MAPMAKER
By
Brent E. Meranda
Shashwords Edition
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Copyright © 2012 by Brent E. Meranda
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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Cricket stubbed her toe on a rock and cursed.
The woman she’d been following, the one wearing the silk dress and custom walking shoes, looked back over her shoulder. “What’s that?”
“Just a cough, ma’am.”
The woman raised her eyebrows and nodded before continuing through the crowd. Cricket adjusted her grip on the cart handles and plunged forward, ignoring the pain in her toe. The cart was heavy yet it bounced over the cobblestone, creaking as it went. Behind them, she still heard vendors bartering with clients, even though they were several blocks away now.
Hopefully, they didn’t have much further to go. She wanted to get home before dark or her brother would eat her share of the stew and she’d be left with nothing but rice. That’s if she got home at all. She wouldn’t be the first delivery girl in northern China to wind up a slave.
“Just a few more blocks.” The woman smiled at her. “It really is a pleasant evening isn’t it?”
“Yes—”
Without warning, the cart flew from her hands and tumbled into the street. Instinctively, Cricket reached for the dagger hidden beneath her shirt, but she let go when she saw a soldier standing behind her. At first, she thought he was her father, returned at last from defending the empire. But then her heart sank as she remembered he wouldn’t be returning.
“Swine!” The woman screamed, as if she had been pulling the cart. Then she faced the soldier and lifted her chin. “Kindly watch your step.”
“What are you carrying?” the soldier demanded.
“Firewood,” the woman said.
“In summer?”
The woman smiled and raised her eyebrow. “It’s the best time to buy, don’t you think?”
The soldier stepped toward her. “I know who you are, and I know what you do.” He then kicked the pile of logs and ran his spear between them. Seeing nothing, he stepped toward the woman and held his spear to her neck. “Xitang was raided last month. Five hundred people died.”
“That was a terrible failure of our military.”
The soldier raised his fist. As he did, Cricket backed away, right into another soldier. She stepped to the side and noticed that this one was an officer in full battle gear. He ignored her.
“That’s enough,” he said. “I’m sure the Administrator’s wife is as upset as we are about the terrible tragedy at Xitang.”
“Of course,” the woman said.
“She must not realize that it wasn’t a military failure. It was an intelligence failure. Somehow the enemy found a passageway through the mountain.”
“The military should’ve found the passage first.”
“Scholars shouldn’t make illegal maps.” The officer grabbed the woman’s shoulders and shoved her into the arms of the soldier who knocked her to the ground and began searching her. As he did, Cricket slid her dagger between two slats on the upturned cart. It would be of no use to her against soldiers, and she didn’t want them finding it on her.
“What’s this?” The soldier pulled a small purse from the woman’s robe and emptied it onto the street. A handful of copper coins fell out, along with a bottle. The soldier picked up the bottle and handed it to the officer, who opened the lid and dipped his finger inside. When he pulled it out, his finger was yellow. He sniffed it.
“Would you seize a lady’s makeup?” The woman smirked. “Perhaps you’d like some of my clothing as well?”
The officer glanced around and then shoved the bottle into the woman’s hands. Then he looked at Cricket with a squint and a frown.
“I don’t know her,” Cricket said.
“It’s true,” the woman said. “She’s a delivery girl.”
The officer nodded. “Search her.”
As the soldier grabbed her, Cricket screamed and kicked, trying to put up just enough fight to make his job unpleasant without making him mad. Finding nothing, the soldier let her drop to the ground.
“Be careful who you associate with,” the officer warned. Then he motioned toward the soldier and they both left.
The woman scooped up her coins and the bottle and returned them to her purse. Then she stood and righted the cart. “Shall we continue our stroll?”
“I’m going home,” Cricket said.
The woman held up one of the copper coins. “An extra coin to finish the job.”
Cricket thought of the stew that would buy. If it was extra, she wouldn’t have to tell her mother, or her brother. She nodded, then bent and picked up a log.
The woman smiled at her. “I hope you get the chance to see the capital someday.”
Cricket imagined streets filled with soldiers, all of them overturning carts. “No thanks.”
The woman laughed. “It’s really beautiful. You should see the plum blossoms lining the river in the spring.”
Cricket picked up another log and placed it in the cart. “We have a river here,” she said. “Some say it’s the same one.”
“But you have no blossoms.”
Cricket nodded. “How true, ma’am.” But you can’t eat blossoms. She didn’t want to argue. She just wanted to deliver the load, get paid, and go home. She threw the last log onto the cart in silence.
“Don’t be mad,” the woman said. “If this river is the same one that flows through the capital, you may be able to ride it all the way there someday.”
“Through the mountain?”
“Maybe.”
Cricket shook her head. No one had been able to navigate through the mountain. She grabbed the cart handles. “Where to?”
The woman pointed ahead, and Cricket took off. It was getting dark by the time they got to the center of town, and the woman pointed to one of several alleys leading to the river. People got killed or kidnapped in alleys like that every night.
“Let’s stay in the light.”
The woman laughed. “I’m not going to hurt you. Please… I have another job, and another coin.” She held up a gleaming coin. Cricket studied her. Her eyes showed amusement, not deceit. Cricket felt the handle of her dagger, which was still lodged between slats in the cart, and then walked into the alley.
“Put it against that barrel.”
Cricket positioned the cart on the far side of a large barrel. She noticed that it blocked the view from the main street.
“Now…” The woman pulled out her bottle and opened it. Then she spread yellow dye over the end of one of the logs. “Help me mark the logs.”
“Why?”
The woman’s eyebrow shot up. “Because I asked.” She raised her chin. “You’d best do as I say.”
Cricket thought of making a run for it. The woman remained motionless her eyes fixed unflinching. Beside them, the river lapped against a dock.
“Sure,” Cricket said.
The woman smiled and handed the bottle to her. Cricket took the bottle and began marking the ends of the logs with yellow streaks. “I never heard of decorating firewood.”
The woman picked up a marked log and walked to the edge of the river. “You don’t know how
lucky we are—being female.”
Cricket cocked her head and stared at the woman as she tossed the log into the river and then walked back to the cart. “Men think we’re stupid and ignorant.”
Cricket swallowed.
“We’re not stupid. And ignorance is just a lack of knowledge.”
“You are wise, ma’am.”
The woman smiled. “Ignorance can be fixed.”
“Are you fixing ignorance now?”
The woman nodded. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Charting the river is illegal.”
The woman shrugged. “Illegal and immoral are different things.”
“What about the people of Xitang?”
The woman scoffed. “Ignorant peasants who never bothered to find a hidden passageway into their own city. They deserved their fate.”
Ignorant peasants. Cricket looked at her own tattered clothes, made of scavenged hemp. Then she looked at the woman’s silk robe and pretty black leather shoes. The woman was right. Ignorant didn’t mean stupid. And Cricket wasn’t stupid. If the barbarians ever figured out how to ride the river to the capital, the kingdom could fall. She thought of her mother and brother. She remembered her father’s sacrifice for the empire.
“A smart girl like you could go far. How’d you like to join a group of other smart citizens dedicated to pushing back ignorance?”
Cricket smiled. “Could I?”
The woman hugged her, and caressed her chin with her hand. Then she sighed, picked up another log, and carried it to the river’s edge.
Cricket grabbed the dagger and followed her. People got killed in alleys like this every night. And that bag of coins would buy a lot of rice.
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About the Author
Brent Meranda lives in Cincinnati with his wife and two children. He writes software by day and fiction by night. His non-fiction articles have appeared in The Plain Truth, Christian Odyssey, and Control Engineering. He’s also a certified teacher of relationship skills with Equipping Ministries International, and is a member of the pastoral leadership team at Christ Community Church.