A superstitious gesture at best, meant to play on current fears. Your uncle claimed that it was Hokkaro’s lack of faith that prompted the Heavenly Family’s abandonment. Only proper veneration would bring them back. Anyone who failed to perform their pious duties would face Imperial justice.
Of course, burying things in a field like that, planting things the way he said to plant them, following all those rules …
I am no farmer, Shizuka. When I die and you leave me out for the vultures—that is the closest I shall come to farming, for flowers will grow where I last lay. But even I saw starving commoners curse your uncle.
Oh, when we were eight, it was not so bad. When we were eight, one could eke out a living, just barely.
But do you remember, Shizuka, when we traveled after—?
I am getting ahead of myself. That part, too, will come.
I had my own set of rooms in Fujino, but that did not stop me from visiting yours. I slept in my own bed perhaps twice in the entire three seasons I was with you.
In the dark of night, when the moon was high, I worked on my project. I’d had the tiger’s pelt brought up to me. With my clumsy hands, I sewed and cut and sewed and cut. The end result was not going to be impressive—but it would be mine.
My mother arrived on the twenty-second of Tsu-Shao. With her came about a third of the Burqila clan, including two of my aunts. And Otgar, of course. I suspect she would’ve come even if she was in the sands at the time. I met them at the gates on my horse.
Otgar came riding up next to my mother. In the absence of my brother, she was a capable interpreter. All that time spent in our ger clued her in to my mother’s language of gestures.
“Needlenose!” she shouted in Qorin. “You live! I heard a tiger ate you!”
You blinked. You sat on your horse next to me. I do not think you’d seen other Qorin before, or at least not so many. Otgar’s loud, long greeting—several times longer in Qorin than it would’ve been in Hokkaran—might’ve startled you.
I waved at her as she pulled in. She clapped me hard on the shoulder and mussed my hair. A little over a year it’d been since I saw her, yet in that time she’d grown into her body far more than I had. Seeing her wide face, her red cheeks, her beautifully embroidered deel, made me feel more at home already. Then she took me close and pressed her nose against my cheeks.
She recoiled. “You smell like flowers!”
I laughed and pointed to you. You drew back.
“What is the matter?” you said. “Why was that girl smelling you?”
“To make sure she is the same Shefali,” Otgar said. Time lightened her Hokkaran accent; she almost sounded native. “Smell never changes, no matter how long she is with pale foreigners.”
Something changed in your posture. “You speak Hokkaran,” you said.
“I do!” she said. “I am Dorbentei Otgar Bayasaaq, and it is my honor to serve as Burqila’s interpreter.”
Next to us, our mothers exchanged their customary greetings. Despite the crowd, my mother embraced yours, held her tight, with her fingers in O-Shizuru’s hair.
But I was more concerned with what Otgar had said.
“Dorbentei,” I repeated. “You are an adult?”
Otgar beamed from ear to notched ear, proudly displaying her missing tooth. “I am!” she said. “When I learned to speak Surian. No braids yet, but soon!”
“I am O-Shizuka,” you said, though no one had asked. “Daughter of O-Itsuki and O-Shizuru, Imperial Niece, Blood of Heaven—”
“Yes, yes,” said Otgar, waving you off. “You are Barsatoq. We know of you already, we have heard the stories.”
I tilted my head. Barsatoq. An adult name, like Dorbentei. But where Dorbentei meant “Possessing Three,” Barsatoq meant …
Well, it meant “Tiger Thief.”
I’m sorry you had to find out this way.
“So you’ve discussed me!” you said. Color filled your cheeks, and something of your old demeanor returned. “Yes, yes, I am Barsatoq Shizuka.”
I covered my mouth rather than laugh. Tiger Thief. My clan bestowed upon you the great honor of an adult name—something only a handful of foreigners received—and they named you Tiger Thief. You were so quick to embrace it! Someone must’ve told you what a mark of acceptance it is to be named by the Qorin.
And yet.
Tiger Thief.
I was saved from hiding my amusement when my mother rode over. As animals sense storms, so I sensed her coming, and all the mirth fell from my face. My mother’s eyes were vipers, her quick gestures as fangs in my flesh. Otgar, too, lost her mirth.
“Shefali,” she said, “Burqila is displeased that you would act in such a foolhardy fashion.”
“She is your daughter, Alshara,” said O-Shizuru. “You are lucky she did not stuff the tiger with fireworks and set it soaring through the sky.”
Alshara shook her head. Another series of gestures, though less sharp.
“Burqila will host a banquet tonight, in her ger, to celebrate her daughter’s well-being,” Otgar said. “You are all welcome.”
Good lamb stew! A warm fire, with my clan sitting around it! My grandmother’s nagging; my aunts beating more felt into the ger; my uncles trying to convince them to do other things instead. The acrid smell of the fire pit, strips of meat hanging just above it to cure. Wind whistling outside, rattling the small red door. I’d get to see our hunting dogs again, too—how big were they now? The russet bitch must’ve had her pups.
And the kumaq. By Grandmother Sky, the kumaq!
I bounced in my saddle the whole way to camp, no matter how upset my mother was.
Home.
I was going home again.
WHEN IN DREAMS I GO TO YOU
Home, for me, means two things. The first is you. Above all, you are my white felt ger, you are my bright red door, and you are my warm fire. But if I cannot have you, then I will have silver—the silver of the steppes’ swaying grass, the silver of winter, the silver clouds coloring Grandmother Sky.
In Fujino, you see, everything is green. One look outside your window will tell you why. Your Imperial Forest is so deep a green that it reminds me of the Father’s ocean—and it is only one of many. Your province is covered in too many to name. Your father once called Fujino the land of sun and pine.
He also called it the land of rolling hills.
I hate hills, Shizuka. Did you know? You cannot build a ger on a hill; everything will slide right off your furniture. You cannot camp at the bottom of a hill; the rain can get in and extinguish your fire. You cannot wrestle on a hill without your cousin tumbling down and cracking her head on a rock, as I learned when Otgar tossed me off one when we were ten.
But I admit there is more to it than my own opinion. The sanvaartains tell us that you can find true peace only when Sky and Earth are mirrors of each other. That is when you encounter eternity. Standing at the base of the Rokhon, with Gurkhan Khalsar behind you—is there anything more infinite than that? That is, I think, my favorite spot in the whole world.