Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang [63]
“Have you ever heard such a frightening noise?” he asked me. “I think it is because the bamboo branches are hollow. They could prove valuable.”
Marco’s mind worked in amazing ways that I was only starting to appreciate.
Suren rode up from behind and separated us. He seemed determined to keep me away from Marco. Now that we were camping, Suren slept each night in my tent, near the entrance, as if keeping guard, though against what danger he did not say.
During the next five days, we passed through increasingly rough terrain. We had to climb on foot up ever more arduous trails and descend so steeply that my knees became wobbly. The higher we rose, the more I wanted to spend time with Marco, to hear his distinctive laugh, to exchange a few words of Latin, to see the wrinkles around his eyes when he smiled. But Suren succeeded in keeping us apart.
As we rode, I constantly thought of Marco. I remembered stroking his warm shoulder when he was wounded. I recalled the feel of his hand as we had stood on the stepping stone in the Khan’s garden at Xanadu. Once, I had caught a glimpse of his chest, and it had been covered with curly hair. I wondered what that hair would feel like under my fingers.
We were as far from the lavish court of Khubilai Khan as I could imagine. The strict rules of Mongol court behavior seemed to fade with each mile we rode.
Finally, we came to a village of Tibetans. Our journey would not take us deep into the heart of Tibet, to the monasteries and temples my father spoke of reverently. Instead, we would skirt that huge mountainous land, passing through several of its poorer villages. Gautama Buddha himself had come from a mountainous country south of Tibet, and the red-hatted lamas of Tibet had brought their enlightened ways of Buddhism to the Mongols, converting my father and my grandmother, the Empress Chabi.
As we wound down the mountainside to the Tibetan village of mud houses, large dogs rushed at us, barking. Villagers came out to greet us in a spirit of friendship, offering their homes for us to stay in. They were poorly clad, wearing handspun wool or the skins of beasts, and their smiling faces were splotched with dirt. I wondered how they could live in such an inhospitable climate, since I saw few signs of agriculture and no fertile grasslands for their herds, lumbering beasts that looked like huge hairy cattle.
That night we did not sleep in our tents but in the homes of the villagers. A toothless woman saw Suren and me and mimed eating from a bowl. We followed her into a small house, wondering what food these poor people could spare for a group of travelers far more numerous than the population of their village.
The house was dark and windowless and had a rancid smell of yak butter. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. We sat on low wooden stools near the fire.
The old woman put into my hand a small cracked bowl filled with a warm oily liquid—yak-butter tea. It was a long way from the fresh, milky airag I was used to. It had a foul, bitter taste. But its warmth calmed my stomach. I smiled at the woman, and she smiled back. She stirred a pot on the fire and offered us thin porridge. Suren went out to our mules and returned with a side of fresh venison. Her eyes bulged when she saw it. Thanking him profusely, she cut a piece of it and stirred it into the porridge. These Buddhists refused to kill animals but did not refuse to eat meat.
After dinner, Suren quickly fell asleep. But I bundled up in my warmest cloak and headed out for the stream that ran through the village. It was late in Eleventh Moon, and after sunset, a still cold descended from the peaks above. I tucked my hands under my arms as I walked, welcoming the clear, cold air on my cheeks and in my throat.
This place was as remote as I could imagine from the festive bustle of the capital, high above the flatlands of Khanbalik. Reality