectors, astronomers, record-keepers, and planners than his Mongol knights, he gave the Chinese high posts in his government.

“Kublai’s religion relied on almanacs to predict the equinoxes, solstices, and celestial events. The best astronomers were Arabs, so Kublai hired those he could and bought others as slaves. They were all treated well. In his shops at Beijing his astronomers made instruments to study the skies, along with compasses, globes of bronze, and maps of the world as they knew it—Europe a blur, no New World, because Columbus wouldn’t sail for two hundred years,
and when he did, it was because Marco’s book inspired him to go East.

“After a few weeks of questioning and listening to Marco, Kublai figured he could use the Venetian despite his ignorance of things Oriental.

“At first he had Marco report on what was going on in nearby villages and towns. The emperor said he wanted facts and numbers, but that’s not what he sent Marco out for. He wanted stories about life. As much as he wanted to know what wealth his people had in metal and grain and what they needed by way of bridges and teachers, he was more eager to learn about their enchantments. The sight of a tiny golden Tibetan prayer drum on its stick with stones on strings to make it spin when you whirled it charmed him as much as a sack of pearls.

“Kublai had bragged to Marco about the thousand agents in his service—all those ears, eyes, tongues, and memories at his command. Not one of those thousands had Marco’s eye for noticing or his tongue for telling.

“Marco looked closely and listened with his eyes shut to catch the smallest sound. He sniffed and touched and tasted to tell Kublai flavors and textures. He told how things felt. Both Marco and Kublai were hungry for the
feel
of things.

“Marco would never become Mongol; Kublai would never become European; yet for all their differences, their minds worked in the same way—fascinated by all manner of experience, ingenuity, and invention. Although Kublai had the mind of a ruler and Marco the mind of a merchant, they were alike in this: both were skeptical and tribal.”

“Skeptical and tribal, Doc?” Mark asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they trusted only their own,” the doctor replied. “They would use others, but for secrets and things of great importance, they used only those of their own blood.

“Marco’s genius was to notice and then give the small details that tell the whole—the color in the mountain girl’s cheeks as she sang her tribal song in a voice that seemed double, coming at once from her throat and her nose. He described for the old emperor the fullness of her lips, the scent of her hair. In his telling he captured the small pleasures that drifted and caught the light for an instant, then fell away like a feather from a passing bird.

“He went everywhere with a pointed stick of hard charcoal and small squares of paper to catch the stories he heard and novelties that struck him. Stories
and strangenesses are like falling feathers—they pass and are gone forever unless you catch them as they go.

“When something struck Marco, he’d write a single word or draw a small sketch. To remember music he’d write the melody in musical notation with dots, bars, and slashes, the dots going up and down to show the tone on a scale, the slashes to indicate the rhythm.