Chapter 11
After brunch Elena didn't see much of the council members, including her grandfather. A preliminary search found the door to the meeting room closed and Elena could hear the murmur of voices on the other side of the wood. She didn't test the door to see if it was locked as she had enough of council politics for the moment. The council was probably taking care of business she had no interest in. Elena turned away from the door.
Spending some time with her grandfather would be nice, but she was also relieved not to cautiously tread the verbal minefield of family relations. In the dining area the wait staff were completing the clean up from breakfast. She watched them and wondered if interrupting would be a good idea.
"May I help you miss?" A voice said from behind her. Elena turned, startled. "My apologies, I didn't realize you hadn't seen me." The voice belonged to a woman with dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and wearing a dark blue shirt with a golden L emblazoned on the breast pocket. It made Elena think of the shirts Laverne wore in the old television show. The show's theme song began playing in the back of her mind.
The woman's shirt was tucked into a pair of khaki pants. White canvas shoes completed the outfit. Elena recognized it as the staff uniform.
"Yes actually, I need to run an errand. I don't suppose there is a phone to call a taxi?" The woman shook her head.
"I'm sorry Miss. You are allowed the free run of the ship while you are here, but for your own safety we were asked to keep you aboard. If you let me know what is needed I could secure it for you." She looked apologetic and Elena sighed. "It really is for your own safety Miss."
"I understand," Elena said, knowing that the Council was trying to help her as well as being paranoid. She also knew no one on board would go against the direct order of the Council. She sighed. "It's sort of personal." Elena felt her cheeks flush red. "Um, you see I didn't have time to do laundry before coming on this trip and I am running low on undergarments. I suppose I could just rinse these out in the sink and let them dry overnight." The last comment she uttered was more for herself than her uniformed companion. She bit her lip thinking of wearing the date underwear for an extra day, but not seeing another way. "Well I suppose I'll have to make do."
"Oh no miss." She seemed offended at the mere thought of a passenger's discomfort. "That won't do. If you give me your sizes I can arrange for the items to be in your room." She pulled out a small notepad from her back pocket. A golf pencil was stuck in the spiral binding. The woman slid it out and flipped to a clean page. Elena gave her size requirements to the woman and they were quickly jotted down. Elena pulled her wallet out of her purse. "Oh no Miss. That isn't necessary."
"Oh I'm sorry," Elena said, afraid she had offended the woman. She waved away Elena's concern.
"Not a problem. I'll make sure these are delivered to your room. And you have further need, please let me know. My name is Regina."
"Thank you, Regina."
"My pleasure Miss." Regina turned back down the corridor and walked briskly away. Her underwear problem taken care of, Elena decided she could take advantage of the Council library and try to find some answers to a few of the questions that had arisen during the last few days. She pushed her sleeves up to her elbows and walked towards the library. The first question she wanted to have answered dealt with the details about being named Head of her own House. She was sure there would be benefits and just as certain there would be requirements made of her. Finding those out before the Council brought them up would be helpful.
She also wanted more information about being named Friend of the Guild. Elena shook her head as she entered the library. Those were two of her most pressing concerns. The first lesson her parents taught her about the Council was that they never gave without taking, giving every privilege some responsibility. In some cases Elena actually agreed with the concept. She spotted a computer in the corner and walked over. With a touch it sprang to life and the electronic card catalog was at her disposal.
The concept of paying for what you got helped keep everyone from getting too greedy or from having unchecked power. The higher the power, the more responsibility was a concept drilled into each of them at every stage of their training. However, dealing with the Council always left her feeling paranoid and questioning the motives of everyone around her. Elena sighed and clicked open a search window. She typed her question and prepared to wade through tons of useless information before finding anything relevant.
"After all it's not like Council law and Head of Household are that uncommon as phrases go." However before clicking the go button she noticed a box where she could check and only search the Guild archives rather than the entire library. She ticked the box, blessing whatever librarian had spent the time coding the documents separately.
"Besides, I can do a general search later," she said as the computer pulled up a list of resources. The list was pretty long, but nowhere nearly as extensive as a general search would be. Noting that all of the documents listed were located in the same general vicinity, she didn't bother copying the titles down onto one of the little slips of paper thoughtfully stationed next to the computer. She just walked over to the shelf listed.
Luckily, it was one of the lower shelves so she did not need to get one of the rolling ladders. As it was close to the floor, Elena just sat down, cross-legged on the floor in front of the books. The fat tome simple entitled Council Law looked promising. She pulled it off the shelf and flipped to the back hoping there was an index. There was none. She flipped to the front of the book and found the table of contents. Elena slid her finger down the page, allowing her eyes to follow. She mumbled the chapter titles to herself as she looked for something of interest. Several things caught her attention as she scanned the table of contents and she had to remind herself to focus. Once her questions were answered she could indulge her curiosity about the other elements of council law.
She turned the page and continued scanning. The fifth page of the table of contents held the title to a promising chapter and she turned to page 246. Mired in legalese and other official sounding verbiage she found that as a listed Head of House she was allowed to run her business as she saw fit as long as it did nothing to jeopardize the other families of the Guild. She was only answerable to the council member who headed up her regional families and to the council itself. She was now also eligible to vote in general elections whereas before she could only offer her opinion to her Head of House. And should a council seat open up, she could potentially be a candidate, depending on her individual qualifications. There were a few other perks, but those were the big ones.
"So there's the carrot," she muttered to herself. "So where's the stick?" She found it buried a few paragraphs down. "Not too bad," she said. She would now owe an annual tithe to the Guild, but the amount didn't seem too excessive. The tithe was not a set amount, but rather a percentage of her annual income, revised every year. As sticks went it wasn't a particularly heavy handed one. Elena weighed the thought of paying the Guild and realized it didn't bother her that much. She smiled at the page as she thought of Therese realizing what Elena had been given.
"Cheap at twice the price," she decided. Elena flipped back to the table of contents and continued scanning for a reference to Friends of the Guild. She spent an hour flipping between table of contents and pages in the Council Law book as well as several others. By the time she reached the end of the shelf, the only thing that she had learned was that a Friend of the Guild was someone who acted on behalf of the Guild and to whom the Council was somehow beholden.
She sighed and looked at the stack of books heaped on the floor beside her. Elena began re-shelving them. She was pretty
sure her act on behalf of the Council was tied to Ian and the military, but could find no reference as to how the Council was beholden and what that actually meant. That was something she found strange. The Council may always take something when it gave you something else, but it was always a very straightforward business transaction. Benefits and responsibilities were always clearly marked.
"Maybe there aren't that many people who actually help the Council out, so they haven't really thought about it." She mused. All of the books except Council Law were re-shelved. She picked the book up and deciding she didn't really have a better way to spend her afternoon, she stood and took the book over to one of the comfortable chairs. She settled herself into the chair and opened the book. Idly she wished she had a notebook to jot down key points, but let the thought go as she began to read.