“I will. I have. I promise.”
“We are twins. Nothing should ever come between us.”
“Nothing ever will, dearest, not ever again.”
“Remember, you are my little one.”
“Oh, I am! I am! And you are mine!”
Then they were in each other’s arms, and weeping lovers’ tears down each other’s necks. I stood shifting foolishly from one foot to the other, and finally cleared my throat and said:
“Well …”
Biliktu gave me a wet-eyed look of hurt and reproach.
“Well … uh … the Khakhan is waiting for me, girls.”
Buyantu gave me a look brimming with massacre.
“When I come back, we will … that is, I will be glad to hear suggestions … that is, somehow to rearrange …” I gave it up, and said instead, “Please, my dears. Until I return, if you can leave off groping at each other, I have a small chore for you. Do you see this pot on this brazier?”
They turned their heads to cast an indifferent regard on it. The pot had got quite hot, so I used a corner of my robe to lift its lid and look in. The contents emitted a thin, peevish sort of smoke, but showed no sign of having melted at all. I set the lid securely on it again and said, “Keep up the fire under it, girls, but keep it a very low fire.”
They unwound from each other, and dutifully came to the brazier, and Biliktu laid a few new chips of charcoal on the embers.
“Thank you,” I said. “It will require no other attendance than that. Simply stay close by it and keep it at a simmering heat. And when I return …”
But they had already dismissed me and were gazing soulfully at each other, so I went on my way.
Kubilai received me in his earthquake-engine chamber, and with no one else present, and he greeted me cordially but not effusively. He knew that I had something to say, and he was ready for me to say it at once. However, I did not wish just to blurt out the information I had brought, so I began circumspectly.
“Sire, I am desirous that I do not, in my ignorance, give undue weight or impetuosity to my small services. I believe I bring news of some value, but I cannot properly evaluate it without knowing more than the little I now know of the Khakhan’s disposition of his armies, and the nature of their objectives.”
Kubilai did not take affront at my presumption or tell me to go and inform myself from his underlings.
“Like any conqueror, I must hold what I have won. Fifteen years ago, when I was chosen Khan of All Khans of the Mongols, my own brother Arikbugha challenged my accession, and I had to put him down. More recently, I have several times had to stifle similar ambitions on the part of my cousin Kaidu.” He waved a dismissal of such trifles. “The mayflies continually plot to topple the cedar. Nuisances only, but they require my keeping portions of my troops on all the borders of Kithai.”
“May I ask, Sire, about those on the march, not in garrison?”
He gave me another summary, just as succinct. “If I am to keep secure this Kithai I won from the Chin, I must also have the southern lands of the Sung. I can best conquer them by encirclement, taking first the province of Yun-nan. So that is the only place where my armies are actively campaigning right now, under my very capable Orlok Bayan.”
Not to impugn the capability of his Orlok Bayan, I chose my next words with care.
“He has been engaged in that for some while now, I understand. Is it possible, Sire, that he is finding the conquest of Yun-nan more difficult than expected?”
Kubilai regarded me narrowly. “He is not about to be defeated, if that is what you mean. But neither is he having an easy victory. His advance had to be made from the land of To-Bhot, meaning that he had to come down into Yun-nan through the steeps of the Hang-duan Mountains. Our horse armies are better suited and more accustomed to fighting on flat plains. The Yi people of Yun-nan know every crevice of those mountains, and they fight in a shifty and cunning way—never facing us in force, but sniping from behind rocks and trees, then running to hide somewhere else. It is like trying to swat mosquitoes with a hod of bricks. Yes, you could fairly say that Bayan is finding it no easy conquest.”
I said, “I have heard the Yi called obstreperous.”
“Again, a fair enough description. From their safe concealments, they shout taunts of defiance. They evidently hold the delusion that they can resist long enough to make us go away. They are wrong.”
“But the longer they resist, the more men dead on both sides, and the land itself made poorer and less worth the taking.”
“Again, true enough. Unfortunately.”
“If they were disabused of their delusion of invincibility, Sire, might not the conquest be easier? With fewer dead and less ravagement of the province?”
“Yes. Do you know some way to dissolve that delusion?”
“I am not sure, Sire. Let me put it this way. Do you suppose the Yi are bolstered in their resistance by knowing that they have a friend here at court?”
The Khakhan’s gaze became that of a hunting chita. But he did not roar like a chita, he said as softly as a dove, “Marco Polo, let us not dance around the subject, like two Han in the market. Tell me who it is.”
“I have information, Sire, apparently reliable, that the Minister of Lesser Races, Pao Nei-ho, though posing as a Han, is really a Yi of Yun-nan.”
Kubilai sat pensive, though the blaze in his eyes did not abate, and after a while he growled to himself, “Vakh! Who can tell the damnable slant-eyes apart? And they are all equally perfidious.”
I thought I had better say, “That is the only information I have, Sire, and I accuse the Minister Pao of nothing. I have no evidence that he has spied for the Yi, or even been in communication with them in any way.”
“Sufficient is it that he misrepresented himself. You have done well, Marco Polo. I will call Pao in for questioning, and I may later have reason to speak to you again.”
When I left the Khakhan’s suite, I found a palace steward waiting for me in the corridor, with a message that the Chief Minister Achmad would have me call upon him that moment. I went to his chambers, not gleefully, thinking: How could he have heard already?
The Arab received me in a room decorated with a single massive piece of—I suppose it would be called a sculpture made by nature. It was a great rock, twice as tall as a man and four times as big around, a tremendous piece of solidified lava that looked like petrified flames, all gray twists and convolutions and holes and little tunnels. Somewhere in the base of it a bowl of incense smoldered, and the perfumed blue smoke rose and coiled through the sculpture’s sinuosities and seeped out from some apertures and in through others, so that the whole thing seemed to writhe in a slow, ceaseless torment.
“You disobeyed and defied me,” Achmad said immediately, with no greeting or other preliminary. “You kept listening until you heard something damaging to a high minister of this court.”
I said, “It was a piece of news that came to me before I could withdraw the ear.” I offered no further apology or extenuation, but boldly added, “I thought it had come only to me.”
“What is spoken on the road is heard in the grass,” he said indifferently. “An old Han proverb.”
Still boldly, I said, “It requires a listener in the grass. All this time, I had assumed that my maidservants were reporting my doings to the Khan Kubilai or the Prince Chingkim, and I accepted that as reasonable. But all this time they have been your spies, have they not?”
I do not know whether he would have bothered to lie and deny it, or would even have bothered to confirm the fact, for at that moment came a slight interruption. From an adjoining room, a woman started in through the curtained doorway, and then, perceiving that Achmad had company, abruptly swished back through them again. All I saw of her was that she was a strikingly large woman, and elegantly garbed. From her behavior, it was evident that she did not wish to be seen by me, so I supposed that she was somebody else’s wife or concubine engaging in an illicit adventure.
But I could not recall ever having seen such a tall and robust woman anywhere about the palace. I reflected that the painter, Master Chao, in speaking of the Arab’s depraved tastes, had not said anything about the objects of his tastes. Did the Wali Achmad have a special liking for women who were larger than most men? I did not inquire, and he paid no attention to the interruption, but said:
“The steward found you at the Khakhan’s chambers, so I take it that you have already imparted to him your information.”
“Yes, Wali, I have. Kubilai is summoning the Minister Pao to interrogate him.”
“A fruitless summons,” said the Arab. “It seems that the Minister has made a hasty departure, destination unknown. Lest you be so brash as to accuse me of having connived in his flight, let me suggest that Fao probably recognized the same visitors from the southland who recognized him, and whose indiscreet gossip your ear overheard.”
I said, and truthfully, “I am not brash to the extreme of being suicidal, Wali Achmad. I would accuse you of nothing. I will only mention that the Khakhan seemed gratified to have the information I brought him. So, if you deem that a disobedience to you, and punish me for it, I imagine Kubilai will wonder why.”
“Impertinent piglet of a sow mother! Are you daring me to punish you, with a threat of the Khakhan’s displeasure?”
I made no reply to that. His black agate eyes got even stonier, and he went on:
“Get this clear in your mind, Folo. My fortunes are dependent on the Khanate of which I am Chief Minister and Vice-Regent. I would be not only traitorous—I would be imbecilic—if I did anything to undermine the Khanate. I am as eager as Kubilai that we take Yun-nan, and then the Sung Empire, and then all the rest of the world as well, if we can do so and if Allah wills it so. I do not berate you for having discovered, before I did, that the Khanate’s interests may have been imperiled by that Yi impostor. But get this also clear in your mind. I am the Chief Minister. I will not tolerate disobedience or disloyalty or defiance from my inferiors. Especially not from a younger man who is an inexperienced outsider in these parts and a despicable Christian and a rank newcomer to this court and, for all that, an impudent upstart of overweening ambition.”
I started angrily to say, “I am no more an outsider here than—” but he imperiously raised his hand.
“I will not utterly demolish you for this instance of disobedience, since it was not to my disservice. But I promise that you will regret it, Folo, sufficiently that you will not be inclined to repeat it. Earlier, I only told you what Hell is. It seems you require a demonstration.” Then, perhaps reflecting that his lady visitor might be within hearing, he lowered his voice. “In my own good time, I will provide that demonstration. Go now. And go well away from me.”
I went, but not too far, in case I should be wanted again by the Khakhan. I went outdoors and through the palace gardens and up the Kara Hill to the Echo Pavilion, to let the clear breezes of the heights blow through my cluttered mind. I strolled around the promenade within the mosaic wall, mentally sorting among all the numerous things I had recently been given or had taken upon myself to worry about: Yun-nan and the Yi, Nostril and his lady lost and found, the twins Buyantu and Biliktu, now revealed as more than sisters to each other and less than faithful to me … .
Then, as if I had not enough to concern me, I was suddenly given a new thing. A voice whispered in my ear, in the Mongol tongue, “Do not turn. Do not move. Do not look.”
I froze where I was, expecting next to feel a stabbing point or a slashing blade. But there came only the voice again:
“Tremble, Ferenghi. Dread the coming of what you have deserved. But not now, for the waiting and the dread and the not knowing are part of it.”
By then, I had realized that the voice was not really at my ear. I turned and looked all about me, and I saw no one, and I said sharply, “What have I deserved? What do you want of me?”
“Only expect me,” whispered the voice.
“Who? And when?”
The voice whispered just seven more words—seven short and simple words, but words freighted with a menace more chilling than the most fearsome threat—and it never spoke again afterward. It said only and flatly and finally:
“Expect me when you least expect me.”
13
I waited for more, and, when I heard no more, I asked another question or two, and got no answer. So I ran around the terrace to my right, and got to the Moon Gate in the wall without having seen anyone, so I continued to run all the way around the Echo Pavilion, back to the Moon Gate again, and still had seen no one. There was only that one entranceway in the wall, so I stood in it and looked down the Kara Hill. There were several lords and ladies also taking the air that day, strolling about in ones and twos on lower levels of the hill. Any one of them could have been the person who had invisibly accosted me—could have run that far, then slowed to a walk. Or the whisperer could have run another way. The flagstone pathway from the Moon Gate descended only a short distance before forking in two, and one of the paths circled around behind the pavilion to descend the back slope of the hill. Or the whisperer could still be right inside the wall with me, and could easily keep the pavilion between us, no matter how speedily I ran or how stealthily I prowled around the promenade. It was useless to search, so I simply stood there in the entranceway and pondered.
The voice could have been that of either a man or a woman, and of any of several people who had lately had cause to wish me hurt. Just since this hour yesterday, I had been told by three people that I would “regret” some action of mine: the icy Achmad, the irate Buyantu and the outraged Lady Chao. I could also assume that the fugitive Minister Pao was not now any friend of mine, and might still be within the palace confines. And, if I were to count all the palace people whom I had alienated since coming here, I would have to include Master Ping, the Fondler. All of those persons spoke Mongol, as had the whisperer.
There were even other possibilities. The immense lady lurking in Achmad’s chambers might think that I had recognized her, and resent me for it. Or the Lady Chao could have told her lord husband some lie about my visit to her, and he might now be as angry at me as she was. I had repeated nasty gossip about the eunuch Court Astrologer, and eunuchs were notoriously vindictive. For that matter, I had once remarked to Kubilai that I thought most of his ministers were misemployed, and that word could have got back to them, and every single one of them might be mortally peeved at me.
I was casting my gaze back and forth over the curly-eaved roofs of the many palace edifices, as if trying to see through their yellow tiles to identify my accoster, when I saw a vast cloud of smoke erupt abruptly from the main building. The smoke was too much to have come from a brazier or a kitchen hearth, and was too sudden to have come from a room caught fire or anything of that sort. The black cloud seemed to boil as it billowed, and it appeared to have fragments of the building and the roof mixed into it. A fraction of an instant later, the sound of it reached me—a thunderclap so loud and slapping that it actually stirred my hair and the loose folds of my robes. I saw the other few persons on the hill also wince at the sound, and turn to look, and then we were all running down the slope toward the scene.
I did not have to get very close before I recognized that the eruption had come from my own chambers. In fact, the main room of my suite had burst its walls and roof, and was now laid open to the sky and the view of the gathering crowd, and what few of its contents had not disintegrated outright were now burning. The black cloud of the initial blast, still quite intact and still writhing in its slow boil, was now drifting out over the city, but the lesser smoke from the room’s burning was yet dense enough to keep most of the onlookers at a respectful distance. Only a number of palace servants were scuttling in and out of the smoke, carrying buckets of water and dashing them into the burning remains. One of them dropped his bucket when he saw me, and came running—tottering, rather—to meet me. He was so blackened by smoke and singed of garments that it wa
s a moment before I recognized Nostril.
“Oh, master, come no closer! It is a frightful destruction!”
“What happened?” I asked, though I had already guessed.
“I do not know, master. I was asleep in my closet when all of a sudden—bismillah!—I found myself awake and floundering here on the grass of this garden court, my clothes all a-smolder, and shards of broken furniture falling all about me.”
“The girls!” I said urgently. “What of the girls?”
“Mashallah, master, they are dead, and in a most horrible manner. If this was not the doing of a vengeful jinni, it was the attack of a fire-breathing dragon.”
“I think not,” I said miserably.
“Then it must have been a rukh, insanely tearing with its beak and talons, for the girls are not just dead—they no longer exist, not as separate girls. They are nothing but a spatter on the remaining walls. Bits of flesh and blobs of gore. Twins they were in life, and twinned they have gone into death. They will be inseparable forever, since no funeral practitioner could possibly sort out the fragments and say which were of whom.”
“Bruto barabào,” I breathed, appalled. “But it was not any rukh or jinni or dragon. Alas, it was I who did this.”
“And to think, master, you once told me that you could never kill a woman.”
“Unfeeling slave!” I cried. “I did not do it deliberately!”
“Ah, well, you are young yet. Meanwhile, let us be thankful that those two did not keep any pet dog or cat or ape, to be intermingled also with them in the afterlife.”
I swallowed sickly. Whether this was my fault or God’s doing, it was a terrible loss of two lovely young women. But I had to reflect that, in a very real sense, to me they had been lost already. One or both of them had been betraying me to the inimical Achmad, and I had entertained suspicion of Buyantu as the secret whisperer at the Echo Pavilion. Whoever that was, though, it evidently had not been she. But just then I jumped, as another voice spoke in my ear:
“Lamentable mamzar, what have you done?”