If you were not in a mood to buy or sell, a very rare occurrence in Venice, there was plenty more to keep you entertained. Along with the usual puppet shows and dancing troupes and singing groups, Jaufre saw a man juggle flaming brands while walking on tall sticks. Another man swallowed a sword, and a third put his head into a lion’s mouth, although the lion had no teeth left to speak of and seemed supremely disinterested in anything but the next gobbet of meat thrown his way. There was an elephant tethered on one of the few green spaces of Venice, down by the Arsenal, upon which his owner sold rides for a bit of silver. There wasn’t a line. In a large cage on the Grand Canal, near St. Mark’s, you could pay to watch an enormous snake unhinge its jaws to swallow his prey, usually a stray cat someone threw into the cage. It inspired only revulsion, and a futile wish to rescue the cat.
After a week of sightseeing he went looking for a storefront. He quickly discovered that rents for commercial property in Venice were astronomical. Rooms the size of a shoebox looking out on the Grand Canal rented per month the equivalent of a round-trip passage to the Holy Land. Chastened, he readjusted his ambitions and was rewarded by a literal hole in the wall halfway between their lodgings and the Rialto bridge. Two wooden flaps comprised a wall that separated the stall from the street. The top half opened upward and was held up by a wooden pole to form a roof. The bottom half folded in half to form a counter, hinged on one side and latched on the other so he could get in and out. Both folded back into the wall and could be locked by means of a substantial wrought iron hasp. His first purchase was a bronze padlock with a key the size of his eating knife. He didn’t know how effective the combination would be at keeping out burglars but it was certainly ornamental.
The street wasn’t a main thoroughfare, and his new neighbors were merchants in only a small way, but there was a promising bustle to the foot traffic, and there was a taverna four doors down that offered a superior daily special, usually featuring chicken, some of Venice’s excellent bread, and a variety of noodles that reminded him very little of the noodles he had eaten daily in Cambaluc but were indisputably noodles nonetheless.
Empty, with his arms extended straight out he could almost touch both walls of the space. He laid one of their precious Kerman carpets on the floor, hung a few oil lamps chosen for their clear glass lenses, and filled the three walls with shelves. He spent the next two days hauling and displaying all of their trade goods.
When he was done he stood back and looked at the result with a pride tinged with regret. They had had a half a dozen camels loaded with trade goods acquired between Cambaluc and Kashgar during their time with Uncle Cheng’s caravan. All but one had been lost to Sheik Mohammed’s forces, who had ambushed them on the trail down from Terak Pass, with the tacit aid of that renegade Mongol general, Ogodei. Who might, from the latest reports, be knocking next at the doors of Baghdad.
He rearranged a few things on the display shelves, the better to catch the eye. When he had been healthy enough to he had acquired another half dozen camels in the Kabul livestock market and they had bought and sold from their backs from the Hindu Kush to Gaza. There were papyri, manuscripts and books bought in half a dozen cities across Persia. There were small, exquisitely made silver pocket knives from Damascus. There were strings of smooth malachite beads glowing with green and cream striations from Baghdad. There was a pile of intricately woven, brightly colored carpets from Kerman, a smaller pile than he would have liked but their quality instantly recognizable to the educated eye. Jaufre was determined to sell to none other, which was why the rugs were the most expensive items in his store. To alert shoppers to his most valuable commodity, he hung a wooden sign that jutted out at right angles from the wall that displayed a gaudy carpet with tassels on both ends, painted for him by Alma, who was enthusiastic enough with the gilt so as to make the sign very nearly glow in the dark. Jaufre was sure this was what had caused the first sign to be stolen the first night it was hung. The second sign was more restrained.
There were a few of the bright copper pots and pans left from the smiths of Kabul, those that Shasha had not given as thank-you gifts to hosts who had showed them hospitality on the Road. Jaufre regretted the loss of trade goods but never questioned Shasha’s decision to do so.
He half turned, as if to say to Johanna, “Remember Bastak, the town we came to, the one after the bandits ambushed us in the pass?” And then he remembered that Johanna had not been with them during that adventure, that she had indeed been on an adventure of her own, one that resulted in a woman he barely recognized.
She wasn’t here with him now, either. His lips tightened, and he deliberately turned his back on that thought. He folded his hands and smiled at the small, curious crowd that had gathered as it became evident he was about to open for business. “Good gentles, step forward, please. I am Jaufre of Cambaluc, and I bring goods to you from Damascus, from Kashgar, from beyond the fabled walls of Cambaluc itself.” And with a sweep of his hand, “I am happy to answer all your questions, for truly a fascinating story lays behind every object you see here.”
The story was always what put the sale over the top, and productive of stories in return, which were always useful. The more they learned about this new continent they had traveled to, the better able they would be able to navigate it in safety. “Yes, madam? Ah, that item, yes. It is a seal from ancient times. Indeed, madam, it is in truth a seal, the personal seal of a priestess of Memphis. Allow me to show you.” He flattened a lump of damp clay and rolled the tiny cylinder in it, pressing firmly and allowing only one rotation. “You see? A goddess with a lamb at her feet…Yes, indeed, it is very tiny.”
The woman, too vain to admit she couldn’t see details that small, was convinced by the admiring murmur of her fellow shoppers. She bought the seal as a gift for her mother and went on her way rejoicing. Others immediately stepped up to take her place.
3
Venice, December, 1323
“The youngest daughter, who is still at home,” Peter had said. “You may find you have something in common.”
Like a face, Johanna thought.
They met at the taverna where she had met with Peter the first time. It was convenient to both their lodgings and the alewife remained as professionally disinterested in her clientele as she had been previously.
Moreta Polo sat across the table looking as startled as Johanna felt. The other woman was older than she was, shorter than she was, her hair was darker and straighter and her eyes were brown, all of which Johanna found comforting, because otherwise any third party looking on would have called them sisters. The same straight nose, the same high cheekbones, the same wide mouth, the same firm chin. Moreta’s skin was pale and creamy where Johanna’s was a faint gold, and Johanna’s teeth were better, but for the rest…
“No wonder you looked at me so oddly when we met,” she said to Peter.
Peter was sitting back from the table with his arms folded, his expression a carefully maintained blankness.
The other woman found her voice. “Of all my father’s fabulous fables,” she said to Peter, “of course this was the one he chose to leave out. It is so like him.”
“You believe I am who I say I am?” Johanna said.
Marco Polo’s daughter looked at Marco Polo’s grand-daughter again. Moreta wore a loose gray wool dress with a wide belt heavily embroidered in gilt thread with beautifully wrought flowers and leaves. Her cloak was hooded and though she drew the hood back from her face the better to see, she did not remove the hood entirely against the unlikely event someone might recognize her. She had also, Johanna noted, taken care to sit with her back to the room.
When Moreta didn’t speak, Johanna said, “My name is Wu Johanna. I come from Cambaluc. Your father is my grandfather.” She folded her hands on the table, sat back and waited. Almost she bristled, but not quite.
Moreta gulped, unused to such plain dealing. She fidgeted with her mug, toyed with a piece of cheese, and looked up. When she spoke, Johanna
’s singer’s ear noticed that her voice was pitched much as Johanna’s was, low for a woman but clear. “I would think that anyone looking at us would know we were somehow related.” She saw Johanna’s surprise, and Johanna was surprised further at the gleam of mischief she saw in Moreta’s eyes. “What, did you expect me to deny you? It would be hard to do, on the face of it.”
Her small joke made Johanna smile. “It would,” she said.
“You are definitely a Polo,” Moreta said. “There is a resemblance, even, between you and my sisters.” She hesitated. In a softer voice, she said, “Is it all true, then?”
“Is what true?”
Moreta gestured. “All of it. His travels. The tales he told in his book.” She shrugged. “A city of twelve thousand bridges.”
Venice had only a little over three hundred. “Kinsai,” Johanna said. “A city south of Cambaluc. I haven’t personally counted all of its bridges myself, but it has a lot of them. Canals, too.”
“Girls who dive for pearls, off the shores of some island nation in the East?”
“I have dived with them myself,” Johanna said.
Moreta raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Johanna shrugged. “I dove with the pearl fishers of Cipangu. I even brought back pearls. No, before you ask, I can’t prove it. You either believe me or you don’t.”
The other woman gave what she probably thought was a surreptitious once-over. Venice was cosmopolitan enough that Johanna was able to wear her own clothes with a cloak overall, but Moreta Polo was probably thinking that a woman in trousers who wore a knife in her belt would be capable of anything. “Dog-headed men?” she said tentatively.
“I don’t know where he got that,” Johanna said. “I’ve never seen any dog-headed men myself. I’ve been reading his book for the first time recently, and—”
“You hadn’t read it before?”
“I didn’t even know it existed until two months ago,” Johanna said. “What he says he actually saw himself seems accurate. It’s when he starts repeating what someone else has told him that he gets into trouble.”
Moreta sipped her beer. “When he was still able to go out,” she said, “people would laugh at him behind his back. Children would follow him, calling him names. ‘Milione! Milione!’” She looked up. “You know what they meant?”
“A thousand lies,” Johanna said. “Or something like that. A play on the title of his book. They called him that in the streets?”
Moreta nodded. “More or less.” She reached for a piece of cheese and folded a piece of bread around it, concentrating on the task with all her attention. “You appear to have traveled a great deal.”
“My father was a trader. My mother and I traveled the Road with him.”
“The Road?”
“All the roads, east and west, north and south of Cambaluc. Or Cathay, you call it here. There are many, east to Cipangu, south to Ceylon, north to Khuree where the khans hold their summer courts. East to Kashgar. And Venice.”
“And you got to go with him.” There was envy in Moreta’s voice. “I’ve never been out of Venice.” She must have seen pity in Johanna’s eyes, because she squared her shoulders and ate an olive. “Could you,” she said, and stopped. “Would you mind telling me about your grandmother?”
Johanna raised an eyebrow. “Your father’s first wife, do you mean?” she said pointedly, and then was sorry when Moreta blushed. She had dumped herself on the woman without warning, had removed her from the side of her father’s deathbed, no less, and had received nothing but courtesy in return. She refilled their mugs from the jug and sat back. “I never knew her. She died when my mother was very young.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She was a gift from her father to the Great Khan, Kublai Khan. The Khan in turn gave her to your father.” She saw the appalled look in Moreta’s eyes and said without emotion, “It was the custom once a year for the barons to send their most beautiful maidens to the Great Khan. It was a measure of how high your father stood in the Khan’s favor, that he would receive such a gift. It was the greatest of honors.” She drank warmed wine to moisten a mouth suddenly dry. “When he left Cathay, it was to escort a princess to her marriage with a Levantine prince. The Khan would not allow Shu Lin—”
“That was her name?”
“Yes, Shu Lin. Her daughter, my mother, was named Shu Ming. Your father was a favorite of the Khan, so the Khan held Shu Lin and Shu Ming as hostage against his return. Wu Hai, a merchant of Cambaluc, was a great friend to your father, and agreed to take them into his own house until he, Marco, could send for them.”
“What happened?”
Johanna didn’t look at Peter. “The Khan was ill when your father left. When he died, there was the usual scramble for power. Which always involves treachery and betrayal of some kind, which is always visited upon the most innocent of victims. Shu Lin…died. Wu Hai married Shu Ming to his own son to protect her.”
Moreta digested this. “And you are their child.”
“Yes.”
“And my father’s grandchild.”
“Yes.”
Moreta shredded a piece of bread into crumbs, and spoke without looking up. “Peter says you want to see him.”
Johanna heart missed a beat. “I think the question is more, does he want to see me?”
Moreta sat up, as if she had made a decision. “He’s very…fragile, at the moment.” She hesitated. “He is as much out of his senses as he is in them, these days.” Her eyes met Johanna’s. “But you should see him. And he should see you.” She glanced at Peter, who had sat silent throughout their conversation. “It will not be easy. My mother—”
Something shifted behind Peter’s eyes.
“Yes,” Moreta said, “my mother will be difficult.”
Johanna mentioned nothing of the midwife’s tales. “But not impossible?”
Moreta’s chin firmed. “No. Not impossible.”
Johanna watched Moreta and Peter vanishing into the fog that had shrouded the city in a mournful, dripping blanket, before turning to wend her way homeward herself. She was checked by a wraith the size of a half-measure of oats, who materialized out of the mist and fixed her with an accusing stare.
“Girl, you are an afreet in the flesh,” Johanna said.
“I don’t know what that is,” the girl said, her glower melting the fog between them, “but it doesn’t sound very complimentary.”
“It’s not,” Johanna said, beginning to walk.
“I expect to be paid for today, even if you already found the people you were looking for.”
“Of course.” She dredged up a saying Hari had picked up in the Holy Land. “The laborer is worthy of her hire.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you labored for me, I owe you, I’ll pay.” Johanna dug around in her pocket and produced two silver pennies. She hesitated before dropping them into the outstretched palm. “Where do you rest tonight?”
The glower became even more pronounced. “I live at home.”
“Yes.”
“With my parents.”
“Oh, yes?”
The girl looked away. “Well, with my father. My mother died when I was born.”
“Oh.”
“My father says it’s my fault.”
Johanna was silent, and something in the quality of her silence seemed to compel the girl to say more.
“He can’t bear the sight of me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
The girl shrugged. “He tells me so often enough.”
“So you sleep in the streets.”
“Sometimes.”
Johanna stopped in front of their lodgings. “How about tonight, you don’t?”
For a wonder, everyone was home for dinner, even including Hari.
“And who is this?” Shasha said
“This is—” Johanna looked down at the girl. “What is your name?”
The girl hesitated. “Tiphaine.”
&nb
sp; “Tiphaine,” Johanna said, sounding out the three syllables.
The girl nodded, looking a little sullen, as if she had only accidentally told the truth and already regretted it.
“Well then, Tiphaine, these are my companions. This is Shasha, my foster sister, and Jaufre, my foster brother. Here is Alaric the Frank, and Firas the—Firas of the Alamut, and Félicien the goliard. Hari is a chughi, a priest in his own country, and here are Alma and Hayat, scholars of Persia. This is Tiphaine, everyone. She has come to share our meal.”
Shasha looked at Jaufre and rolled her eyes behind Johanna’s back. He grinned, but said to Tiphaine, “I hope you’re hungry. Shasha always cooks enough for a cohort.” He found her a bowl and a spoon, ladled in a generous helping of chicken stew thick with root vegetables and gravy, and cut her a chunk of the hearty bread still warm from the baker’s oven two doors away. And then everyone pretended not to notice as the girl pretended not to wolf it down. She managed to wait until everyone else had at least gotten their spoons dirty before she looked instinctively at Shasha for permission, who smiled and nodded at the kettle. Tiphaine refilled her bowl to the brim. That disappeared a little more slowly. The third bowl she slowed down enough to actually to taste the ingredients. “Good,” she said.
Shasha cut her another thick slice of bread and handed it over without comment.
In the middle of the night Johanna felt the call of nature and reached under the bed for the chamber pot. Instead she found herself clutching a handful of hair, which squealed in a distressing manner. “What—?”
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