The knot code is a close-kept secret of the Women's World. We use it to communicate, sisterkin to kin.
”
– Trishien, Honor's Paradox, "Chapter VI: History Lessons", I
The knot-stitch code, as the name implies, is a way of sending encoded messages in embroidery stitches on cloth. It is a third circle secret in the Women's World.[1] While knot-stitch code is used for multiple uses,[2] communication between sister-kin is it's primary use,[3] hence the great secrecy surrounding it.
Jame suspects that the Kendar also use knot-stitch code, though likely a different version that the one Highborn ladies use.[4]
System[]
Exactly how knot-stitch code works is unknown. It seems that a set of different stitches serve as graphemes to make up an alphabet or syllabary of some sort, which is then used to write.
It seems that the bump left by a stitch is more important than the stitch's physical appearance—that it is almost like Braille.[5]Adiraina can still use it, despite being blind.
It also seems to have a knitted form, as there is reference to Cattila's Ear, "knitting their conversation into a scarf."[6]
In Seeker's Mask, Dianthe and Adiraina,[7] and later Adiraina and Brenwyr,[8] speak to each other by moving their fingers on the other's shoulder. If knot-stitch code is dot-based, it could easily be adapted to this shoulder-tapping form.
References[]
↑Seeker's Mask, "Part I", II — " 'I never said a-anything about using knot stitches as a code!' she wailed, clutching her shredded sampler. 'That's a third circle secret.' "
↑Seeker's Mask, "Part I", II — "stitching a letter to a five times great granddaughter"
↑Honor's Paradox, "Chapter VI: History Lessons", I — " 'We use it to communicate, sisterkin to kin.' "
↑Honor's Paradox, "Chapter XIX: Challenge", III — "She ran her hands over the glimmering sleeves, feeling the texture of silken stitches under her fingertips. Did the Kendar also use knot codes? She felt instinctively that they did,"
↑Bound in Blood, "Chapter IV: In the Moon Garden", II — "She ran her fingertips over the raised dots."
↑Seeker's Mask, "Part I", II — "glance at Cattila's Ear, who sat in the shadows knitting their conversation into a scarf which she would subsequently dispatch to her mistress."
↑Seeker's Mask, "Part I", II — "She felt her friend's hand on her shoulder. The fingers spoke to her with quick, deft changes of pressure."
↑Seeker's Mask, "Part I", V — "A hand touched her shoulder. *Grandmother-kin,* said the fingers, with that special emphasis that indicated an embrace."
