Familizaring with the Palace

I was a bit older than two years when I first had the opportunity to take a peek at a book that my mother read at the time. I moved the book that was on the table toward me with telekinesis and rested the book on the bed. The first thing I noticed was the fact that I could read the book and the next thing was the disparity between the written language and the spoken one. Some sounds of the letters didn't fit the language, and the others had to be combined to make similar sounds that were present in the language. The book itself was extremely thin and was a collection of poems, the pages were coarse and thick, most likely made from sheep leather.

Later on, I started taking a walk around the palace and found a library. The library, which was only mediocre in size even if compared to my own privite library at my home where I only set foot once a year, proved useful to me nonetheless. I could ask the librarian with the most adorable smile I could do to bring me books and sometimes to teach me, which I planned to claim how I learned how to read and write. The child prodigy act will certainly make me popular. I plan to use every single advantage I have to my full benefit. I am not even a single bit guilty about outsing my brother from his position, as I sometimes eavesdrop and hear from my mother and father's conversations, he seemed to be willing to kill me in the first instance. Not only me but my mother and even his own father too.

From the conversations I heard about my older brother throughout the last two years, I put together a profile for him. His mother is a princess of a larger kingdom to the east, and although there are few countries between our borders, the eastern kingdom is still powerful enough to exert influence all the way here through their control of a trade route spawning from the east to the west. He has around 100 bodyguards sent to him and his mother from his grandfather in the east. He isn't popular among the populace as his mother's kingdom is considered to be a heathen nation and his mother married my father as a result of a peace treaty. That eastern kingdom beat a combined force of small states and although they didn't gain much land, they gained a significantly important port in what I imagine to be the Black Sea of this Earth. Through this port, they exert influence far west to their own borders. The other conditions for peace were war enmities and marriages. My father was apparently captured by the enemy soldiers, so the marriage was also a form of ransom for his release. This naturally upset the balance of power back at home. My father's fiance was supposed to be my mother, as he is close to the elves and the other minorities such as the dwarves, but my father's marriage made a few notable nobles unhappy, especially my mother's father, my grandfather, and made my father and mother's relations strained for a time. Luckily, my father managed to gain her heart again and took her as his concubine after claiming the queen couldn't conceive another child, and since the mortality rate is extremely high, the union between my mother and father went through. My brother, because of his self-centered personality and his close relations with an enemy nation, is not popular among the loyal vassals and the majority of the populace, however, he has the backing of two major noble families and the majority of the merchants, who have no other choice but to lick his ass if they want benefits from the trade with the east.

Around the time I turned three, my mother started walking me to the other parts of the palace from the one I was staying and outside the palace. The palace was a two-story building with two courtyards, many more quarters, and small gardens, however, compared to the palaces of my old world, such as the palaces of Versailles, Topkapı, and Mysore, it was not as impressive both in architecture and size, however, I imagine it is still considered among the largest palaces in the region I suppose. The palace was next to a small harbor and on the other side of the harbor were the castle doors opening outside. I first thought that this was an incredibly bad position to defend, but my thoughts changed after seeing the chains on the harbor.

The location of the Holy Order of Alta in approximation to my old world would be Istanbul and the surrounding regions. Though there are a few differences from what I gathered from the books I read, the geography remains largely the same. Climate belts seemed to be the same too from what I gathered. There was a difference in temperature, but I suppose global warming was the reason for that. Overall, the temperatures were similar to the early 1900 of Earth and there was nothing similar to a Mini Ice Age that started in 539/540 and lasted for two centuries and basically caused the plague of Justinian and the death of half of his empire, nor was there any Roman Warm Period to take advantage of the climate.

While observing the calm waters of the Bosphorus from a terrace, I was thinking of such things.