“Have you ever seen the garments at close range?”
“Not very close. The magicians won’t let any layman examine them or touch them, saying they’re deadly poison. One piece is a kind of hood, with eyeholes of some sort of crystal. This is loose-fitting and tucks into the collar of a robe. It’s put on the last thing. The sleeves of the robe are tucked into big mittens, and the divided skirts into big boots. The leather is almost snow-white.”
“Couldn’t it be ordinary leather fireproofed in some way?”
“In what way? I’ve seen one of the walkers stand a good half-minute in raging fire.”
“If it’s trickery, it’s strange that the Khan permits it.”
“He permits it, and rewards it too, in every city where it’s practiced. But Suchow seems to be the center of the dragon-killing cult.”
Suchow was also on the caravan road from the High Altai, where Carpini believed the fiber mine to be located. Indeed it was the only notable oasis on this crossing of the Gobi.
Not daring to press the matter in my present excitement, I waited until some easy riding suggested casual talking.
“I’ve been thinking over what you told me about the dragon skin,” I began.
“So?”
“I think it’s the same as certain alchemists in Frankistan call salamander skin. Anyway, I’d give a great deal to get a suit of it.”
“That would be extremely difficult and dangerous, if not impossible.”
“Why?”
“In the first place, it may be poison, as the priests say. But certainly if they caught you trying to penetrate their secret, they’d kill you.”
“Still, it might be done. Do you know any of the magicians?”
“I know one of the priests—if he’s still alive and in Suchow. He’s a graybeard, and the last I saw of him, he was trying to save enough money to return to his birthplace in the High Altai.”
Coming from there, he might know the location of the mine and the process by which the fiber is woven into cloth. If he were old, he had probably grown tired of the frumpery, sick of his fellow fakirs, and long since enured to all sorts of compromise; and if he needed money, he would likely sell out to get it.
“When we come to Suchow, find him and bring him to me in stealth. If I obtain the garments, I’ll reward you with a hundred dinars. If I prosper from them as I hope, I’ll make you my bailiff and bring you to good fortune. But if you break faith, you’ll be killed by a sword blessed by an archbishop, whereby you will be dispatched to the Christian Hell, where no salamander skin can save you from the flame.”
Ere we came to Suchow and the fate awaiting me there, I noticed a change in Nicolo.
The first sign was a definite rise of his spirits. I had never seen them violable—under hardship or danger, he became grim but undiscouraged, and in victory he held them in tight rein—but I could not mistake the ring in his voice, the swing of his stride, and the look of a king in his face. When I sought for the reason, at first I found only his increased confidence in the road ahead and a greater ease in conquering its difficulties. It was an unwritten rule that I must keep out of earshot of his and Maffeo’s talk, but careful observation gave an easy answer to the puzzle thus far.
Obviously the two brothers had regained familiar ground. Their earlier journey had taken them through Bukhara, Samarkand, and north of the Tien Shan, but from Kamul they had turned sharply southward to strike our present road at Shakow. I had no doubt that they knew every major landmark between here and Peking.
Although we were still in the Oceans of Sands, about a thousand miles from our destination, Nicolo took his own and Maffeo’s safe arrival as a near-foregone conclusion. The sobering fact remained that in this happy augury, I was left out. He did not tell me the one or the other, I surmised it from his manner. My youthful strength and abilities had been useful to him in the long, long road behind us, but he could dispense with them now. If any account with me called for settlements, he need not let the exigencies of time and place stand in his way.
He stopped summoning me to his tent for conferences with him and Maffeo. If he spoke to me at all, it was as to a servant. I was no longer posted to the van nor was I given the least authority. Of course the cameleers and baggage wallahs noticed the change fully as soon as I, whereupon I lost face with sickening rapidity. So when I gave an order even to one of my own crew, he must answer sullenly or obey insolently, lest he too lose face before his fellows.
Perhaps it was in some weak attempt at retaliation that on a bitter night under an icy moon three marches past Shakow, I again invaded Miranda’s tent. I came on the excuse of ordering Sheba to repair a ripped surcoat beside her mistress’s charcoal brazier; she, coached in advance, pretended to go to my tent in search of other needed mending. But except for a darkling pleasure of defying my wiser self, I was sorry I had come.
Miranda was wrapped in a woolen barracan, causing me to remember a warmer clime and lovelier nights. Her hair glimmered wanly in the green glowings of the burning charcoal and her face was more beautiful than I had ever seen it. Partly this was a final clearing of my own eyes, for I had defied and scattered their last cloud. Mostly it was a flowering after long growth. She was more beautiful than I had ever dreamed—strange dreams of long ago, which I had not believed; and for not believing them, for doubting them with crass and vulgar doubt, I could not have her now they were proven true.
“You’re no longer so skinny, Linda,” I said in the Venetian tongue.
“No, I’m not. My master bade me put on flesh, now that the hardships of the journey are almost over, so that the Khan would be more pleased with me, in case I’m given to him.”
“And if you’re not?”
“So my master will be more pleased with me when he takes me to his couch.”
“Which would you choose?”
“As befalls at last all dutiful slaves, my choice is my master’s will.’ ’
“Then you must choose that I go at once.”
“I don’t know his will in the matter. Perhaps he’d like to have you stay awhile, to look upon my face and to imagine what’s beneath my robe. He knows I’ll do nothing that would displease him. Also, he might take satisfaction in your trespassing as that much more rope to hang yourself with.”
“You know him well. I would almost believe that he knows you already.”
“Why not believe it? If I say differently, it might be because he’s ordered me to lie. In twenty nights on the Takla Makan, nearly thirty more at Shakow, and now the third on the road to Suchow—do you mislead yourself that he’s a laggard or a reed? If he’s neglected me, it’s because he may wish to give me to the King of Kings.”
“He’ll expect favors in return, so is giving you away greatly different than selling you?”
“Giving me to Kublai Khan? Selling me on the street? It’s the difference between a prince and a peddler.”
“Your tongue is sharper than it used to be.”
“So are my wits.”
“You say it may be Nicolo’s wish to have me stay awhile. Except for his will being yours, what is your wish? I leave myself open to your retort.”
“I want you to go at once.”