“You have my leave,” he answered like a king. Before many years, he meant to be a very king in Cathay.
“I’ve been thinking over the proposal that you made me.” And I could not keep my voice from shaking.
“Thinking over it? You said you’d pray over it.”
“I have, your Honor.” For my last words, Rosa bearing witness, were in thanks to God.
“Let’s see if I remember it exactly,” Nicolo continued. “If I don’t, one of these witnesses will correct me. I promised you a place in our company adventuring to the Court of Kublai Khan provided you journey in honorable array at your expense, and here and now renounce all claims to my estate.”
“Those were the very terms, or I’ll eat my shoon,” said Uncle Zane.
“And now you’ve come to tell me that since the world knows you as the son of Nicolo Polo, and the burden of proof of your bastardy is upon me, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and you’ll stay in Venice.”
Many men, waiting for an outcome, will betray what they hope for by prophesying just the opposite. Perhaps it is by way of placating the gods of evil fortune. Only very clever or bold ones will give voice to their desire, in the way of either suggestion or intimidation. Nicolo Polo was both clever and bold. I was quite sure that during my absence he had thought over his proposal to me and every dictate of his reason had made him hope that I would accept it. It was a thousand-to-one wager that I could not raise three thousand lire, and my renunciation of claim upon him would be a happy riddance.
He had spoken in a rich voice, almost jokingly, as though to save my face in defeat, smiling the while, causing the others to appreciate his charm. Only I saw him suck a quick mouthful of air when he had finished. All I knew was that whatever he wanted in the way of my answer he wanted very much.
“I’m going to continue to believe I’m your son,” I said, frightened half out of my wits lest I play mouse to his cat.
“I don’t blame you. Besides that, one thousand pieces of gold don’t grow on every bush. But I’ll trim that figure a little, Marco, if your heart’s set on it. Show me eight hundred pieces of the yellow stuff, and I’ll make you welcome.”
His tone was good-humored. His eyes were intensely bright, perhaps with excitement but more likely with mirth. My heart faltered and my bones unbraced. Yet I heard myself speaking.
“I’m grateful for your generosity, and I accept your offer.”
My uncle’s warm and almost jolly look remained unchanged, but if my saints stood by me, it was frozen on his face.
“You fool!” broke in my cousin Leo.
“Shut your mouth!” came Uncle Zane’s vehement cry.
Signor Nicolo Polo turned his usual calm countenance toward his sister Flora.
“I can’t say that I’m surprised, but you must be.”
“What do you mean, Nicolo?” she gasped.
“I think you’ve remained doubtful of my charge that Marco was Lucia’s son by a lowborn lover. I had remained doubtful that he himself didn’t know it, though I’d been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Now it’s proved that he does know it. That was my purpose in making the proposal, although I regret the trickery. Would he renounce a heritage as my son unless he knew well he was not my son, and that I could prove it? He saw he had nothing to lose, and if some merchant would lend him one thousand pieces of gold, everything to gain.”
“I follow your reasoning closely, Nicolo, yet I don’t want to believe that Lucia——”
“Don’t believe it, Aunt Flora,” I cried, the outburst saving me from crying in another fashion. “It’s because I’m his son that I can go to the Court of Kublai Khan.”
And this was what I had been about to tell Rosa. Next to Nicolo, she was the one most entitled to hear it. But I had only an inkling of its meaning.
CHAPTER 3
THE LEPER
How could I go about raising one thousand gold bezants? It was not as hard a task as raising a sunken ship out of the sea, or as easy as to raise the Devil out of Hell—it would require amazing luck, but not a miracle. My best chance, I thought, was to find a speculator who would hazard twelve hundred or so—the difference to be spent in trade goods—on the long shot of a twentyfold return. The Polo name was well regarded on the Rialto. Should Nicolo succeed in taking it from me, I would still be half a gentleman, because my mother’s family, the Carpini of Perugia, were impoverished but noble—indeed they outranked the Polos several steps. I knew some tricks that might impress a potential investor with sporting tastes—some of them of real value in navigation, others of an alchemical sort, such as invisible writing, which Venetians would think just the thing for swindling uncouth heathen, but which actually were better known in Islam than in Christendom. As for my age, most scions of merchant families made their first ventures at sixteen.
Much and perhaps all depended on my allowance of time. In this regard, I had one great stroke of luck—the appointment of one hundred learned priests to follow the Polo brothers to Cathay must await the election of a new Pope to succeed Clement IV. If this were not delayed, it was still unthinkable that the vast business of their assemblage and dispatch could be completed this year, so Nicolo had set next spring as a starting date.
The news of the brothers’ return caused a great flurry on the Rialto. They were received by the Doge, who professed more than a passing interest in the enterprise, and they dealt with Papal Legates and other great folk, who promised their support of the great mission when the throne of San Pietro was again filled. Meanwhile the pair had moved into the Casa Polo, the mansion where I was born. Hence came worthies and adventurers of all sorts, every one itching for Oriental treasure; and my uncle Zane and his son Leo buzzed about like bluebottle flies around a dunghill.
Yet I was soon impressed by a momentous fact. This flurry was like choppy waves on the lagoon rather than rolling billows. The Venetian people did not begin to grasp the significance of what Nicolo and Maffeo had done. I could hardly believe it of my gay, bright-eyed, quick-minded fellow citizens, and even Mustapha Sheik could not explain it fully. It appeared that their horizon spread no further than Denmark to the north, Portugal to the west, the High Altai to the south, and the eastern shores of the Caspian to the east. Beyond this was Vagueness washed by the Ocean Sea. Regardless of all reports to the contrary, they chose to believe that the remainder of the land was ruled by a stupendous Christian monarch, Prester John. If Nicolo and Maffeo had brought back chests of jewels as big as walnuts, the toe of a roc, a live unicorn, and a monkey without a tail, they would have rocked the town. But they had nothing to show but a bag or two of coins and a quaint-looking gold tablet bearing outlandish marks.
Not that our business men disbelieved the story—or so they proclaimed. It could be true as Gospel for all they knew. Polo was a good name, and some fishermen off Brindisi had seen a mermaid only a month before. But with bandits on land and pirates at sea, tempests, rocks, jerry-built boats, import duties, wages out of sight, and the Genoese bastards to top off all the rest, their policy was to retrench rather than expand. For their part, and not to mince the matter, any merchant who sent a bottom beyond Alexandria or the Crimea should wear a cockscomb.
In one part of my mind and heart, more passionate and less logical than the rest, I rejoiced at this dubiosity. I did not want any rush to join the venture, lest I lose out on its great prize or be left behind. But always I fetched up against the adamant fact that the fewer folk who became aroused, the less my chance of finding a financier.
Mustapha Sheik had given me quarters in his house to be closer to the moneylenders of Spinalunga. Actually, the Jews were far more likely to risk capital in an enterprise of this kind than the Christians—I did not know why, unless they were more cosmopolitan in outlook and more learned. I began going to them, and in almost every case was cordially received and eagerly heard. Most were reluctant to refuse outright and several delayed the decision; yet with the passing weeks I found not one who would risk one hundred bezants, let alone a thousand. One of the major reasons was the revival of the Saracen power after its late defeat—they feared that Constantinople and even Jerusalem might be retaken. Another argument gave proof of the Jews’ grasp of Oriental affairs, but this was no comfort to me—that there was a great deal of rivalry between the descendants of Genghis Khan for the overlordship, and this might break into open war.[5] A third difficulty, and perhaps the greatest, proved that the Jews were equally informed on the keyhole chitchat of Venice. Why did not my own father and uncle pay my way, or advance me the moneys out of my patrimony?