Caravan To Xanadu

CHAPTER 8

THE MAGICIANS

The monks had marched in silence to take me by surprise, and so had collected no long tail of riffraff. Since the caravanserai lay at the outskirts of the town, I could hope that the guards would close and lock the gates before devil-ridden crowds could gather. There was one other factor that I could count as favorable. Suchow was the only oasis of any size or importance in many days’ march, and the Khan’s law was executed with respect to frontier conditions. Here, as in many remote cities, the merchants were granted autonomy within the caravanserais as long as their verdicts were not appealed to the Governor. I would surely stand my first trial before them under the rulings of the serai master.

Such underlings as cameleers, hostlers, baggage wallahs, water boys, and sweepers gathered swiftly into a compact crowd, silent but greatly excited. Singly or in pairs, the merchants came out of their quarters as the news reached them, and before long the serai master, wearing an iron key and other badges of authority, made a dignified appearance with his bailiff and clerk. The gates swung shut. The dung fires mounted and cast a lurid light on the two rows of ragamuffins and their now silent chief. I caught a glimpse of Pietro standing among the middle fellows but averted my gaze from him. As Nicolo and Maffeo Polo made a lordly entrance—for the whole city knew that they were ambassadors to the great Khan—it may be that my cheekbones flushed, but my lips curled in a sneer.

Attendants brought an iron chair for the serai master. A bench was placed for the abbot of the magicians, and some horse tenders with slanted eyes and button noses gasped to see him seat himself Buddha-wise, with his legs tucked under him. A long silence fell. A big rat that was neither black nor brown but snow-white crept out from the rows of squatting magicians full into the firelight. When one of them uttered a squealing sound, the beast ran back.

“What is your charge, O Abbot, and by what evidence and against whom is it made?” the serai master asked in Turki-Tatar.

The Abbot replied with great vehemence in a high-pitched frantic voice.

“While worshiping the Giant Dwarf in our temple, two of our brethren of the Swasti beheld the selfsame vision. It was of two violators of our temple, making their way to the Room of Wonders. Driven by that vision, they left the temple, and lo, as they passed the landing on the stairs they beheld the two miscreants, hidden in an alcove. It being against their faith to lay hands forcibly upon even the vilest thief, they feigned to avert their eyes. Passing by, they brought word to me of the violation, but the blasphemers had fled with their loot, being a suit of the dragon skins that defy fire.”

When he paused to catch his breath with a sucking sound, the serai master spoke in a calm, judicious tone as might the Doge of Venice.

“The fire-walkers have told that these garments are the most deadly poison to all except themselves. Why did not the thieves fall down dead?”

“Only by casting horoscopes and certain ceremonies of divination can we know the full truth. But my brethren thought they recognized one of the desecrators, whose face was less hidden, as a monk of Bonpo, the abominable heresy practiced across the valley. If so, he could have learned the secret antidote of the poison and rendered the garments harmless.”

“What then?”

“We wished for the eyes of a desert owl that would penetrate the darkness and reveal the evildoers. The God of the Night had not given us such eyes, but he sent her whom he had so endowed, and she flew to our help.”

Suddenly the whole assembly caught its breath. Perched on the Abbot’s shoulder was a little brown owl such as dwells in the same burrow with marmots and desert asps. I had been watching all his gestures and expressions that the firelight disclosed, yet I had not seen the visitor’s arrival.

“You were able to trace the thieves?”

“We found where they had tied their horses, and soon we caught sight of a slave girl carrying a bundle as though it were clothes for washing. We followed her to the woman’s ghat, and then to this very courtyard. Also, one of our number saw two horsemen whom our gods whispered to him were the evil twain. One was without doubt a priest of the Bonpo—presently he parted with his fellow and rode away. Our brother followed the other, and was about to lose sight of him, knowing not his countenance, when a pale light, such as might be cast by a giant firefly in summer forest, played upon him. Behold, he was a tall man on a red horse, and his countenance was like that of the Khan’s ambassador from Frankistan.”

“Do you dare accuse Nicolo the Frank——”

“I looked upon the great Emir as he took his place. My brethren told me of his resemblance to the rider in face and form, as though they were brothers, but the rider was somewhat younger.”

“None of your followers have spoken to you since Nicolo Emir took his place.”

“Ah, but one has—with the tongue of the spirit.”

“Nicolo Emir rides a dapple-gray horse, but a younger kinsman of his wife’s rides a red horse.”

“Aye, and we behold him among the merchants.”

“It’s a grave charge, O Lama.”

“I do not make it, lord. I ask if he owns a female slave of Nubia, and whether she came hence tonight with a white bundle, and what might be the contents of that bundle.”

“Is there anyone here who can answer those questions?” the serai master asked, turning to the listening throng.

“I can answer two of them, master,” a cameleer replied.

“You may do so.”

“The merchant Marco Polo owns such a slave girl, and I saw her bring a white bundle through the gate and carry it to his lodge.”

At that, all the squatted priests raised their arms, palms up, over their heads. Lifting their faces, they gave forth a cry such as might rise from a pack of desert foxes about a lion’s kill.

“Silence!” the master demanded. Then, turning to the cameleer, “Does that complete your testimony?”

“Yes, master. I don’t know what was in the sheet, although it was dripping wet.”

“Deceit! Deceit!” shrieked the priests in one voice.

“We shall see. The evidence surely justifies a search of Marco Polo’s quarters. But before that he shall have a chance to speak.” He turned to me with great dignity. “Marco Polo, have you anything to say in rebuttal of the evidence brought forth against you?”

“No, malik.”

“Then you confess that you have the stolen garments?”

“I have them, malik, but they weren’t stolen.”

“How, then, did they come into your possession? I warn you that the telling of any lie will go hard with you.”

But which lie I told did not matter very much, provided it brought out one fact—my possession of a weapon that in my terror and despair I had almost forgotten.

“It’s true that my companion of tonight was a brother of the Bonpo. He had come from the High Altai, and there he had known my mother’s uncle, Friar Johannes Carpini, who visited the Court of Kuyuk Khan at Karakorum a quarter of a century ago. There may be some graybeard in this company who remembers the event.”

The serai master turned to an old Tatar gatekeeper with a hawk face. “Toto, you are a Karakorumian. Did you hear of the coming of this Frankistani priest?”

“The very wolves on the steppes heard of it,” the old man answered.

“My uncle knew this holy man as Surab,” I went on. “To him he gave moneys to obtain for him a suit of what the Swastika call dragon skins, but this skin was obtained from a den deep in the ground, and that dragon was not killed by magic worked by priests, but by picks and shovels in the hands of common men in the High Altai.”

Over the gathering hung a breathlessness more strained and still than I thought my words could cause. I did not know the reason until I felt a stab of pain, devilish sharp, in the calf of my leg. I whirled in time to glimpse a brown, furry animal, of a larger frame than a housecat’s, but much leaner, run off with a monkey gait and instantly disappear in the shadows. But my pain and fright passed quickly, while my dismay at the throng’s behavior lingered on. Although almost every watcher had seen the beast’s advance upon me, no voice had been raised in warning.

“Abbot, the Frank hasn’t been convicted of any crime, and he or no one else is to be molested while giving testimony,” the serai master said sternly.

“I have not done so, malik.”

“That animal—some kind of monkey—belongs to one of your band.”

“Malik, we’ve never seen him before. I think he was once a man who’d done great evil, and has been reborn in that form. In trying to atone for the evil, he rebuked with his teeth one with a lying mouth. But the avatar won’t molest him further if from henceforth he speaks truth, and he’ll fare much better at our hands.”

I no longer doubted that the Abbot had caught my hint and its implied threat, but its effect upon him was far less marked than I hoped. There came a chill of ill omen upon my spirit.

“He’s not put in your hands yet,” the serai master replied. “Marco of Polo, you may proceed.”

“The holy man Surab promised to deliver the garments when my mother’s uncle Johannes or any emissary called for them, whether in one year, or ten, or three times ten. If he had gone to his gods, his heirs would discharge the debt. The years passed, and I, Johannes’ heir, had word from Surab that he had joined the order of the Bonpo at their monastery at Suchow. To him I sent word that I would surely come here to get my legacy, but when at last I arrived with Nicolo and sought him out, and met him in secret, he told me that the garments had been stolen by the magicians of the Swasti.”

Again the dirty hands shot up, palms and faces raised, and a howl of “Lies! Lies!” shook the icy air.

“Marco of Polo, can you produce the monk whom you call Surab?” the serai master asked.

“I can’t, because I vowed that if he would help me recover my lost legacy, I would consider the debt discharged and protect him from all ill consequences. This vow I made before my saints, never to be broken.”

“How could you be sure that the suit you took was the one your uncle had bought?”

“I couldn’t. I took the first my lamp shone on.”

“What proof can you offer this court that the story is not an invention intended to save you punishment of a high crime?”

“Malik, here are two keys. The large one of iron unlocks the door of my lodging. The small bronze key opens a cabinet in my right-hand saddlebag of Tabriz leather, in which are torn pieces of white fabric. Bid a trusted messenger bring them here, as well as the fire-walker’s suit wrapped in white sheeting.”

“You may go in Toto’s charge and get them yourself. He won’t be required to touch the suit or to get within arm’s reach of it, and I wouldn’t in his place.”

“I’ll not, master, and on that you can bet a horse.” So spoke a good Tatar.

I had long since caught sight of Sheba at the gate of the haremlik. I signaled to her and she came on light feet and followed me ahead of Toto. In a moment she reappeared, carrying the bundle on her head, her hands swinging free at her side. As she calmly set it down before the serai master, the spectators freed their deep-drawn breaths and most of the merchants and hard-bitten cameleers looked faintly sheepish. But the eyes of the magicians half-hidden in unkempt hair were hot and angry.

I put into the master’s hands the two pieces of fabric.

“They were torn in an accident,” I explained, “but your Honor can see that they fit together. On them was written the letter from my mother’s uncle, Friar Johannes Carpini. And you will see too that the material is the same as the suit of the fire-walkers.”

At this last, the master came nigh to dropping the pieces, and clung to them only to save face before the watchers.

“They do seem the same,” he said, when I showed him the helmet. “But the writing here is in a tongue I don’t know.”

“Will you have me read it aloud?”

“That would prove nothing. Ask one of your company to read it and give us its burden.”

“Then I’ll ask Nicolo Emir, ambassador to the Khan.”

I had never in all my days done a bolder thing. The thin ice was instantly apparent to all members of our caravan, and their acute suspense spread fire-fast through the throng. Yet the chance I had played was my best chance, for unless my instincts lied to me, Nicolo would not dare disavow me altogether. The other merchants knew me for his kinsman, countryman, and fellow Christian and never really doubted that I was his son. And while they would take care not to make enemies of the lamas and knew I must be punished for my grave offense, they wanted no precedent set for tossing aliens of position and substance to these louse-bitten dogs. Indeed as Nicolo took the torn pieces I could see that he was nonplused.

Then slowly he raised his head and looked at Maffeo. He began to speak in the Venetian tongue, not loudly, but full-voiced, so that I could hear.

“Do you remember, at our last feast with Zane and Flora, I expressed the fear that Marco would bring our caravan into disrepute?”

“I remember it well,” Maffeo answered.

“I remarked on how he had committed theft to get what he wanted, as his lowborn father had done before him. But you told me I was making too much over a cuckoldry twenty years old.”

“I did say that, yes.”

“Maffeo, you were wrong. Do you confess it and resign this matter to me?” His bearing, like his memory, was like that of a king.

“Nicolo, I’ve long ago resigned all matters to you.”

2

Nicolo nodded gravely. Fitting together the two pieces of fabric, he read in silence. All eyes were fixed on him; everyone knew that the verdict of the court would hang largely on how far he backed my story. The magicians sensed the crisis and the leering insolence of a moment ago passed from their dirty faces. And perhaps because they feared that Maffeo and the other merchants were putting silent pressure upon him, they cast another spell.

I noticed that one pair of eyes after another withdrew from Nicolo and slowly widened. I followed their gaze to behold the most remarkable piece of legerdemain of the night. The faces of the wizards appeared as blank and flaccid as the faces of the dead, but their loosely opened mouths were filled with light. There was not one that did not show an unmistakable pale glimmer and many were luridly bright. I was quite sure that the effect was achieved by small mirrors held by the teeth and tongue as every magician gazed steadfastly into the fire.

Nicolo looked up from his reading. He could not help seeing the weird show but he paid it not one whit of attention.

“Master of the serai!” he called in a strong voice.

The big-eyed man in the chair rallied with a visible effort.

“Aye, Nicolo Polo, ambassador to the Great Khan.”

“The material bearing this writing and the garments of the fire-walkers are undoubtedly the same stuff.”

“That’s of interest to this court. Please continue.”

“The writing bears out Marco’s story that his great-uncle meant him to have a set of garments that he had ordered in Dzungaria. But it mentions no one named Surab, nor does it bear out the account of them being stolen.”

“Part of what I told was recounted to me after Johannes’ death and part by Surab himself,” I broke in.

“Does that complete your testimony?” the master asked Nicolo.

“Yes, your Honor, and I give it in great pain.”

His voice had hardly stilled when the weird lights in the magicians’ mouths went out. Animation slowly returned to the cadaver faces. The serai master spoke with renewed energy.

“Then the offense of Marco Polo becomes more understandable, considering his impetuous youth, but no less criminal,” he declared. Then, turning to the head magician, “What do you ask in the way of punishment?”

“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.

I needed a hundred and fifty more. The merchants told me they would allow that much on my Nubian slave girl, one of whom would put her in his harem.

“What price would you set on my red mare?”

There fell a sharp silence and at least one of the appraisers, a horse-trading Marwari from the Indian city of Bikaner, looked embarrassed. That question seemed to bring home to several listeners how low I had fallen.

“Why, I’d pay the same sum out of hand,” the horse dealer said. “But Christian, a man who calls himself a merchant can’t walk in the dust!”

“I think he can, if he must. Before, when I sold a slave girl to buy transport, I came on ill fortune.”

“By Saint Thomas and Saint Theodore,” a Nestorian jeweler broke in, “it may be you needn’t part with either.”

“I don’t read your riddle,” I answered.

“Those horns there. Unless I’m mistaken they’re off the great wild ram of the Pamir, and the largest I’ve ever seen. I’m a collector of curios of varied sort and sometimes I indulge myself in the way of cost. Suppose I offered you a hundred dinars. Couldn’t you scratch up the extra fifty you need from some of your other gear?”

“No, sir, I don’t think I can.” In truth I had fifty dinars left in my purse, but these must be hoarded against my turning beggar on the road.

“Mark you, there’s no ready market for trophies of the chase. That pair of horns could gather dust in my kiffir for twenty years without an offer of twenty dinars to take them off my hands. But I’ve taken a fancy to them—you’ve had your full share of trouble—and by God, I’ll give you the hundred and fifty you need to get you clear.”

He looked at his other listeners, not at me, giving the effect of waiting their comments on a deal already closed. Actually his ear was pricked up for my reply.

Instead of making any, I looked back and far and high to a scene of the great Pamir. I stood on a narrow ledge on the naked rock with what must be a pearly heaven, so pure as it was, gleaming above me, and Gehenna yawning below. The great ram had fled from me to his retreat, but now he returned to do battle. He wore his great horns as proudly as Kublai Khan wore the crown of Tatary. As the clean-loosed arrow plunged deep in his breast, he rose to his full height and brandished them in the air. Then he fell and looked at me awhile with lifted head, which at last sank down.

His name was Iskander, the Persian form of Alexander, whose power and glory rivaled that of Kublai Khan.

“I thank you kindly,” I heard myself saying, “but I’ll sell the nag.”

The jeweler spat on the ground and walked away. The horse trader went to look at his new mare and the crowd lost interest in me. I thought that the last stripe had been laid on.

Only a moment later a stir passed through the two rows of squatting magicians. Suddenly their master stood up and held his staff aloft.

“Hear ye all!” he yelled. “Tonight we’ve seen an alien in our land deal fairly before our gods even though his own kinsman might take harm therefrom. He’s known as Nicolo Emir, and an ambassador to our Khan. Since he did not protest the judgment, already too light, we present him the suit of dragon skins that our gods have returned to us, so that he too may walk safely through fire.”

I felt in the middle of an evil dream. This was an unbelievable thing, yet I found myself accepting it without surprise, almost without anger at the gods, and with only a further withering of my spirit in the bleak cold that is the climate of such dreams. Surely the magicians would not risk their fire-walking secret by giving the mineral garments to an alien—yet I saw their master humbly lay them at Nicolo’s feet. . . . A servant carried them to his quarters. He handed another servant two pieces of torn fabric that had once counted so much; and he and Maffeo exchanged smiles as the man brought them to me.

Don’t let him have it, Marco my son, or I can’t rest in my grave.

There came a remembered pain across my brows, but it soon passed. The seized camels were being laden with the confiscated goods; presently some yellow-robed youths whom I had not noticed before, probably neophytes in the monastery, led them out the gate. As the magicians rose to leave, they looked like a band of ragamuffins instead of great necromancers, mystic priests of the Swasti. They were behaving with circumspection, the watching merchants thought. . . .

Then our attention was drawn to the smoky murk overhanging the fires. Countless small black forms had come out of the dark and darted back and forth uttering mouselike squeaks. Thousands flew in frantic circles narrowly missing our heads, or skimmed low over the fires, or cut elaborate figures as in a dance of fiends. Their squeaking became an ear-piercing agony and their rank smell turned our stomachs and their numbers sickened our minds.

It was only a vast swarm of bats. Since they did not weigh ten to a pound, hundreds of them could cling under one loose robe. But perhaps some strange accident caused them to be abroad in this unseasonable weather. Presently they vanished and their horrid outcry grew dim and died away.

When again we lowered our sick gaze, the magicians had gone.