The only sound that could be heard in Kublai's Banquet Hall was the creaking of necks as heads among the audience shook, no, no. And even the severed heads piled up in pyramids seven feet high on the corner stones of the pillars seemed to shake, no, no.
"This is a setup!" Mack declared hotly. "It is clear to me now that Marco Polo, for his own reasons, is out to get me. He probably can brook no rival at the Khan's court. And he probably feels inferior since he's only a Venetian merchant, whereas I am the ambassador from Ophir."
"As to that," Marco said, "let the court wizard speak."
The wizard stood up and rearranged his star-splattered robe. He adjusted the wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose, cleared his throat twice, harrumphed a few times, and said, "I have made enquiries of all the learned men in Peking who are especially skilled in geography. They agree that there is no such place as Ophir. They further assert that if it ever did exist, it perished long ago in a natural cataclysm. And they conclude that if it did exist today, it would never employ a German as its ambassador."
Mack waved his hands in frustration. Indignation raged in his brain, annoyance set his fingers to clicking and his toes to tapping, but he couldn't think of a thing to say.
Kublai Khan said, "I don't like to do this, because my court is renowned for its gentleness and high standards, but this man has been found guilty before a jury of his peers of being an impostor and a fake representative of a nonexistent country, as well as being a seducer of royal women. Therefore it is the judgment of this court that he be taken from here and brought to the common prison, where he is to suffer such tortures as are indicated for impostors, and then be strangled and disemboweled and drawn and quartered and burnt."
"An excellent suggestion," Kublai said. He raised his magic scepter and made a gesture. From the back of the room a fat bearded man came forward. He was dressed in a chamois loincloth and matching waistcoat, and he wore an enormous turban.
"Royal executioner at your service, Great Khan," he said.
"Do you have your bowstring handy?" Kublai asked.
"I always keep it on me," the executioner said, untying it from around his waist. "You can never tell when it might come in handy."
"Guards," Kublai said, "seize that man! Executioner, do your duty!"
Mack turned and tried to run from the place, hoping to hide himself in the interminable corridors of the Khan's palace until some better notion came to him. But Marco, smiling maliciously, stuck out a leg and Mack stumbled over it and fell sprawling. Bowmen seized him and held him tightly. The executioner approached, twirling the bowstring in his hand like the professional he was. Mack called out, "Your Majesty, you're making a mistake!"
"If so, let it be so," Kublai said. "To err with confidence is the prerogative of power."
The executioner bent over and whipped his bowstring around Mack's throat. Mack tried to shout, but no sounds came. He had a moment to reflect that one's life really doesn't flash in front of one's eyes at the moment of death as they say it does. All he could think of as the bowstring tightened around his throat was an afternoon lying on the banks of the Weser during a school holiday, and remarking to a student friend from the monastery, "You know, a man can never guess how he will die." And that was true, because he could never have imagined at that time (he was no more than fourteen then) that he would end up a couple of hundred years in the past, being executed at the court of Kublai Khan at the instigation of Marco Polo while engaged in a contest on behalf of the forces of Light and Dark.
And then there was a flash of light and a puff of smoke, and Mephistopheles appeared.
Mephistopheles was annoyed, and at such times he made extremely spectacular entrances, as he did this time, employing an entire panoply of fireworks and causing various prodigies of vision to appear in the air and then fade away mysteriously. He had found that spending a few moments setting up the atmosphere saved time in the long run, because those to whom he appeared were in such awe that they never thought to oppose him.
"Release that man!" Mephistopheles thundered. - The executioner fell back as though struck by lightning.
The bowmen collapsed in terror. Kublai Khan cowered back. Marco ducked under the table. Princess Irene fainted. Mack stepped forward, a free man.
"Are you ready to go?" Mephistopheles asked.
"Ready, my lord!" Mack replied, getting up and dusting himself off. "Just one last thing."
He walked up to Kublai Khan. As Kublai looked around for help, Mack lifted the magic scepter from his hands and tucked it into his pouch. "Now see how long your reign lasts!" he cried spitefully. And then Mephistopheles made a gesture and both he and Mack had vanished.
Marco said, "I think we have witnessed a genuine supernatural occurrence. It puts me in mind of something that happened to me when I was in Tashkent. It was spring, and the flowers of the valley—"
Just then the great bronze doors of the Khan's Banquet Hall opened again. Marguerite entered. She was wearing a new Chinese dress of watered silk with high collar and form-fitting lines. She had also been freshly made up, washed, perfumed, had her hair set and her nails done. They knew how to make language lessons interesting in Kublai's court.
"Hi," she said. "I'm just back from class. Listen to this, everybody." And in crude but understandable Mongol she said, "The swain from Spain is standing in the rain." She smiled and waited for words of approval.
"Shall we execute her?" Marco asked Kublai, getting out from under the table and dusting himself off.
"Might as well," Kublai said, the thought of cruelty helping him regain his dignity. "It's better than nothing."
Marco called out, "Guards! Executioner!"
Once again the grim charade proceeded. Marguerite was seized. The executioner, resolutely, despite the fact that his legs were shaking, approached. And then Mephistopheles appeared again.
"Sorry, I forgot all about you," he said. He gestured. Marguerite disappeared. Then Mephistopheles disappeared. The Khan and his guests stared in stunned silence at the places where they had been. And then the waiters came in with the main course.
FLORENCE
CHAPTER 1
Well, Faust, we are sending you on your way again for the next contest. In this one, you are going to the city of Florence, in the year 1497. How I envy you, my dear fellow! You will see at firsthand the city that can claim to be the artistic inventor of the new world. Many scholars argue that the Renaissance began in Florence. How does that sound?"
Mack and Mephistopheles were in a little office perched in Limbo. Limbo was wide and expansive in that part, and the office was the only thing in sight. It was the sort of place Mephistopheles often used for late-night paperwork. Quite simple; a wooden frame structure about ten feet to a side (you can build as large as you'd like in Limbo, at no extra cost, but Mephistopheles had wanted to keep a homey look). A
few oil paintings of pastoral subjects on the walls. A small sofa covered in green satin on which he sat, and a straight-backed wooden chair on the edge of which Mack perched. Mephistopheles had given Mack a glass of barley wine to buck him up after his close call. But he had been anxious to get on with the contest. "All right, then," Mephistopheles said at last. And so, with barely a chance to catch his breath, Mack knew he was to be off again. To a place with an odd name.
"What's a Renaissance?" Mack asked.
"I forgot," Mephistopheles chuckled, "the term 'Renaissance' didn't enter usage until long after the Renaissance was over. It refers to a period in history, my dear Faust."
"What am I supposed to do about this Renaissance?" Mack asked.