As we traveled on, the trees and brush grew thinner and thinner, until at some point the forest ended and the plains began. Now the road ran through a great swath of long grass, and I could see mountains on the far horizon. In the nearer distance I could see a patchwork of cultivated fields, as well as a walled town where several roads converged. When I saw that, I knew where we were; I had been here before, but traveling in the opposite direction.
"There's a town over there." I pointed in the direction of the fields. "It's called Cavatera. I was there just a few weeks ago. We should be able to reach it by sunset."
Shading his eyes with his hand, Jack looked over the plains. "That is good." He seemed to be thinking. "Is it like the last town we were in?"
"Fortunately, no. It's a big trading center, so there are some good inns there. And the townsfolk are hospitable, but they make sure that everyone follows the rules. So we're unlikely to encounter…unpleasant surprises." There was also a good chance that we could find some employment – there were always merchants hiring caravan guards there. We would see about that when we arrived.
We stopped for a few minutes to rest and drink some water – it was a hot day. Jack used his sword to cut some stalks of long grass. While most swords were less than ideal for such a task, this one felled the plants like a well-sharpened scythe. I remembered how he had used that sword, mere hours ago, to cut off someone's head, and with hardly more effort than he was now using to cut the grass. I must confess that it made me more than a little uneasy.
As I watched, Jack tied the ends of some of the stalks together, making a sort of wheel, then began to weave some of the other stalks into it, from the hub outwards. It was immediately obvious to me that he had done this many times, but I could not tell exactly what he was making.
"What's that going to be, when it's done?" I asked.
"A hat," he replied. I remembered the hat he had lost in the inn the other night.
"How many of these things have you made?"
He paused for a moment, thinking. "I have lost count." He looked at me quizzically. "Would you like one?" Somehow I gathered that it had taken a lot of courage for him to ask that question.
I hadn't expected that. It was a pleasant surprise, a rare thing indeed. For that very reason, I think, I was unsure of how to respond.. "Yes, I…thank you. Actually, could you teach me how to make one?"
Making one of those things wasn't as easy as he had made it look. It took me a long time and many a false start, but he was very patient and quietly encouraging. The finished product did not look as neat as his, but it would do.
"It is much better than my first hat," he assured me. On hearing that, I felt a little awkward. While I was curious about the circumstances of that first hat, the when and where and how, I could not bring myself to ask for the details. Not after the near-disaster that had resulted from my curiosity the previous night. I had made enough mistakes already.
We had paused for longer than we had intended to. I had also underestimated the distance to Cavatera, so we were still out on the road after night had fallen. Fortunately it was a clear night, and the moon was nearly full. The grass fields, which had been green and gold by day, were silver in the light of the moon. The stars were out in force, too. It seemed that the weather was now making up for its misbehavior of the past few days.
"Ketiya," Jack addressed me. We had exchanged few words over the past several hours, and I had always been the one to start those exchanges. "I was wondering about…" He paused. "Never mind. It is a foolish question."
"Just ask me. I don't mind," I encouraged him. The fact that he was asking me anything was a good sign.
"Well…someone told me that there were other worlds beyond the stars. I have seen people from these other worlds, but I still have a difficult time believing in them. Do you know anything about these other worlds?" He had never spoken so many words together before in the time I had known him. Admittedly, it hadn't been a long time, but it was no less significant for that.
"I've never been off this planet myself," I admitted. "All I know of other worlds is hearsay, and not much of that."
He seemed a little disappointed. I thought that was the end of the exchange, and that made me a little sad. But it wasn't. "Are the stars those other worlds?"
I wondered about his understanding of basic astronomy. I was lucky in that I had gotten a decent education, but I knew there were plenty of people who still thought that the world was flat, or that the sun rotated around the planet and not the other way around. I wondered if he was one of those people. "Sort of. But before I can explain that, I need to know – and I don't mean to offend you – do you believe that the Earth rotates around the sun?"
"Yes. I was taught that the sun is the center of the universe, and that the world and most other celestial bodies rotate around it. Except for the moon, which orbits the Earth." That wasn't accurate, but it was better than I had expected.
"Well, the Earth does rotate around the sun, but the sun isn't the center of the universe. It's a star, just really close to us. In relative terms, that is…" I explained to him what I had been taught in school, about gravity, solar systems, meteors, and similar phenomena. I worried that he wouldn't understand any of it, but by the time we reached the gates of the walled town of Cavatera he seemed to be fine with the whole business. Much to my delight, he even found it interesting.
"It seems that we have both learned something today," he remarked, "But I fear that what I have taught you is less than adequate compensation for what I have learned."
I shook my head. "No, it was a fair trade." I winked at him and got a smile in return.