“When did she think Pietro became Nicolo’s creature?” I was dreading the path my mind was taking, but it could not turn back.
“On reflection, she thought it was the night of his joining the caravan. You remember he caught up with us on the road. Linda thinks he had discovered the lie Nicolo told Baram to cheat you out of the prize—for Tatars have ears like asses—and decided to follow him.”
“I remember Nicolo wasn’t pleased by his coming. And at the first hint of extortion——”
“Pietro threw no such hint. It was furthest from his mind. Remember, he’s a Tatar—he admires cunning and craft almost as much as cruelty. He saw in Nicolo both of these, and great strength besides. Linda believes he wanted him for his master as might a dog—to be faithful to him as a dog, and to fatten from his leavings as his reward. That too is like the Tatar. Why do Tatars bring higher prices than any other male slaves on the market?”
That had been true even in Venice. Once a Tatar knows his master, he is faithful until he is sold or death breaks the bond.
“I think he threw himself at Nicolo’s feet and was taken into his service,” Sheba went on.
“In that case, when Pietro made up to me it was on Nicolo’s orders.” Although the spring night was chill, I wiped sweat from my face.
“Yes, master.”
“At Shakow I asked Pietro about the fire-walkers.”
“He’d been waiting for you to ask him, master. Nicolo knew that you would as you came close to Suchow. You told Linda, long ago, that he’d guessed half the truth——”
“I heard it from his mouth. Did I think he’d forgotten, blind fool that I was? But I’d have thought my mother would have risen from her grave to warn me.”
“It’s not easy to rise from one’s grave, master. I think it can be done only by clutching the Devil’s hand.”
“A few days later I asked Pietro if he knew one of the fire-walkers. No, he did not—Nicolo was afraid I’d be suspicious of such good luck as that—but he knew an old priest who needed money to go home to the High Altai. It was a good story—Nicolo had coached him in it. And when we got to Suchow, behold the old priest was still there, but he couldn’t bring me the garments—I must go after them.”
“Have mercy on yourself, master, and let it go.”
“No, I want it to sting so bad I’ll never forget. Since Miranda—Linda—warned me against Pietro, I thought he’d merely told Nicolo of my plan—for a price—and Nicolo had warned the priests. But it wasn’t my plan—it was Nicolo’s. Pietro provided the fellow I met in the dark, and was Nicolo’s emissary to the abbey. The magicians were perfectly willing to set the trap for the price he offered. But I wonder if they kept their bargain to the last.”
“Do you think they took more than he promised them?”
“I think he may have promised them a thousand dinars or some such sum if they would agree to demand a greater fine than I could pay, then give him the stolen garments. I could have appealed to the Governor but certainly I would have been whipped in Tatar style. But they saved me from the lash to get more gold.”
“That last may not be true. It’s bad enough as it is.”
“Good enough, you mean.” I laughed loudly, as might a new-risen phoenix.
“You’ve gone mad, It’s this place—you and me, a white Venetian and his black slave girl, perched like sparrows on a dead giant——”
“No. I’ve just seen the truth.”
“You want to hate him, so you can kill him?”
“Not particularly. I want him to hate me—as hard as he can. I didn’t know until now that that’s his Achilles’ heel.”
I had no doubt of Sheba’s understanding the allusion. The tidal wave of Greek culture, long since receded, had washed all North Africa.
Sheba’s long black hands lay flat on her cheeks and as she gazed at me the moonlight picked up the porcelain-white of her eyes.
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because it’s an unreasoning, blind, and lying hate. It isn’t worth my hating in return. But I mean it to give me the victory.”
Sheba laughed wildly, sobered quickly, and wiped her eyes.
“We’re both mad!” she cried. “How will you win it? You have no gold, no power, no friend, only one camel and one slave and the horns of a wild sheep.”
“Answer one question. You have heard of the power and glory of Kublai Khan all your days, and you have a way of sifting people’s talk to find its gist. What kind of a man is he?”
“He’s not a man. He’s the King of Kings.”
“What do you mean by that? There’s a man underneath.”
“No. If there ever was, he’s ceased to exist. He’s not even a Tatar any more—he’s the Tatar’s god. He thinks, feels, breathes, lives what you read on the stone beside the road—Kublai Khan, for whom the world was made.”
“But he hasn’t conquered all of it, yet. There are kings in India who don’t send him tribute—kings in Europe who doubt his omnipotence.”
“He means that they shall, before he’s done.”
“How does he choose his viceroys and councilors and governors? By birth and blood, by favoritism, or by fitness for the office?”
“If his own son shows himself a fool, he builds him a palace to play in, but doesn’t let him command one troop of horse.”
“Then walk beside me in the dust for six hundred miles more. Invoke your witches and help me all you can. Then if I can still hear Mustapha’s voice—if I dare to mount again the four bronze horses of San Marco—if once more I can follow Iskander across the chasm——”
“If you can see the face of Miranda of England,” Sheba broke in, chanting in a glimmering voice.
“If I can do all these things—why, Sheba, I’ll play a game of chess with Nicolo.”
CHAPTER 10
ROAD TO XANADU
The scope of my studies widened apace as we drew into the shadow of the long and mighty arm of Kublai Khan. So far we had seen the least paring of his little fingernail, for we followed the northwest frontier of Cathay at the edge of the desert, yet this minuscule was enough to cause a queer, cold quiver up my backbone. In the desolate stretches, the rest houses of the Khan’s couriers stood forty miles apart. In the more peopled areas they were spaced at something over half that distance. Each was a great hostelry with scores of richly furnished rooms, hundreds of attendants, and from two hundred to four hundred fleet horses, half of which stayed groomed and ready to run. Thus if an important message must go to or from the Khan, belled riders would ride in relays day or night from post to post; if, at his pleasure palace in Xanadu, he desired a dainty fruit from Peking, ten days’ journey by caravan, it could be started on its way in the morning and arrive at his table the following evening. And woe betide any rider who was tardy, or any lord, no matter how exalted, who delayed him on the road.
Between these posts, at intervals of about three miles, stood the posts of the foot runners, each the size of a small village. The couriers carried messages and very light freight from local officials to their chiefs, who dispatched it on by horseback if they saw fit. And there was no danger, now, of their losing their way. Instead of a long strewing of white bones, the roads were graded and graveled, lined with trees wherever trees would grow, otherwise marked by stone pedestals and signposts.
Nicolo and Maffeo carried a golden tablet that declared them ambassadors to and from the Khan, so they need not turn out for any caravan on private business. I had never had it in my hands, but the Persian Jew who had taken my side at the trial had shown me what appeared to be its duplicate. It weighed nearly two pounds, and bore an inscription in Jagatai that, at last, I was able to read:
By the power of the great God, may the name of the Khan be holy! All who pay him not reverence must be put to death.
Yet we must wait more than an hour beside the road while drovers brought past a thousand snow-white horses, for these had been bred for the Khan, and were being driven to Peking, where they would be consecrated to his use at a great religious service in early May. They would become part of his private herd of ten thousand, each without a blemish, used not for war but for ceremonies and parades, and the mares supplying milk forbidden to all except his family and blood kin and some followers of a certain tribe whom his grandsire, Genghis Khan, had seen fit to honor in this way. And while we did not give ground for a five-mile row of carts that came out of a road from Yulin, my eyes came close to popping from my head. The carts were loaded with broken black stone from mines beyond the Wall and were used in the thickly settled country south of us for fuel. In truth it was almost pure carbon, hardened by nature, and it burned longer and with more heat than the best oakwood.