by Ari Marmell
“Make up your mind. Which one?”
“Renard…”
“All right,” he said, taking a seat at the table. “The truth is, I witnessed you guiding our lovely host over in this direction, and I snuck in before you got here. I need to talk to you, Widdershins, and I'd rather not have anyone else know of it.”
“You snuck through my tavern?” Genevieve exclaimed, disbelief pushing her lingering fear to one side. “A tavern full of people? Dressed like that?!”
Renard smiled affably. “Indeed I did, my dear. As Widdershins has already so graciously testified, I am quite nearly as good as I think I am.” His tone finally came over completely serious. “Widdershins, are you hurt?”
“A little banged up, but nothing serious. Brock and his cronies got the worst of it.”
“Oooh, that's not good. He holds a grudge.” Renard sighed. “Well, better that than the alternative, I suppose.”
“Renard, please get to the point. Why is the guild angry at me?”
Another sigh. “I think we both know who ordered the attack on you, don't we, my dear?”
Widdershins nodded, but said nothing. It wouldn't do to mention names in front of an outsider, not even one she trusted.
But…
“Even she'd need an excuse, Renard. She doesn't have the authority to just decide to take out a member.” Not yet, anyway.
“No, she doesn't. But the guild is cracking down on anyone who, um, forgets to pay their dues in full. They're gathering up all outstanding funds, since the plan is to suspend all major operations for the duration of the visit. Avoid any unpleasant attention, and all that.”
Widdershins paused in the act of reaching for the decanter. “Visit? What visit?”
“You haven't heard?” Renard boggled, and even Genevieve stared in puzzlement. “You hang out in a tavern, you frequent the homes of the rich and powerful, and you haven't heard?”
“So I don't pay attention to the small talk. What are you on about?”
“Shins,” Genevieve told her, “William de Laurent is coming to Davillon.”
Widdershins's eyes looked as though they might pop from their sockets and careen across the table like billiard balls. William de Laurent, archbishop of Chevareaux, was the greatest High Church official west of the Blackridge Mountains, inferior only to the twelve cardinals and the prelate himself. If he was coming here, important affairs of church and state were quite clearly afoot. Possibly even the appointment of a new bishop to Davillon, a position that had sat unoccupied since Bishop Fontaine had died of a fever a couple of years before.
All right, so that would obviously be important to the city, the aristocracy, and the devout masses. But, “Why does the Finders' Guild give a fig about that?”
“Because,” Renard said, idly stroking his whiskers with a well-manicured finger, “if anything untoward happens during His Eminence's visit, the duchess and the Guard will come down on us so hard they'll be picking bits of us out from between the cracks in the cobblestones.” His attention flickered to Genevieve, who somehow managed to look vaguely puzzled through an otherwise impenetrable mask of worry.
“Have you never wondered, my dear, why the city doesn't just smash us flat?”
“I'd sort of assumed,” Genevieve offered hesitantly, “that someone else would just take your place. At least this way, they can keep an eye on you.”
“Well…” Renard frowned, and Widdershins couldn't help but snicker. So much for impressing the lady, Lambert.
“Yes, that's true,” he confessed. “But it's more than that. There've been times when they wanted to get rid of us, but the city's never declared war on the guild itself. It wouldn't be worth the bloodshed and financial repercussions, sure. Primarily, though, it's because of the Hallowed Pact.”
The barkeep glanced at her friend. “He's not seriously trying to tell me that the gods want Davillon to leave its thieves alone.”
Widdershins shrugged. “I'm not up on my theology, but yeah. The Shrouded God—”
“Our patron,” Renard interjected with an oddly reverential tone.
“Yeah.” Widdershins rolled her eyes so only Genevieve could see. “He's supposed to be one of the Pact, though I couldn't tell you which one. And since Davillon's patron is part of the Pact, and Demas of the Guard is part of the Pact…”
Genevieve understood. “So no wars between them. The Church forbids it.”
“Precisely.” Renard nodded, but his frown remained. “Still, the guild's nervous about making a nuisance of itself with a High Church official present. The archbishop just might have the authority to sanction an exception to laws forbidding an open conflict. Or he might not. Honestly, even our priests aren't entirely clear on the issue. In any case, we don't want to give him cause to consider it, or give the city cause to ask him. Better to lie low and sit this out. So the guild is snatching up what funds they can, and the Shrouded Lord—Lord, not God,” he interjected as Genevieve's face grew puzzled once more. “—is allowing you-know-who to be as heavy-handed as she likes, in hopes of cowing the more rebellious elements into submission—”
He knew it was a mistake even as the words marched across his tongue, but he couldn't snap his teeth fast enough to trap them.
“Cow me into submission?” Both her friends could see the fog of an indignant huff settling around Widdershins.
“Perhaps a poor choice of words,” Renard backtracked hastily.
Widdershins gave no indication of having heard him. “Who do those dried-up, incompetent, wrinkled, useless old half-wits think they are?!”
“Widdershins, such language!” Renard commented sarcastically. “Why, keep this up and you'll be calling them ‘poop heads' within the hour, and then what will the children of Davillon think?”
Her glare bored into him, leaving scorch marks in his expensive finery. “I should teach the whole lot of you something—”
“Widdershins, please!” The dandy's tone finally broke through her mounting rant. “You and I both know that you've got a reputation for being, shall we say, precipitous—and not entirely undeserved, at that. So you worry them. It's nothing personal, and you're not the only one. Let it go.”
“You're absolutely right, of course, Renard,” Widdershins told him with a gentle smile, her voice suddenly calm, even mild.
He squinted at her, not believing a word of it.
“In any event,” he barged ahead, “as long as she thinks you're holding out on your cut, that's all the excuse she needs.”
“What are you telling me, Renard? That I better pay up, even though I don't owe anything?” Much.
“If you have any emotional attachment to your kneecaps, yes. I'd hate to see your legs broken, Widdershins. They're such nice legs.”
“Fine,” she sighed. With a grunt of disgust, she thrust her hand deep into a pouch at her belt and scattered a large handful of coins across the tabletop. “Start with this. I'll see what I can do about getting Li—uh, you-know-who the rest of her precious coins. Before his Eminencialness shows up.”
Renard nodded, scooped the marks into his own pouch, and rose. “I imagine I can buy you a few days with this. Assuming,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, “that I don't decide to just go spend them on a fabulous dinner and a bottle of good red.” His smile faded at the look on her face. “Uh, right. I'll let you know if you still have reason to worry.”
“I always have reason to worry, Renard.”
“Of course. Widdershins, be careful,” he said seriously. “Don't do anything unwise.”
“Who, me?”
“Hmph. Mademoiselle Genevieve, it was an exquisite pleasure to meet you. Your establishment is lovely, though not nearly so much as its owner.” With another flamboyant bow, he swept from the room like an arrogant wind.
“An interesting fellow,” Genevieve commented blandly—too blandly, Widdershins might have said—as the door shut behind him. “Not at all what I expected from a thief. He was actually quite pleasant.”
“I associate with you, don't I?”
“Not that sort of association!”
“Ah.” She looked up suddenly, accusing. “Shins, you told him you weren't holding back on the guild!”
“I'm not,” the young woman insisted stubbornly, and then quailed beneath the barkeep's disapproving glower. “Well, no more than anyone else!” she protested somewhat less vehemently. “Really! It's expected of us, Gen! That's why the percentages are so high, because they know they won't get a full accounting!”
“Shins…”
“I'm doing them a favor! If I reported my take honestly, it would throw off their accounting system! They'd get too much from me. It would mess up their numbers, or they'd start expecting the same of everybody! It's my duty to hold back on them!”
Genevieve crossed her arms and began idly tapping a foot. It sounded like a small woodpecker, patiently chipping away at the floor.
Widdershins's face fell. “Who are they to tell me what to do anyway?” she mumbled petulantly.
“They're people who can get you in a whole mess of trouble if you don't do as they say, Shins.” Genevieve frowned. “And from the looks of things, they're going to get me in trouble too.”
“I'm sorry, Gen,” the thief breathed. “You're right. I'll pay up. I promise.”
“Good.”
Genevieve said nothing more, but by the time Widdershins departed later that night, the worry still hadn't entirely faded from the barkeep's eyes.
Lisette Suvagne, taskmaster of the Finders' Guild, second only to the Shrouded Lord among Davillon's thieves, prostrated herself on the worn carpets of the chapel. It was a posture, a reverence, an obedience she would offer to no man or woman—one that she loathed to the depths of her soul. She was fire, was Lisette. From her blazing red hair to her powder-keg temper to her burning ambitions, she was the embodiment of flame. Only her outfit, all greens and blacks, failed to promise a searing heat. Any mortal who had demanded such submission from her would have died in the asking.
But it was no mortal to whom she offered her devotion today. Here at the center of the guild's complex, in the looming stone shrine that smelled thickly of herbal incense, stood the city's only known idol to the Shrouded God from which the leader of Davillon's thieves took his own title. It loomed against the far wall, a stone icon slightly taller than a man. Though tradition held that the Shrouded God was one of the divinities of the Hallowed Pact, nobody in the modern day—not even the eldest of the guild—remembered his name. They called him simply by his title when they offered their prayers of thanks for a particularly rich haul or a narrow escape from the thief takers of the Guard.
The figure was clad simply, in sculpted images of soft boots, thick pants, and snug tunic centuries out of fashion. A heavy hood of thick black cloth—real, not hewn from the rock—covered the idol's head. Guild tradition mandated that none but the Shrouded Lord might ever look upon the face of their god—and even then only during the ceremony that established him or her as the guild's new leader. Terrible curses both ancient and powerful were said to guard against blasphemy, ready to strike down any who would dare peer beneath that hood; and though Lisette wasn't certain she believed in such curses, her faith stayed her hand no matter how great her curiosity grew.
Faith in her god, who watched over her, and faith in herself that one day she would be permitted to look upon him properly, as she took her rightful place as the next Shrouded Lord.
There was, perhaps, no honor among thieves—but in the form of Lisette Suvagne, there was certainly fanaticism.
For long moments, she remained hunched, arms outstretched, until her muscles quivered and screamed for relief. Only then, her prayers and her penance complete, did she allow herself to rise lithely to her feet. A final bow to her one true lord, then she swept from the room to go and confront the man who—for now, only for now!—dared believe he held equal authority over her.
She stalked through several short corridors, finally stepping through an open archway into a chamber of haze. A steel portal slid shut behind her with ghostly silence, and Lisette bowed at the waist—the closest she would ever come to kneeling before any human—before her mortal liege, the sovereign of thieves across the length and breadth of Davillon.
The Shrouded Lord.
“Rise, Lisette.”
She straightened and glared at the phantom before her.
No matter how often she saw it, the effect remained impressive. The chambers of the Shrouded Lord were thick with the musky smoke of several incense braziers that were never permitted to burn out and were larger by far than the one that perfumed the chapel. The great hood and ragged garb that was the uniform of the guild's leader blended perfectly with the haze, with the curtain before which he sat, with the cloths draped over his throne. It was impossible to tell where man left off and smoke or curtains began.
Brilliant. And also melodramatic almost to the level of cheap opera, but the thieves would have their traditions, no matter how theatrical. She wondered briefly, as she always did, which of her fellow Finders actually wore the hood. Nobody but the guild's own priests, who chose and oversaw the ascension of each Shrouded Lord, ever knew who spoke from behind that mantle.
“Report,” he commanded in a bored tone.
Though she seethed internally, Lisette's voice was all business. “Laremy and Golvar have reported an average of a seven percent increase in dues since instituting our new policies. Assuming we can sustain this rate until the archbishop's arrival, we should have no difficulty maintaining standard expenses for the duration of his stay.”
“And if not?” the Shrouded Lord asked.
Lisette shrugged. “Then we tap into emergency reserves for a few weeks. But I don't think the numbers can drop low enough from present levels to pose any real problems. In fact, I'd like to propose that we maintain these policies once de Laurent has departed. We—”
“Write it up and submit it. I'll consider it then.”
Bastard. “Of course.” She cleared her throat, irritated in part by the incense, as she gathered her thoughts. “In terms of specific payments—,” she began, but again she was interrupted. The Shrouded Lord raised a hand, a phantasmal gesture amidst the smoke.
“What's this I hear about Brock attacking one of our people?”
Damn the man! How does he learn these things so quickly?
“I've had to sic several of our enforcers on a number of our members, my lord, as part of the fund-raising. Perhaps you might be more specific?”
The misty form leaned forward in his chair, or at least it seemed to. She couldn't entirely tell through the smoke. “Don't be dense, Taskmaster. We both know who I'm talking about.”
Lisette frowned, absently fidgeting with the scabbard at her waist. “She was underreporting her take. I treated her no differently than anyone else!”
“Ah, Lisette. I believe, in fact, that Widdershins owes roughly a third as much as anyone else with whom Brock has ‘talked.' You know I prefer to use him only as a last resort, since he tends to break things. And people. Are you truly still so angry with her after all this time?”
I spent a year in planning the d'Arras job! she wanted to scream at him. It was a masterpiece, greater than anything the city had ever seen! It might even have made me the Shrouded Lord, and that little bitch comes along and—
But it was a tirade the Shrouded Lord had heard a dozen times before—minus the bit about Lisette taking his mantle, of course—and he hadn't found it convincing then either. Perhaps new sins would build upon the old and finally tip the scales, but it hadn't happened yet.
When Lisette said nothing, the hooded form only nodded. “I see. I would hate, Taskmaster, to ever get the sense that you're abusing your position over a private vendetta. Our enforcers are to be used on guild business only, not personal. And Widdershins is to be treated like any other Finder. If she gives you a reason—a real reason
—you may deal with her accordingly. Not until then.”
“I understand, my lord.” The words were more bitter than the smoke.
“Good. Write up the rest of your report, Lisette. I don't think I need to hear it just now.”
Jaw clenched, Lisette bowed once more and backed from the room.
Still, by the time she'd reached her own quarters, her fury had cooled. All right, fine. She'd deal with Widdershins “like any other Finder.” She would be very careful, very specific in her orders to Brock.
But then, she'd also remind Brock that if things got a little out of hand—well, it would be her job as taskmaster to see to his punishment….
FOUR YEARS AGO:
“I'm not so sure about this, Pierre,” Adrienne complained to the young man who all but dragged her along, his right hand clamped firmly on her left.
“When are you ever sure of anything anymore, Adrienne?” came the gruff response. “Now pick it up, would you? We'll be late if I have to haul you the whole way.”
“Maybe we should be,” the girl muttered, though she did, finally, allow herself to be rushed.
At thirteen now, give or take, Adrienne was beginning to shed the awkwardness of childhood. She was trim rather than scrawny, though meals remained a hit-or-miss proposition at best. Various escapes from angry “patrons” and Guardsmen had made her faster, more agile, even bestowed a bit of skill with the rapier that had hung at her side for the last two years. Though she'd snatched it with the firm intention of selling it—and had viciously berated herself for not doing just that, on many a cold and hungry night—she couldn't bear to part with it. If nothing else, it was something to impress the other street thieves with (even if she'd also had to use it to fight a few of them off, from time to time).
Something else had changed in recent days, as well: She'd met Pierre Lemarche.
Pierre had experienced both sides of life, and was deeply bitter to have been stuck with the bad. His parents were dead, his father having taken his own life as creditors confiscated the family's estates after one financial gamble too many, but not before putting a flintlock ball through his wife's skull.