The Desert Falcon

Chapter 23, The Desert's Temptation

In the days that followed, as I settled into my new life, I traveled the city during the day, exploring new sights and acclimating to a new Kingdom. I was not permitted anywhere alone, which made it harder to explore the city in its true glory. I traveled to bazaars, each holding their own special districts of goods and even ventured to visit their academies and schools.  I visited their architecturally beautiful Mosques and town centers and conversed with the locals.

I was ceremoniously greeted and presented with a myriad of welcome gifts ranging from livestock to food to silks to jewelry.  One in particular, I was eager to thumb through, was a stack of books that, upon closer inspection, were all simply leather-bound, thick, journals used for writing and a calfskin-wrapped carrier filled with writing implements carved out by an artist. Another gifted me with a map not of land however, but instead of the stars during the seasons.

On the days I did not venture out into the city, I stayed within the royal libraries or in my chambers, studying. Sometimes, I ventured to the study room that was oftentimes preoccupied with other scholars. I made sure however, to only limit my presence when very few were around, but over time it did not seem to matter to them. They soon got used to my presence, as I kept to myself. Those who objected to my presence could ignore me as I was not an obtrusive sight and those who acknowledged me, bowed in respect, before moving on.

Occasionally, I was approached and inquired upon of what I was doing, as I displayed my parchment of calculations, allowing them to fulfill their academic curiosities. It did not take long before I was advised on texts to read and continue my studies, impressed as they were with my grasp of the knowledge. Some even procured my help in their own research, before they came to acknowledge that I had a gift for numbers.

Sheikh Kadir did not mind. He had once occasioned to spot me in the study. While the others in the room bowed, I glanced up surprised by his presence, before standing up hastily. He gave me a smile and was pleased that I was settling in, excusing my delayed blunder at my absentmindedness of his presence.

I still occasionally visited Sheikh Khalil, as I kept him company in the afternoons or early mornings. He liked the spirited conversation I provided him and I saw no reason to discontinue. On some mornings Sheikh Kadir joined, but other days he did not.

I grew steadily to learn the habits of my relatives. Grandfather preferred to go riding and hunting out in the desert, when he could, a favorite pastime of his, since it reminded him of his youth. Sheikh Kadir was busy with state affairs, but enjoyed the business aspect of his occupation as a ruler. He himself, had a thriving export/import trading company that he built and enjoyed the good fortune of, making him wealthy in his own right. I had no grasp of how large it was, until one pointed out that he nearly had a monopoly and it was hard to find one trading/merchant company who did not employ the services of Sheikh Kadir's own export/import services. My two aunts on my father's side, Leila and Asha, were still young and enjoyed lounging the day away with beauty treatments and gossip. I had once joined them in the Hamman, as they gossiped the afternoon away about every topic imaginable. I merely listened as topics ranged to that of the bedchambers.  I remained silent about my own experience in the harem of the Sultan as they continued to discuss the pleasures of the flesh.  I found it almost comical that they decided to impart a "woman's wisdom" about matters of sexual encounters, wrongly assuming I was inexperienced in that realm.  They whispered tales of women within their social peers who have engaged in such sexual pursuits whether outside or within their marriage beds.

It was quite....illuminating.  I found it especially amusing as they began to ponder about life in a harem, neither of them having lived such a experience, but noting the lavishness of such an environment to be pampered and nights spent depleted im energy. At one point, I mentally began to parse out truth from fiction, as laughter filled my being.