Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [168]
THE POLO COMPANY’S mission to deliver Princess Kokachin to her rightful king and kingdom has attained special significance in recent years because it is the only event described by Marco that is confirmed in detail by Chinese and Mongol sources. In 1941 and again in 1945, Yang Chih-chiu, a Chinese scholar, compared Yüan dynasty sources with Marco’s detailed rendition of the circumstances of his departure from China and discovered that they matched almost perfectly, with the significant omission of the names of the three emissaries from Kublai Khan.
An account written in about 1307 by Rashid al-Din, the authoritative chronicler of the era, told very much the same story, mentioning Princess Kokachin and the three ambassadors who accompanied her, corresponding closely with the details Marco set forth. Like his Chinese counterparts, Rashid al-Din did not mention the three Polos by name, but the existence of an independent informant confirming precise features of Marco’s description amounts to more than coincidence. Taken together, these sources confirm that Marco escorted the princess to King Argon and was in service to Kublai Khan, just as he claimed.
“THEY SET OUT from that island, and I tell you that they sailed through the great sea of India for eighteen months before they came to the land of King Argon,” Marco reports, “and in this journey they saw strange and different things and they found many great marvels.” In his haste, he never did tell his collaborator, Rustichello, what those things were, but to judge from the scant information about the voyage that he did provide, the 1293 ocean voyage was violent and traumatic.
“When they entered into the ships in the land of the Great Khan,” Marco reports, “there were between ladies and men six hundred people, without [counting] sailors. And when they reached the land where they were going, they made a count that all had died on the way except only eighteen. And of those three ambassadors there remained but one, who was named Coja; and of all the women and girls none died but one.” Disease, shipwreck, and pirates were the likely culprits, but Marco does not offer an explanation, despite his penchant for depicting dramatic events and circumstances that would show him in a heroic light. Given his fascination with ships, it seems likely that an important and dramatic segment of his account devoted to these matters has been lost. All that remains of the traumatic episode is a collection of tantalizing fragments hinting at extreme suffering and sorrow. Despite all, the Polos and the young Mongol princess survived.
Marco had endured an ordeal surpassing anything he had previously faced, even as a young man making his way across the Steppe for the first time. In his descriptions, he was now more subdued, less inclined to boasting, not so much disillusioned as disoriented. Marco recovered his former vitality when reliving previous episodes for the sake of entertaining his readers, but as he narrates the latter part of his tale, he no longer gives the impression of leading a charmed existence. Instead, his more reverent tone suggests that he felt fortunate simply to count himself among the living.
THE SURVIVORS’ unanticipated arrival in Argon’s kingdom generated shock rather than relief. Matters in this distant land had changed drastically since those three ambassadors had left for Kublai Khan’s court several years earlier. Argon was dead—poisoned, perhaps, by his enemies.
Marco was dismayed. In Argon’s place, the Polos found that “one named Quiacatu held the lordship of Argon, for the boy who was not yet fit to rule, for he was young.” Not knowing what to do with the princess whom they had risked their lives to escort, they eventually decided to present her to “Caçan, the son of Argon, to wife,” and despite his youth, the two were joined in matrimony.
If Marco and his father and uncle believed that they had discharged their responsibilities and could at last leave the service of Kublai