Free Looking for Marco Polo by Alan Armstrong

gone looking for him.”
    Mark heard his father’s voice in his head:
Sleuthing. Sleuthing beats sightseeing.
    “Okay, then!” his mom said brightly as she got up to leave.
    “Wait, Mom,” Mark said, pulling the red notebook from his pocket. He tore out some pages and folded them. “Give these to the agency guys for Dad, okay? He probably won’t get them, but …”
    “He’ll get them!” she said firmly. She kissed Mark and hurried off.
    Hornaday got out the red medicine.
    “Aw no, Doc!” Mark protested. “I’m better enough without it.”
    “I bet it doesn’t taste any worse than what Marco got when he was sick in the mountains,” the doctor said. “His probably had snake gizzard and lizard liver in it.”
    “Next time lizard liver,” Mark groaned.
    “If Marco had gotten sick in Venice,” Hornaday said as he shook the bottle, “he might have been given oil of red dog.”
    “What’s
that?”
Mark asked.
    Doc’s eyes shone. “Just what it sounds like. A whole red dog—hair and all—was boiled in oil with ten scorpions and a lot of pepper. After a couple of hours the juice was strained off and the lucky patient got to drink it.”
    Boss moaned like a deep siren winding down.
    “Ugh!” Mark exclaimed.
    “Right,” said Hornaday, “so here we go.”
    He aimed the spoon. His hand trembled.
    Mark made a face and swallowed. “How come your hands shake?” the boy asked as he wiped his mouth.
    “I’ve got a tic,” the doctor said.
    “A tick like a clock, back and forth?”
    “No, not like that,” said Hornaday. “It’s nerve damage. The muscles move on their own. When I was in Iraq with your dad, we were trying to rescue a young woman, an American teacher who’d been gassed in the war. I inhaled some of the poison.”
    “What do you mean, gassed? Like air pollution?” Mark wanted to know.
    “The enemy had dropped bombs that squirt a gas in the air that burns away soft tissue like lungs and destroys nerves,” the doctor said. “I got some.”
    “Who was the enemy?” Mark asked. “What happened to the teacher?”
    “Not now,” said Hornaday, his face stiffening.
    He waved to the signora. She nodded and came over. “So where do you look for Messer Milione today?” she asked Mark. “You have been to San Marco?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Ah, there you must go,” she said, putting out her arms as if she were handing him something. “It is our best church because of the law that every merchant had to bring back a beautiful for it. Your Marco went there on feast days.”
    “Does it still look like it did when Marco saw it?” he asked.
    “Sì, sì, sì,”
the signora said. “The domes outside are the same, the apostles in gold inside—you look around, you see through Marco Polo eyes.
    “But if there is a Mass,” she cautioned, raising her hands, “wait. It is not long. It is not good for tourists to disturb.”
    “Let’s go,” the doctor said as he stood and wrapped his red scarf around his neck. “It’s not far, just a loop along the Grand Canal.”
    Boss was up and shaking out his coat, his great tail swinging back and forth.
    They set out, the doctor striding smooth and straight-backed. Eyeing him, Mark stood a little straighter andtried to match his stride. Boss limped along between them.
    “What religion was Marco?” Mark asked.
    “Catholic,” the doctor replied. “That was the official church in Europe then, but I think he was more interested in learning about the religions he met than in telling folks about his own.
    “He had the mind of a merchant, not a missionary, but the Buddhists he encountered in China—‘idolators’ he called them, but not in a sneering way—made a big impression. He mentions them often, and their temples.”
    “What religion are you?” Mark asked.
    Hornaday shrugged. “I’m a doctor. Medicine takes in all religions. Illness doesn’t choose among sects. Muslim, Catholic, Jew, Buddhist, Protestant, Hindu, pagan, atheist—the bodies