Chapter 1: Restless Days

1

In the aftermath of the festival of the hunt, the six clans, including the Fa, entered a break period. Normally, the hunters would use this time to rest. However, there was work that needed to be done during this period, so we had been sure to make arrangements for that ahead of time. One such task was spreading knowledge of how to bloodlet and carve up hunted giba to as many of the clans that had missed out so far as possible.

During our last break period, the other clans had put in a lot of effort on this front in order to make certain that we would have meat to use for our business. Thanks to Ai Fa instructing them on the basic procedures, the Gaaz and Ratsu-as well as their subordinate clans, the Matua, Meem, and Auro-were now all thoroughly acquainted with how to process meat.

Then the northern clans, the Beim, and the Dagora had all learned the techniques, leaving only six clans out of the thirty-seven at the forest's edge who were unfamiliar with them. Teaching bloodletting and carving techniques to those remaining six clans was our goal for this break period.

"If we divide ourselves up into groups, we shouldn't have any difficulty teaching those clans the techniques with half a month at our disposal," Raielfam Sudra suggested.

We all agreed to his plan, with him and Baadu Fou taking the lead on getting things organized. The Deen and Liddo officially fell under the Zaza, so they couldn't provide much help, which meant we only had the hunters of the Fa, Sudra, Fou, and Ran to handle the task. Bloodletting in particular had to be done soon after a giba was taken down, so they would need to accompany the other hunters into the forest, despite it being their break period.

I was deeply grateful to them, but Raielfam Sudra simply waved off my gratitude and told me, "No thanks are needed. This is no longer a task being carried out for the sake of the Fa clan alone. Are delicious cooking, your business in the post town, and the prosperity we now enjoy a medicine or a poison for us people of the forest's edge? It is my belief that we all need to be on equal footing when deciding the answer to that question."

Our actions would be judged at the clan head meeting roughly half a year from now. Raielfam Sudra was asserting that when that time came, all of the people of the forest's edge had to be fully equipped to make that judgment.

I was being saddled with more work as a chef too. Just learning proper bloodletting and carving techniques made giba meat taste so much better, but that alone wasn't enough. I was going to travel all over the forest teaching the women of those clans how to make baked poitan and some other basic cooking techniques. As part of that, I ended up purchasing three new wagons. Since our hunters and chefs would be visiting all these distant clans, Gilulu's and Fafa's wagons would no longer cut it on their own. After this job was done, the three new totos and wagons would be made available to be used freely for going shopping or visiting other clans, like Fafa already was. Gilulu alone would remain permanently with the Fa clan.

With all that in mind, I decided to temporarily cancel the study sessions at the Ruu settlement during this period. Reina Ruu and the others seemed rather disappointed about that, but they said they would also work hard at instructing their more distant subordinate clans, like the Ririn and Muufa, in the meantime.

The first clans we would be working with were the Dai and Ren, who were located south of the Ruu clan. The Dai and Ren shared blood ties, with the Dai being the parent clan. I had heard they were similar in size to the Fou and Ran as a result of merging with some of the clans under them that had collapsed.

Our business in the post town didn't shut down during break periods, so we had to wait till after work to provide lessons. That meant that our schedule during this period had us teaching the other clans for two hours each day and then hurriedly returning home to take care of the prep work for the next day, as well as throwing together dinner for ourselves. And since Ai Fa would be heading out to hunt with some other clan every day as well, this was such a hectic time for both of us that it was hard to tell it was a break period.

The hunters were also putting together plans for another job: constructing a kitchen hut for the Fa house.

"The rainy season will be here soon. When it arrives, it will be difficult for you to do your work with the amount of cover you have, so we should build you a proper hut, with a roof and walls," Baadu Fou proposed, with the Deen and Liddo clan heads offering to help out.

"Since we can't accept the task of running around to hunt with the other clans, at least let us help out with this," the Liddo clan head, Radd Liddo-who I remembered from the festival of the hunt-remarked with a hearty grin. "There's no need for a floor with a kitchen hut, so it should only take a few days for us to set it up."

Still, it would require them to cut a fair amount of lumber, so it was a pretty large job-one that all of the Deen and Liddo men would be involved in during the hours that we were away. Since it was her house, Ai Fa seemed to want to help out too, but she ultimately ended up leaving it to them, having concluded that as the clan head of the Fa giving lessons to the other clans was more important.

Days passed, and we eventually arrived at the tenth of the gold month, the eighth day of our break period. We were working hard in the post town like always when the vegetable seller Dora and his daughter Tara visited our shop.

"Hey there, Asuta. Seems business is booming again today."

"Welcome. Thanks for your continued patronage."

He shot me his usual smile, and I returned it. A month and ten days had passed since the revival festival, so it was back to business as usual at his shop. However, he had brought us some rather unexpected information today.

"Asuta, the rainy season is set to arrive just twenty days from now, so I figure it's about time for us to talk business. What do you say?"

From what I had been told, during the rainy season a number of vegetables would become unavailable, while others were only available at that time of year. Obviously, that was no small problem for us... However, today Dora had a slightly different issue that he wanted to raise with me.

"You see, the price of poitan, fuwano, and aria is going to go way up during the rainy season."

Poitan and fuwano were wheat-like grains, while aria was a highly nutritious vegetable similar to an onion. The less well-off clans at the forest's edge were forced to subsist on nothing but poitan and aria, so this was a matter that demanded my full attention.

To sum up what Dora had to tell me, apparently the aria and poitan sold during the rainy season only grew to a small size due to the limited sunlight. And in Genos, prices were set by quantity rather than by weight. In other words, the price of produce remained the same, while the size of the produce shrunk to two-thirds at best or barely half the size at worst.

"The fact is, we're only borrowing our land from the nobles. The taxes levied on us don't decrease, which is why pricing works the way it does. It means that we can still earn the same amount of money, but only at the expense of anyone who has to purchase vegetables during the season. It's such a problem that people say the rain is the Saturas county crying."

The Saturas county was the official designation of the domain that contained the post town. As the post town consumed a huge amount of vegetables produced by the Daleim lands, its people were the ones left to suffer during the rainy season.

"So, let's get to the main topic at hand. Even though we've expanded our poitan fields significantly, the amount we harvest during the rainy season is going to decrease by a lot. Until recently, only the people of the forest's edge and travelers ever bought them, so it wasn't a serious issue. But now, people from all over are using poitan. I think there's a real risk that we're going to sell out."

"That's pretty serious. And the price of fuwano is going to go up too, isn't it?"

"Right. Fuwano doesn't just grow smaller, it becomes unharvestable. That means whatever we can grow before the season starts needs to last the whole two months, so the price pretty much doubles."

So, that was the situation. It certainly explained why the northerners from the Turan lands were going to be available to be used to clear a path through the forest's edge-they didn't have much other work to do.

"With fuwano so expensive, poitan are sure to sell extremely well. That's why I'm worried about running out of them."

"That certainly is concerning. The people of the forest's edge have eaten poitan for so long, it'll be a real problem if they can't buy them anymore."

The poorer clans in particular lacked the leeway to purchase expensive fuwano. And the reason poitan were such a popular item in the first place was purely because I had come up with a way to make them delicious. I couldn't stand the thought of that possibly causing my comrades to starve.

"For our business, I don't especially mind if we have to use fuwano," I continued. "But if there isn't enough for everyone at the forest's edge...