Looking for Marco Polo by Alan Armstrong

that people were rushing out of their homes, singing and dancing in the street, seemingly crazed by a miraculous sweet fragrance.
    “He sent his soldiers to investigate. They couldn’t smell the sweetness themselves, so they stumbled around for hours asking people what it was, where it was coming from.
    “At last they discovered the tied-up watchman and the robbers’ tools. The once-fine altar was rubble. The watchman told them what had happened. The soldiers hurried to the Venetians’ ship.
    “Meanwhile the robbers, knowing the Muslims’ aversion to pork, had buried Mark’s relics in a barrel of freshly salted pig meat and hung strips of porkaround their ship, pretending to be curing provisions in the salt air while they fixed their rigging.
    “When the sultan’s agents got to the boat, they found the sight—and worse, the smell—of those bloody strips revolting.
    “
‘Hanzir! Hanzir!’
they screeched. ‘Pork! Pork!’ The tub of pink pig flesh under its veil of salt made them sick. They didn’t stay to dig around in it; they fled, retching.
    “The Venetians were under sail by the time the sultan’s ship heaved anchor. The robbers were blown along by what seemed a divine wind, while the Muslim sailors, a mile behind, sat becalmed in searing heat.
    “It was said that sweet dreams, along with the fragrance, preceded the robbers and announced the saint’s arrival at Venice. The doge welcomed the sailors as heroes. There was a huge celebration. Money was collected. The grave robbers became wealthy men.”
    “Where did the good smell come from?” Mark asked.
    “According to the legend it was a miracle, proof of the saint’s sweetness,” the doctor said. “Venetians adopted Mark’s emblem as their own—the winged lion standing with a front paw upraised, jaws open. It wasn’t long before the Lion of Saint Mark, embroidered ingold on a brick red field, fluttered from every masthead, and by the doge’s order the lion’s head was carved on every wellhead.
    “Get ready,” said the doctor. “We’re coming up on the square.”

10
B LINDMAN’S B LUFF
    The Piazza San Marco was like a glittering box, its red, peach, and yellow painted walls studded with ornaments and flags. There were tubs of trees and blooming plants around cafés with tables outside, each place with its own little orchestra squeaking away, trying to play over the milling din of hawkers selling crosses and bottles of holy water. There were Japanese tourists in plain dark coats, Buddhist monks in capes of carmine and saffron, priests from Greece in large black hats, Russians in furs, tour groups clustered around flag-bearing guides hollering through loudspeakers in strange languages.
    The great doors of the cathedral stood open. The inside glowed with gold and candlelight. Chanting and singing drifted out in waves, music of Christmas.
    “You could go in alone,” the doctor said. “They won’t let me in with Boss.”
    Mark was hesitant. He didn’t like crowds. “I’m fine just looking at the outside.”
    “Okay,” said Doc. “We’ll skirt the crowd and get a good look from the doge’s palace, over there,” Hornaday said, pointing.
    They walked to the far side of the piazza, to the pink and white building at the edge of the lagoon where the Grand Canal began.
    “Here’s where they set the spring that shot Marco east,” the doctor said. “Here’s where the doge in his gold-embroidered robes and what looked like a stuffed animal on his head schemed over maps.”
    Hornaday leaned against the wall. “When we were kids,” he said, “we made make-believe telephones out of two tin cans and a piece of string. We’d punch a small hole in the bottom of each can and run the string through, knotting the ends. With the string pulled tight, the listener would hold his can to his ear while the speaker shouted into his. You could make out something, but it was muffled.
    “I picture the doge yelling into his can here while Kublai,