Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang [28]
I laughed in spite of myself. “But what does it mean?” This was not a proper way to learn a language, and it didn’t sound like a proper language, either.
He bowed to me in his strange style. “It means ‘love.’ I love. You love. He loves. We love. All of you love. They love.”
I squirmed. In Mongolian, there is one word for “love” and “like,” so it did not seem an odd word to teach. Still, it was awkward, not something any Mongol man would ever say. I suspected Marco was making fun of me. “All of those words mean ‘love’?”
“Listen carefully. I love. Amo.” Marco stepped back onto a flat stone in the pond. By then the clouds were darkening. I needed to cut this odd language lesson short and take him back to his ger before it started to pour. But I didn’t want to.
“I love. Amo.” I hesitated, but he refused to go on until I followed him onto the stepping stone. Besides, it was the quickest way to get back. The Latin word sounded soft compared to guttural Mongolian ones. I liked the feel of it on my tongue.
“You love. Amas.”
“You love. Amas.”
“He loves. Amat.”
I repeated and followed him across, feeling foolish and flushed in the heat. On amant, as I stepped onto dry land, I almost slipped and he caught my hand. As soon as I steadied myself, I looked at him. He held my hand for a moment longer.
All my senses went on alert. His eyes were shimmering, and his smile, deep inside his beard, was a little crooked. In this garden setting, Marco acted like a perfect gentleman, courtly and well mannered, suave and witty. Not barbarian at all. Still, touching his hand was forbidden, wrong. I looked at our hands and he let go.
He stepped back to give me space, dipping his head in a quick bow, but he regarded me with admiring eyes. “In my homeland, there is a kind of love called courtly love. A warrior offers his services to a royal lady and dedicates his life to her.”
This concept was alarming but intriguing. “A lady who is not his wife?”
Again, he bowed his head, as if in deference. “It is love from a distance.”
Love from a distance. I trembled. This conversation had lunged off course, into perilous territory. How could I get his mind off love? I licked my lips and tried to think quickly. “How do you say ‘God loves the Great Khan’?”
He smiled as if he could see through me. “Deus amat imperatorem.”
I tried it, but mangled the words. Our joint laughter sounded musical.
“One more word,” he said. “Bella. It means beautiful. You are beautiful.”
My cheeks felt hot. Perhaps where he came from, Italia, such compliments from men were natural. But no Mongol man spoke this way. Lovely. I wanted to look away, but something in his eyes kept me gazing at him. His pupils were black, and the green was deeper now, a perfect ring, flecked with yellow. For the first time I thought them not odd and empty but bright and attractive.
A loud clap of thunder startled us. I looked at the sky with alarm. Thunder meant lightning, which meant danger. Every Mongol knows that when the grasslands are dry, one lightning strike can set off a fire that can kill people and animals for miles.
The first raindrops hit my head. A storm was invading Xanadu.
“Run,” I said.
I began sprinting toward the garden gate, and Marco chased after me. The rain pelted us. I was running to escape the rain, but more than that, I needed to flee from the feel of his fingers and the gaze on his face at the pond.
I had let down my guard. Again. I had let him manipulate me. How could I ever hope to be a soldier when I was so weak and naive? I was failing the Khan’s test.
But my mind savored this peculiar, perilous concept: courtly love.
The next day, a servant delivered to me a striking green del embroidered with floral designs in pearls and gold thread. The fastenings, at an angle from the high-collared neck to the right shoulder, were knots of thick gold thread. With this robe came a pair of green silk pants and a sash of gold brocade.
This luxurious outfit arrived with an order to attend the Khan’s banquet