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“Rustichello was, to put it in today’s vernacular, a roained so taken prisoner Think of hiive hiination of his reading audience and ould be seen as too fantastic to believe

“With that inthe pen that put Polo’s story to paper but as his editor as well, a man who could perhaps blunt soive the manuscript more mass appeal Medieval noblemen—and that’s almost exclusively riters wrote for at the time—wouldn’t appreciate that China rivaled them and in many cases surpassed their achieve, social administration, and especially warfare”

Cantor paused a ed fro as they were out of the freezing rain pounding the central English city, they didn’t much care what he said He wished he could see the man in the dark suit, but he was hidden behind a tall homeless felloho slept in an almost perfectly erect posture

“It ith this thought inconfinement that were edited out of the final draft of Travels and that those notes would account for some of the lapses in Polo’s story that have vexed future scholars and made them question the validity of the entire book—that I come to you today” The line sounded clunky to Cantor’s ear too, but he was trying to come off as learned, and all his dons at Oxford spoke in run-on sentences that could fill a page or more

“I believe,” he continued, “that somewhere in the world exist those notes, those bits of Polo’s story that couldn’t get past the medieval censor—that was the Vatican—and would have raised tooChrist Church”—no sense adraduated—“I have searched across Italy and into France for a hint of such a boo

k And finally, six o, I believe I found it”

Did Black Suit stir at this news? It seemed to Cantor that the shadow at the back of the roohtly He felt like a fisherman who senses that first nibble on the end of his line Now he had to set the hook before reeling in his prize

“I was given access to the sales records of a small antiquarian bookshop in an even smaller town in Italy that has been in business since 1884 They have a record of selling a copy of Rustichello’s seminal work, Roman de Roi Artus, in 1908 Included with the book of Arthurian legend was a folio of loose pages

“At this ti Italy in order to broaden themselves Think of E M Forster’s A Room with a View” To most of this lot it should be Cardboard Box with a Cellophane Window, but Cantor kneas really playing to an audience of one “Like any tourist, these travelers brought back souvenirs Furniture, statuary, just about anything they could get their hands on that would remind them of Lombardy or Tuscany One particular family fancied books and returned with veritable trunkloads of theh to fill a library about the size of this roo Some of the volumes dated back to a century before Polo was even born It is this family who acquired the Rustichello works

“For a fee, I was granted limited access to their library” Five hundred pounds for an afternoon, Cantor recalled bitterly He recalled s bitterly these days The current library’s oas a rightCantor’s desperation to see the library, wasn’t above capitalizing on the scholarly interest of a thirty-year-old researcher

Cantor had scraped together only enough for a single visit, but it had been enough And that hat he was really doing here today, and for the past few ers and the ho to find a patron ould help him fund his research The folio’s owner had expressed in no uncertain ter to allow Cantor access, at five hundred pounds per day

The young academic was sure that once he published his research, pressure from historical societies would force the owner to, if not donate, at least let a major university authenticate Rustichello’s work and thus cement Cantor’s reputation and hopefully his fortune as well

“The text is written in typicalwith Italian froed to translate only a small portion since I only discovered it toward the end ofIt is the description of a battle Polo witnessed in 1281 where a general naunpowder, which Polo had never seen used in such a way, and a most remarkable device that utilized a special crystal to channel sunlight into a focused beam, much like a modern laser”

Cantor paused once again Dark Suit had gotten to his feet and skulked fro around his ankles like an obsidian cape Cantor cursed under his breath He’d failed to set the hook, had in fact scared the fish out of the water entirely He looked dejectedly at the unshaven and sullen faces arrayed against hi? They no more wanted to hear his nasal monotone than he wanted to deliver it

“Ah, thank you very much Were there any questions?” He was taken aback when a spidery hand went up The woman had the scrunched face of one of those dolls s “Yes?”