Now however, the room was in even more of a mess than it normally was. I looked around, immediately noticing that two large saddlebags lay in the centre of the chaos. They were already stuffed with clothes and papers that stuck out haphazardly. I could see that the clothes were those belonging to Friar Alberoni. I groaned.
‘What is the friar up to now?’
‘He says he is leaving. His quest is at an end, and he has no further purpose here in the land of idolaters.’
I threw up my hands in despair. If I was honest, I would have to admit that Alberoni was superfluous most of the time. But he did have his uses sometimes. It’s not that I revel in idolatry myself, but I just seem to have little need of God. But when I do need Him, then I usually find I have to call on His services at short notice, and having a priest at hand is useful. Besides, Alberoni was still my only connection with Venice in Kubilai’s vast empire. Even though he comes from the long low strip of an island beyond Venice called Malamocco, and so isn’t a true-bred Venetian. Still, we could talk to each other about La Serenissima when I was low, and dream of returning there. It seemed that Alberoni was now planning his return more precipitately than I could hope for.
‘What on earth can I do to persuade him to stay, do you think?’
Alberoni’s voice gave me my answer.
‘There is nothing you can do, Niccolò. I am determined to go.’
The tall, angular figure of Friar Giovanni Alberoni appeared in the street doorway. His long black robe was shabby and patched in numerous places, but he always gave the impression of neatness, and that somehow translated into a sense of closeness to God. His eyes glittered with resolve, and he scrubbed at his smoothly shaved chin. Not for him the rough unruly beard that I adopted in my role as the demon Zhong Kui. No, he was habitually scraping at his chin every three of four days, just like the Chinee. Mind you, our hosts had little to scrape off their chins. Even the Mongols had a sparse thatch compared to my glorious red bush, which admittedly was beginning to show some grey hairs. I tried my last card, knowing the friar hated being on horseback.
‘Your only means of getting back will be to ride, and it is a long, long way home. Also it will be dangerous for you to be on your own. Which you will be, for you know I can’t come with you until I am released from my duties by the Great Khan.’
Alberoni’s resolve melted for a moment as he contemplated sitting on the back of a horse for weeks on end. But then I saw the stubbornness return to his eyes.
‘I have determined to go, and go I shall.’
I sighed, seeing that I would not be able to stop him making the long trek home. Leaving him to his packing of the already crammed saddlebags, I turned instead to Tadeusz, and told him of our plans.
‘We have a new commission. I am to investigate the murder of an old merchant in a town some days south of here. It seems that his prospective daughter-in-law has poisoned him, and she has been condemned to death. But Kubilai has been petitioned to re-examine the case, as some believe her innocent. It will be a mess, and Lin Chu-Tsai will have to arbitrate between the Chinee girl and her supporters, and the local Mongol lord.’
Tadeusz grimaced.
‘That puts us in a hopeless situation.’
‘Yes. Lin thinks he has been set up by his old adversary, Ko, and I believe him. We can’t win either way, unless we can come up with something extraordinary.’
‘Where is the girl to be found?’
I pulled out the document Lin had given me, flattening it on the low table with the palm of my hand, and scrutinized the script. It was in Turkish, so I could understand it – written Chinee was still just a confusion of lines and dots to me.
‘She is held imprisoned in a town called–‘ I ran my finger along the word, rehearsing it in my head – ‘called P’ing-Yang-Fu. It is some twenty days journey south-west and is close to the Kara-Moran river.’
I heard a gasp behind me, and Alberoni suddenly piped up.
‘Kara-Moran. That means Black River in Turkish, doesn’t it?’
I frowned, not knowing where this was leading.
‘I believe so.’
Now Alberoni was at my elbow, staring at the paper I held in my hand.
‘And in Chinee, that is Hwang-Ho?’
It was Tadeusz, with his superior knowledge of that tongue who answered Alberoni.
‘Yes, that is correct. The Hwang-Ho is a very large river, a mile wide in places, leading out to the ocean on the edge of the world.’
A seafarer by birth, I shuddered at the thought of sailing to the edge of the ocean and tipping off. At least the seas beyond the lagoon of Venice were bounded by land. Beyond Kubilai’s empire to the east there was a big island called Cipangu, and then, nothing. But Alberoni wasn’t interested in where the river flowed out to, apparently, but the very opposite as it turned out. He abruptly interrupted Tadeusz’s geography lesson.
‘Yes, yes. That is the place.’
He grasped my shoulder, and looked into my eyes.
‘Niccolò…’ Where others called me by my familiar name, Alberoni always used the formal version. He had been the Zuliani family priest for years. ‘Niccolò, I have been a little precipitate. I now see I should not abandon you at this juncture. Especially if you will be in some danger if you make the wrong decision. I should be there to advise you. I will come too. After all, my bags are packed.’
I narrowed my eyes and stared suspiciously at the priest, not sure what had changed his mind. But I had to admit his companionship would please me, and his presence could be useful.
‘Very well. We must all hurry to prepare, though. Lin has sent for ponies for us all – including you, Friar, as he assumed you were coming with us.’ I grinned evilly as I mentioned Alberoni’s hated transport. He had insisted on using a cart to make the long journey from west to east six years ago. The trip had been interminable, and I recall almost being seasick in the lurching, swaying vehicle. Me – a Venetian practically living on water – being seasick. It didn’t bear thinking about. But since our time in the Mongol Empire I had become almost as at home on the back of the hardy little ponies the Mongols used, as on board ship. Gurbesu could ride like the wind. She had been practically brought up on the back of a horse. Such a life as the one she led would not have suited the Chinee because they placed great store by verifiable virginity in a bride. Sitting astride a horse would not have been conducive to retaining that state. As well as proof by virginal blood, it is said that one of the ways of ensuring the virginity of a bride was by using a pigeon’s egg. If it did not break on insertion – if you take my meaning – then the girl could not be a virgin. Gurbesu would have failed gloriously. Tadeusz could ride reasonably well too, by the way. Which left Alberoni and Lin Chu-Tsai.
Our Chinee friend hated travelling, and like Alberoni abhorred the back of a horse. So I knew he would arrive in a carriage of some sort. But he would not wish to share it with the friar. In his opinion, we Westerners sweated fearsomely, and did not wash often enough. For my part, I thought the Chinee elite washed far too often, immersing themselves as they did almost every day. I preferred to change my clothes regularly, and keep myself sweet-smelling that way. I say I preferred it. To be honest, it was Gurbesu who had got me into the habit of changing clothes, swearing she would not lie with me if I wore the same clothes more than three days together. I therefore packed my saddlebags with lots of silk shirts and loose trousers in the Chinee style, together with a couple of short jackets and an informal long robe decorated with dragons called a bei-zi. I was quite the dandy in my Chinee clothes. Gurbesu too had her own version of the bei-zi, which was cut to fit snugly round her curves. The thought of how the clothes fitted her so well had me on the verge of suggesting to her that we adjourn to our bedchamber. But just as I was about to do so, we heard the sound of horses’ hooves on the broken cobbles of the old city street where we lived. We were ready to go.