Daughter of Xanadu (12 page)

By the time Marco and I strode out of the eastern gate, the sun had reached its noon peak, but fortunately the sky was overcast. Most Mongols would laugh at the idea of taking a stroll in the grasslands. But this Italian seemed to enjoy
it. He remarked on the colorful wildflowers, the fresh green of the grasses, the bees and butterflies.

My mind overflowed with rebukes for Marco. But walking with him made me wonder if it was wrong of me to blame him for my humiliation. It was really my own fault. When the Khan asked my opinion of Ai-Jaruk, I should have said, “Such a strong woman brings great honor to her father.” Of course, the right words came later.

Truth be told, I had missed Marco. I wished we could talk about the evening, make sense of it. But I was not supposed to trust him. He was not a friend, after all, but a source of information.

Now, walking close to him in the grasslands, I tried to bring to mind the words I had practiced, the questions that would get him to reveal his secrets.

As usual, he was at no loss for words. “Emmajin Beki, may I ask a question?” he said when we were far outside the city walls. “The topic may be sensitive.”

This man had no sense of right and wrong. I stopped and stared at him.

“The Great Khan’s feet—what is wrong with them?”

The Khan’s feet were swollen and painful. That was obvious to all. He had to be carried everywhere. No one dared to discuss it. Was Marco looking for the Khan’s weakness, to report to his fellow countrymen? “Why do you ask?” I said.

“In my country, there is a disease called gout. Only rich men suffer from it. I have heard of a medicine to treat gout, but it is hard to find.”

“I know nothing about this subject,” I said. I continued walking, wondered if Marco was hatching some kind of plot.

“What are you thinking about, Princess?”

“The story you told to the Khan.”

“What about it?”

I stopped walking again and glared at him. “First, you must never—ever!—keep the Great Khan waiting.”

Marco blushed. “I lost my way. Then I slipped and fell into a pond.”

“You are lucky he didn’t send you away forever.”

Marco looked down, clearly embarrassed. He reminded me of Suren as a boy. “I was already late. There was no time to go back and change.”

I shook my head. I wondered if all foreigners were so careless. “More importantly,” I continued, “you should not have told a story about Khaidu. The Great Khan hates him. Khaidu claims that he has the right to be Great Khan.”

Marco shook his head. “How was I to know?”

“It’s safer if you don’t tell stories about other Mongols. We have storytellers to investigate and tell the correct versions of these stories.”

Marco picked a long strand of grass and twisted it. “Thank you, Princess. I appreciate your advice.”

I had wanted to humble him, to regain the upper hand. But I felt no joy in it. It was too easy. A Mongol man would have fought back if someone had lectured him.

“What made you decide to tell the story of Ai-Jaruk?” I asked sharply.

“I heard it when I was traveling through the desert West. I thought you would like this tale. You showed such courage by competing in that archery tournament.”

I tried not to blush at his obvious flattery. “You should tell the Khan a story from your homeland. You do have such stories, don’t you?”

“Ah.” A small smile appeared in his beard. “I loved hearing stories when I was a boy. The best were stories from France, stories of knights and ladies.”

“Knights?”

“
Cavalieri
, warriors on horseback.”

This sounded more promising. “Christendom has mounted warriors?”

“They wear metal armor. When they are not fighting battles, they practice their skills in tournaments, called jousting matches. Not archery, but jousting. They use lances, a kind of long pointed spear, and ride straight toward each other, trying to knock the opponent off his horse. It’s a test of skill and courage.”

Strange. I could not imagine two Mongol warriors doing such a thing. To be knocked off his horse would be the ultimate humiliation for a Mongol. Still, Marco was finally talking about military practices. I nodded, encouraging him to continue.

His green eyes danced as he took on his storyteller voice. “Such matches attract many onlookers, with great excitement,” he said. “Colorful banners flutter in the breeze. Shields are displayed, with the symbols of different noble houses. The king and his royal family watch from a grandstand.”

He was captivating me, again, with his words. “Do women compete, too?” I asked.

“No. But the ladies of the court play an important role. Before each tournament, a knight will ask a royal lady for her favor. If she wants him to win, she will give him a scarf, and he will tie it to his sleeve when he competes. She will cheer for him to win.”

“Courtly love.” I had hoped to hear more about this hazardous idea.

“Courtly love.” Marco’s eyes brimmed with mischief. “In one of our best-loved tales, a king named Arthur is famous for his wise rule, like your Khan. His queen is a beautiful young woman named Guinevere. His finest knight falls in love with her.”

“He loves the queen?” That was treachery. “Our Khan would kill such a man.”

He lowered his voice, as if telling me something he should not. “It is not like love between a man and his wife. It is more like worship, or adoration, of a man for a lady.”

“A man worships a lady who is not his wife?” The idea seemed awful and alluring.

“Yes. The knight watches a royal lady with longing, but he knows he could never have her. One day, he hopes, she will smile at him. Then he will know she admires him.”

My insides shivered. I did not smile.

Marco’s green eyes seemed to glow. “Of course, it is an impossible love. The knight would never touch the lady unless she wanted him to.”

A frisson went up my back. “And if she refused his affections?”

“If he could not see her, he would weep and sigh. He would write poems about her, wishing he had the wings of a dove to fly back to her.”

What Marco spoke of sounded both risky and appealing. What kind of place was this Christendom? “He worships a lady.”

“Not like he worships God. Very different. But he loves
and admires her from afar. His love ennobles him and inspires him to do great things, to serve her.”

“He would serve a lady?” Could love for a woman actually ennoble and inspire a man, rather than weaken him and distract him from his duty?

Marco grinned. “Let me show you how the knights do it.”

He looked around and picked a yellow wildflower, long-stemmed and lovely. Then he took off his hat and held it before his chest. He knelt and offered me the flower.

“O noble lady, your beauty and radiance blind me. I am at your service.” He looked up at me and I saw a teasing twinkle in his clear eyes, even as his voice took on a serious tone. “Please accept this flower as a token of my love.”

I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. A man on his knees before a woman! Professing adoration and willingness to serve her! Women were meant to serve men, not the other way around. Then again, he was a lowly merchant, and I a member of the Khan’s Golden Family. Of course, he was just acting, showing me how others did it. Still, it was strange. It was wrong. Terrible, even. But it turned my head.

Marco looked up at me with an odd combination of admiration and playfulness. A butterfly lit on his shoulder. A slight breeze shook the yellow wildflower in his hand.

My heart was bursting in my chest. My ambition had always been to be a warrior, but this foreign notion, courtly love, appealed to something so deep in me I had not known it was there. My cheeks felt hot.

I couldn’t accept the flower.

“Very different from the Mongol tradition, no?” He
broke the tension and stood. Then, as naturally as if I were his little sister, he tucked the flower behind my ear.

The touch of his fingertips lit my ear on fire. I looked at him with alarm.

“I mean no harm,” Marco said. “You are always safe with me. I am a merchant, not a knight. A teller of tales. I hope I did not offend you.”

“You should not …,” I began. It took a moment to get my voice back. His eyebrows rose. “You should never, never tell such a story to the Great Khan.”

Marco guffawed.

“If you did, he would …” I did not want to continue.
He would not trust you to spend time alone with me, ever again
, I thought. Did I trust Marco?

If Marco thought, for even one moment, that he could love me, a princess of the Khan’s family, he was making a terrible mistake. A dangerous mistake. A daring, delicious mistake. No, I would have to be firm with him. I was not a lady giving her scarf to a warrior. I was preparing to be a warrior myself.

This conversation had gone too far.

I took off, running.

Marco ran behind me, through the tall grasses speckled with wildflowers. We were like two children, racing across the meadow. I was much more comfortable moving.

Marco caught up with me, ran alongside me, then sprinted ahead. I was surprised to see that he could run so fast. Here was one physical activity at which he excelled.

I veered off toward a little hilltop I knew about, and he followed me up. This hill was a berm, part of the outer
defenses of Xanadu. At a strategic spot on it stood a heap of stones, taller than I was. I stopped when I reached the cairn.

“What is this?” Marco regarded the heap with curiosity.

“An
ovoo,
” I told him. “It marks a sacred place.” Mixed in with the rocks were blue and white scarves that travelers had left there, to show their respect. “See? You pick up a stone from the ground and circle the
ovoo
three times, making a wish. Then you toss the stone onto the pile.”

I picked up a nearby stone and began walking to my left around the
ovoo
. Marco did the same, following me. He remained quiet, respecting our custom.

After three times around, I stopped, repeated my wish inside my head, and tossed my stone onto the heap. Marco did the same.

“What was your wish?” I asked him.

Marco’s grin was lopsided. “Should I tell you?”

“Yes!”

“I wished that you would not join the Khan’s army.”

His wish surprised me. “Why?”

He twisted his mouth. “You could be killed.”

I laughed. “That’s what makes it exciting.”

He shook his head. “I don’t like this warfare business. Too much blood. Soldiers are trained to kill. Surely you wouldn’t want …”

My irritation returned. “Yes, I would. The most highly regarded men are the finest warriors. They are the noble ones who make a difference in the world.”

“Ah, yes, sorry. We have it upside down in Venezia.”

“Upside down?”

“The noble men become senators, to help govern the city. They get an education. Some buy ships or go off to trade, to
bring back precious goods that make life more comfortable. Not as noble as invading countries.”

It seemed he was mocking me and my desires and my people, but in such a lighthearted way it was hard to take offense.

“The young men don’t wish to train to become warriors?” I asked.

“You saw how slow I was with my dagger!” He laughed. “No, most wealthy young men aspire to go to sea, to take part in trade. But it’s not just to gain wealth. We travel to other countries, learn foreign languages, try to understand other people. It’s an appealing life, one of adventure. In my homeland, this is considered noble work.”

Upside down was right. Who would aspire to go to sea?

Marco grew serious. “Everyone suffers during wars. We traders like stability. During times of peace, we can trade with countries that are far away. This is why I admire your Great Khan. Although your armies are still fighting in China, he has established peace for thousands of miles between here and my homeland. When my father was my age, a Latin could not safely travel this far. We traders prefer peace.”

“Peace!” I nearly spit. “The only way you can make peace is through conquest. And the only way to keep it is to suppress rebels and bandits, by force.”

“True.” Marco smiled. “But I can’t help thinking there is a better way.”

He seemed so naive. “A better way than conquest?”

He smiled ruefully. “It will probably seem absurd to you. But sometimes there is a role for talking things through. Maybe even a role for storytellers. Once when we were
captured by fierce tribesmen in the mountains, I told them tales of our homeland. It softened their hearts and they freed us.”

“You were lucky they didn’t kill you,” I said. “Didn’t you tell me that in all those small countries in Christendom, their armies are always fighting one another?”

Marco nodded. “True. Each king has his own army. We believe each country should rule itself. We love our freedom.”

“Those countries would be better off as part of the Mongol Empire,” I stated. “That’s their only chance of achieving greatness.”

Marco observed me steadily. “Princess, how can I explain? There is dread in my land, of Mongols, whom my people call Tartars. If my people could see the splendors of Xanadu, they might change their minds. But we hear horrible stories of the hordes that invaded Christendom. Those warriors raped, looted, massacred innocents by the thousand. They cut off the ears of each person they killed.”

I remembered the disembodied ears Old Master had showed us. Marco’s face reflected his pain and disgust. So this was how our people were viewed in his homeland. This foreigner was cursing our revered Great Ancestor, who gave fair warning to every land he invaded, promising leniency to all who cooperated.

I straightened my back. “Eternal Heaven ordained that the Mongols conquer all lands, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun. This is our destiny.”

The foreigner backed off, as if I had pulled out a saber. “Again, forgive me, Princess. I am but a simple merchant, not qualified to discuss the affairs of khans.”

“True. You are not.” I could hear the harshness in my voice. This man was saying traitorous things that could get him hanged. “Let’s return,” I said.