“That is because the Mongols do not needa Minister of War,” he said cheerfully, bouncing a round ball of ivory in one hand. “They make war as naturally as you or I would make jiao-gou with a woman, and they are probably better at doing war than jiao-gou.”
“Probably,” I said. “Minister Chao, I would be grateful if you would tell me—”
“Please, Elder Brother,” he said, raising the hand which held the ivory ball. “Ask me nothing about war. I can tell you absolutely nothing about war. If, however, you require advice on the making of jiao-gou …”
I looked at him. It was the third time he had spoken that slightly indelicate term. He looked placidly back at me, squeezing and revolving the carved ivory ball in his right hand. I said, “Forgive my persistence, Minister Chao, but the Khakhan has enjoined me to make inquiry of every—”
“Oh, I do not mindtelling you anything. I mean only that I am totally ignorant of war. I am much better informed about jiao-gou.”
That made the fourth mention. “Could I be mistaken?” I asked. “Are you not the Minister of War?”
Still cheerfully, he said, “It is what we Han call passing off a fish eye for a pearl. My title is an empty one, an honor conferred for other functions I perform. As I said, the Mongols needno Minister of War. Have you yet called on the Armorer of the Palace Guard?”
“No.”
“Do so. You would enjoy the encounter. The Armorer is a handsome woman. My wife, in fact: the Lady Chao Ku-an. That is because the Mongols no more require an adviser on armaments than they require advice on making war.”
“Minister Chao, you have me quite confounded. You were drawing at that table when I came in, drawing on a scroll. I assumed you were making a map of battle plans, or something of the sort.”
He laughed and said, “Something of the sort. If you consider jiao-gou as a sort of battle. Do you not see me palpating this ivory ball, Elder Brother Marco? That is to keep my right hand and fingers supple. Do you not know why?”
I suggested feebly, “To be deft in the caresses of jiao-gou?”
That sent him into a real convulsion of laughter. I sat and felt like a fool. When he recovered, he wiped his eyes and said, “I am an artist. If you ever meet another, you will find him also playing with one of these hand balls. I am an artist, Elder Brother, a master of the boneless colors, a holder of the Golden Belt, the highest accolade bestowed upon artists. More to be desired than an empty Mongol title.”
“I still do not understand. There is already a Court Master of the Boneless Colors.”
He smiled. “Yes, old Master Chien. He paints prettypictures. Little flowers. And my dear wife is famous as the Mistress of the Zhu-gan Cane. She can paint just the shadows of that graceful cane, and make you see it entire. But I—” He stood tall, and thumped his chest with his ivory ball, and said proudly, “I am the Master of the Feng-shui, and feng-shui means ‘the wind, the water’—which is to say, I paint that which cannot be grasped. Thatis what won me the Golden Belt from my artist peers and elders.”
I said politely, “I should like to see some of your work.”
“Unfortunately, I now have to paint the feng-shui on my own time, if ever. The Khan Kubilai gave me my bellicose title just so I could be installed here in the palace to paint another sort of thing. My own fault. I was incautious enough to reveal to him that other talent of mine.”
I tried to return to the subject that had brought me. “You have nothing to do with war, Master Chao? Not in the least?”
“Well, the least possible, yes. That cursed Arab Achmad would probably withhold my wages if I did not make some pretense at fulfilling my titular office. Therefore, with my unsupple left hand, so to speak, I keep records of the Mongols’ battles and casualties and conquests. The orloks and sardars tell me what to write, and I write it down. Nobody ever looks at the records. I might as well be writing poetry. Also, I set little flags and simulated yak tails on a great map to keep visible account of what the Mongols have conquered, and what yet remains to be conquered.”
Chao said all of that in a very bored voice, unlike the happy fervor with which he had spoken of his feng-shui painting. But then he cocked his head and said, “You also spoke of maps. You are interested in maps?”
“I am, yes, Minister. I have assisted in the making of some.”
“None like this, I wager.” He led me to another room, where a vast table, nearly as big as the room, was covered by a cloth, lumped and peaked by what it protected. He said, “Behold!” and whisked off the cloth.
“Cazza beta!” I breathed. It was not just a map, it was a work of art. “Did you make this, Minister Chao?”
“I wish I could say yes, but I cannot. The artist is unknown and long dead. This sculptured model of the Celestial Land is said to date back to the reign of the First Emperor Chin, whenever that was. It was he who commanded the building of the wall called the Mouth, which you can see there in miniature.”
Indeed I could. I could see everything of Kithai, and the lands around it as well. The map was, as Chao said, a model, not a drawing on a sheet of paper. It appeared to have been molded of gesso or terracotta, flat where the earth was in fact flat, raised and convoluted and serrated where the earth actually rose in hills and mountains—and then the whole of it had been overlaid with precious metals and stones and colored enamels. To one side lay a turquoise Sea of Kithai, its curving shores and bays and inlets all carefully delineated, and into that sea ran the land’s rivers, done in silver. All the mountains were gilded, the highest of them tipped with diamonds to represent snow, and the lakes were little pools of blue sapphires. The forests were done, almost to the individual tree, in green jade, and farmlands were a brighter green enamel, and the major cities were done, almost to the individual house, in white alabaster. Hither and yon ran the wavery line of the Great Wall—or Walls, as it is in places—done in rubies. The deserts were sparkling flats of powdered pearl. Across the whole great table-sized landscape were lines inlaid in gold, appearing squiggly where they undulated over mountains and highlands, but when I looked directly down on them, I could see that the lines were straight—up and down the model, back and forth, making an overlay of squares. The east—west lines were clearly the climatic parallels, and the north—south lines the longitudes, but from what meridian they measured their distances I could not discern.
“From the capital city,” said Chao, having noticed my scrutiny. “In those times it was Xian.” He pointed to the tiny alabaster city, far to the southwest of Khanbalik. “That is where this map was found, some years ago.”
I noticed also the additions Chao had made to the map—little paper flags to represent the battle standards of orloks, and feathers to represent the yak tails of sardars—outlining what the Khan Kubilai and his Ilkhans and Wangs held of the lands represented.
“Not all of the map, then, is within the empire,” I observed.
“Oh, it will be,” said Chao, in the same bored voice with which he talked of his office. He began to point. “All of this, here, to the south of the River Yang-tze, is still the Empire of Sung, with its capital over here in the beautiful coast city of Hang-zho. But you can see how closely the Sung Empire is pressed about by our Mongol armies on its borders. Everything north of the Yang-tze is what used to be the Empire of Chin and is now Kithai. Over yonder, the entire west is held by the Ilkhan Kaidu. And the high country of To-Bhot, south of there, is ruled by the Wang Ukuruji, one of Kubilai’s numerous sons. The only battles being waged at the moment are down here—in the southwest—where the Orlok Bayan is campaigning in the province of Yun-nan.”