Daughter of Xanadu (27 page)

“It was Marco’s idea. He has no military training, but his idea helped us win.”

“What idea?” Whatever it was, I cared not.

“He brought the fire medicine to use against the elephants. Those explosions.”

I looked hard at Abaji and then at Marco.

“We owe him thanks. We could not have won otherwise.”

The explosions that had frightened the elephants. The fire rats and the powder Marco had collected in the dragon village. Yet I could not believe that Abaji was giving credit to Marco for our victory. We did the fighting and killing.

Seeing my anger, grief, and disbelief, Marco looked at his hands.

“But you, Emmajin Beki!” Abaji continued. “I hear you killed one hundred enemy soldiers.” One hundred. I had never said that number. Later stories expanded it to one thousand. But it was not valor or glory that had driven me. It was anger and retribution. Ugly actions driven by ugly motives.

“You must be hungry.” Abaji seemed eager to soothe me. “Have some meat.”

I could not eat. Blood and mud caked on my hands. I went to the stream and washed. My hands came clean, but the stains of battle were embedded in my clothing and my heart. I went to my
ger
and sat a long time. Suren was dead. Marco and I were alive. I had proved I could fight like a man. But there was no thrill in it.

I
did not dream of the horrors of battle that night, although I have many times since. But halfway through the night, I heard Suren calling my name. I woke up saying, “Yes? What is it?” thinking he was sleeping next to me, as he had during our latest journey. Even in the darkness, though, I could sense that he wasn’t there.

Images from the battle flashed through my mind. I tried to shut them out and remember Suren’s face at peace. “What shall I tell your father and the Khan?” I pleaded, ever more desperate to hear him answer. “Suren!” I nearly shouted. My heart was barren and my eyes were dry. I could feel his spirit there with me. I knew well that angry ghosts often haunted those they had quarreled with, but I had never quarreled with Suren. I wanted to tell his unsettled spirit to leave and find peace, but I didn’t have the heart to.

The next morning, at first light, we buried Suren’s body. This far from home, we could not wait for the lamas to
declare an auspicious day. As a prince of the Golden Family, he was placed in a coffin, with his sword by his side, a rock under his head, and Marco’s blue scarf around his neck. His grave was unmarked, but I tried to remember the spot—the slope of the hill and a large rock nearby. Abaji stood by my side, out of respect.

It was raining, and I could not help thinking about that wooden coffin rotting in the wet soil, far from home. It seemed wrong to leave his body there. I wore the dragon’s tooth on its thong under my
del
, next to my heart. It felt heavy and burned my skin.

When we returned to camp, we had to walk between two fires, to drive evil spirits away and prevent further misfortunes. The fires sizzled in the rain, and men worked hard to keep them going.

The other dead soldiers were too numerous to be buried. And we could not follow our nomadic Mongol custom of “casting out” the bodies in remote, dry areas for the wild dogs and vultures. Their bodies had to be burned, to allow their spirits to rise directly to Heaven. A group of men took pains to lay out the bodies of the Khan’s soldiers in close, neat rows, heads pointing north, in preparation for cremation when the rain stopped. It was much quicker to kill hundreds of men than to care for their corpses.

I was glad not to be assigned the hideous task of collecting and burning the bodies. Instead, I was directed to help care for the wounded. I knew nothing of such work, but others had been doing it throughout the night and taught me how. I dipped cloths in water and cleaned superficial wounds. I wiped cool cloths over the faces of the feverish. I tightened tourniquets around arms and legs to minimize blood loss.
Some of the soldiers had burns or limbs missing from the explosions of the fire medicine. Overnight, half the wounded had died, and more died during the day. We could do little to save them. Their moans and screams lacerated my heart.

During the day, I saw Marco several times, in the tents of the wounded. He brought out the precious medicines he had bought in the market of Carajan and explained how to use them. He had traded almost all the goods his father had retained for those medicines, and now he was offering them to help save our soldiers.

Seeing Marco doing such important work calmed me. But there was no opportunity for us to be alone. Part of me was glad of that, because I did not trust myself.

My feelings had shifted. Losing Suren and nearly losing Marco had made me rethink what was important to me. Before I had met Marco, all that had mattered was my ambition to join the Khan’s army and to achieve glory in battle. Now I had achieved those goals, but they were empty vessels. Glory on the battlefield had come with a price too high to bear. Without Suren at my side, even the grandest of victory parades would mean nothing.

“Water!” A Mongol soldier waved his bandaged stump to get my attention. I dipped a bowl into a bucket of water and brought it to him.

With the clarity of a lightning strike, I realized that I could never fight in a battle again. After all my bravado in front of the Great Khan, I would have to go back before him and ask to be released from the army. The thought made me shiver.

If I did not continue as a soldier, what would I do? Who would I be?

My heart in turmoil and confusion, I sank into despair.

* * *

A few days later, we left Vochan and began the five-day ride through the mountains back to Nesruddin’s palace in Da-li. Of the twelve thousand Mongol army soldiers who had set out, eight thousand had survived. Of the thirty young recruits who had left Khanbalik in Tenth Moon with Abaji, just sixteen remained. Todogen was dead, and only one of the three sergeants was left. The empty spaces between us hung heavily.

During the journey to Da-li, the soldiers kept talking of the battle, each telling what he had seen. They mourned lost friends but were jubilant about the victory. The farther we traveled from Vochan, the more epic the proportions the tale took on. The number of enemies killed increased daily, but the horror and bloodshed disappeared behind such words as “the battle raged furiously with sword and mace” and “right fiercely did the two hosts rush together, and deadly were the blows exchanged.”

The tales began to sound more like the familiar words of Old Master and less like the battle I had witnessed and fought. I realized that tales, even true ones, do not reflect truth in its fullness. In fact, all of the storytellers’ tales of battles were trickery. They pumped up men’s spirits so they would go eagerly into battle, when the reality of battle was unbearable. Soldiers who had killed men could live with themselves only if they believed the storytellers’ versions of battlefield glory.

As I rode each day under the winter gray of the mountain skies, I thought about the future. Marco and I had never spoken words of love to each other. And certainly we had never discussed the possibility of a life together. But despite my
anger at Marco, I realized that he was precious to me now. Suren’s death had taught me how vain it was to put my desire for glory above my love for others.

I looked forward to arriving at Nesruddin’s palace, hoping I would find time there to relax with Marco. Now that my feelings toward him had changed, I needed to think about what my choices might be. I wished I could come up with some way to keep Marco with me. It was tempting to imagine running off with him. But where would we go? To Venezia? His father and uncle had remained in Khanbalik, and they would be punished, possibly executed, if Marco ran off with a princess from the imperial court. The Khan’s power extended throughout his Empire. We were near the border and could slip outside the empire quickly, but across the border was Burma, territory of the enemy.

Could Marco and I get married somehow? I laughed silently at the image of my father, Prince Dorji, and Marco’s father, Niccolo Polo, toasting each other at a wedding banquet. It was impossible. Granddaughters of the Khan were valuable property, to be offered in marriage only to men of allied clans as a reward for loyalty and service. Marrying me to a Latin merchant and storyteller would be like throwing a diamond into a dung pile. I hoped that battlefield glory would give me the right to refuse any more marriage offers. But no one in the royal family would accept Marco as a suitable mate.

Besides, as much as he meant to me, I cringed at the idea of becoming Marco’s wife. That would mean moving out of the Khan’s court and into the cramped rooms Marco shared with his father and uncle. I would no longer be the Great Khan’s granddaughter but the wife of a merchant. Marco
would not stay in China forever. I would have to go to Venezia when he was ready. As attractive as Venezia sounded, I had no desire to leave the center of the world and go live in a waterlogged city so far outside the realm of the known that it took more than three years to get there. I would be as foreign there as Marco was here.

Traveling with Marco would allow me to see the world. But it would mean leaving my homeland forever. I imagined the life of a traveling merchant: stirring pots over campfires, plodding along on camelback for days on end, living among uncivilized barbarians who could not speak my language.

A merchant’s wife—it reminded me of the famous Tang poem “The Lute Girl.” In it, a woman sadly plucked her lute, remembering the days of her youth, when all admired her musical skills. When she grew older, she was forced to become “a trader’s wife, the chattel of a slave, whose lord was gold.”

No, marrying Marco was out of the question. But what could I do, an unmarried princess, granddaughter of the Khan, veteran of the battle of Vochan? My brain hurt as I pushed it for answers.

F
inally, the day before we reached Nesruddin’s palace, I found a chance to talk to Marco. During a steep uphill climb, I deliberately slowed my horse and dropped behind the others, to the back of the line, where Marco was riding with a servant.

“I hope you are not too tired, Messer Marco,” I began as his horse pulled up next to mine. I could not bring myself to apologize for my outburst after the battle, and the intervening days had made me more eager to see him.

In a short meeting of our eyes, I could see both pleasure and concern in his. “Thank you. I am not too tired, Emmajin Beki.” The soldier behind me was not close enough to hear, but close enough to see our manner of speaking.

I had to work to keep my voice even, as if discussing the weather. “Will you be returning with Abaji to Khanbalik?”

“I must take the dragons back to the Great Khan. I am hoping that Little Li will travel with me, to take care of
them. That will mean a slow journey. General Abaji has told me he wishes to return quickly.”

My heart fell. I wished I could travel back with Marco, but I knew that General Abaji would never allow it. “General Abaji plans to celebrate the New Year in Carajan before returning home,” I said. “But … after you return to Khanbalik? What then?”

He looked sad. “My father’s plan is to begin our journey home in the late spring.”