The Twelve Kingdoms: A Thousand Leagues of Wind

Then the thought occurred to her. "Are you perhaps from Kou or Sou?" She had heard that in the kingdoms further south, people stayed in the hamlets year-round.
    "No, from En."
    "En is a cold country this time of year. The hamlets in En would all be empty, wouldn't they?"
    "Probably so."
    There was a smile in his voice. She turned to see Enho returning from where he had left Keikei in the care of the neighbors.
    Enho said, "A kaikyaku."
    Rangyoku looked at the boy with wide eyes. Enho said, "You're Chuu Youshi, correct?"
    "Yes. And you are Enho- san ?"
    Enho nodded and glanced at Rangyoku. "This is the child I told you about, who was sent to the orphanage. Your new roommate."
    "My what? But . . . . "
    Rangyoku gave the boy a good long look. What Enho was saying was, this was the girl, a girl her same age, that he had been telling her about. "Oh! I'm sorry! I completely misunderstood!"
    The girl smiled pleasantly. "No problem. I've gotten used to it."
    Enho turned to Rangyoku. "Youshi, this is Rangyoku, one of the residents of the orphanage. She's the older sister of the boy you just rescued."
    "I'm pleased to meet you," Youshi said with a slight bow.
    When Rangyoku smiled and bowed in turn, Enho gave her a nudge. "While Youshi is changing her clothes, why don't you go fetch Keikei? He's still in something of a panic."
    "I'll do that," she replied with a nod. Enho watched her hurry off and then looked up at the girl standing next to him. "With all these people about, we never greeted you properly."
    "Understood. It's fine."
    "I apologize. I'll see to it that you are properly treated as a resident of the rike."
    "Well, that is why I came here."
    Hearing her soft voice and seeing the look in her eyes, Enho nodded. "We are very grateful to you for saving our lives."
    "Do youma still come into inhabited areas like this?"
    "Yes, but less often since Kei got a new Empress."

Chapter 23
    W aiting for the ship to depart, Suzu leaned back against a bollard on the pier and examined her travel papers. Her passport was in the form of a small wooden token that she was to carry with her during the journey.
    The people of a kingdom made their living on the partitions they were granted by the government. And the kingdom in turn governed the people using the land partition as the primary instrument of its control. Meaning, when you left your homestead, you gave up the rights and protections granted by the government.
    Because of this, when a passport was issued, your name was inscribed on the face of the wooden token, and the back of the passport listed the name of the issuing prefectural office. The passport was placed on the person's koseki, or census record, and at three places along the edge of the token, a dagger was driven into the koseki. By lining up the grooves in the passport token with the puncture marks in the koseki, the authenticity of the passport could be confirmed.
    It was also not uncommon for a guarantor's name to be inscribed on the back of the passport.
    With a passport in hand, even when a person left his homestead, if circumstances required it, he could seek assistance from the nearest government office. It was the same when traveling abroad. Traveling abroad without a passport made one an itinerant or displaced person, and you lost all your rights. A passport was necessary even when going to a city in a neighboring jurisdiction. Consequently, you carried it with you everywhere you went, if only out of habit.
    As Suzu's passport had been issued by the Royal Sai herself, the back was inscribed with the Imperial Seal. The passport was affixed to a small plaque called a rakkan, or financial guarantor. The seal burned into its face was that of the issuing bank.
    The Royal Sai Kouko had given Suzu a generous sum for traveling expenses. These funds were deposited in a bank in Yuunei, the bank that issued the rakkan. Banks formed powerful trade credit unions by establishing strong and secure relationships with banks in other municipalities and even other countries. If you had a rakkan issued by a bank in the trade credit union, no matter where you went, you could withdraw money or establish a credit line at another bank in that trade credit union.
    On the rakkan, the issuing bank and the stated credit limit were written in coded characters that could not be read by anybody outside the trade credit union.
    "Unbelievable," Suzu muttered to herself. She carefully replaced her travel papers inside her jacket pocket, and