The Water Road (10 page)

It did her little good to
speculate. Her only focus needed to be on getting out of the apartment and then
getting out of the compound. That way was blocked by a single Sentinel. At
first, her thoughts went to the dagger in the satchel on her back. If she could
slip out quickly, without attracting his attention, she could take him by
surprise. A quick thrust of that blade in his side should not kill him, but it
would prevent him from following her closely. It would not silence him,
however. Given that she did not know for sure if the Sentinels were looking for
her, drawing attention to herself made little sense. At any rate, sneaking up
on a Sentinel at the height of his training and skills would be far different
than bludgeoning a surprised old man. She put the idea out of her mind.

She would have to leave another
way. There were windows on the first floor of the apartment, but they all
opened onto the Grand Council compound rather than the city streets. The window
to the garden was still open, but much too close to the Sentinel outside to
assure getting away unseen. Even if she made it out that way, she would still
need to run past the Sentinel to make it out of the compound. That was assuming
the gates to the compound had not yet been closed and locked. She could not
assume her good luck would continue.

Antrey dashed back up the stairs to
the second floor and into Alban’s study. There were two windows along the wall
opposite the door from the hallway. She went to the one on the left, unclasped
the lock, and opened it wide. Beneath the window was one of Tolenor’s busier
streets. That would be true of any of the surrounding streets, however. Given
the compound’s status as the center of the city, it was only natural that the
streets around it teemed with activity nearly all the time.

She leaned out the window and
surveyed the scene. It was four or five feet higher than the balcony from which
she jumped earlier. The height did not bother her as much as what awaited her
beneath. Under the balcony had been a soft, manicured lawn to cushion her
landing. Underneath her now were simple paving stones, hard and endless. She
also worried that jumping from here would attract unwanted attention.

Antrey ran across the hallway and
into Onwen’s small study. It had only one window, but it was much larger than
the ones in Alban’s study. She sprinted to it and flung it open. The street
below, unlike the other, was a bit more subdued. It was lined by large trees
that were just coming into bloom for the spring. There was a thick branch of a
tree about five feet from the window. Close enough to jump to, if Antrey could
ensure grasping it and not falling to the pavement. She looked out and saw that
the tree was much taller than she anticipated.

That gave her another idea. Antrey
moved so quickly that she nearly slammed her head against the window frame,
dashing out of the study, up the stairs, and into the bedroom shared by the
girls. The window between their two small beds opened in the same direction as
the one in Onwen’s study. But here, the tree grew much closer to the building.
It was close enough that Antrey thought she could make a solid landing and work
her way down the tree to the street. If she was wrong, she would plummet to the
stones below in an uncontrolled fall, perhaps breaking her neck. Either option,
the second or third floor, could lead to a bad end.

She forced herself to make a
decision. She took off her cloak and tossed it towards one of the smaller
branches of the tree. It caught among the budding green leaves, not far from
where Antrey intended to land herself. She waited a few moments for a lull in
the traffic on the street, then she climbed up into the window frame, holding
on to it behind her. It was all she could do to force herself not to look down.

Then she jumped.

After another few useless nights in
the taverns, Strefer decided she needed to hunt elsewhere for new leads. Or at
least try new taverns. So she traded in her late-night crawl at the Battered
Pikti for a daytime drop in at the Great Antlered Hare. The Hare had certain
charms that the Pikti lacked. For one thing, it was actually clean. For
another, its location inside the Triumvirate compound made for a higher class
of customer. Unfortunately, it shared its downmarket cousin’s emptiness when it
came to leads because the clientele wasn’t interested in talking to her.

She had hoped, based on Rurek’s
comment about the various national factions getting into trouble, that the Hare
would be a good place to experience such a dispute. But mornings at the Hare
had proven just as boring as recent nights at the Pikti. When the management
politely suggested, after she had spent several mornings there, that she might
move on to another establishment, she was in no mood to argue.

Walking through the courtyard on a
sunny afternoon was proving no more productive, but at least it was pleasant.
It was better than going back to the
Daily Sentinel
office, to Tevis,
confessing failure, and spending another afternoon trying to piece together
something from her scrap file. As long as she produced something, Tevis
wouldn’t care. With the Grand Council wrapping up its session for the week, he
had plenty of material.

Strefer was lost in thought, having
slowed down to enjoy the day without meaning to, when she was nearly run over
by a pair of Sentinels. They gave no warning, nor any apology, as they slammed
into her and shot past. They were not running, as most people would call it.
But they moved quickly and with determination. Strefer knew what that meant.

She looked around the courtyard and
saw that the Sentinels were not alone. There were more of them behind her, as
well as some civilians, all moving in the same direction. It was not the way
out of the compound, where Strefer was headed. Something, obviously, had
happened. Strefer changed course and followed the crowd.

It took a moment for her to realize
where the crowd was headed: the Grand Council building itself. The council
session was something of an event, but not one that drew crowds. Aside from a
privileged few like Tevis, the public was not allowed into the Grand Council
chamber itself. Business with the other offices in the building was steady, but
a trickle compared to places elsewhere in the city. There was no reason for all
these people to go there at once.

Strefer did not know what was going
on, but was certain there was a story in it. If it was in the Grand Council
building, it was technically Tevis’s story to take. As she moved along with the
crowd, she decided it belonged to her, whatever it was.

~~~~~

It took several minutes for the
herd to reach its intended destination. When it arrived in front of the Grand
Council building, the crowd began to sort itself out. The Sentinels pushed
through the throng and joined their brothers already deployed at the bottom of
the marble steps that led into the building. Buoyed by reinforcements, they
made a formidable, if not impenetrable, barrier. The rest of the throng, made
up mostly of those who worked in the compound in some capacity, milled about on
the great lawn in front of the building. A buzz of indistinct voices hovered
over them.

Strefer scanned the line of
Sentinels, hoping to find a familiar face, a source who might be willing to
tell her what was going on inside. Or, even better, to let her in. No such
luck. She thought she recognized a couple of the Sentinels, but she could not
pull the names from her memory. She would have to remember a name, at the very
least, to have any hope of working a favor out of them.

On one side of the line, there was
a small group of people talking to one of the Sentinels. As each one approached
him, they displayed some kind of identification. The Sentinel allowed some of
them to dash up the steps into the building, while others were turned away.
Strefer dug into the bag on her hip, pressing past papers and pens, and found
two cards in the bottom. One identified her as a member of the Guild of
Writers. The other, as a reporter with the
Daily Register
. She clutched
the cards tightly in her hand and began to wind her way through the crowd.

She tried to read the crowd as she
passed through, but found it difficult. The crowd was not large enough to
become an angry mob, spurred by the natural tendency of agitated people in
tight spaces towards violence. Not yet, anyway. But there was a palpable
uncertainty in the air, as if the people were trying to piece together what was
going on from rumor and innuendo. Strefer could hear snatches of conversations
around her as she walked.

“Someone was killed, right in the
Grand Council chamber…”

“I heard one of the Arborians
attacked one of the Telebrians…”

“A friend told me that he heard
someone broke in and shot all of the Guilders on the council…”

Strefer doubted that any of that information
was correct, at least in the details. There did seem to be a common thread,
however: that someone related to the Grand Council was dead. That repetition
made her think that much was true. Given the Sentinel presence outside and the
fact that they were limiting access to the building, it made sense to her that
whoever was dead had met a violent end. Murder in the Grand Council chamber
would be a huge story.

By the time Strefer had crossed the
lawn to the Sentinel who was controlling access, the line had dwindled to one,
an older man with the deep-green skin of the Arbor. She slipped in behind him.
The Sentinel turned the older man away, who then stomped off in a huff
muttering something about how this is what a dictatorship felt like and he should
know because he was from Vertidala. Strefer stepped up and looked the Sentinel
in the eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice
a mixture of vigilance and weariness. He was tall and forceful, with fine
light-green skin, most likely a Guilder. That was a stroke of luck, Strefer
thought. His pikti was slung loosely across his back. The way he carried
himself suggested he had been here a while.

Strefer opened the hand in which
she had clutched her identifications and handed them to him. “My name is
Strefer Quants. I’m with the
Daily Register
.”

He took the cards, gave them a
quick glance, and handed them back to her. “Why should I care? You don’t think
I’m going to let you in just because you work for some newspaper, do you?”

“Why not?” Strefer asked, slipping
the cards back into her pouch. “Is there something in there you don’t want
people to know about?”

The Sentinel shot back at her with
a wry smile. “I am afraid I cannot comment,” he said, with affected formality.

“Do you see a notebook in my hand?”
Strefer said, keeping the game going. It was one she would surely win. “I’m not
asking you for any comment. I’m just asking if there is something going on up
there that you’re trying to keep from the public.” She gestured towards the
doors at the top of the marble steps.

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear, missus,”
he said, the smile replaced by a glower as he stared down at her. “I have
nothing to say about whether anything is happening inside here. Much less to
the likes of you, notebook in hand or not.”

“Fair enough,” Strefer said in
concession. She decided to try another approach. “But you’ll let me by so I can
make my appointment, at least.”

“Appointment?” he asked, confusion
sliding across his face like the shadow of clouds moving across the sky.
“Appointment with who? And don’t say one of the Grand Council members. They
would be in session now. And, at any rate, they don’t greet visitors.”

Score one for her, Strefer thought.
She knew from talking with Tevis that interviews with members of the Grand
Council were possible. Cutting them off completely meant something important
had happened inside. “Of course it’s not with one of the Council members, who
do I look like? No, it’s with,” she paused for a moment, grasping for a name.
“Keretki,” she finally said, forced to pull a name out of thin air.

“Who?”

“Keretki,” Strefer said, knowing
this was her hook. “You know, the policy coordinator for the Arborians? I have
an appointment to meet with him to discuss some trade matters he has been
dealing with during the session. I’m sure you’ve seen him around here.” She
threw the last line in to dig a little at her adversary.

“No, missus, I don’t know him,” the
Sentinel said. “But this isn’t my regular patrol.” Another useful bit of
information. “Regardless, I can’t let you into the building right now.”

Strefer turned from amused to angry
in a flash. “Now look here. My boss spent weeks setting up this interview, all
right? The publisher back in Sermont even had to get involved. This interview
will be the centerpiece of our coverage of the Council session for the next
week or so. It’s very important. Not just to me, either, but Keretki, too. You
know the Arborians, always sniping at each other over the smallest things. He
has them all together on the same page for once and wants the public to know
about it. Do you really want to be responsible for pissing off all those
people?”

The Sentinel stood in silence,
reaching for an answer that was not coming.

“It’ll be worth your trouble, I
promise,” Strefer said. “Have you ever heard of Olrey, the publisher of the
Daily
Register
? He has a reputation for airing his feuds in the press. He could
make things very difficult for the Sentinels, the Grand Council, the…”

Exasperated, the Sentinel put up
his hands. “All right, all right, fine. You win.”

“Thank you,” Strefer said, suddenly
buoyant. “You’re a very reasonable man.”

But before Strefer could make it up
the stairs, he put his hand on her chest to stop her. “Hold on a second. You
get to go in, but there are two conditions. First, none of this conversation
we’ve had here is going to show up in your paper, all right? I don’t…”

“Agreed,” she said, cutting him
off. “Say no more. What’s the other one?”

“Second, the Grand Council chamber
is off limits. Got it?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Kerekti’s
office is on the other side of the building, I think. I won’t be anywhere near
the Grand Council chamber.”

With that, the Sentinel stood aside
and let Strefer proceed up the stairs. There were another pair of Sentinels
stationed by the front door, but they did nothing to halt her progress. Once
inside, she made sure that neither of them were watching her, then she went to
look for the Grand Council chamber.

~~~~~

Strefer racked her brain to try and
remember which end of the building housed the Grand Council chamber. It had
been months, if not years, since she had been here. Even Tevis did most of his
work in other buildings in the compound. Journalists were present during
council sessions only with the permission of the full Grand Council. Many
times, Tevis arrived only to be told that someone objected. Strefer was out of
her element. It would be impossible to ask for directions.

She looked left and right down the
long marbled hallway. To the left there was a series of very ordinary-looking
doors. At the end of the hall was a marble staircase. To the right there were
more doors, but where the staircase was on the other end was just a marble
wall. Strefer assumed that the Grand Council chamber was behind that wall. From
what Tevis had told her, the chamber was several stories tall and took up a
large part of one side of the building. She could see no way into the chamber
on this floor. Even if there was, it would be heavily guarded. She decided to
see what was on the other floors and walked towards the staircase.

The grand marble staircase spiraled
slowly, twice around for each floor Strefer passed as she walked up. She
arrived on the fifth floor, at the top of the staircase, and turned into the
hallway. At once she realized that she would not be able to get into the
chamber here. The fifth floor was where the main doors, the public doors, into
the chamber were located. They were at the other end of the hall, ornately
carved thick wooden doors with slim, high windows. There were people milling
around in front of the doors, including at least a few Sentinels. Regardless of
what was going on, there was no chance Strefer could slip past them. She
returned to the stairs and slipped away silently to the fourth floor.

There she found more of the same.
There were no doors into the chamber on this level, but there were still a
group of Sentinels and other people at the end of the hall. She could not
explore for any alternative entrances here. She moved down to the third floor,
but found the same situation there, as well.

When she arrived on the second
floor, Strefer was surprised to find that it was nearly deserted. At the other
end of the hall there was a single Sentinel standing by a door. That appeared
to be her only chance to get closer to the chamber. She knew that there were
other offices in the building, some of which were connected to the chamber
itself. Perhaps that was why there was only one Sentinel on this level. A more
obvious presence might lead someone to believe that the door was more important
than it actually was. Strefer hoped that whoever was running things was
thinking along those lines, anyway.