James Rollins The Judas Strain
DUKE M. GIOVANNI (1356), trans. by Reinhold Sebastien in Il Apocalypse (Milan: A. Mondadori, 1924), 3435
Why the bubonic plague suddenly arose out of Chinas Gobi desert during the Middle Ages and slew a third of the worlds population remains unknown. In fact, no one knows why so many plagues and influenzas of the last century SARS, the Avian Flu have arisen out of Asia. But what is known with fair certainty: the next great pandemic will arise again out of the East.
United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Compendium of Infectious Diseases, May 2006
NOTE FROM THE HISTORICAL RECORD
After serving seventeen years in the courts of Kublai Khan, Marco returned to Venice in 1295, where his story was recorded by a French romanticist named Rustichello, in a book titled in Old French Le Divisament dou Monde (or The Description of the World ). The text swept Europe. Even Christopher Columbus carried a copy of Marcos book on his journey to the New World.
But there is one story of this journey that Marco refused to ever tell, referring only obliquely to it in his text. When Marco Polo had left China, Kublai Khan had granted the Venetian fourteen immense ships and six hundred men. But when Marco finally reached port after two years at sea, there remained but two ships and only eighteen men.
The fate of the other ships and men remain a mystery to this day. Was it shipwreck, storms, piracy? He never told. In fact, on his deathbed, when asked to elaborate or recant his story, Marco answered cryptically: I have not told half of what I saw.
Return Journey of Marco Polo (12921295)
Twelve bonfires blazed out in the midnight harbor.
Il dio, li perdona his father whispered at his side, but Marco knew the Lord would not forgive them this sin.
A handful of men waited beside the two beached longboats, the only witnesses to the funeral pyres out upon the dark lagoon. As the moon had risen, all twelve ships, mighty wooden galleys, had been set to torch with all hands still aboard, both the dead and those cursed few who still lived. The ships masts pointed fiery fingers of accusation toward the heavens. Flakes of burning ash rained down upon the beach and those few who bore witness. The night reeked of burned flesh.
Twelve ships, his uncle Masseo mumbled, clutching the silver crucifix in one fist, the same number as the Lords Apostles.
At least the screams of the tortured had ended. Only the crackle and low roar of the flames reached the sandy shore now. Marco wanted to turn from the sight. Others were not as stout of heart and knelt on the sand, backs to the water, faces as pale as bone.
All were stripped naked. Each had searched his neighbor for any sign of the mark. Even the great Khans princess, who stood behind a screen of sailcloth for modesty, wore only her jeweled headpiece. Marco noted her lithe form through the cloth, lit from behind by the fires. Her maids, naked themselves, had searched their mistress. Her name was Kokejin, the Blue Princess, a maiden of seventeen, the same age as Marco had been when he started the journey from Venice. The Polos had been assigned by the Great Khan to safely deliver her to her betrothed, the Khan of Persia, the grandson of Kublai Khans brother.
That had been in another lifetime.
Had it been only four months since the first of the galley crew had become sick, showing welts on groin and beneath the arm? The illness spread like burning oil, unmanning the galleys of able men and stranding them here on this island of cannibals and strange beasts.
Even now drums sounded in the dark jungle. But the savages knew better than to approach the encampment, like the wolf shunning diseased sheep, smelling the rot and corruption. The only signs of their encroachment were the skulls, twined through the eye sockets with vines and hung from tree branches, warding against deeper trespass or foraging.
The sickness had kept the savages at bay.
But no longer.
With the cruel fire the disease was at last vanquished, leaving only this small handful of survivors.
Those clear of the red welts.
Seven nights ago the remaining sick had been taken in chains to the moored boats, left with water and food. The others remained on shore, wary of any sign among them of fresh affliction. All the while, those banished to the ships called out across the waters, pleading, crying, praying, cursing, and screaming. But the worst was the occasional laughter, bright with madness.