I was first attracted to Hui-sheng at least partly by her differences from all other women I had so far known. To see that Min slave girl among her Mongol mistresses was like seeing a single spray of pink-ivory peach blossom in a vase of shaggy, spiky, brass- and copper- and bronze-colored chrysanthemums. However, she was beautiful not only in comparison with those less so. Like a peach blossom, she was comely all by herself, and she would have stood out even among a whole flowering peach orchard of her comely sisters of the Min. There were reasons for that. Hui-sheng lived in a perpetually silent world, so her eyes were full of dreaming even when she was wide awake. Yet her deprivation of speech and hearing was not a total handicap, nor even very noticeable to others—I myself had not realized, until I was told, that she was a deaf-mute—for she had evolved a liveliness of facial expression and a vocabulary of small gestures that communicated her thoughts and feelings without a sound but without any mistaking them. In time, I learned to read at a glance her every infinitesimal movement of qahwah-colored eyes, rose-wine lips, feathery brows, twinkling dimples, willow hands and frond fingers. But that was later.
Inasmuch as I had become enthralled of Hui-sheng under the worst possible circumstances—while she was seeing me shamelessly cavort with her dozen or so Mongol mistresses—I could hardly commence any courtship of her, without risking her derisive repulsion, until some time had passed and, I would hope, blurred her memory of those circumstances. I determined that I would delay a decent while before beginning any overtures, and in the meantime I would arrange to put some distance between her and those concubines, while not distancing her from me. To do those things, I needed the help of the Khakhan himself.
So, when I was sure there were no more Mongol maidens forthcoming, and when I knew Kubilai to be in a good mood—the messenger had recently arrived to tell him that Yun-nan was his and that Bayan was forging into the heartland of the Sung—I requested audience with him and was cordially received. I told him that I had accomplished my service to the maidens, and thanked him for giving me that opportunity to leave some trace of myself in the posterity of Kithai, and then said:
“I think, Sire, now that I have enjoyed this orgy of unrestrained pleasure, it might stand as the capstone to my bachelor career. That is to say, I believe I have attained to an age and maturity where I ought to cease the prodigal squandering of my ardors—the filly-chasing, as we call it in Venice, or the dipping of the ladle, as you say in these parts. I think it would be fitting for me now to contemplate a more settled conjugality, perhaps with an especially favored concubine, and I ask your permission, Sire—”
“Hui!” he exclaimed, with a smile of delight. “You were captivated by one of those twenty-four-karat damsels!”
“Oh, by
all
of them, Sire, it goes without saying. However, the one I would have for my keeping is the slave girl who attended them.”
He sat back and grunted, with rather less delight, “Uu?”
“She is a girl of the Min, and—”
“Aha!” he cried, smiling broadly again. “Tell me no more. That captivation I can appreciate!”
“—and I would ask your leave, Sire, to purchase the slave’s freedom, for she serves your Lady Matron of Concubines. Her name is Hui-sheng.”
He waved a hand and said, “She will be deeded to you as soon as we get back to Khanbalik. Then she will be your servant or slave or consort, whatever you and she may choose. She is my gift to you in return for your help in acquiring Manzi for me.”
“I thank you, Sire, most sincerely. And Hui-sheng will thank you, too. Are we returning soon to Khanbalik?”
“We will leave Xan-du tomorrow. Your companion Ali Babar has already been informed. He is probably in your chambers packing for you at this moment.”
“Is this an abrupt departure, Sire? Has something happened?”
He smiled more broadly than ever. “Did you not hear me mention the acquisition of Manzi? A messenger just rode up from the capital with the news.”
I gasped, “Sung has fallen!”
“The Chief Minister Achmad sent the word. A company of Han heralds rode into Khanbalik to announce the imminent arrival of the Sung’s Dowager Empress Xi-chi. She is coming herself to surrender that empire and the Imperial Yin and her own royal person. Achmad could receive her, of course, as my Vice-Regent, but I prefer to do that myself.”
“Of course, Sire. It is an epochal occasion. The overthrow of the Sung and the creation of a whole new Manzi nation for the Khanate.”
He sighed comfortably. “Anyway, the cold weather is upon us, and the hunting here will be less enjoyable. So I shall go and take an Empress trophy instead.”
“I did not know that the Sung Empire was ruled by a woman.”
“She is only Regent herself, mother to the Emperor who died a few years ago, and died young, leaving only infant sons. So the old Xi-chi was reigning until her first grandson should grow up and take the throne. Which now he will not. Go then, Marco, and make ready to ride. I return to Khanbalik to rule an expanded Khanate, and you to start putting down roots. May the gods give wisdom to us both.”
I hurried to my chamber, and burst in shouting, “I have momentous news!”
Ali Babar was helpfully gathering up the traveling things I had brought with me to Xan-du, and the few new things I had acquired while in residence—the tusks of my first-killed boar, for example, to keep as mementos—and was packing them into saddlebags.
“I have heard already,” he said, with not much enthusiasm. “The Khanate is bigger and greater than ever.”
“More amazing news than that! I have met the woman of my life!”
“Let me think if I can guess which. There has lately been quite a procession through this room of yours.”
“You would never guess!” I said gleefully, and started to extol the charms of Hui-sheng. But then I checked myself, for Ali was not rejoicing with me. “You look unusually glum, old companion. Has something cast you down?”
He mumbled, “That rider from Khanbalik brought other news, not so inspiriting … .”
I looked more attentively at him. If he had had a chin under that gray beard, it would have been quivering. “What other news?”
“The messenger said that, when he was leaving the city, he was intercepted by one of my kashi artisans, who asked him to tell me that Mar-Janah has gone away.”
“What? Your good wife Mar-Janah? Gone away? Gone where?”
“I have not the least idea. My shop man said that, some while back—it must be a month ago, by now, or more—two palace guards called at the kashi shop. Mar-Janah departed with them, and has not been seen or heard of since. The workers are consequently in some confusion and disarray. My man told the messenger no more than that.”
“Palace guards? Then it must have been official business. I will run again to Kubilai and ask—”
“He professes to know nothing of the matter. I naturally went to inquire of him. That is when he told me to pack for us. And, since we are going back to Khanbalik immediately, I have made no great outcry. I suppose, when we get there, I will learn what has occurred … .”
“This is most strange,” I murmured.
I said no more than that, though a recollection had come suddenly and unbidden into my mind—the message Ali had brought: “Expect me when you least expect me.” I had not shown it to Ali or told him what it said. I had seen no need to burden him with my troubles—or what I then assumed were my troubles only—and I had torn up and thrown away the missive. Now I wished I had not. As I have said, Mongol writing was not easy for me to unravel. Could I perhaps have misread it? Could it, this time, have said something slightly different? “Expect me where you least expect me,” perhaps? Had it been given to Ali Babar to deliver, not only to threaten and alarm me again, but also to get
him
out of the city while dirty deeds were being done?
Whoever in Khanbalik wished me evil must have been aware that—when I was absent from the city—I was vulnerable only vicariously, through the few persons I held dear there. A mere three persons, in fact. My father and uncle were two. But they were grown men, and strong, and anyone who harmed them would have to answer to an irate Khakhan. The third, however, was the good and beauteous and sweet Mar-Janah, who was only a weakling woman, and an insignificant former slave, and treasured by none but me and
my
former slave. With a pang, I remembered her saying, “I was left my life, but not much else …” and wistfully, “If Ali Babar can love what is left of me … .”
Had my unknown enemy, the lurking, sneaking whisperer, abducted that blameless woman for no reason but to hurt me? If so, the enemy was loathsomely vile, but clever in his choice of surrogate victim. I had helped to rescue the fallen Princess Mar-Janah from a life of abuse and degradation, and had helped her at last to safe and happy harbor—I remembered her saying, “The intervening twenty years might never have been”—and if I should now be the cause of her enduring yet another kind of misery, it would be a bitter hurt to me indeed.
Well, we would know when we got to Khanbalik. And I had a strong apprehension: if we were ever to find the vanished Mar-Janah, we should have first to find the veiled woman who had given Ali that missive for me. But, for the time being, I said nothing of that to him; he was already worried enough. I also ceased to exult over my newfound Hui-sheng, out of regard for his concern for his own darling, so long lost before and now lost again.
“Marco, could we not ride out ahead of this slow cortege?” he asked anxiously, when we and the whole Xan-du court had been on the road for two or three days. “You and I could be in Khanbalik much sooner if we could put spurs to our horses.”
He was right, of course. The Khakhan traveled with much ceremony and no haste at all, holding the whole train to a stately slow march. It would not have been seemly for him to travel otherwise, especially when this was something in the nature of a triumphal procession. All his people in towns and villages along the way—having heard of the Sung war’s successful conclusion—were eager to gather along the roadside and cheer and wave and throw flowers as he passed.
Kubilai rode in a majestic, thronelike, canopied carriage adorned with jewels and gilding, drawn by four immense elephants likewise much bedizened. Kubilai’s carriage was followed by others carrying a number of his wives and many more of his other women, including those maidens he had lent to me, and servants and slaves and so forth. Variously before and behind and beside the carriages rode Prince Chingkim and all the other courtiers on horses gorgeously arrayed. Behind the carriages came wagons loaded with luggage and equipment and hunting arms and trophies of the season and traveling provender of wines and kumis and viands; one wagon was occupied by a band of musicians and their instruments, to play for us at our nighttime stops. A troop of Mongol warriors rode one day’s journey ahead of us, to trumpet our approach to each community, so that its inhabitants could prepare to light their incense-fires and, if we arrived in twilight, to ignite the fiery trees and sparkling flowers (stores of which the Firemaster Shi had deposited with them on the outward march), and another troop of horsemen followed a day behind us, to retrieve any broken-wheeled wagons or lamed horses that had to fall out of the train. Also, the Khakhan, as usual in this season, had two or three brace of white gerfalcons riding on the sideboards of his carriage, and the whole procession would have to halt whenever we started some game that he wished to fly the falcons at.
“Yes, Ali, we could make better time on our own,” I replied to his query. “But I think we ought not. For one reason, it would appear disrespectful of the Khakhan, and we may have need of his continued warm friendship. For another reason, if we stay with the train, anyone who has any news of Mar-Janah will have no trouble finding us to tell us.”
That was quite true, though I did not confide to Ali all my reasoning in that regard. I had convinced myself that Mar-Janah had been abducted by my whisperer enemy. Since I knew not who that was, I saw no use in our riding furiously to the city just to cast about in desperation. It was more logical to assume that the whisperer would be keeping an eye out for me, and would the sooner see me if I arrived in conspicuous pomp, and could the sooner deliver his next message, or his ransom demand for Mar-Janah’s deliverance, or just another taunting threat. It was our best hope for making contact with him, or at least with his veiled woman courier, and eventually with Mar-Janah.
My staying with the Khakhan’s entourage also enabled me to keep a protective watch over Hui-sheng, but that had no influence on my decision not to hurry ahead. Hui-sheng was still traveling in company with her Mongol mistresses, and had no knowledge of my interest in her or the arrangements I had made for her future. I did pay her some occasional little attentions, just so she would not forget me—helping her climb in or out of the concubines’ carriage when we stopped at a karwansarai or some provincial official’s country mansion, fetching her a dipper of water from an inn-yard well, gathering a posy of a village’s thrown flowers and presenting it to her with a gallant bow—trifles like that. I wished her to think well of me, but I had now more reason than before not to force my suit upon her.
I had earlier decided to wait a decent interval; now I
had
to. It seemed to me that my whisperer enemy knew always where I was and what I was doing. I dared not risk that enemy’s learning that I had any special attachment to Hui-sheng. If he was malicious enough to strike at me through a dearly esteemed friend like Mar-Janah, God only knew what he might do to someone he thought
really
dear to me. It was hard for me to keep my gaze from lingering on her and to resist doing little services for the reward of her dimpled smile. I would have had an easier time of it if Ali and I had ridden on ahead, as he wanted to do. But, for his sake and Mar-Janah’s, I stayed with the train, trying not to stay always near Hui-sheng.