Caravan To Xanadu

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.

Nicolo and Maffeo had known of this marvel ever since their previous journey to Cathay, but counted it so little compared with much else they had seen that they had never mentioned it in my hearing. Nor had they spoken of the paper money we began to see in the towns and posthouses—paper very like the Arabian sort, made from flax, cut into strips and bearing a writing designating a certain sum in silver as set by the Khan. Peasants in the fields accepted it as readily as silver, never questioning whether it might be counterfeit; thus a man could carry a fair-sized fortune in his bootleg, and a one-horse load would buy a thousand horses.

The season advanced, the road ran on, and by the end of April we were in northern Shansi along the great bend of the Hwang Ho. For many moons and a thousand miles I had heard mention of Kuku-khoto, the Blue City, the great mart of Middle Tatary above the Wall, and the abode of the Living Buddha. I had thought it would be so strange to come to it at last. But now we came to it and the merchants traded there and we saw the wondrous temples with their countless idols and after a while it dropped behind the horizon. We had come now to a populous plain, strewn with cities and towns, and paying immense tribute to the Khan in gold, silver, and paper money and in the stuffs of their manufacture, especially gold and silver cloth gorgeous beyond description. And far and wide, down every road and across every water, the name of Kublai Khan was a name to make men catch their breath and women turn white with awe and little children grow round-eyed. And as we moved eastward, it was around and about us like the bowl of the sky.

No name of mortal man that was ever breathed, I thought, held so many in such awe. In Christendom not even the name of God sounded and resounded with the same thunder, perhaps because His face and hand were hidden from mortal sight, and He dwelt in Heaven instead of in a man-built palace across a river, a mountain, or a plain. Indeed Kublai Khan was more than a name; it had become a watchword, an appellation at once terrible and sublime; millions upon millions of human beings pronounced it in their prayers.

His couriers rode furiously on every turnpike. From every lane came droves of horses, camels, cattle, and sheep for his use, and caravans and trains of carts loaded with the produce of the farms and factories bound for his treasure houses. There was no law but the Khan’s, no right or wrong except what increased or reduced his power and glory; every body and soul and stick and stone was his personal possession to do with what he pleased. The sun must shine or the rain must fall by his imperial leave, for if they balked, his horde of wild-eyed magicians from Kashmir and Tibet conjured them to his sway. This last was told us by the most learned men we met. After many tellings, I did not believe or disbelieve, only put it out of my mind. If I were to survive on some desperate day not far off, it must be not as a king-worshiping Oriental, but as a Venetian.

We journeyed to Siuen-hwa-fu, a considerable city devoted to making harness and leather and fur garments for the Khan’s troops, not far below the Wall in the far northeastern corner of Shansi. Three days beyond lay a country of far-flooded rivers and lakes, black with water fowl on the spring flight, and at a place called Chagan Nor, meaning White Pool, the Khan was having erected a hunting lodge, for his ease in hunting the birds with his thousands of falcons, and in hawking the pheasants, partridges, and cranes that swarmed the plains. The edifice would be of marble, and with its additions and outbuildings it would house ten thousand souls, the least number that accompanied him on pleasure trips, not counting the Imperial Guard, which would quarter mainly in the town.

From thence a great turnpike made for Peking, and in hardly a week’s easy march we could have laid eyes on the greatest palace in all the world. But we would not see the Sun of the World shining in glory there, for the sun in the sky told us this was May, and he and his train were making for Xanadu, his summer palace and pleasure dome ten days to the north in the province of Jehol. He would arrive toward the last day of May. A few days later he would hold a Fete of welcome, receiving emissaries and gift-bringers from all this corner of his empire. And since Nicolo and Maffeo were his accredited ambassadors whose duty it was to bring him tidings from Christendom, they too turned north. And since my slave girl was a prized attendant upon Nicolo’s slave girl, I followed them, walking in the dust.

On that ten-day march, it was as though we were drawing nearer some kind of heaven, where an infinite number of angels strummed harps and sang, and no shadow could exist in the manifold rainbow light, and every moment held more thrilling pleasure than a lifetime on earth. We heard no music, saw no radiance, but the converging caravans, loaded with gifts and tribute, and the travelers pouring from every lane and footpath, had the same effect in heightening our excitement. Hence came subject princes with their gorgeous trains, governors of provinces who swayed more power than many a king in Europe, barons bejeweled and bedizened, mighty captains of hosts with guards of honor, ambassadors riding fast with sealed documents and royal greetings, wealthy merchants from all lands, artists hoping for sudden fame, wandering players, jongleurs, and musicians, peddlers of all sorts, and, in ever increasing numbers, humble pleasure-seekers and sightseers. These last were spending in one fling their little stores of hard-earned coins and ill-afforded leisure. The greater part of every day they spent on the roadside, making way for dignitaries and their trains. Yet I saw no resentment in their faces; they gaped at every wonder and thrilled at the displays and aspired to no happiness better than merging with the laughing bright-eyed crowds, and dreamed no dream of glory greater than beholding, with their own eyes, the very Khan.

Some of the families had bullock carts in which the women and children rode, along with food for the journey, cooking pots, holiday clothes, and even a rude pavilion. Others had loaded their gear on a single animal, the parents and the older children walking, and usually carrying babes on backs, in arms, or in wombs. If they had no baggage except bundles, as was true of thousands of poor pilgrims, their cares seemed proportionately light. Why not? When their money was spent and their bellies were empty, the Khan would fling out largess. There was no danger of rain or any disagreeable weather, because the Khan would forbid it. And the little fields to which they must return would yield better crops next year because they had basked in the effulgence of the Khan.

The unexplainable rise and the swift flight of one rumor after another added to the general joy, and no one mourned the sudden death of its predecessor. The Khan would give away one hundred elephant-loads of silver alms. . . . The Khan would feed a hundred traitors to his hunting tigers. . . . The Khan would name which of his twenty-five legitimate sons would succeed him, and three would be thrown to death in carpets for gazing through a window into his harem. The Khan had a new drinking mug, to hold a gallon of mare’s milk, carved from a single diamond. . . . To my amazement, our caravan was the subject of one swift-winged tale—that Nico-lo-po, a great baron of Frankistan, was bringing testaments of surrender and subjection, along with vast tribute, from the Emperor of the West to be laid at the Khan’s feet. Only the Emperor’s name was in dispute. Some thought it was Richard the Lion-Hearted—the far-flung fame of that long-dead doughty Englishman had stirred me before now. Others maintained it was the Pope, and no few held it to be Prester John.

The air favorable to the flight of rumors lay close to the ground, heavy with human scent, so Nicolo and Maffeo, riding high at the head of the caravan, were not likely to hear many. I did nothing to bring the story about him to Nicolo’s attention, let alone scotch it. Since the report of his world-spanning journey had caught the imagination of the pilgrims, there was a fair chance of its living on, gathering plausible detail as it spread far and wide, until it became current in Xanadu, where it might, through palace chitchat, reach the ears of the Khan. I took pleasure in fancying a devastating anticlimax to these sensations. . . . But I could not afford such empty dreams, and soon put them by.

2

The golden tablet and the fact of their long-belated returning to the Khan’s Court lent Nicolo and Maffeo large and genuine importance in official eyes. Three days out of Xanadu, a district chief appointed them a kind of beadle, to clear their way through the crowds and to determine precedence between them and other official parties. Thereafter the journey sped as in a dream.

These last days we traveled the road that the Khan took on his return from Xanadu in September; hence there were rest palaces for his use from ten to fifteen miles apart. The courier posts had been imposing enough, these were fit for the year-long residences of the second order of kings. Such noble edifices were preparing me, I thought, for the summer palace known as Xanadu Keibung. While it was neither as great nor as costly as the great palace of Peking, the drivers told me it was a pleasure dome not unworthy of the Great Khan.

Our last day on the road was the next to the last day of May according to Christian counting. By traveling late, our caravan could have entered the main south gate of Xanadu city, and Maffeo and Nicolo have gained admittance to a guesthouse on the palace grounds. Instead we stopped at sundown at a caravanserai three miles from the city wall, and before dawn flushed up, we took a leafy lane that led us in the general direction of the west gate. This was by the beadle’s arrangements. He was aware that the two had never seen Xanadu Keibung and had planned a pleasant surprise for them, he too being a gentleman of refined tastes. We followers were not forbidden a share in the treat provided we had the wit to appreciate it.

As we gained the crest of a high hill west of the wall, the sun heaved up in the east. Then I thought that our camels must gaze with a thrill in their dull hearts, and I would not wonder at them, only weep, if the dumb beasts knelt down.

When a jewel is mounted among lesser jewels by a cunning lapidary, they set each other off. Yet the central stone remains the subject of the invention and takes the eye first. So it was with the main edifice of Xanadu Keibung.^[24] At this distance it gave the effect of a superably set gem infinitely magnified. It had the shimmer of a pearl and, as the sun mounted, the changing hues of an opal.

The eye looked close to discover the most obvious source of the illusion—the three wide-eaved roofs crowning the three retracting stories were of polished tiles of gold, silver, pearl, scarlet, azure, emerald, and every variant tint known to the rainbow; the pillars supporting these aglitter or agleam with precious inlay and lacquer; and the multicolored marble of the half-glimpsed walls. Its square dark-red terrace was about twenty acres in extent and set in what appeared to be a ring of turquoise three or four times larger, perfectly imaging the palace in all its manifold lights, and the forest at its rims. But this last was not magic. The Jewel is in the Lotus, so chant the Tibetan monks to infinitude. This jewel was in a lake.

Four marble causeways, green, blue, black, and white, led to the four entrances of the palace with the effect of an enameled cross. On one shore of the lake stood numerous double- and single-roofed mansions of noble state and dimension. These were the lodgings of some of the Khan’s kinsmen and guesthouses for visiting princes and other exalted folk. All of these, with their gardens, arbors, courts, and colonnades, and the lake itself with its solitaire and landscaped shores, were enclosed in a gleaming white wall, almost as high as the trees, fully a mile square. From this distance the fountains looked like white or rainbow-hued lilies, the rills like silver threads, and the seasonal flower beds, multicolored bridges, and canopied barges suggested fine inlay in a richly jeweled medallion. The effect of the whole extravaganza at close view we could only imagine.

Far out over hill and dale ran outer walls, enclosing, it seemed, the whole countryside. The inner enclosure was a mere fraction of this expanse, estimated by the beadle at sixteen square miles. They constituted the most beautiful park I had ever seen.

It lay generally between a high ridge, plumed with tall, dark pines, and a long loop of the sluggish, low-lying, slow-flowing Lan Ho, sometimes called the Alph, nearly half a mile wide at this reach. The upper landscape was wild and rugged in the extreme, with black forest and gray heath, cliffs, crags, and glimpses of a white cataract that appeared to burst full-grown well under the rimrock. It leaped down a deep-cut chasm at the bottom of a wooded glen, its roaring distinctly audible at this distance of at least two miles. Every interopening ravine had its singing brook to swell the violent stream, so when it debouched from the chasm, it was a young river, flowing boldly and with majesty. Where its banks began to level off, hardly a mile from its source, a towered bridge, pale gold in hue, spanned the shining waters. These lulled quickly and turned dark blue below the bridge, and took a winding course on to the Lan Ho.

A road from the town crossed the bridge, and to this and some adjacent ground, the people were given free access. Here they could enjoy entertainments the Khan provided, picnic, and watch the training of several hundred of his best gerfalcons kept in the park in mew.

Actually the main purpose of this park was to afford the Khan hunting and coursing on a small scale. The large buildings and pens that we glimpsed through the trees housed the birds, as well as the hounds and the hunting leopards belonging to his entourage. However, we were not to think that this walled enclosure of sixteen square miles, thronging with game, furnished even a considerable fraction of the Khan’s sport. To his great hunting camp on the Hwang Ho, he brought ten thousand giant mastiffs, as well as hounds, leopards, and hunting tigers. These and his hawks supplied the Court with one thousand head of game, whether beast or bird, every day of the winter months. The hawkers, dog-handlers, watchers, and kennel and mews men numbered thirty-five thousand. At least ten thousand of his barons and courtiers, with their slaves and trains, could lodge in luxury at this vast encampment, and follow the hawks and the hounds in their master’s wake.

An ample supply of game to furnish their fill of sport was provided by two short ordinances of the Khan. No other person in the vast province, not even the Royal Governor, was allowed to keep mews and kennels. If any person in all Cathay killed any wild animal or bird during the winter months, he was whipped to death.

The lower half of the park contained many beautiful woods, emerald-green meadows, fishpools, and meandering streams. Dreamy pavilions stood beside flower-banked ponds. But its prime feature was a smaller palace, crowning a hill, that seemed built of solid gold. This was a favorite retreat of the Khan’s during his stay in Xanadu, especially on hot and sultry nights; and although it could house a thousand souls, it was built entirely of giant canes covered with gilt. An equal wonder was that it occupied ground which only a fortnight ago had been empty. The entire structure could be taken down, loaded with its furnishings on several thousand camels, transported at the Khan’s whim, and re-erected—all in a matter of days. If one of his favorite concubines grew tired of the view from her window, he needed no Aladdin’s lamp to work a wondrous change.

“Are the people allowed anywhere in the park except in those precincts?” Nicolo asked in his clear, far-carrying voice.

“No, and the region of the chasm is forbidden to his foresters and keepers. It’s said he wishes to keep that part as Nature made it.” More than that was said, to judge from the beadle’s face; but he quickly veered from the subject. “When the Khan holds durbar, the people may come into the inner grounds through the lower gate and hang around the doors and balconies of the great hall. Indeed, they’d be allowed to enter if they could find room. The Khan holds by the ancient law of the Mongol that his meanest subject may have access to his imperial person, along with the right of petition.”

“I can’t remember any of the common sort attending the great durbar in Peking.”

“They aren’t forbidden to do so, after the great folk and their attendants have taken their places. Moreover, if they have petitions, they can raise their hands. But sometimes the Khan is busied with other matters, in which case he doesn’t point his scepter at the petitioner. It is a risk that few of his meaner subjects care to run.”

“What happens in that case?”

“He is taken out and strangled.”

Nicolo did not answer but turned with a charmed expression to sniff at a gentle breeze coming up with the sun. It had blown across the park and had gathered up the incense of flowering trees. I could not recall a more exquisite perfume. As Nicolo savored it, seated atop his great gray stallion, a passer-by would have thought him a very king.