Prokop hardly recognised Pereymishche.
The whole eastern survey had converged on the stockade for the review of the sheets: eleven parties, wagon trains carrying journals, clerks, surveyors, contractors and district officials. Long tables had been knocked together in the square before the governor's chambers, and every morning the snow was swept from them. The stockade had probably not seen so many literate people in a hundred years, and the price of lodgings had trebled.
Sekleta took Prokop and Ayga in without a word; she merely looked at the chest.
"You brought it," she said.
"I brought it."
"Your father would have told you to eat first." And she set out the bowls.
By evening, everyone whom the review had brought to the same table had gathered at her house. Kapiton came with the party chest and bore himself calmly: he had already made his decision. Frol appeared uninvited, sat down by the door and announced that he had eight hundred versts left before retirement and the review happened to be on his way. Evstigney arrived sober, carrying an iron-bound casket, and spoke with angry precision. Pankrat had found a lift with passing travellers. Tucked carefully inside his coat was the notice from the office.
Saltu came last.
The clan elder entered another person's house, removed his hat, looked over those assembled and calmly took a seat at the table. Ayga stood behind his shoulder, as she had once done at Dry Portage. Then they had hired themselves out to guide strangers across their land. Now they had come to testify in its defence.
Saltu said a few words, and Ayga translated: "Grandfather says you delivered the knot correctly."
Prokop placed the knot of old harness on the table beside the papers. Three straps with their ends hanging down meant: the clan has passed; do not follow. Among the journals, statements and notices, the sign was particularly striking.
On the eve of the opening, the district clerk read them the rules of the review in a dull voice. Officials of the survey had the right to speak at the review concerning their own belts, guarantors concerning their guarantees, contractors concerning their transactions, and witnesses whose names appeared in the survey journals beneath a measurement or correction. A witness whose name had been presented could not be removed from the table until that name had been disproved before the chamber.
"A name is confirmed by the journal," the clerk added. "The originals are to accompany the lists."
Then they needed the rough copy. That night Prokop went out into the yard and stood for a long time looking at the wagon trains by the chambers. Somewhere over there, in the party chest under the state seal, lay the journal containing his name, the name missing from the fair copy. Only the party clerk could submit the chest for review.
Zotik found him by the hitching rail himself.
The clerk looked gaunt and short of sleep. The waxed wrappings bulged visibly beneath his sheepskin coat.
"Someone has already questioned me," he said without preamble. "A man from the office. Polite. Asked whether the party originals were intact, whether they had got damp on the road. Said damp papers weren't accepted for review and I'd be better off drying them at their compound." One corner of Zotik's mouth lifted. "I told him I sleep on them, and they're as dry as an oath."
"And your brother?"
"He didn't ask about my brother. He only called him by name. In passing, as if we knew each other." Zotik looked across the square towards the office compound, where lights burned in the windows. "I was useful for three years, surveyor. The redemption money is almost complete. Only until spring left."
Prokop said nothing. He was not the one paying that price, and it was not for him to persuade Zotik.
"I don't know what I'll do tomorrow," Zotik said honestly. "I know one thing: the originals will be on the table. What happens after that, I don't know."
That night, Prokop dreamed of the land from above for the last time.
Between the rivers, where the watersheds met, a blank space showed white. But in the dream it seemed neither an emptiness nor a wound. Rivers ran from it in every direction, and Prokop understood: the land there was alive, even if it had not been put on the map.
The next morning, the governor opened the review from the steps of the chambers, reading from the prescribed text:
"The Unified Survey presents the register. What has been surveyed and approved is law. What has not been surveyed by the appointed time will be declared empty."
Stroyev stood at the governor's right hand.
The general found Prokop among the witnesses at the far table and gave a brief, almost imperceptible nod.
He did not interfere. He waited.
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