“Did you hear of Messer Veniero’s ragusey making port from Jaffa?” he called.
“Of course. What of it?”
“When the clerks unrolled a bale of carpets from Tabriz, there was a letter in ’em, addressed to your aunt Flora. They think it’s from your Pa amongst the Infidel.”
The letter was being taken to my uncle’s house, which for lack of any other I called home. It beat me there by about five minutes, but my aunt was so dithered by the sight of it—not three months since she had said Mass for her brothers’ souls—that she had not yet found the courage to open it. This she did featly at sight of me. Perhaps it contained news of a legacy.
It did not, or any other benison to me. I had not deigned to expect it. And in my heart was another thing, grown there since the last letter from Nicolo Polo, seemingly hard as a rock and like a rock foundation to a new structure of manhood. I did not want a message from him and would be weakened by it had it come. What I had hoped for was a boast of wealth whereby my uncle and aunt, mistaking me for his future heir, would provide for me better and leave me free from bondage.
The letter declared that he and his brother Maffeo had dwelt in the Tatar city of Bukhara nearly three years. Meanwhile the wars waged across their homeward paths had spread and fiercened, so they had decided to move on eastward, perhaps even as far as the Ocean Sea, in search of a roundabout but safer route to Venice. Many of their trading ventures had failed, whereby they found themselves in reduced fortunes. And this was the upshot of their hopeful voyage to Constantinople nigh twelve (at this writing) years before—separation from their loved ones and, unless their saints befriended them, death in an alien land.
I did not believe a word of it, but my uncle Zane did so, and found a moral to his liking. His dull, run-of-the-mill face flushed with self-righteousness.
“Well, Marco, after hearing this, I take it you won’t be so eager to go gallivanting on the seven seas.”
“It’s bad news, your Honor, truly.”
“I’ll hazard you’ll be glad to follow some other occupation, and with no more talk.”
When the moon had set—a favorite meeting time for the old astronomer and his chela—I told Mustapha the letter’s contents. He sat for a while clutching his bearded chin; then he came out on the roof top with me and began pointing out stars for me to name. I did not miss many, since he picked the largest and most beautiful. These were about thirty out of three thousand.
“They’re all you’ll ever need for taking bearings,” he told me. “But my son, you could never win by running away to sea. Your brain must be as stocked with knowledge as your purse is stuffed with gold. The longer you follow, the less fit you are to lead—I want you trained for leadership before you leave my door. That will take, at the least, three years more.”
“Master, I want to adventure to the Court of Kublai Khan, not become a munshi in a school.”
“How will you go about winning his favor, which is the road to power and a key to his vaults?”
“Tell me, master.”
“Remember, he’s not only a mighty but a great king. Every word that has trickled out tells us that. All day and night he drives to extend and strengthen and prosper his prodigious empire—whereby he enhances his own godlike power.”
“Then he’ll want to know all the West can teach him that’s any good.”
“You asked me what you need, and I’ll tell you. It won’t pleasure you to hear it, but I’ll trow you’ll not give up. You know a deal about ships and markets, and something about stuffs. You’ve picked that up on the Rialto and the quays. You’ve read widely for your years in books useful to you, and I’ve taught you useful things. But what do you know of the science of war, as the great captains wrote it down? Are you yourself skilled with any weapon, wherewith to win the respect of your followers or save your own life? Since you could walk you’ve watched the glass blowers, the shipbuilders, and the armor makers; now you should learn some of the bedrock principles behind their skill.”
“I’ll do my best, if I can get out of going to work for the iron-master. And there might be a way to do it.”
“Marco, you are almost a young Arab, when it comes to craft——”
“If another letter would come, hinting of my father’s soon return heavy with gold as an English hooker with tin, and I was to be his heir, my uncle Zane would seat me ahead of his own son.”
“And now you’re wondering if I’m a good forger?” The black eyes glistened, to my great joy. “I confess to it, having had to change some books to better sense. But someday Nicolo Polo might find out the cheat.”
“What matter if he does? He won’t love me any less or leave me any poorer than before.”
“A new letter would be hard to believe on the heels of this one. Still, the idea’s right, if the method’s wrong. Do you think you could get hands on the present letter, deliver it to me for a night’s keeping, and return it to your uncle’s cabinet without his ever discovering the theft?”
“Why, ’twould be child’s play!”
“So was a Mongol lad’s hiding himself when his kinsman came to kill him. His name was Genghis, and out of it came terrible things. Then essay it, child, and take pains that you’re not caught.”
It was a good thing that I heeded him. The trick looked so easy as to need no forethought, and only at the last minute did I provide a spare exit from my uncle’s chamber, in case my plans went wrong. The balcony door, left open on such sultry nights, gave me easy entrance, and the watch lamp enough light. My uncle and aunt, naked in the bed, slept the sleep not of the just but of the good digesters, and despite their meanness looked as innocent as two white, fat pigs. I found the parchment in the top drawer of his escritoire, and I was making toward the balcony when a great gust of wind slammed shut the portal. Being warped by the rain, it could not be opened without kicks and blows and accompanying squeaks and groans.
My kinfolk wakened and carried on a brief, half-witted conversation about the weather. If they had had enough assiduity to arise and see about it, they would have caught me, not red-handed but red-faced, crouching behind the footboard. As it was, their mumblings died away, and I made my exit through an adjoining chamber whose inner bolt I had taken pains to slide. It would be a lesson to me in double safe-guarding for the rest of my life.
Mustapha Sheik mixed sal ammoniac with water, doctored the parchment,[2] and schooled me in my part. I replaced it without mishap, and the sport began after the morning prayers.
“Uncle Zane, have you still got the letter from my father?” I asked, so gleeful over the game that I had no fear of giving it away, and hence could play it well.
“I haven’t got around to burning it,” he answered grumpily.
“Did you notice if it had a small ink blot about the middle of the parchment toward the left-hand side?”
“No, and why should I?”
“Yesterday I listened to some sailors drinking in an inn, and one of them, who had been to Aleppo, told how the learned priests of St. Thomas write to one another in secret. He said the sign that the parchment contained hidden writing was an ink blot, its position on the page being a cipher too. If it was at the top, what they called the brain, the letter concerned scholarly matters to be read at leisure. If it was on the left side, called the heart, it dealt with loved ones. If on the right side, called the hand, it dealt with war. And if at the bottom, called the feet, it was a most urgent message, which the receiver must discover and answer in dire haste.”
“I trow ’twas a sailor’s yarn. How could a parchment contain hidden writing? Perhaps if it were split, then glued together——”
“It’s worked by some kind of enchantment, borrowed from Prester John.” The mere mention of this name, one to conjure with these hundred years, softened my uncle’s brain. “And when the parchment is heated, the invisible writing stands forth as boldly as though inscribed in India ink.”