False Covenant wa-1

by Ari Marmell

  “I beg your-”

  “Please, let's not insult one another's intelligence, hmm? Your last visit here was about studying me, so that's not why you came back. It certainly wasn't to hear my sermon. Were you hoping to spy on me, or simply to attack me outright?”

  Widdershins felt her jaw trying to unhinge itself again.

  “Your plan was one or the other, was it not?” Sicard pressed.

  “Um, of course not,” she lied.

  “Of course not.” Sicard chuckled. “Widdershins, a man doesn't reach my position without learning the ins and outs of intrigue. You wouldn't last five minutes in the political wrangling I've seen.”

  “William wasn't like that,” she muttered.

  Sicard's smile fell. “William de Laurent was a great man. One of the best I've ever met. But he left his footprints on enough backs and shoulders on the way up. We all do.

  “And you,” he suddenly roared, his wine threatening to spill across the table and his pristine cassock, “haven't the right to speak his name!”

  Widdershins couldn't help it; she actually recoiled, sinking back in her chair against the unexpected surge of fury. Even Brother Ferrand jumped a little, and his expression was ever so slightly wild.

  “What…What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “You know damn well! I have no idea what your vendetta against the Church may be, little girl, but it ends now!”

  “Vendetta? Vendetta?! I've done nothing-!”

  “We know you were involved in Archbishop de Laurent's murder-”

  “I was trying to save-!”

  “I've read Brother Maurice's report. It's confused and spotty, and leaves out far more details than it includes. I doubt his conclusions, frankly.”

  “But-”

  “Especially since you're so obviously working to sabotage us now, as well!”

  “I never-”

  “Is it something personal, thief? Something in your past? Or is this a move on the part of your heathen god?”

  Widdershins, who had by now realized that Sicard didn't intend to let her complete a sentence any time soon, clamped her mouth shut and tried her best to burn a hole through his forehead with nothing but the power of her stare.

  “Oh, yes, I know about him,” Sicard continued. “Not his name, or where he comes from, but I know he exists. I felt his presence the first time you entered my church. Between what I read of Brother Maurice's report-”

  “The one you doubt?” Widdershins growled, but the bishop didn't hear.

  “-and everything else I've dug up on you, it would have been only a matter of time before I pieced it together even if you hadn't appeared in my church this morning. And of course, now that you're right here, I can just about see him! How you kept his presence from de Laurent-”

  “He knew,” Widdershins said, relishing the chance to interrupt. “William understood. He approved.”

  “Nonsense!” Sicard was practically spitting. “And your own actions put the lie to any such ludicrous claims!”

  “And what actions would those-”

  “You're a murderer as well as a thief!”

  “If you interrupt me one more-Wait. You think I'm what?”

  “Oh, yes, I know. I made certain, absolutely certain, that nobody would be hurt! Nobody! Everything was proceeding as well as I could have dared hope, with nothing but a few scrapes and bruises. And then, you! You stick your nose in, and now Davillon has blood running in the streets!”

  Widdershins realized she was standing, as was Sicard, and wasn't certain when either of them had risen. Brother Ferrand virtually vibrated in place, as though torn in multiple directions at once.

  “You think I killed those people? Me? Gods, why?”

  “There's nobody else involved who-”

  “It's not me, you idiot! It's Iruoch!”

  She hadn't meant to just blurt it out, but at least-other than his heaving breath-she'd finally silenced the shouting old goat.

  When he finally did relocate his voice, Sicard didn't seem certain what to do with it. “What…You…Did you just say ‘Iruoch’?”

  Widdershins struggled to control her own breathing, her own temper, and sat back down. “I did.”

  “Iruoch's a fairy tale, you stupid girl! A story!”

  “Like the cavalier d'Ouelette?” she challenged.

  “A story,” he repeated. “One of many I tell, to make a point. To teach. It doesn't mean I believe them, any more than my adult parishioners do. If you think I'd accept for one instant-”

  “Look, you don't have to believe that he's literally Iruoch! But there's something unnatural hunting Davillon, and it sure as figs isn't me!”

  “Ridiculous. You-”

  “Ah, Your Eminence.” Ferrand sounded as though he'd rather cover himself in salt and dance for the lions than get involved, but he did so nonetheless. “I have been keeping an ear on what's going on, and it's true that there's definitely some sort of magic involved in these murders. The bodies-”

  “That just proves that her heathen god has given her powers of witchcraft, Ferrand! She's the only murderer involved! She-”

  By which point, Widdershins's patience, already stretched so far it would ache for days, snapped. With a sound somewhere between a grunt and a shriek she lunged from her seat, calling on Olgun's aid as she moved, less in control now even than she'd been when confronting Igraine in the shrine of the Shrouded God.

  One hand on the edge of the table was enough to vault her across the room, not at the bishop, but at Ferrand. Her calves crossed around his knees and she twisted as she fell, sending him crashing to the carpet. It wouldn't hurt him much, except maybe his pride, but it would keep him out of the way just long enough…

  Sicard was already recoiling, hand reaching for the staff of office leaning on the back of his chair, but he might as well have been swimming through cobweb. Widdershins was back on her feet-or, more accurately, one foot. The other rose, then fell in a heel kick atop one of the carafes, shattering it across the marble. A simple cartwheel, and she came up directly beside the bishop, one arm wrapped around his neck, the other clutching a curved length of broken glass that had previously been the decanter's handle. Her hand should have been bleeding all over it, but Olgun's will had allowed her to avoid every other shard on the tabletop.

  It was all over before Widdershins's chair had finished its slow topple to the floor.

  “If I were the murderer you believe me to be,” she hissed into the pallid clergyman's face, “you'd be dead. And I'd be out that window in another three seconds.”

  At which point she dropped the makeshift weapon and was in the process of righting her chair before the guard outside had finally shaken off his shock at the abrupt eruption of sounds and thrown open the door to see what was amiss.

  “Brother Ferrand tripped,” she said to the sentry's stunned face.

  “He did no such thing!” Sicard's voice lacked the certainty it had held only moments before, but if he was having doubts now, it wasn't stopping him. “I want that creature in chains!”

  “Well,” she said softly to Olgun, already beginning to flush with embarrassment at her brief lapse of control. What in the name of the gods is wrong with me? First Igraine, now Sicard? “That probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. That argument worked so well with Igraine…”

  Martin approached, one hand on his pistol, and she was just trying to decide if it was worth resisting when Igraine herself appeared in the office doorway. Paschal Sorelle was beside her.

  And they were followed by Julien Bouniard! Even though she'd known he was nearby, watching in case the bishop had slipped by her, she couldn't repress a gasp of relief (or was it just relief?) at the sight.

  Julien, for his part, took one look at the broken glass, a second at Widdershins, and then just shook his head.

  “I don't know what you're doing here, Major,” Sicard said, far more calmly. “But you couldn't have picked a better time. This woman is a
thief and a-”

  “You can save it, Your Eminence,” Bouniard said. “We heard all of it.” Then, when the bishop and the thief both gawped at him, “When Igraine saw you being escorted into the back, we improvised. Cup against the bishop's window. Thank you for pulling the curtain, by the way. Otherwise, you'd have spotted us in a second.”

  Sicard was scowling, his jaw working, no doubt trying to recall if, in the heat of the moment, he'd said anything too terribly self-incriminating.

  Widdershins was only too happy to help. “Which means,” she crowed, “they heard you admit that you arranged the initial attacks! Before the people actually started dying!”

  “That doesn't justify your attack on me,” he insisted, though he'd begun to pale. “Major, I intend to press charges with the full weight of the Church.”

  “And you have that right,” he said. “Of course, in the process, Igraine and I will have to testify to what we heard-and of course, if we make such a claim in court, we must inform the Church as well.”

  “Why are you aiding this girl?!” Sicard demanded. “She's a murderer!”

  “Actually,” Bouniard told him, “she's not.”

  “I-what?”

  “She has, in fact, been assisting us in our attempts to stop the creature committing these crimes.”

  “Creature? You don't honestly-”

  “Yes, Your Eminence, I do. I've seen its handiwork-including the injuries Widdershins suffered the first time it tried to kill her.”

  “She could have faked-”

  “No. She couldn't.”

  Sicard literally fell backward, and it was only sheer luck that the chair was near enough to catch him. “But…William de Laurent? She-”

  “I was there for some of those events as well, Your Eminence. She did everything she could to save the archbishop. And she lost her own closest friend in that mess.”

  Widdershins turned away, memories of Genevieve-and, spawned by those, a new flare of concern for Robin-briefly overwhelming her.

  “I was so sure.” Sicard's palms were shaking as though abruptly stricken with palsy. “I was so sure. It can't be because of us, we made certain…”

  “What exactly did you do, Your Eminence?” Julien asked, not unkindly. But the old man-growing visibly older by the moment-seemed unable to answer. The monk knelt beside his master and held his trembling hand.

  “Why,” Widdershins couldn't help but mutter, “does everyone want to blame me for everything?”

  She hadn't intended to be overheard, but by one pair of ears, she was. “Because you're secretive,” Igraine said. “And you're impetuous. And you do find yourself near the center of trouble far more often than is good for you. And because some of us can sense that there truly is something abnormal, even unnatural about you. But mostly because you really, really annoy people.”

  Widdershins couldn't think of a better reaction than to stick her tongue out. “Igraine?” she asked a moment later in a whisper, careful that nobody else in the room might hear. “Is what you heard really enough to start an inquiry? I mean, he only kind of touched on-”

  “We didn't hear a damn thing, Widdershins,” she answered as quietly. “Cup against the window? We barely made out every fifth word.”

  Olgun somehow emoted an “Eep!” and Widdershins stared through horror-widened eyes. “You mean…?”

  “We just came running when we heard things get messy, and hoped that you'd gotten something useful from him.”

  Widdershins couldn't tell whether she wanted to sob or hit someone, and was just deciding that she needn't choose one over the other when Sicard coughed once and straightened his shoulders.

  “All right, Major,” the bishop said. “I don't know what's happened, or where things went wrong, but I never intended for anyone to suffer. I'll tell you the whole story.”

  “Would you? Oh, splendid!” Every head in the room flinched in mounting dread as the door to the office slowly drifted open once more, admitting that awful, dual-toned voice. “I just love a good story!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Where is she?”

  Robin watched from her seat-a comfortable, cushioned chair in the center of the room-as her captor paced as if he were the one caged. Her prison wasn't especially arduous; in addition to said chair, she had access to a table with an array of juices, cheese, and pastries, as well as a chamber pot if nature should demand its due. The only sign of her captivity at all was the manacle about her wrist, and the length of chain attached to it. Bolted to the leg of the table, it allowed her a substantial amount of freedom, though not enough to reach any of the four walls of the cavernous, and largely empty, chamber. A storage room or a warehouse, no doubt.

  For his own part, Evrard passed to and fro beneath one of the room's rows of windows. A second table supported a carafe of wine and several loaded pistols; he'd spent substantial time with the first, and relatively little with the second.

  “You could've left her a note, you know,” Robin told him, lifting a goblet of fruit juice to her mouth. (The cup was flimsy, a lightweight wood-very obviously provided because it would prove utterly ineffective as a makeshift weapon.)

  Evrard ceased his pacing long enough to glare.

  “No, really,” Robin continued. “I mean, if you wanted her to find you, then you could just-”

  “She'll find me,” he snapped. “My family only owns a few properties in Davillon.”

  “Like the tower?” Robin asked innocently.

  “You're pushing it, child!”

  Maybe she was; maybe she should just keep her teeth together. Robin was no Widdershins. Not a fighter, not brave, not…

  But she also wasn't stupid, and damn it all, she wasn't just some tool to be used and thrown away at need!

  “I don't think so,” she said, trying with only debatable success to work a touch of steel-a touch of Widdershins-into her tone. “You're not going to hurt me, Evrard.”

  “So sure of that, are you?” His own goblet, of equally flimsy wood, cracked in his hand, sending rivulets of purple cascading across his fingers.

  “Yes. Come on. You practically begged Gerard and the others not to make you shoot them when you abducted me. Hell, you apologized when you snapped this stupid cuff on my wrist!” She jingled the chain for emphasis, as if he could possibly have thought she meant some other manacle. “The food, the drink…You're not exactly a traditional kidnapper, you know.”

  “I'm not a kidnapper!”

  Robin just looked at him.

  “I'm not.”

  She held up her wrist and once again shook the chain.

  Evrard growled something unintelligible. Turning back to the nearer table, he lifted the carafe of wine and began to pour, then flinched as the liquid dripped through the cracked vessel. With a grunt he tossed the useless cup to the floor and took a large and very unaristocratic gulp from the decanter itself-a decanter which was, Robin couldn't help but note, already half-empty.

  “Classy,” Robin said. Evrard pulled a second, smaller chair out from the table and slumped into it.

  “I'm no kidnapper,” he insisted again, sulking.

  “My chain and I would like to debate that.”

  “Gods damn it! This is all her fault, you know!”

  “Who? Widdershins?”

  Evrard's lips actually peeled back from his teeth at the sound of that name. “Who else?”

  “This is her fault, is it? Maybe she paid you to kidnap me? There are easier ways of firing me, if that's what she-”

  “This isn't a joke!” Evrard was again on his feet and again pacing, though this time it was toward and away from his less-than-willing guest, rather than parallel to the windows. “I didn't want it to come to this. She was supposed to…” He stumbled to a halt, then shrugged. “I thought that surely this would do it. But no, apparently your precious Widdershins won't even put herself out for her so-called friends!”

  “She'll be here!” Robin realized she was screaming and forced hers
elf to calm. “You don't know her. She'll be here, and you'll wish she wasn't.”

  “I doubt it.” Evrard shook his head and returned to the carafe of wine. “I don't believe anymore that she has even that much honor.”

  Robin didn't remember rising to her feet. “Honor?!” She was shouting again, and this time couldn't be bothered to care. “You're talking about honor? You?! You threatened to destroy her life! You kidnapped me! And over what? A few stolen treasures that your family hadn't bothered even to look at in a decade or more? What gives you the right to impugn anyone's honor?”

  The carafe shattered against the wall, leaving a series of divots in the wood and a blotch of wine that gave the impression of someone having just swatted a two-foot mosquito. “What else would this be about, you stupid little girl?!” Evrard, too, was shouting, his fists clenched and shaking. “Everything I've done has been to erase the stain on my family's honor! A stain left by your precious Widdershins!”

  “Oh, right.” Robin looked meaningfully at the shackle on her wrist, at the wine stain on the wall. “Mother and Father would be so proud of you right now, wouldn't they?”

  For a moment, Robin really thought she'd gone too far. With a strangled cry, Evrard was across the room and looming over her, his arm raised for a brutal backhand blow. Robin whimpered and fell back, cringing away from the coming pain…

  But the blow never fell. For long seconds Evrard hovered, his face twisted-and then his shoulders slumped and he fell back. Robin, who could see him only blurrily between squinted lids, forced her eyes all the way open.

  Evrard blinked slowly, just once, and then he made his way once more to the far table. “Let's just hope you're right,” he said, “and she gets here soon. I want to get this over with.”

  Robin couldn't help but nod in heartfelt agreement. And as neither of them had anything more to say, they waited in silence, each lost in his or her own tumultuous thoughts.

  So lost, in fact, that when Robin next blinked herself out of her near fugue and glanced around, the oil lamps that provided the room's only illumination, set roughly equidistant around the chamber, were beginning to gutter. But that meant…