1254/1/4
Dear Tailiki,
I have finished the rough draft of my thesis, and given it to Sgensar to critique. Hopefully he won’t find major problems and I won’t have to make major changes. I am going to take a few days while I wait for Sgensar’s feedback to visit my mother and friends (those who have not become hermits themselves due to thesis work or cramming for exams), and of course catch up on my criminally delayed correspondence.
I am sorry you are suffering at school from the Hureshan prejudice against kings. It is understandable, as you may already know from your study of history; their last three kings were terrible men and I am ashamed to be related to them. But still unfortunate for you. Hopefully in time the girls at school can learn to see you for yourself.
The University of Kosyndar is indeed a very good school, and I don’t think that’s just the prejudice of a student for his alma mater. We get students from all over the League, from Huresh and Neshinark and the south coast countries, and even from Khareush and the islands.
In a few days I will be hard at work on revising my thesis, and I’m afraid you probably can’t expect another reply from me until after I defend my thesis and graduate. (Or fail, but I don’t want to think about that possibility more than I must.) Tell me, what histories have you been reading? If you’re particularly interested in the history of Tupaska after your family fell asleep, I would recommend A History of Tupaska from the Thosai Dynasty until the Hureshan Conquest by Kreshat ro Traek. Or if you want to know more about modern Huresh and why most people hate kings so much, while a vocal minority want them back, The Corruption and Fall of the Kohesh Dynasty (an anthology of articles by the faculty of the University of South Huresh) is pretty good on its facts, though admittedly the editor and most of the writers are biased against the monarchy in their analyses. But quite probably Daodru has already pointed you toward these and you’ve already moved on to more in-depth sources. Let me know.
Your friend,
Ftangu
Seventeenth day of the first month, 1254
Dear Ftangu,
No, I hadn’t already heard of those books you mention – though I’d read another books about the fall of the Hureshan monarchy, The Downfall of the Kings. I looked for them in the school library, and found the anthology about the Kohesh dynasty, but couldn’t find the one about Tupaska. Then I went to the university library and found the other one. Daodru has gotten me a university library card. But I’ll probably have to return them to the libraries largely unread, and try again during the summer or next school year, as I’ll soon be busy studying for final exams. I suppose you are too, though you don’t mention them. Or does your thesis entirely take the place of exams in grad school?
Mother has gotten a job with the consortium of schools that mine and Kenet’s school belongs to – she travels around Tuebak City and the outlying towns (they provide a driver to take her to towns that aren’t on a train line), speaking to the students about life in our day and answering their questions. So far she hasn’t had much trouble from monarchists or anti-monarchists, but it’s only been a few days, and I suppose it’s a matter of time. I wish she could get a job where she only has to deal with a few co-workers and not large numbers of teachers and students – I wish I could – but we don’t have much in the way of modern skills yet, and our oddity as people displaced in time is all that distinguishes us for now. And she is unwilling to do unskilled labor.
Father’s Hureshan has improved a lot since he started visiting the pub two or three times a week and chatting with the other customers. He’s also reading some Hureshan books, and listening to radio plays on the evenings he doesn’t go to the pub. He has started looking for work, but hasn’t found anyone willing to hire him yet. I suggested that he apply at the museum, and do tours of the palace exhibit when I’m at school, but he is reluctant to put himself on display like that, and I suppose I can’t blame him.
I have done the math, adding up my smaller pay at the museum now that I’m working fewer hours there, and figuring that I’ll make as much during the summer as I made before I started school. It will take me almost a year to earn enough for a round-trip ticket to Kosyndar, and that assumes we’ll still have free lodging with Daodru’s family for that long, and I won’t have to start contributing to rent or groceries. And as Father and Mother don’t want me to go without a chaperon, we’ll have to wait until one of them can save enough to go with me. Preferably both. So don’t expect me soon, but I’ll come when I can.
There is an election for seats in the Diet happening soon, and placards and posters are everywhere, proclaiming the virtues of this or that candidate or faction. I am not old enough to vote; in Huresh one has to be at least twenty, but Daodru says Father and Mother can and should. A few days ago when I was on my way to work, I passed one of the candidates haranguing a crowd in the square near the museum. I don’t know much about him because I only heard a small part of his speech. What are elections like in Kosyndar and the other League cities?
On the first day of the year Mother and I participated in the Earth Mother’s mysteries. I don’t think I’d better say any more than that, because you are a man, though I suppose you must have participated in them yourself when you were a girl. Only maybe not, because I’ve found out that not everyone in Huresh worships the Earth Mother these days, and I realize I have no idea what people in Kosyndar do. You’ve told me about the university and your studies, but not that much about the city and its people outside that. So could you tell me more? After you defend your thesis and have more free time, of course. I have read what the gazetteer says about it, but what does it feel like, compared to the Hureshan cities you’ve visited?
Your betrothed,
Tailiki
1254/3/6
Dear Tailiki,
Well, I defended my thesis successfully, and managed to graduate on schedule. I’ve already sent out job applications to several universities. Including the University of Kosyndar, but though Sgensar says he’ll put in a good word for me, I doubt I’ll get in here. Most universities don’t like to hire too many of their own graduates, at least not until they’ve gotten some experience elsewhere.
I apologize for the lateness of this letter. A few days after I sent my last letter, Sgensar got back to me with critiques on my thesis, and I spent the next six weeks rewriting it and expanding the weak sections as well as correcting errors and removing some bits that in retrospect didn’t quite work. I turned in the revised version just ahead of the deadline, and then defended it a few days later in front of a panel of three historians and archaeologists (not Sgensar, as he was my advisor). They asked some hard questions, but I had answers to everything ready, largely because Sgensar had already pointed out the weak points in my argument.
I don’t know how to put this delicately, but I don’t worship the Earth Mother – I never did, even as a girl. My ancestors did, some of them were even priestesses, but my mother left off when she was old enough to decide for herself and she didn’t raise me to worship her. Earth Mother worship is not rare in Kosyndar, though less common than in Huresh, but it’s not that common either – most religious people worship the Brother and Sister, and almost half are non-religious.
As for Kosyndar more generally, it’s hard to know where to begin. You know how big it is, at least in the abstract, but what that means is that its neighborhoods are like small cities in themselves, some of them very different from one another, and I’m only familiar with a few, particularly the one where I grew up and the area around the university. Some parts of the city have a lot of crime, or are even de facto ruled by crime bosses, but the two I’m going to talk about are fairly safe.
I grew up in Mustu Park, a neighborhood of townhouses and shops clustered around one of the small parks that was set aside when the city was expanding northward in the late twelfth century. My grandparents moved there after my grandfather got a promotion at the printing house he worked at; when my great-grandparents settled in Kosyndar, they lived near the wharves, and Great-Grandfather made part of his living writing and reading aloud letters for the mostly-illiterate sailors and dockhands. When I was about ten, my father took me there and showed me the block of flats where they lived when he was a child.
My mother still lives in Mustu Park, and I go to visit her at least once a month – more often when school is not in session and I’m not away on an archaeological expedition. It’s a quieter neighborhood than some, with most of the noise coming from cars or from children playing. The house where I grew up is on a side street, two blocks from the park and three blocks in another direction from a grocer and a butcher. (In the older parts the city, “blocks” aren’t even a thing; the streets are more irregular, roughly following what used to be streams that are now buried under culverts, or hunter’s trails from back when the area was first settled. But that’s probably what you’re used to, isn’t it?)
I live, for now, in an apartment on the university campus, a quarter of a mile from Sgensar’s office and the building where most of my graduate seminars were held, and five hundred yards in another direction from the main library. On days with good weather I like to take a long route to class, meandering south, looping around the library, which has a pretty fountain in its courtyard, and through the quadrangle, across a bridge over Gryden Creek, to the history building. Or sometimes north, along the edge of campus to stop at one of the tea-houses across the street from the undergrad dorms, and then south past the law school and the student union to reach the history building. When I have more time, I sometimes take the tram to Grand Grove Park and walk there – I never used to go there alone when I was a woman, but sometimes I would go with friends.
I think that will be all for now. I’ll keep you posted about my job search.
Your friend,
Ftangu
Sixteenth day of the third month, 1254
Dear Ftangu,
Thank you for telling me about Kosyndar. I hope I get to see it someday, but if you are teaching at some other university in another city when I visit, maybe we can take a train to Kosyndar and you can introduce me to your mother and friends and show me where you grew up? Ridra tells me the League cities are even more interconnected by trains than the cities of Huresh, and train fare is cheaper than it is here.
I am working more hours at the museum now that school is out, but not as many as I would like, so I am largely spending my summer reading – I checked out both the books you recommended from the university library, since I don’t have access to the lyceum library just now. They are hard reading, more than the books I’ve been assigned for school or the ones I bought at the cheap bookshop, with lots of words I have to look up and sentences I have to think about, but I’m pressing on. Mother continued working for another couple of weeks after my lyceum closed for the vacation, as some of the schools in the consortium continue classes into the third month, but she’s off duty now until late in the fifth month. Father is still looking for work – I think he is being a little too choosy, myself, but I hesitate to say that to his face. He doesn’t want to do manual labor, and he doesn’t want to put himself on display as a historical curiosity like Mother and me, but he doesn’t have the skills for clerical work.
When we were first lodged in the university dorms last summer, someone from the government said we would be provided job training, but somehow that never happened – just an intense course in Hureshan and a brief overview of modern customs. They are sending the younger ancients like me to school, but there is nothing for Father and Mother and the other older adults. I think someone said that our host families are supposed to train us, but they’re busy with their own jobs and aren’t necessarily good at teaching job skills. (Professor Daodru’s students say “As a teacher, he’s a great researcher.”)
When I finish these books you recommended, I think I’m going to start seriously studying Kosyan. I worked through the first couple of lessons a while ago, but then got busy with studying for exams and had to set it aside. When my Kosyan is good enough, someday I would like to read your thesis. And some of the other papers people are writing about my family and our palace.
I hope your job hunt goes well.
Your betrothed,
Tailiki
1254/4/2
Dear Tailiki,
I’ve been busy writing job application letters, and doing research on the different universities to tailor my letters to each target. I’ve already heard back from some of them, saying they don’t need a new history or archaeology professor at the moment, but I’ve also gotten one invitation to come for an interview – I’ll be leaving tomorrow on the train to spend a few days in Sderamyn. I’ve got an interview at Kesden Polytechnic, and while I’m there I plan to talk to people at the archaeology department of the University of Sderamyn too.
I’m not terribly surprised that the Hureshan government fell down on its promise to give your people job training. I’m honestly surprised your host families’ stipends have lasted this long. Have you heard anything about how long that’s expected to last? Have you had regular contact with anyone from the government?
Let me know when you’ve finished those books, and what you’d like to learn about next, and I’ll try to recommend some more.
Your friend,
Ftangu
