“That it’s not. Must you stand on ceremony when you come to give birthday greetings to your cousin, who was never the lad that you were, nor is the man now? I’d rather you gave him the toe of your shoe where he needs a donkey’s tail.”
How dared the old man speak so frankly of the heir of the house? Plainly he held me worthy of his trust! I knew better, but my heart warmed to him just the same.
“Blow your horn, old friend, as loud and fine as when Nicolo returned.”
“Nicolo? So that’s what you call him! I’ve heard talk—but I’ll name you in my prayers.” With that he blew a fine blast.
I entered the unbolted door and quickly passed through the anteroom into the dining hall. Because the window light was dim except for occasional flickers of lightning, my uncle Zane had lighted a great spread of candles, and the short, sharp view that I caught of the assembled diners before any of them glanced up was clear enough to paint a picture by. The seven people there sipped from cups or forked meat or worked their jaws, while the servants gave them assiduous attention. For one instant of treachery I wished I were one of them. I stood in the dusk beyond the candle shine, and a cold wind of loneliness bit me to the bone. . . .
Nicolo had the sharpest ears, the most watchful eyes. He glanced up and looked at me, but he did not start or seem more than mildly surprised. At once he turned to Zane and spoke so soon that his level voice eclipsed the sound of caught breaths all around the table.
“Why Zane, you didn’t tell us that you were expecting Marco.”
“I told you just the contrary, but I guess you didn’t hear me,” Zane replied. “Marco, you’ve gone your own way of late, which is not our way, and that’s why I didn’t invite you to join your kinsmen at this feast. I mean, of course, your kinsmen by marriage, you being Lucia’s son.”
I was instantly cool, confident, and strangely happy. Entirely competent to speak now, I waited for a better opening.
“Now he’s here, my lord, let’s make him welcome,” my aunt Flora entreated in an anxious voice.
“Why, I’ll not gainsay him, if he’s come in honor of my son’s natal day. What say you, Nicolo?”
Nicolo’s faint smile warned me that I had waited too long.
“I don’t believe it’s what he’s come for,” he remarked in a pleasant voice. “I think he’s come to tell me he’s found the money that he needs to go with Maffeo and me to Cathay.”
All eyes had been drawn to Nicolo as he spoke—now they turned on me. There was no other movement in the room, and no sound until Leo gave a harsh burst of laughter.
“What amuses you, nephew?” Nicolo asked in the same pleasant voice.
“You’re joking! Where could Marco get a thousand pieces of gold?”
“Now that’s a question, but there’s none, I believe, about him having it. He came in here without waiting to be ushered in. He didn’t fail to see my boat at the quay, and I think he expected it here today and waited for its arrival before he made his dramatic appearance. None of that smacks of a peace offering or even of paying birthday honors to Leo. Isn’t it far more likely that he wishes to tell me something in front of witnesses?”
“I swear to you that the old Arab couldn’t have raised that much——” The loudness of Zane’s voice did not hide its tremor.
“Of course he didn’t. Marco, did I guess right?”
“Yes, signor.”
I came toward him and held out the certificate of title in a shaking hand. He took it with a steady hand, looked at it not too briefly or too long, and handed it with a faint smile to Maffeo. The only sign of deeper feelings was a dangerous one—a contraction of his pupils to bright points, causing the eyes themselves to look more large and bright.
“I’d’ve never believed it, by the bones of God!” cried Uncle Zane.
“Marco, we’ll sail on the calends of May, or thereabouts, on the bireme Our Lady of Salvation. I advise you to bespeak the captain for cabin and storage space, and to lay in goods to the amount of two or three hundred bezants for sale in Lesser or Greater Armenia. As for your share of the expenses, I’ll draw on you as we go along. All this depending on whether, after all, you decide to attempt the journey.”
“I’ve already decided, signor.”
“You may have a few minutes in which to change your mind. Meanwhile I’ll make another guess—this time as to the source of your wealth. I think you obtained it in the Casa Polo on the night you hired a troop of jongleurs to perform on our fondamento. I don’t know its form, but I’m sure it’s a product of alchemy for resisting fire that your mother’s uncle brought from Tatary. I suggest that you learned of its hiding place, entered our house to get it, and sold the secret to Phineas or some company of Jews.”
“In that case, Nicolo, doesn’t it belong to you?” Uncle Zane asked, barely able to control his excitement.
“Everything that Lucia owned to the day of her death was mine, and this is not the first theft. When I saw that torn parchment in your hand, I had a strange inkling of what it was, but I didn’t believe it and let it pass. Only just now, when you showed me the certificate, did my mind leap to the truth. You’re not the first of your blood to resort to housebreaking to get what you want. But the other came to a quick and a cruel death.”
Nicolo put no stress on the last phrase, but his smile had died and his face was a little lifted and its expression was like that of a god in marble lately found in Crete and brought to Venice. His sister Flora grew wide-eyed.
“Marco, don’t go with him!” she burst out.
“Stay out of it please, Flora,” Nicolo said. “Marco, the theft would be difficult to prove. I’ve neither the time nor the inclination. But I advise you to stop there. You’re young and rash and not as cunning as you like to believe. In plain words—although I rebuked her, your aunt gave you good advice.”
“I’m sorry I can’t heed it.”
“Marco, I don’t want you to go with Maffeo and me to the Court of Kublai Khan. First, you’re a living witness to my wife’s whoring, and I want you out of my sight. Second, your character is such, inherited from a rogue, that you could bring our caravan into disrepute or to disaster. I made the bargain with you fully persuaded you could never raise the sum—anyway, at that first meeting with you, when you weren’t full-grown, I hadn’t realized how perfectly you reflect the adulterous union between my highborn wife and a wandering jongleur. If in spite of this you choose to hold me to my bargain, you won’t find me off guard again. Sooner or later the base blood will tell; then I’ll show you no mercy. Choose, Marco, now.”
“I choose to hold you to your bargain, and I’ll return the enmity you give me with all my heart.”
“Marco, will you work with us the best you can?” Maffeo broke in.
I could hardly believe my ears. “Yes, if you’ll let me.”
“Then, Nicolo, make the best of it. You’re a born leader and I’m not, but you’re making too much of a cuckoldry nigh twenty years cold. You made a deal with Marco, and you must give him his chance to work it out and profit by it. That’s the first law of a merchant.”
“And if you two kill each other,” Aunt Flora cried, suddenly emboldened, “you’ll be chained together in Hell.”
Nicolo and I looked at each other, and lightning through the windows must have lighted my face as it did his. It was as though we were already chained there. It was as though both of us were gazing into a slightly distorted glass.
4
There had come the day appointed for my departure. Today I had a rendezvous with sorrow, with loneliness, with a ship and the sea. Since sunrise Miranda, Mustapha, and I had kept company with one another, mainly sitting on a divan with her between the old man and the young one, talking at times, sometimes laughing over jokes and incidents that seemed of a bygone age. We pledged one another in wine. Although the drink was forbidden to good Mussulmans, Mustapha smiled and told us that what he drank now, he would take off his allotment in Paradise.