I was later to know that that was true, when my father and Uncle Mafio began to prosper in their trading ventures. They would usually convert their proceeds into precious gems that made a small, light packet. Utilizing the Minister Amursama’s horse post, they would send the packets from Kithai all the way to Constantinople, where my Uncle Marco would deposit them in the coffers of the Compagnia Polo.
The Minister went on, “Also, because occasionally something unusual or important may occur in the regions between the horse posts—a flood, an uprising, some marvel worth reporting—I am establishing, every ten li or so, a lesser station for foot runners. So, from anywhere in the realm, there is a run of less than an hour to the next station, and the runners continue by relays until one gets to the nearest horse post, whence the news can be conveyed farther and more quickly. I am just now getting the system organized throughout Kithai, but eventually I will have it operating across the entire Khanate, to bring news or important burdens even from the farthermost border of Poland. Already I have the service so efficient that a white-flag porpoise caught in Tung-ting Lake, more than two thousand li south of here, can be cut up and packed in saddlebags of ice and hurried here to the Khakhan’s kitchen while it is still fresh.”
“A fish?” I respectfully inquired. “Is that an important burden?”
“That fish lives only in one place, in that Tung-ting Lake, and is not easily caught, so it is reserved for the Khakhan. It is a great table delicacy in spite of its great ugliness. The white-flag porpoise is as big as a woman, has a head like a duck, with a snout like a duck’s beak, and its slanted eyes are sadly blind. But it is a fish only by enchantment.”
I blinked and said, “Uu?”
“Yes, each is a royal descendant of a long-ago princess, who was changed by enchantment into a porpoise after she drowned herself in that lake, because … because of a … a tragic love affair … .”
I was surprised that a typically brisk and brusque Mongol should begin stammering like a schoolboy. I looked up at him, and saw that his formerly brown face had flushed red. He avoided my eye and clumsily fumbled to turn our conversation to something else. Then I remembered who he was, so I—probably also reddening in sympathy—made some excuse to terminate the interview, and I withdrew. I had totally forgotten, you see, that that Minister Amursama was the lord who, after his lady was taken in adultery, had been ordered to strangle her with her own sphincter. Actually, a great many of the palace residents were curious to know the grisly details of Amursama’s compliance with that order, but were shy of bringing up the matter in his presence. However, they said, he himself seemed somehow always to be stumbling onto reminders of the subject, and then getting tongue-tied and uncomfortable, and making everybody around him just as uncomfortable.
Well, I could understand that. But I could not understand why another minister, likewise discoursing on a prosaic subject, should have seemed equally distraught and evasive. He was Pao Nei-ho and he was the Minister of Lesser Races. (As I have told, the Han people are everywhere in the majority, but in Kithai and in the southerly lands which were then the Sung Empire, there are some sixty other nationalities.) Minister Pao told me, at tedious length, how it was his responsibility to ensure that all of Kithai’s minority peoples enjoyed the same rights as the Han majority. It was one of the duller disquisitions I had so far endured, but Minister Pao told it in Farsi—in his position, he had to be multilingual—and I could not see why the telling of it made him so nervously falter and fidget and sprinkle his speech with er and uh and ahem.
“Even the er conqueror Mongols are uh few compared to us Han,” he said. “The ahem lesser nationalities are fewer still. In the er western regions, for example, the uh so-called Uighur and the ahem Uzbek, Kirghiz, Kazhak and er Tazhik. Here in the uh north we find also the ahem Manchu, the Tungus, the Hezhe. And when the er Khan Kubilai completes his uh conquest of the ahem Sung Empire, we will absorb all the other er nationalities down there. The uh Naxi and the Miao, the Puyi, the Chuang. Also ahem the obstreperous Yi people who populate the er entire province of Yun-nan in the uh far southwest …”
He went on and on like that, and I might have dozed, except that my mind was busy sieving out the ers and uhs and ahems. But even when I had done that, I found the speech still a dry one. It seemed to contain nothing shameful or sinister that would require concealment in a lot of vocal weeds. I did not know why Minister Pao should be speaking so haltingly. Neither did I know why I was being suspicious of that fractured oratory. But I was. He was saying something that I was not supposed to grasp. I was sure of it. And, as it turned out, I was right.
When I finally got loose of him that day, I went to my own rooms and to the closet which I let Nostril use for his pallet chamber. He was sleeping at that moment, though it was only midafternoon. I shook him and said:
“You have not enough work to do, slovenly slave, so I have thought of a job for you.”
In truth, the slave was lately having quite an indolent life. My father and uncle, having no need for him, had relinquished his services entirely to me. But I was so well served by the maids Buyantu and Biliktu that I employed Nostril only for such things as buying me a wardrobe of suitable Kithai-style clothing, and keeping it well stocked and in good order, and occasionally to groom and saddle a horse for me. Between times, Nostril did not do much roaming about or mischief making. He seemed to have subdued his former nasty habits and natural inquisitiveness. He spent most of his time in his closet, except when he ventured as far as the palace kitchens to seek a meal, or, when I invited him, to dine with me in my chambers. I did not allow that often, for the girls were clearly repelled by his appearance and uncomfortable in the role of Mongols waiting upon a mere slave.
Now he came awake, grumbling, “Bismillah, master,” and yawning so that even his dreadful nose hole seemed to gape wider.
I said sternly, “Here am I, busy all the day, while my slave slumbers. I am supposed to be evaluating the Khakhan’s courtiers by talking to them face to face, but you could do even better behind their backs.”
He mumbled, “I gather, master, that you wish me to snoop about among their servants and attendants. But how? I am an outlander and a newcomer, and my grasp of the Mongol tongue is still imperfect.”
“There are many outlanders among the domestic staff. Prisoners taken from every land. The servants’ talk belowstairs must be a Babel of languages. And I know very well that your one nostril is adept at sniffing out gossip and scandal.”
“I am honored that you ask me, master, but—”
“I am not asking. I am commanding. You are henceforth to spend all your spare time, of which you have an ample measure, mingling with the servants and your fellow slaves.”
“Master, to be honest, I am fearful of wandering about these halls. I might blunder into the Fondler’s precincts.”
“Do not talk back or I will take you there myself. Hear me. Every evening from now on, you and I will sit down and you will repeat to me every least morsel of tattle and tale you have heard.”
“About anything? Everything? Most of the talk is trivial.”
“Everything. But right now I am interested to know all I can find out about the Minister of Lesser Races, the Han lord named Pao Nei-ho. Whenever you can subtly turn the conversation to that subject, do so. But subtly. Meanwhile, I shall want everything else you hear, as well. There is no foretelling what tidbit may be of value to me.”
“Master Marco, I must make some respectful demur in advance. I am not so handsome now as I once was, when I could beguile even princesses to blurt their innermost—”