Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [166]
By virtue of his extensive travels, Marco possessed impressive credentials as a worthy guardian for the young princess on her journey to King Argon. “The three barons who have seen Master Niccolò and Master Maffeo and Master Marco, who were Latins”—that is, Christians—“and wise men, had very great wonder. And when they heard that those [the Polos] had a wished to depart, then they thought and they said among themselves that they wished that they may go with them by sea; for their intention was to return to their country by sea for the sake of the lady, because of the great labor that it is to travel by land…. On the other hand, they would gladly take them [the Polos] as their companions in this journey because they knew that they had seen and explored much of the Indian Ocean and those countries by which they must go, and”—the narrator proudly adds—“especially Master Marco.”
Marco’s professed expertise in sailing enabled him to secure a commitment from Kublai Khan. “As Marco who had sailed to those lands had said, his Majesty should be content to do them this kindness that they should go by sea, and that these three Latins, that is, Niccolò, Maffeo, and Marco, who had experience in sailing the said seas, must accompany them to the lands of King Argon.”
Even with this point in their favor, Kublai Khan, a latter-day Pharaoh, still resisted the idea of letting the Polo company go. “Nevertheless, as he could not do otherwise, he consented to all that they asked of him.”
Displaying the humanity that originally drew Marco to him, Kublai Khan “made them all and three come before him and spoke to them many gracious words of the great love that he bore them, and they should promise that when they had been some time in the land of Christians and at their home, they would return to him.” The Polos, eager to be on their way after years of delay, agreed to this promise without any intention of keeping it. Timing was critical. As was apparent to all, Kublai Khan was nearing the end of his life. They had no choice but to leave now, under any terms they could negotiate.
The bargain they struck with the Mongol ruler did not allow them complete freedom; Kublai Khan could claim that he had dispatched the Polo company on just another mission in the service of the empire. But no return was planned. Once they completed their task, the Polos would be free to go.
IT WAS NOW 1292, and Marco Polo was a man of thirty-eight, having spent seventeen years in the service of Kublai Khan. He no longer had occasion to masquerade as someone other than a merchant of Venice, even though he was most memorable, and most convincing, when he pretended to be someone else, a replica capable of surpassing the original. Confined within the limits of his own identity, he was diminished. By way of compensation, he no longer had to play the role of dutiful son serving an extended, strenuous apprenticeship to his father and uncle, or that of the charming protégé of the most powerful ruler on the face of the earth. He was simply the itinerant, observant merchant, impressed by ingenuity, dismissive of folly, susceptible to the temptations of the flesh, and moved by faith. The mature Marco cast a cold eye on the dealings around him, seeing these machinations for what they were, not for what his fertile imagination might take them for.
Despite his disillusionment, Marco was intoxicated by the prospect of returning home. Later, when he came to tell his story, he seems to have intended to describe this turning point in his travels twice, as if to underscore its importance. But his manner of handling it was odd. He devoted a significant part of the prologue to narrating the episode in considerable detail rather than summarizing it. In fact, the description of his departure from Kublai Khan’s court was by far the longest entry in the prologue, and the space devoted to it suggests that Marco regarded it as the most noteworthy event of his entire career in the service of the Mongol Empire.