by Ari Marmell
“Oh, for Cevora's…Act in your capacity as law enforcement, not household guard! You do have that authority, even when it's not our House's turn to provide the reeve's manpower. Unless you're about to try to explain that you understand city law better than I?”
“No, of course not, my lady. But—”
“Abduction and assault of one of the nobility.”
“Mother!” Cyrille's cry was high, almost boyish. “She did no such—”
“I said silence! Trespassing on Delacroix lands. And on suspicion, at least, of being involved in the attacks on our House. To start with.”
Jourdain frowned, mustache crinkling, but stepped forward, hand outstretched…
Cyrille crossed the tiny room in two running steps to stand between the thief and the guard. “No! Gods damn it, she didn't—”
For the first time, Calanthe's anger traveled in harness with a growing uncertainty. “Cyrille! Stop this at once!”
“No, Mother.”
In spite of everything, Shins found herself chuckling at the twin expressions of utter shock on both the Delacroix's faces, one at hearing such a thing, one at saying it.
“Jourdain, kindly prevent my son from doing himself any further injury.” The order was no less forceful, for all that it trembled around the edges.
The two armsmen advanced, the misgiving obvious in their expressions showing not one whit in their posture or their movement.
At the very least, the boy wasn't foolish enough to draw steel. His first punch connected with the younger guard's chin, sending him staggering, more shocked than pained. Yet Jourdain was on Cyrille before he'd even recovered from the swing, arms winding about the aristocrat's own arms and neck in what must have been a painful, but presumably undamaging, wrestler's hold.
And Shins knew precisely what she needed to do.
“Trust me,” she whispered, for all she knew Olgun would never do otherwise, then lunged for the grappling pair.
Slowly, clumsily—at least for her.
The soldier Cyrille had struck grabbed her from behind, just as she'd figured he would. She thrashed, kicked, put on what she hoped was a believable show—all the while, her hands fluttering behind her back, fingers dancing unseen and unfelt along the armsman's belt.
Yes, that'll do….
It took, all told, less than a minute until Cyrille and Shins were both held fast—or, in the latter case, apparently held fast—before the matriarch.
“Well done,” the woman said, her tone once again iron. “Take them both back to the manor, and—”
“Apologies, my lady. I can't do that.”
Cyrille would have had to twist his neck enough to make an owl wince to stare at Jourdain, but that certainly didn't stop the others.
“I beg your pardon?”
“As you ordered, I've placed Widdershins under arrest in my capacity as a servant of Aubier. That means I'm legally bound to turn her over to the reeve for imprisonment and trial.”
“This doesn't concern her!” If a particularly dignified possum ever began to lose its patience, Shins imagined it would sound something like the matriarch in that moment. “I've given you your instructions!”
“I'm sorry, truly. But it does, now—and I, with utmost regret, cannot obey.”
Widdershins hoped, for Cyrille's sake, that his mother didn't catch the slight twitching of his lips at her obvious discombobulation.
After a moment of fierce—and blatantly obvious—inner battle, Calanthe shook her head. “Fine. Turn her over for now. I'll discuss specifics with Veroche tomorrow. Make sure Cyrille gets home and stays home until I've the opportunity to deal with him.”
The swirl of her skirt as she spun might have been more dramatic had the hem not slapped against the ankles of three different guards in the process. She pushed past her men toward the steps, and was gone from view.
A handful of the guards hustled Cyrille along on her heels. He had time for only a single plaintive look at Widdershins before he, too, was gone.
Jourdain studied the prisoner for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, “Search her. She's a tricky one.” Somewhat more softly, “I do apologize. My men will be professional.”
“No worries,” she told him brightly. “I've been groped under cover of authority before. Besides…” Her smile widened, her face lit up even further. “If I feel any hands where they shouldn't be, I'll break them. Twice.”
The men started to snicker, then stopped when it became very clear that Jourdain wasn't joining them.
“See?” she told them. “Ask your boss if I can do it, yes?”
Jourdain nodded slowly. “I do believe she can. And if she has need to, I do believe I'll let her. Now make this quick.”
It was, indeed, quick. And thorough.
And very, very polite.
They took from her not only her rapier and the obvious tools on her belt, but the belt itself, the picks hidden in her gloves, her gloves themselves, a small file hidden in her boot, and her cloak.
“Be careful with that sword, please,” she requested. “It was handed down to me by some guy who wanted to kill me with it.”
In the end, they had everything that could possibly have doubled as either a weapon or a tool. Widdershins, in turn, had leaned back into the man holding her and snapped one of the many decorative bits off his employer-provided belt—one she'd pinpointed earlier, during her imperceptible examination. A roughly shaped lion of copper, it wasn't much, but Shins—and Olgun—didn't need much. It vanished up one sleeve, where the armsmen had already searched, and sat snugly against her skin as they gathered up her belongings and began marching her across Aubier once again.
“As gaols go, I have to say we've been in better.” Shins followed up with a clucking tsk-tsk sound.
Olgun grumbled something empathically.
“Well, yes, but it's the principle of the thing! Where's the challenge in breaking out of a place like this? Where's the fun in complaining that there's nobody I can brag to about it if it's not worth wishing I could brag about?”
Olgun either agreed with that logic or—more likely—abruptly had to find somewhere to lie down and let the dizziness pass. Either way, no response proved forthcoming, and Widdershins returned her attention to the rather underwrought “prison” around her.
The gaol was a simple open building, attached to the offices, archives, and meeting chambers of those few members of city government who were not also people of influence in a noble House. Crude, to say the least, it consisted of a few tables and chairs for the constables on duty, some padlocked chests for prisoners’ belongings, and of course the cells themselves. These latter ran along the length of one wall, separated from the guards’ area and from one another by thick, iron bars. Each cell contained only a wooden cot with a moth-eaten blanket, and a chamber pot that had apparently been cleaned by the expedient method of showing it running water from afar.
There had to be some other prison in Aubier, something more secure and certainly larger. Perhaps this was simply a way station for people on the way there, or to trial? At the moment, small as it might be, this one was almost empty. Other than Shins herself—and Olgun, if he counted—the only other inmate was a scrawny, slovenly fellow two cells down, flopped bonelessly on his cot and making sounds not unlike a hog gobbling up a small foundry. The sour reek of alcohol was almost overpowering even from here. Anyone actually in the cell with him would most probably be drunk from the fumes alone.
Widdershins was uncertain just how long she'd been here, as she'd taken the opportunity to catch up on some missing sleep. She knew it had been hours, though; could tell both by the sunlight streaming in through the narrow, barred window, and by the single constable sitting at the table and idly doodling on the wood with a stick of charcoal. He had not been on duty when she arrived, was not one of the Delacroix armsmen or anyone she'd seen before.
“When's lunch?” she called cheerfully. “And is there a menu?”
The guard
looked up and over. “At lunchtime. And yes, you have a selection of two options today: Take it or leave it.”
“Aww, I just had those for dinner last night.”
He quickly turned away, but not before she spotted the chuckle peering out from behind his teeth.
“All right, Olgun, what do you think? Wait until nightfall, yes? If they've changed shifts by then, the new guard might be more alert, but—”
“’ey! I know you!”
Even had the drunk not been the only other person present, even if she hadn't glanced over her shoulder to see his face pressed against and between the bars of his own cell, she'd have had no difficulty figuring out who'd addressed her.
“Could you breathe in the other direction?” she asked him. “My eyes are watering, my throat stings, and I'm pretty sure at least one of my teeth is melting as we speak.”
A few bleary blinks—and even those appeared to tax the fellow's remaining coordination—and then, “Huh?”
“Never mind. No, I don't think we've met. If we had, I'd still be having difficulty breathing and a hangover.”
“Yeah!” If he shoved his face any farther between the bars, Shins was certain his eyes would pop out and soar across the room. “You're the girl ashk—asking about the Thoushand Crows! We're shu—supposed to-to keep a lookout for you!”
“Oh. Well, here I am. Better go report me, yes?”
“Right!”
He blinked again and proceeded, with some alacrity, to stay precisely where he was.
“Olgun? That thing you do, where I hear or see a little better than normal? Does that work with the other senses, and can you reverse it?”
A particularly peculiar tingle—she felt as though she could almost smell it, as opposed to merely feeling—and the rancid aroma faded to only somewhat nauseating levels.
“Thank you so much.” Then, more loudly, “So you've got your ear to the street, yes? You know what's what, and who's who, and when's when?”
Vigorous nodding, only mildly confused. At one point, he thumped his head against the iron hard enough for the bar to ring, but he didn't even notice. “Yeah, I do. When'm not in here, anyways….”
“Oooh…” Had she forced any more sycophantic awe, her voice might well have offered to go fetch her a drink. “And you were supposed to tell the Crows about me?”
“All are,” he said, chest puffing out. “Anyone who sees you. Maline wantsh you pretty bad…”
“Maline?”
“Ivon Maline. Boss.”
Shins nodded. “I didn't know that,” she cooed.
The drunkard's chest puffed up farther still—but only for a moment, until he remembered he still had to breathe.
“And how were you supposed to tell the Crows about me? I guess a fellow like you must have a standing invite to their headquarters, yes?”
“Don't think they have one,” he admitted, “’cept for whatever member's flat they're meeting at this week. Naw, just go to one of the plashes—places they go to drink. Find one if I know him, otherwishe let ’em find me. Always do seem to know when I got shomething good to tell ’em.”
“Like magic? Everyone tells stories…”
“What, Fingerbone? Shcarecrow-looking freak, that one. Nah, no magic. Achemly.”
It was, finally, Widdershins's turn for a bit of confused blinking. “What?”
“Achemly,” he repeated firmly.
The young woman's mind whirled, stretching back to what little formal education she'd received under Alexandre Delacroix. A word, a term, something she'd come across in passing while studying histories and largely ignored.
“You mean ‘alchemy’?” she asked eventually.
“That'sh what I said! Achemly! Deaf doxy…”
Shins slumped down on the cot, chin resting on one fist, struggling to dredge it all up. “Why the happy hopping hens didn't I pay more attention to the tutors? Don't even think about answering that, or I'll tell Calanthe Delacroix about you. Wouldn't it be fun being their household patron?”
She would have assumed it required an actual corporeal body to shudder, but Olgun made a pretty good show of it anyway.
“All right, so…” Whether it was speaking aloud or Olgun nudging at her thoughts, it slowly began to come back. “It's an old, old practice, yes? Science right on the cusp of magic? Cauldrons and tubes and boiling sludge. Acids and preservatives, poisons and cures, changing lead into gold and flesh into stone, all that.” She paused. “Is that what you were trying to explain to me? The blight on Delacroix lands and that choking stuff in the smithy? That was all alchemy?”
The god offered up a tentative, uncertain yes.
“Nobody practices that anymore,” Shins muttered. “I know I read that. That's why it was in a history treatise. So what the figs is a gang of common cutthroats at the rear end of civilization doing with it?”
If Olgun didn't require a body with which to shudder, he most assuredly didn't need one in order to shrug.
“Fat lot of help you are. All right, patience.” She leaned back against the cell's only true wall, softly scraping the copper adornment over the stone, gradually mashing it into a thinner, more useful shape. “Picking the lock should be simple enough. We just need to watch for our chance…”
In point of fact, they didn't need to watch for their chance, for it was only a few hours later when…
“What do you mean, ‘free to go’?!”
It was a middle-aged woman to whom that incredulous—and rather shrill—question was directed. Her graying hair was tied back in a tight bun, making a very avian face appear sharper still; the leather jerkin, pale tabard, and rapier all marked her as a soldier or duelist of some sort.
She raised an eyebrow, now, even as she gestured for the guard at the table to fetch her the keys. “Welcome to leave? No longer under arrest? Seems fairly clear to me.”
“But…. But…” Widdershins flailed a hand helplessly, feeling strangely cheated. All that work on this stupid little decoration!
“Did you particularly want to stay?”
Shins sighed. “No. No, I didn't.”
“Well, then.”
The guard appeared, handing over a ring of keys. The older woman began flipping through them, occasionally glancing back at the lock.
“Why am I being released?” the soon-to-be ex-prisoner inquired. “Isn't this going to get you in trouble? Who are you? What about Lady Delacroix? When—?”
“Gods, girl! Do you ever stop talking?”
“I don't make a habit of it, no.”
Keys clattered. “My name is Rosselin Veroche. I serve as reeve for Aubier.”
“Reeve?” Shins had heard the term earlier but wasn't familiar with it.
“Ah…” Veroche chose one key, held it up to the light, then inserted it into the latch. “Mayor, speaker, chief constable…To an extent. All the duties, precious little of the authority.”
The lock thunked, and the door of bars opened on screeching hinges.
The thief rose from her cot, stretched, and stepped from the cell. “I think you got the raw end of that deal, yes?”
The reeve smiled faintly, then called over her shoulder. “Fetch the young woman's possessions, would you?” She tossed the keys back to the other constable, who began sorting through them as she had done. “Look, Mademoiselle…Ah, ‘Widdershins’? Truly?”
“It's a name.”
“Very well. Widdershins, I've spoken at length to m’Lady Delacroix—and to her guard captain, well beyond his mistress's hearing. As I understand it, her objections to you are largely personal. There is no evidence against you of any of her accusations—beyond trespassing—and her own son is likely to make a statement supporting your version of events?”
“Um…I guess?”
“I trust Jourdain. We've served together.” The lid of one wooden chest clattered open, revealing Widdershins's belongings. “I don't know what in the names of the Pact is happening in Galice, but nobody's keeping the Houses in check. Th
ey used to at least be subtle; now they just throw their weight around without a care. Frankly, I have more important things to do with my time and resources than hold you and try you in pursuit of some blue blood's vendetta.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
The guardsman across the room snorted softly. “She tells everyone.”
Veroche tossed him a glare she clearly didn't mean. “It's not a secret how I feel. I expect I'll no longer hold this post after the next House gathering. Until then…”
Shins nodded, gathering her stuff. She noted that her rapier had been peacebonded—tied in its scabbard—with a thin leather cord. It'd be easy enough to unravel, but it meant she couldn't immediately draw the blade or turn on her former jailers.
“Guess not every guest is as satisfied with their stay as we are,” she murmured to Olgun. More loudly, she continued, “Well, I certainly appreciate it. Thanks so much, I'll just be—”
“Leaving Aubier,” the reeve interjected.
“Um, that's not precisely what I was about to—”
“Yes, it is. I've enough trouble in my city, Widdershins, and you are very clearly a magnet for it.”
“Oh, sure, blame the victim!”
Veroche was clearly unwilling to be sidetracked. She leaned one shoulder against the bars, though Shins couldn't imagine how that was a comfortable posture. “You've seriously angered one of our most powerful noble Houses and put me in a position to irritate them in the process. You have at least one of the thief gangs after you, do you not?”
“Thousand Crows,” Shins muttered.
“Figures. They've been everywhere, past few months. That sort of trouble, neither of us needs. So, for both our sakes—and because your other option is back in that cell—you are to head straight from here to the road. You may stop to purchase supplies, if you require. Other than that, get out of Aubier, and kindly take as many of your troubles as you can with you.”
“All right, all right, fine!” The younger woman finished strapping on her sword belt and whirled her cloak over her shoulders. “Anything else? Am I allowed to breathe your air on the way? Should I check my boots, make sure I'm not stealing any of Aubier's dirt or snow?”