Nicolo and Maffeo took one pace forward. I heard the Khan ask them in turn of their missions, and listened to their studied replies. This was a mere formality—the letters they had brought from the Pope and other ambassadorial business would be taken to the Imperial Council. Then in respect to Maffeo’s seniority, the Khan addressed to him first the imperial utterance that told the main business of the durbar.
“My servant Maffeo, you have my leave to make offerings to the Khan.”
“Great Khan, they are only tokens of my fealty,” Maffeo answered, “and I lay them humbly at your feet.”
The polite procedure was for Maffeo’s slaves to continue to hold the gifts until the Khan dismissed him, whereupon the stewards took charge of them. In this case, the Khan asked to see the antique rug and admired it. I did not think his interest in it was more than lightly passing. I believed he was far more interested in Nicolo and the gifts he brought. When his Chiah, an exalted secretary in Mongol courts, had informed him of the ambassadors’ return, likely he had forgotten Maffeo but remembered Nicolo. He was the kind of strong, cunning, intensely ambitious man who took a king’s eye. . . .
It was coming now. The chessmen were set out, the players had disposed of lesser matters, the contest was about to begin. It was Nicolo’s move.
“My servant Nicolo, you have my leave to make offerings to your Khan.”
“Great Khan, the only considerable gift I bring is a token of fealty from the King of Kerman, entrusted to my hands for delivery to you. With it lie some trifles that are beneath your attention but which I hoped would set off the king’s offering for the greater pleasure of your sublime eyes.”
“The slave girl may walk to the foot of the dais so I may see the gifts.”
It was the slave girl that he wanted to see, for her pale golden hair was more beautiful and more precious than all the cloths of gold in the whole pageant. It was the slave girl that he looked at mostly as she came and stood at the foot of the dais—and he must be an epicure beyond any in the world, for he had seen and sorted over thousands of the most beautiful girls that had ever breathed. Yet he took a cursory glance into the golden bowl.
“Your slave may return to her place. And truly the balas ruby is a handsome jewel, well set off by the smaller rubies, turquoises, and jade.” He moved his arm slightly, and the sleeve with its cuff of close-set diamonds, rubies, and emeralds fell back to reveal a diamond bracelet crowned with a ruby like a coal of fire. It was of the hue called pigeon-blood and as big as a pigeon’s egg.
“In this bundle are garments of a strange nature and use,” Nicolo said. “They consist of helmet, a robe, mittens, and boots, and their wearer can walk unharmed through fire or stand in fire until his breath gives out. They were given to me for a service done the priests of the Swasti at your Imperial Highness’s city of Suchow.”
“Of what are they made?” the Khan asked after a brief pause.
I had already observed the band of fifty tattered foul-faced magicians squatted on the floor to the left of the dais—very plainly a mighty power in the Court. Now I turned my gaze from the Khan’s countenance to glance at them again. They had straightened their bent backs a little with the effect of so many cobras towering to strike. When Nicolo spoke, I had no doubt that he had flicked his eyes in the same direction.
“Great Khan, the wise doctors in Frankistan would believe that they are made of the skins of salamanders, which reptiles are said to be immune to fire. The magicians of the Swasti give out that they are the skins of dragons killed by sorcery. I will not gainsay them, although time may reveal them to be of some other substance.”
“I’ve never seen a dragon, unless I count the great crocodiles of Hind worthy of that name,” the Khan remarked. “I believe the garments to be made of a noncombustible fiber found in my High Altai, and which my couriers use as packets for most precious writings, lest they be destroyed by fire.”
Nicolo did not move except to catch his breath. He had been compromised by his own blunder in the opening, but he kept his countenance and his air of loyal subjection to the King of Kings.
“Doubtless that is so. I would wish that a portion of this offering be used to make a packet for carrying a pronouncement of overlordship and protection from the Great Khan to the kings of Frankistan. Now I plead to make one more trifling offering. It is of the slave girl Linda who was just now at the foot of your sublime throne. She comes from England, an island at the outer rim of the habitable world, and there she would be counted of noble blood. It is my fond hope that since not many maidens of her sort have ever been seen in these portions of your realm, you will accept her, if only as a curiosity, to keep or dispose of at your pleasure.”
A change came over the Khan. Every soul in the great hall perceived it. The advantage that I had not earned, that I had not foreseen in my fondest dreams, had been short-lived.
“From England, say you. My brother Mangu Khan spoke to me of England as the birthplace of the great Richard. Is it near to Budapest?”
“Near according to the expanses of your imperial realm, somewhat far by the thinking of Christian kings. But there is trade by way of Germany between the countries, and their kings exchange envoys.”
“I consider the maiden Linda very personable and I accept her with pleasure. And now I believe you have another petition to make to me. If it is what I think—to present a young man in whom you take pride—I grant it before it is asked.”
There fell a brief pause in the smooth, unhurried flow of events. Everyone sensed it, and perhaps no few sensed more than that, and perhaps there were hearts other than Nicolo’s, Miranda’s, Sheba’s, and mine that stood still.
“No, Great Khan, I have no petition to make now,” Nicolo answered in a clear voice.
“You have not?”
“No, Great Khan.”
“My servant Maffeo, have you?”
“No, Great Khan.”
A puzzled line appeared between the Khan’s brows.
“No subject or sojourner in my realm is denied the right to make offerings at my open durbar, and it comes to me that the slave girl of the young man standing near you has been long burdened by a heavy gift.” The Khan turned his eyes on mine. “What is your name and abode?”
“I am Marco Polo of Venice,” I answered in Jagatai Mongol, taking one step forward.
The Khan noted the use of the courtly tongue, not commonly learned by sojourners.
“Are the great horns held by your slave an offering to me?”
“Yes, Great Khan.”
“What are they? I have never seen their like.”
“They are the horns of the wild sheep called argali, found in your Imperial Majesty’s most high realm, the Great Pamir. This pair is the largest I or the people of the country have ever seen.”
“How did you come by them?”
“I followed the ram to his high ramparts and slew him with bow and arrow.”
“Why, that was good hunting! But perhaps the ram was burdened from carrying such heavy horns.”
“No, they were his crown, in which he took great pride. He bounded over crevices and climbed cliffs that to the eye looked sheer, his ewes and their lambs behind him.”
“The lambs could follow their mothers to the heaven-jutting crags of the Pamir?”
“Yes, Great Khan. They are born there, and on their first day they must follow where their mothers lead.”
“Now that is a wonder. To what use do the rams put their great horns?”
“To no use, Great Khan, except to butt rival rams. They are an endowment from God to show their sovereignty of the cliffs and crags and snows of the High Pamir.”