[[ Karla picks up her elder escort in the common area of the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest after having spent the day upstairs carousing a very old obscure book missing its beginning. She’s copied verbatim the first part of the book, and will return the next day for more. Tonight she’ll sit in her hotel room with her escort and he’ll help her translate the older Vulgar Latin that she’s not all that familiar with as she only knows the more modern Latin. If he’d been properly credentialed like her, all this would could have been done in the special part of the library reserved for scholars. Alas it wasn’t found wise to try to have them both credentialed before her first field assignment began. Regardless the man remained a gentleman so then there is this: ]]

The Annals of Besh (1387 AD).

Day 36. It has been five days since my patron and owner, the Scholar, was killed outside the city walls where we had paused our wagon, getting our first glimpse of Isfahan before a huge desert army drew up aside our simple wagon to take a look too. The dust from all those stomping horses caused the Scholar to overrun his tongue in complaint, at which he promptly lost his head and I was taken. Ishafan’s Sultan opened the gate to my new Master two days ago and this is the second night in our new quarters with in the city walls. This is also my second writing since I’ve been handed over to Tamerlane and kept by his Mistress as a servant to their harem. My life only spared so that I may take the more severe advances of either Master or Mistress rather than foist them on the Master's small harem as both Master and Mistress tend to be cruel. It may have been my red hair that spared me as such is very rare in these parts, but in the course of begging for my life, I did not neglect to tell them that this barbarian girl could read and write in more than one language.

I've seen nothing of the two pregnant girls, hostages, not slaves, that were also kept by the mistress since we passed into the walls of the city. My only hope is they are still alive. There abuses were more than mine, though neither Master nor Mistress touched them that way, instead letting others … Oh, but I already wrote of my time in their tent. Something new then.

They've recently added a new girl to their small harem, apparently already trained here in the city for her ways seem different from the other three harem girls. She is a gift from the Sultan to the Emir. I’ve heard my new Master was allowed to choose a girl from the Sultan’s larger harem that numbers I’m told just over a hundred. She's very pretty with her long black wavy hair, lithe strong limbs and brown sparkling happy eyes. It almost seems it's in her nature to be fluid and bouncy in her movements or sensuous and tempting when she stretches or turns. She puts on bold fresh vibrant body paints called Henna, that don't wash off easily in water even after she bathes, though they will eventually wear away. They're quite the lure as they seem to accent her sexual parts. My Scholar had said too I'd see such in our sojourn and now I finally have. Also, she seems to like her harem life and has made veiled promises to teach me. I think she has to seek permission first. But, I don't think she understands how the barbarian girl is to be used, or she'd realize she's wasting her time. Still just for myself I might wish to know.

Anyway, I was taken tonight for the second time by the Master, the first time being outside the city like I told you. I write with a candle as my only light here on the edge of a pool where I sleep. It’s in the inner most place of our harem, a set of rooms where the Sultan has allowed the Emir to keep us. I haven't described this place yet so let me do so now. There's an inner and outer room to the harem and father back is a pool. The outer room is where a guest is met or a man or men may wait. It’s a low ceilinged room with smooth walls and tapestries and its furnished with a low table, a lamp and some couches to make love on, with rugs piled on the floor for I guess fornicating if they can’t keep atop a couch or something. Oh and lots of pretty embroidered pillows of different shapes, sizes and colors. It’s actually rather cozy. Beyond that room if your allowed in, is another separated by thin veils. Whichever room is lighted; you can see into. If not, you cannot. If neither is lit, nor can you see past either. The second inner room is more spacious. A long low table runs down the middle. You sit on rugs to partake of any food from there or do whatever work you may have that can't be done in your lap I guess. I'm not totally sure, I've not been allowed there much except to set the table and clean it when others have left. There are seven trunks against the walls. Six are the same from the tent. The seventh came with the new girl. Each girl keeps her things in one. There had been four harem girls when I first came to the tent, but I already told you what happened to the fourth. I assume then that two others met the same fate and maybe I will to. Regardless the barbarian girl does not rate a trunk as I am a servant to the others. Anyway, the girls each have a space about the table to stretch and sleep and there are plenty of pillows, blankets and mats to be had. The room has a high ceiling that tapers up really high and small open windows way up above. I think it might be like some sort of minaret if seen from outside. I saw some when we entered the city. At least it gives a place for smoke to go when meats are cooked.

Beyond that there is the bath and a privy separated by the same kind of veils as the outer room. The bath where I am now, is as large as the inner room. It’s a wading bath and waters are heated from below the floor somehow. The walls are shiny stone tiles with artful motifs of hunting scenes with wild animals and some naked woman too, not unlike what my Patron said would be on walls in high places like this. There are no windows, but places for oil lamps stand within niches along the walls and at least three are kept burning all the time so in that it gives the pool a rather surreal look as the light shimmers lucidly off the mostly placid waters and then splatters back gently against the shiny walls. There is a walk around ledge that wraps around the whole pool. Stone pillars half come out of the walls that run up from ledge to ceiling, but the ledge slips around them without any lessening. On the far side of the pool is a separate higher ledge that extends a small way into the pool and from it water runs and then spills a short way down to the waters below so there’s always a gentle sound of falling water to fill all the space. As much water always comes in as goes out as there’s a small drain below on the father side of the pool. Oh and there is a hard back chair at the entrance to the pool for the Master if he wishes to come to see his harem bathe and two bathing stools that can be moved about which is pretty much all there is else except for a secret passage.

If you leave the harem room from the doorway, you would take a left into the hall and another farther down and yet another till you've come equal distance and there you would find Master and Mistress’s quarters, which are a separate set of quarters that the Sultan has also allowed the Emir. However, if you dive under the waters by the side closest to the wall next to the waterfall there's an opening there that takes you through an underwater passage into another pool on the other side. The one deep in the Masters quarters. I think I'm still the only one that knows of it for I'm summoned there by Mistress on occasion whenever she tugs a string from her side that rings a tiny bell next to my head where I am told to stay.

Last night, not long after two of the girls had been fetched from the inner room, the bell rang. Master must of been taking the girls in the bottom for that's how my Mistress placed me with my bottom up even as my hair dripped. I was entered rather forcefully and he was none to kind in ravaging me that way, as he was want of pulling hair and digging his nails into me when he wasn’t mashing my breasts and savaging my flesh, all while my Mistress managed to splay herself below my face. It was only when he puts his hands around my neck that I will really feared for my life. Luckily the other two had taken much from him as I wasn’t long in his keep. They were made to do the cleaning up after and they made eyes that I'd hear about that latter. I finish this now in haste and have to extinguish my candle as I might have another use for it before I sleep while it’s still warm and not grown too small.

~Besh.

[[ “Apertures.” The man says.

Karla squirms… she really didn’t mean to have only copied this much. But she had spent time reading over much of the text and this where she stopped her copying. “What?” she says, because he was doing it again.

“They had glass back then, decorative, but they wouldn’t have used it that high up on a minaret” the man tells her.

“Semantics” Karla said back again and then told him it was late and he should go.

Karla’s part in all this might be small, but it was important and personal so she likely had a lot to think about. Still though, she may have fallen asleep thinking about minarets.]]

~sfe