Swords From the East (75 page)

While riding along the bank of the river, I came, without knowing it, upon a steep precipice that had been hollowed out by the action of the current below. No sooner had I reached the edge than it gave way and began to tumble into the river. Instantly I threw myself, by a leap from the stirrups, toward the inner part that held firm. My horse fell in, and had I remained in the saddle I must have gone down with it.

That same day I swam across the Ganges for amusement. I counted my strokes and found out that I reached the other bank at thirty-three. I then took breath and swam back. Before this I had crossed, by swimming, every river I met with, except the Ganges.

By the favor of God, in one month's time we scattered the Bengalis. And before we could return, one night when the second watch was past, the clouds of the rainy season broke, and there was such a tempest and the wind rose so high that most of the tents were blown down.

I was writing in the middle of my pavilion, and so suddenly did the storm come on that I had not time to gather up my papers before the pavilion came down on my head. The top of the structure was blown to shreds and the books and sheets of paper were drenched, but were gathered together and placed between dry woolen cloths.

The storm abated in an hour and we contrived to get up a spare tent, lighted a candle, and with great difficulty kindled a fire, but did not sleep until morning, being occupied in trying to dry the sheets and papers.

As we had accomplished all I intended on the Bengali border, as the rains had set in, and as we had been for five or six months in the field so that men and beasts were worn out, I marched toward Oudh, sending notice to the outlying sultans and ameers that I should await them in Agra.

On the last night of the ride to Agra we made twenty miles and halted at a tomb before dawn; mounting early we advanced twenty-four miles by noon and at midnight reached the garden of Hasht Behist at Agra.

Next morning I went into the castle and a native of Balkh brought me a few melons he had kept for me. They were excellent.

That Sunday at midnight I met Maham Begum, the mother of Humayun, who had come from Kabul to join me. I was sitting in talk with her, asking about Humayun, when in came my son himself.

His presence opened our hearts like rosebuds and made our eyes shine. It was my custom to keep open table every day; so great was my joy that I gave feasts in his honor and showed him every mark of distinction.

He had hurried from Kabul without permission and without notifying me, yet such was the charm of his presence that we lived together for some time in the closest intimacy until Humayun took his leave of me and proceeded to Sambhal, his residence.

Either the climate or the water of the place did not agree with my son, for fever attacked him. I gave order to have him conveyed by boat to Delhi, and thence to Agra, so that a physician might attend him.

In spite of all remedies, he got no better. Instead, he became delirious.

At his bedside, Maham Begum said to me: "What cause is there for you to sorrow so? You are a ruler, and have other children, while I have none save Humayun."

"Others have I, yet none so dear to me as Humayun," 1 answered.

Then Mir Abdul Kasim, who was a person of great knowledge, explained to me that only one remedy could be applied in the case of such maladies. It was to make a sacrifice to God of something of great value in order to obtain from Him the restoration of the sufferer's health.

Thereupon, having reflected that nothing in the world was dearer to me than Humayun except my own life, I determined to offer myself in the hope that God would accept my sacrifice.

Kwajah Khalifa and other close friends came to me and said: "Humayun will recover his health! How can you speak so unwisely? It will suf- flee if you offer the most precious thing you possess of worldly goods. Offer as alms the great diamond that came to you after Ibrahim's defeat and which you gave to Humayun."

"But," I replied, "there is no treasure which can be compared to my son. I shall offer myself as his ransom. He is sorely stricken and his weakness has need of my strength."

Immediately I entered the room where Humayun was lying, and walked thrice around him, starting from his head and saying-"I take upon myself all that you suffer."

At the same instant I felt myself borne down and depressed, while he became quieter and stronger. It was not long until he arose in restored health, while I sank down in weakness. Feeling this coming upon me, I called the chief men of the empire, the grandees and the greatest nobles, and placing their hands in Humayun's-as a mark of investiture, I solemnly proclaimed him as my successor-`

It was midafternoon when Alai saw what she had been waiting to see.

Like a marionette, she sat with her face pressed against the lattice of her window, high up beneath the roof of the Treasury.

This window she chose because it overlooked the Green Mount. On the Green Mount grew every kind of tree. For Kublai Khan liked to have trees around him. Wherever he saw one he fancied, he ordered it taken up and brought to his palace.

Whatever Kublai Khan wished to do, that he did. For he was Lord of the Earth, ruling the world from the steppes of Russia to the island of Zipangu, and from the frozen tundras of the north to Ceylon, where the great ruby was. Kuhlai's wish was the law of the girl Alai.

She was registered in the books of the Treasury as Precious Pearl, aged sixteen years, a Tatar by birth. Her eyes gray, her long hair dark. The books did not say how slender was her throat, or how her lips curved with elfin laughter. Only that she was a candidate concubine of the third rank-one of the six chosen for their beauty from a Tatar tribe. Which meant that she must serve in the sleeping chamber of the great Khan with five other maids until the fortunate ones he favored were made imperial concubines.

These six girl candidates could not step beyond the gates of the Treasury, where the imperial women and riches were kept. So Alai watched daily from her lattice, observing all that went on in the palace grounds beneath.

Now, at midafternoon, before the beginning of the first night of the year of the Fire-Tiger, she saw the messenger ride into the inner gate. The Tatar guards bent their heads and took the reins of the big horse because he was the messenger of the Khan returning from Ceylon, whither he had been sent to buy the most precious thing in the world.

Other eyes than Alai's watched, as he paced across the courtyard of the silver water clock. Other minds wondered if he had succeeded in bringing that matchless ruby back with him to Cambalu.

Alai wanted to find out, for herself. She sighed when he passed the door of the Treasury and dismounted at the entrance of his own quarters across the courtyard. She thought he had a wide mouth and his eyes were hard for a man so young. Hard and clear as crystal. He rode with his stirrups long, for he was a man of the West, a far-wandering soul, Marco Polo by name. And he had a way of bringing back what he set out to get.

"Faith," his laugh echoed across the courtyard, "my bones are weary." Feeling inside one of his saddle bags, he drew out a knotted linen cloth, as a man with a shaven skull pushed through the guards around him and bowed low.

"Long life!" cried the shaven one. "Does the Lord Po-lo bring with him what Kublai, the Khan, desires?"

Holding the cloth by the knotted middle, Marco Polo beat the dust from his legs with the loose ends. "I brought a monkey from Ceylon," he responded, "and it is bald as thou art."

Still swinging the cloth, he turned into his door. The eyes of the shaven one peered after him. For Messer Marco had gone alone to far Ceylon, and no one in Cambalu could say if he had the giant ruby.

Alai slipped away from the lattice. Sitting before a bronze mirror, she pulled the gold and enamel flowers from her hair, and rubbed the pink powder from her cheeks. Over her embroidered tunic she drew a slave's gray coat.

She wanted something to carry in her hands, so she took up a tray with bowls of ginger and sugar paste, and cherries. To please the Lord Po-lo, she added a bowl of fresh rice wine.

After listening a moment at the entrance screen of her room, she slipped out when the corridor was empty. Lowering her head, and moving with the quick, short pace of a slave, she reached the gate of the Treasury where armed Tatars stood guard.

There she hesitated, her heart pounding under the loose robe. Beyond this gate no one would recognize her face. Beyond this gate the candidate concubines were forbidden to go. But Alai was determined to speak with the Lord Po-lo, and she went.

Messer Marco Polo sat in his counting room, his legs stretched under the carved table, looking at the knotted cloth between his hands.

For the months of a year he had traveled back from Ceylon by sailing junk, and river barge and horse post, always with that worn linen cloth under his hand or head. He had reached Cathay. He had succeeded.

And success-unlike the grotesque gods of Cathay-was Marco's god. From Venice he had crossed half the world, leaving the softness of his youth in the salt deserts and the snowbound roof of the world; he had come through the singing sands of the Gobi, where the magicians of Prester John raised storms, over the long road of Tartary. To wrest a fortune from the palace of Cathay, where the riches of the world were gathered.

Long had he labored to do this, that no man of the West had been able to do before him. Four languages had he learned, to be able to transact business for the great Khan. He had studied the old man's moods; taken notes on his journeys, so that he could please Kublai by relating all that his eyes had seen. So had he won Kublai's favor and trust. Now with a hairbrush he was writing upon silk paper the tidings of his success in Ceylon: "I will tell you of the most precious thing in the world, that the King of the island had, the finest known to men."

He undid one of the knots, and slipped the cloth back from what it held. As he did so, flame leaped from under his fingers. The late-afternoon sunlight struck into the giant ruby.

A moment Marco studied it, drinking in the hyacinth shape of this hung pao shi-this red precious stone. He put it on the balance that served to weigh his own collection of stones, and smiled. With all the weights in the scale against the ruby, the balance did not move.

"It is about a palm in length, and a man's wrist in thickness," he wrote. "It is quite free from flaws. Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be named. The ambassador of the great Khan offered the King of the island first the ransom of a city for it, but-"

The sound was no more than the slipping of garments over tiles. Marco Polo glanced over his shoulder, through the open paper window, to the balcony. Nothing was there. But he thrust the ruby under a fold of the cloth and waited, listening.

In front of him the brocade curtain was drawn back timidly, and a girl entered. A girl who came toward him and knelt, to offer him a tray.

"Please," she whispered, "will my lord taste?"

Marco barely glanced at the sweetmeats and rice wine. "Look at me," he ordered. He had no woman among his servants. When she raised her head a pulse beat in her bare throat like a captive bird's.

"Why," he asked, considering her, "do you bring me all this?"

He knew the beauty of these Eastern girls. They could play upon a man's senses.

"Taste the wine, and you will know." She smiled pleadingly, and light glinted on the rice wine, as her hands trembled.

Messer Marco did not care to drink anything that his own body servants had not prepared-not in Cambalu, with the ruby of Ceylon under his hand. He wondered fleetingly where his servants had got to. And he leaned toward the girl, taking his hand from the cloth. "I am thinking," he said, "it is for no love of me that you are here. Who sent you?"

"This worthless slave saw the Lord Po-lo ride in at the Yen gate. Does he wish now to go to the presence of the great Khan?"

"Tonight," Marco answered idly. Tonight would be the beginning of the new year, of the Fire-Tiger year, and at such a time it was Kublai's custom to feast. Marco had ridden hard upon the post road, to be in time to lay the ruby before Kublai at that feast.