I said, “Perhaps he has other worries that trouble him more. Let us then, in compassion, you and I, not add our voices to the general tattling. Not about that poor fellow, anyway.”
“As you command, master. But I have nothing to tell about anyone else … except the servants and slaves themselves, in whom you surely have no interest.”
True, I had not. But I got the feeling that Nostril wanted to say something more. I studied him speculatively, then said:
“Nostril, you have been extraordinarily well behaved for quite a while now. For you, that is. I recollect only one recent misdemeanor—when I caught you peeping that night at me and the girls—and I cannot recall any outright felony in ever so long. There are other things different about you lately. You are dressing as finely as all the other palace servants and slaves. And you are letting your beard grow. I always wondered how you managed to keep it forever looking like a scruffy two weeks’ growth. But now it looks a respectable beard, though much grayer than it used to be, and your receding chin is no longer so noticeable. Why the turnout of whiskers? Are you hiding from somebody?”
“Not exactly, master. As you say, slaves here at this resplendent palace are encouraged not to look like slaves. And, as you say, I simply wished to appear more respectable. More like the handsome man I used to be.” I sighed. But he did not elaborate in his usual braggart way; he added only, “I have recently espied someone in the slave quarters. Someone I think I knew long ago. But I hesitate to approach, until I can be sure.”
I laughed heartily. “Hesitate? You? Reticent of being thought forward? And to another slave? Why, even the kitchen’s trash-pile pigs do not hesitate to approach a slave.”
He winced slightly, but then drew himself up as tall as he could.
“The pigs are not also slaves, Master Marco. And we slaves were not always so. There used to be some social distinctions among some of us, when we were free. The one dignity we can exercise now is to observe those bygone distinctions. If this slave is who I believe her to be, then she was once a high-born lady. I was a freeman in those days, but only a drover. I would ask, master, if you would do me the favor of ascertaining who she is, before I make myself known to her, that I may do so with the appropriate formality of address.”
For a moment I almost felt ashamed of myself. I had commanded compassion for the cuckold Master Chao, yet laughed heartlessly at this poor wretch. Was I, like him, so ready to make ko-tou to class distinctions? But in the next moment I reminded myself that Nostril really was a wretch, of repellent nature and, as long as I had known him, doing none but revolting deeds.
I snapped, “Do not play the noble slave at me, Nostril. You live a life far better than you deserve. However, if you merely wish me to corroborate someone’s identity, I will. What do I ask, and of whom?”
“Could you just inquire, master, whether the Mongols have ever taken prisoners from a kingdom called Cappadocia in Anatolia? That will tell me what I wish to know.”
“Anatolia. That is north of the route by which we came from the Levant into Persia. But my father and uncle must have traveled through it on their earlier journeys. I will ask them, and perhaps I will not need to ask anyone else.”
“May Allah smile ever on you, kind master.”
I left him to finish his wine, though Biliktu sniffed with disapproval of his continuing to loll in her presence. I went along the palace corridors to my father’s chambers, and found my uncle also there, and said I had a question to ask of them. But first my father informed me that they were contending with some problems of their own.
“Obstacles,” he said, “being thrown in the way of our mercantile ventures. The Muslims are proving less than eager to welcome us into their Ortaq. Delaying issuance of permits for us even to sell our accumulated stock of zafràn. Clearly they are reflecting some jealousy or spitefulness on the part of the Finance Minister Achmad.”
“We have two options,” muttered my uncle. “Bribe the damned Arab or put pressure on him. But how do you bribe a man who already has everything, or can easily get it? How do you influence a man who is the second most powerful in the realm?”
It occurred to me that if I told them what hints I had had of Achmad’s private life, they might profitably wield a threat to expose him. But on second thought I did not mention it. My father would refuse to stoop to any such tactic, and would forbid my uncle to do so. Also, I suspected that my hearsay knowledge was a dangerous thing even for me to have acquired, and I would not hand on the risk of danger to them. I made only one mild suggestion:
“Can you perhaps employ, as they say, the devil that tempted Lucifer?”
“A woman?” grunted Uncle Mafio. “I doubt it. There seems to be a deal of mystery about Achmad’s tastes—whether he prefers women or men or children or ewes or what. In any case, he could take his pick from the whole empire, excepting only the Khakhan’s prior choices.”
“Well,” said my father, “if he truly does have everything he could possibly want, there is an old proverb that applies. Ask favors of the man with a full stomach. Let us cease quibbling with the petty underlings of the Ortaq. Go direct to Achmad and put our case before him. What can he do?”
“From what little I know of him,” growled Uncle Mafio, “that man would laugh at a leper.”
My father shrugged. “He will tergiversate for a time, but he will eventually concede. He knows we stand well with Kubilai.”
I said, “I would be happy to put in a word with the Khakhan when I call on him next.”
“No, Marco, do not you fret about this. I would not wish you to compromise your own standing on our account. Perhaps later, when you have been longer in the Khakhan’s confidence, and when perhaps we have real need of your intercession. But with this situation, Mafio and I will cope. Now, you wished to ask a question?”
I said, “You first came here to Kithai and went home again by way of Constantinople, so you must have gone through the lands of Anatolia. Did you happen to traverse a place there called Cappadocia?”
“Why, yes,” said my father. “Cappadocia is a kingdom of the Seljuk Turki people. We stopped briefly in its capital city of Erzincan on our way back to Venice. Erzincan is very nearly directly north of Suvediye—where you have been, Marco—but a long way to the north of it.”
“Were those Turki ever at war with the Mongols?”
“Not then,” said Uncle Mafio. “Not yet, as far as I know. But there was some trouble there, which involved the Mongols, because Cappadocia abuts on the Persian realm of the Ilkhan Abagha. The trouble occurred while we were passing through, as a matter of fact. That was what, Nico—eight, nine years ago?”
“And what was it that happened then?” I asked.
My father said, “The Seljuk King Kilij had an overly ambitious Chief Minister—”
“As Kubilai has the Wali Achmad,” grumbled Uncle Mafio.
“And that Minister secretly connived with the Ilkhan Abagha, promising to make the Cappadocians vassals of the Mongols if Abagha would help him depose the King. And that is what happened.”
“How did it come about?” I asked.
“The King and the whole royal family were assassinated, right there in his Erzincan palace,” said my uncle. “The people knew it was the doing of the Chief Minister, but none dared denounce him, for fear that Abagha would take advantage of any internal dispute, to march his Mongols in and ransack the country.”
“So,” my father concluded the tale, “the Minister put his own infant son on the throne as King—with himself as ruling Regent, of course—and what few survived of the royal family, he handed over to Abagha for disposal as he wished.”