| Slow business travel: second bit | | Print | |
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Two years after coming back from a twenty-six-year business trip, Marco Polo finds himself in jail. The year was 1298. Marco hadn’t been convicted of insider trading; he was a prisoner of war. Being an upper-class fellow, he’d been in charge of a Venetian galley in a war against Genoa. His side had come in second.
Languishing was the most popular pastime for prisoners in the thirteenth century. But Marco spent his time dictating his travels to his cellmate, one Rusticiano of Pisa. Rusticiano was a freelance business writer—a noble profession.
It’s probably overpopulation that’s responsible for doing away with names like this or we would have names like Nancy of New York, or Brian of Baltimore.
Rusticiano wasn’t much of a story teller. He was more at home writing contracts and lists of supplies, or “stuffs” as the book, The Travels of Marco Polo, so eloquently puts it. Lists appear frequently. When new lands are encountered, a list usually follows this pattern: who people are ruled by, their religion(s), what they make or have to sell, who they are at war with, and any customs that seem worth noting. There are only three kinds of religion: Christians (always the good guys), Saracens (worshipers of Mohammed), and Idolators (the rest).
These days it’s considered bad manners in American business to ask what someone’s religion is, if they have paper money, burn their dead, or have any weird cultural practices. How times change. Today, that mainstay of business, bribery, has come to have a bad name. It’s no longer part of normal business transactions. But in the thirteenth century, it was de rigueur to bring gifts to those you wanted to trade with.
In 1260, Marco’s dad and uncle decided upon a business trip. They were in their Constantinople office at the time. Nicolas and Maffeo, for those were their names, took along a good supply of jewels. They may have looked very pretty in them, but the gems were meant to be used for money. They gave them to the first Tartar prince they come across. We don't know if he looked pretty.
It was a smart move. The idea was to be as generous as you could. The Tartar Prince, Barka Khan, was delighted, and Nick and Maff were rewarded with twice as much as they gave. The Khan had a reputation of being open-minded and courteous. He asked the brothers so many questions that they stayed over at the Khan’s place for a year.
The other reason they stayed was that a war had broken out between Barka Kahn and Hulagu, Lord of the Tartars of the Levant. The Polos couldn’t retrace their steps homeward, so they went forward; a seventeen-day journey across the desert.
By the time they came to the city of Bokhara they needed a good rest. They recuperated there for three years. During that time, they met envoys from Hulaga on their way to the court of the Great Kublai Khan, lord of all Tartars in the world: Mr. Big.
The envoys invited the brothers to come with them to Court of the Great Kahn. Practical as ever, the Polos agreed. They went northwest for a year. They saw lots of wondrous things on the way, but Marco left those out of the book.
But when Polo Inc. showed up at the Court of the Great Khan, they’d arrived at the center of the world. Slow travel gives you time to learn languages. Nick and Maff had learned the Tartar tongue; which was a good thing because the Great Kublai Khan had a lot of questions for them.
The first thing Great Khan wanted to know was how the emperors maintained their dignity. Dignity has something inherently slow and leisurely about it. Dignity isn’t what it used to be.
The Great Khan questioned them about how they make war, and how the society was structured. When he heard about the Pope and Christianity, he was thrilled. He came up with the idea to send Polo Inc. back to Rome as his ambassadors with a request to send out some of the faithful to sell the Idolators on the religion.
Kublai Khan gave the brothers a tablet of gold. It was a combination credit card, passport, and status symbol. Inscribed on the gold tablet were instructions that the brothers should be given anything they wanted—no limit. If they wanted to commandeer an army, they could. They traveled in style. When they finally arrived back home, Nicholas found his wife had died, leaving their son Marco, a fifteen-year-old. The return trip to the Great Kahn is where Marco’s own business trip begins...
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