SYNOPSIS

13^th century Venetian trader Marco Polo is enlisted to accompany a pair of priests to the court of Kublai Khan, Mongol conqueror of the East. The mission is to convert the most populous and wealthiest nation in the world to Christianity. Yet the priests aren’t even convinced that the sophisticated nation of China even exists. After all, God put Europe as the center of the world. How could there be anything but barbarism beyond? Not willing to risk their lives in the increasingly precipitous and treacherous Pamir Mountains, the priests turn back home, leaving Marco, his father Niccolo, and his Uncle Maffeo to push ahead through blinding blizzards and across the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts. Set upon by murderous bandits, ravaged by hunger, thirst, and the blazing sun, they push forth toward the unknown of Khan’s fabled heartland.

What greets them is an astonishing world like no other place on earth—one that the West could never even conceive of. Here they discover something called time pieces, learn the advantages of paper currency and an imperial postal system for exchanging messages, enjoy such strange delicacies as ice cream and pasta, and witness the awesome implications of the advanced weaponry of an empire under draconian rule. From religion to war to culture, everything Marco believes about his world is challenged and proven wrong. So too are his rigid notions of Kublai Khan who, accepts Marco as an envoy of his court, where he advances as a Mongol grandee, faithfully accompanied by Pedro, who acts as both his servant and friend.  Marco also becomes romantically entwined with a beautiful courtesan, Temulun, and later her younger sister, Kensai, and in a historically important and unprecedented move, chronicles his life over the next twenty years, marooned on the far side of the world.

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