The Water Road

by JD Byrne

  Ho nodded. “And where did you get the information on the suspect? This Antrey woman?”

  “From the Sentinel who was guarding the crime scene. We have a long history together.”

  “He told you, explicitly, that Antrey was a suspect?” His tone was shifting from one of generous curiosity to one of confrontation, like he was interrogating a suspect.

  “No, sir,” Strefer answered. For the first time since she sat down, she began to feel nervous. “He told me that the Sentinels were looking for the halfbr—,” she stopped and caught herself. “Looking for Antrey because she had disappeared and most likely had some information about the incident. But I could tell from the way he talked that she was a suspect.”

  “And this red notebook,” he said, “the one with the summary of the Grand Council session, you saw it with your own eyes?”

  “Yes, sir, of course,” she said. She had planned to turn over the notebook, or at least let Olrey read it for himself, but she did not like the turn the conversation had taken. The notebook remained in the bottom of her pouch beside her.

  “But you did not have a chance to read the whole thing, did you?”

  “Not in the detail I would have preferred, sir, but…” she tried to explain.

  Olrey cut her off with a wave of his hand. He stood and walked towards the other side of the room. “Quants. A Guild name, is it not?” he asked, marking an abrupt change of subject.

  “Yes, sir,” Strefer said. She followed him with her eyes and then stood up when he walked out of her view.

  “What kind of license do you need to publish a newspaper in the Guildlands, Quants?”

  “License, sir?” she asked. The question did not immediately make sense to her.

  “How does a newspaper in your homeland operate? How can one publish?”

  Strefer shrugged. It wasn’t the kind of question she had ever given much thought. “Aside from being part of the Guild of Writers, sir, I don’t think there are any requirements. The Guild exercises some quality control. Enforces journalistic standards. Other than that, I’m not certain. I came to work for the Daily Register directly out of my apprenticeship, so I’ve never really worked for a Guild paper. Why do you ask?”

  “Come look at this,” Olrey said, waving her over towards the fireplace where he was standing. She joined him there. “You see this?” he asked, pointing to a framed document hanging over the fireplace.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, straining to read the words. The elaborate nature of the script, not to mention the height at which it was hung, made it difficult.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That is the royal charter under which the Daily Register operates. Without that charter, it would be illegal to publish this newspaper. I would not be able to hire any employees. The kingdom would seize my presses. Everything would vanish.”

  Strefer nodded, but didn’t see what this had to do with her.

  “The Daily Record was chartered over one hundred years ago by his grace, King Conlan III,” Olrey explained. “It is renewed with every new king, with the understanding that it can be revoked at any time and for any reason. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Strefer said, nodding. She now had a good idea of where this was going, but she did not like it.

  “Since you say you understand what I am saying, let me see if I understand you. You want this newspaper to publish a story, using information obtained by less than reputable means, that would undermine the entire foundation upon which the Triumvirate rests, to the potential embarrassment of the king by whose leave we publish this newspaper. All based on some theory you have summoned out of almost thin air, based on a quick look at a notebook of dubious provenance that may have nothing to do with the murder in the first place. Is that correct?”

  Strefer took the accusation personally. “Sir, I did nothing wrong in reporting this story. I was not summoned…”

  “I have no problem with your methods,” he said, cutting her off. “For a minor story about the petty atrocities of daily life, they serve very well. But a story like this, like the one you have written here, it needs to be locked down tight, gone over time and time again, before it is published. It must be completely true and easily defended. Both from our competitors, who will swoop down on any hint of falsity, and from our king.”

  “I understand, sir,” Strefer said, the energy of self-righteousness draining from her.

  “I am glad you do,” Olrey said. With swift purposeful movements, he walked back to the desk, picked up the pages Strefer had spent so much time working on, and walked back to the fireplace. “Then you will understand why I cannot publish this story,” he said, dropping the pages into the crackling fire, one at a time.

  Strefer stood by in silence, stunned by the swiftness of his actions. Her insides quaked between rage and heartbreak.

  “I think the best thing for you to do is to return to Tolenor,” he said, without looking at her. “Discuss the story with Tevis and nail down the facts about the killing. But leave out these wild theories about motives.” With that he looked up at her with a patronizing look. “Wild theories are not what good journalism is about. Motives will come out eventually, you will see.”

  Strefer ignored the platitude, instead focusing on the fruits of her labor as they curled away into black flecks in the fireplace. The only thing that kept her from screaming was knowing that at least she still had the red notebook. She thanked Olrey for his time and apologized, past a protesting conscience, for wasting it. She promised to submit a leaner story, more focused on known facts, when she returned to Tolenor.

  Chapter 11

  It had been three days since Antrey’s world had changed forever. Three days since she learned a terrible secret and acted out on that knowledge in a brutal way. Three days of long walks, alone, with only her thoughts for company.

  To her relief and surprise, it was much easier getting out of the city than she thought it would be. After the fear of being trapped in the Triumvirate compound, even in the walls of the place she once called home, she expected the worst on the streets of Tolenor. But aside from the customary hard stares and unfriendly glances, she managed to make it through the streets of the city without incident. She was able to slip away down a side street and change clothes into something warmer and better for travel without attracting attention.

  She sold her more formal clothes to a shop for forty-two Telebrian crowns. Antrey was sure the shopkeeper was shortchanging her, but she had neither the time nor desire to haggle endlessly. Time was of the essence, and she was in desperate need of money. Some of it was better than none, particularly if it was solid Telebrian currency. That would be a key element for survival so long as she stayed north of the Water Road.

  Coins in hand, Antrey decided not to use them to leave the city itself. A ferry from the island north up the Telebrian coast would have been quick, but would have moved her hundreds of miles north into hostile territory. And it would cost money. A better, and cheaper, route was to simply make the long walk across the Grand Causeway that connected Tolenor to the mainland. From there, she headed west into the Endless Hills. With her cloak on and hood pulled tight around her face, she blended in, as much as possible, with the crowd milling across the bay. She left the main road and went far enough from it so that she was reasonably sure not to draw attention from other travelers. Then she turned west again, maintaining a parallel course with the road as it headed upriver.

  The Endless Hills were, at least, a day’s walk from the Bay of Sins, in which Tolenor sat. They would provide a place to hide out, at least for a short time, while Antrey plotted her next move. She had nowhere to go, true, but she knew she could not remain nearby. Sooner or later someone would notice that she was missing. At the very least, Onwen would tell the Sentinels and whoever else was dealing with Alban’s murder that she was gone, that some things were missing from the house, and that she must surely be the killer. Antrey knew that On
wen would have made her a suspect even if she wasn’t one. That bothered her more than the fact that Onwen, in this case, would be right.

  Staying in Telebria was out of the question. Not only was it the closest of the Triumvirate members to Tolenor, but it was also the most conservative and stratified, bound up in traditions in which she could play no part. Many Telebrians were outsiders in their own country in every way that mattered. A mixed Altrerian/Neldathi woman even more so.

  Finding shelter in the Guildlands was not a realistic option, either. Compared to the Telebrians, the Guilders were much more open-minded and less tied to the past. But even they had their limits. A woman of talent, skill, and drive could rise to the heights of Guild leadership, whereas in Telebria she could hope to wield power behind the scenes at most. Still, a ranbren would not fare nearly as well, particularly one that took the life of a Guild member as revered as Alban.

  For a few moments she thought of going to the Arbor. The mere fact that the Confederation was a loosely aligned group of individual city-states, rather than a truly singular nation, meant many areas of the dense forest were free from any real control. But she was not familiar enough with those areas, those nooks and crannies, much less the cultures that prevailed there, to know where to find a safe place. She did know that trying to find one’s way through the Arbor without a map or a skilled guide was a fool’s errand.

  When it came to distance from Tolenor, it was hard to get more distant than the Badlands. Antrey did not know much of those dry wastelands and the Azkiri who lived there, other than that they largely operated outside of the Triumvirate’s control. But she wondered what their attitudes would be like towards ranbren, and a woman in particular. She could wind up spending all of her money to get north, only to find herself trapped, a captive subject to the basest desires. Gintie and Myral writ large. If she was going to spend all her money on a ship, she might as well go all the way to the Slaisal Islands and be done with the mainland altogether. But she knew less of the Islanders than she did of the others.

  As darkness fell on the third day of her trek, Antrey crossed a small, fast-moving stream for which the main road required a slight bridge. She decided to stop there and rest a while, for the first time since she paused in the shade of the tree outside the Triumvirate compound. The night was clear and the moon sufficiently bright that she did not need to build a fire. She set down her bag and pulled out the smushed bread and water that she brought with her. She also took out the dagger and laid it in front of her, close at hand if needed.

  Sitting against the trunk of a small but sturdy tree along the stream bank, Antrey ate and let her mind clear long enough to reflect on what she had done. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Alban lying on the floor, only his head was gone, replaced by a mass of pulverized bone and tissue. She knew it would happen, but the vision caught her off guard every time. This was not something she could just shrug off and get over.

  For the first time, however, she was beginning to understand it. All through her flight from the compound and out of the city there was no time to pause long enough, to think about why she had taken the pikti in her hands in the first place. She remembered now, recalling the anger she felt reading that red notebook, the summary of what the Grand Council had done. Remembering how confused she had been, when Alban caught her reading and then tried to justify it to her. She understood how the real but unfocused rage she felt became centered on Alban once it became clear he did not share her feelings.

  His reaction did not fit with the Alban that Antrey had known all those years. That Alban went out of his way to reach out to one of society’s outcasts, one who was living on the streets and barely surviving day to day. He could have just thrown her a few crowns. He could have just taken her home and had her do some menial tasks, to become the lowest of servants. Instead, he taught her to read and write. Made her a key part of his very important occupation. Perhaps most telling, he treated her like a member of the family, much to his wife’s displeasure.

  Why would that man try and justify the Triumvirate’s Neldathi policy? He must have known about it. She read it from a book kept in his office under lock and key, after all. And surely the Grand Council members knew it. Or did they? Could the program have been set up a century ago and run smoothly in the shadows ever since? Antrey did not know and was uncertain whether that would make things better or worse.

  Regardless of all that, Antrey knew that Alban did not deserve the fate she gave him. Whatever sins the Triumvirate had committed in the past years, they did not rest on his shoulders. He did bear some responsibility, to the extent that he knew of the program and did nothing to stop it or bring it to light. But weighed against the good Alban had done in the rest of his life, the scales were at least even, if not tipped in his favor.

  What was important now, Antrey thought, was that Alban’s death not have been in vain. All that she should have done when she found the red notebook and Alban confronted her she could still do. The fury that had coursed through her and found such bloody expression with that pikti could still motivate her to do something. But what?

  She could go public with what she had learned, but she was unsure how to do that or how successful it might be. Who would listen to a ranbren in the first place, much less one who was a killer? Even if she could get past that barrier, why should anyone believe her story? She had been so panicked in the wake of Alban’s death that it never occurred to her to take the red notebook with her. It would almost certainly be locked away again, or perhaps destroyed. It was merely her word about what she had read.

  She also wondered if the average Altrerian would care about such a monstrous project. In her experience, most Altrerians thought of Neldathi with scorn and fear. Whatever bad things might have been done to them were surely justified, in one way or another. Those few who had a more compassionate view of the Neldathi did so through a lens that rendered them some sort of lesser, damaged race, not fully competent to deal with the world.

  Ultimately, she concluded that the only place to take this knowledge where people would care to hear it, if they believed her, was to the Neldathi themselves. She would have to cross the Water Road and head south into the mountains, find the first clan she could, and tell them everything she knew. They should listen to her, at least. She had no idea what they might do after that, but it was a start. She hoped, deep inside her, that if the Neldathi saw how the Triumvirate had been manipulating them for all these years they might stop fighting each other. Even better, perhaps they might begin to work together. A few unified Neldathi clans would quickly grab the attention of the Triumvirate. Organization would be the only way for them to check the power that the alliance held over them.

  As the moon lit the stream bank in pale blue light, Antrey pulled the blank journal out of her satchel, along with the fountain pen. She opened the journal and began to write down all she remembered before any of it was forgotten.

  ~~~~~

  Antrey awoke the next morning to the splash of a light rain falling on her face. She had fallen asleep slumped against the tree on the bank of the stream where she had been writing. A moment of panic flushed over her before she found the journal, which had somehow fallen underneath her cloak and was not very wet. She grabbed it and snapped it shut, thrusting it back in the satchel before it was soaked. She quickly gathered up the few things she had left lying around and sought shelter under the bridge that the main road used to cross the stream. There she caught her breath and rearranged her belongings so they all fit in the satchel. She put on her cloak, pulled up the hood, and began to walk downstream, away from the bridge towards the Water Road.

  Once she made the decision to take the news of the Triumvirate program directly to the Neldathi, Antrey concluded that she needed to cross the Water Road as soon as possible. It would be difficult wherever she tried to do so and there was no point in putting it off. She would have to do, in reverse, and on purpose, what she had done all those years ago by chance: find a spot eq
ually distant between two of the garrison forts and swim across. As long as she could not see them, Antrey figured, they would not be able to see her. The crossing itself would be long and exhausting, but she was in much better shape than she was when she did it the first time. Her belongings would be wet from the rain, anyway, so there was no need to worry about the river ruining them. And the gray slate sky and persistent chill might make anyone watching the river less enthusiastic about their task.

  It had been so long since Antrey had crossed the Water Road that she couldn’t remember how far from the river the road was. It could not be more than a mile, and probably much less than that, she thought. If all went well, she would be across the river by nightfall. The rain showed no sign of abating as she followed the small stream, the lumpy ground turning to mud under her feet. It would be a cold night on the other side of the river.

  While she walked she thought, as she had done for the past several days, turning over the decision she made the night before and examining it from every possible angle. Every review convinced her that going south was not only her best option, but was the right thing to do. The Neldathi deserved to know about the Triumvirate interference in their lives for all these years.

  She also wondered more about what unification of the Neldathi clans, or at least some of them, might look like. At the least, it should mean that the endless wars, feuds, and other conflicts between them would stop. No small feat, she knew, but it was possible. It might also mean that the clans could have a powerful voice with which to deal with the Triumvirate. And, though she hated to admit it, make them stronger as a military force, as well. Unification would change the entire dynamic of this land.

  The more she thought about it, Antrey realized that the initial problem with some kind of unification was finding the right person to bring the clans together. Could one of the existing theks, the clan leaders, do it? Armed with the knowledge that their intramural fighting all these years had more to do with Triumvirate meddling than real differences between clans, could one of them rally others to the cause? Antrey didn’t think so, although she had to admit she was just speculating. Even if she could convince the Neldathi of the truth of their situation, that would not change the history of the past century. It would not change the fact that one clan had spilled the other’s blood, which then retaliated, in a brutal cycle all these years. How could the thek of one clan that had been bloodied by another fall under their leadership?