The building was in the craft quarter's northern section, a long structure with a reed roof and walls of old brick that had been mortared twice in different eras, the joins visible in the courses.
The smell reached the lane before the entrance. Wet fiber, mineral water, the sourness of pulp in its first stage of separation.
Inside, the sound was the sound of work. The steady beat of mallets on frames, water moving through shallow channels cut into the floor, the scrape of flat stones across drying sheets.
Eight men were working when Batu came through.
They registered the Khar Kheshig at the entrance with the peripheral attention of craftsmen who were not going to stop what they were doing for any reason short of a direct instruction. The pulp didn't wait and neither did the frames, and these men knew it.
Toghon arrived a few minutes after Batu, still pulling his coat straight. His face carried the compression of an evening spent working through a document he hadn't finished.
