But they had already dismissed me and were gazing soulfully at each other, so I went on my way.
Kubilai received me in his earthquake-engine chamber, and with no one else present, and he greeted me cordially but not effusively. He knew that I had something to say, and he was ready for me to say it at once. However, I did not wish just to blurt out the information I had brought, so I began circumspectly.
“Sire, I am desirous that I do not, in my ignorance, give undue weight or impetuosity to my small services. I believe I bring news of some value, but I cannot properly evaluate it without knowing more than the little I now know of the Khakhan’s disposition of his armies, and the nature of their objectives.”
Kubilai did not take affront at my presumption or tell me to go and inform myself from his underlings.
“Like any conqueror, I must hold what I have won. Fifteen years ago, when I was chosen Khan of All Khans of the Mongols, my own brother Arikbugha challenged my accession, and I had to put him down. More recently, I have several times had to stifle similar ambitions on the part of my cousin Kaidu.” He waved a dismissal of such trifles. “The mayflies continually plot to topple the cedar. Nuisances only, but they require my keeping portions of my troops on all the borders of Kithai.”
“May I ask, Sire, about those on the march, not in garrison?”
He gave me another summary, just as succinct. “If I am to keep secure this Kithai I won from the Chin, I must also have the southern lands of the Sung. I can best conquer them by encirclement, taking first the province of Yun-nan. So that is the only place where my armies are actively campaigning right now, under my very capable Orlok Bayan.”
Not to impugn the capability of his Orlok Bayan, I chose my next words with care.
“He has been engaged in that for some while now, I understand. Is it possible, Sire, that he is finding the conquest of Yun-nan more difficult than expected?”
Kubilai regarded me narrowly. “He is not about to be defeated, if that is what you mean. But neither is he having an easy victory. His advance had to be made from the land of To-Bhot, meaning that he had to come down into Yun-nan through the steeps of the Hang-duan Mountains. Our horse armies are better suited and more accustomed to fighting on flat plains. The Yi people of Yun-nan know every crevice of those mountains, and they fight in a shifty and cunning way—never facing us in force, but sniping from behind rocks and trees, then running to hide somewhere else. It is like trying to swat mosquitoes with a hod of bricks. Yes, you could fairly say that Bayan is finding it no easy conquest.”
I said, “I have heard the Yi called obstreperous.”
“Again, a fair enough description. From their safe concealments, they shout taunts of defiance. They evidently hold the delusion that they can resist long enough to make us go away. They are wrong.”
“But the longer they resist, the more men dead on both sides, and the land itself made poorer and less worth the taking.”
“Again, true enough. Unfortunately.”
“If they were disabused of their delusion of invincibility, Sire, might not the conquest be easier? With fewer dead and less ravagement of the province?”
“Yes. Do you know some way to dissolve that delusion?”
“I am not sure, Sire. Let me put it this way. Do you suppose the Yi are bolstered in their resistance by knowing that they have a friend here at court?”
The Khakhan’s gaze became that of a hunting chita. But he did not roar like a chita, he said as softly as a dove, “Marco Polo, let us not dance around the subject, like two Han in the market. Tell me who it is.”
“I have information, Sire, apparently reliable, that the Minister of Lesser Races, Pao Nei-ho, though posing as a Han, is really a Yi of Yun-nan.”
Kubilai sat pensive, though the blaze in his eyes did not abate, and after a while he growled to himself, “Vakh! Who can tell the damnable slant-eyes apart? And they are all equally perfidious.”
I thought I had better say, “That is the only information I have, Sire, and I accuse the Minister Pao of nothing. I have no evidence that he has spied for the Yi, or even been in communication with them in any way.”
“Sufficient is it that he misrepresented himself. You have done well, Marco Polo. I will call Pao in for questioning, and I may later have reason to speak to you again.”
When I left the Khakhan’s suite, I found a palace steward waiting for me in the corridor, with a message that the Chief Minister Achmad would have me call upon him that moment. I went to his chambers, not gleefully, thinking: How could he have heard already?
The Arab received me in a room decorated with a single massive piece of—I suppose it would be called a sculpture made by nature. It was a great rock, twice as tall as a man and four times as big around, a tremendous piece of solidified lava that looked like petrified flames, all gray twists and convolutions and holes and little tunnels. Somewhere in the base of it a bowl of incense smoldered, and the perfumed blue smoke rose and coiled through the sculpture’s sinuosities and seeped out from some apertures and in through others, so that the whole thing seemed to writhe in a slow, ceaseless torment.
“You disobeyed and defied me,” Achmad said immediately, with no greeting or other preliminary. “You kept listening until you heard something damaging to a high minister of this court.”
I said, “It was a piece of news that came to me before I could withdraw the ear.” I offered no further apology or extenuation, but boldly added, “I thought it had come only to me.”
“What is spoken on the road is heard in the grass,” he said indifferently. “An old Han proverb.”
Still boldly, I said, “It requires a listener in the grass. All this time, I had assumed that my maidservants were reporting my doings to the Khan Kubilai or the Prince Chingkim, and I accepted that as reasonable. But all this time they have been your spies, have they not?”
I do not know whether he would have bothered to lie and deny it, or would even have bothered to confirm the fact, for at that moment came a slight interruption. From an adjoining room, a woman started in through the curtained doorway, and then, perceiving that Achmad had company, abruptly swished back through them again. All I saw of her was that she was a strikingly large woman, and elegantly garbed. From her behavior, it was evident that she did not wish to be seen by me, so I supposed that she was somebody else’s wife or concubine engaging in an illicit adventure. But I could not recall ever having seen such a tall and robust woman anywhere about the palace. I reflected that the painter, Master Chao, in speaking of the Arab’s depraved tastes, had not said anything about the objects of his tastes. Did the Wali Achmad have a special liking for women who were larger than most men? I did not inquire, and he paid no attention to the interruption, but said:
“The steward found you at the Khakhan’s chambers, so I take it that you have already imparted to him your information.”
“Yes, Wali, I have. Kubilai is summoning the Minister Pao to interrogate him.”
“A fruitless summons,” said the Arab. “It seems that the Minister has made a hasty departure, destination unknown. Lest you be so brash as to accuse me of having connived in his flight, let me suggest that Fao probably recognized the same visitors from the southland who recognized him, and whose indiscreet gossip your ear overheard.”
I said, and truthfully, “I am not brash to the extreme of being suicidal, Wali Achmad. I would accuse you of nothing. I will only mention that the Khakhan seemed gratified to have the information I brought him. So, if you deem that a disobedience to you, and punish me for it, I imagine Kubilai will wonder why.”