I echoed, “Do for myself and I will do for all three? Then you and Uncle Mafio plan to stay in Kithai for a time?”

“Indeed, yes. We are traveling traders, but we have been traveling for long enough; now we are eager to start trading. We have already applied to the Finance Minister Achmad for the necessary licenses and franchises to deal with the Muslims’ Ortaq. In that and other matters, Mafio and I may benefit from having you now as a friend at court. Surely you did not think, Marco, that we came all this way to turn right around.”

“I thought your prime concern was to take back to Venice the maps of the Silk Road and start to spur the East—West trade in general.”

“Ah, well, as to that, we believe our Compagnia Polo ought to enjoy first advantage of the Silk Road before we throw it open to competition. Also, we ought to set a good example, to fire enthusiasm in the West. So we will stay here while we earn an estimable fortune, and send it home as it accumulates. With those riches, your Maregna Fiordelisa can dazzle the stay-at-homes and whet their appetite. Then, when we finally do go home, we will freely proffer our maps and experience and advice to all our confratelli in Venice and Constantinople.”

“A fair plan, Father. But is it not likely to take a long time—to work up to a fortune from a very meager beginning? You and Uncle Mafio have no trading capital except our cods of musk and whatever zafràn still remains.”

“The most fortunate of all merchants in the legends of Venice, the Jew Nascimbene, set forth with nothing to his name but a cat he picked up from the street. The fable tells that he landed in a kingdom overrun with mice, and by hiring out his cat he founded his fortune.”

“There may be plenty of mice here in Kithai, Father, but there are also plenty of cats. Not least among the cats, I think, are the Muslims of the Ortaq. From what I have heard, they may be voracious.”

“Thank you, Marco. As the saying goes, a man warned is already armed. But we are not starting quite so small as did Nascimbene. In addition to our musk, Mafio and I have also the investment we left on deposit here during our earlier visit.”

“Oh? I did not know.”

“Quite literally on deposit—planted in the ground. You see, we brought crocus culms on that journey, too. Kubilai kindly granted us a tract of farmland in the province of Ho-pei, where the climate is benign, and a number of Han slaves and overseers, whom we instructed in the methods of cultivation. According to report, we have now a quite extensive crocus plantation and already a fair stock of zafràn pressed into bricks or dried into hay. That commodity being still a novelty throughout the East, and we having a monopoly—well!”

I said admiringly, “I should have known better than to worry about your prospects. God help the Muslim cats if they try to pounce upon Venetian mice.”

He smiled and oozed another proverb, “It is better to be envied than consoled.”

“Bruto scherzo!” came a bellow from the inner room, and our colloquy was interrupted. We heard several raised voices, loudest among them Uncle Mafìo’s, and other noises, from which it seemed that furniture and things were being thrown about and smashed, to the accompaniment of my uncle’s shouted curses in Venetian, Farsi, Mongol and perhaps some other languages. “Scarabazze! Badbu qassab! Karakurt!”

As if they had been flung, three elderly Han gentlemen flew out through the curtains of the room’s Vase Gate. Without a nod to me or my father, they continued their rapid progress across the room, running for dear life, and on out of the suite. After their swift passage, Uncle Mafio burst out through the curtains, still erupting scandalous profanity. His eyes were glaring, his beard bristling like quills, and his clothes were disarranged where evidently the physicians had been examining him.

“Mafio!” my father said in alarm. “What in the world has happened?”

Alternately shaking his fist and stabbing the vulgar gesture of the figa in the direction of the already departed doctors, my uncle continued roaring epithets of description and suggestion. “Fottuti! Pedarat na-mard! Che ghe vegna la giandussa! Kalmuk, vakh!”

My father and I took hold of the agitated man and gently eased him down to a seat, saying, “Mafìo!” and “Uncle!” and “Ste tranquilo!” and “What in God’s name has happened?”

He snarled, “I do not wish to speak of it!”

“Not speak?” my father said mildly. “You have already waked echoes as far as Xan-du.”

“Merda!” my uncle grunted, and sulkily began rearranging his clothes.

I said, “I will see if I can catch the doctors and ask them.”

“Oh, never mind!” growled Uncle Mafio. “I might as well tell.” He did, and interspersed the explanation with exclamations. “You recall the malady with which I was afflicted? Dona Lugia!”

“Yes, of course,” said my father. “But I believe it was called the kala-azar.”

“And you remember the Hakim Mimdad’s prescription of stibium, which would save my life but cost my balls? Which it did, sangue de Bacco!”

“Of course,” said my father again. “What is it, Mafio? Did the physicians find that you have taken a turn for the worse?”

“Worse, Nico? What could be worse? No! The damned scataroni have just informed me, in honeyed words, that I never had to take the damned stibium at all! They say they could have cured the kala-azar simply by having me eat mildew!”

“Mildew?”

“Well, some kind of green mold that grows in empty old millet bins. That treatment would have restored me to health, they say, with no ugly side effect. I need never have shriveled my pendenti! Is it not nice to hear this now? Mildew! Porco Dio!”

“No, it cannot be very pleasant to hear.”

“Need the the damned scataroni have told me at all? Now that it is too late? Mona Merda!”

“It was not very tactful of them.”

“The damned saputèli simply wanted me to know that they are superior to the backwoods charlatan who castrated me! Aborto de natura!”

“There is an old saying, Mafio. This world is like a pair of shoes that—”

“Bruto barabào! Shut up, Nico!”

Looking pained, my father withdrew into the other room. I could hear him picking up and straightening things in there. Uncle Mafio sat and simmered and fizzed like a kettle on slow boil. But finally he looked up, caught my eye, and said more calmly:

“I am sorry, Marco, for the display of temper. I know I said once that I would regard my predicament with resignation. But now to learn that the predicament was unnecessary …” He ground his teeth. “I hope I may rot if I can decide which is worse, being a eunuch or knowing I need not have been.”

“Well …”

“If you tell me a proverb, I will break your neck.”

So I sat silent for a while, wondering how best to express my sympathy and at the same time suggest that his diminishment might not be totally deplorable. Here among the manly Mongols, his formerly perverse tendencies would not be so tolerantly accepted as they had been, for example, in the Muslim countries. If he were still subject to the urge to fondle some man or boy, he might well find himself being caressed by the Fondler. But how was I to say so? Prepared to dodge a blow of his still-knotted fist, I cleared my throat and tried:

“It seems to me, Uncle Mafio, that almost every time I have strayed into serious trouble or embarrassment, it was my candelòto that lit the way. I would not, on that account, willingly forfeit the candelòto and the pleasures it more often affords me. But I think, if I were deprived of it, I could more easily be a good man.”

“You think that, do you?” he said sourly.

“Well, of all the priests and monks I have known, the most admirable were those who took seriously their vow of celibacy. I believe it was because they had closed their senses to the distractions of the flesh that they could concentrate on being good.”