Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [167]
With every mile he traveled on the Silk Road and beyond, Marco composed his own epitaph, combining the fragments of experience to form a great, if erratic, epic, romantic yet existential, purposeful yet impulsive. Marco never set out to discover a particular place, and never thought of himself as an explorer—“wayfarer” was the term he used to describe himself. His adventures occurred, and would continue to occur, by accident rather than design. He did not, and could not, plan; he lived by his wits and his talent for improvisation. A wanderer by temperament, he knew how to blend in rather than stand out.
Although Marco never stopped seeing himself as a merchant, he evinced little interest in becoming wealthy himself even as he constantly tallied the wealth of others. He believed in commerce as he did in little else. For Marco, commerce and travel were synonymous, and beyond that, they were the essence of life. They were, it seemed to him, more comprehensive undertakings than politics or war; in fact, he implicitly viewed war as an ill-considered obstacle to the essentially commercial nature of human endeavor. Kublai Khan’s charisma (and concubines) held more fascination for Marco than gold or gems. Surely there were easier ways to grow rich than traveling across a continent, exposing himself to danger every step of the way. But it was the process—the negotiations, the observations, the conflict—that engaged Marco’s attention, not the outcome. By the time he began his trip home, he counted himself wealthy in knowledge and experience rather than in tangible assets.
JUST BEFORE the Polo company left the Mongol court, Kublai Khan, exuding a melancholy dignity, gave new, even more elaborate paizas to the travelers to guarantee their safety and well-being. The paizas were things of beauty, “two tablets of gold sealed with the royal seal with orders written thereon that they should be free and exempt from every burden and secure through all his lands.” The Polos’ manner of travel promised to be equally luxurious. “Wherever they might go,” Kublai ordered, “they must have all the expenses for themselves and for all their train, and an escort given them that they may be able to pass in safety.”
In fact, Kublai Khan had elaborate plans for his favored merchant ambassadors, and he transformed their passage into an international mission of considerable significance. “He entrusted them with many things on his own behalf”—presumably letters and other personal items—“and with an embassy to the pope and to the king of France, and to the king of England, and to the king of Spain and to the other crowned kings of Christendom.”
Fully assembled, the expedition was magnificent: fourteen large ships, each equipped with four masts and twelve sails. Marco’s enthusiasm at the adventure before him in 1292 fairly bursts from the account. His yearning for blue water and the tang of the open sea is palpable. The prospect engaged his nautical expertise. “I could tell you how they [the ships] were made,” he says, “but because it would be too long a matter I will not mention it to you at this point”—although he does remark that four or five of the ships held 250 men each. A mighty fleet would be making its way to King Argon, bearing him a longed-for princess.
The actual departure occasioned still more generosity from Kublai Khan and the seemingly inexhaustible Mongol treasury. “When the ships were fitted out and furnished with food and with all things necessary, and the three barons and the lady and these three Latins, the two brothers Master Niccolò and Master Maffeo, and Master Marco, were ready to go to King Argon, they presented themselves to their lord, and took leave of the Great Khan and with great joy came to the ships that were prepared and assemble themselves on the ships with a very great company of ladies and gentlemen. And the Great Khan made men give them many rubies and other very fine jewels of great value, and also expenses for ten years.”
The ceremony marked the last time they would see Kublai Khan. After twenty years abroad, their