by Ari Marmell
“I know that!” Gerard repeated. “I'm just saying, something needs to change! She needs to hire on someone who knows how to run a place like this, or-I don't know, take lessons or something. But she can't just keep on doing what she's been-”
“We've got a customer,” Robin interrupted, overtly relieved at the sound of the front door. “I've got to go. We'll discuss this later.” Much, much later.
She spun away from Gerard's glower and plastered a smile once more across her face. “Good afternoon!” she chirped. “Welcome to the Flippant Witch, how can we…”
This, she couldn't help but observe, was not exactly your standard tavern-goer.
The newcomer was a tall man, young, probably about as much older than Widdershins as Widdershins was older than Robin. His onyx-black hair was tied back in an ornate braid, revealing the sharp, narrow features of a well-bred aristocrat. He wore a heavy traveler's coat and one of the brand-new tricorne hats (currently gaining in popularity in Galician high society, but not yet common in Davillon itself), but what snagged Robin's attention was the blade at his side: a long rapier with a brass bell guard, and what looked to be an honest-to-the-gods ruby in the pommel!
This was, without doubt, a man of means-and given how careless he was about advertising those means, he was either an idiot or unshakably confident in his ability to defend himself.
In that same corner of her mind, Robin casually noted that most girls her age would probably find the fellow irresistible.
“…help you,” she finished lamely, about eight or nine hours later.
The stranger smiled, a gleaming white expression that might or might not have been genuine; Robin, for all her experience reading people, couldn't begin to tell. “And a fine afternoon to you, mademoiselle. I'd very much like to speak to the owner, if I might.”
Robin felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. Sure, the request could be legitimate-but given Widdershins's past, and the sorts of people she dealt with, the odds were stacked against it.
“I'm afraid the owner's not in just now,” she said carefully. “If you wanted to leave me a message, I'd be happy to pass it along.”
“Hmm. I'm not sure that would do at all, honestly. Any idea where I might find her? Or when she might be back?”
“I…don't think it's my place to share someone else's schedule, I'm afraid. You understand.” She glanced around, and was gratified to see that Gerard had sidled over toward the bar-and the heavy cudgel they kept back there for emergencies. “I'm one of the managers here; are you sure there's nothing I can help you with?”
The man's grin slipped, just a hair. “No, you can't. I know the young woman who goes by the name ‘Widdershins’ owns this place; I've seen the prior owner's will, down at the Hall of Judgment. My business is with her, and no one else.”
“I'm sure,” Robin said, struggling to keep her voice steady, “that she'll be sorry she missed you.”
Just that quickly, the nobleman's smile was back in place. “I'm certain she will. Ah, well. Tell her Evrard stopped by, would you? And that I'll call on her again later?”
“Evrard?” The name didn't mean anything to Robin. “And have you a family name?”
“I do,” he said simply. And then he doffed his hat, offered a quick and courtly bow, and turned on his heel with military precision.
Robin watched the door that drifted shut behind him, and then slowly glanced toward Gerard. He could only shrug.
“Do you mind watching the place for a while?” Robin asked him.
The server cast an exaggerated look across the entirety of the common room. “I think I can probably handle the vast hordes for an hour or two, yes.”
Robin was out the door before she even finished nodding her acknowledgment. Widdershins needed to know about Evrard; something about the man really worried Robin, and she could only hope Shins would have some idea of who he was. Thankfully, even if nothing else was going right that day, she had a pretty good idea of where to find the itinerant thief-turned-tavern-owner.
And she also had to admit, though she hated to do so, that Gerard had a point. Much as she loved Widdershins, they simply hadn't had these sorts of problems-or not often, anyway-when Genevieve was alive.
“Hello, Genevieve.”
Widdershins slowly lowered herself to sit cross-legged beside the ornate gravestone. Graven angels lined the marble monument, hunched as though supporting both the name inscribed across its surface and the cross of Banin that adorned its top.
Technically, Genevieve Marguilles had deserved a full-fledged mausoleum, with four walls, an ornate sarcophagus, and room inside for mourners. But the young woman had been estranged-very publicly-from Gurrerre Marguilles, her aristocratic father, and so the demands of propriety (and expense) for her final resting place were somewhat lighter than they otherwise might have been.
Widdershins, for her part, was just as happy this way. Here, she could sit close beside her best friend-and Genevieve herself, Shins liked to think, would have preferred it.
Now, at the tail end of spring, the grasses throughout the entire cemetery were healthy and thick, the trees draped in emerald, the many flowers bright and pungent. But around Genevieve's grave, those grasses were particularly lush. Roses, irises, and poppies intertwined around each other, forming a garland about the headstone and, in a few instances, creeping up the sides of the marble in intricate patterns. The aromas of those flowers, carried by a gentle breeze centered on this spot alone, somehow mixed into a perfect blend that reminded Widdershins overpoweringly of Genevieve herself.
She said nothing for a long moment, only offered a grateful, heartfelt smile through her falling tears. And Olgun, who knew the smile and the thanks were for him, and for the work he had done here, offered in return a single waft of comfort and support before withdrawing into the deepest corners of Widdershins's mind, so that she might be alone with her friend, and her thoughts.
Slowly, Widdershins removed a bottle of cheap wine from the sack she carried at her side. The sound of the popping cork was close enough to a pistol shot that, even though she herself had pulled it from the neck of the bottle, Widdershins couldn't help but jump. She poured a few mouthfuls into the soil beside the headstone, then took several deep gulps herself.
“It's not the best vintage,” she apologized, “but I didn't think you'd approve of us sharing the good stuff without some reason to celebrate. And, well, I can't pretend that my being here is a special occasion, can I? You're probably sick to d-ah, sick of hearing from me by now. How many times have I been here in the last…?” Widdershins ticked off days on her fingertips, and then, with a shrug, gave up on the whole notion and took another swig from the bottle. “I just wish I'd bothered to visit you as often when you were still…” Again she trailed off, this time with a moist sniff.
“Gen, I'm sorry!” The stone, the flowers, the entire cemetery were beginning to blur. “I'm trying to take care of your place, your people, I'm really trying! But I don't know what I'm doing; I don't know how to keep it going. You'd know; you'd know just how to deal with everything that's going on in this stupid city, but me? I was never any good at anything except…well, you know. I don't-I don't think you'd approve of me funding the Flippant Witch that way, and I've tried not to, but…”
Widdershins lay one palm flat against the marble, dropped her head, and sobbed as quietly as she could manage.
She ignored the distant sounds of footsteps on the cemetery's winding earthen paths. Mourners were constantly coming to visit this loved one or that, and here, if nowhere else in Davillon, everyone was respectful enough to leave everyone else alone. Already she'd noted, and dismissed, several strange faces-a few haughty and irritated, but some genuinely sympathetic-glanced her way during her crying jag.
This time, however, the steps didn't gradually pass beyond hearing. Instead, they grew nearer, ever nearer, and then…
“Shins?” The voice was soft, scarcely more than a breath.
Widde
rshins bolted upright, wiping her tears with the back of a hand as she came up on one knee and spun halfway around. “I-what? Robin?!”
“Shins, are you all right?” the younger girl asked.
“I–I'm fine.”
Apparently, whatever she saw on Widdershins's face or heard in her voice pretty well put the lie to that. With a soft cry of her own, Robin darted forward and wrapped her friend in a frighteningly intense hug. (One might have called it a “bear hug,” except that Robin could not possibly, in any stretch of metaphor, ever be compared to something that large. A “rabbit hug,” maybe.)
For a second, perhaps two, Widdershins stiffened, as though she'd pull away-and then she collapsed, burying her face in the shorter girl's collar. “Robin, I miss her!”
“Shh…I know, Shins.” They stood for long moments, Widdershins practically shaking in Robin's arms, Robin gently stroking her friend's hair. “I know…”
Finally, Widdershins straightened up once more and gently pulled away. Robin, after a moment's apparent hesitation, let her arms fall to her sides.
“But…” Shins said, blinking her now red-rimmed eyes. “Robin, what are you doing here?”
“Looking for you, actually. It wasn't hard to figure out where you were. You've been spending a lot of time here and with, uh, Alexandre.”
Widdershins nodded. Alexandre Delacroix's grave was in a different cemetery-but both graveyards, reserved primarily for the aristocracy and their families, were fairly near one another.
“I've lost a lot of people, Robin,” she said, slowly lowering herself to sit once more on the grass, gesturing for her friend to do the same. “But none of them ever hurt this much.”
Robin said nothing to that, perhaps with the full understanding that there was nothing she could possibly say.
“So, all right,” Widdershins continued some time later. “You were looking for me. I assume for some reason other than you just missed my sparkling wit and engrossing conversation, yes?”
Robin's lip twitched. “Well, those, too. But yes.” In precise details-or what precise detail she could recall-she went on to describe the peculiar encounter at the Flippant Witch and the appearance of the man who had initiated it.
“Evrard?” was all Widdershins asked when all was said and done.
“That's what he told me.”
“But…I don't think I know any Evrard!”
“Well, he certainly thinks he knows you, Shins.”
“Great.” Widdershins idly kneaded the grass between her fingers. “You know, I don't need this. If I was going to make a list of things I don't need, this would be right near the top.”
Robin snickered. “You'd put something you didn't know about at the top of a list? How would you accomplish that, exactly?”
Widdershins stared haughtily down the bridge of her nose. “I,” she announced, “have talents you cannot possibly imagine.”
For reasons that Widdershins couldn't possibly fathom, Robin looked away, her face flushing ever so faintly.
“Um, right,” the older of the pair continued, now more confused than ever. “If nothing else, I'd get Olgun to help me.”
That, of course, wasn't really the right thing to say, either. Shins had tried, some months ago, to entice Robin into Olgun's worship. Robin had only grumbled something about Banin not protecting Genevieve, and that she'd little use for any deities, and refused to speak any more on the topic whenever Widdershins tried to bring it up.
It was, thankfully, Robin herself who provided the subject change for which Widdershins was so desperately casting about.
“Shins, I…Um…There's, ah, something else we probably ought to, you know, talk about….”
A single dark-brown eyebrow rose at that. “Oh, boy. This sounds serious. You haven't been this nervous since you smashed that bottle of Scyllian red all over the kitchen floor.”
“I told you, that wasn't my fault,” Robin protested absently. “The label was slippery 'cause it'd been over-waxed, and-”
“Robin? It's all right. What did you want to say?”
“Well, it's just…Shins, the Flippant Witch isn't doing real well.”
Widdershins's face went stiff. “I know that.”
“I'm not blaming you!”
A few heartbeats more, and then, “It's all right, Robin.” Widdershins's expression softened. “It is my fault.”
“It's not. The city-”
“Genevieve would know how to roll with it. I'm trying my best, Robin. I am.” Again she found herself clenching her fists in the grass, as though clutching for the woman who now lay beneath.
“I know you are, Shins,” Robin told her. “It's just…Well, some of the guys don't seem as sure. Maybe if you were there a little more often…If they could see you working alongside them, you know? But you've…You haven't been around much recently.”
Widdershins studied the base of the headstone. “I've been trying to save the tavern my own way,” she whispered.
Robin blinked, as though unsure what her friend meant. And then, “Oh, Shins. I don't know if Gen would've wanted you to save the Witch like that.”
“I don't either.” Widdershins sniffed; she would not cry again, by gods! “But it's all I know how to do.” She shrugged, then, smiling without much humor. “Or at least I used to. It's not as though last week went all that well.”
“Last week?”
Her own face flushing now with embarrassment, Widdershins told Robin of the attempted robbery at the Ducarte estate some days earlier, and the fabulous mess that had resulted.
“Bouniard let you go?” Robin squeaked.
“What, you think I belong in gaol with the rest of the thieves?” Widdershins's smile was, she hoped, enough to take the sting from her words.
“No, it's just…That doesn't really sound like him, does it?”
“He's…been coming by the tavern, Robin.”
“He has? I never saw…”
“Only occasionally, and only when I'm running a shift. It's like he knows. He always says he's just stopping by for a drink, but I think he's keeping an eye on me, yes? I thought, at first, he was hoping to catch me doing something illegal, but…I don't know, Robin. I've actually started looking forward to our conversations. They're-I don't know, a little awkward, but…”
The other girl, at this point, had tucked her knees up to her chest. “You can't trust him, Shins.”
“I wouldn't have thought so, but after that…He protected me. I'm not sure what to think anymore.”
Robin wrapped her arms around her knees, almost curling into a ball. “It's good that you have friends, I guess,” she said dully.
“I don't know,” Widdershins repeated, shaking her head. “Maybe he just didn't want to deal with me. I mean, he's smart enough to know that I'm not dangerous, so between the other thieves and whatever's been creeping around the streets at night, maybe he's got his hands full.”
Robin, who-like everyone in Davillon-had heard plenty of gossip regarding the strange and seemingly supernatural encounters that had terrorized portions of the city over the past week, shuddered briefly. It had never much bothered her wandering around in the dark; she could take care of herself, or at least run very fast and hide in small spaces. But the idea of running from something that wasn't even human…
“Has anyone died?” Robin asked, her voice suddenly tiny.
“I don't think so. Not that I've heard. Just a lot of scared people, and a few injuries.” Widdershins tossed her head, flipping a few stray strands of hair from her face. “I wouldn't worry too much, Robin. I'm positive that if it was truly dangerous, whatever it is, it would have been leaving bodies behind by now.” It was Widdershins's turn to shudder, given that it was barely six months since she herself had faced just such a nightmarish creature.
“Anyway,” she continued, rising smoothly, “I've got a meeting to get to.”
“Oh?”
“About last week's fiasco.”
“Oh.” Robin, too, clim
bed to her feet-rather more awkwardly than her friend. “That sort of meeting.”
“Yeah. Robin?”
“Yeah?”
“I'll take care of the Flippant Witch. And you. I promise.”
“I know.” The girl darted in, gave Widdershins a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then was off and running. “See you later!” she called back over her shoulder.
Widdershins offered a goodbye wave, and then frowned. “What?”
Vague disapproval from some distant point in her mind.
“Don't think at me in that tone of voice, Olgun! I can so take care of the tavern! I just need one job to go right, and we're set! Well, for a while, anyway.
“Ooh, you're impossible! I won't get caught! I haven't yet, have I?”
Olgun reached directly into her mind, or so it felt, and hauled a memory of Julien Bouniard across her vision. Widdershins's face, which had just returned to its normal color, went red once more.
“One time,” she muttered. “I won't count on it again. I won't need to count on it again! I'm better than that, I was just…out of practice. Oh, shut up!”
Still arguing with her god, Widdershins stalked from the cemetery and toward the poor, dilapidated district known as Ragway-and the headquarters of the Finders' Guild.
Dusk crawled across the face of Davillon, dragging the heavier shroud of night slowly behind. And with it, too, came a gentle but pervasive spring drizzle-not even true rain, really, but simply a wetness in the air that transformed itself into drops at the slightest provocation, so that pedestrians grew far wetter than the roads on which they traveled. Some increased their pace, hoping to escape the sudden damp and chill; others welcomed any relief from the warmth of the day.
Not, it should be noted, that there were all that many pedestrians on the streets of Davillon after dusk. The tales and rumors of brazen assaults on citizens by apparently supernatural perpetrators, though only a week old, had matured into panic. (The fact that the tales grew with each telling, as such stories always do, only succeeded in heightening the fear even further.) The Guard added extra patrols in those neighborhoods where the peculiar phantasm had struck, but nobody (including, if one were to be brutally honest, the Guardsmen themselves) actually expected it to do any good. People were more than content to go about their business during the day, but as the skies darkened, the streets emptied with dramatic alacrity as citizens retired to their homes, or-in slowly but steadily growing numbers-to late masses at the Pact churches.