Daughter of Xanadu (14 page)

In the meantime, Marco seemed to be drawing a map with a light finger on my back. I felt like shivering with pleasure but did not want his uncle to notice. I had to focus hard to pay attention to Uncle Maffeo’s words.

“Wait,” I said. “All the kings of Christendom would take
their finest soldiers?”
And leave their homelands undefended?
I did not add.

“Yes. All warriors want to go to the Holy Land to earn glory for Christendom.”

“With the best soldiers far away, who would defend the homelands?” I asked.

Marco’s fingertips felt delightful, like a cool breeze on a stifling day. But he stopped as suddenly as he had started touching my back. I wanted Uncle Maffeo to keep talking so Marco would touch me again.

“Oh, that would not be a problem,” Uncle Maffeo continued. “No one would attack a fellow Christian country during a Crusade.”

Uncle Maffeo looked up, and Marco stepped back, away from me.

A thought jumped into my mind. While I had been concentrating on Marco’s touch, Uncle Maffeo had given me the crucial piece of information I had been seeking. If all the best troops of Christendom could be tricked into leaving their homelands to fight in the Holy Land, far away, our Mongol troops could sweep in across the northern plains and take over Vienna, Paris, Venezia, Roma.

I stared at the dirt map and imagined a long, sharp arrow starting from Russia and moving overland toward Venezia, even as the ships, filled with Christian troops, left Christendom undefended. If another division of Mongol troops cooperated with the Latins to take over the Holy Land, that could be added to our Empire, too. Surely the Latins could not expect to keep it if we conquered it. The whole West would fall at once, into our Empire. It seemed so neat, so easy.

At last, I had something to report to Prince Chimkin.

Uncle Maffeo stood up, panting. “Too hot,” he said. “Shall we return?”

All night, tossing, I could feel a tingling on each spot of my shoulders and neck and back where Marco’s fingers had stroked me. It was wrong to think of Marco that way. Forbidden. I knew I had to report the conversation to my uncle, even if it meant the destruction of Marco’s beloved Venezia. This was the only path that might lead me to a position in the army and a life of adventure. But my heart felt severed.

X
anadu, by its very design, was supposed to protect the Khan and his guests from the heat. Breezes blew through the green valley, and shade trees were plentiful in the garden and the surrounding hillsides. Pavilions and halls were designed to catch the wind. But I felt sweat-drenched by noon each day. Although I knew all the places renowned for their coolness, I could not find any place to escape the heat.

One morning in the middle of Eighth Moon, Marco arrived for our walk late—and alone. Both his father and uncle were feeling weak from the heat. It seemed I would have one last chance to see him alone before the summer ended. Yet what would I say?

“Princess, I hope you can help me,” Marco said as we walked toward the gardens. “My father is anxious. We delivered all our trading goods to the Khan in Fifth Moon, and we have heard nothing. The Khan continues to enjoy my
stories, but he has not rewarded me. We need goods to take back to the West.”

“When do you plan to return to the West?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“As soon as the Khan will allow it.”

Marco had never before made a direct request. “I will see what I can find out.”

“
Gratias!
” he said, which I knew means “thank you” in Latin.

To find a shadier place to sit, where no one would overhear us, I suggested to Marco that we enter the forbidden part of the gardens, an area only the Khan and his guests could enter. This smaller garden had more trees—willows, pines, and cypresses—and more shade. It was accessible only through a guarded gate. But as children, Suren and I had found a secret way to enter the inner garden from the roof of a small gazebo.

Marco hesitated, but I assured him it would be safe on such a hot day.

Making sure no one saw us, I climbed onto the roof of the gazebo and clambered over the wall into the Khan’s private garden. Marco followed. We walked along a pond surrounded by graceful willows and into a pine grove that would have been cool had there been the slightest breeze. I headed toward a midsize pavilion made of gilded cane, thinking to sit in the shade inside.

When we were just behind the pavilion, I heard voices coming from inside. The wooden window shutters, carved with beautiful scenes and paned with thin paper, were open to allow air into the pavilion. I heard the unmistakable booming voice of the Khan.

Nothing could have been more perilous than walking in the Khan’s private garden with a foreigner. What had muddled my mind? I ducked below a window, holding my breath. Silently, I eased myself into a sitting position. Marco sat beside me. He pointed back to the grove, as if to say,
Shall we get away?

I shook my head. The area around us was too exposed, too visible from the Khan’s pavilion. We were lucky no one had seen us arrive. Now that I knew there were men in the pavilion, I could not think of any way we could flee without being noticed.

Seeing my fear reflected in Marco’s eyes, I stayed put under the window. I hoped the men would go away and leave us free to escape. Why would the Khan hold a meeting on the hottest day of Eighth Moon?

“Good news indeed!” the Khan was saying. “We are winning battle after battle in southern China. If our luck continues, we shall conquer their capital at Kinsay and have a victory parade in Khanbalik not long after the New Year Festival.”

Another victory parade?
I listened closely. Perhaps I could take part in it.

“After twenty years of fighting, it will be the biggest victory of all,” another man said. “Subduing the Chinese has been harder than anyone could have imagined.”

“Your Majesty’s Empire will stretch from the forests of the Far North to the seas of the South—far larger than any Chinese dynasty.” It was my uncle Chimkin’s voice. He seemed near the window. I shuddered and ducked my head lower.

“A toast to our great General Bayan and his troops! May
their triumphs continue!” The Khan seldom toasted anyone else. While the musicians played and the men drank, we could have escaped, but my curiosity got the better of me. Maybe I could be sent to the South to help in the final conquest of southern China, instead of to the West.

Marco looked alert as he scanned the landscape for ways to escape.

My grandfather’s voice resounded with confidence. “Today is the day I have been waiting for. We begin planning our final conquests, of those parts of the world we have not yet occupied. When this campaign is finished, we shall rule the entire world.”

His men cheered. Marco’s thick eyebrows twisted.

The Khan’s voice grew softer. Leaning closer to the wall, I strained to hear more. I hoped Marco couldn’t understand this formal court language. “After the conquest of China, we must be ready to move on the next front. I need to decide which of the three options it will be. Let me hear your reports.”

That should have been another signal to run, but my muscles were frozen as stiff as those of a deer standing still to avoid the detection of a nearby hunter.

A man began speaking. I recognized the voice as that of one of the Khan’s generals. He recommended invading Zipangu, Land of the Rising Sun, a set of islands east of Korea. This would require an enormous fleet of ships, and it might take two years to build them.

Another man reported on a huge land called India, famous for rubies and spices, elephants and tigers. To get a large army there, though, would require sending troops over the highest mountain ranges in the world. On the other side
lay a country called Burma. Burmese soldiers had recently clashed with Mongol troops in the mountains. The king of Burma had threatened to invade China, and our army had to stop him if he did.

The names of these faraway countries meant little to me.

Finally, Chimkin spoke. I shut my eyes to listen, afraid of Marco’s reaction. “Many lands in the West remain unconquered. Our Mongol kinsmen control Persia and Russia. But now we know that many small countries lay behind that—in Christendom.”

Inches from my side, Marco flinched. My eyes flew open.

The Khan spoke up. “Why Christendom? As we have heard from our storyteller, these countries are weak and poor, with no good sources of gold or gemstones.”

“Certainly, Your Majesty,” said Chimkin. “We also know they have many skilled artisans, a useful addition to our Empire. More important, our spy has come up with a simple, elegant solution.”

I closed my eyes tight again, hoping Marco did not know the Mongolian word for “spy.”

Chimkin continued. “Those Latins have long been obsessed with one goal: taking back their so-called Holy Land. If we offer to cooperate with them to remove the Saracens from their holy city of Jerusalem, they would quickly send their finest troops to the Holy Land. That would leave their homelands undefended. Our Mongol troops could easily sweep in from the north and east, from Russia, conquering all of Christendom in a matter of months. Then the Mongol Empire would stretch from sea to sea.”

Marco gripped his forehead. I thought of the countries he had described, their kings and queens, their languages and
history, their churches. They could soon be destroyed, because of me. What Marco thought was a charming friendship with a Mongol princess could turn into the defeat of all the lands of Christendom.

“Sea to sea,” said the Khan, as if he liked the sound of it.

“Your choice of a spy turned out to be excellent, Great Khan,” Chimkin said. “At first she provided little useful information. But I give her credit for this brilliant strategy she picked up from talking with the foreigners. They revealed too much.”

This was what I had dreamed Chimkin would privately report to the Khan, to prove my loyalty and competence to join the army. But I had never imagined that Marco would hear these words. This was a living nightmare.

I felt as if a saber had sliced through my head and body.

M
arco nearly stood up, but I pulled him down. If he made his presence known, we could both be killed. His eyes burned with angry disbelief. He grabbed my arm and squeezed it hard, with more strength than I had thought he had. I winced in pain and closed my eyes. With an easy wrestling move, I could have pushed him away, but not without making noise.

“
Airag!
” shouted the Khan. I could hear servants shuffling to refill goblets, and a lone musician, a flutist, struck up music as the Khan likely took a drink.

That was the signal I had been waiting for. When the men drank, they would probably not look out the window. Awkwardly, I started to run, nearly dragging Marco. We raced across the open space to the pine trees.

Panting, we ran without stopping until we reached the section of wall where we had entered. I quickly found a foothold and pulled myself up to the top of the wall and over
to the other side, landing with a thunk on the pavilion roof. Wincing with pain, I reached my hand down to help Marco, who was heavier and less agile.

He wavered, as if unwilling to touch my traitorous hand. But it was his only way to get out. His hate-filled eyes cut into my heart. He reached up and I tugged with all the arm strength I had developed in my years of wrestling. His body lurched over the wall. He landed on his side on the roof and slipped out of my hands. He slid down and rolled off, landing on a rock with a crack.

Sure that I heard a sound of pursuit on the other side of the wall, I jumped off the roof and ran toward the far side of a hill, leading Marco into a small grove of trees not visible from the inner wall.

I dashed behind a pagoda, jumped across a stream, and ran to the edge of the garden’s outer wall, then dove under some thick bushes. Finally, I found what I was seeking—a spot under a sprawling evergreen where Suren and I had hidden as children. Even as I crouched on the ground, the branches hit my head, but this spot was protected and hidden.

For a long moment, I could not hear Marco following me. Had he been captured? What was taking him so long? Then I heard a stumbling noise in the woods.