THE twins, fatigued, were still sleeping when I eased out from between them the next morning. Nostril had not been anywhere in evidence the night before, and was not in his closet when I went to look for him. So, being temporarily without any servants at all, I stirred up the embers of the brazier in my main room and brewed myself a pot of cha with which to break my fast. While I sipped at it, I bethought myself of trying the experiment I had been contemplating the previous day. I put just enough charcoal on the brazier to keep it burning, but at a very low flame. Then I rummaged about my chambers until I found a stoneware pot with a lid, and I poured into that my remaining fifty-liang measure of flaming powder, lidded it securely and set it on the brazier. At that moment, Nostril came in, looking rather rumpled and seedy, but pleased with himself.
“Master Marco,” he said, “I have been up all night. Some of the menservants and horse herders started a gambling game of zhi-pai cards in the stable, and it is still going on. I watched the play for some hours until I grasped the rules of the game. Then I wagered some silver, and I won, too. But when I scooped in my winnings I was dismayed to see that I had won only this sheaf of dirty papers, so I quit in disgust at men who play only with worthless vouchers.”
“You ass,” I said. “Have you never seen flying money before? As well as I can tell, you are holding there the equivalent of a month of my wages. You should have stayed, as long as you were doing so well.” He looked bewildered, so I said, “I will explain later. Meanwhile, I rejoice to see that one of us can squander his time in frivolity. The slave plays the prodigal while his master labors and scurries about on the slave’s errands. I have had a visit from your Princess Mar-Janah and—”
“Oh, master!” he exclaimed, and turned colors, as if he had been an adolescent boy and I were twitting him on his first mooncalf love.
“We will speak later of that also. I will just say that your gambling earnings should serve you and her to set up housekeeping together.”
“Oh, master! Al-hamdo-lillah az iltifat-i-shoma!”
“Later, later. Right now, I must bid you to cease your spying activities. I have heard intimations of displeasure, from a lord whom I think we would be wise not to displease.”
“As you command, master. But it may be that I have already procured a trifle of information that may interest you. That is why I stayed sleepless and absent from my master’s quarters all the night long, being not frivolous but assiduous in my master’s behalf.” He put on a look of self-sacrifice and self-righteousness. “Men get as talkative as women when they play at cards. And these men, for mutual comprehension, all talked in the Mongol tongue. When one of them made a passing reference to the Minister Pao Nei-ho, I thought I ought to linger. Since I was instructed by my master to make no overt inquiries, I could only listen. And my devoted patience kept me there all night, never drowsing, never getting drunk, never even departing to relieve my bladder, never—”
“No need to beat me over the head with hints, Nostril. I accept that you were working while you played. Come to the point.”
“For what it is worth, master, the Minister of Lesser Races is himself of a lesser race.”
I blinked. “How say you?”
“He evidently passes here for a Han, but he is really of the Yi people of Yun-nan Province.”
“Who told you so? How reliable is this information?”
“As I said, the game was played in the stables. That is because a stud of horses was yesterday brought in from the south, and their drovers are at leisure until they are dispatched on another karwan. Several of them are natives of Yun-nan, and one of them said, offhand, that he had glimpsed the Minister Pao here at the palace. And later another said yes, he had recognized him also, as a former petty magistrate of some little Yun-nan prefecture. And later another said yes, but let us not give him away. If Pao has escaped from the backwoods and prospers by passing as a Han here in the great capital, let us let him go on enjoying his success. Thus they spoke, Master Marco, and not falsely but credibly, it seemed to me.”
“Yes,” I murmured. I was remembering: the Minister Pao had indeed spoken of “us Han” as if he belonged among that people, and of “the obstreperous Yi” as if he concurred in regarding that people as distasteful. Well, I mused, the Chief Minister Achmad may have warned me too late to cease my covert investigations. But, if he was to be angry because I had learned this much of a secret, I must risk making him angrier still.
The twins had waked, perhaps from hearing us talking, and Buyantu came into the main room, looking rather prettily tousled. To her I said, “Run straight to the chambers of the Khan Kubilai, and present to his attendants the compliments of Marco Polo, and inquire if an early appointment can be fixed for me to see the Khakhan on a matter of some urgency.”
She started to go back into the bedroom to arrange her dress and hair more orderly, but I said, “Urgency, Buyantu, is urgency. Go as you are, and go quickly.” To Nostril I said, “You go to your closet and catch up on your sleep. We will discuss our other concerns when I return.”
If
I return, I thought, as I went into my bedchamber to dress in my most formal court costume. For all I knew, the Khakhan might, like the Wali Achmad, disapprove of my having taken it upon myself to ferret out secrets, and might express his disapproval in some violent manner not at all to my liking.
Biliktu was just then making up the very disordered bed, and she grinned impishly at me when she found among the covers the su-yang phallocrypt, now as small and limp as any real organ would have been after the exercise it had enjoyed. Seeing it, I decided to take this opportunity for some similar exercise of my own, since there was no knowing whether it might not be my last opportunity for a while. So, being at that moment undressed, I took gentle hold of Biliktu and began to undress her.
She seemed faintly startled. It had, after all, been a long time since she and I had indulged. She struggled a little and murmured, “I do not think I should, Master Marco.”
“Come,” I said heartily. “You cannot be still indisposed. If you could employ that”—I nodded at the discarded su-yang—“you can employ a real one.”
And she did, with no further demur except an occasional whimper, and a tendency to keep moving away from my caresses and thrusts, as if to prevent my penetrating her very deeply. I assumed that she was merely still weary, or perhaps a little sore, from the preceding night, and her maidenly show of reluctance did not prevent my enjoying myself. Indeed, my enjoyment may have been keener than it had been for some while past, from the realization that I was inside Biliktu for a change, and not her twin.
I had finished, and most delightfully, but still had my red jewel inside Biliktu, relishing the final few diminishing squeezes of her lotus-petal muscles, when a voice said harshly, “The Khakhan will see you as soon as you can get there.”
It was Buyantu, standing over the bed, glowering fiercely at me and her sister. Biliktu gave another whimper that was almost a whinny of fright, wriggled out of my embrace and out of the bed. Buyantu spun on her heel and stamped from the room. I also got up and got dressed, taking great care with my appearance. Biliktu dressed at the same time, but seemed to be dawdling, as if deliberately to make sure that I was the first to confront Buyantu.
That one stood waiting in the main room, with her arms folded tight inside her sleeves and a thundercloud expression on her face, like a schoolmistress waiting to chastise a naughty pupil. She opened her mouth, but I raised a masterly hand to stop her.
“I had not realized until now,” I said. “You are displaying jealousy, Buyantu, and I think that is most selfish of you. For months now, it is clear, you have been gradually weaning me away from Biliktu. I ought to be flattered, I suppose, that you want me all for yourself. But I really must protest. Any such unsisterly jealousy could disturb the peace our little domicile has heretofore enjoyed. We will all continue to share, and share alike, and you must simply resign yourself to sharing with your sister my affection and attentions.”
She stared at me as if I had uttered pure gibberish, and then she burst into a laughter that did not signify amusement.
“Jealous?” she cried. “Yes, I have grown jealous! And you will regret having taken that sordid advantage of my absence. You will regret that furtive quick frolic! But you think I am jealous of
you
? Why, you blind and strutting fool!”
I rocked with astonishment, never in my life having been so addressed by any servant. I thought she must have lost her senses. But in the next instant, I was even more severely shaken, for she raged on:
“You conceited goat of a Ferenghi! Jealous of you? It is
her
love I want! And for me alone!”
“You have it, Buyantu, and you know you have it!” cried Biliktu, hastening into the room and laying a hand on her sister’s arm.
Buyantu shrugged the hand away. “That is not what I saw.”
“I am sorry that you saw. And I am sorrier for having done it.” She glanced hatefully at me, where I stood stunned. “He took me unaware. I did not know how to resist.”
“You must learn to say no.”
“I will. I have. I promise.”
“We are twins. Nothing should ever come between us.”
“Nothing ever will, dearest, not ever again.”
“Remember, you are my little one.”
“Oh, I am! I am! And you are mine!”
Then they were in each other’s arms, and weeping lovers’ tears down each other’s necks. I stood shifting foolishly from one foot to the other, and finally cleared my throat and said:
“Well …”
Biliktu gave me a wet-eyed look of hurt and reproach.
“Well … uh … the Khakhan is waiting for me, girls.”
Buyantu gave me a look brimming with massacre.
“When I come back, we will … that is, I will be glad to hear suggestions … that is, somehow to rearrange …” I gave it up, and said instead, “Please, my dears. Until I return, if you can leave off groping at each other, I have a small chore for you. Do you see this pot on this brazier?”
They turned their heads to cast an indifferent regard on it. The pot had got quite hot, so I used a corner of my robe to lift its lid and look in. The contents emitted a thin, peevish sort of smoke, but showed no sign of having melted at all. I set the lid securely on it again and said, “Keep up the fire under it, girls, but keep it a very low fire.”
They unwound from each other, and dutifully came to the brazier, and Biliktu laid a few new chips of charcoal on the embers.
“Thank you,” I said. “It will require no other attendance than that. Simply stay close by it and keep it at a simmering heat. And when I return …”
But they had already dismissed me and were gazing soulfully at each other, so I went on my way.
Kubilai received me in his earthquake-engine chamber, and with no one else present, and he greeted me cordially but not effusively. He knew that I had something to say, and he was ready for me to say it at once. However, I did not wish just to blurt out the information I had brought, so I began circumspectly.
“Sire, I am desirous that I do not, in my ignorance, give undue weight or impetuosity to my small services. I believe I bring news of some value, but I cannot properly evaluate it without knowing more than the little I now know of the Khakhan’s disposition of his armies, and the nature of their objectives.”
Kubilai did not take affront at my presumption or tell me to go and inform myself from his underlings.
“Like any conqueror, I must hold what I have won. Fifteen years ago, when I was chosen Khan of All Khans of the Mongols, my own brother Arikbugha challenged my accession, and I had to put him down. More recently, I have several times had to stifle similar ambitions on the part of my cousin Kaidu.” He waved a dismissal of such trifles. “The mayflies continually plot to topple the cedar. Nuisances only, but they require my keeping portions of my troops on all the borders of Kithai.”
“May I ask, Sire, about those on the march, not in garrison?”
He gave me another summary, just as succinct. “If I am to keep secure this Kithai I won from the Chin, I must also have the southern lands of the Sung. I can best conquer them by encirclement, taking first the province of Yun-nan. So that is the only place where my armies are actively campaigning right now, under my very capable Orlok Bayan.”
Not to impugn the capability of his Orlok Bayan, I chose my next words with care.
“He has been engaged in that for some while now, I understand. Is it possible, Sire, that he is finding the conquest of Yun-nan more difficult than expected?”
Kubilai regarded me narrowly. “He is not about to be defeated, if that is what you mean. But neither is he having an easy victory. His advance had to be made from the land of To-Bhot, meaning that he had to come down into Yun-nan through the steeps of the Hang-duan Mountains. Our horse armies are better suited and more accustomed to fighting on flat plains. The Yi people of Yun-nan know every crevice of those mountains, and they fight in a shifty and cunning way—never facing us in force, but sniping from behind rocks and trees, then running to hide somewhere else. It is like trying to swat mosquitoes with a hod of bricks. Yes, you could fairly say that Bayan is finding it no easy conquest.”