[[Karla is back in the secure room of Szechenyi Library having again signed out The Annals of Besh. It would be nice if she could just photo copy the book, but rules are rules, so she goes about copying the pages she wants on her note pad, knowing the last section she wants from the book is going to have to wait till tomorrow because lunch lasted so long, but at least she has this before the library closes for the evening.]]

Chapter 9. Insights 1399 AD.

I want to return to Melantha, but not in the way I have with the little snippets of my recollections or occasional inquiries I've told you about over the last few years, like when I'd ask some traveling Roma about if they ever knew of a girl like her and they’d tell me I should go and see some Oracle that they had tucked away. No nothing so frivolous as asking fortunetellers. I've finally some real news that I wish to relate. One is still supposition and comes from Centos as he's just returned to court after traveling for the last year. The other being from a letter from Rabia that he brought back with him.

As you recall I made mention that after Centos was given pardon by Tamerlane through one of his emissaries and we were allowed to live openly in Tiflis and keep our court there, that Centos back then took both Serena and Rabia, the youngest two of the three harem girls under Centos' protection, to Samarkand as further offerings of his thanks for the pardon. That Rabia took well to learning her letters under my tutelage I'm most thankful as she managed to get a letter to Centos before he left the region and what's more she included a personal letter from Spurinna and news from Portia of whom she had met and talked with both along with news of how Serena fares. But before I get to that Centos has heard some strange things about Tamerlane's continuous rompings in the area and possibly the reason for much of his conquests.

First I tell you that Centos spent much time in Samarkand, the heart of Tamerlane's empire, and the same place where Centos was born. On his first trip home after the pardon I learned that both Rabia and Serena both were accepted in prominent houses as servants and were found good position as I’ve mentioned before. On this trip, near ten years later, I insisted that Centos see how they fared. Rabia still accounts her good fortune still holds for herself in her letter back and tells also that Serena fares well too, so I will not bother more on how Serena fares other than it is said both in the letter and by Centos and that I'm glad that she fares well.

Anyway, Centos met with one of Tamerlane's trusted advisors since retired. A man he says is known as Wart. According to Wart all of Tamerlane's excursion’s soon after the sacking of Isfahan were partly secret attempts to recover the harem girl Melantha whom Tamerlane had come to love despite his Mistress, and it was Wart himself who arranged at Tamerlane’s insistence to have Melantha taken from the city before it collapsed after Wart successfully met with a little man known as The Gnat, Wong an assassin from the far east I may have mentioned before. That the Gnat was to hide her and their coming child away from the jealous clutches of Cytheria, once my mistress too, who Wart says is really a sorceress, the Emir’s spiritual advisor and not a true wife of the overload, but whom occurs all the same rights and privileges. However, things went awry the night Ishafan fell, but I’ll get back to that as soon as I finish with Wart.

According to Wart, Centos says, that though Tamerlane was upset with Tokhtamysh's invasion of Azerbaijan, that was only pretext for Tamerlane's latter attack on the Golden Horde as Tamerlane really suspected that Tokhtamysh had taken possession of Melantha. After Tamerlane's forces bloodied his, he drew back, parlayed and accepted that Tokhtamysh's offered theory on Melantha might be correct, that the Gnat, Wong brought her all the way up to the Muscovites and left her there. But after Tamerlane went stomping around up there and found her not, that is when he then returned to finish Tokhtamysh and his army off for lying to him. Still with no Melantha and after the persecution of many Roma, Tamerlane has since decided according to Wart to go down to India as that is where these Roma are said to have come from and he fears that she was secreted there by the Roma. Wort further predicts that once he doesn't find her down in India he'll return and pursue the Roma that have moved into Anatolia and if that proves not to be successful he'll march east to where it is said that the Gnat, Wong's house is said to lay against the sea at the furthest edges of the eastern world.

Personally I find it hard to believe that Tamerlane would still be interested in finding Melantha after some 13 years as she'd be much older, as am I, and that Tamerlane certainly has access to many younger women. However, if it’s the child he seeks I might give it some credence, however I shouldn't presume to know the man's mind.

Now as to Rabia's letter. It came with one from Spurinna as well with both bringing news from Portia too, both of whom I’m happy to know are well, even if they mistreated me. I should start by saying that all four are in good hands, Serena too as I've mentioned. Portia had the best fortune though as she actually has been married to this man Wart and bares him sons for which he is most thankful. Spurinna lives in the house of a retired general named Tauris, but has only born him a daughter and as he has many wives she's lower on the list of his privileged wives, though says she and her daughter are well cared for. She also says Tauris and Wart both once coupled with Melantha in Tamerlane's presence. I don't know if that's true, but knowing of our harem days, and what could be asked of any of us, I trust it could be.

The real news that I wish to relate was a common theme between all of them is that the talk of the demons was true and that comes from Suprinna's letter, what Portia is said to say and from both Wart and Tauris, who add that Cytheria had them born from the two princess’s I first met in the tent outside of Isfahan, though there was no word of how. Further that in the last days of Isfahan, Cytheria was sought out by an old friend who came to the city, another witch, a seerer, named Chole, who was responsible for Cannias's disappearance as Melantha herself alluded to what they both feared as she was terribly distraught the last time they saw her and bid them both to take off their henna and never apply it again. That and they both claim that they'd learned the men accompanying the witch were skinners, the type that worked with animal hides and that Cannias’s skin now covers a book on demonology that Cytheria still possess.

Worse though was what Portia and Spurinna claim that it was a demon that busted down the doors to the Sultan's empty harem where they last stayed the night in hiding as the city fell. That and it was the Witch Chole that came in next with the skinners and dogs to catch and take Melantha away as payment for the book cover she made for Cytheria as she wanted one for own dark arts as well. They would have gotten them too if not for Melantha's making them to go out a window first. Which causes me to believe that Melantha is indeed dead, but Centos tells me too that this Wart man said Tamerlane's men found the bodies of those very same men, Chole’s skinners, along with two dead hounds a day's march from the city with wagon tracks going off in one direction and signs that the Gnat, Wong and another had stayed there for some days later till they moved back toward the dead city. If that’s true, then the Gnat caught up with Melantha before she too could be made into a book cover. Which leaves me to believe once again that Melantha still lives or had for some time after the city fell.

I'd add more, but Centos is beckoning me to come teach two new young girls he's brought home from his travels before he spoils them himself. I asked him to have Halime to start them off but he says she's busy with her two sons and since I've born him neither girl nor boy it's my duty unless he wants me to waste coin finding a properly trained eunuch to do it. Alas, Centos is thinking ahead while I'm writing squiggly lines in this book. Grrrr…

~Besh.

[[Skoal, the escorts name, brought a bottle of wine and some cheese to Karla’s room for the evenings translation. She may have suggested it on their walk back to the library after lunch or maybe it was him. She might have been thinking it was going to be their last time together before he put her back on a plane to Stockholm, but there’s still one more part to be translated in the morning. Karla’s a bit nervous. The man has been nice enough but he’s older and rather rough looking. That and he hasn’t a nose which really doesn’t help. Nor does the fact that she’s never been with a man before. However, she’s a Norn now and doesn’t know when she might ever get such a chance again.]]

~sfe