Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang [31]
I tried to imagine Khanbalik’s wide avenues flooded with water. How horrible to have streets made of something as unreliable as water. Marco looked at me, as if for encouragement. My cheeks flushed, and I looked down. He was showing courage, I realized. I could never have stood before a foreign king and told a story in his language.
“No one has been able to defeat Venezia, because on all sides she is protected by the sea,” he continued. “In fact, she loves the sea. Once a year, our leader goes out in a boat and tosses a golden ring into the water, to symbolize Venezia’s marriage to the sea.”
“An excellent addition,” said the Khan in a quiet voice, “to our Empire.”
My eyes darted to Marco, who did not seem to have heard this comment. But Chimkin nodded to the Khan with a smile, as if accepting the Khan’s order.
Something was happening under the surface that evening, and I was part of it. With his big round eyes, Marco apparently had no idea. My skin trembled with a chill.
“We Mongols are men of land,” the Khan said, more loudly, to Marco. “And you were raised in a city of water. Perhaps you can never truly communicate with us.”
Marco bowed his foreign bow. “I would be honored if you would let me try.”
“Entertain us with a story,” the Khan ordered.
Marco stood tall and took a deep breath. “Tonight I will tell you a tale I heard during my travels. It is about a woman named Ai-Jaruk, daughter of King Khaidu, ruler of the western desert and the grasslands beyond.”
Marco let his eyes rest briefly on my face, as if implying that he had chosen this story about a woman to please me. I squirmed.
The Khan’s faced hardened. Khaidu was his fiercest rival, a distant cousin who claimed the right to the throne. No one dared to bring up his name in Khubilai’s presence.
Marco seemed oblivious to the shift in mood. Clearly, he had practiced this tale. “Stunning she was, with a round face and shimmering black hair. Her parents named her ‘Bright Moon’ in the Turkic language of the western grasslands. Twice as big as an ordinary child, she grew up strong as an ox, swift as a deer, free as a wolf.”
Strong as an ox, swift as a deer. I leaned forward, eager to hear this story.
“No Mongolian damsel before or since,” Marco continued, “has excelled at the manly arts as did Ai-Jaruk. When she rode, the swiftest horse ran twice as fast. The arrows from her bow flew three times as far.” Marco looked at me. “So strong were her muscles that by the age of twelve she could toss her wrestling master to the ground.”
The men grumbled and shifted. Mongolian women are free to race and practice archery, but they are not supposed to wrestle. As a small child, I had learned the Mongolian style of wrestling, head to head, but I had stopped practicing in recent years.
Through the eyes of the Khan’s men, Marco looked woefully ignorant, if not rude. The admiration I had begun to feel for him wavered. How had I been so weak as to fall under his spell?
Still, I wanted Marco to succeed. This was his big chance. His future, and that of his father and uncle, depended on pleasing the Khan that night. I should not care, but I did.
“When she reached adulthood, Ai-Jaruk’s parents beseeched her to let them give her hand in marriage. But she declared that she would consent only if a prospective suitor could defeat her in a contest of strength. Any man who dared to challenge her would forfeit one hundred horses if he could not best her.”
One hundred horses! Imagine, a young woman that skilled at wrestling. And she defied her parents’ wishes! I thought. Marco seemed to sense that my interest was intensifying.
He smiled. “Noble young men from many tribes came to take up the challenge, bringing horses. One by one, she threw them to the ground. Month after month, they came and she defeated them. Within a few years, she accumulated ten thousand horses.”
I sat back, smiling. Ten thousand horses!