The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling Circus (8 page)

“Ah,” said the blacksmith. “Cathay. I have ridden to the border, but never beyond. They say it is sinking, and the fields are filling with water.”

“Then we better make haste,” said Mr. Bacchus. “Before the Flood.”

So the blacksmith put them on the road for Cathay, and in the caravan drawn by Thoth the Ibis-bird, Mr. Bacchus and his Travelling Circus set out once more for Xanadu and the court of the Khan called Kublai.

“In Xanadu did Kublai Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Though caverns measureless to man

Down to sunless sea.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

This is the final story about Mr. Bacchus and his Travelling Circus, and the journey to Cathay in Asia the Deep, and it concerns how they finally reached that fabled country, and entertained the court of the Khan called Kublai in Xanadu, how they sought the bearded bird in the measureless caves, and how, at last, Angelo was lost.

Having left the town perched at the World’s Edge far behind them, Mr. Bacchus and his Travelling Circus had crossed the Himalayas, pausing for a day to stand and hear the Yeti sing, and the road to Cathay no longer twisted like a snake on a forked twig, but led, straight as lines on Mr. Bacchus’ palm, to another range of mountains. Iron-grey and foreboding, they rose before the tiny caravan as it rattled along the narrow road, their needlepoints piercing the pale winter sky. To either side of the road the landscape was changing. Through the windows of the caravan misty scenes appeared, one upon another, water-logged rice-fields, with back-clothes of dark trees and mountains; forests of bamboo, masking helmeted warriors on black, snorting horses; smoke-wreathed temples guarded by squatting stone lions with wide jade eyes; and bridges over somber rivulets that bore the last yellow aspen leaves to the salt sea.

The people who passed the caravan on the road moved slowly, as if in a dream, their robes rising behind them in the wind. Once or twice, a troop of soldiers galloped up the road and past the caravan, on towards Xanadu, their mirror-shields glinting in the December light. But nobody attempted to stop the Circus, and Angelo drove Thoth on past the temples and the bridges and the fields, towards the mountains. Gradually, as they left the flat landscape behind them and drove through a pass leading up to the cloud-draped pinnacles, it became colder, and sharp flakes of snow appeared in the wind.

“Well,” commented Malachi, “If this is the kind of weather we can expect in Xanadu, I suggest we turn back.”

“Within Xanadu,” replied Mr. Bacchus, “there is always light and warmth—even though the clouds that hang about the towers forever hide the sun.”

“How’s that possible?” said Hero

“Ah,” said Mr. Bacchus. “The Khan called Kublai is a man of great wisdom. He devised a rocket, which flew up to the sun and broke a piece off. Now they keep the fragment in the palace of Xanadu, to provide eternal day.”

“Rubbish,” cried Malachi. “Credulous rubbish!”

“And why is that, crocodile?” asked Mr. Bacchus, testily.

“Because,” said Malachi with a grimace, “it was proven by the Pharaoh Akenaten that the sun is a golden eye burning in the Heaven, and if anything were to go near it, it would be reduced to smoking ashes within the space of aria.”

“How do you know?” said Ophelia. “Have you been up to the sun?”

“Not personally,” said Malachi, “but my predecessors were exceptionally fond of flying.”

“Flying?” said Domingo. “Were they birds?”

“They were wyrms, sir!” replied Malachi. “Or as the common vernacular has it, dragons! They had fire behind their teeth, and wings like the kite. They could fly to the moon! To the sun! It is murmured in the Nile that one even flew through a hole in the heavens, where he grew exceptionally thin.”

“But your wings. Where are they now?” asked Hero.

“We lost them,” said Malachi. “One of my forefathers flew too close to the sun and they caught fire. Down he fell into the sea, and boiled it to a salt desert. Thereafter, wings were forbidden.” He paused, with a look of deadly seriousness on his long face, and then continued. “So you see, I do know how hot the eye of the sun is, and nobody could break off a piece.”

“That is what I heard, crocodile,” replied Mr. Bacchus. “And I believe stranger things.”

“That’s half of your trouble,” muttered the crocodile. “You believe everything’s true.”

“That’s because everything is,” replied Mr. Bacchus, grinning from ear to ear.

There was a brief silence while Malachi pondered whether Bacchus was joking or not, and in that moment the company heard the sound of hooves on the road ahead of them.

“A rider’s approaching,” said Domingo, peering through the window.

“Oh?” said Mr. Bacchus. “And how does he smell?”

“Terrible,” replied the Clown.

“We’re about to be attacked,” said Malachi.

“He has a black helmet and a shark’s eyes!” the Clown continued.

“I knew we should have played Venice,” said Malachi.

“—and a sword as long as a crocodile.”

At this moment, Malachi buried himself in the costume basket. The caravan came to a halt, and Mr. Bacchus stepped out, followed by the rest of the company, with the exception of Malachi. By now, the rider was within a few yards of the caravan, and reining-in his horse. He addressed Mr. Bacchus, his breath like smoke in icy air.

“You,” he said, directing a gauntleted finger at Bacchus.

“Yes?” said Mr. Bacchus, stepping forward, but remaining out of sword’s swipe.

“Name?” demanded the rider.

“Bacchus.”

“Bac-us,” repeated the rider.

“No, no, my dear boy, Maximillian,” corrected Bacchus.

“Ah,” said the rider, and through the slits in his helmet his teeth glinted. “Max-im-illian Bacchus.”

“That’s right, dear fellow,” said Mr. Bacchus, and extended his hand to the rider. “This is my Circus.”

The rider’s eyes roved the company, until they rested on Domingo.

“Clown,” said the rider.

“Do you mean Domingo?” asked Mr. Bacchus.

The rider looked up into the sky and pointed.

“In a sky,” said the rider. “Clown in a sky.”

“They must have seen you,” said Mr. Bacchus. “When you rose.”

“Welcome,” said the rider. “To Cathay. In Xanadu Kublai Khan awaits you.”

“Kublai Khan!” shouted Hero, lifting Ophelia onto the palm of his hand. “Did you hear what he said? Kublai Khan! We’re here! We’re here!”

There was a great deal of shouting and jubilance, which caused the horse to whinny and stamp, and then, with the rider leading, the caravan began its precarious journey along the mountain road.

High into the mountains, and yet higher they travelled, and the road before them was now but a little wider than the caravan, falling endlessly away to one side. Malachi emerged from the costume basket, took one look through the window at the dizzying height, and fled back to bury himself once more. It was undoubtedly a terrifying journey, but Angelo was an excellent driver and Thoth the Ibis-bird a sure-footed creature, so there was not a great deal of danger. Only once did everyone’s heart lose a beat, and that was for quite a different reason. When the caravan had been following the rider for about an hour, everyone became aware of a thundering in the depths below them. The caravan stopped, and Angelo called:

“Look, everybody! Look at this!”

Everybody stepped into the bitter air, and the sight that met their eyes froze the very breath on their lips. Mists of fine spray and ice fell around them, pouring up from a vast fissure in the side of the mountain, from out of which there poured a ponderous flood of shining water, roaring as it cascaded into the depths to burst on the jagged peaks below. Then, even as they watched, awestruck, in the depths a bird screeched. At least it sounded like a bird, yet it had sorrow to it that no bird’s cry could equal. Ophelia looked at Hero, who looked at Bathsheba, who looked at Domingo, who looked at Mr. Bacchus.

“What was that?” everybody asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Mr. Bacchus. “Ask the Ibisbird.”

But Thoth had hidden his head under his wing, and was doing his best to shut out the echoes of the screech. Even Angelo could not persuade him to show his beak. The rider, meanwhile, was sitting on his horse a few yards up the road, waiting for them.

“We’d better be on our way,” said Mr. Bacchus, and they all returned to the caravan, to find Malachi still in the basket with his claws over his eyes.

On they drove, and the road became so narrow that the caravan could only crawl along, its wheels scraping the edge, sending stones pattering down. Now the air was becoming thinner and thinner. Their limbs began to feel heavy and their heads light. It was as if they had fallen asleep on the mountain road and lost track of how long they had travelled, of where they were going, and why. Then, momentarily, the clouds parted like some great ice-curtain, and high above them, set on the sharpest of pinnacles, towered Xanadu, the domed palace of Kublai Khan. It was vast and beautiful beyond imagining, lit by the fragment of the sun, announced by the thunder of the waterfall, impenetrable clouds boiling about it, obscuring the heavens. Its seven walls were taller, its thousand towers higher, its crystal dome, with the bronze Chimera standing astride it, more perfect than any that Rome could boast. And it was to the braying of unearthly trumpets that Mr. Bacchus and his Travelling Circus entered the City of Xanadu, through the gates of sardonyx.

They were all greeted by the second secretary to the aide-de-camp to the assistant Grand Vizier to Kublai Khan, a man of some authority, with a small greybeard and hands like a bird in a cage, fluttering and trembling. He bowed to each of the company in turn, and Angelo and Mr. Bacchus, Domingo and Hero bowed in return, while Bathsheba and Ophelia curtsied. By the time Malachi realized that they had finally arrived, and, summoning his imperial manner, he emerged from the caravan with his nose in the air, and his eyes closed, fully expecting to be greeted by Kublai Khan himself. Unfortunately, he had one of Ophelia’s old tutus wrapped around his back leg, and he fell on his face.

“Such majesty,” said Hero dryly, as Malachi untangled the frills.

“Follow,” said the second secretary. “The Khan awaits you.”

The company duly followed the little man through a second gate, even more immense than the first.

“There are seven walls around Xanadu,” explained the second secretary as they walked. “And seven gates; each one is more magnificent than the last. This is to accustom the guest to Xanadu’s beauties, that when his eyes at last fall upon the domed palace, he shall not be overcome.”

Amazed by the splendour of the walls and the gates, the company followed the secretary through the third portal, and the fourth, through the fifth, sixth and seventh, until at length they stood before the perfect dome of Xanadu, above which, set in the Chimera’s back, burned the fragment of the sun. A gong was struck, the doors swung open, and they stepped into the throne-room of Kublai Khan.

Within the throne room was a forest. Exquisite trees were planted in the mosaic floor, which was cracking with the ever-spreading network of roots. Beams of light danced through the leaves of these trees from the fragment that burned eternally above the dome, and shimmered on the robes, and the jeweled head-dresses if the courtiers who sat in groups among the branches, like wingless birds pondering their flightlessness.

“Approach,” said the second secretary, gesturing down the aisles of the trees to an immense throne upon which reclined the great Khan.

Mr. Bacchus smiled, and led the company through the trees towards the throne. He was not nervous. He had danced before far greater audiences, and the Khan was not a particularly impressive figure. He was a short gentleman with an old sorrowful face, dressed in a robe of red silk embroidered so heavily with thread of gold that it fell about him as stiffly as wood.

The walk to the throne was a long one, and by the time they reached it Bacchus was breathless.

“Your Magnificence,” he puffed, and bowed deeply. The Khan spoke.

“We have seen,” he declared, “The Clown in a sky. We have heard of your Circus, Mr. Maximillian Bacchus, and welcome you to Xanadu. We trust you will perform for us.”

“Delighted,” said Bacchus, and bowed again.

“Good,” said the great Khan. “Please be seated. I shall introduce my court.”

He clapped once, and seats were brought. The company sat down. A second time he clapped, and one by one the courtiers descended from the trees. As they leapt from the branches, the warm air filled their robes like silk balloons, and they slowly drifted to the ground. The first secretary announced their positions and names as their toes touched the floor, and each bowed reservedly before the company.

Mr. Bacchus, for his part, insisted on shaking each of them warmly by the hand, which rather slowed the ceremony down. In fact, two hours later it was still proceeding, the courtiers descending, bowing and shaking hands. Finally, when each had been introduced, and returned to his tree, the Khan stood up, the folds of his robes grating as he did so.