Читать книгу Caravan to Xanadu, A Novel of Marco Polo - Эдисон Маршалл - Страница 6

On my next visit, Mustapha Sheik showed me a curious object for measuring the height of a heavenly body above the horizon. It was called an astrolabe and was of ancient invention, although its use had been largely forgotten in Europe.

“From the roof tops of Medina the stars are most beautiful and bright,” he told me in explaining his possession of the instrument. “I longed to know them better, and to know their orbits and their influence on human affairs. To this end I studied what we call al jabr, a branch of mathematics wherein symbols such as x and y substitute for quantities, and the chords of circles as expounded by my great countryman, al-Battani. With the help of such sciences, and the simple device that you see, used in connection with the Toledo tables prepared by Arabian scholars, I could compute almost the exact place in the heavens that any wandering star would occupy at any given moment of the year.”

Since I had never heard of these sciences, his meaning was over my head, but it was as though I jumped like a dog and snatched it like a bone. There was something in his voice and presence that made me listen not just with my ears, but with my whole body.

“Then a great fact dawned on me,” Mustapha went on. “Men know the heavens better than they know the earth. So I turned to the science of geography, for which my groundwork in astronomy had prepared me. But for any larger grasp of the subject, I must know the discoveries of great travelers, living and dead. And they have been my study for many years.”

“Could I study them too?” I burst out. “Then when the time comes——”

“When the time comes! What would we do without that promise, that hope? Come just after sunrise, when I have prayed, every day for seven days. Then we will see.”

After that week of testing, he told me to come when I pleased and stay away when I pleased. I was not to forsake my companions or to skimp my sport, or to neglect the bright school of the quays and canals for the sake of his dim chambers. The upshot of it was that I came almost every day. The only reason that I knew was that I could not stay away. Usually I stayed four or five hours, and every minute of it was like following an unknown path through a breathlessly silent woods.

“Salem alicum (Peace be between us), my son Marco,” the old man greeted me on a summer day of our second year’s friendship.

“Alicum salem (There be peace between us), Mustapha Sheik!” I replied with punctilio.

The salutations were heard every day on the Lido, but not so some other expressions as we conversed. The truth was, we were talking in simplified Arabic. It seemed that I had picked it up from him almost unawares, as I might catch lice from a street mate; actually, as I now perceived, he had slipped it on my tongue like a lozenge. Now he served me a sticky sweet, most pleasing to the palate, golden dates stuffed with bitter almonds, and a sherbet of some sort, highly spiced and filling the room with sweet scent.

“What news of the Rialto?” he asked, when I had eaten my fill and more.

“A Genoese spy was found in a closet, eavesdropping on the Council, and beheaded in the Piazzetta,” I reported. “Two triremes of Luciano Veniero arrived last night, one from Jaffa, laden with gums and spices, and the other from Tarsus with a cargo of fair-haired slaves.”

“Ah, that reminds me,” Mustapha Sheik broke in. “I know you did not fail to notice the red-sailed merchantman with the high castle. What did you make of her?”

“Doubtless she was from England, laden with Cornish tin. One of her blond boatmen cried out on San Giorgio the patron saint of his nation, and I saw Sebastian Cussi, who buys tin for the Arsenal, making toward her in his pigeon-breasted gondola.”

“Truly her master used tin for ballast, but he also brought raw wool, salt meat, and timber. And what, think you, will he take in trade?”

“Why, if he’s wise, he’ll take weapons, and iron to make ’em—swords, spears, pikes, and halberts—and shields and armor. For his nation’s divided against itself, and King Henry fights his own lords.”

“The Jews tell me that peace will come before summer’s end, and they’re better prophets than the astrologers. I think the ship had best take glass to repair what’s broken, and wine to pledge new friendships, and finery for the newly rich.”

I would soon not be hearing such things from his lips, I was thinking. Mustapha’s lowered eyebrows formed a white bar as he peered at me.

“Has your uncle said any more about bonding you to the iron-master?” he asked.

“He’s made up his mind to it, the day after my fourteenth birthday. He didn’t tell me so, but my cousin Leo wouldn’t miss the chance.”

“Then he must be convinced, at last, that Nicolo will either never return or will come back a beggar. Marco, what we need is time——”

We had talked thus before. What made this conversation memorable was its interruption by a shout from the canal. We went to the door to find Pietro, a gondolier of my good acquaintance, stopping at our wharf with a fine swirl.

“Did you hear of Messer Veniero’s ragusey making port from Jaffa?” he called.

“Of course. What of it?”

“When the clerks unrolled a bale of carpets from Tabriz, there was a letter in ’em, addressed to your aunt Flora. They think it’s from your Pa amongst the Infidel.”

The letter was being taken to my uncle’s house, which for lack of any other I called home. It beat me there by about five minutes, but my aunt was so dithered by the sight of it—not three months since she had said Mass for her brothers’ souls—that she had not yet found the courage to open it. This she did featly at sight of me. Perhaps it contained news of a legacy.

It did not, or any other benison to me. I had not deigned to expect it. And in my heart was another thing, grown there since the last letter from Nicolo Polo, seemingly hard as a rock and like a rock foundation to a new structure of manhood. I did not want a message from him and would be weakened by it had it come. What I had hoped for was a boast of wealth whereby my uncle and aunt, mistaking me for his future heir, would provide for me better and leave me free from bondage.

The letter declared that he and his brother Maffeo had dwelt in the Tatar city of Bukhara nearly three years. Meanwhile the wars waged across their homeward paths had spread and fiercened, so they had decided to move on eastward, perhaps even as far as the Ocean Sea, in search of a roundabout but safer route to Venice. Many of their trading ventures had failed, whereby they found themselves in reduced fortunes. And this was the upshot of their hopeful voyage to Constantinople nigh twelve (at this writing) years before—separation from their loved ones and, unless their saints befriended them, death in an alien land.

I did not believe a word of it, but my uncle Zane did so, and found a moral to his liking. His dull, run-of-the-mill face flushed with self-righteousness.

“Well, Marco, after hearing this, I take it you won’t be so eager to go gallivanting on the seven seas.”

“It’s bad news, your Honor, truly.”

“I’ll hazard you’ll be glad to follow some other occupation, and with no more talk.”

When the moon had set—a favorite meeting time for the old astronomer and his chela—I told Mustapha the letter’s contents. He sat for a while clutching his bearded chin; then he came out on the roof top with me and began pointing out stars for me to name. I did not miss many, since he picked the largest and most beautiful. These were about thirty out of three thousand.

“They’re all you’ll ever need for taking bearings,” he told me. “But my son, you could never win by running away to sea. Your brain must be as stocked with knowledge as your purse is stuffed with gold. The longer you follow, the less fit you are to lead—I want you trained for leadership before you leave my door. That will take, at the least, three years more.”

“Master, I want to adventure to the Court of Kublai Khan, not become a munshi in a school.”

“How will you go about winning his favor, which is the road to power and a key to his vaults?”

“Tell me, master.”

“Remember, he’s not only a mighty but a great king. Every word that has trickled out tells us that. All day and night he drives to extend and strengthen and prosper his prodigious empire—whereby he enhances his own godlike power.”

“Then he’ll want to know all the West can teach him that’s any good.”

“You asked me what you need, and I’ll tell you. It won’t pleasure you to hear it, but I’ll trow you’ll not give up. You know a deal about ships and markets, and something about stuffs. You’ve picked that up on the Rialto and the quays. You’ve read widely for your years in books useful to you, and I’ve taught you useful things. But what do you know of the science of war, as the great captains wrote it down? Are you yourself skilled with any weapon, wherewith to win the respect of your followers or save your own life? Since you could walk you’ve watched the glass blowers, the shipbuilders, and the armor makers; now you should learn some of the bedrock principles behind their skill.”

“I’ll do my best, if I can get out of going to work for the iron-master. And there might be a way to do it.”

“Marco, you are almost a young Arab, when it comes to craft——”

“If another letter would come, hinting of my father’s soon return heavy with gold as an English hooker with tin, and I was to be his heir, my uncle Zane would seat me ahead of his own son.”

“And now you’re wondering if I’m a good forger?” The black eyes glistened, to my great joy. “I confess to it, having had to change some books to better sense. But someday Nicolo Polo might find out the cheat.”

“What matter if he does? He won’t love me any less or leave me any poorer than before.”

“A new letter would be hard to believe on the heels of this one. Still, the idea’s right, if the method’s wrong. Do you think you could get hands on the present letter, deliver it to me for a night’s keeping, and return it to your uncle’s cabinet without his ever discovering the theft?”

“Why, ’twould be child’s play!”

“So was a Mongol lad’s hiding himself when his kinsman came to kill him. His name was Genghis, and out of it came terrible things. Then essay it, child, and take pains that you’re not caught.”

It was a good thing that I heeded him. The trick looked so easy as to need no forethought, and only at the last minute did I provide a spare exit from my uncle’s chamber, in case my plans went wrong. The balcony door, left open on such sultry nights, gave me easy entrance, and the watch lamp enough light. My uncle and aunt, naked in the bed, slept the sleep not of the just but of the good digesters, and despite their meanness looked as innocent as two white, fat pigs. I found the parchment in the top drawer of his escritoire, and I was making toward the balcony when a great gust of wind slammed shut the portal. Being warped by the rain, it could not be opened without kicks and blows and accompanying squeaks and groans.

My kinfolk wakened and carried on a brief, half-witted conversation about the weather. If they had had enough assiduity to arise and see about it, they would have caught me, not red-handed but red-faced, crouching behind the footboard. As it was, their mumblings died away, and I made my exit through an adjoining chamber whose inner bolt I had taken pains to slide. It would be a lesson to me in double safe-guarding for the rest of my life.

Mustapha Sheik mixed sal ammoniac with water, doctored the parchment,^[2] and schooled me in my part. I replaced it without mishap, and the sport began after the morning prayers.

“Uncle Zane, have you still got the letter from my father?” I asked, so gleeful over the game that I had no fear of giving it away, and hence could play it well.

“I haven’t got around to burning it,” he answered grumpily.

“Did you notice if it had a small ink blot about the middle of the parchment toward the left-hand side?”

“No, and why should I?”

“Yesterday I listened to some sailors drinking in an inn, and one of them, who had been to Aleppo, told how the learned priests of St. Thomas write to one another in secret. He said the sign that the parchment contained hidden writing was an ink blot, its position on the page being a cipher too. If it was at the top, what they called the brain, the letter concerned scholarly matters to be read at leisure. If it was on the left side, called the heart, it dealt with loved ones. If on the right side, called the hand, it dealt with war. And if at the bottom, called the feet, it was a most urgent message, which the receiver must discover and answer in dire haste.”

“I trow ’twas a sailor’s yarn. How could a parchment contain hidden writing? Perhaps if it were split, then glued together——”

“It’s worked by some kind of enchantment, borrowed from Prester John.” The mere mention of this name, one to conjure with these hundred years, softened my uncle’s brain. “And when the parchment is heated, the invisible writing stands forth as boldly as though inscribed in India ink.”

“I never heard the like!”

“My lord, now Marco speaks of it, I do believe there is a blot of ink on Nicolo’s letter,” my aunt broke in. “I noticed it, thinking that his hand might be palsied. By your leave, I’ll fetch it.”

“Do so, wife, and let’s dispose of this hocus-pocus once and for all.”

My aunt’s hand shook a little as she handed him the parchment. There was a small blot on the left-hand side, as I had noticed and remembered on first reading. My uncle prided himself on being a Doubting Thomas, but he was patently shaken.

“No doubt a coincidence, but an odd ‘n, I do confess,” he remarked. “Now we’ll apply heat, as the sailor fellow said—go the whole hog, say I, in any venture—but if secret writing appears on the page, I’ll eat my surcoat. Amelia, bring flame to a candle.” This last was to a serving wench, whose eyes were bulging.

My uncle began passing the parchment over the flame as though toasting a herring. We could see how debonair he was—a man of the world who could relish a bit of nonsense—and he had a joke ready to crack as he turned up the heated side. Instead he well-nigh dropped the page.

“Great Beelzebub!” he burst out.

“What is it, my lord?” my aunt cried, and Amelia was crossing herself fast as if scratching fleas.

“There’s writing here, I tell you. It’s come out on the parchment like the handwriting on the wall. No doubt it’s the Devil’s work—it was fire, the Devil’s own element, that brought it out—but if holy priests can use it for their communings, so can our dear brother. Let me toast it a bit more.”

Meanwhile I did not grin even into my sleeve. Although Mustapha Sheik had explained the whole process, insisting it was no more magical than boiling an egg, still the sweat came out on me at sight of the writing, and chills ran down my spine. And now my uncle was able to read it, penned by Mustapha in a good imitation of my father’s hand. This he did between gasps, reading it in a quaking voice.

While it was a deal less sensational than I had wished—Mustapha Sheik had told me that credibility was the very soul of cunning—truly it caused great stir:

My dear sister Flora,

Be not saddened by the outward seeming. The truth is, I have prospered too greatly to dare risk the telling save in this secret way. Pray for my return, and expect the prayer to come true within four years. In the meanwhile, bid my son Marco, whom I have never seen, prepare himself for the place he must fill as my heir and successor.

May your saints protect you from all ill, and may you show yourself worthy by a pious life and by ceaseless love and obedience to your good husband.

Nicolo Polo

This last greasing had gone against my grain, but now I rejoiced at Mustapha’s wisdom. Of all largess, flattery was the cheapest and the most effectual, he said; and to scorn its employment in a good cause was a sign of either dim wits or of hidden shames. Also, the wise conqueror never took the last crust. One’s words to eat is not a dainty dish, and if my uncle gagged too painfully, he might make us trouble.

The trick succeeded so well that it scared me a little, lest it be used as balance against a later failure. My aunt moved me to a better room and my uncle bought me finer raiment. He would have engaged a good tutor for me if I had not proposed that I find my own at half the cost to him. The money went for books, some lessons of great use to a traveler, and a fine English bow such as had set Saracen teeth achatter in the Crusades. It was six and a half feet long, beautifully shaped of yew, and the weight to draw it into a full, beautiful, deep crescent was fifty pounds.

So I passed from primary school to college.