I assumed Bayan was only drunkenly babbling, but I listened respectfully. And I later realized, when I saw actual specimens of those barbarian tribes on the streets of Pagan itself, that he had been telling only sober truth.
“All those are country folk,” he went on. “The city dwellers are a better mixture. Some visiting aborigines and Mien, a few Indian immigrants, but mostly the more civilized and cultured people called Myama. They have long been the nobility and upper classes of Ava, and they are far superior to all the others. The Myama have even had the good sense not to take their inferior neighbors as servants or slaves. They have always gone afield and got Shan for those purposes, the Shan—or Thai, if you prefer—being notably more handsome and cleanly and intelligent than any of the lesser local races.”
“Yes, I have just now encountered one Thai,” I said, and added, since Hui-sheng could not hear and object, “a Thai girl who is indeed a superb creature.”
“It was on account of them that I came to Ava,” said Bayan. I already knew that, but I did not interrupt. “They are worthy people. People worth keeping. And too many of them had been deserting our dominions, fleeing to the nation they call Muang Thai, Land of the Free. The Khanate wishes them to remain Shan, not turn Thai. That is, not go free, but remain subjects of the Khanate.”
“I understand the Khanate’s view,” I said. “But if there really is a whole land full of such beautiful people, I should wish that it could go on existing.”
“Oh, it can go on existing,” said Bayan, “as long as it is ours. Let me but take the capital, a place called Chiang-Rai, and accept their king’s surrender, and I will not lay waste the rest of the country. That way it will be a permanent source of the finest slaves, to serve and to adorn the rest of the Khanate. Hui! But enough of politics.” He shoved aside his still-heaped plate and licked his lips most slaveringly and said, “Here comes our sweet to conclude our meal. The durian.”
That was another dubious surprise. The sweet looked to be a melon with a spikily armored rind, but, when the table steward cut it, I saw that it had large seeds inside, like chicken’s eggs, and the odor that erupted from it nearly made me shove back from the table.
“Yes, yes,” Bayan said testily. “Before you complain, I already know about the stink. But this is durian.”
“Does the word mean carrion? That is what it smells like.”
“It is the fruit of the durian tree. It has the most repellent smell of any fruit, and the most captivating taste. Ignore the stench and eat.”
Hui-sheng and I looked at each other, and she looked as distressed as I probably did. But the male must show courage before his female. I took up a slice of the cream-colored fruit and, trying not to inhale, took a bite of it. Bayan was right again. The durian had a taste unlike anything I ever ate, before or since. I can taste it yet, but how do I describe it? Like a custard made of cream and butter, and flavored with almonds—but with that taste came hints of other flavors, most unexpected: wine and cheese and even shallots. It was not sweet and juicy, like a hami melon, nor a tart refreshment, like a sharbat, but it partook of those qualities and—providing one could persevere past the rank odor of it—the durian was a most delightful novelty.
“Many people get addicted to the eating of durian,” said Bayan. He must have been one of them, for he was gorging on it, and talking with his mouth full. “They loathe the hideous climate of Champa, but they stay for the durian alone, because it grows nowhere except in this corner of the world.” And again he was right. Both Hui-sheng and I would become ardent enthusiasts of the fruit. “And it is more than refreshing and delicious,” he went on. “It incites and excites other appetites. There is a saying here in Ava: when the durian falls, the skirts go up.” That was true, too, as Hui-sheng and I would later prove.
When we were all at last satiated with the fruit, Bayan leaned back and wiped his mouth on his sleeve and said, “So. It is good to have you here, Marco, especially when you come so handsomely accompanied.” He reached out to pat Hui-sheng’s hand. “But how long will you and she stay? What are your plans?”
“I have none at all,” I said, “now that I have delivered the Khakhan’s letters to you. Except that I did promise Kubilai I would bring him a memento from this new province of his. Something unique to this place.”
“Hm,” Bayan said reflectively. “Offhand, I can think of nothing better than a gift basket of durian, but they would spoil on the long road. Well, now. The day is getting on for evening, and that is the coolest time for walking. Take your good lady and your interpreter and stroll about Pagan. If anything strikes your fancy, it is yours.”
I thanked him for the generous offer. As Hui-sheng and I got up to go, he added, “When it is dark, come back here to the palace. The Myama are great devotees of play-acting, and very good at it, and a troupe of them have been putting on a most beguiling play for me in the throne room each night. I do not understand a bit of it, of course, but I can assure you it is no trivial story. It is now in its eighth night, and the actors eagerly anticipate getting to the crucial scenes of it in just two or three nights more.”
When Yissun joined us, he had with him the yellow-robed chief pongyi of the palace. That elderly gentleman kindly walked with us and, speaking through Yissun, explained many things that I might not otherwise have comprehended, and I was able to relay the explanations to Hui-sheng. The pongyi began by directing our attention to the exterior of the palace itself. That was an agglomeration of two- and three-storied buildings, almost equal in extent and splendor to the palace of Khanbalik. It was built somewhat in the Han style of architecture but, I might say, in a very refined essence of the Han style. All the buildings’ walls and columns and lintels and such were, like those of the Han, much carved and sculptured and convoluted and filigreed, but in a manner more delicate. They reminded me of the reticella lace of Venice’s Burano. And the dragon-ridge roof lines, instead of curving upward in a gentle swoop, soared more sharply and pointedly toward the sky.
The pongyi laid his hand on one finely finished outer wall and asked if we could tell what it was made of. I said, marveling, “It appears to have been worked from one vast piece of stone. A piece the size of a cliff.”
“No.” Yissun translated the explanation. “The wall is of brick, a multitude of separate bricks, but no one nowadays knows how it was done. It was made long ago, in the days of the Cham artisans, who had a secret process of somehow baking the bricks after they were laid in courses, to give this effect of one smooth and uninterrupted stone face.”
Next he took us to an inner garden court, and asked if we could tell what it represented. It was square, as big as a market square, and bordered with flower banks and beds, but the whole interior of it was a lawn of well-kept grass. I should say a lawn of two different varieties of grass, one pale green, one very dark, and the two seeded in alternate smaller squares, in a checkered effect. I could only venture, “It is for ornament. What else?”
“For a purpose of utility, U Polo,” said the pongyi. “The King Who Ran Away was an avid player of the game called Min Tranj. Min is our word for king and Tranj means war, and—”
“Of course!” I exclaimed. “The same as the War of the Shahi. So this is an immense outdoor playing board. Why, the king must have had playing pieces as large as himself.”