William Wu - Emperor

The servants entered again, this time carrying two brass trays with dishes of steaming dumplings and noodles. They set the trays down on a large table and placed individual servings on small plates with chopsticks. Then they brought the servings to everyone.

Hunter and Polo resumed their conversation in Italian.

“Smells familiar,” Steve whispered to Marcia. “It even looks the same as in our time.”

“Much of the dim sum has been unchanged for centuries,” said Marcia.

“Wait a minute. How do you know?” Steve grinned. “Food doesn’t keep that long.”

“Old recipes are still on record,” said Marcia. She paused to blow on a hot dish. “Some dishes appear in paintings; relief sculpture; and book illustrations.”

“Well, here’s the real proof.” Steve paused to eat.

“I’m fascinated just by meeting Marco Polo,” said Marcia softly. “I just…”

“What?”

“I wish I could tell him about his book.”

Steve glanced over at Polo and Hunter. Polo was listening to Hunter’s story of their travels. Maybe they were making progress.

“What do you mean?” Steve whispered. “What do you want to tell him?”

“I wish I could tell him that after he returns to Italy, when the Genoese capture him in a war, not to worry. And that he’ll tell stories of his travels in prison to a writer who sets it all down.”

“He does it in prison?”

“Yes, as a prisoner of war. And I would warn him that much of what he says won’t be believed in his own time, or for many years afterward, but that it will finally become a timeless classic.”

“But you can’t. It might influence him in the wrong way, somehow. As Hunter would say, then everyone who ever read his book might be a little different, too. The changes could really add up.”

“I know.”

Jane walked through the streets of Khanbaliq between Wayne and Ishihara. Wayne had wanted to leave her behind in the village, but Ishihara, under the imperative of the First Law, had refused to leave her with the villagers. Now Wayne and Ishihara were searching again for MC 5.

Many of the villagers had accompanied them to Khanbaliq this morning. Some tended their market stall, but others had taken time away from the fields to visit the city with the good spirits who had come to their village. Wayne had sent the others to fan out around Khanbaliq in search of MC 5, but Xiao Li had remained with them.

Jane had been thinking about how to escape Ishihara. Here, where some of the blocks were relatively crowded, she could probably dart away suddenly and have some chance of losing herself in the crowd. Since he could not risk harming her, the idea of trying to escape had become more attractive now that they were back in Khanbaliq in daylight instead of out in the forest at night.

However, she also saw several problems with this plan. For one, she had nowhere to go. She figured that Hunter and the rest of the team were either looking for her back on the road to the Great Wall, or else they were riding back to Khanbaliq.

Even if Hunter had decided to return to the sphere and come right back to Khanbaliq, she had no idea where in the city the team was now. The only meeting place they had used was the inn where they had spent the first night, but the team would not be waiting there at this time of day. Presumably, they would be out looking for her and MC 5.

Another problem was that she was so obviously a foreign visitor. She expected that if she ran, Wayne would order Ishihara to shout to all the people on the street in Chinese that she had to be captured. Since Wayne was also of European descent, she supposed that onlookers would assume they were together. For Wayne’s purposes, any excuse to stop her would do, perhaps that she was crazed or drunk or even a thief. She could not outrun everybody.

Further, if her captors did not enlist the help of other people, the last problem was that Ishihara would inexorably follow her. She would gradually tire, while the sun replenished his solar converters with energy. Sooner or later, unless she had a safe haven very close, he would catch her again.

Finally, after she had attempted to run away, Ishihara would probably hold her arm continuously in the future. That meant she realistically had only one chance. In order to have a reasonable likelihood of success, she would have to wait until a particularly good opportunity developed. The best chance would come if she saw Hunter and the team somewhere on the street.

When Polo had seen that all his guests were well fed, he invited them into his study. Steve, holding his teacup, followed Polo and Hunter with Marcia at his side. The male servant waited outside the room, ready to be summoned.

Long wooden tables with intricately carved sides and legs lined the study. All were cluttered with a variety of objects. Steve saw scrolls of paper, Chinese ink sticks and brushes, and brass and porcelain bottles.

“The empire of Kublai Khan is full of wonders,” said Polo. “Hunter, look at this.” He lifted a long, narrow piece of blank paper and gently placed it over Hunter’s open palms. “I suppose you think it’s a kind of parchment.”

Steve clenched his teeth together, fighting laughter. Marcia jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. He took a deep breath and hid his smile behind his teacup.

Hunter looked at the paper closely, obviously pretending never to have seen it before. He brushed his fingertips across the surface. Then, as though it was tremendously valuable, he held it out for Polo to take back.

“How is it made?” Hunter asked. “It is clearly not parchment.”

“No.” Polo laid the sheet back down on the table~ “Paper is made from pulping certain kinds of plants. The pulp is then suspended in a vat of water. When the mix is just right, a screen is placed in it and pressed. The pressing removes the water and makes it into these sheets. They are excellent for writing and painting.”

“I have seen the Chinese write with their brushes,” said Hunter. “Instead of using quill pens.”

“In their language, the brush is very beautiful,” said Polo. “Personally, I find it difficult to write the alphabet with it. I have tried many of these things you see on the tables around us, just to get the feel of them.”

Hunter nodded.

Marcia jabbed Steve in the ribs again.

He looked at her in surprise. “What?” he whispered, mystified.

“The paper and brush.”

“What about them? I can’t write that way.”

“Well, I can. I practiced a little as part of my historical studies. But you have to say something.”

“Oh.” Steve raised his voice and spoke in Chinese. “Hunter, she can demonstrate the brush for you and Marco.”

“Eh?” Polo waited politely for Hunter to translate.

“May she show us?” Hunter asked in Italian. “I would like to see how the paper accepts the ink.”

“Of course.” Polo gestured for Marcia to come forward.

Steve sighed quietly. All this polite posturing made him very impatient. Somewhere in the city, Wayne and Ishihara were dragging Jane around with them and might be on the verge of finding MC 5.

Marcia dipped the end of a slender, black ink stick in a pan of water and began grinding it in a shallow stone bowl designed for the purpose. She added more water from the pan and ground the stick again. Afteronly a moment, she selected a narrow brush from a bamboo cylinder and dipped it in the liquid. The brush tip came out black.

“Watch closely,” Polo said to Hunter.

Marcia slowly wrote a straight, horizontal line. Below it, she wrote two, the bottom one longer than the other. Then she wrote a character with three horizontal lines.

“Even I recognize those,” Polo said with a smile. “The numbers one, two, and three.”