The palace slaves, when their errands brought them from their cellars or kitchens or stables up among their betters, were always well dressed, to reflect credit on their masters, so it was not the woman’s fine garb that made me stare. What struck me was that she wore it as if she deserved nothing but the best, and was used to it, and was aware that no richest raiment would ever outshine her own radiance.
She was not a girl; she must have been about the same age as Nostril or my Uncle Mafio. But her face was unlined, and the years had marked her beauty only with dignity. If any youthful brook-twinkle had gone from her eyes, it had been replaced by forest-pool depth and placidity. There were some threads of silver in her hair, but it was mostly a warm, ruddy black, and not Kithai-straight, but a tumble of curls. Her figure was erect and, as far as I could make out through the brocade robes, still firm and nicely shaped.
When I continued to greet her only with a gawk, she said, in a velvet voice, “You are, I believe, the master of the slave Ali Babar.”
“Who?” I said stupidly. “Oh, him. Yes, Ali Babar belongs to me.”
To cover my momentary confusion, I mumbled an excuse-me, and went to peer into a jar to see how my flaming powder was doing. So this was the Turki Princess Mar-Janah! A day or two ago, I had poured the huo-yao from one of the two baskets into a sturdier jar. No wonder Nostril had been enamored once before, and was now again. Then I had poured some water into that portion of the powder. No wonder Nostril was ready to promise an extravagant change in himself, to win this woman. Despite the Firemaster’s skepticism, I had wanted to see whether I could make the powder more stable in the form of a thick mud. Any man would make that extravagant promise, and probably would change, too, or die trying. But it seemed the Firemaster had been right to scoff at my suggestion. How in God’s name had a buffoon like Nostril ever got even remotely acquainted with such a woman as this? The wet powder was only a morose, dark-gray sludge, and showed no sign of ever becoming anything else. A woman such as this ought to laugh at a thing like Nostril—or jeer. The powder might be stable in the form of muck, but it would never ignite. Or retch violently. Vakh!
“Tell me if I have guessed right, Master Marco,” said Mar-Janah. She sounded amused, but was obviously trying to help me compose my scattered wits. “You asked me here to regale me with praises of your slave Ali Babar.”
I coughed a few times, and tried: “Nost—” I coughed again and tried again: “Ali can boast of a good many virtues and talents and attainments.”
That much I could say without a blush, and without speaking one word of falsehood, for if any true thing could be said about Nostril it was, by God, that he could boast.
Mar-Janah smiled slightly and said, “As I have it from our fellow slaves, they cannot decide which is greater: Ali Babar’s monumental self-admiration or the windiness with which he expresses it. But all agree that those are traits to be commended in a man who has so abjectly failed at everything else.”
I stared at her, and I think my mouth hung open. Then I said, “Wait a moment. You evidently know a great deal about Nost—about Ali. Yet you are not even supposed to know he is in residence here.”
“I know more than that. I know that the other slaves are wrong in their mocking appraisal of him. When I first met Ali Babar, he was everything that he now only pretends he is.”
“I do not believe it,” I said flatly. Then I more courteously put a question, “Will you take cha with me?”
I clapped my hands and Buyantu appeared so promptly that I suspected she had been jealously lurking and listening just outside the curtained doorway. I ordered cha for the visitor and pu-tao for myself, and Buyantu went out again.
I turned back to Mar-Janah. “I would be interested to know more—about you and Ali Babar.”
“We were young then,” she said reminiscently. “The Arab bandits galloped out of the hills, down on my carriage, and they killed the coachman, but Ali was riding postilion, and they took him alive. They bore us away to their caves in the hills, and Ali was to be the messenger who would carry their ransom demand to my father. But I bade him refuse, and he did. At which, they laughed and they beat him most cruelly and they sealed him into a great jar of sesame oil. It would soften his obduracy, they said.”
I nodded. “It is a thing the Arabs do. It softens more than obduracy.”
“But Ali Babar did not soften. I did, or I pretended to. I feigned an infatuation for the bandit leader, though it was the staunch and loyal Ali with whom I had fallen in love. My pretense won me some measure of freedom, and one night I contrived to free Ali from the big jar, and to procure for him a sword.”
Buyantu returned, and Biliktu with her, each of them carrying a drink. They gave Mar-Janah her cup, and me my goblet, lingering to get a good look at the handsome visitor, as if they feared that I was recruiting an unwelcome fourth for our menage. I waved them out, and prompted Mar-Janah to continue: “Well?”
“All went well. On Ali’s instructions, I pretended further. I feigned submission to the chieftain’s lust that night, and, as planned, when I had him most vulnerable, Ali Babar leapt through the bed curtains and slew him. Then Ali bravely slashed our way through the other bandits, as they awakened and converged, and we got to the horses. By Allah’s mercy, we got safe away.”
“This is all very hard to believe.”
“The only disadvantage to our plan was that I had to make my escape stark naked.” She modestly turned her face away from me. “But that made it sublimely easy for me—when we lay down for the rest of the night in a friendly forest glade—to reward Ali as he deserved.”
“A better reward—or so I understand—than your father the King gave him.”
She sighed. “He promoted Ali to Chief Drover, and sent him far away from the palace. A royal father prefers a royal son-in-law. He never got one, though. Much to his vexation, I spurned all later suitors, even after I heard that Ali Babar had been taken in slavery. My spinsterhood probably saved my life when, some years afterward, our royal house was overthrown.”
“I know about that, yes.”
“I was left my life, but not much else. Allah’s ways are sometimes inscrutable. When I was handed over to the Ilkhan Abagha, he thought he was getting a royal concubine. He was outraged to find I was not a virgin, and he gave me to his Mongol troops. They cared nothing about virginity and were much amused to have a royal plaything. When they had had their sport, the remains of me were sold in the slave market. I have passed through many hands since then.”
“I am sorry. What can one say? It must have been terrible.”
“Not so very.” Like a spirited mare, she tossed her mane of dark curls. “I had learned how to pretend, you see. I pretended that every man was my handsome, brave Ali Babar. And now I hope Allah has brought me near to my own reward. If you had not summoned me to this meeting, Master Marco, I should have sought audience—to ask if you will assist our reunion. Will you tell Ali that I yearn to be his again, and that I hope we will be allowed to marry?”
I coughed some more, uncertain of how to proceed. “Ahem—Princess Mar-Janah …”
“Slave Mar-Janah,” she corrected me. “There are even stricter marriage rules for slaves than for royalty.”
“Mar-Janah, the man you remember so fondly—I assure you he remembers you the same way. But he believes you have not yet recognized him. Frankly, I am amazed that you could have done.”
She smiled again. “You see him, then, as his fellow slaves do. From what they tell me, he has changed most markedly.”
“From what they—? Then you have not seen him.”
“Oh, of course I have. But I do not know what he looks like. I still see the champion who battled for me against the Arab abductors, twenty years ago, and made tender love to me that night. He is young, and as straight and slender as the written letter alif, and beautiful in a manly way. Much as you are, Master Marco.”
“Thank you,” I said, but faintly, for I was still bemused. Had she not
even noticed the one outstanding unbeautifulness that had earned him the name of Nostril? I said, “Far be it from me to disillusion a lovely lady of her lovely imaginings, but—”
“Master Marco, no woman can ever be disillusioned about the man she truly loves.” She set down her cup and came close to me and shyly put out a hand to touch my face. “I am near old enough to be your mother. May I tell you a motherly thing?”
“Please do.”
“You too are handsome, and young, and someday soon a woman will truly love you. Whether Allah grants that you and she live together all your lives—or requires, as happened to Ali Babar and me, that you be not united until a long time after your first meeting—you will grow older, and so will she. I cannot predict whether you will grow feeble and bent, or gross, or bald, or ugly, but it will not matter. This I can say with certainty: she will see you always as you were when you met. To the very end of your days. Or hers.”
“Your Highness,” I said, and with feeling, for if ever anyone merited a lofty title, it was she. “God grant that I find a woman of such loving heart and eye as you possess. But, in conscience, I must remark that a man can change in ways that cannot be seen.”
“You feel you must inform me that Ali Babar has not remained a good man during all these years? Not a steadfast or faithful or admirable or even a manly man? I know that he has been a slave, and I know that slaves are expected to be creatures less than human.”
“Well, yes,” I muttered. “He said something of the same sort. He said he tried to become the worst thing in the world, because he had lost the best.”
She thought about that, and said pensively, “Whatever he and I have been, he will more readily see the marks on me than I on him.”
It was my turn to correct her. “That is flagrantly untrue. To say that you have survived beautifully would be to say the least. When I first heard of Mar-Janah, I expected to see a pitiable ruin, but I see a princess still.”
She shook her head. “I was a maiden when Ali Babar knew me, and I was entire. That is to say, although I was born a Muslim, I was of royal blood and so had not been deprived of my bizir in infancy. I had then a body to be proud of, and Ali exulted in it. But since then, I have been the toy of half a Mongol army, and of as many men afterward, and some men mistreat their toys.” She looked away from me once more, but went on: “You and I have spoken frankly; I will continue to do so. My meme are ringed with the scars of teethmarks. My bizir has been stretched to flaccidity. My gobek is slack and loose-lipped. I have miscarried three times and now can never conceive again.”
I had to guess the meaning of the Turki words she had used, but I could not mistake the sincerity with which she concluded:
“If Ali Babar can love what is left of me, Master Marco, do you think I cannot love what is left of him?”
“Your Highness,” I said again, and again with feeling, though my voice was a little choked, “I stand abashed and ashamed—and enlightened. If Ali Babar can deserve a woman like you, he is more of a man than I ever suspected. And I should be less the man if I did not exert myself to see you wed to him. So that I may start immediately to make arrangements, tell me: what are the palace rules regarding slave marriages?”
“That the owners of both parties must give permission, and must concur in the matter of where the couple shall reside. That is all, but not every master is so lenient as you.”
“Who is your master? I will send to ask audience with him.”
Her voice faltered a bit. “My master, I am sorry to say, has little mastery in his household. You will have to address his wife.”
“Singular household,” I observed. “But that need not complicate matters. Who is she?”
“The Lady Chao Ku-an. She is one of the court artists, but by title she is the Armorer of the Palace Guard.”
“Oh. Yes. I have heard of her.”
“She is—” Mar-Janah paused, to choose carefully the description. “She is a strong-willed woman. The Lady Chao desires that her slaves be entirely hers, and commandable at all hours.”
“I am not exactly weak-willed, myself,” I said. “And I have promised that your twenty-year separation is to end here and now. As soon as the arrangements are made, I will see you and your champion reunited. Until then …”
“May Allah bless you, good master and friend Marco,” she said, with a smile as bright as the tears in her eyes.
I called for Buyantu and Biliktu, and told them to see the visitor to the door. They accompanied her ungraciously, with frowning brows and curled lips, so, when they returned, I spoke to them severely.
“Your superiority of manner is less than mannerly, and it ill becomes you, my dears. I know you to be of only twenty-two-karat valuation. The lady you have so grudgingly attended is, in my estimation, of a perfect twenty-four. Now, Buyantu, you go and present my compliments to the Lady Chao Ku-an, and say that Marco Polo requests an appointment to call upon her.”
When she left, and Biliktu flounced off to sulk in some other room, I went and took one more disappointed look at my jar full of huo-yao sludge. Clearly, those fifty liang of the flaming powder were now ruined beyond salvage. So I set the jar aside, picked up the remaining basket and contemplated the contents of that. After a while, I began very carefully to pick out from the mixture some grains of the saltpeter. When I had a dozen or so of the white specks, I lightly moistened the end of an ivory fan handle. I picked up the saltpeter with that, and idly held it in the flame of a nearby candle. The grains instantly melted into a glaze on the ivory. I gave that some thought. The Firemaster had been right about wetting the powder, and he had warned me not to try baking it. But suppose I set a pot of the huo-yao on a low fire, not very hot, so that its integral saltpeter melted and thereby held the whole together … ? My meditations were interrupted by the return of Buyantu, reporting that the Lady Chao would see me that very moment.
I went, and I introduced myself, “Marco Polo, my lady,” and I made a proper ko-tou.
“My lord husband has spoken of you,” she said, indicating that I should rise by giving me a playful nudge with a bare foot. Her hands were occupied in playing with an ivory ball, as her husband had done, for the suppling of the fingers.
As I stood, she went on, “I wondered when you would deign to call upon this lowly female courtier.” Her voice was as musical as wind chimes, but seemed somehow just as devoid of any human agency in the making of that music. “Would you wish to discuss my titular office, or my real work? Or my pastimes in between?”
That last was said with a leer. Lady Chao evidently and correctly assumed that, like everyone else, I had heard of her gluttonous appetite for men. I will confess that I was briefly tempted to join her cupboard of morsels. She was about my own age and would have been fetchingly beautiful if she had not had her eyebrows plucked entirely off and her delicate features coated with a dead-white powder. I was, as always, curious to discover what was beneath the rich silk robes—in this case, especially, because I had not yet lain with a woman of the Han race. But I restrained my curiosity and said:
“None of those today, my lady, if you please. I come on a different—”
“Ah, a bashful one,” she said, and changed her leer to a simper. “Let us begin, then, by talking of your favorite pastimes.”
“On some other occasion, perhaps, Lady Chao. I would speak today of your female slave named Mar-Janah.”
“Aiya!” she exclaimed, which is the Han equivalent of “vakh!” She sat abruptly upright on her couch, and she frowned—and a frown is very unpleasant to look at when it is done without eyebrows—and she snapped, “You find that Turki wench more appealing than I am?”
“Why, no, my lady,” I lied. “Having been nobly born in my native land, I would never—there or here—even consider admiring any but a woman of perfect pedigree, such as yourself.” I tactfully did not point out that she was only nobility and Mar-janah was royalty.
But she seemed mollified. “That is well said.” She leaned
voluptuously back again. “On the other hand, I have sometimes discovered that a grimy and sweaty soldier can be appealing … .”
She trailed off, as if inviting comment, but I did not care to be drawn into a contest of comparing our experiences of perversity. So I attempted to continue, “Regarding the slave—”
“The slave, the slave …” She sighed, and pouted, and petulantly tossed and caught the ivory ball. “For a moment there, you were well spoken, as a gallant should be when calling on a lady. But you prefer to talk of slaves.”
I reminded myself that any business with a Han ought to be approached roundabout, only after long exchanges of trivialities. So I said gallantly, “I would much rather talk of my Lady Chao, and her surpassing beauty.”
“That is better.”
“I am a little surprised that, with such a choice model so conveniently at hand, the Master Chao has not made many paintings of her.”
“He has,” she said, and smirked.
“I regret that he showed me none.”
“He would not if he could, and he cannot. They are in the possession of the various other lords who were portrayed in the same pictures. And those lords are not likely to show them to you, either.”
I did not have to ponder on that remark to realize what it meant. I would defer making judgment on Master Chao—whether I felt sympathy for his predicament or disgust for his pliant complicity in it—but I knew that I did not much like his young lady, and I would be glad to quit her company. So I made no further attempt at small talk.
The Journeyer Page 73
