“Sacrilege! Sacrilege! Revenge! Revenge!”
CHAPTER 8
THE MAGICIANS
The monks had marched in silence to take me by surprise, and so had collected no long tail of riffraff. Since the caravanserai lay at the outskirts of the town, I could hope that the guards would close and lock the gates before devil-ridden crowds could gather. There was one other factor that I could count as favorable. Suchow was the only oasis of any size or importance in many days’ march, and the Khan’s law was executed with respect to frontier conditions. Here, as in many remote cities, the merchants were granted autonomy within the caravanserais as long as their verdicts were not appealed to the Governor. I would surely stand my first trial before them under the rulings of the serai master.
Such underlings as cameleers, hostlers, baggage wallahs, water boys, and sweepers gathered swiftly into a compact crowd, silent but greatly excited. Singly or in pairs, the merchants came out of their quarters as the news reached them, and before long the serai master, wearing an iron key and other badges of authority, made a dignified appearance with his bailiff and clerk. The gates swung shut. The dung fires mounted and cast a lurid light on the two rows of ragamuffins and their now silent chief. I caught a glimpse of Pietro standing among the middle fellows but averted my gaze from him. As Nicolo and Maffeo Polo made a lordly entrance—for the whole city knew that they were ambassadors to the great Khan—it may be that my cheekbones flushed, but my lips curled in a sneer.
Attendants brought an iron chair for the serai master. A bench was placed for the abbot of the magicians, and some horse tenders with slanted eyes and button noses gasped to see him seat himself Buddha-wise, with his legs tucked under him. A long silence fell. A big rat that was neither black nor brown but snow-white crept out from the rows of squatting magicians full into the firelight. When one of them uttered a squealing sound, the beast ran back.
“What is your charge, O Abbot, and by what evidence and against whom is it made?” the serai master asked in Turki-Tatar.
The Abbot replied with great vehemence in a high-pitched frantic voice.
“While worshiping the Giant Dwarf in our temple, two of our brethren of the Swasti beheld the selfsame vision. It was of two violators of our temple, making their way to the Room of Wonders. Driven by that vision, they left the temple, and lo, as they passed the landing on the stairs they beheld the two miscreants, hidden in an alcove. It being against their faith to lay hands forcibly upon even the vilest thief, they feigned to avert their eyes. Passing by, they brought word to me of the violation, but the blasphemers had fled with their loot, being a suit of the dragon skins that defy fire.”
When he paused to catch his breath with a sucking sound, the serai master spoke in a calm, judicious tone as might the Doge of Venice.
“The fire-walkers have told that these garments are the most deadly poison to all except themselves. Why did not the thieves fall down dead?”
“Only by casting horoscopes and certain ceremonies of divination can we know the full truth. But my brethren thought they recognized one of the desecrators, whose face was less hidden, as a monk of Bonpo, the abominable heresy practiced across the valley. If so, he could have learned the secret antidote of the poison and rendered the garments harmless.”
“What then?”
“We wished for the eyes of a desert owl that would penetrate the darkness and reveal the evildoers. The God of the Night had not given us such eyes, but he sent her whom he had so endowed, and she flew to our help.”
Suddenly the whole assembly caught its breath. Perched on the Abbot’s shoulder was a little brown owl such as dwells in the same burrow with marmots and desert asps. I had been watching all his gestures and expressions that the firelight disclosed, yet I had not seen the visitor’s arrival.
“You were able to trace the thieves?”
“We found where they had tied their horses, and soon we caught sight of a slave girl carrying a bundle as though it were clothes for washing. We followed her to the woman’s ghat, and then to this very courtyard. Also, one of our number saw two horsemen whom our gods whispered to him were the evil twain. One was without doubt a priest of the Bonpo—presently he parted with his fellow and rode away. Our brother followed the other, and was about to lose sight of him, knowing not his countenance, when a pale light, such as might be cast by a giant firefly in summer forest, played upon him. Behold, he was a tall man on a red horse, and his countenance was like that of the Khan’s ambassador from Frankistan.”
“Do you dare accuse Nicolo the Frank——”
“I looked upon the great Emir as he took his place. My brethren told me of his resemblance to the rider in face and form, as though they were brothers, but the rider was somewhat younger.”
“None of your followers have spoken to you since Nicolo Emir took his place.”
“Ah, but one has—with the tongue of the spirit.”
“Nicolo Emir rides a dapple-gray horse, but a younger kinsman of his wife’s rides a red horse.”
“Aye, and we behold him among the merchants.”
“It’s a grave charge, O Lama.”
“I do not make it, lord. I ask if he owns a female slave of Nubia, and whether she came hence tonight with a white bundle, and what might be the contents of that bundle.”
“Is there anyone here who can answer those questions?” the serai master asked, turning to the listening throng.
“I can answer two of them, master,” a cameleer replied.
“You may do so.”
“The merchant Marco Polo owns such a slave girl, and I saw her bring a white bundle through the gate and carry it to his lodge.”
At that, all the squatted priests raised their arms, palms up, over their heads. Lifting their faces, they gave forth a cry such as might rise from a pack of desert foxes about a lion’s kill.
“Silence!” the master demanded. Then, turning to the cameleer, “Does that complete your testimony?”
“Yes, master. I don’t know what was in the sheet, although it was dripping wet.”
“Deceit! Deceit!” shrieked the priests in one voice.
“We shall see. The evidence surely justifies a search of Marco Polo’s quarters. But before that he shall have a chance to speak.” He turned to me with great dignity. “Marco Polo, have you anything to say in rebuttal of the evidence brought forth against you?”
“No, malik.”
“Then you confess that you have the stolen garments?”
“I have them, malik, but they weren’t stolen.”
“How, then, did they come into your possession? I warn you that the telling of any lie will go hard with you.”
But which lie I told did not matter very much, provided it brought out one fact—my possession of a weapon that in my terror and despair I had almost forgotten.
“It’s true that my companion of tonight was a brother of the Bonpo. He had come from the High Altai, and there he had known my mother’s uncle, Friar Johannes Carpini, who visited the Court of Kuyuk Khan at Karakorum a quarter of a century ago. There may be some graybeard in this company who remembers the event.”
The serai master turned to an old Tatar gatekeeper with a hawk face. “Toto, you are a Karakorumian. Did you hear of the coming of this Frankistani priest?”
“The very wolves on the steppes heard of it,” the old man answered.
“My uncle knew this holy man as Surab,” I went on. “To him he gave moneys to obtain for him a suit of what the Swastika call dragon skins, but this skin was obtained from a den deep in the ground, and that dragon was not killed by magic worked by priests, but by picks and shovels in the hands of common men in the High Altai.”
Over the gathering hung a breathlessness more strained and still than I thought my words could cause. I did not know the reason until I felt a stab of pain, devilish sharp, in the calf of my leg. I whirled in time to glimpse a brown, furry animal, of a larger frame than a housecat’s, but much leaner, run off with a monkey gait and instantly disappear in the shadows. But my pain and fright passed quickly, while my dismay at the throng’s behavior lingered on. Although almost every watcher had seen the beast’s advance upon me, no voice had been raised in warning.