Chapter 4: Surveying

 

 

 

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.

***

WOODEN fences stretching endlessly into the distance divided the blistering hot field, which shimmered with a haze of heat. Unen’s group had finally arrived at the boundary between Baborak and Chelveny. It was early afternoon.

After establishing their campsite under the handy shade of a gigantic boulder, Unen started her work by inspecting her surveying tools. Drawing the long staff protruding from the pack on her back, she attached a fist-sized pelorus equipped with a compass to the top of it. The surface of the pelorus was always level with the horizon due to its two axes and weights. Unen had made the device herself with the scraps of a brass metal plate she had asked the ironmonger to share with her.

Next, she pulled a coil of rope from her pack. Along its twenty meters, metal hooks gleamed from set intervals for keeping the rope from getting knocked or pulled out of place when measuring lengths. This rope was another invention of Unen’s, and she used it to measure the distance between two locations.

Her pack also contained a fan-shaped, weighted protractor for measuring inclines, and a semicircle pelorus she used for more accurate readings on the azimuths. After confirming each tool was undamaged, she moved them, along with a notebook for recording numbers, into the shoulder bag she brought with her.

***

BY the time Ori returned from drawing water from the brook, they had a fire lit in the hearth Irena built. The group took a break while waiting for the water to boil and lightly grilled Zola’s bread over the fire for a late lunch. Small talk had significantly decreased between them after Unen’s comment about her parents, but the savory smell of baked bread gradually brought back a harmonious mood.

They set aside dinner by sticking dried meat inside the leftover bread and decided to allot the rest of the remaining daylight to surveying. They were all of the same opinion that nothing bad would come of wrapping up the work quick.

Leaving the bigger, unnecessary bags at the campsite, Unen brought her shoulder bag filled with surveying tools along with her pelorus staff, and Irena and Ori both took their swords. They set off for the boundary.

Beginning with the north bank of the brook, Irena followed the fence to the north with one end of the rope in hand. From her end, marked by where the fence turned, Unen pulled the rope taut and measured the distance between her and Irena.

Once she was finished with that, Unen let go of the rope for the time being and thrust the pelorus staff into the ground. Aiming the notch of the V standing straight from the edge of the pelorus at Irena, she measured how many degrees she was off from the north.

This was how Unen measured the distance and the azimuth at each bend in the fence. Later, she would draft a map based on those numbers. Naturally, measurement and calculation errors were bound to slip in as the distance increased, necessitating a degree of compensation and correction at every key location. Unen had decided on Mount Viera, looming in the distant east, as her point of interest. By measuring the azimuth from each point relevant to the map to the mountain’s summit, the diagonal lines she would draw to the summit would notably increase the accuracy of the map once she coordinated them to overlap with other focal points.

After each measurement, Unen placed her pelorus staff on the ground so she could promptly record the numerical value. This time however, Ori thoughtlessly called out to her just as she had pulled her notebook from her bag.

“If you tell me what to record, I’ll write it down for you.”

“You can write?”

“Yeah.”

Unen handed her notebook, portable inkwell, and quill over to Ori.

“Um, okay, ‘Starting Point: Wak River’. Next line. 17°W, 18’, 3”. Got it?”

Contrary to animal skin parchment, the paper created from ground wood pulp Unen used was coarse, and on top of the fact that it was easily ripped, ink often ran down it. Yet, despite all that, not once did the tip of the quill catch on the grainy paper as Ori smoothly danced it across the blank space.

“Is this fine?” Ori looked up at her for confirmation.

“Ah, yeah, no complaints here,” Unen said, checking over what he wrote down.

Several swordsmen who made a living guarding others and exterminating wild animals lived around Yezero, but the vast majority were unable to read or write. And those who boasted about their ability to write were nowhere near as familiar with paper as Ori was.

“Sharing the workload will increase efficiency,” Ori stated.

“That’s true,” Unen agreed.

Who in the world is Ori? While deeply perplexed on the inside, Unen externally expressed her gratitude to him.

***　

THEY returned to the campsite once the sun had set. Cattle that had been grazing in the distance during the day disappeared from the pastures, and there wasn’t a sign of a single person as far as their eyes could see. The gentle breeze from the afternoon completely transformed into a howling gust that blew through the pasture with a noise akin to a lonely cry.

Stuffing their mouths with the dried meat sandwiches, the trio downed the day’s fatigue with soybean tea. Tomorrow they would be surveying the field under the blazing sun all day, right from the early morning. In order to preserve their energy for the upcoming day’s endeavors, they went to bed early.

Irena was assigned to night watch until the morning star that shone in the eastern sky forged a third of the way through the heavens. Ori would take the next third until the star had passed the midsky marker, then it would be Unen’s turn until dawn.

Bidding goodnight to Irena, Unen and Ori each took a blanket with them and laid down where they pleased.