Silk Road (41 page)

Their lodgings in the palace were sumptuous. Josseran’s quarters were hung with curtains of ermine and silk. His bed was like no bed he had ever seen; it had a carved frame and was closed on three sides with white satin partitions, painted with delicate watercolours of waterfalls and bamboo groves. The bed covers were lined with floss silk.

There were several low tables about the room, all made of polished black lacquer, and some exquisite jade ornaments in the shapes of elephants and dragons. But the most curious object was a porcelain cat with an oil lamp cunningly concealed inside its head. At night, when the lamp was lit, the cat’s eyes appeared to glow in the darkness.

The whole room was redolent with incense and sandalwood. A long way, he thought, from the bare brick walls and hard wooden bed of his monk’s cell in Acre.

This whole city was as a dream. Should I ever return to Troyes, and tell my cousin barons the things I have seen, they will all call me a liar.

He fell exhausted on to the bed and slept.

S
ARTAQ ROUSED HIM
from his sleep the next morning. He told him he had been assigned to Josseran as his escort while he was in Shang-tu, and his first duty was to accompany him to Khubilai’s treasurer, Ahmad.

‘The Great Khan wishes another audience this afternoon,’ Sartaq told him as they made their way along the terrace.

‘I hope this time he will not fall asleep during our interview.’

Sartaq grinned. ‘I hope not, also. Perhaps you should try and tell him something to interest him.’

I had expected that he would hang on our every word anyway, Josseran thought. It had never occurred to me that an emissary who had travelled six months for an audience might also need to entertain him. ‘Tell me something, Sartaq. What is your religion?’

He shrugged. ‘I am a Mohammedan.’

‘I did not understand. How can this be? I walk around this city I see Mohammedans everywhere. They have their own bazaar, their own hospital, their own church. Yet everywhere on our journey I saw with my own eyes how you have fought with them and laid waste their towns and their cities. The khan whose troops were to escort me to Qaraqorum was Mohammedan. And now you tell me you yourself follow their religion.’

‘The war has nothing to do with the gods. There are many gods. But if someone will not bow their knee to our Great Khan they must be made to submit.’

‘So all these people you have conquered are your slaves?’

Sartaq looked genuinely bewildered. ‘Slaves? The people pay us taxes, but it is the right of every ruler to collect taxes from his subjects. But we Tatars are warriors not clerks. So we collect the wisest and the best from everywhere to help us rule. So we have Confucian scribes,
Tibetan holy men, Nestorians, Uighurs, from all over our empire. They are not slaves. Some of them are indeed very rich.’

‘So you do not make war on the Mohammedans because they are Mohammedans?’

‘Of course not. They make good accountants. They understand the silk trade.’ Sartaq slapped him on the shoulder and laughed. ‘You are a very strange man, Barbarian. I swear I shall never understand you!’

Josseran began to see the futility of William’s plans, and his own. When they set out from Acre he and his fellow Latins had believed the presence of Christians among the Tatars meant that their cause would find special favour with their khan. It was now clear to him that no religion had particular favour among the Tatars. Hülegü’s cruelty to the Saracens in Aleppo and Baghdad was not typical, just tactical.

But how could he explain this to William?

The treasury was in one of the great palaces on the other side of the great court; it was a large chamber, dark with cherry wood, open to the gardens on one side. Ahmad himself was a white-robed Mohammedan with a grizzled beard. He sat cross-legged on a rich carpet of burgundy and peacock blue, surrounded by his minions, and there were scrolls wound on wooden spindles, an abacus and piles of mulberry-coloured paper lying on the carpets around him.

Josseran was handed, without ceremony, some of the mulberry paper. These, Ahmad explained, were in exchange for William’s silver censer and silver cross, which were to be handed over at once. They were now the property of the Emperor.

And he was cursorily dismissed.

‘These Tatars, I do not understand,’ Josseran said to William. ‘They are conquerors of every land we have travelled these six months and yet they allow the Mohammedans and the idolaters to freely practise their religions. Indeed, they even adopt their gods among themselves. They say Khubilai’s favourite wife is an idolater, and worships this Borcan. In Fergana, Qaidu was an avowed Mohammedan. And by all reports Hülegü’s wife is Nestorian.’

‘It is a weakness among them,’ William answered. ‘A weakness we should exploit.’

‘Or is it rather their strength? Some would call such tolerance a virtue.’

‘A true faith does not abide tolerance! It is an offence to the one and true God! These Tatars have no abiding god so they search for another. That is why the Lord has brought us here. To show them the one and true way.’

Perhaps, Josseran thought. Yet things might have gone better for us all in the Holy Land had we employed some of their forbearance.

William read his expression. ‘You are a man of heretical thought, Templar. If it were not for the protection of your Order, you might have found yourself before an Inquisitor long ago.’

‘All I know is that these Tatars have conquered half the world, while we scarcely retain our few castles in Outremer. Perhaps we have something to learn from them.’

‘Learn from them?’

‘These Tatars never fight wars for their religion. They let men decide for themselves what god they choose. They do not blunt a single idea. They absorb something from everyone and it makes them stronger, not weaker.’

William stared at him in horror. He is no doubt wishing for his thumbscrew and a handy bonfire, Josseran thought. ‘A good Christian defends his faith against all unbelievers. To do less is to crucify our Lord all over again.’

‘You are a priest,’ Josseran said, ‘so I am sure you must be right.’ He decided to say no more; he had already said far too much. He held out the mulberry-coloured paper notes that Ahmad had given him and thrust them in his hand.

‘What is this?’ William said.

‘It is for the censer and the silver cross,’ he said.

‘The censer?’

‘And the silver cross. The Emperor has taken possession of them.’

‘You gave them to him? But they were not brought as gifts!’

‘It seems not to matter. Sartaq tells me that all gold and silver objects in the realm are, by law, taken by the Emperor for the
treasury. It is an offence for any but Khubilai himself to possess such metals. But in exchange he gives you this.’

William stared at the pieces of paper in his hand. They had been made from mulberry bark and were struck with the vermilion chop of the Emperor’s seal. They bore writing on both sides in Uighur script. ‘Paper? Is this a further insult?’

‘They call it paper money. You can exchange these for goods as if they were coin.’

‘They play you for a fool.’

‘On the contrary, Brother William. I went with Sartaq to the bazaar and bought these plums with one of these notes. The hawkers took my paper without murmur and gave me these strings of cash into the bargain.’ He held up the chain of coins, each with a hollow centre, threaded on a thin string of twine.

William stared at him. Paper money! Who had ever heard of such a thing? He turned to the window. A golden dragon snarled back at him from the eaves of the split-bamboo roof. ‘I shall protest to the Emperor directly. When are we to have our next audience? There is much to discuss.’

‘We have an audience this afternoon.’

‘Let us hope this time he is not drunk.’

‘Let us also hope that this time you speak to him as befits a ruler and not as a pauper in your church come for confession.’

‘Do not lecture me on how to conduct the Church’s business!’

‘I really do not understand why the Pope chose you for his emissary. Did he tell you nothing about obeying the polite forms when you are speaking to the prince of a foreign kingdom?’

‘All men are equal before God.’

‘We are not before God. We are before the king of the Tatars. A good ambassador must learn to bow and scrape. So why did the Pope send you? Was he hoping to get rid of you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that if I had translated everything you said, we would both have had our heads cut off in Aleppo and a dozen times since.’

‘I was chosen for my zeal, and for my love of Christ, not because I am artful with words. God guides me in all I do.’

‘Or was it because no one else was mad enough to do it?’

‘How dare you speak to me that way!’

‘Yes, I think that must be it. You are expendable. And no one else close to the Pope thought it was the right thing to do.’ He tossed the rest of the Emperor’s paper at him as he left. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘buy yourself some plums.’

F
OR THEIR SECOND
encounter they did not meet with the Emperor inside the great Hall of Audience, but were instead escorted through a pair of roofed gates into the sanctum of a park behind the palace. This court, Sartaq told Josseran, was set aside for Khubilai’s personal pleasure.

It was the most beautiful garden Josseran had ever seen. Green-tiled pavilions nestled among stands of willows and bamboo and the sun rippled like mercury on the still waters of a great lake. Long-life fishes – as the Chin called them – swam lazily in the shadows cast by hump-backed bridges with balustrades of carved stone. Peacocks eyed them with the cold suspicion of kings, white swans swam serenely between the lotus blooms or stretched their long wings in the sun.

They passed along an avenue of willows. Ahead of them Josseran saw the white yurt of the Emperor, a token at best, for its luxurious appointments mocked anything Josseran had seen on the steppe. It was raised on a dais of beaten earth and surrounded by flagged courtyards and weeping willows. Above the trees a yellow paper sun and a blue and orange butterfly floated against the sky, the bright-coloured kites of the courtiers’ children.

As they waited to be admitted, Sartaq whispered to Josseran that they must approach the Emperor’s throne on their knees. Josseran relayed these instructions to the friar, with predictable result.

‘I refuse!’ he hissed. ‘I have bent the knee enough to these savages! From henceforward I bend my knee only to God!’

‘Have we not discussed this? You are not an Inquisitor here, you are the Pope’s emissary to a foreign king!’

‘It is a blasphemy!’

‘Give unto Caesar.’

William hesitated. His face betrayed a dozen conflicting emotions. Finally, he accepted the wisdom of what Josseran had said. When the chamberlain came to fetch them, he fell to his knees alongside Josseran and in that way they again approached the Son of Heaven.

It was warm inside. The courtiers, in their red brocade gowns and curious helmets, were busy with their silk fans. The fans were stiff and round and decorated with watercolour and calligraphy, and fluttered like a thousand brightly painted butterflies. Josseran noticed that many of the nobles also carried small and delicately carved vases in which they would occasionally expectorate; this, so that they should not be obliged to spit on the Emperor’s carpets. Tatar musicians played behind a great screen, the two-stringed lutes and gongs and drums creating melodies jarring to Josseran’s ears.