The elite imperial guard, the Tjumen, consisting of a thousand men, did not accompany them. Instead, their escort comprised just two Arbuns of ten men each, who looked different from the usual Khalka Mongols of the steppes and spoke a Mongolian dialect Markos barely understood. As time passed, he came to know that they were Buryatis from north of Ulaanbaatar, located north of the Hentyin Mountains in the region east of Lake Baikal.
Their progress was slow. Too old and much too bulky to ride, the Great Khan travelled in a covered carriage with no markings or banners to distinguish it as a royal vehicle. Avoiding the imperial road, they travelled along the byroads. To onlookers, it would have seemed that a merchant was on his way, but they were not stopped. After the Quize festival in March, they had entered the province of Qinghai and crossed the Yangtze River at the foothills of the mountains which bordered China and Tibet. It was here that they were joined by the complete Tjumen of the Buryatis, headed by their fierce
orlok
or commander. They were also joined by a young Buddhist monk who introduced himself as Jigmey of the Saskya Monastery in Lhasa.
Markos was aware of the debate raging over the religion of the Mongols. Kublai Khan had introduced Mongol rule as a new Chinese dynasty, the Yuan, in accordance with the revelations of
I Ching
and installed Tao religious leaders in his court. The Great Khan’s mother was a Christian, give or take the fact that the Vatican had denounced Nestorus as a heretic. The Khan’s cousins, who ruled over Persia and had established the Il Khanate, were Moslem. Then there were the Buddhists; Chabi, Kublai’s wife for fifty years, had been a devout Buddhist. Before she died, she had chosen her cousin, Nambui, also a Buddhist, to be the Great Khan’s consort.
During the conquest of Tibet, the Khan had met the young monk, Phags Pa, and sent for him once he was back in Khanbalik. So impressed was the emperor with the monk and his teachings that he had honoured him with the title of ‘Moral Guide of the Kingdom’. It was also useful that Phags Pa had routed the local Taoists in an intellectual debate, thereby securing concessions for his faith and a political victory for the Great Khan over the Chinese he ruled. Kublai had rewarded the monk by appointing him head of the Saskya Monastery.
The Mongols were only concerned that they should fulfill the divine mandate given to them by the Sky God Tenger and rule the world. Therefore, it made sense to them that the Khan had expediently accepted all faiths practised by his subjects, instead of arbitrarily imposing one on his people. Markos knew, however, that the Great Khan himself had quietly embraced Tibetan Buddhism and it was to the Saskya Monastery that he now turned as the hour of his death approached.
After they had crossed the Yangtze, their chosen route took them through the high mountains. With subterfuge no longer a necessity, they moved westward at a steady pace. Now that they were travelling along narrow mountain trails, the Great Khan was borne on a palanquin by teams of sixteen men each. The rest of the entourage exchanged their horses for yaks. They followed the great River Tsangpo, until they had reached the holy Kailash ranges. The terrain was as barren and desolate as any Markos had seen, with nothing visible for miles but ice, black rock and shingle. It was now close to the Xianam or mid-May, but the snows had yet to recede and they often had to move along paths that lay above the snow line. It was an arduous journey and by the time they reached the headwaters of the Indus, they had lost many in the group, especially women and children. Markos found his own breathing more laboured than usual; he had never been at such heights before. He worried about the health of the Great Khan, but he needn’t have. For, the young monk from the Saskya Monastery who accompanied them would, from time to time, take out some dried herbs from a bag he always carried slung around his neck and tend to them both. Thanks to his ministrations, they remained in good health.
Following the bank of the Indus, they came upon Ladakh, the kingdom of the Mar Yul, a breakaway faction of the Lhasa royals. The monk, Jigmey, led them to a monastery perched on a hill. The head monk there greeted them with courtesy and respect and, to Markos’s amazement, accorded even greater respect, bordering on reverence, to Jigmey. The Great Khan then ordered Markos to present sacks of gold to the old man.
The head monk did not even glance at the gift. ‘I thank you for your benevolence, O King of Kings,’ he said softly, his voice quavering, ‘but I must ask if you have a gift worthy of the destination you have chosen.’
At an indication from his master, Markos took out the object they had brought with them and held it out for the old man to see. The head monk took it from him and held it in his own hand. As he gazed at it, his lips trembled and tears coursed down his cheeks. He looked up at the Khan and nodded slowly.
‘You are truly a king who has gained entry to Shambhala, as fated by the Divine,’ he said wonderingly.
Then he began teaching Jigmey the words of the Sutra, verses in Sanskrit that, on being chanted, would guide them to their destination. Markos asked the head monk if he too, could learn the incantations and was granted permission to do so. Being familiar with Sanskrit, he had soon learnt them by heart.
When the initiation was over and he was satisfied that Jigmey had understood and memorized the Sutra, the old man said to him with a smile, ‘May you receive the guidance required to enter the sacred mountain, young monk.’
They spent a few days at the monastery, preparing for the arduous journey that lay ahead. During that time, Jigmey and Markos would walk down every evening to the bank of the Indus.
‘What is this language inscribed on the rocks?’ Markos asked the young monk during one of these walks.
‘It is Pali, the language of the Buddha; and the inscriptions are prayers.’
‘Can you teach me the language?’
‘I can,’ Jigmey replied. ‘But why would you want to learn it?’ His tone expressed surprise.
‘It is a passion with me, young man,’ Markos answered with a smile. ‘When civilizations are young, they have a language. It is when they mature that they have a script. There may be much for me to learn.’
So every day, Jigmey began to spend some time with the Ongud, teaching him Pali. As they progressed, he discovered that the older man did indeed have a flair for languages.
A few days before they were due to resume their journey, Markos studied the locations they would pass through, as given in the Sutra, and began cutting them onto the
paiza
he had received from the Great Khan. While he was engaged in the task, Jigmey entered the room and sat down beside him.
The monk observed him for a while before saying, ‘There is no need for you to do that. I have memorized the verses.’
Markos realized that the monk was more perceptive than his serene young face led others to believe.
‘It is not for me,’ Markos explained. ‘It is for one of my own faith, many thousand
li
away. My lord has commanded me to show him where the Great Khan had voyaged. And since I cannot entirely trust my memory…’ Markos smiled deprecatingly. ‘I am not young like you.’
‘The words of the Sutra are secret,’ the monk cautioned him.
‘Do not worry,’ Markos reassured him, ‘the words cannot be exploited by undesirable hands. I am recording them in code and I will not etch the key.’
‘But why must this man be told of the Great Khan’s voyage?’ Jigmey asked, genuinely puzzled.
Markos was somewhat taken aback by the forthrightness of the query. In Khanbalik, the monk would have forfeited his head for his presumption. Markos himself had never dared ask the Great Khan this question; the little he knew was what the emperor had chosen to tell him. But he had come to realize that Jigmey was innocent to the ways of the material world and had no idea of how powerful the Great Khan was.
‘This person to whom I must relate the details of our journey, my young and simple friend,’ Markos explained, ‘is no ordinary man. As a traveller of the world, he has visited many wonderful and awe-inspiring destinations. He will be writing a history of the world, which would be insipid without a mention of the Great Khan’s deeds.’ Then he added somewhat brusquely, ‘It is not something that men like us would understand.’
Markos saw no reason to tell the young monk that when the Great Khan had made this decision a year back, his cousin had been dispatched to Marco Polo with a similar missive.
Jigmey looked unconvinced, but remained silent. After a while, he got up to leave, but said softly in parting, ‘It must be this man’s fate to learn about the Great Khan’s journey to the sacred mountain.’
When the Great Khan and his entourage started out again for their destination, the journey ahead was, if anything, more difficult. They had travelled to a kingdom, that of the Kushans, which could have matched Khanbalik in splendour, but from there onwards, following the directions given in the Sutra, the group had to make the crossing into the mountains again. The weather was harsh and treacherous, with icy winds cutting through their layers of clothing. They lost more members of their entourage and buried them where they fell, using
obos
– piles of rocks – to mark their memorials. Often, they would look up from the valley floor as they passed and see the scouts of brigand bands gazing down at them from the top of the mountains, but no one dared take on so large a force. They passed through the areas controlled by Kaidu, cousin to the Great Khan, with whom an uneasy truce prevailed. Again, their luck held and no troops arrived to bar their way. Finally, just after the Chu Fen, the autumnal equinox, they reached the bridge over the river mentioned in the Sutra. In the distance beyond stood the shining three-faced peak, indicating that they had nearly reached their destination – the Burqan Qaldun.
The Great Khan was emotional at the time of parting. ‘I give you too great a burden to bear, my friend,’ he said, embracing Markos.
‘Nothing short of death can make me betray the trust you have reposed in me, Great Khan,’ the other man replied.
The Great Khan looked at him for a moment longer, then turned away and crossed the bridge.
Markos was surprised when Jigmey came up to him and said, ‘You must take the boat. It is the only way back. It will take you back to a point on the same route we followed while travelling to this destination.’
Markos shook his head. ‘The boat will only take me back. I must go forward. Do not worry, my young friend. I too, have travelled far and wide. With this escort,’ he indicated the men in his entourage, ‘I have nothing to fear.’
He refrained from telling the monk that he was mortally afraid of water.
‘As you wish,’ the monk said a trifle sadly, before turning and crossing the bridge in the Khan’s wake.
Having left the Great Khan to make his way to the sacred mountain, Markos tried following the ‘magnetic fish’, which led them from valley to valley. The valley they were crossing first forked into bifurcations before splitting into three separate paths. Markos and his group remained lost in a maze. The Ongud now found himself forced to partake of the dried meat that other members of his entourage were subsisting on. It did not agree with him and he was quite ill, barely able to remain seated in the saddle. Then, as the valley floor widened, their luck changed for the better. The group had descended to a much lower elevation by then. Yellow grass sprouted along the banks of a small stream that flowed down from a spring. High in the sky, a bird of prey could be seen wheeling in ever-widening circles.
The arrows came without warning, swooping silently down on them from the sky. Two of the men dropped in their tracks. The Jhagun acted swiftly and with precision, fanning out and quickly locating the assailants – most likely, bandits.
‘Do not worry! I will show them the
paiza
!’ Markos called out, but found that his voice was hoarse and weak. No one paid attention to his words. It had worked the last time, he thought, before slumping forward on his horse.
They had been similarly ambushed in 1275, while he was accompanying his mentor, Sauma, on their first official expedition. They had crossed through Xi Xia via the Gansu Corridor, skirting the Takla Makan Desert, to Hotan and finally to Marageh, where Kublai’s nephew, the Il Khan Abaqa, ruled. Three nights before they reached their destination, however, robbers had stopped them in the wilds and Sauma had, with innate confidence, produced the
paiza
given to them by the Great Khan.
The
paiza
was both a passport and a requisition order. It was a simple piece of metal bearing the official dragon seal on top and, below it, the following words, etched in all the languages of the kingdom:
‘By the power of Eternal Heaven, by the protection of
Kublai Khan, the benevolent master of the Earthly realms, he who has
no reverence for this order, shall be guilty and die.’
The brigands had seen the
paiza
and let them go, unharmed. At Marageh, they had reported the incident to the Il Khan who, without demur, dispatched troops to capture the robbers and kill them, reserving for their chief the kind of death normally meted out to persons of noble rank, a death that did not involve the shedding of a single drop of blood. He was rolled in a blanket and kicked till he died.
This time, the Jhagun quickly routed the assailants. When their commander returned victorious from the skirmish, he found his men standing in a circle around Markos. As he came closer, he understood the reason; an arrow was sticking out of the Ongud’s back.
The ground was frozen hard and darkness was about to fall. The time of the night demons was upon them. They laid the body in a shallow grave not six inches deep, and covered it with stones. The
paiza
remained with the body in a pocket of Markos’s cloak.
With nothing more to be done, the commander of the Jhagun led his band north to Buryati.
Daytona, Texas, USA
A
UGUST 1986
Their flight touched down at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport at eight in the morning. It was a bright, sunny day, with the promise of heat hanging in the air. Having retrieved their bags, Susan sat in a kiosk in the hotel lounge while Duggy changed some money before going up to the coffee bar. He now returned with two Styrofoam cups of decaf and handed one to Susan, who had her compact open and was busy fixing her face.