We named that one Bellela.
Venice maintained a permanent consulate in Bruges—and favored its more distinguished Ene Aca citizens with the opportunity to serve there in rotation—because twice a year a numerous fleet of Venetian galleys sailed from Bruges’s harbor suburb of Sluys, laden with the produce of all northern Europe. So Donata and I and Fantina—and shortly little Bellela—spent a most enjoyable year or so in the fine consular residence on the Place de la Bourse, a house luxuriously furnished with every convenience, including a permanent staff of servants. I was not overburdened with work, not having much to do except look over the shipping manifests of the bi-yearly fleet, and decide whether this time it would sail direct to Venice, or whether it had hold room for other goods, in which case I might route some or all of the ships by way of London or Southampton across the Channel, or by way of Ibiza or Majorca in the Mediterranean, to pick up some of the produce of those places.
Most of that consular year Donata and I spent being royally entertained by other consular delegations and by Flemish merchant families, at balls and banquets and local feste like the Procession of the Holy Blood. Many of our hosts had read the Description of the World, in one language or another, and all had heard about it, and all spoke the Sabir trade tongue, so I was much questioned on this or that of the book’s contents, and encouraged to elaborate on this and that aspect of it. An evening’s entertainment would often go on late into the night, because the company would keep me talking, and Donata would sit and smile proprietorially. While there were ladies present, I would confine myself to innocuous subjects.
“Our fleet was today loading your good North Sea herring, my lords merchants. They are excellent fish, but I myself prefer to dine on fresh, as we did tonight, not salted or smoked or pickled fish. I suggest you consider marketing them fresh. Yes, yes, I know; fresh fish do not travel. But I have seen them do so in the north of Kithai, and your climate here is very similar. You might speculate on adopting the method used there, or some variant of it. In the north of Kithai, the summer is only three months long, so the fishermen plunder the lakes and rivers with all their energy, taking far more fish than they can sell in the same time. They toss the surplus fish into a shallow reservoir of water and keep them alive there until wintertime. Then they break the ice on the reservoir and take the fish out singly, at which exposure to the winter air the fish freeze solid. They are packed like kindling logs, in bundles on pack asses, and are sent thus to the cities, where the rich folk pay exorbitant prices for such delicacies. And when the fish are thawed and cooked, they taste as fresh as any caught in the summertime.”
Such remarks would often inspire two or three of the more ambitious merchants present to call for a servant to carry an urgent message to their place of business: I suppose something on the order of “Let us try this man’s preposterous notion.” But the merchants themselves would not leave the gathering because, when the ladies had betaken themselves elsewhere to chat of feminine things, I would regale the men with more piquant tales.
“My personal traveling physician, the Dotòr Abano, pronounces himself dubious of this, Messeri, but I brought back from Kithai a prescription for long life, and I will share it with you. The men of the Han who profess the religion called Tao have a firm belief that the exhalations of all things contain particles so tiny they are invisible, but have a potent effect nonetheless. For example, the rose particles we call the fragrance of a rose make us feel benign when we inhale them. The meat particles given off as scent by a good roast of meat make our mouths water. Just so, the Taoists profess that the breath passing through the lungs of a young girl gets charged with particles of her young, fresh body and then, when she exhales, imbue the ambient air with vigorous and invigorating qualities. Thus the prescription: if you would live a long time, surround yourself with vivacious young maidens. Stay as close to them as you can. Inhale their sweet exhalations. They will enhance your blood and humors and other juices. They will strengthen your health and lengthen your life. It goes without saying that, if you should meanwhile find other employment for the delicious young virgins …”
Raucous laughter, loud and prolonged, and one old Fleming pounded a bony hand on his spiky knee and cried, “Damn your personal physician, Mynheer Polo! I think it a damned fine prescription! I would resort to the young girls in an instant, damn me if I would not, except that my damned old wife would think of some objection to make.”
Louder laughter, over which I called to him, “Not if you go about it cunningly, Messere. The prescription for elderly women is, of course, young boys.”
Louder laughter yet, and boisterous jests shouted, and the handing around of pitchers of the strong Flemish ale, and often, when Donata and I departed the company, I was glad I had a consular palanquin to ride home in.
Having less to do in the daytime, and Donata being then usually occupied as a mother to our daughters, I applied myself to what I believed would be a project beneficial to trade in general and Venice in particular. I decided to institute here in the West something I had found eminently useful in the East. I established a horse post in imitation of that devised so long ago by the Khan Kubilai’s Minister of Roads and Rivers. It took some time and labor and argument to accomplish, since in these lands I had no absolute authority, as I would have had anywhere in the Khanate. I had to overcome a good deal of government torpor, timidity and opposition. And those difficulties were multiplied by the number of governments involved: Flanders, Lorraine, Swabia and so on—every suspicious, narrow-minded duchy and principality between Bruges and Venice. But I was determined and stubborn, and I did it. When I had that post-chain of riders and relay stations established, I could send to Venice the cargo manifests of the fleet as soon as it sailed from Sluys. The post would convey the papers those seven hundred miles in seven days, or one-quarter of the best time the fleet could make, so the recipient merchants in Venice often had every item of the cargo sold at a profit before it even reached them.
When it came time for me and my family to quit Bruges, I was much tempted to try posting us home the same swift way. But two of the family consisted of infant children, and Donata was pregnant again, so the idea was impractical. We came home as we had gone, by ship, and arrived in good time for our third daughter, Morata, to be born in Venice.
The Ca’ Polo was still a place of pilgrimage for visitors wishing to meet and converse with Messer Marco Milione. During my stay in Flanders, my father had been receiving them. But he and Dona Lisa were wearying of that obligation, both of them being now very old and failing in health, and they were glad to have me assume the duty again.
There came to see me, during the years, besides mere gapers and gawkers, some distinguished and intelligent men. I remember a poet, Francesco da Barberino, who (like you, Luigi) wished to know some things about Kithai for a chanson de geste he was writing. And I remember the cartographer Marino Sanudo, who came asking to incorporate some of our maps into a great Map of the World he was compiling. And there came several friars-historians, Jacopo d‘Acqui and Francesco Pipino and one from France, Jean d’Ypres, who were severally writing Chronicles of the World. And there came the painter Giotto di Bondone, already famous for his O and his chapel frescoes, who wished to know something of the illustrative arts as practiced by the Han, and seemed impressed by what I could tell him and show him, and went away saying he was going to try some of those exotic effects in his own paintings.