"Certainly. Your fame has spread even as far as Ophir."
Marco tried to maintain his frown, but he was flattered. Tell me, what are your principal products?" he asked.
"We export a lot of stuff," Mack said, "but our main products are gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."
"Apes! That's interesting," Marco said, "The great Khan has been looking for a good source of apes."
"We've got the best," Mack said. "We've got big apes and link apes, tiny apelets, huge gorillas, orange-furred orangutans, and so on. I guess we can fill about anything you might need in the ape department."
"Great, I'll get back to you on that," Marco said. "The great Khan might want some peacocks, too, if your prices are competitive."
Talk to me," Mack said, "I'll make you a price."
At that moment the court wizard spoke up. "Ophir, eh? The city that is near Sheba?"
"That's it," Mack said. "You got the right one."
"I shall check on this further," the wizard said.
"I'm sure you'll find our city is in order," Mack said. He chuckled, but no one else laughed at his little joke.
Kublai Khan said, "Welcome to my court, Dr. Faust, ambassador from Ophir. We shall wish to speak to you at some later time, because, let it be known, we love to hear stories of distant lands. Our dear son Marco regales us with many tales. But it is always good to get a new slant on these things."
"At Your Majesty's service," Mack said, and, noting that Marco's face had changed from a scowl into a rictus of annoyance, decided that he had made no friends here this day.
"And what of the woman?" Kublai Khan asked.
Mack hissed at Marguerite, "He's talking to you!"
"What's he saying?" Marguerite said. "I can't understand a word!"
"I'll speak for you," Mack said. To Kublai Khan he said, "This is Marguerite, a friend of mine, but she doesn't have a word of Mongol."
"No word at all? But we would fain hear her story!"
"I'll just have to translate it for you," Mack said, "which is a shame because she tells it so well herself."
"That won't be necessary," Kublai said. "Luckily, we have recently instituted a rapid-learning center for subjects and friends who don't understand Mongolian. You speak it perfectly, my dear Faust."
"Thank you," Mack said, bowing. "I've always had a bit of a knack for languages."
"But the woman is going to have to learn. Explain to her that she is to go to class now and come out when she can speak to us."
Mack said to Marguerite, "Look, I'm sorry about this, but they're taking you off to language class."
"Oh, no," Marguerite said. "Not school again!"
"Yes. I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about it."
"Darn it!" Marguerite said. "This is no fun at all!" But she let herself be led away by two serving maids.
CHAPTER 2
Mack was aware of a strangeness in the outer corridors as he followed Wong, a servant who had been assigned to lead him to his quarters. He noted how Wong's lantern flame would suddenly sway when there was no breeze to stir it. As they moved through the silent hallways and corridors they came to one that was roped off with a crimson cord.
"That is the spirit wing," Wong said. "It is dedicated to the spirits of dead poets. Entrance to it is forbidden to the living. Only the Khan himself and the servants of the Arts may go through with the sacrifices."
"What sacrifices?"
"Brightly colored stones, seashells, moss, and other things that are pleasing to the spirits of dead storytellers."
Wong told him that there were few monarchs as hospitable as Kublai Khan, and none as desirous of hearing the converse of strangers. Kublai was different from other Mongols in the pleasure he took at travelers' tales. He encouraged people from all over the world to come call on him, tell him where they were from and what the customs were like there. He liked to hear about their families, too, and the more extended, the better. And Kublai had a whole wing of his palace put aside for hospitality to strangers. This wing was arguably the world's first luxury hotel where people were welcome without a reservation and without money. Just a story.
There were beggars in the Khan's palace as well as ambassadors. But they were not ordinary beggars. In the Khan's estimation, a beggar was one with an insufficiency of stories. All the beggars in the Khan's palace were persons who, for one reason or another, were or could be considered storydead. The Khan supported these unfortunates as a public charity.
Not only were there luxurious rooms for travelers, there was also the special wing for the wandering spirits of poets and storytellers. For it was the Khan's belief that the spirits of poets live forever, in a special celestial kingdom that had been constructed for them alone by the Powers That Be. And these spirits sometimes went awandering back to the Earth, for poets draw inspiration from revisiting the scenes of their former triumphs and defeats. And in their peregrinations around their old-time countrysides and city streets, sometimes these spirits were susceptible to outside influences. At such times, the Khan believed, a man could perform a certain ritual, lay out certain offerings, and these would attract such spirits, and they would come to the Khan's palace, for they knew they were welcome. Once there, they would find all the things that a spirit might crave: bits of soft fur, shiny shards of mirror, pieces of amber, antique silver coins, curiously colored pebbles. These were some of the things that were said to give pleasure to the spirits of dead poets, and the Khan had collected many of them. These were laid out in the chambers where the spirits were invited to visit. Incense was burned around the clock in these chambers, and candles were kept lit. And sometimes, a spirit would come to such a place, enjoy the feast of memory that had been laid out for him, and, when he left, deposit a dream in the Khan's head as a gift.
Due to this, the Khan had many remarkable dreams, for he had been visited by spirits telling of savage white whales, of conspiracies in the Roman forum, of great armies moving across a frozen white landscape. He had dreamed of journeying through a dark wood, gone from the path direct. He had dreamed of choosing between a lady and a tiger. Thus the Khan piled up a treasure of stories and dreams by day and by night, until he no longer knew which was which, and he worked on his own secret dream, which was to be an audience for dead poets after he had left this life.
Mack's apartment was of a luxury rarely encountered in the West. And the Khan had thought up many niceties. The servants who fetched him food and drink and hot water for his bath were trained to act as if he weren't there, so that their gaze would not intrude on his inner solitude. Mack found all this very nice, but he could not enjoy it properly for worrying about getting on with his choices. After all, he wasn't a sightseer. He was there to work.
And then there was Marco Polo to consider.
"Tell me," Mack said to Wong, "does Marco Polo live anywhere around here?"
"He keeps an apartment in this complex," Wong said. "But he also has several fine mansions in the city and numerous farms, pleasure domes, and the like elsewhere."
"I didn't ask for his real estate holdings," Mack said. "I merely want to know where to find him."
"Right now he's in the Main Banquet Room, supervising the decorating for a great banquet tonight in the Khan's honor."
"Be so good as to take me there."
CHAPTER 3
The Main Banquet Room was filled with workmen putting up paper streamers, banners, brightly colored tapestries, and other gewgaws of a festive nature. The ceiling was lofty and was held up by eight pillars.
Each of those pillars rested on a square block that gave some room at its corners for decorations. The main decoration for the festivities was severed human heads. Marco had heads piled on these corner stones, great piles of severed heads, some of them still bleeding, some rather dried out, some in a state of mummification, others in a state of moldiness, decay, or even putrescence. In the middle of the room was a vat of blood, with two cowled figures stirring it so it wouldn't coagulate. Marco was standing near to it, hands on his hips, supervising the placement of the heads.