Thief's Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) (24 page)

Widdershins, gliding silently through the alley ahead of them, drew to a halt, her shoulders rising in a sigh. “All right, that's enough, both of you! This is important, so hush up and let's keep moving. The faster we get there…”

“…the sooner we can leave,” the barkeep and the thief parroted in unison. “So you keep telling us,” Genevieve added. “But that's only if you survive, Shins.”

“Look!” Widdershins turned, wincing as the motion tugged disagreeably at her bandages. “We've got to hide, yes? Maybe for quite a while. Therefore, ergo, and to wit, we need money. Where am I losing you two?”

Renard cleared his throat, a fist hovering just before his face. “I believe, Widdershins, that it would be at the part where you decide to go back home and gather up your stash of coin, even though the people hunting you may well know where you live.”

The young woman idly kicked a clump of something from the road before her. It hit the left wall of the alley with a moist plop, and stuck. “I've told you, I don't live here. It's one of several rooms I keep around the city. Under fake names,” she added as Genevieve drew breath to speak, only to come over vaguely green as the atmosphere of the alley flooded her lungs. “I've got funds stashed in each. Enough to keep us going for a while, if need be. And it's perfectly safe!” she insisted in the face of their continuing glare. “It's not humanly possible for anyone to know about this place. There's no way to trace it to me. None!

“If it'll make you feel better,” she continued, “the two of you can wait here while I run up and gather the marks.” She pointed at a dilapidated building, four ugly stories in height. There were more holes in the wall than there were bricks. The wooden staircase—running up the side of the building and sagging like a dying vine—leaned several feet from the wall at multiple points, and pretty much looked to be about as sturdy and well designed as a glass battering ram.

“You know,” Genevieve replied dubiously, “that might be for the best.”

Widdershins smiled despite herself. “I'll just be a minute or three, I promise. There's nothing to worry about.”

“Worry?” Genevieve asked Renard as their mutual friend faded into the shadows. “Why would we possibly be worried?”

“I'm sure I can't imagine.”

For long moments they stood, trying their damnedest not to breathe for fear their lungs would rebel and physically fight their way free of the alley. Until, eventually, Genevieve turned, her gaze meeting Renard's squarely for perhaps the first time.

“She doesn't know, does she?”

“I beg your pardon, my dear? Who doesn't know what?”

“Widdershins. She doesn't know about you.”

Renard's eyes widened briefly, then narrowed. “I'm sure I have no idea what you're—”

“Oh, please. You're a professional thief, you're a member in good standing of the guild, and you're risking your life and your position just
being
here. I love Widdershins to death, Renard, but she can be a real idiot on occasion. I assure you, though, that
I
am not.”

The fop just about deflated; even the garish colors of his outfit seemed to go suddenly dull (though to be fair, that might simply have been the miasma of the alley eating away at the dyes). “You won't say anything, will you?” he all but begged.

“Why won't you?” Gen asked, not unkindly.

“Look at me, mademoiselle. I am many things, and I make no apologies for most of them—but do you believe me to be a man Widdershins could ever take seriously?”

“You might be surprised,” she told him. “But no, I won't tell her. It's not my place.”

“Thank you.”

And there seemed, at that, to be nothing more for them to say.

Widdershins's unshakable confidence lasted almost precisely to the midpoint of the first flight of stairs, which was, not coincidentally, the exact same point at which the entire structure emitted a mighty groan and shifted several inches to the left. She froze, hand clasped so tightly to the guardrail that the rotting wood began to disintegrate in her fist.

“Olgun?” she croaked. “Olgun, can…umm, that is, you
can
make sure this thing doesn't fall out from under me, can't you?”

There was no reply save another faint shift of the rickety stair. Dust cascaded from above, sifting into Widdershins's hair, tickling her nose. Only several heavy gasps prevented a sneeze that might have brought down the entire contraption.

“Olgun?” Little more than a whisper, this time, for fear that even so tiny a sound might have deadly repercussions.

Then, accompanied by a burst of silent laughter, Widdershins sensed the familiar pins-and-needles in the air, felt the decaying wood shore up beneath her feet and her ever-tightening grip.

“Oh,
very
funny, Olgun!” she growled, face inflamed at the laughter that sounded around her soul. “Hysterical, even.”

The mischievous deity continued to chortle.

“When you're through entertaining yourself,” Widdershins told him haughtily, “we can just be on our way.”

It took a moment more for the god to get a hold of himself—a long moment during which Widdershins stared irritably upward at the constellations not washed out by the light of the moon or hidden by long streaks of cloud.
We’ll probably have rain by morning
, she noted absently.

Finally, Olgun decided the joke was over, and they continued up the now steady stairs.

Widdershins halted at the top floor, not beside the door but at the right-most edge of the tiny landing. Fingers expertly found the cracks and crevices in the wall, feet sliding easily into the gaps that were, to her, as good as carved steps. Scuttling sideways, sure-footed as a spider, she passed over several windows, stopping finally at the fourth. She flipped a well-concealed catch on the pane, lifted the window, and slipped inside, all as silently as the moonlight pooling thickly on the floor.

“All right,” she commented, though whether to herself, to Olgun, or to the empty room at large was debatable. “That was easy enough.” Unhindered by the darkness, she made her way around the room, gathering her supplies. Within moments, she'd stopped by the cheap wardrobe in the corner. The gold lay hidden in a tiny hollow low in the wall behind it. She knelt, preparing to shove it aside to get at the prize beyond. “Let's get this done and get out of here.”

“I couldn't agree more.”

It was a hard voice, guttural, rumbling, a mastiff speaking through a mouthful of gravel and broken glass. Widdershins rolled backward and came instantly to her feet, rapier in hand. It was too dark in the chamber for her to see her opponent, though she was certain there had been no one present a moment before. Who was it? How did he get in?

More importantly, why had Olgun not warned her about him?

And
most
importantly, how the happy horses had they
found
her?!

“It's not possible!” she whispered as she braced for an attack, unaware she'd spoken aloud.

“Actually, what I believe you told your companions waiting outside in that filthy little alley was that it wasn't
humanly
possible,” the voice grated at her. “And in that, you're entirely correct.”

Widdershins lunged, blade aimed unerringly at the horrible sound, and connected with nothing at all.

“Who do you intend to stab with that needle, little girl?” The question came from off to her right. In that horrible voice, Widdershins sensed nothing human, nothing but contempt.

“You, if you've the courage to show yourself!” Fine, so it was mostly bluster, but she needed to see who she faced.

“As you wish.” A shadow moved, a darker blot in the night-cloaked room, and a shape appeared in the sickly moonlight.

“Is this more to your liking?”

Widdershins couldn't speak, could barely even breathe. Nothing save a primal whimper of hopelessness emerged from between her lips.

It was tall, bent low to avoid the ceiling overhead. All four limbs were hideously long and slender, as though some demented sorcerer had taken a normal man and stretched him like taffy to half again his starting height. Its flesh was the decomposing brown of poorly tanned leather, its jagged talons rusted iron, its head a misshapen amalgamation of man and boar. Thin patagia fluttered between its arms and distended rib cage, and a thrashing, serpentine appendage protruded obscenely from between its legs, complete with jagged fangs and forked tongue.

And it smelled, incongruously, hideously, of honey.

But it was neither horror nor fear that had drawn such a primitive, despairing sound from Widdershins. It was recognition.

“Hello, Adrienne,” the hell-spawned beast purred, thoughtfully stroking its twisted chin with claw-tipped fingers. Widdershins felt the space around her grow darker, heavier, as though the creature's very shadow were a palpable presence. “Or would you prefer Widdershins now? I would so hate to offend you, after so many years apart.”

It lunged, its enormous stride taking it across the room in a single step, and Widdershins had nowhere, nowhere at all, to run.

TWO YEARS AGO
:

Adrienne allowed the rhythm of the music, the ebb and flow of the dance, to sweep her through the hall of whirling couples and spinning bodies. The musicians were magnificent, the strings and winds weaving a tapestry of pure emotion. Dresses and gowns of the finest cloths, formal coats with silver buttons—all flashed past as her feet carried her the length of Alexandre Delacroix's massive ballroom. Her every move as graceful as those who were born to this life, Adrienne found herself smiling with a foreign sentiment she only scarcely recognized as contentment.

And if she had more difficulty in finding a dance partner than other women; if she danced alone more often than not; if some of the aristocrats fell back as she drew near, lips curled in a moue of arrogant disdain…well, it was their loss, as Alexandre had told her again and again, in the long nights when their disrespect had sent her sobbing or raging to her chambers. Some of Davillon's nobility had indeed learned to welcome this strange addition with open arms. Those who didn't, didn't matter.

The waltz wound to a close, the minstrels taking a much-deserved break before launching into their next piece, and Adrienne breathlessly worked her way through the milling throng. Her gown was modest, a deep lavender with tight sleeves of rich blue, a gift her mentor had insisted upon giving even though Adrienne could easily afford such things on her own, now. It was just that sort of behavior that kept the rumors of their nonexistent romance alive. For two years she'd lived in Delacroix's manor. Today, she could afford a place of her own as easily as she could the gown.

She loved the old man, true enough—as family, not as the gossips suggested—but this wasn't why she stayed.

Adrienne was afraid—afraid that without Alexandre at her side, her hard-won acceptance in Davillon's upper echelons would blow away like so much dandelion fuzz. She feared that, once she grew only a few years older, custom and propriety would force her to hire servants of her own, to throw her own parties, to play her own politics—all elements of high society she could happily do without.

But most of all, she feared that stepping out that door would bring her old life rushing back. She'd pushed it down, crushed it beneath the weight of stubborn determination, but still it haunted her at night, when such terrors shamble from their dens to torment innocent insomniacs. The sting of hunger and the itch of matted filth were never far from her thoughts. She'd never shaken the notion that this was all some majestic dream or fantasy, and she clung unconsciously to the childish notion that it was Alexandre himself who kept that fate at bay. As long as he remained in her life, the dream would continue.

These, however, were darker thoughts for other nights. Tonight was for music, for dancing, for…

“Watch where you're stepping, damn it!”

Adrienne spun aside just as the trailing end of a heavy banner flopped down where she'd been standing. She glanced up into Claude's angry eyes. He stood atop a ladder, struggling to straighten a hanging that had come loose. The image was the lion's head—not the masked crest of House Delacroix, but the unadorned feline face that was the symbol of Cevora.

But of course it was. Claude would hardly have cared enough to fix any of the
other
banners, would he?

“Don't you have a psalm to go sing?” Adrienne snapped at him, then spun off into the crowd before the angry retort in his eyes could reach his tongue.

All right, so maybe some dark thoughts
are
appropriate for tonight.

“Would it be presumptuous of me, Mademoiselle Satti, to say that you are easily the most radiant, most enchanting, and most wonderful sight present in this house tonight?”

And then again…

The young woman teasingly rolled her eyes heavenward, though her smile grew wide. “Presumptuous, Monsieur Lemarche? Not at all. Rather silly, though.”

Darien Lemarche, current patriarch of the Lemarche family, younger brother of the late and lamented Pierre, bowed gallantly and took a seat beside her.

He was very much like his brother, though he lacked, or at least appeared to lack, Pierre's selfish streak. Some eight or nine months after Alexandre took Adrienne in, the Lemarche family had—in an almost perfect echo of Alexandre's own social and economic recovery—reversed their fortunes once again and reentered the aristocracy without a trace of their old patriarch's stigma. Darien had recognized Adrienne by name when they'd first met. If he blamed her in any way for the death of his older brother, or even knew that she'd been involved in Pierre's final scheme, he never showed it, treating her with exquisite courtesy. She, in turn, considered Darien one of the few friends she'd made among the nobility, who were, by and large, more amiable in groups than as individuals.

Tonight, Darien was dressed in a magnificent overcoat of deepest burgundy, atop a pair of white hose and a black ruffled shirt. He'd chosen to forgo a wig, and his dark hair was swept immaculately back. He was, at least where Adrienne was concerned, more than a little stunning.

“Seriously,” he said, taking the time to nod a friendly greeting to another passing acquaintance, “how are you?”

The young woman was taken aback, not by the question, but its tone. “I'm just fine, Darien. Why?”

“I don't know. You just seem…I'm sorry.” He shook his head, jolting several curls out of alignment. “It's not my place.”

“Oh, please.” Adrienne smiled. “We've both been around enough to know where you can stick your ‘place.'” Darien blinked. “Tell me,” she insisted.

The young patriarch sighed. “As you wish, Adrienne. You just haven't seemed content of late, that's all.” He leaned forward, close enough to draw a few scandalized stares. “Haven't you felt at all, well, incomplete?”

She couldn't help but smile once more. “You sound like you're selling something. I'm quite happy here, Darien.”

“But it's not enough, is it?”

Adrienne frowned, her earlier thoughts circling through her mind once more.

“Adrienne,” he told her, fingers idly stroking the smooth arm of the chair, “I have something I'd like to show you.” He smiled. “Considering your—if you'll please pardon the unflattering cliché—'rags-to-riches' story, it's very possible he's been calling to you anyway. He may even have had a hand in your success.”

“He? He who? Who's he? What are you talking about?”

“The one who restored my family's fortunes, Adrienne.” Darien rose to his feet, extended a hand to the young lady. “Let's find someplace we can talk,” he told her softly. “You'll find it worth your while, I promise.”

They found their spot upon one of the manor's balconies, overlooking the intricate rose garden. Other couples, seeking privacy of their own, wandered below them, following the twists and turns of the almost-but-not-quite-maze of blossoms. The moonlight illuminated this jewel or that bauble, reflected from this woman's hair, from that gentleman's bald pate. A faint breeze, perfumed by the roses below, wafted across the open landing, ruffling Adrienne's gown as though she had some other small creature in there with her. Darien's expression was sincere, imploring. Hers was, to put it mildly, incredulous.

“You're joking,” she finally said.

The young man's face fell, but he refused to give in. “Not at all, Adrienne.”

“A god.”

“A god,” he repeated. “His name is Olgun.”

“I've never heard of him.”

“I'd be shocked if you had. He's not one of the gods of the Pact; I don't think the High Church has even
heard
of him, let alone thought about recognizing him. We only know him because our founder discovered his last shrine on a trading expedition to the northlands. There was one man there—Olgun's last priest, we think, but he spoke no civilized language, and died mere hours after they found him. We think Olgun was a major northman deity once, long, long ago.”

“And he put your family back on its feet,” she said doubtfully. “And you think he was responsible for my good fortune as well? Come on, Darien.”

“Adrienne, why do you think the Houses and guilds and governments
have
patron deities? How many icons to Cevora have you seen around Alexandre's home? For that matter, how do you think he recovered his family fortunes, if not with divine aid?”

She shrugged. “Luck? Skill? Random chance? I'm sorry, Darien. I believe in the gods, I just—well, they've certainly never done anything for
me.
”

“Haven't they?” Darien said cryptically. Then, at the look on her face, “Adrienne, you needn't take my word for it. There's over twenty of us, now. All aristocracy, all wealthy, and all of us have known a tremendous amount of good fortune since we joined. We're Olgun's only worshippers. It's not like the gods of the Pact, who have hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions calling on them at any given time. Olgun can concentrate on us alone, and he's not bound by the strictures of the Pact gods. With him at our side, we never risk losing what we have. No disgrace will ever befall my family again, I promise you.”

“Even if it's true, Darien,” Adrienne told him, her tone suggesting it was anything but, “what would I need Olgun for? I have all I need.”
And besides, if Cevora
was
responsible for Alexandre's recovery, did she want to risk insulting him?

“Except,” the young man argued, “the freedom to do what you want with it.”

Adrienne's jaw clenched.

“Come with me to one service,” he implored. “Just one. Olgun's not an evil god, or cruel. If you don't wish to join us, there won't be any repercussions. You have my word.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Darien said softly, “I would…very much like for you to be a greater part of my life. And I would have you see what fortune I have to share.”

She looked at the garden below, grateful that the pale moonlight hid the flush in her cheeks.

“Please, Adrienne. What have you got to lose?”

One evening the following week, while Alexandre was out on business of his own, Darien arrived at Delacroix Manor. Adrienne, clad formally in a red gown and a bodice of black suede, met him at the door. The servants would probably gossip, but somehow, Adrienne was pretty sure that an illicit religious rite was not among the activities on which their speculations would land.

They rode in style through the streets of Davillon, seated in a small carriage as fancy as Alexandre's own, and markedly more comfortable. The benches were well padded, upholstered in the finest velvet and cushioned with goose feathers. Horses and driver clearly knew the route, for there was a confidence in their step, a familiarity in the monotonous clop-clop of hooves on cobblestone. Idyllic, really, or it would have been had Darien not kept the windows shuttered and refused outright to tell Adrienne where they were going.

The young man's reticence, his dour expression and solemn mien, were amusing—initially. Adrienne couldn't help but chuckle, so out of character was the cheerful, happy-go-lucky aristocrat. After a half hour passed, however, and he'd said no more than three contiguous words, when she still had no idea where they were headed, when she'd attempted surreptitiously to lift the window shade and discovered it bolted down…then, finally, she began to grow just a bit miffed.