Laurence Bergreen Read online

  In Barka’s realm, the brothers probably pursued their primary interest: drawing on their store of jewels and coins and fabrics to enrich themselves in dealings with other merchants. They might be compared to a traveling emporium, ready to deal in anything that would bring a profit. Marco frequently notes different types of fabrics being traded—muslin, damask, and of course silk—and it is reasonable to assume that his father and uncle did a brisk business in those items with other traders, the Muslims, Jews, and other Europeans, especially those from Genoa, who were better represented in Asia than Venetians. They may have traded in slaves on a very limited scale and returned to Venice with an Arab indentured servant.

  After a year, the brothers had had enough of Mongol hospitality and wished to return home, but by then Barka had become enmeshed in a civil war with another grandson of Genghis Khan, Hülegü, who ruled over eastern territories. “In a fierce and bloody battle,” says Marco, “Hülegü was victorious, in consequence of which, the roads being rendered unsafe, the brothers could not return by the way they came.” They were told that the best way to reach Constantinople in wartime was to “skirt the limits of Barka’s territories,” and in following this advice, they incurred considerable hardship. They reached a desert, “the extent of which was seventeen days’ journey, wherein they found neither town, castle, nor any substantial building, but only Mongols with their herds, dwelling in tents on the plain.”

  During the trek, they became familiar with the circular gers, felt tents, in which the Mongols lived, and with koumiss, the fermented mare’s milk they drank. Koumiss has a strong, sour taste, and the brothers resisted it at first. (When they did consent to drink, the Mongol who had offered it violently pulled their ears to make sure that they imbibed deeply.) In the same spirit of accommodation, the brothers learned to adapt to the Mongols’ aversion to bathing. True, Venetians of that era rarely bathed, but the Mongols’ abhorrence of water, combined with their proximity to animals, rendered them and their odors profoundly repugnant to Westerners who wandered into their midst. In time, the Polos mastered their revulsion and began to feel at home with their rough-hewn hosts. Even more important, they learned to converse with the Mongols, and that, more than any amount of koumiss they drank, established a bond between the merchants and their hosts.

  THE BROTHERS POLO made their way to Bukhara, located in today’s Uzbekistan and the capital of several empires from the ninth to the thirteenth century. The Polo company found Bukhara and its varied population hospitable; the city had long been a crossroads for traders from the East and the West trading in silk, porcelain, spices, ivory, and rugs. But beyond Bukhara’s ramparts, chaos ruled. Strife between various tribes rendered the local branches of the Silk Road impassable, and the Polos found to their dismay that they could not reach home anytime soon. Marco tersely comments, “Unable to proceed further, they remained here three years.” The delay made all the difference in their fortunes.

  During their extended stay in Bukhara, Niccolò and Maffeo encountered “a person of consequence and gifted with great talents.” He was, as it happened, an ambassador from Hülegü on his way east to visit Kublai Khan, “the supreme chief of all the Mongols, who lived at the far edge of the continent.” If the Polo brothers were skillful in their negotiations, the ambassador could open the way to the entire Mongol Empire for them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Golden Passport

  And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms

  Come trembling back, unite, and now once more

  The pool becomes a mirror.

  NICCOLÒ AND MAFFEO POLO spent days immersed in conversation with the Mongol ambassador, earning his confidence and respect. “Never having had an opportunity of seeing any natives of Italy,” Marco comments, “he was highly gratified at meeting and conversing with these brothers, who had become proficient in the Mongol language.” Those difficult days on the Silk Road, during which they had troubled to learn Mongolian dialects, greatly benefited the Venetians. The ambassador—never named—offered to introduce them to the Great Khan, exactly as they had hoped. To make the prospect still more attractive, the ambassador “added assurances that they would be honorably received and rewarded with many gifts.”

  Niccolò and Maffeo believed they had no other choice, because the return to Venice “would expose them to the gravest risks.” In contrast, the ambassador offered his assurance that they would be safe—if he accompanied them. So it was that they agreed to venture farther east than they had ever expected, to meet the leader who was hated and feared throughout Europe, and, in particular, by the pope.

  The journey to the court of Kublai Khan occupied a full year. Although the location of their meeting is not specified, it was likely the Mongol capital of Cambulac, to which travelers from afar gravitated. Eager to trade with foreigners, and to learn from them, the Mongols had devoted a portion of their capital to sheltering government officials and private merchants who ventured to the heart of the Mongol Empire to trade, to exchange ideas, or to establish diplomatic relations.

  Outnumbered by their subjects, the Mongols had become heavily dependent on foreigners to administer sensitive aspects of running the empire, especially tax collection. The foreigners came from across Asia and Europe, and among their number were Genoese and Venetians, Jews and Muslims, Uighurs, Russians, and Persians. To lessen corruption, and to preserve their identity amid the overwhelming number of Chinese, the Mongols enforced segregation. The Chinese whom they ruled were not permitted to learn the Mongol tongue; nor could they bear arms or marry Mongols.

  NATURAL HARDSHIPS made travel along the Silk Road an ordeal. Marco mentions snows and swollen rivers and floods impeding the expedition’s progress. But the Polo brothers recovered their poise and sense of purpose when they met the leader of the Mongols.

  Everything about Kublai Khan took them by surprise: his elaborate courteousness, so unlike the savagery for which the Mongols were notorious; his curiosity concerning Italy and Christianity; and his receptiveness to doing business. And Kublai Khan, for his part, was pleased that these two representatives of a different culture were able to converse in his own language.

  Marco insists that his father and uncle were the “first Latins”—that is, Christians—“to visit that country,” and as such “were entertained with feasts and other marks of distinction,” but this assertion has long been open to question. A handful of European travelers, including missionaries and knights, had preceded them to the Mongol court, and some left detailed records of their travels. The Polo brothers, cut off from the mainstream of commerce for years on end, were likely unaware of those who had come before, and believed they were, in fact, the first Europeans to meet the most powerful ruler alive.

  During their feasts, Kublai Khan probed his exotic visitors for intelligence about the “western parts of the world, the Emperor of the Romans, and other Christian kings and princes.” In particular, the Mongol leader wished to be informed of those rulers’ “relative importance, their possessions, the manner in which justice was administered in their kingdoms, and how they conducted themselves in warfare. Above all, he questioned them about the pope, the affairs of the Church, and the religious worship and doctrine of the Christians.” The merchant brothers were hardly experts on such complex subjects, but according to Marco, they supplied “appropriate answers on all these points in the Mongol language, with which they were perfectly acquainted.” Kublai Khan was so gratified that he summoned them repeatedly for conferences on the state of Christendom.

  Once he had debriefed Niccolò and Maffeo, and developed a close rapport with them, Kublai Khan decided to deploy them as double agents; henceforth, they would serve him as ambassadors to the West, and, in particular, to the pope. Skillful at diplomacy, the Great Khan couched his plan in flattery, or, as Marco puts it, “many kind entreaties that they should accompany one of his barons”—as the khans called their loyal vassals—“named Kogatal on a mission to the Pope.”

  The brot
hers hesitated before accepting the overwhelming assignment. “It is a great while since we left those parts,” they reminded the Great Khan, “and we do not know what may have happened or been done, because conditions of those lands are changed, and we are much afraid that we cannot fulfill thy commandment.” Nevertheless, they agreed—or were made to do so.

  In an official communiqué to the pope, Kublai Khan demanded the presence of “as many as a hundred wise men of learning in the Christian religion and doctrine, and who should know also the seven arts and be fitted to teach his people and who know well how to argue.” They should also be prepared to proselytize among the Mongols, that is, “to show plainly to him and to the idolaters and to the other classes of people submitted to his rule that all their religion was erroneous and all the idols that they keep in their houses are devilish things.” The pope’s emissaries “should know well how to show clearly by reason that the Christian faith and religion is better than theirs and more true than all the other religions.” To a pope convinced that the khan was the spawn of the devil, this would have been an astounding request, yet it was in keeping with Kublai’s inquiring nature. If the pope or his emissaries made their case, “he and all his potentates would become men of the Church.” But that did not mean they would renounce their adherence to other religions.

  The Great Khan had one other request: “some of the oil of the lamp that burns above the sepulcher of Jesus Christ our Lord in Jerusalem, in whom he had the greatest devotion, for he believed Christ to be in the number of blessed Gods.” Kublai Khan was not offering to replace other deities with Jesus, as the pope might have been led to expect when dealing with conventional infidels, but rather to add this figure to the Mongol pantheon. The nature of the request would never register with Rome, of course, but the Polo brothers were too preoccupied with their personal fate to argue theology with the Mongol leader. Instead, they vowed to return to Kublai Khan one day with one hundred wise men, oil from the Holy Sepulcher, and whatever else he required, in exchange for safe passage back to Venice. There is no indication that Niccolò and Maffeo seriously considered fulfilling every component of their vow; to bring one hundred wise men with them on a second journey was fantasy. Oil from the Holy Sepulcher, believed to have great healing powers for the body and mind, was another matter. At the time, the Armenian clergy did a brisk trade in it. The Polo brothers would have found it entirely possible to obtain the oil, at a steep price.

  KUBLAI KHAN’S guarantee of safe passage for his Venetian visitors came in the form of a magnificent “tablet of gold engraved with the royal seal and signed according to the custom of his estate.” This was the celebrated paiza, the royal Mongol passport that seemed to confer magical powers of protection. (The name was actually derived from Chinese; the Mongols called it a gerega.) The precious object certified that Niccolò, Maffeo, and the Mongol baron Kogatal were emissaries of Kublai Khan himself, and that local rulers in the Mongol Empire must provide lodging, horses, and escorts, just as they would for the emperor, “on pain of their disgrace” if they failed to follow this edict.

  JUST TWENTY DAYS after the Polo brothers’ departure, their Mongol traveling companion, Kogatal, became seriously ill and was obliged to stay behind. Even without the benefit of his presence, the paiza assured the brothers of safe passage and respect wherever they went.

  The brothers arrived unscathed at the small port city of Layas, in what was then known as Lesser or Little Armenia, a territory lying west of the Euphrates. Here they boarded a ship to begin the most hazardous segment of their journey. On land, they had only enemies to fear, but journeys over water were occasions for dread; only the most intrepid, desperate, or foolish of travelers entrusted their lives to the vagaries of wind and water.

  This time, fortune favored the Polo brothers. In 1269 they arrived safely at their destination, Acre (or Akko), an ancient seaport on what is now the northern coast of Israel, just south of Lebanon.

  AMONG THE MOST ancient settlements in the world, Acre had changed hands many times during the course of its history. In 1191, Philip II of France and Richard the Lion-Hearted of England wrested it away from the Muslim sultan Saladin, and it served as the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and, for the moment, a stronghold of Crusaders.

  In 1350, the German cleric Ludolph von Suchem described “this glorious city of Acre.” It was “built of square hewn stones,” he noted, “with lofty and exceedingly strong towers.” Within, the streets were “exceeding neat, all the walls of the houses being of the same height and all alike built of hewn stone, wondrously adorned with glass windows and painting…. The streets of the city were covered with silken clothes, or other fair awnings, to keep out the sun’s rays.”

  Acre served as a natural point of departure for travelers to the East such as the Polos, who mingled with the population of about fifty thousand, including Christian Crusaders, Muslim warriors, and Jewish merchants. To his astonishment, Ludolph found that nobles visiting the city “walked about the streets in royal state, with golden coronets on their heads, each of them like a king, with his knights, his followers, his mercenaries and his retainers, his clothing and his warhorse wondrously bedecked with gold and silver, all vying one with another in beauty and novelty of device, each man appareling himself with the utmost care.”

  The Polo brothers found themselves outclassed by the other merchants in Acre, “the richest under Heaven,” according to Ludolph. “Everything that can be found in the world that is wondrous or strange used to be brought thither because of the nobles and princes who dwelt there.”

  THE BROTHERS’ PLANS once again fell apart when they learned, a few months after the fact, that Pope Clement IV had died on November 23, 1268, at Viterbo. It seemed as if turmoil would trap the Polo company indefinitely. In desperation, notes Marco, they went to “a learned clerk who was the legate”—that is, the official emissary—“of the Pope for the Church of Rome in all the realm of Egypt. He was a man of great authority and was named Teobaldo of Piacenza.” On bended knee, the Polo brothers told the legate their entire fantastic tale concerning their goodwill mission to the pope commissioned by the Great Khan.

  The legate expressed “great wonder at it.” To his credit, he believed that “great good and great honor” for all Christendom could come from the proposal. He counseled the anxious Venetians to linger. “And when there shall be a Pope, you will be able to fulfill your mission,” he assured them. The wait for the election dragged on, with no end in sight. Restless, Niccolò and Maffeo decided to slip back to Venice and then to return to Acre in time to complete their task in conjunction with Clement IV’s successor. Moving nimbly for once, they left Acre for the island of Negrepont (now Euboea), boarded a ship, and reached Venice at last.

  MORE THAN sixteen years had passed since Niccolò and Maffeo Polo had last seen their home, sixteen years spent traversing the largest continent not once but twice, sixteen years during which they had lived by their wits, and come to enjoy the patronage of the most feared and powerful ruler on earth. Their journey had contained enough adventure for a lifetime, but for all its daring and accomplishment, it merely laid the groundwork for the celebrated expedition they would eventually take with young Marco.

  Stunning developments awaited them. Niccolò learned that his wife was dead. Perhaps even more startling, she had left him a “small son of fifteen years who had the name Marco.” This was Marco Polo, a boy who had spent his entire life in Venice, had never known his father, and until Niccolò’s return had had every reason to believe that he was an orphan.

  For two years, Niccolò and Maffeo languished in Venice, awaiting news of the next pope’s identity. It would be satisfying to assume that Niccolò, now a widower, spent time becoming acquainted with the “small son” he had never known to exist, but the record states otherwise. In short order, Niccolò remarried, and his new wife became pregnant.

  ALTHOUGH MARCO had known nothing of his father or uncle, their adventures became deeply imprinted on
his psyche and determined his entire future. He heard their tales of the Silk Road and of the Mongols, with their gers and koumiss. Most of all, he heard their accounts of meeting the extraordinary figure Kublai Khan, beside whom even the doge seemed puny. Like his older relatives, Marco would be a traveler, a wanderer through the East.

  At last, Niccolò and Maffeo decided that the moment had come to return to Acre to await the election of the next pope. This time, they would take the seventeen-year-old Marco with them. And once the new pope was elected, they would arrange to bring documents from him to Kublai Khan. No mention was made of the one hundred wise men they had promised, or of the oil from the Holy Sepulcher. They had only young Marco to offer to Kublai Khan.

  If the first journey into the Mongol Empire had come about through a series of mishaps, as chance carried Niccolò and Maffeo Polo from one trading center to the next, the second, undertaken in fulfillment of a vow, promised to be far more purposeful. They would go not as emissaries of the Republic of Venice, or of the pope, but of the Mongol Empire, and this time they would be far surer of themselves. They had their paiza to guarantee them safe passage across the hazardous stretches of Asia, and they had their knowledge of the Mongol tongue.

  MARCO LEFT VENICE in the spring of 1271 with Niccolò and Maffeo to begin the long and uncertain pilgrimage to a distant capital to meet an unimaginably powerful leader in the company of his father and uncle, whom he had met for the first time only two years before.

  The Polos joined a flotilla of Venetian ships known as a muda, which slowly made its way along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, hugging the shore, stopping at familiar ports to take on supplies. As it proceeded in a generally southeasterly course, the muda split into five convoys, each bound for a different destination.