False Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) (15 page)

“There's something unusual about her, Ferrand. I felt it.”

The monk shrugged. “I'm not doubting you, Your Eminence. I'm simply saying that nobody else seems to have noticed.”

Sicard grimaced at Ferrand for a moment, then at the small chandelier that hung from the ceiling—as though seeking answers or inspiration from what was, at this hour, the room's only illumination—and then back at the monk once again.

“And this riveting report couldn't have waited until a decent hour?” he asked finally. “I'm fairly certain that nothing you've just told me qualifies as especially urgent.”

“That's, um, not precisely what I came to tell you, Your Eminence.”

“Oh? Then get to it, man!”

“Well, it seems that there have been a few deaths….”

“Deaths?”

Ferrand nodded. “As regards your, um, ongoing project.”

“Bah.” Sicard returned to the book on the desk, reaching out for a quill to make a few notes in the margins. “I've heard the rumors, too. Utter nonsense. Just the sort of exaggeration we
expected
from this sort of—”

“All due respect, Your Eminence, but it's not. I'm not speaking of whispers on street corners. I've spoken with City Guardsmen who were at the scene. Who observed the—well, the bodies.”

Sicard straightened, slowly letting the quill topple to the desk. “That's not possible, Ferrand.”

“Nevertheless…”

“My instructions were
specific
!” The bishop was slowly standing now. Papers crumpled beneath his fists on the desk, and his cheeks flushed red above his beard—whether with anger, with shame, or a combination of both, even he couldn't honestly have said. “Nobody was to be killed, or even badly harmed!
Nobody!
Terrorized, yes. Even slightly injured, gods forgive me, to make it all seem real, but not…Gods, what are they…?”

“It's not precisely what you think, Your Eminence. Your, ah, ‘assistants’ weren't responsible.”

“I don't understand.”

“Two men clad in strange, flowing black garb—including full face masks—were among the dead. I wasn't present when you made the arrangements, but they certainly
sound
like what you've described to me.”

Sicard fell back into his own chair with a muffled
whump
. “But…I don't understand. Who…?”

“That's what the Guard is investigating.” The monk rolled his head back, trying to stretch away some of the tension in his neck. “Rumor going around the Guard is that a young thief by the name of Widdershins was somehow involved in what happened, though few of the stories agree on precisely how.”

“Widdershins? That's an odd…Why do I know that name?”

“Brother Maurice's report,” Ferrand said gently, “of William de Laurent's murder.”

The clench of Sicard's teeth was a crack audible throughout the room.

“Maurice swore,” Ferrand continued, “that this Widdershins was a friend to the archbishop, that she actually
thwarted
a prior attempt on his life. But he also admits that he knows little else about her, as William dismissed him from the room during the bulk of his conversation with the young woman.”

“Could she be responsible for what's happened, then?”

“I couldn't begin to guess, Your Eminence. But if she's involved in this,
and
in what happened with the archbishop last year…Well, I find it difficult to write off as coincidence.”

“As do I. Is the Guard currently hunting for her?”

“I wasn't able to learn that, I'm afraid.”

“All right.” Again the bishop's fingers drummed across the desk, this time in a rapid patter much like hail, or the impact of a blunderbuss's lead shot. “If she's responsible for what's happened, then either she's attempting to use our ‘haunting’ for her own schemes, or she's learned what we have in mind and is trying to prevent it. Either way, she cannot be allowed to continue.”

“And if she's not responsible, but involved in some other capacity?” Ferrand asked.

“Either way, we can't afford to have her interfering until we know more.”

Ferrand nodded and stood, recognizing the cue when he heard it. “What would you have me do, Your Eminence?”

“Davillon and our Mother Church are only just starting to mend their disagreements, correct? We should make it clear to the brave and noble Guardsmen that such efforts could only benefit if they were to arrest this Widdershins with all speed—and that said efforts could well suffer should they
fail
to do so.”

The monk's expression flickered for the barest instant, and Sicard wondered if he was actually preparing to question the propriety of using a Church office to bring such pressures to bear. But instead he finally shrugged, offered a shallow bow, and departed, leaving the bishop alone with thoughts far darker and more brooding than they had been only a few minutes before.

She dreamt of the pain.

It ran deep, burning, searing, itching, aching, no matter how her mind struggled to escape. She dreamt of herself as a child, and it was there. In winding alleys that never ended; on wooded mountainsides; in a cathedral that became the Finders' Guild; in the Flippant Witch, which became a house; while desperately searching for a chamber pot and some privacy in which to use it; when locked in the embrace of a man whose face she couldn't see, and wasn't sure she wanted to know; through it all, the pain remained. Though she never, during or between any of those dreams, fully awakened, she could feel herself tossing and turning, her skin burning with what may or may not have been fever, clammy against the sweat-soaked sheets, trying and failing to find comfort; and the pain remained.

Until, finally, her mind began to quiet, and she felt the balm of Olgun's tranquility, his concern, his protection wash over her. And the pain remained—but finally, it began to lessen.

Consciousness was a sickness, at first, a parasite that she wanted nothing more than to fight off. After a few moments, however, as mind and body adapted to the idea that perhaps waking up wasn't the worst possible fate in all of recorded history, the final fog of dreaming faded.

Widdershins licked lips that were as dry as parchment and opened her eyelids, squinting against the light.

She realized three things in rapid succession. First, that she was not in any room with which she was especially familiar, as the ceiling—apparently rough, cheap stone—wasn't one she knew. She might have thought that she was in a prison cell somewhere, except that most prison cells didn't have mattresses this comfortable, and smelled a lot worse.

Two, that her chest and shoulder hurt a lot. A
lot
. More than she'd have expected, if Olgun had indeed been working to heal her, though certainly less than any normal person would have felt under the circumstances.

And three, her left hand was aching pretty fiercely in its own right. What could she possibly have done to her…?

Oh.

“Robin?”

“Shins! Oh, my gods, you're awake!” The pain in Widdershins's hand actually grew worse. “Guys, she's awake!”

“Robin, you're crushing my fingers….”

“Oh!” The girl's grip slackened, much to Widdershins's relief, but she refused to relinquish her grip entirely. “I'm sorry.”

“’Sall right. Where…?” She tried to sit up and fell back, biting back a groan, as her shoulder flared anew.

“Stay still, my dear lady. You need your beauty sleep.”

That voice—most certainly
not
Robin's—was quite enough to spur her into doing the precise opposite. She sat up once more, this time ignoring the tightness and the pain, and examined the room over her young friend's shoulder.

She saw Julien first—and, indeed, upon seeing him, recognized from the walls and the worn carpeting that she must be somewhere within the headquarters of the Guard—but it hadn't been he who spoke. So who…?

There. Seated on the edge of the major's desk as though he owned it, a handsome (if rather short) fellow grinned at her from behind a dark mustache and a pair of bluest eyes. His tunic was colorful enough to make the average flower garden seem positively drab, the buckles of his boots were polished to a mirror sheen, and he wore a purple half cape thrown dramatically over one shoulder. Widdershins saw an ostrich plume sticking out from behind him, and knew from experience it was attached to a foppish, flocked hat.

“Renard?!”

Renard Lambert, one of the few Finders whom Widdershins actually trusted (for all that he often annoyed the stuffing out of her), shot to his feet and bowed so low that his bangs nearly brushed the floor. “At your service, most lovely Widdershins.”

“What in the name of the gods and all their pets are you doing
here
?”

“Have you noticed,” Renard said with a sniff, “that you always greet me that way? It's never ‘Wonderful to see you, Renard,’ or even just a simple ‘Hello,’ but always ‘What in the name of some silly expression are you doing here?’ It's enough to make a gentleman feel unwanted.”

“And you, too, I'll bet,” she said smugly—which effect was ruined when she couldn't help but laugh at the look her comment brought to his face.

Then, when it became clear that Renard wouldn't offer any additional explanation, she turned back toward the others.

Julien, in response to the unspoken question, could only shrug. “I sent for Robin. I knew you'd want a friend close by—and one who could, ah, keep you company while the chirurgeon worked without, let's say, sacrificing either propriety or modesty.” He blushed faintly, as did Widdershins herself.

“I appreciate you thinking of that,” Widdershins said.

“Uh, you're welcome. But as for this ‘gentleman’…” He cast Renard a narrow grimace. “I've no idea. He said simply that he had ‘sources’ and insisted he was a friend. I'd never have let him stay, but Robin vouched for him.”

At Widdershins's puzzled look, the other girl smiled faintly. “I figured, with so many of the Guard out looking for this phantom-thingy, and with Major Bouniard having his own duties to attend to, it made sense to have someone nearby who could protect you in case…” Although her voice may have trailed off, the flicker of her eyes toward the wound on Widdershins's shoulder—a wound that, Widdershins only now realized, was swathed in bandages—left no doubt as to her meaning.

“Sources?” she asked Renard, trying not to grin.

“The good major and his fellow officers dislike believing that the Finders have eyes and ears within his ranks, but that doesn't make it any less true. Has been as long as there's been a Guard.”

“And you're comfortable just telling me about it to my face?” Julien snapped.

“Seeing as how you've no evidence that I've committed any crime, and thus have no grounds to hold or question me—to say nothing of the fact that I couldn't identify most of our informants anyway—why should I not?”

“Bouniard,” Widdershins interrupted, before the argument could go somewhere unpleasant for all concerned, “what am I doing here, exactly?”

“You…Widdershins, you came here looking for help. Don't you remember?”

“Well, yes, but I'd have thought—”

“You collapsed,” he told her. “It was safer for you to have you treated here, rather than try to take you anywhere else. And I could actually keep your presence quieter here than if I'd had to arrange for constables to help me transport you. I, ah, wasn't entirely sure that everyone in the Guard would understand why I was helping you.

“You're in my office, Widdershins. Have been for nearly a day. I had a mattress brought in, and I've left orders not to be disturbed except in dire emergency.”

“Why would you do all this?”

Julien's flush grew even redder, and he actually began to fidget like a schoolboy. “Because you needed me to,” he said finally.

Hesitantly, even shyly, Widdershins stretched out her hand. Just as slowly, the major stepped near enough to take it.

“Thank you, Julien.” She couldn't quite bear to meet his stare; neither could she look away. She found herself smiling—and all but basking in the smile she got from him in return. Apparently acting without bothering to wait for orders from her brain, her fingers tightened their grip on his hand, and for a moment, she actually forgot the pain of her injuries.

Until, suddenly, a conscious thought actually wormed its way through the wall of surging emotion, and all Widdershins could think was,
Oh, gods, I must be such a
mess! Somehow, the fact that she'd been badly wounded, and unconscious for most of a day, didn't feel like much of an excuse.

It was Olgun—and wasn't it always?—who guided her back to an even keel. A faint surge of undifferentiated emotion, the equivalent of a gentle cough, was enough to grab her attention. From there, she felt as though she were briefly floating in what she could only describe as a pool of calm, cooling the extremes of her emotional turmoil and lingering pain both.

“Thank you,” she whispered again, this time too low for any mortal ears in the room—and Olgun could certainly have never doubted that her thanks were for more than just that moment.

Widdershins took a deep breath, felt her heart slow to something vaguely resembling its normal rate, and tore her rapt attention from Julien's face (or at least the vicinity thereof) to take in her surroundings. Indeed, she recognized his office, now, as she'd been there a time or two before. The same rickety chairs; the same cheap desk that seemed about ready to collapse beneath the tectonic shifting of the parchment continents moving about its surface; the same oily lamps that added an acrid tang to the air and had stained the walls a color that wasn't really gray, but wasn't really any other color even more than it wasn't really gray. All that had changed was the mattress on which she now lay.