In the second hour of the review, Prokop was refused admission to the table.
He presented himself as a witness for the eastern belt, but the district clerk checked the list and spread his hands. In the fair-copy journals, Vershinin's name appeared beneath neither measurements nor corrections, and Prokop could not invoke his former rank because he had been suspended pending an inquiry.
"My name is in the originals," Prokop said.
"The originals accompany the lists," the clerk replied by rote, looking past him.
Silence fell. Mezhenstev stood at the register table, round and ruddy in a new fur coat, gazing at Prokop with gentle regret. Behind him, the office clerks held neat stacks of papers.
"Party originals," the governor said, "are presented by the party clerks."
And then Zotik stepped out from the line of clerks.
The table was thirty paces away, but Prokop could see what every step cost Zotik. Someone was watching the clerk from the windows of the office compound. Zotik untied the waxed wrapping, took out the field journal from the first season and opened it before the chamber at the page with the blind marker at Dry Portage.
"Correction dated such-and-such," he read in an even clerk's voice. "The old reference point struck through according to the rules and preserved. Name beneath the correction: porter P. Vershinin. Party original, hand mine, seal the party's."
The district clerk looked at the governor, and the governor at Stroyev. The general studied the journal in silence. Without his decision, no one dared continue the review.
"The suspension," the district clerk began, clutching at his second argument, "pending an inquiry…"
"A man is suspended from rank," the governor said without taking his eyes off the original. "A name cannot be suspended. It can only be disproved. The right to testify comes from the name in the journal, not from rank."
"The name has been presented," he added. "The witness Vershinin is admitted to the table until the name is disproved."
Prokop took his place at the table and braced himself against its edge: his knees were still shaking.
Then the work began.
He challenged the sheets of the belt as the regulations had taught him: by their blind markers. The marker at Dry Portage had been set without a local witness, and so the ford had been placed half a verst out. Nor had the locals been summoned for the old southern survey across the burns: the party had been hurrying to meet its deadline. Entry after entry confirmed the same thing: the parties had rushed, set markers without witnesses and used stock phrases.
Mezhenstev waited for a pause and intervened.
"The chamber is hearing a man whose seal was taken from him," he said. "An understandable grievance. But the register has a deadline, gentlemen. Challenged sheets will not enter the register in time, and the land on them will be declared empty. Everything this diligent man achieves, he will achieve for me: there will be more empty land." He spread his hands good-naturedly. "I'll take it. I don't mind."
"Take this first," Pankrat said.
The hunter stepped out from the line of witnesses. His name appeared beneath a measurement in the journal of the eastern belt: Pankrat himself had guided the surveyor along the traplines. He placed the office notice on the chamber's table and smoothed its folds with his dark palm.
"Read it, Your Honour. It's been read to me already."
The district clerk read aloud: structure unauthorised; clear the belt or accept employment. Grounds: surveyor Vershinin's sheet.
"There is his sheet," Pankrat said, nodding towards Prokop. "The most honest one in the whole belt. I walked with him when he made it. And here is what the office did with that sheet on its way to the register. I'm an illiterate man, gentlemen. I'll ask only one thing: if this is what you made out of the truth, what will you do to my land when the sheet contains a lie?"
The chamber was silent. The governor looked at the notice and turned his eyes away.
Then the elders were called.
Saltu approached the table with Ayga, and the hiring journal was presented to the chamber. The elder was recorded as a guide from the Sayur clan beneath the measurements for three stages, which meant that under the regulations he had the right to testify.
The office clerks exchanged glances. Mezhenstev bent towards his own clerk and, for the first time during the review, stopped smiling.
Ayga translated evenly, without embellishment. Saltu spoke briefly.
"The locality your sheets call Goose Rapids has another name among us. The Hollow of Silence and Bald Brow Hill also have other names. We invented plain names for the road to use with strangers, so we would not give away the true ones. Even a knife is handed to a stranger hilt first among us."
"What is your point?" the governor asked.
"The point," Ayga translated, and triumph entered her voice for the first time, "is that the office statements record the purchase of localities under those names. The plain ones. The road names. None of us uses them, because we invented them for strangers."
Prokop laid the extracts beside them: burn by the Hollow of Silence, waste ground by Three-Elk Spring, prices, annotations reading 'for entry in the register'.
"The office bought land under invented names," he said. "Before the register, while those places had not yet been surveyed. Here are the transactions, and here are the names. Ask the office whom it bought something from that did not yet exist on the sheets."
Mezhenstev began to answer, gently and at length, speaking of the custom of preliminary entries.
No one listened: the chamber was looking at the statements.
In the silence, the district clerk comparing the sheets of the eastern belt raised his head. Though Prokop had been waiting for these words, he went cold inside:
"There is an unsigned correction here in the fair copy. And the figure does not match the original."
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