“You take no satisfaction in my fall?”
“In the little way you have fallen, I do take satisfaction. But I fear you’re fated for a great fall.”
“Then you’ve noticed something——”
“I’ve noticed that we’re in Mongolia, only a few months from Peking. My master would not mind my warning you—he’s warned you himself, by various means, several times.” Her tone became deeply earnest, indescribably beautiful. “As once my owner—as once my halfway lover—you put a bond on me, the shadow of which remains. I don’t want my fears to come true.”
“Perhaps you had better fear for your master.”
“You are always the braggart.”
“At least put by your forebodings for a fortnight or so, and see if my fortunes fall or mend.”
“I’ll remind you of a foreboding that came to me on the day of our parting. It was that you’d lost your chance of happiness and must wander over the world in search of it as long as you live. Now I have an amendment to it.”
“What is it?”
“You may not live very long, perhaps not even the fortnight or so that you bade me put by my fears.”
“Is there any special reason——?”
“Only what I feel in my bones. What price is death out here? Ask the lion, the falcon, and the snake.”
But now that I was glad that I had come—loving her face in the dim light and her voice that breathed remembrance of all we had shared—I must suddenly go. The tent flap jerked; without stood Sheba, the whites of her eyes glimmering in the wintry light.
“He’s awake, and is lighting a lamp,” Sheba whispered.
I walked silently and swiftly away.
It seemed likely that Nicolo had been wakened by a spy. The unpleasant conjecture wove through my dreams that night and begloomed my thoughts throughout the morning’s march, and as the midday sun began to dissolve it, suddenly it had the solid shape of fact. Nicolo left his place at the head of the caravan, hung by the roadside, then fell in beside me.
“I’ve something to show you, Marco, in a few minutes,” he said.
“I’ll look at it with interest.”
“I think you will. Whether you take any good from it, I have no knowledge or concern. However, I felt it my duty to call it to your attention.”
I inclined my head in acknowledgment.
“Actually it is only a signpost pointing to a new world. That is, brand-new to you, and barely glimpsed before by Maffeo and me. It’s a world that no Venetian could believe until he sees it. It is at once glorious beyond imagination and perilous past description.”
“You mean, of course, the Court of Kublai Khan.”
“The Court is only a symbol of his kingdom, citadel of his empire, an iota of which you’ve seen. Until now his hand seemed far away, his power and glory as remote, almost as legendary, as Prester John’s. It will be different soon.”
“May I ask, signor, why you condescend to warn me?”
“Because you’ve done your best for the caravan throughout many trials, and you served my brother and me well when you found Baram’s caravan on the desert. While your wealth has increased threefold, and you have received a rich jewel besides, my obligation remains. But I’ll discharge it in a few minutes. Thereafter you’ll set your own course.”
The big man rode free in the saddle, and his hands rarely tightened the rein or raised a whip. Yet the great gray stallion, high-mettled as a Kurd, paced along under perfect mastery.
“For instance,” he went on after a brief silence, “I won’t speak to you again about entering the pavilion of my slave girl Linda.”
“It is also the pavilion of my slave girl Sheba.”
“When you want Sheba, call her outside the tent. Of course I’m aware that you did no more than talk to Linda, or my present recourse would not be to words. A word, indeed, to the wise, as Solomon put it.”
“I’ve heard it, signor.”
“When you realize a little more what’s ahead of us, you’ll understand better a thing far behind us now—my telling you I didn’t want you in our company. I gave you my reasons—both personal and practical. On the rough road, you’ve proved an asset rather than the liability that I expected, but soon the scene will change. Then if you want my protection, you may have it at a certain price. If you won’t pay that price, you can pay the Devil.”
“What is the price?”
“To resign as a partner in the enterprise, and accept subordinacy under me.”
I was watching dust clouds swirl through the upper sky behind an errant wind. Down here the cold air scarcely stirred. I waited till the breath clouds disappeared from about Nicolo’s lips.
“In plain words, you would not present me at Court.”
“Perhaps not. But you would retain your gains and have an opportunity to increase them by trade.”
“I bid you remember that in the beginning I offered to come in a subordinate position. You answered I must become one of the company, furnishing my own capital, or stay at home.”
“I made a mistake. But you needn’t make one now.”
“Signor, I’ll not resign my position in the company.”
“What will you resign, I wonder? But before you speak further, see what we have here.”
A monument had been erected beside the road, consisting of a block of alabaster at least six feet square on a pedestal of brick. Characters carved in the snowy stone indicated a writing of solemn import. I recognized the language as Jagatai, the literary form of Turki-Tatar, which I could speak tolerably well and was learning to write. Nicolo beckoned to Pietro. To my amazement, the hard-bitten fellow fell prone and touched his head four times to the dusty ground.
Then he rose with a solemn face and read, his voice trembling with emotion:
BY THIS SPOT
PASSED THE FUNERAL CORTEGE OF
MANGU KHAN
GRANDSON OF GENGHIS KHAN
On its way to his burial ground in the High Altai,
And with him passed one hundred snow-white steeds,
To be slain without bloodshed and buried with him,
To ride in the Hereafter.
And with him passed three hundred maidens of perfect beauty,
To be wrapped in carpets and thrown back and forth until they die,
Whereof their flesh will remain unmarred,
For Mangu Khan to enjoy in the Hereafter.
And with him passed twenty thousand men and women of varied sort,
Chosen from the cities and villages along the road,
To be strangled and buried with him and become his servants in the Hereafter.
For he was Lord of All Earth
King of All Kings.
And this stone was raised by his brother
KUBLAI KHAN
FOR WHOM THE WORLD WAS MADE
2
“Does this reveal the matter I broached to you in a different light?” Nicolo asked.
“No, signor.”
Nicolo rode ahead. I waited a moment, listening to the soft sound of camel pads in the sand, then resumed my place. In the following days I had cause to meditate Nicolo’s words, because this reach of our journey was truly the beginning of its end. We remained in the fastnesses of the Gobi. There was no permanent dwelling house from the beginning of the march to its end, but the Tatars—and now their name had changed to Mongols, but their nature remained unchanged—passed here at certain seasons with their flocks and herds in search of upland pasture. Caravans became more frequent and many of the rest grounds boasted huts for the Khan’s messengers and envoys. Where great folk had died, their companions had more often stopped to bury them and to raise cairns.
To gain Suchow, we passed through the Gate of Jade in what is the single largest handiwork of man since the world began. This was the Wall, made of brick or stone facings packed with earth to the height of twenty feet, with strong, square towers erected every hundred or so paces of its fourteen-hundred-mile length. It ran along hills, valleys, mountains, gorges, deserts, and oases, and had been raised by the great Emperor Shih Huang Ti two hundred years before Jesus Christ. Since “great” means something more than large, I wondered if the same adjective could be applied to the immense barricade. Certainly it had helped to fend off the wild Mongols for more than ten centuries; but if one-tenth of its cost had been spent in taming and civilizing the horde, perhaps it would have never broken out of its grazing grounds to rape all Asia. Shih Huang Ti, when your spirit beholds a Mongol Khan on the throne of Cathay, do you turn over in your grave? But only the gods can look down the road you might have taken, only they can count and measure your mistakes.