Compass rose with quote on a foot

The north wind has finally dropped, so my hand is steady enough to write you a proper letter. The Mapmakers' Guild of Vessaly has sent for me. Queen Ysolde wants the eastern marches charted before the spring tithe, and the chancellor has asked that the compass rose on the new sea-chart be copied from the old brass one in the guildhall vault. I told him to fetch it himself. He did not like that.

Remember what Master Aldous used to say when you wept over a wobbly coastline: the sea does not care how neat your line is, only that you come back to it. I have come to think his lesson was never about lines. Last month a fishing boat from Harrowmere limped into harbour after nine days lost in fog, and the skipper swore the current had turned him round three times. He had kept his compass in an oilcloth pouch against his chest and trusted the needle over his own stubborn sense of north. He is alive because he let the rose tell him where the wind was, not where he hoped it was.

So here is my advice, scrawled badly because the ink is thick. Draw the rose first, eight points, the long ones pointing true. Letter the words around its rim afterwards, and do not let them crowd. When the chancellor asks why a map needs a motto, tell him maps are for people who have lost their way at least once, which is most of us.

Your loving teacher, Mariel