She tilted her head back and groaned. “I didn’t think Burqila hated me this much,” she said. “But I guess we’ve got work to do.”
I can’t remember how long it took us to write back. I knew what I wanted to say to you, of course. Otgar wrote it down for me and walked me through each character ten, twenty times. She’d write them in the soot and ash of the campfire.
The trouble came when I tried to write them myself. Invariably I’d write a different character from the one I was instructed, and it would be flipped or upside down. Missing strokes, superfluous strokes; it was a mess, Shizuka. And after weeks of trying, I hadn’t learned a single one.
Otgar was at her wits’ end over it. “You speak Ricetongue like a native.”
Pointing out my Hokkaran blood upset people, and she was beginning to think of me as more Qorin than Hokkaran. I kept quiet.
“It’s the writing,” she said. She cracked her knuckles. “Needlenose, you don’t plan on going back there, do you?”
I shook my head. From the way my mother kept talking about things, I’d be spending more time with her on the steppes in the future. According to her marriage contract, she was not allowed to style herself Grand Kharsa of the Qorin, but her children were not bound by such rules. My father wanted Kenshiro to succeed him as Lord of Oshiro. That left me to take up her lost title.
I didn’t know what any of that meant, except for two things: One day I’d be as terrifying as my mother, and the steppes were home now.
Otgar nodded. She reached for one of the precious few pieces of vellum we had. It was a rough thing, jagged at the edges, that reeked of old skin. She grabbed an old ink block and sat down in front of me.
“Repeat what you wanted to write,” she said. “I’ll do it for you. If you do go back to Hokkaro, you’ll have servants to write things down for you anyway.”
Then, as if she realized what she was saying, she grunted.
“But I’m not a servant,” she said. “Don’t you ever forget that, Needlenose. I’m your cousin. I’m helping you because we’re family, and because Burqila asked—”
“—told—”
She pursed her lips. “Asked me to,” she finished. “Now, let’s hear it one more time.”
So I spoke, and so Otgar wrote.
O-Shizuka,
Thank you for saying sorry, even though you didn’t have to. I’ve never seen a peony, or a chrysanthemum. There aren’t many flowers here. Mostly it’s grass and wolves, and sometimes marmots. Every now and again, we will see one or two flowers. Of the ones I’ve seen, I like mountain lilies the most. They grow only on the great mountain Gurkhan Khalsar. Gurkhan Khalsar is the closest place there is to the Endless Sky, so those flowers are very sacred.
If you teach me more about flowers, I can teach you how to wrestle, but I’m not very good.
My cousin is helping me write to you. Hokkaran is hard.
Shefali Alsharyya
I sent that off and waited every day for your reply. Our messengers all hated me. Whenever I saw one, I’d tug their deel and ask if there was anything for me.
We take some pride in our messengers. Before we began acting as couriers, it was almost impossible to get a message from the Empire to Sur-Shar. My mother saw how foolish that was. After she’d traveled the steppes to unite us, she established one messenger’s post every one week’s ride. With the help of the Surians she recruited into the clan, each post was given a unique lockbox that only the messengers could open. Anyone could drop any letters they needed mailed inside the lockboxes. For a higher fee, you could have one of the messengers come personally pick up whatever it was.
Everyone used our couriers—Surians, Ikhthians, Xianese, and even your people. Oh, the nobles would never admit to it, and we had to employ Ricetongues in the Empire itself—but they used us all the same.
Which meant they paid us.
People seem to think my mother is wealthy because of the plunder from breaking open the Wall. In fact, she is wealthy because of the couriers. That and the trading. You’d be surprised how canny a trader Burqila Alshara can be.
But the fact remains that I pestered our messengers so much that they came to hate visiting us. Every single day, I’d ask for news.
For months, there wasn’t any.
But one day there was. Another bright red envelope dipped in priceless perfume. Once I read it, it joined its sibling in my bedroll, so that I could smell it as I went to sleep.
Alsharyya Shefali,
Your calligraphy is terrible. Father says I shouldn’t be mad at you, because it is very strange that I can write as well as I do. I’m mad at you anyway. You are going to kill blackbloods with me someday. You should have better handwriting! Don’t worry, I’ll teach you. If I write you a new letter every day, and you reply to all of them, then you’ll be better in no time.
Where are you now? Mother says you’re traveling. Qorin do that a lot. I don’t understand it. Why take a tent with you, when you have a warm bed at home? Do you have a bed? Do you have a room, or do you have to stay in your mother’s tent? Do you have your own big lumpy horse already? My father says I can’t have a proper one until I can take care of it, which is silly, because I’m the Imperial Niece and there will always be someone to take care of my horse for me.
Maybe you can do it. Mostly I just want to go into the Imperial Forest. Father says there are tigers.
My tutors tell me that I should be afraid of you and your mother. They say that Burqila Alshara blew a hole in the Wall of Stone and burned down Oshiro, and it took years before it was back to normal. They tell me that if your mother hadn’t married your father, then we’d all be dead.
I don’t want us all to be dead, but if your mother could talk to my uncle—he keeps arguing with my father and making everyone upset. Do you think your mother could scare him?
Are you afraid of your mother? I’m not afraid of mine, and people keep whispering about how dangerous she is. No one tells me not to talk to my mother, but everyone tells me not to talk to you. I think it’s because you’re Qorin.
My tutors won’t tell me why they don’t like Qorin, but I’ve heard the way they talk about your people. I’m five years old. I’m not stupid. They don’t like Xianese people, either, but they’ll wear Xianese clothes and play Xianese music all the time.
It doesn’t matter. I like you in spite of your awful handwriting, so they have to like you too.
I hope you’re doing well.
O-Shizuka
So began our correspondence. You’d write to me; Otgar would read the letter out loud, and I’d say what I wanted them to write in return. I’ll have you know Otgar was indignant when you insulted her calligraphy. She was a ten-year-old, and she was trying hard! Not everyone is born with brush and sword in hand, Shizuka. There are scholars who write little better than Otgar did at the time.