“‘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.”
Dad,
Doc told me some Marco Polo stories that aren’t in the book. I think he’s guessing and making up a lot, but I don’t care. I miss you a lot. Mom keeps saying you’re OK and we’re going to hear from you soon, but I’m not so sure. I hope so.
Love, Mark
18
THE WONDERS OF CHINA
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.
“With these thumb-sized pages Marco could recall what he’d heard, seen, smelled, and tasted. He could describe in ways that surprised. When he told about the women watering their dooryard flowers in the evening, you felt the softness of the petals and smelled the vapors rising from the still-warm steps mixed with the fragrance of rose. In his telling you could hear the dry soil suck the moisture.
“What interested Marco interested Kublai—how at such and such a place far from the sea white cowrie shells from the Indian coast pass for money, while in another place, where salt is precious, small bricks of it stamped with the king’s seal are exchanged for necessaries. He told what people in remote lands do with their dead—whether the bodies are buried and with what ceremony, or how the corpse is left on a platform of sticks to rot and be eaten by birds.
“In India, he reported, they burn their dead after a great procession led by all the musicians in the village drumming and playing as loud as they can as they bear the body from its home to a pile of fragrant wood the family has paid a great sum for and placed in the road. This pyre is draped with silk and cloth of gold.
“When they are about to set it on fire, the mourners come to drink wine and make gifts of images cut out of paper representing slaves, horses, camels, and pieces of money, so in the next world the dead person will have slaves and beasts and coins. They call these paper coins magic money and give them to distressed travelers who are grateful to get them.
“He told the emperor what his far-off subjects wore and how much labor they had to give for it; how the people fixed their hair; what jewels they wore in their ears; what drugs they used for stimulants, stupor, and illness; and, most carefully, their perfumes, pleasures, and rituals, since those interested Kublai more than anything.
“Marco learned that Kublai had walled off part of the palace grounds for a garden he made and tended himself without help from anyone after his engineers had dug the pond and the royal elephants brought in the beautiful trees of that region with all the roots and much earth. In this most private place, the emperor grew fragrant roses and peonies and raised melons and pears for his own table. The walls were sealed save for one small door. Only he went in.
“The idea that Kublai kept a secret garden fascinated Marco. He’d had no experience with gardens—there were few of any size in Venice—but he imagined a new way of pleasing the emperor. On a trip through the northern mountains, he collected bulbs of the fragrant lily that blooms there and roots of the small shrub azalea with intricate pink flowers and honey scent.
“He said nothing as he carried these into Kublai’s tent.
“That afternoon Marco became the first outsider to be admitted to the emperor’s private garden. On every trip thereafter he collected plants.
“Kublai’s empire included Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, a few Jews, pagans, and followers of innumerable cults. Kublai tolerated them all. ‘We Mongols believe that there is only one God,’ he told Marco one afternoon, ‘but as God gives us the different fingers of the hand, so he gives to men diverse ways of understanding and believing in Him.’
“The emperor’s own spiritual adviser was the filthily robed, strange-eyed priest who read the cracks in baked bones of sacrificed animals for messages from Kublai’s ancestors. He would bring Kublai these chalk white bones and tell him the portents he read in the fine gray tracery of cracks through his one bulging eye as the other wambled heavenward.
“This man knew the rare breathing art that enabled him to generate body heat to keep warm while he slept naked on a bare stone bed in a cold room.
“Because Kublai was anxious to keep on good terms with his ancestors, this priest was, after the emperor, the most powerful person at court. In addition to reading the ancestors’ news in the burned bones, this man claimed to control the weather over the imperial palace. He never said what it was going to be but claimed to have made it what it was.
“The priest grew suspicious of Marco’s influence. He ordered Kublai to summon Marco to explain his faith, ‘for that is the doorway to his inner mind,’ he said.
“Marco came as ordered. The strange-eyed shaman stood silent, his dark orange robe torn and spotted, his hair unkempt under his flat hat made of red fox paws. He smelled stale.
“‘Explain your faith, Venetian,’ Kublai ordered in a dry voice.
“Marco was at a loss. He knew the rites and rituals of his church, he could recite the creed and the prayers, but to say what his faith was?
“His hands went cold. Mustafa had not prepared him for this.
“The two men waited.
“Kublai’s stare did not unsettle him so much as the old priest’s eyes, for with the one he would squint; then he’d bend down holding his hat to tilt his head so the other could take him in.
“Then Marco remembered a lesson he’d heard as a boy.
“‘Late one winter afternoon,’ he said in a voice so soft Kublai and the priest had to lean forward to hear, ‘a sparrow slipped into a warm room through a crack, flitted across, then flew out again into winter darkness. So the life of man appears to me, Sire, here for a little season, but of what follows or what has gone before we have no idea. My faith is that by following the law of Christ, our prophet, there is hope of continuing warm. For that hope I believe His law is worthy to be followed.’
“The priest had closed his eyes. Kublai sat silent for a long moment.
“‘When you arrived,’ Kublai said at last, ‘I asked you what you missed most of your home. You spoke of sounds. Today I ask you for your faith and you speak of hope. There is no substance to those things.’
“He shook his head. ‘Go. Bring news. Bring me a remedy for the pain that burns my joints.’
“Despite his fear, by now Marco had come to love the old man,” the doctor continued, “so everywhere where he went, he hunted for medicines, but for what Kublai suffered, th
ere was no cure.”
Mark glanced at the doctor’s hands.
Hornaday noticed and shrugged. “Every time Marco returned from a trip,” he went on, “he’d report on wars in neighboring lands, rulers overthrown, armies in revolt, civil war, and tell the stories he’d heard there. Kublai usually knew the news and he must have known some of the stories too, but he loved hearing Marco tell them.
“Returning from one assignment, Marco told Kublai about the caliph of Baghdad, who had raided and robbed his neighbors to get up a huge pile of gold. ‘Everyone around knew how greedy he was,’ Marco reported, ‘and how brutal. There were plots to overthrow him, but the caliph had a large army and the city walls were strong. He sat fat and safe on a thick pile of rare carpets.
“‘Then a man even greedier heard about him.
“‘This man, a general named Hulegu, got all the secrets about the strength and wealth of Baghdad.
“‘Hulegu figured he couldn’t beat the caliph’s army head-on, so he planned a trick.
“‘He marched his troops toward Baghdad faster than word of them could travel, wiping out all the outlying garrisons and towns that might send warning.
“‘While still miles away from the great walled city, he divided his force into three parts. He hid one part in the woods by the river Tigris, spreading them out behind trees, in the tall grass, and in trenches they dug and then covered over with dirt, leaves, and branches.
“‘The second part he had bury itself in the weeds and mud of the marsh wilds beyond the river.
“‘When morning came, Hulegu marched what looked like a puny pretend army toward the great bronze gates of Baghdad, banners flying, kettle drums booming, battle horns dinning.
“‘Hulegu had his bagpipers out front bleating their strange music while he followed behind, unarmed and bareheaded on his great white horse. He wore a vest of glittering gold chain. His men wore helmets of shined copper decorated with wooden beaks, eagle feathers, and painted eyes so they looked like the heads of monster birds. The horses wore greased leather battle aprons that looked like sheets of oiled metal.
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