On the eleventh day, Alqa was asked to skin and cut up the flesh of a couple gere to make dried meat. Taking a knife, Alqa began to cut the skin off the first geres and hanging it over a post. She cut the geres into very thin strips about as long as her middle finger and about as wide as two fingers. She cut the fat off and put it in a bowl. The horns, she laid next to the bowl. Alqa set up a boiling pot and filled it with water, she then lit a fire underneath it. Once the water was boiling, she put the meat in and took out each piece once it had cooked. She laid the strips on wooden platters in the sun to dry. She sprinkled salt over both sides of the strips and took care to pick up any pieces that fell onto the platter and put them onto meat. She let it dry in the sun while she prepared the fat and marrow.
She dropped the fat into the boiling water. She sat next to the fire and waited for the fat to boil. She waited for a short time before the fat was properly boiled, she scooped it out with a long wooden ladle and set it on the wooden platter to cool off. While the fat cooled, Alqa boiled each bone before cracking them open and scraping out the marrow. By the time Alqa was done collecting the marrow, the fat was sufficiently cooled and she raised a blue horsehair banner, blue was the color that the Qutuq used to announce food, each warrior who came by was given a few pieces of dried meat, a handful of marrow and a piece of fat. Of course this wasn’t all that they would get to eat, but it was a nice little snack for the warriors.
The food went away quickly, and a warrior took the skins away to be tanned for leather. Alqa was cleaning up when she heard a voice behind her. “Nice to see you again, Alqa,” it said. She grabbed her dagger and put it between herself and the source of the voice, her heart pounding in her chest. It took her a second glance to realize that it was only Qotoiyan, putting his hands above his head and well away from his spiked battle axe. Once Alqa realized that it was Qotoiyan, she put the dagger back in its sheath. Alqa’s heart soared seeing him, she felt happy beyond measure to see him again. It shocked her though, while she had known she wanted to see him, she hadn’t realized just how much she wanted to see him. “I see you are an adult,” He commented.
“Yes I am. How did you recognize me?” Alqa asked.
“Nobody could mistake you if they have ever seen your hair before,” Qotoiyan told her.
“There are others with red hair Qotoiyan,” She laughed.
“But none are like you,” he told her, this comment made her blush and she looked down to hide it. She didn’t know what to say to that.
“Well there isn’t any more food here, so you will need to go elsewhere,” Alqa told him, trying to change the subject.
“Actually, I was wondering if you were busy?” He asked. Alqa looked back at the area she had been cleaning, it was almost all put away.
“Once I finish here I will have nothing left to do,” She told him.
“Maybe once you are done we could go out riding?” He suggested. Alqa smiled, it sounded like fun.
“That sounds like fun. I’ll be ready in a bit,” She told him.
Once she was done cleaning, she quickly rushed to her yurt and put on her belt with her sword and quiver, she put her bow in the bow case and loaded her bow with arrows. She picked up Nergui’s saddle and took it to Nergui. She put the bit and bridle on Nergui first, then the saddle, she attached all three straps and swung herself onto Nergui. She rode around for a bit before she finally saw him, sitting atop his white horse. “Are you ready? She asked.
“Yes, looks like you got a saddle,” Qotoiyan responded.
“I did, Kiingis died not too long ago and Buqutai gave me this saddle,” Alqa told him.
“So Buqutai is your new Riidagak?” Qotoiyan inferred.
“Yes, he is. The saddle was my succession gift,” Alqa answered.By now they had started walking off and were out of the Yisra.
“Where did you get the necklace?” Qotoiyan asked. Alqa froze, wondering how he knew about it, before she realized that she was wearing the necklace and only then did she respond.
“Oh, that was an apology gift,” Alqa explained. Qotoiyan nodded in understanding and Alqa looked down, trying desperately to think of something to continue the conversation. “What have you been up to?” Alqa asked after a long moment of awkward silence.
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“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Qotoiyan told her.
“Something had to happen,” Alqa responded.
“Well I did get a cuirass and Tagdur got a new set of war-regalia,” Qotoiyan told her.
“Nergui still needs war-regalia. She lost hers some time ago,” Alqa explained.
“What happened to it? Did it just get too old or did it get misplaced and left behind?” Qotoiyan asked.
“More in line with the latter option, but it wasn’t misplaced,” Alqa told him, with a hint of trepidation and sadness in her voice that she did not detect. A growing sense of dread grew in her belly, realizing that it would be increasingly difficult to not have to tell him about the attack on her Yisra.
“Oh, Alqa, are you sure you want to continue with this conversation?” Qotoiyan asked. Alqa did not expect that and didn’t know what to say. She wondered if he knew and if he did, how? She resolved to ask him after a few moments of silence.
“You know what happened, don’t you?” she asked.
“I do now,” Qotoiyan answered, he tried not to make eye contact with her.
“How? Who told you?” Alqa asked, she was extremely confused with the situation but she felt almost relieved that he knew.
“Nobody, but I have known about it since the Tsugurubug. But nobody told me that it was you,” Qotoiyan explained.
“Who told you about it at the Tsuguruabug?” Alqa asked.
“My father, he told me why the Khan called a Tsugurubug,” Qotoiyan told her.
“How did you know now though?” Alqa asked.
“I could hear it in your voice and based on Nergui losing her war-regalia but it not being misplaced, and you not having a saddle when we first met, I managed to put it all together to figure out that you must have fled without time to properly equip Nergui. So unless there was another attack, which there wasn’t because we would have been told by now, you had to have come from the Yisra of Maqudan,” Qotoiyan told her. Alqa stared at him, marveling at his intelligence for putting that all together.
“Wow, that’s something. I mean, you’re not wrong,” Alqa said, looking away from him.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, we could always talk about other things,” Qotoiyan reassured her. Alqa nodded and smiled. “Actually, do you think Nergui would want Tagdur’s old war-regalia?” Qotoiyan asked, reaching over and scratching Nergui’s head. Nergui sputtered in response.
“I think she likes that idea. Wish Maisuya hadn’t taken away our ability to understand our brothers and sisters,” Alqa responded, scratching nergui’s head as well.
“Yeah, that really wasn’t cool of him. I mean I understand that he is pure evil but at the same time, I would love to be able to understand Tagdur,” Qotoiyan agreed.
“I wish I could understand Nergui too, I mean horses understand us. Why couldn’t Maisuya just let us understand them?”Alqa laughed.
“Yeah, screw you Maisuya!” Qotoiyan laughed.
They rode on for a while, but eventually they did return. “Do you want to give Nergui Tagdur’s old war-regalia now? It will need to be adjusted, Tagdur is larger than Nergui,” Qotoiyan asked.
“Sure, and I blame Tagdur’s maleness for his greater size,” Alqa laughed. Qotoiyan laughed too, and set off towards his yurt. Alqa followed him on Nergui. They finally arrived at his yurt and they put Nergui and Tagdur into the horse-pen. Qotoiyan walked over to his yurt and opened the flap.
“Come on,” Qotoiyan said. Alqa didn’t know what to do. For the first time she wondered if she could trust him. But that was silly, of course she could trust him, she wanted to believe it so much but what if she couldn’t?
“Umm, no thanks. I’ll wait out here,” Alqa said, in as strong and calm of a voice as she could muster but there was still fear in her voice.
Qotoiyan stopped and then shrugged, “suit yourself,” he said and entered the yurt. He came back out a few moments later with a leather chamfron, dyed madder red and inlaid with bronze pieces forming intricate patterns. Two tall iron horns, curled backwards, but with their points ultimately pointing forwards, sat just above the eye-holes. They were decorated with dangling bronze and silver beads. Qotoiyan set that down in front of her and went back into his yurt. He shortly returned with a mane-comb, it had three thick leather straps, decorated with silver swirl patterns. He set that down in front of her as well.
“Well, that’s all of it. You might have to take it to somebody to get the chanfron properly adjusted, the straps can only adjust so much,” Qotoiyan told her.
“Nergui isn’t that much smaller,” Alqa laughed. She had calmed down and no longer had doubts about whether or not she could actually trust Qotoiyan. “Help me put it on Nergui?” She asked and he nodded. The hardest part was threading Nergui’s entire mane through the mane-comb but once they had managed that, the mane stood up, making Nergui appear slightly taller and more impressive. They tightend the leather straps around Nergui’s neck, being careful to not make them too tight. Next they put the chanfron on Nergui’s head. The front point hung off her face but other than that it fit well. They tightened the strap on the bottom and then they were done. “So, I need to go get it shortened a little, but other than that it fits,” Alqa said, then she quickly added, “thanks,” Qotoiyan smiled and they said goodbye.
Alqa returned to her yurt, took everything off Nergui and stowed it in her yurt. She spent the rest of her day practicing writing in the honey-eaters’ script by scratching letters into loose dirt with her finger. As the sun went down, Mongolkiina approached with a horn of water and a platter laid with bana, boiled fat and bone marrow. Alqa thanked her and ate the food, it had been wonderful to see Qotoiyan and she resolved that tomorrow she would go get Nergui’s new war-regalia adjusted and try to find Baatar a gift, she still had to get him one after all.