Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang [26]
I indicated where he should sit, then sat down directly opposite him, as far away as possible. My back straight, my demeanor formal and proper, I noticed that his eyes shone, as if he was wonder-struck just looking at me. I struggled to recall the words I had practiced saying to the tent post the night before. Marco’s thick chest and arms distracted me.
Envisioning a helmet on my head and set of leather armor on my chest, I began to speak, more smoothly this time. “Latins are rare at the Khan’s court. Tell me how you came here from your homeland, so far away.”
He clasped his hands over his knee and thought for a moment, as if this were a conversation and not an interrogation. “As you know, my father and uncle came here many years ago, and the Khan asked them to come back.” His eyes reflected the greenery of the garden around us. “My father left home on that journey just before I was born, in the year of our Lord 1254. When I was very small, my mother died.”
He seemed to have said this so many times he no longer felt it, but I felt a pang. Although many women died when their children were young, I knew that losing one’s mother so young was no small matter. It took energy to swallow my sympathy.
“I lived with my mother’s relatives. We did not receive letters from my father, so we assumed he had died. When I was fully grown, fifteen years after they had left home, my father and uncle unexpectedly returned. They said they had visited a prosperous land, far to the east, and met an emperor who ruled a vast empire far bigger than Christendom. When they described his riches and power, no one believed them.”
“No one believed? The Latins do not know of the Great Khan?”
“No. They know of the Mongols only as ‘Tartars,’ hordes of horsemen who rode from the East and attacked Christendom during my father’s youth. The Great Khan asked my father to deliver a letter to the Pope. The Pope responded with a letter, which we brought with us. We were not allowed to read it, but I believe the Pope demanded that the Khan promise not to invade Christendom again.”
It mystified me, why this leader of a small backward land, this Pope, would think he could demand anything of the Khan. This Pope sounded ignorant, tactless, and confused. But Marco seemed to respect him. Marco’s arm was covered in light hair.
“My father commanded me to come with them,” Marco continued, “on their second journey to the heart of the Mongol Empire, to learn about trading.”
A flash in his eyes prompted me to ask, “Did you want to come?”
His laughter surprised me. “Do any of us get to do what we really want?”
“You didn’t want to travel, to learn your father’s business?” I had envied men because they had more opportunities than women did, but not all men had choices in life.
He smiled ruefully. “The life of a traveling merchant has its appeal, but my aunt often warned me of its dangers. I liked the idea of adventure, but I was a little sad about leaving behind everyone I had known.”
“A wife?” He was over twenty, so surely he had at least one wife.
He stopped smiling. “I wanted to marry, but my father insisted I travel instead.”
Shifting on the bench, sitting on my hands, I sensed he had left behind a woman he loved. I wondered if he thought about her when talking to me. I chose not to ask.
“I nearly died on the way, from sickness,” he said. “We had to stop for a year while I battled a fever. But God did not want to take me yet. So I am here.”
Nearly died. Sick for a year. I had never given any thought, when seeing foreign travelers, to the life they had left behind, their difficulties, their loss and grief and fears.
“When will you go back home?” I asked, trying to fight my sense of sympathy.
“Not soon! We just arrived, exhausted after more than three years on the road. My father and uncle are still sick. I hope they will get better soon so they can come to Xanadu and meet you. It will be months before we can think about traveling back.”
So the other two foreigners would be coming after all. I felt strangely disappointed at the idea of sharing Marco