Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang [54]
“You are too kind. I am hoping to learn more and talk less during this trip.” I loved hearing that deep voice with its lilting accent.
The first dish served was mian-tiao, a favorite of the Cathayans. It was a bowlful of long strings made of millet flour, flavored with beef broth, and eaten with bamboo sticks. The soldiers at my table laughed as they tried to use these sticks. Marco, too, seemed confounded by them. I watched as he fumbled the sticks and tried to get the mian-tiao into his mouth. The strings kept plopping back into his bowl, spraying his face with hot broth.
Abaji laughed. “It’s easier if you hold the bowl close to your face, like this.” Abaji picked up the bowl with his left hand and shoveled the mian-tiao into his mouth with the eating sticks in his right hand, slurping loudly. He had traveled widely in Cathay and was familiar with their customs.
Marco tried it that way but splattered his face with broth again. Suren picked the strings out one by one and held them over his face, dropping them into his mouth. I laughed.
Abaji asked Marco to compare the women of the West with the women of our country, and Marco said the women of his country had rounder breasts and bottoms. I felt rather than saw Marco’s gaze dart involuntarily toward me, so I deliberately picked up a big wad of mian-tiao and shoveled it into my mouth with my fingers. The men at my table laughed at my antics, and I could not hear any more of Marco’s conversation.
Before long, I heard Abaji say the name Chinggis Khan, and the men around me grew quiet. “You have not heard that tale?” Abaji was saying.
“Tell me, please,” said Marco. “How did he use fire to capture the city?”
Abaji laughed a deep, pleasing laugh. “Chinggis Khan’s troops were besieging Volohai, a walled city in the Tangut kingdom of Western Hsia. The siege had gone on for many months, but the king had prepared enough food and supplies. Our men could not break the siege and enter the city. One day the Great Ancestor sent a message to the Tangut king: ‘We will stop attacking if you deliver to us all your cats.’ ”
“Cats? You mean, the kind that chase mice?” Marco seemed perplexed.
“Yes, cats. Useless, right? So the king rounded up all the cats and let them out at the front gate. The Mongol soldiers gathered them up, as best they could …”
“Herding cats is no easy task, even for Mongols!”
Abaji laughed. “Yes! Not like sheep. Chinggis Khan did not kill the cats. Instead, he commanded his men to tie an oil-soaked rag firmly to the tail of each cat. Then he set the rags on fire and let the cats loose.” Abaji smiled at the Great Ancestor’s cleverness.
Many of us who were listening laughed in delight at this familiar story. Marco looked sick.
“When cats are frightened, they always run home,” Abaji said. “These cats all found ways to run through that city wall, through small holes none of the Mongol soldiers knew about or could fit through. Within hours, the city was aflame. The citizens threw open the gates and ran out. By nightfall, Chinggis Khan’s troops had taken the city.”
“Good! Good!” the men shouted, and a serving woman from the hostel brought more airag.
Marco’s mouth twisted. Maybe he was imagining the city of Venezia burning. But that was absurd, since its streets were made of water. For the first time, hearing that story, I thought about the cat owners in the city, the people whose homes were burned. Watching Marco’s face, I thought the story sounded brutal.
At least Abaji did not tell the story of the capture of Nessa. When our army took that city, our troops herded the inhabitants together and ordered them to tie one another’s hands behind their backs. As soon as they were bound, the Mongols surrounded them and killed them with their arrows—men, women, and children, without discrimination.
Now that I knew more about Marco, I would have instead told him about the Yasa, the Supreme Law written by the Great