rix_scaedu

Honestly, I think I have made many, many mistakes with the longer portions of the Confederation's calendar system - possibly to the point where it is completely borked.  On the other hand, it seems to work for the window of time that contains this story.  Consequently, I think that if I don't poke at it too hard, I won't have to try to fix my errors ad redate things, etc.  On the other hand, as this is a work of fantasy fiction, I could come up with an in universe explanation for the discrepancies.  At this point I can live with the situation.

This piece runs to 3,357 words, and I hope that you enjoy it.

Index page.

Hakkarsday, 23 Naisen, 1893 C.E.
Sebti, 14 Sajibu, 2157 T.M.L.
7 Tlanoluaoy, 1 Coatl, 6.11.2.1.8.3.2

Dear Journal,

This morning dawned clear with a stiff breeze from the south.  I consulted Nais, and because I am going out this morning she recommended that I put on a visiting gown.  We chose the midgreen one with the orange-brown sash, and which straw hat to wear with it.  Nais said she would bring it downstairs when we came down to go on the city tour and mentioned that I might need a wrap, depending on whether the wind kept up.  We decided to put off choosing outer garments until closer to our departure.

I said good morning to Miztli as he was leaving for his practice and could not help but notice, but did not mention, that his limp seems to have resolved.  Matlal was serving my breakfast when a note for Axolin arrived from Lord Elnaith, accepting his invitation to join our tour this morning and stating that he would arrive on foot at the appointed time.  [I am glad that I have my cousins to guide me because I keep muddling up local times.  I think my problem is that I persist in thinking that the day begins at midnight, and in the Confederation it doesn't....]

I clarified with Axolin that the appointed departure time was when I normally go to the office-parlor, so I resolved not to linger unduly over breakfast.  This weas the point where, out of nowhere to me, Cousin Ghrus asked why I didn't breakfast in my room like the other ladies in the household.  I apologised if my breakfasting habits were discommoding anyone, and explained that my mother has always been most insistent that only married women are entitled to breakfast "in bed".  I added, as an addendum, that if I didn't come down to breakfast then I would be ignorant of the many delicious breakfast options that were not available at home.  At that point Matlal poured me another cup of tea and slid a fresh plate in front of me with two maize fritters and a chilli and tomato sauce on the side.  Cousin Ghrus nodded, and that was that.  [Perhaps I should ask Cousin Poktlilui and Great-aunt if I am intruding in male-only space or time.]

I cleaned up after breakfast and was back downstairs with Nais and our wraps and hats just as Lord Elnaith was admitted to the house.  He was wearing a dark blue morning coat over a cream and pale blue striped waistcoat sprinkled with blue embroidered flowers.  [I thought he looked very smart and I did wonder if he'd chosen it because blue is considered a benevolent colour in the Confederation.]  He was also wearing boots which suggested to me that he wasn't sure how active our tour was going to be.  Nais and I secured our hats on our heads, then Axolin ushered us out the front door and into the open carriage.  Lord Elnaith and I faced forward with Axolin opposite me and Nais beside him.

Our first stop was the food markets, which are down near the fishing harbor with the fish sections nearest the water and then the fruits and vegetables.  Axolin explained that meat and poultry are mainly sold out of permanent shops that have facilities for keeping and hanging meat at lower than normal temperatures.  He also said that almost all of the fruit and vegetables are brought into the city from outside with most people only having enough space for one or two fruit trees, or a small plot of potatoes and some pots for herbs, tomatoes, and chillies.

Potatoes, tomatoes, and chillies!  We get some of these at home and our tables would be much diminished if we didn't have them, but the bounty we have at home is nothing like what they have here.  I saw at least twenty types of potato, some of which I didn't recognise as potatoes at first.  The tomatoes had an equally enormous range of colour and size - I had never seen striped ones before, or black ones either.  Axolin warned me about tasting the proffered chillis, and again the range of colour and size (and, I expect, heat) cannot be matched at home.  There were also bins of dried beans in colour after colour, but no peas or lentils.  Again, I had not realised how many colours and types of maize there were, and these were for sale both in bins of kernels or by the dried cob.  I simply didn't recognise many of the fruits and green leafy vegetables, except as something I have eaten in my cousins' house.

Axolin eventually steered us (well, mainly me) back to the carriage and then we drove, past the city's administrative building to the rebuilt temple of the Lord of the Dawn.  It sits on a ledge that has been carved out of the side of the mountain about six storeys above the ground level through the rest of the city and is the first place in the city to see the morning sun each day.  It is also an excellent place to get an elevated view of the city.  Axolin explained how the city was founded by foot traffic coming south from the place where the volcanoes cracked the Circle Mountains, and he pointed out the main road through the city which enters through the north gate and leaves through the south.  He also pointed out my cousins' house, the administrative building, the markets and fishing harbor, the commercial airship port, and the oldest part of the city.  We all ignored the military airship port.

Then we went into the temple for a guided tour from a junior priest.  The original temple was built and consecrated over a thousand years before it was pulled down by the Empire after we invaded.  I am not clear whether the captured clergy were called upon to renounce their faith and embrace the Imperial church, but they were all executed by the invaders.  [I cannot understand why anyone would think that would make the locals like us - yes, the human sacrifice thing is a big issue, but chopping out an entire section of a society like that....]  The clergy and the preserved skulls and pelvises of their sacrificial victims were buried in a common grave that utilised what had been a vault under the original temple.  It is now marked with a memorial stele.  The Empire then built the Cathedral of Divine Grace on the site.  After the War of Secession, the Confederation took down the Cathedral and rebuilt the temple of the Lord of the Dawn, utilising stone from the Cathedral, some of which had been from the original temple.

Lord Elnaith, after observing a piece of reused Imperial column, asked if the Cathedral was one of Dhal dh'Rhaign's works.  On being told that it had been, he complimented everyone involved for pulling it down before it fell down with the usual loss of life.  Upon enquiry, he said that Dhal dh'Rhaign's work had achieved some notoriety due to its tendency to fall down and his heirs' initial determination to prevent alterations to his architectural legacy.  Axolin asked whether the heirs had seen sense.  Lord Elnaith replied dryly that he didn't know about that, but he did know that they had run out of the money needed to fund legal obstructions to necessary remedial works.  Our priestly guide laughed, and I think the rest of the tour was a little lighter on the oppression and bad deeds of the Empire.  [I think we can agree, Dear Journal, that Imperial behaviour in what was then the south-western provinces includes some very black deeds.  Some of those deeds made it into Imperial history books as mistakes on our part that fuelled the War of Secession, but I have started wondering about the little, every day irritations suffered by people deprived of their own religion, their most valuable real estate, and small, valued, and comforting parts of their way of life.  Little things that our historians have not considered worthy of documenting.]

The temple has a small shop, very much like the one in every cathedral or equivalent I have visited on this trip.  After checking with Axolin that I wasn't buying anything with religious significance that I could inadvertently disrespect, I bought two kneeling cushions and a short religious pamphlet explaining the various aspects of the Lord of the Dawn, their roles, spheres, and significance.  Lord Elnaith bought a kneeling cushion that he thought his mother might like.

From the temple Axolin took us on a foot tour of the oldest part of town.  It had to be on foot because most of the streets were only wide enough for two people leading a pack animal on a short rein to pass, while some were only wide enough for one.  Most of the buildings are made from stone cut from the Circle Mountains, with the occasional decorative piece of coral or volcanic stone.  The shopping streets have colourful awnings protruding almost into the middle of the street to protect shopkeepers, customers and goods from the weather.  I think the most unusually coloured awnings were the bright pink ones - we simply do not get that colour in fabric of that type at home.  I did see some shops I would like to come back to at a later time, but given the looks some passersby gave us, not without one or more of my male cousins.

We were on our way to rejoin the carriage and had stopped for Axolin to explain something about an interesting building.  I was admiring one of their decorated sewer/drain access covers (if you go to Tlemutsiko you should pay attention to them - designs and workmanship I would not be ashamed to display in my own house) when I heard shouting in a tone and emotion that made me pay attention immediately.  Doing the marketing with and without Cook at home has taught me that there are some things that you do not ignore if you have wisdom or sense of self-preservation.  I had realised that it was coming towards us out of the nearest cross alley.  I stepped back to get out of the lead runner's way, while clutching my reticule firmly to my body, and had time to realise that one of the pursuers was familiar and that the lead man had changed direction to run straight at me.  I stepped back again, the man was almost on top of me, and then Lord Elnaith did something.  I actually think it was two somethings, and the runner was on the ground with Lord Elnaith's foot on his throat.  Then Mitzli and another man were there, saying something that translates as close to, "Nice work," and Axolin was asking, "How did you do that?"  Lord Elnaith's rejoinder was, "I was in an infantry regiment for ten years and I've retained some skills."  My contribution to the conversation was to observe that the prone man didn't appear to belong to the expected peoples of either the Empire or the Confederation.  Lord Elnaith gave the man, who was beginning to recover from his sudden fall, a hard look and gave the opinion that he was probably from one of the tribes who live on the Southern Ice.  He then said something sharp sounding in a language I've never heard before, and the prisoner stopped moving around and looked frightened.  Mitzli asked him what he'd said and Lord Elnaithe replied that he'd told the man that if he (Lord Elnaith) thought the man weas trying to escape, then he'd crush the man's throat with his body weight.  Lord Elnaith added apologetically that that was the general translation, without obscenities, which he preferred to use for now due to the presence of ladies and children.  (Quite a crowd had gathered by this time.)

It turns out that Mitzli and his associate (who may or may not be a gentleman(?)) are the forces of law and order.  I am wondering if he also belongs to Mitzli's fighting club.  Mitzli and his associate (I believe Mitzli called him Tsaoatl, but we were not introduced) gave Lord Elnaith their cards and asked him to come to their office this afternoon to give a statement.  Axolin was told they would let him know if they needed a statement from him, and I was told that someone would call if they needed anything from me.  Then more of Mitzli's associates, slower associates perhaps, arrived to take custody of the prisoner and we were sent politely on our way.

There may have been more tour planned, but once we were back at the carriage, we went home, dropping Lord Elnaith at the consulate on the way.  As we were approaching my cousins' house another carriage pulled away.  For some reason, the enclosed black conveyance made me recall my thought about Cousin Ghrus wanting me out of the office parlor for the whole day.

I was not surprised that Mitzli was not at lunch.  Someone else remarked in his absence and Axolin said blandly that he believed he was occupied with official business.  I think I might have made an assenting noise, perhaps(?), but something about the combination of the two of us made Cousin Poktlilui ask if we'd met him while we were out.  It did take a few more questions from our elders, but the whole tale was gotten out of us, but mainly Axolin because he did have a better view of proceedings.  (Also, I learned so much about the wording of imperative questions.  There may not be such a thing grammatically but they do exist.)  Great-aunt expressed concern that the supposed villain of the piece had changed course when I had taken a step to get out of his way, but I advised her that I had concluded that in the absence of a market stall to knock over he had been planning to throw the foreign lady to the ground so the ensuing fuss would impede his pursuers.  At the time I had been thinking more in terms of a possible attempt to steal my reticule.  Someone commented on my apparent calm, and I pointed out that not only was the matter now over and done with, but I had learnt one or two things about pickpocketing and purse cutting while doing the marketing at home, so such things were upsetting at the time but not oversetting if one was not actually robbed or injured.  The rest of lunch was occupied by a comparison of street crime in Umbrial and Tlemutsiko.

After lunch, I tidied myself in my room and then took my embroidery down to the parlor where my cousins receive lady visitors and established myself in the seat with the best working light.  This afternoon was my Great-aunt and Cousin Poktlilui's version of an At Home.  They warned me in advance that the standard visit was twenty-five minutes, the usual drink was a version of the bitter dark brown drink that they have here, and that some of their frequent visitors are distinctly anti-Empire.  The number and type of visitor we received this afternoon was consistent with what I would expect for a household with well connected and socially active ladies, and four, officially unattached, eligible and attractive men in residence.  Quite a number of young ladies and their mamas working to ensure that they are on good terms with the grandmother, mother and aunt of said gentlemen attended.  I was introduced to everyone who arrived, and it was made clear to the visitors that I am learning Coac-htl but I am by no means fluent.  Some ladies sat with me to practise their Imperial, and some were kind enough to help me with my Coac-htl - my embroidery made a useful topic of conversation with both these visitors.  One lady of Cousin Poktlilui's age, whose name I remember as Crimson Blossom of the Ninth, sat beside me to declare that her father and brother had been executed by the Empire during the War of Secession.  I took a moment to find my tongue in response to this, but managed to say that I was sorry for her losses, but I didn’t think anything I could say or do would improve the situation or her feelings.  I added that having lost my own father a decade ago, I hoped that time had made the burden of her losses easier to bear.  Cousin Poktlilui intervened at that point, and there were no more unanswerable comments about the Empire made to me for the rest of the afternoon.

Mitzli joined us for dinner and sat next to me with Yeixi on my other side.  I asked him how his day had gone, and he told me that it had seen several matters satisfactorily concluded.  The he asked me how I had enjoyed my city tour, and I told him that it had been very interesting.  The ending excitement was completely unplanned, of course, and I compared it to my experience on the tour I took of Akatoil.  That led me into telling the whole story of my encounter with disenfranchised and criminal tour guides.  Cousin Tehaneume commented that her father had taught her how to hit someone without breaking her thumb.  Yeixi asked why that would be necessary, and we both told him that despite everyone's best efforts, a lady sometimes winds up in a situation she needs to leave that a male relative isn't available to rescue her from.  Tehaneume asked Mitzli if "that man" had really been going to use me as a distraction to let him escape, and her replied gruffly that it made more sense than taking me hostage and could we please not discuss the details of his working day?  I asked my cousins if public musical concerts are a thing here, and if so, what sort of music is performed?  That gave us a new topic of conversation for the rest of the meal, and when we ladies rose to leave the gentlemen, Mitzli quietly gave me his thanks.  This evening at least, I think Mitzli is tireder than he lets us know.

Over our kasoolht we ladies discussed the various forms of defence our elders had taught us.  Great-aunt and I were expanding on hat pins and their uses when the gentlemen joined us, and I was explaining the reduction of their use due to the fashionable trend for bonnets when the gentlemen joined us.  My hands were measuring the length of the largest pair my mother still owns when the gentlemen walked in and I was uttering the phrase "made of tempered steel".  Mitzli remarked that he hoped that I didn't need to go armed and his Grandmother told him, tartly that we were discussing fashion accessories.  Axolin offered to teach me a local game, much like dominoes in that it is played with carved pieces and you need to match the ends.  Most of the pieces are two ended but some have three or four, and there are five single ended pieces in the set.  You gain points for laying down tiles, playing all of your tiles (because you can only draw more tiles if you can't make a move, and for playing a single ended piece.  The game needs at least two players but can have up to six.  Axolin was patient with me because I had to look carefully at the carvings each time to make sure I actually had a match, whereas, of course, he recognises them straight off.

We were still playing when Great-aunt went up to bed, and Mitzli offered to escort her.  I excused myself a little afterwards when we finished the game of 'dominoes' that we were playing.  Nais helped me get changed, and left me to finish writing up this journal before I go to bed.

I think that if today had a lesson, it was, "Do not go into the Old Town alone."  That does seem to be where things happen to me.

Anadrasata Nearabhigan