The maidan was packed earth and worn stone, perhaps two hundred meters across at its widest, bounded on the north by the mosque's restored facade and on the other sides by market buildings rebuilt at varying heights and in varying materials over fifteen years of recovery.
The morning's traffic moved across it, grain merchants with loaded carts, a group of students walking fast toward the entrance, a water seller calling his price, two men arguing over a bale of cloth at the eastern end. The sounds of an ordinary morning in a city.
Batu stood at the south edge and watched it.
He knew this ground from the other life.
What happened in this space in was recorded by men whose entire surviving tradition was built on careful documentation, which meant it was accurate in its outlines and precise in its particulars and the particulars were worse than the outlines suggested.
