Chapter 4: Surveying
“HERE’S some bread right out of the oven. Enjoy it with the others during dinner.”
The early morning was filled with refreshingly cool air. In front of the clinic, Zola, Simon’s mother, smiled as she handed Unen a bag of bread when she was ready to leave.
“Mom, they aren’t going on a picnic,” Simon sighed from beside her.
“That’s exactly why I made them bread. Eat this and energize yourselves so you can do a good job.” Zola embraced Unen, while her hair, the same golden shade as her son’s, swung gently behind her in the morning breeze. She moved over to hug Irena next and said, “Be careful out there.”
Finally, she came to stand before Ori and her careful gaze steadily met his blue eyes. After a brief pause, her expression softened into a smile. “Take care of my girls.”
“I will.”
Just as Ori quietly nodded to Zola, the clinic door swung open and a man in the prime of his life stepped out front with a big yawn. His brown hair stuck out in all directions, his chin was covered in unshaven stubble, and his shirttail hung out from the back of his pants, giving away the fact he’d quickly thrown on clothes to be presentable outside.
“Uncle Milosh! You could’ve kept on sleeping!” Unen said in surprise.
She had asked Zola and Simon not to wake him, knowing that he had been up late tending to an emergency patient.
“At least let me see you off,” Milosh replied. Teary-eyed from yawning several times in a row, he came to stand in front of Unen. “…Be careful and come back safe.”
“I will. I’ll be home in three days.”
Those were their special words, meant to guide her home to them.
Under the glistening sunlight, Unen, Irena, and Ori took the first step on their journey.
✦ ✦ ✦
“YOU came from the west? Then you must’ve passed through Chelveny. In which case, I probably don’t have to explain this, but the town two towns over from Yezero is the start of Chelveny’s territory. Lord Chelveny and Lord Baborak have been on rocky terms for ages now. They even went to the point of fighting a skirmish during the scramble for the river twenty years ago.” Irena quickly explained the circumstances to Ori as she marched buoyantly through the overgrown grass that insisted on thriving in defiance of the sun’s harsh rays.
They had advanced straight down the main traveler’s road to the west and were now heading toward Lord Baborak’s pastures, which spread to the north of the road as they drew nearer to the border with Chelveny.
Unlike when she traveled on the carefully maintained roads in town, each step on the rough terrain took a merciless toll on Unen’s stamina and zapped away her energy. A waterfall of sweat tumbled down from her forehead, cheeks, and the nape of her neck, making a wet, slopping sound from between her back and the pack she carried. Panting heavily underneath the towel she had wrapped around her forehead to block out the glare of the sun, she silently focused on keeping her feet moving. She barely listened to the conversation as she tried to keep pace with the other two.
Irena went on, “Luckily, no lives were lost on either side, so we’ve sort of been able to keep the peace on the surface, but more trouble was brought our way this spring. At the edge of the northern border with Chelvany is their pastureland and our forest, but Lord Baborak started clearing his forest to expand his pastures. So then Chelvany’s lord came complaining for all to hear with, ‘you arbitrarily expanded your side of the border!’”
Used to Ori’s quiet one-word responses now, Irena continued chattering away without minding that he wasn’t asking many questions.
Even though both Irena and Ori carried twice the amount of weight as Unen in their packs, they were light on their feet, as if they were on an empty-handed stroll through town.
What do you have to eat to become like them? Unen wondered enviously as she watched them walk easily with their heavy loads.
“He went on to claim, ‘The border between the pastureland and the forest was supposed to be the boundary between our territories. You moved the fence farther into Chelveny, didn’t you?!’ But fortunately for us and unfortunately for them, there’s a spot where a giant flat boulder is lodged in the ground and, back when the borders were first decided, the workers had dug a hole in it to place the fencepost.
“It was clear that there wasn’t any easy way to move that post, so the whole ordeal was written off as a misunderstanding on Chelveny’s part. But they wanted to take this opportunity to make the boundary between the two territories clear once and for all, so that’s why they made a request to Unen for a map. Right?”
Unen had reached her limit and needed to stop when Irena directed the conversation toward her. She took a short break on a nearby boulder to catch her breath, quenching her thirst with the waterskin dangling from her waist, as she gathered the strength to reply.
“…The map made by the previous lord is supposedly closer to a painting of the scenery than a map, and it’s impossible to read the details of the plot of land it depicts. But if we write down where things are and what kind of geographical features and terrain is around instead of just relying on the painting, I can use the painting to create an accurate map that we can compare to past records.”
“Compare to past records?” Stopping two steps ahead, Ori sent Unen a questioning look as he drank heavily from his waterskin as well. His question went right to the heart of the matter, and Unen was a little excited for the chance to talk about it.
“Yup. I think Lord Baborak believes Lord Chelveny changed the boundary line without permission.”
People often measure others against the standard they set themselves. No sooner had Baborak begun to change the terrain by felling the trees than Lord Chelveny complained that they must have moved the border fence, a claim that had been made without an investigation. That gave rise to the possibility that Lord Chelveny himself had experience moving the fence around—such was Lord Baborak’s conclusion.
“However, both sides were harshly scolded by the king for the skirmish twenty years ago,” Unen explained. “So Lord Baborak didn’t want to make a big public ordeal out of surveying the land out of fear of provoking Chelveny. That’s why we don’t have an official guard escort from Baborak. But he promised that I can use the men and resources of his castle to make a map of his entire territory once the issue over the western border line is settled. That’s the gist of it.”
“Talk about tossing you to the dogs for his convenience.”
“You’ve got that right.”
Gauging the amount of water she had left and where the nearest stream was in comparison to their destination, Unen put away her waterskin. She knocked the dust from her clothes and stood feeling mildly recovered from the brief stop.
“Why did you accept this job?”
“I want more achievements to my name.”
The gust of wind rustling the grass slightly whisked away some of the heat building up inside Unen. Wiping the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand, she adjusted the position of the pack on her back away from where it had been cutting into her shoulders, and resumed walking.
“Though I’ve been making maps, the requests have never come from anyone beside town mayors and local landowners. But this job should expand my clientele by a lot. Whether there’s foul play with the boundary or not, it probably won’t take long before Lord Chelveny wants a map of his territory too. Then, if I keep slowly building up my name, my skills should eventually reach the king’s ears.”
Irena smiled at her. “Unen’s dream is to make a map of the world after all.”
“Yup. I want to travel around the world transcribing every last detail onto paper.” The nostalgic face of the man who had saved her life crossed Unen’s mind. “If the world is really open to me, there’s no reason not to leap into it. I want to see the world and learn new things, and then—”
And then it might be possible to—
“You might be able to see Hereh again.”
Unen gaped at Ori—he said the words she’d been thinking.
“Hereh was a really important person to you guys, huh?”
“Of course he was! Hereh was an incredibly amazing person, you know!” Irena promptly snapped. “Tons of people came from nearby towns, even Chelveny, to have him cure their injuries and illnesses. Mrs. Yoki even went as far as to say, ‘The pain went away just by Hereh coming in the room,’ and had started treating him like some kinda god. Well, even I think that was going overboard, but that doesn’t change the fact many people are grateful to Hereh. You can still hear people talking about how they hope he’ll return to Yezero someday.”
Ori gave no response even as Irena finished her rant. He kept his gaze focused on the direction they were heading and silently kept his feet moving. It was obvious that he wasn’t keen on continuing to refer to the man as a criminal after learning how much people loved Hereh, but it wasn’t as if he could back down, since he had already accepted the job of hunting him down.
They continued on for a short while with only the sound of grass crunching underfoot.
“You see, I haven’t thanked him,” Unen muttered aloud before she knew it.
“I heard he saved your life. How?” Ori asked softly.
Unen mentally prepared her story and inhaled deeply. “I was born to peddlers, and we just so happened to come to Yezero on the day the earthquake hit. My dad and mom were crushed under a collapsed building. Only I was saved.”
Seeing that Ori had stopped walking, Unen stopped too. Following suit, Irena came to a halt directly behind them. Ori met Unen’s gaze from where he stood ahead, guilt tinging the deadpan face she had grown accustomed to.
“…I’m sorry for dredging up painful memories.”
Stabbing pain shot through Unen’s heart, and she let her tongue slip. “I don’t care that much. They weren’t very good parents to me anyway.”
This time, not only Ori, but even Irena gave her a startled look.
Unen instantly regretted it. Why did she have to go out of her way to say that? She bit down on her lip over her thoughtless slip.
Tearing through the heavy aura clinging to them like the grass tangled around her feet, Unen started walking again. After a moment’s delay, two sets of footsteps caught up from behind. The three of them continued on in silence amid the blazing sunlight.