It occurred to me that if I told them what hints I had had of Achmad’s private life, they might profitably wield a threat to expose him. But on second thought I did not mention it. My father would refuse to stoop to any such tactic, and would forbid my uncle to do so. Also, I suspected that my hearsay knowledge was a dangerous thing even for me to have acquired, and I would not hand on the risk of danger to them. I made only one mild suggestion:

“Can you perhaps employ, as they say, the devil that tempted Lucifer?”

“A woman?” grunted Uncle Mafio. “I doubt it. There seems to be a deal of mystery about Achmad’s tastes—whether he prefers women or men or children or ewes or what. In any case, he could take his pick from the whole empire, excepting only the Khakhan’s prior choices.”

“Well,” said my father, “if he truly does have everything he could possibly want, there is an old proverb that applies. Ask favors of the man with a full stomach. Let us cease quibbling with the petty underlings of the Ortaq. Go direct to Achmad and put our case before him. What can he do?”

“From what little I know of him,” growled Uncle Mafio, “that man would laugh at a leper.”

My father shrugged. “He will tergiversate for a time, but he will eventually concede. He knows we stand well with Kubilai.”

I said, “I would be happy to put in a word with the Khakhan when I call on him next.”

“No, Marco, do not you fret about this. I would not wish you to compromise your own standing on our account. Perhaps later, when you have been longer in the Khakhan’s confidence, and when perhaps we have real need of your intercession. But with this situation, Mafio and I will cope. Now, you wished to ask a question?”

I said, “You first came here to Kithai and went home again by way of Constantinople, so you must have gone through the lands of Anatolia. Did you happen to traverse a place there called Cappadocia?”

“Why, yes,” said my father. “Cappadocia is a kingdom of the Seljuk Turki people. We stopped briefly in its capital city of Erzincan on our way back to Venice. Erzincan is very nearly directly north of Suvediye—where you have been, Marco—but a long way to the north of it.”

“Were those Turki ever at war with the Mongols?”

“Not then,” said Uncle Mafio. “Not yet, as far as I know. But there was some trouble there, which involved the Mongols, because Cappadocia abuts on the Persian realm of the Ilkhan Abagha. The trouble occurred while we were passing through, as a matter of fact. That was what, Nico—eight, nine years ago?”

“And what was it that happened then?” I asked.

My father said, “The Seljuk King Kilij had an overly ambitious Chief Minister—”

“As Kubilai has the Wali Achmad,” grumbled Uncle Mafio.

“And that Minister secretly connived with the Ilkhan Abagha, promising to make the Cappadocians vassals of the Mongols if Abagha would help him depose the King. And that is what happened.”

“How did it come about?” I asked.

“The King and the whole royal family were assassinated, right there in his Erzincan palace,” said my uncle. “The people knew it was the doing of the Chief Minister, but none dared denounce him, for fear that Abagha would take advantage of any internal dispute, to march his Mongols in and ransack the country.”

“So,” my father concluded the tale, “the Minister put his own infant son on the throne as King—with himself as ruling Regent, of course—and what few survived of the royal family, he handed over to Abagha for disposal as he wished.”

“I see,” I said. “And presumably they are now dispersed all over the Mongol Khanate. Would you know, Father, if there were any women among them?”

“Yes. The survivors may all have been female. The Chief Minister was a practical man. He probably slew every one of the King’s male descendants, so there could be no legitimate claimant to the throne he had won for his own son. The females would not have mattered.”

“The survivors were mostly cousins and such,” said Uncle Mafio. “But there was at least one of the King’s daughters among them. She was said to be beautiful, and it was said that Abagha would have taken her for his concubine, except—he found some fault with her. I forget. Anyway, he simply gave her to the slave traders, with the others.”

“You are right, Mafio,” said my father. “There was at least that one royal daughter. Mar-Janah was her name.”

I thanked them and returned to my own suite. Nostril, in his sly way, had made capital of my generosity, and was still being wined and fanned by a scowling Biliktu. Exasperated, I said, “Here you sprawl like a lordly courtier, you sloth, while I run about on your errands.”

He grinned drunkenly and in a slurred voice inquired, “With any success, master?”

“This slave you think you recognized. Could it have been a woman of the Seljuk Turki people?”

His grin evaporated. He bounded to his feet, spilling his wine and making Biliktu squeal in complaint. He stood almost trembling before me and waited for my next words.

“By any chance, could it be a certain Princess Mar-Janah?”

However much he had drunk, he was suddenly sober—and also stricken speechless, it seemed, for perhaps the first time in his life. He only stood and vibrated and stared at me, his eyes as wide as his nostril.

I said, “That speculation I got from my father and uncle.” He made no comment, still standing transfixed, so I said sharply, “I take it that is the identity you wished confirmed?”

He whispered, so low that I barely heard, “I did not really know … whether I wished it to be so … or I dreaded that it was so … .” Then, without ko-tou or salaam or even a murmur of thanks for my pains, he turned away and, very slowly, like an aged man, he shuffled off to his closet.

I dismissed the matter from my mind and I also went to bed—with only Buyantu, because Biliktu had been for some nights indisposed for that service.

9.

I had been in residence at the palace for a long time before I had the opportunity to meet the courtier whose work most fascinated me: the Court Firemaster responsible for the so-called fiery trees and sparkling flowers. I was told that he was almost continuously traveling about the country, arranging those displays wherever and whenever this town or that had some festa to celebrate. But one winter day, Prince Chingkim came to tell me that the Firemaster Shi had returned to his palace quarters, to begin his preparations for Khanbalik’s biggest annual celebration—the welcoming-in of the New Year, which was then imminent—and Chingkim took me to call on him. The Master Shi had an entire small house for his residence and workshop, and it was situated—for the sake of the palace’s safety, said Chingkim—well apart from the other palace buildings, in fact on the far side of what was now the Kara Hill.

The Firemaster was bent over a littered work table when we entered, and from his garb I took him first to be an Arab. But when he turned to greet us, I decided he had to be a Jew, for I had seen those lineaments before. His blackberry eyes looked haughtily but good-humoredly at me down a long, hooked nose like a shimshir, and his hair and beard were like a curly fungus, gray but showing still a trace of red.

Chingkim said, speaking in Mongol, “Master Shi Ix-me, I would have you meet a Palace guest.”

“Marco Polo,” said the Firemaster.

“Ah, you have heard of his visit.”

“I have heard of him.”

“Marco is much interested in your work, and my Royal Father would have you tell him something of it.”

“I will attempt to do so, Prince.”

When Chingkim had gone, there was a brief silence, myself and the Firemaster eyeing each other. At last he said, “Why are you interested in the fiery trees, Marco Polo?”