The Golden Tablet
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 16
They found him first.
He had made it as far as the second courtyard on his way back from the audience — still turning Kublai’s words over, still carrying the smile that had appeared on the Khan’s face at the mention of the stars — when three men stepped into the corridor ahead of him with the coordinated timing of people who had been waiting and had chosen this particular moment deliberately.
They were large. Not Khutulun large — different. The bulk of men who had eaten well their entire lives and trained for war since childhood and were accustomed to filling a doorway with authority. The one in the center was perhaps fifty, broad through the face, with eyes that had made their assessment of Niccolò before he’d taken two steps into the corridor and had not liked what they found.
Chen made a small sound behind him that was not encouraging.
The man in the center spoke.
Chen translated with the careful neutrality he reserved for moments requiring considerable diplomatic effort. “The Lord Ajiqi, brother of the Khan, wishes to speak with the Venetian mapmaker.”
Ajiqi. He had a name now. He filed it.
“Of course,” Niccolò said pleasantly. “I’m honored.”
Ajiqi spoke again without waiting for the translation.
“He says,” Chen murmured, “that the honor is not mutual.”
The two men flanking Ajiqi said nothing. They didn’t need to. Their function in this corridor was architectural — they were walls that had opinions.
Ajiqi spoke at length this time. Chen translated in pieces, his voice dropping lower with each piece.
The foreign dog had been mentioned. The pollution of the lineage. The insult to every Mongol lord who had presented himself honorably and been refused. The specific — Niccolò caught himself — the particular absurdity of a Venetian with ink on his hands believing himself suitable for Borjigin blood.
Niccolò listened to all of it with the composed expression of a man receiving information he had been told to expect and had prepared for and was finding somewhat worse in person than in anticipation.
When Ajiqi stopped he looked at Niccolò with the flat expectant stare of a man waiting for flinching.
Niccolò didn’t flinch.
“Tell Lord Ajiqi,” he said to Chen, with the even tone of someone conducting a perfectly ordinary conversation, “that I understand his concerns and I respect that they come from love for his family and for the lineage.”
Chen translated. Ajiqi’s expression didn’t change.
“Tell him also,” Niccolò continued, “that I have just come from a private audience with the Khan during which the Khan expressed his wish that the northern passage survey be completed over the coming season, which will require my continued presence at Shangdu.”
Chen translated. Something moved in Ajiqi’s face. Not much. A recalculation.
“And tell him,” Niccolò said, “that I have the greatest respect for Mongol tradition and the Golden Lineage and that I am aware I have nothing to offer that tradition would recognize as sufficient.” He paused. “I am also aware that the Princess Khutulun has never in her life done anything because tradition required it of her. That is not a failing I’ve observed in her. It appears to be a family characteristic.”
Chen translated this last part with the expression of a man mentally composing his resignation.
Ajiqi went very still.
Then the man on his left said something short and sharp.
Then the man on his right said something that made the man on the left respond.
Then all three of them were talking simultaneously in the rapid overlapping way of men who have strong opinions and have found a subject worth having them about and Niccolò stood in the corridor and waited with his hands at his sides and his face composed and thought about a private audience that had ended with a real smile and a man telling him to find his granddaughter before the uncles found him.
Too late for that.
Ajiqi silenced the other two with a look and turned back to Niccolò and spoke. One sentence. Flat and final.
Chen translated very quietly. “He says that the Khan’s wishes are the Khan’s wishes. But that the Khan’s wishes and the family’s opinion are not the same thing. And that in matters of lineage the family’s opinion has weight that even the Khan respects.”
“I understand,” Niccolò said.
“He says—” Chen paused. “He says that Khutulun is the granddaughter of Genghis Khan and the daughter of a prince of the Golden Lineage and that she will not be given to a man who draws pictures for a living.”
The corridor was very quiet.
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