Daughter of Xanadu (22 page)

Nesruddin welcomed Abaji with open arms and invited Suren and me to join him at a banquet that night. It was the first time since our journey had begun that Suren and I were treated as royalty. It was an indulgence not offered to other soldiers, but I did not refuse. We were given spacious rooms in his palace, with servants who drew fresh hot water for baths in our private chambers. I let the maidservants scrub my head and hair and body, and I soaked in the tub. It felt wonderful to be a princess again.

At dinner that night, I realized that Nesruddin had also chosen to treat Marco Polo as an honored guest, when he had learned that Marco was traveling on the Khan’s business. Like us, Marco had been given a private room at the palace. At the head table, Nesruddin served us as much meat as we could eat.

Nesruddin did not mind talking to Abaji in front of us. In fact, he was eager to talk to us about the threat from Burma, the country just across the mountains.

Burma, which he called the kingdom of Mien, was a small but wealthy land, with towers of gold and silver in its noble capital, Pagan. Its king despised the Mongols. He often inflicted ravages on the people of Carajan, harassed our border troops, and mistreated Mongol envoys. Nesruddin’s
spies told him that the Burmese soldiers were massing on the border, preparing to invade. Burma claimed the right to rule parts of Carajan, because many local villagers belonged to tribes that spanned the border.

So far, Nesruddin had been able to amass only twelve thousand Mongol horsemen, hardly enough for a large-scale attack against Burma. Most Mongol troops were fighting far to the east, on China’s coast. Nesruddin was itching for a fight.

Abaji peppered Nesruddin with questions. How many more troops would be needed? How long might it take to conquer Burma and then India?

“It will not be easy,” Nesruddin said. “The Burmese use elephants in battle. Our Mongol army horsemen are not trained to fight against elephants.”

Nesruddin had sent many missives to the Great Khan begging for enough troops to invade that rich realm and subdue that troublesome king. He took our arrival as a sign that the day would soon be at hand.

“A battle is certain. The only questions are where and when.”

I hoped it would be soon enough that I could take part.

F
ive days later, before dawn, we set off on our dragon hunt. Marco had gone to the local market, accompanied by one of Nesruddin’s men, and bought all the dragon gall available, using gold entrusted to him by the Great Khan. Apparently, dragons were plentiful in this region. Still, he needed to find a pair of live dragons to take back to the Khan. Nesruddin knew of a village headman who was knowledgeable about the dragons, and he offered to send a guide and porters with Marco to the village. When Suren found out that I wanted to go, he insisted on going, too, to protect me from Marco.

Even with horses, it took all day to get to the village on winding mountain trails. The winter air was not too cold, but it rained slightly during the trip, and we had to walk most of the way, leading the horses first up a steep hill, then down into a ravine. The village stood next to a river, where a stream entered it.

When we arrived at the village, the headman, Master Li, told us dragon hunting was always done at night. “These serpents live in rivers during the heat of the day and come out at night to hunt. We’ll lay our traps in late afternoon, then check the traps early tomorrow morning. My second son here is an expert and will lead you. Do you dare come with us?”

It seemed absurd, hunting dragons, yet I could see the thrill in Master Li’s eyes. He had gold-tipped teeth, wrinkles, and the look of a man who enjoyed his life’s work.

After a meal of brown-rice porridge with strange blackened eggs, Li described the dragons for us, through an interpreter. Li was a stocky man with muscled arms and legs—not how I had imagined a dragon slayer would look but perhaps better suited to the real-life task.

“The biggest dragons are ten paces in length, longer than this room. They slither along the ground, not higher than this.” Master Li held his hand a few feet off the floor. “They drag their bodies using small legs with sharp claws, like a hawk’s. In bulk, they are this round and thick.” Li pointed to a large cask in the corner of his house. “The bigger ones are ten palms in girth. The head is huge, and the eyes are bigger than a pomegranate. The mouth is large enough to swallow a man whole.”

The headman’s son, known as Little Li, showed us a dried dragon’s head. I had been skeptical, but this head proved the existence of such a creature. It was fierce-looking, as long as his two arms could reach, and flat, with bulges on top where eyes had once been. Huge jaws were lined with great pointed teeth. Its skin was horny and hard. I could imagine its huge body slithering along the ground and chomping my legs off.

Suren reached out and tentatively touched the creature’s scales and protruding teeth. His eyes were round with wonder and horror. “What do they eat?” he asked.

Master Li smiled. “They are meat eaters, like you Mongols. They eat what they can find: fish, frogs, birds, monkeys, and squirrels. The bigger ones seek out the lairs of lions and snatch their cubs, without the sire or dam being able to prevent it. Sometimes they even devour full-grown lions or bears.”

Suren’s eyes shone with awe as he stroked the dried creature’s long snout as if it were a pet. I had not expected him to be so taken with this mission.

Master Li smiled proudly. “I am the best dragon hunter in all of Carajan, and my son here is second best.” I noticed that Master Li wore gold rings on several fingers.

Marco leaned forward. “Tell us how you capture this creature.”

Master Li smiled a gold-toothed grin. “Alive or dead?”

“Alive.”

“We will show you both tonight, dead and alive. Come with us and you will see.”

I was overjoyed to be included in such an adventure. Dressed as a soldier, in a bulky coat and hat, I hoped to pass for a man. These people lived far from Cathay, and their language was different. Unsure of their attitudes toward women, I stayed silent.

I was told that the people in this village tribe looked much like the Burmese, across the border. Their skin was browner than most Chinese, and their eyes rounder. They wore bright-colored clothing and might easily pass for Burmese.

Master Li opened a cloth-wrapped package, revealing six sharp blades of steel as long as a hand could stretch. They glinted in the firelight. Li held one up and offered it to Marco, who took it carefully. “Feel the blade.”

Marco put his finger on the swordlike edge. “How can such a small blade kill a beast ten paces long? How can you get close enough?”

“Time to set our traps. Follow me.” Li carefully wrapped the blades.

Bundled in warm coats, we followed the stocky dragon hunter and his son along a trail by the stream toward the river. We wore boots, but the villagers went barefoot, making it easier to walk on the muddy trails. Several boys followed us, prancing and singing hunt songs. Capturing a dragon was a village event. As the late-afternoon sun sank behind the mountains, we walked on a trail through the jungle to a place where Li had spotted a dragon a few days earlier.

“See?” Li pointed to marks on the ground, and we crowded around to look. A large furrow in the soil cut across the path and made a trail through the woods. Something large and menacing had passed here not long before.

“It will come back the same way tonight,” Li continued. He gave orders to several villagers, who began to dig deep holes along the dragon’s trail, some close together, some far apart. Master Li lashed his sharp blades to the ends of sturdy stakes. Then he buried them in the holes along the trail, with the blades sticking out slightly aboveground, glittering wickedly. The villagers filled the holes and covered the blades with soil.

The dragon master spoke in a near whisper, as if the creatures could hear him. “When the beast returns tonight, he
will strike against the iron blades with such force that they will enter his breast and rip him down to the navel. He will die on the spot.”

“Why do you bury six blades?” Suren wanted every detail.

“We never know exactly where the beast will crawl on his return. Sometimes we plant six blades and the creature misses them all. That could happen tonight.”

“How do we capture them alive?” Marco’s eyes shone in the flickering torchlight.

Li’s son shook his head. “Much more difficult. Come.” Little Li was wiry and monkey-like, with long arms and a broad grin.

We followed Little Li to the riverbank, where we could see five-toed footprints of some heavy creature in the mud. There, several villagers were assembling a trap made of bamboo stakes, a box frame long and wide, with fishnet of sturdy rope covering the sides. One end, near the water’s edge, had a trapdoor. The other end had a hook for bait—a live chicken, sacrificed for the Great Khan. Several smaller dead birds were scattered near that end, in the hopes of luring more than one creature to feed.

Marco and Suren examined the trigger mechanism with interest. I was bursting with questions but did not dare open my mouth. I wished to experience the thrill of this hunt by watching.

Suren did not want to leave when the traps were set, although it was getting dark. “Can we stay here all night and watch?”

Little Li, only a few years older than Suren, smiled and shook his head. “The dragons would smell us and would not come out of the water. Or else eat us.”

Before returning to the village, the headman made everyone gather in a circle. Then he spoke in his own tongue, making gestures toward the ground, toward the sky, toward the people. It appeared to be a ritual, and we didn’t ask for a translation until after it had ended and we were walking back to the village.

Our interpreter explained. “He talked to the Great Dragon, emperor of earth and sky. He asked permission to kill one dragon. He said you will take gall from dragon back to make the Great Khan well. He asked dragon to bring good luck.”

After the hunting party returned to the village, Suren was lively and talkative. He seemed to have forgotten both his worry about me and his distrust of Marco. “What does the dragon’s meat taste like? Can we eat some tomorrow? Does it make you strong?”

Little Li appreciated Suren’s enthusiasm and patiently answered his questions until the interpreter grew tired and stopped translating.

After a simple, spicy dinner, we were shown beds in the back room of Master Li’s wooden house. Suren slept next to me, but my thoughts hovered over Marco, sleeping close, just beyond him. Finally, long after midnight, I slept.

Before daybreak, Master Li shook us awake. He pointed toward the sky, and I could hear the caws of birds. “Are those vultures?” Suren asked.

Without pausing to eat, we left the house. The other village men were armed and ready. Master Li gave us each a huge knife and a basket. He told us to stay quiet as we followed him.

As we drew closer to the trap in the jungle, the sounds of
birds grew louder. A little light outlined the mountains to the east. Master Li indicated we should wait while he went ahead. He held a long stake with a blade attached. I strained to see what he was doing. He stopped and looked at something, then poked it several times and shouted back at his men. We dashed forward.

Suren and Marco got there just before I did. A bloody, hideous sight and stench struck me as I reached the creature. It indeed looked like a dragon, long and scaly and low to the ground, flatter than I had expected. Birds had already plucked out the eyeballs. Its back was covered with hard scales and horny knobs. Half its length was a huge long pointed tail. Its fearsome head was as big as the dried one we had seen the previous day.

A villager immediately began to drain the dragon’s blood into a leather bag. “Dragon’s blood is good for fighting infections,” Little Li told us.

Then Master Li flipped the beast over onto its back. A gash was ripped from its neck to mid-belly. Bile rose in my throat and I had to look away for a moment. Master Li took a knife and cut the creature open the rest of the way. With expertise, he immediately found a small pear-shaped organ, the gallbladder. He held it up, still dripping. He handed it to Marco, who accepted it as if it were pure gold.

This gall was the precious medicine that might cure the Khan’s swollen feet.

The village men dropped their knives and baskets and began dancing around the dead dragon with joy. Marco placed the gallbladder into a small bamboo container he had brought, and held it high for all to see.

“For the Great Khan, may he live ten thousand years!” he shouted in Mongolian.

Suren and I shouted back, “May he do so!”

That was the easy part of our mission. Capturing live dragons would be far harder.