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Authors: Gary Jennings

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“Well,” I said, for it seemed he already knew, “I thought—that day in the Cheng—you dismissed those starving Ho-nan farmers rather brusquely.”
Just as brusquely now, he said, “I do not help those in trouble who snivel for help. I prefer to reward those who survive the trouble. Any man who must be kept alive is generally not worth the keeping. When people are stricken with either a sudden calamity or a long siege of misfortune, the best and most worthwhile will survive. The remainder are dispensable.”
“But were they asking for a favor, Sire, or only a fair chance?”
“In my experience, when a runt piglet squeals for a fair chance at the teat, he really means a head start. Think about it.”
I thought about it. My thoughts took me a long way back in time—to when I was a child, and was trying to help the survival of the boat children. The pinched, pretty face of little Doris came to my memory.
I said, “Sire, when you speak of feckless, sniveling men and women, no one could disagree. But starving children?”
“If they are the offspring of the dispensable, they too are dispensable. Realize this, Marco Polo. Children are the most easily and cheaply renewed resource in the world. Cut down a tree for timber; it takes nearly a lifetime to replace. Dig kara from the ground for burning; it is gone forever. But if a child is lost in a famine or flood, what is required for its replacement? A man and a woman and less than a year’s time. If the man and woman are the strong and capable who have defied the disaster, the better the replacement child is likely to be. Have you ever killed a man, Marco Polo?”
I blinked and said, “Yes, Sire, I have.”
“Good. A man better deserves the space he occupies on this earth if he has cleared that space for his occupancy. There is only so much space on this earth, only so much game to hunt and grass for pasturage and kara to burn and wood to build with. Before we Mongols took Kithai, there were one hundred million people living here, the Han and their related races. Now there are only half that many, according to my Han counselors, who are anxious for their countrymen to multiply again. If I will relax some of my strictures, they say, the population will soon again be what it was. They assure me that a single mou of land is sufficient to feed and support an entire Han family. To which I retort: would that family not feed better if it had two mou of land? Or three, or five? The family would be better nourished, healthier, probably happier. The sad fact is that the fifty or so million who perished in the years of conquest were mostly the best of the Han—the soldiers, the young and strong and vital. Should I now let them be replaced with mere indiscriminate
spawning?
No, I will not. I think the former rulers here liked to count heads only, and boast that they ruled great swarming numbers. I had rather boast that I rule a populace of quality, not quantity.”
“You would be envied by many other rulers, Sire,” I murmured.
“As to my manner of ruling them, let me say this. I am again unlike Kaidu in that I can recognize some limitations in us Mongols, and some superiorities in other nationalities. We Mongols excel in action, in ambition, in the dreaming of bold dreams and the making of grand plans—and in military affairs, most certainly. So for my ministers of overall administration I have mostly Mongols. But the Han know their own country and countrymen best, so I have recruited many Han for my ministries dealing with Kithai’s internal management. The Han are also incredibly adept in matters mathematical.”
“Like the regulation of the thirty sexual postures,” said Chingkim, with a laugh.
“However,” Kubilai went on, “the Han would naturally cheat me if I put them in charge of revenues. So for those offices I have Muslim Arabs and Persians, who are almost the equal of the Han when it comes to finances. I have let the Muslims establish what they call an Ortaq, a net of Muslim agents dispersed over all Kithai to supervise its trade and commerce. They are very good at exploiting the material resources of this land and the talents of its natives. So I let the Muslims do the squeezing and I take a specified share of the Ortaq’s profits. That is much easier for me than to levy a multitude of separate taxes on separate products and transactions. Vakh, I have enough trouble collecting the simple land and property taxes due me from the Han.”
I asked, “Do not the natives chafe at having outlanders supervising them?”
Chingkim said, “They have always had outlanders over them, Marco. The Han emperors long ago devised an admirable system. Every magistrate and tax collector, every provincial official of every sort, was always sent to serve somewhere other than his birthplace, to ensure that in his duties and dealings and gouges he would not favor his relatives. Also, he was never let to serve more than three years in any post before being moved on somewhere else. That was to ensure his not making close friends and cronies whom he might favor. So in any province, town or village, the natives always had outsiders governing. Probably they find our Muslim minions only a trifle more foreign.”
I said, “Besides Arabs and Persians, I have seen men of other nationalities around the palace.”
“Yes,” said the Khakhan. “For lesser officers of the court—the Winemaster, the Firemaster, the Goldsmith and such—I simply install the men who perform those functions most ably, whether they be Han, Muslims, Ferenghi, Jews, whatever.”
“It all sounds most sensible and efficient, Sire.”
“You are to ascertain whether that is so. You are to do it by exploring the chambers and halls and counting rooms from which the Khanate is administered. I have instructed Chingkim to introduce you to every official and courtier of every degree, and he will instruct them to speak freely to you of their offices and duties. You will be paid a liberal stipend, and I will set an hour each week when you will report to me. Thus I will judge how well you are learning and, more important, how well you are perceiving the
taste
of things.”
“I will do my best, Sire,” I said, and Chingkim and I made the perfunctory ko-tou we were permitted, and we left the room.
I had already determined that, with my first report to the Khakhan after my very first week of employment, I would make sure to astonish him—and I did. When I called upon him the next time, a week or so later, I said:
“I will show you, Sire, how the earthquake engine works. You see—here—suspended down the throat of the vase is this heavy pendulum. It is daintily hung, but it does not move, no matter how much jumping or banging goes on in this room. Only if the whole great urn trembles, which is to say the whole ponderous weight of this palace building, then does that trembling make the pendulum
seem
to move. In reality, it hangs steady and still, and its apparent slight displacement is caused by the imperceptible quiver of its container. Thus, when a remote earthquake sends the least tremor through the earth and the palace and the floor and the vase, that tremor leans the pendulum’s pressure against one of these delicate linkages—you see, there are eight—and thereby loosens the hinged jaw of one of the dragons sufficiently that it lets go of its pearl.”
“I see. Yes. Very clever, my Court Goldsmith. And you, too, Marco Polo. You apprehended that the haughty Khakhan would never demean himself to confess ignorance to a mere smith and plead for an explanation. So you did it in my stead. Your taste perception is still very good.”
 
BUT those gratifying words came later. On the day Chingkim and I left his Royal Father’s presence, the Prince said cheerfully to me, “Well? Which high or lowly courtier would you like to interrogate first?” And when I requested audience with the Court Goldsmith, he said, “Curious choice, but very well. That gentleman is often in his noisy forge, which is no place for talking. I will see that he awaits us in his quieter studio workshop. I will call for you in an hour.”
So I went then to the suite of my own father, to tell him of my new situation. I found him sitting and being fanned by one of his women servants. He waved toward an inner room and said, “Your Uncle Mafio is in yonder, closeted with some Han physicians we knew when we were here before. Having them appraise his physical condition.”
I sat down to share the being fanned, and I told him all that had transpired during my interview with the Khan Kubilai, and asked if I had his parental permission to turn courtier instead of trader for a while.
“By all means,” he said warmly. “And I congratulate you on having won the Khakhan’s esteem. Your new situation, far from depriving me and your uncle of your active partnership, should redound to our good. A very apt illustration of the old proverb: chi fa per sè fa per tre.”
I echoed, “Do for myself and I will do for all three? Then you and Uncle Mafio plan to stay in Kithai for a time?”
“Indeed, yes. We are traveling traders, but we have been traveling for long enough; now we are eager to start trading. We have already applied to the Finance Minister Achmad for the necessary licenses and franchises to deal with the Muslims’ Ortaq. In that and other matters, Mafio and I may benefit from having you now as a friend at court. Surely you did not think, Marco, that we came all this way to turn right around.”
“I thought your prime concern was to take back to Venice the maps of the Silk Road and start to spur the East—West trade in general.”
“Ah, well, as to that, we believe our Compagnia Polo ought to enjoy first advantage of the Silk Road before we throw it open to competition. Also, we ought to set a good example, to fire enthusiasm in the West. So we will stay here while we earn an estimable fortune, and send it home as it accumulates. With those riches, your Maregna Fiordelisa can dazzle the stay-at-homes and whet their appetite. Then, when we finally do go home, we will freely proffer our maps and experience and advice to all our confratelli in Venice and Constantinople.”
“A fair plan, Father. But is it not likely to take a long time—to work up to a fortune from a very meager beginning? You and Uncle Mafio have no trading capital except our cods of musk and whatever zafràn still remains.”
“The most fortunate of all merchants in the legends of Venice, the Jew Nascimbene, set forth with nothing to his name but a cat he picked up from the street. The fable tells that he landed in a kingdom overrun with mice, and by hiring out his cat he founded his fortune.”
“There may be plenty of mice here in Kithai, Father, but there are also plenty of cats. Not least among the cats, I think, are the Muslims of the Ortaq. From what I have heard, they may be voracious.”
“Thank you, Marco. As the saying goes, a man warned is already armed. But we are not starting quite so small as did Nascimbene. In addition to our musk, Mafio and I have also the investment we left on deposit here during our earlier visit.”
“Oh? I did not know.”
“Quite literally on deposit—planted in the ground. You see, we brought crocus culms on that journey, too. Kubilai kindly granted us a tract of farmland in the province of Ho-pei, where the climate is benign, and a number of Han slaves and overseers, whom we instructed in the methods of cultivation. According to report, we have now a quite extensive crocus plantation and already a fair stock of zafràn pressed into bricks or dried into hay. That commodity being still a novelty throughout the East, and we having a monopoly—well!”
I said admiringly, “I should have known better than to worry about your prospects. God help the Muslim cats if they try to pounce upon Venetian mice.”
He smiled and oozed another proverb, “It is better to be envied than consoled.”
“Bruto scherzo!”
came a bellow from the inner room, and our colloquy was interrupted. We heard several raised voices, loudest among them Uncle Mafìo’s, and other noises, from which it seemed that furniture and things were being thrown about and smashed, to the accompaniment of my uncle’s shouted curses in Venetian, Farsi, Mongol and perhaps some other languages. “Scarabazze! Badbu qassab! Karakurt!”
As if they had been flung, three elderly Han gentlemen flew out through the curtains of the room’s Vase Gate. Without a nod to me or my father, they continued their rapid progress across the room, running for dear life, and on out of the suite. After their swift passage, Uncle Mafio burst out through the curtains, still erupting scandalous profanity. His eyes were glaring, his beard bristling like quills, and his clothes were disarranged where evidently the physicians had been examining him.
“Mafio!” my father said in alarm. “What in the world has happened?”
Alternately shaking his fist and stabbing the vulgar gesture of the figa in the direction of the already departed doctors, my uncle continued roaring epithets of description and suggestion. “Fottuti! Pedarat na-mard! Che ghe vegna la giandussa! Kalmuk, vakh!”
My father and I took hold of the agitated man and gently eased him down to a seat, saying, “Mafìo!” and “Uncle!” and “Ste tranquilo!” and “What in God’s name has happened?”
He snarled, “I do not wish to speak of it!”
“Not speak?” my father said mildly. “You have already waked echoes as far as Xan-du.”
“Merda!” my uncle grunted, and sulkily began rearranging his clothes.
I said, “I will see if I can catch the doctors and ask them.”
“Oh, never mind!” growled Uncle Mafio. “I might as well tell.” He did, and interspersed the explanation with exclamations. “You recall the malady with which I was afflicted? Dona Lugia!”
“Yes, of course,” said my father. “But I believe it was called the kala-azar.”
“And you remember the Hakim Mimdad’s prescription of stibium, which would save my life but cost my balls? Which it did, sangue de Bacco!”
“Of course,” said my father again. “What is it, Mafio? Did the physicians find that you have taken a turn for the worse?”
“Worse, Nico? What could be worse? No! The damned scataroni have just informed me, in honeyed words, that I never had to take the damned stibium at all! They say they could have cured the kala-azar simply by having me eat mildew!”
“Mildew?”
“Well, some kind of green mold that grows in empty old millet bins. That treatment would have restored me to health, they say, with no ugly side effect. I need never have shriveled my pendenti! Is it not nice to hear this now? Mildew! Porco Dio!”
“No, it cannot be very pleasant to hear.”
“Need the the damned scataroni have told me at all? Now that it is too late? Mona Merda!”
“It was not very tactful of them.”
“The damned saputèli simply wanted me to know that they are superior to the backwoods charlatan who castrated me! Aborto de natura!”
“There is an old saying, Mafio. This world is like a pair of shoes that—”
“Bruto barabào!
Shut up, Nico!”
Looking pained, my father withdrew into the other room. I could hear him picking up and straightening things in there. Uncle Mafio sat and simmered and fizzed like a kettle on slow boil. But finally he looked up, caught my eye, and said more calmly:
“I am sorry, Marco, for the display of temper. I know I said once that I would regard my predicament with resignation. But now to learn that the predicament was unnecessary …” He ground his teeth. “I hope I may rot if I can decide which is worse, being a eunuch or knowing I need not have been.”
“Well …”
“If you tell me a proverb, I will break your neck.”
So I sat silent for a while, wondering how best to express my sympathy and at the same time suggest that his diminishment might not be totally deplorable. Here among the manly Mongols, his formerly perverse tendencies would not be so tolerantly accepted as they had been, for example, in the Muslim countries. If he were still subject to the urge to fondle some man or boy, he might well find himself being caressed by the Fondler. But how was I to say so? Prepared to dodge a blow of his still-knotted fist, I cleared my throat and tried:
“It seems to me, Uncle Mafio, that almost every time I have strayed into serious trouble or embarrassment, it was my candelòto that lit the way. I would not, on that account, willingly forfeit the candelòto and the pleasures it more often affords me. But I think, if I were deprived of it, I could more easily be a good man.”
“You think that, do you?” he said sourly.
“Well, of all the priests and monks I have known, the most admirable were those who took seriously their vow of celibacy. I believe it was because they had closed their senses to the distractions of the flesh that they could concentrate on being good.”
“0 merda o beretta rossa. You believe that, do you?”
“Yes. Look at San Agostino. In his youth he prayed, ‘Lord, make me chaste, but not just yet.’ He knew very well where evil lay lurking. So he was anything but a saint, until finally he did renounce the temptations of—”
“Chiava el santo!”
raged Uncle Mafio, the most terrible thing he had yet uttered.
After a moment, when no thunderbolt had sizzled down at us, he said in a more temperate but still grim voice:
“Marco, I will tell you what I believe. I believe that your beliefs, if not puling hypocrisy, are exactly backward. There is no difficulty in being good. Every man and woman of mankind is as evil as he or she is capable of being and dares to be. It is the less capable, more timorous persons who are called good, and then only by default. The least capable, most fainthearted of all are called saints, and then usually first by themselves. It is easier to proclaim, ‘Look at me, I am a saint, for I have fastidiously withdrawn from striving with bolder men and women!’ than to say honestly, ‘I am incapable of prevailing in this wicked world and I fear even to try.’ Remember that, Marco, and be bold.”
I sat and tried to think of an adequate riposte that would not sound simply sanctimonious. But, seeing that he had subsided into muttering to himself again, I rose and quietly took my leave.
Poor Uncle Mafio. He seemed to be arguing, first, that his abnormal nature had been no infirmity, but a superiority merely unrecognized in a mediocre world and, second, that he might have made the purblind world acknowledge that superiority, if only he had not been untimely cheated of it. Well, I have known many people, unable to hide some gross deficiency or imperfection, try instead to flaunt it as a blessing. I have known the parents of a deformed or witless child to drop its baptismal name and call it “Christian,” in the pathetic pretense that the Lord predestined it for Heaven and so deliberately made it ill-equipped for life. I could be sorry for cripples, but I would never believe that giving a blemish a noble name made it either an ornament or a noble blemish.
I went to my own chambers, and found the Wang Chingkim already waiting, and he and I went together to the distant palace building where was the studio of the Court Goldsmith.
“Marco Polo—the Master Pierre Boucher,” said Chingkim, introducing us, and the Goldsmith smiled cordially and said, “Bon jour, Messire Paule,” and I do not recall what I said, for I was much surprised. The young man, no older than myself, was the first real Ferenghi I had met since leaving home—I mean to say, a genuine Frank, a Frenchman.
“Actually, I was born in Karakoren, the old Mongol capital,” he told me, speaking an amalgam of Mongol and half-forgotten French, as he showed me about the workshop. “My parents were Parisians, but my father Guillaume was Court Goldsmith to King Bela of Hungary, so he and my mother were taken prisoner by the Mongols when the Ilkhan Batu conquered Bela’s city of Buda. They were brought captive to the Khakhan Kuyuk at Karakoren. But when the Khakhan recognized my father’s talent, alors, he entitled him Maitre Guillaume and raised him to the court, and he and my mother lived happily in these lands for all the rest of their lives. So have I, having been born here, during the reign of the Khakhan Mangu.”
“If you are so well regarded, Pierre,” I said, “and a freeman, could you not resign from the court and go back to the West?”
“Ah, oui. But I doubt that I could live as well there as here, for my talent is somewhat inferior to my late father’s. I am competent enough in the arts of gold and silver work and the cutting of gemstones and the fabrication of jewelry, mais voilà tout. It was my father who made most of the ingenious contrivances you will see around the palace here. When I am not making jewelry, my chief responsibility is to keep those engines in good repair. So the Khakhan Kubilai, like his predecessor, favors me with privilege and largesse, and I am comfortably situated, and I am about to marry an estimable Mongol lady of the court, and I am quite content to abide.”

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