“That he be delivered to us to take to our abbey. I promise that no drop of his blood will be shed.”
“We all know what that means. And you know that the merchants here will not consent to such a decree.”
“Our abbey has been desecrated. Woe will be upon them if they forbid us our revenge.”
“And you know too that Marco of Polo will appeal the sentence to the Governor. If so, every detail of the case will be investigated by agents of the Khan.”
I had started to speak, but my tongue was almost stuck by terror, and a Persian Jew, dispatched by the Khan to India on some mission, spoke for me.
“Especially, my lord, the Khan’s agents will investigate the dragon killed by picks and shovels in the High Altai.”
“What do we care for that?” the chief magician shrieked. Still I thought the shot had told.
“I have it,” cried a jade-buyer of the Koko Nor. “The law of the Mongols is that if a thief can repay nine times the value of the article stolen, he may go free. In that case, the article too may be returned to its owner.”
“So be it!” another merchant cried.
“But how may we set the value of the garments of the fire-walkers?” the master asked.
“At the very least, five hundred gold dinars,” the Master of Wizards cried.
Terror was upon me more deep than I dared show the crowd or myself. Otherwise my cold heart would not have surged at this pronouncement. Nine times five hundred dinars was forty-five hundred: I could pay it and save myself, at worst, death by torture, and at best, a cruel lashing that would cripple me for weeks and disgrace me forever. The magician’s miserliness coming upon him in long years of taxing frightened peasants had overridden his piety; if he had not craved my gold more than atonement to his gods, he would have cried a thousand dinars. Even so, he had cut it almost too fine. It was as though he had appraised every bolt of cloth and pod of musk in my bales.
“Five hundred shall it be!” the serai master cried with great energy. “And nine times that figure shall be the penalty, paid out of hand by Marco of Polo to the magicians of the Swasti. If he can’t pay it within the hour, I order him nine times nine lashes on his naked back.”
My head was reeling from the delayed shock of the blow, yet it worked well. It sent ghostly hands and eyes to search my bales and boxes and count my baggage camels; on an invisible score sheet I added up the findings. The thousand gold bezants I had got for Miranda were equivalent to a thousand dinars; good trading in nearly four years had gained me twice as much more in money and goods; Lazarus’ death on the desert had enriched me by a thousand, and the prize I had won for finding Nicolo a beautiful slave girl should round out my total wealth at five thousand dinars. About five hundred of these had gone into my personal equipment—my excellent horse and saddle and my wardrobe, pavilion, and two extra camels for their transport. If the appraisers accepted my valuation, I could satisfy the judgment without loss of my gear.
Like most Venetian merchants I could calculate quickly in my head. In my half-madness the power became strangely increased, and I knew the cost in dinars of every stripe that my naked back was saved. It was fifty-five point five carried to infinity, a weird number somehow, such as often turns up in calculations of multiples of nine. . . . If the judge would let me and I could be spared the shame, I would take nine of the eighty-one lashes to save five hundred dinars.
The serai master had waited for his pronouncement to be written down. Now he was speaking again.
“If any gentleman in this company objects to this verdict, let him speak now.”
The thought came to me, as through the dark, that Nicolo might object. I did not dare expect it but my soul was too sick to feel shame at wishing it. A great many of the audience were looking at him. Especially the Mohammedans, blood feudists to a man and intensely loyal to their clans, could hardly believe his silence. Truly the amenities of life, all but unknown to the wild Tatars but more strictly observed by civilized Orientals than by Europeans, required him to make at least a nominal protest if he were only my fellow countryman. Even that would save me no little face.
He did not speak nor did he glance in my direction. There was an expression on his face that I could read only as thwarted fury, and since its cause could not be the heaviness of my punishment, it must be its lightness. Had he wanted me publicly whipped, or given a bloodless death at the clever hands of the magicians? My brain wavered from the thought and my heart grew faint: in spite of everything I had not believed he could hate that hard, simply because, until now, I could not. Perhaps his fury was at himself for not disavowing my story entirely. Perhaps it was aimed at the master of the magicians for letting me slip whole-skinned through his greedy fingers.
The silence had held long. One after another of the listeners turned his gaze back to the serai master.
“Marco of Polo,” came his voice, “do you wish to appeal this judgment to the Governor?”
I was beaten to my knees and sick at heart.
“No, your Honor.”
“Then deliver your moneybags and keys to me. I shall appoint three merchants to seize upon your possessions to the amount of the judgment.”
The three appeared well posted on market values and did their duty well. Quickly they appraised my treasures—gold and silver brocade bought from Baram, embroideries, precious carpets, jade, turquoises, ointments and medicines—and these made a pretty show in the bright, fresh-fed fires. But they would not accept my appraisal of three hundred dinars for my balas ruby, and put it in at the paid price of two hundred, a strange end to my expectations of a handsome profit now so sorely needed. When I disclosed the yellow sapphire, it passed from palm to palm and caused a brief, weighty discussion. I found myself watching the sober faces in intense anxiety: I took note of every headshake and hand-waving. It was my first lesson in the meaning of poverty—how things once counted little now loom large, and what would have been a trifling loss could now bow down the heart.
“What did you pay for this jewel, Marco of Polo?” one of the merchants asked.
“It was given to me.”
“At what do you appraise it?”
“A thousand dinars.”
The discussion was resumed, then quickly ended.
“Two of us are not willing to allow that much,” the same merchant told me. “We’ve set it at eight hundred. That means we are still short by nearly five hundred dinars of the amount of the judgment. How many of your camels can you spare, now that your goods are reduced and you are not likely to buy more in the near future?”
“I need only two for my pavilion and personal baggage. I have four others that I used for baggage, and eight spares that carried food and water on the desert.”
“We will allow you ten dinars per head, That appears to exhaust your patent assets, with the exception of a Nubian female slave and your personal belongings.”
“I can dispense with my pavilion, now that the main of the desert is behind us, which means I can spare another camel. And I can get along with a greatly reduced wardrobe.”
The pavilion, almost new, was appraised at fifty dinars. When my chest was opened, some of the less rich merchants as well as middle fellows attached to the caravans and the serai crowded about. My richest garments, showing no wear, sold readily at half-cost, as was customary at bankrupt sales; these and the rest that I could spare brought a clean hundred. Mustapha’s parting gift, a fine Arabian astrolabe, went begging for a while—less handsome but no less accurate types were common in China—then the Jew who had spoken for me at the trial, a doctor more learned than rich, offered ten dinars with a shamed face. I took it gladly, certain that it would be put to good use. My wonderful English bow, that could shoot a lion but not a star, was set and immediately sold at forty dinars.