False Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) (18 page)

“Not
that
fast, you don't!”

And it was actually true. Widdershins's shoulder and chest burned, aching far more than she would have expected. Was Olgun's power less effective against such an unnatural wound? Maybe so—but she was doing better than anybody else would have been, even if she wasn't exactly her full self.

And she
sure
wasn't about to spend another night in Julien's office! In its own way, and for its own reasons, the thought scared her as much as Iruoch himself.

“I'll be fine, Julien. And I'm going.”

He stood before her, arms crossed. “And if I put men at all the exits, with orders not to let you leave?”

“How many windows does this building have?” she asked smugly. “I'm pretty sure you can't spare
that
many guards.”

“Guards on the office door, then.”

“Sure. Just as soon as you explain to them that you've had me stashed in here for a day or so. That'll go over
real
well.”

“I could arrest you,” he insisted, but she knew from the slump of his shoulders that he was starting to surrender. “I can hold you for a while before we have to start worrying about charges and trials and all that.”

Widdershins smiled, stood—with only a single wince of pain—and, unconscious of what she was about to do until she was doing it, ran the tips of her fingers across his cheek. “But you wouldn't do that to me, right?”

“No,” he admitted. It came out somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. “I wouldn't. Just…Be careful, Shins.”

“I'm always careful.” Widdershins stretched up on her toes and planted a kiss right at the corner of Julien's mouth—not on the lips, no, but not quite on the cheek, either. And then, before either of them could react to what had just happened, she was out the door and gone.

Without, it's worth pointing out, her shoes.

Julien was still standing in that precise spot, staring at the empty mattress and trying to remember how to form a cogent thought, when his door shook with a familiar, military cadence.

“Uh…” He shook himself, wishing briefly he had a snifter of brandy available, or at least a bucket of ice water in which to dunk his head. “Enter!”

Paschal pushed the door open, saluted (with the wrong hand, but given his injured arm, that was acceptable), and then looked with some bemusement at the mattress.

When it became clear that nobody would be answering his unasked question, he spoke. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought you should know…”

“Yes, Constable?”

“The thief we discussed last week? Widdershins?”

Demas, does this whole damn city revolve around her?!
“What of her?”

“We've orders to arrest her on sight, sir.”

Julien blinked rapidly enough that Paschal could probably feel the breeze. “Why? What's she accused of?”

“Not entirely sure, sir. The request came from the bishop's office.”

“
What?!
”

“Apparently, due to her rumored involvement in the death of Archbishop de Laurent—”

“She was trying to
save
the man!”

“So I've read in the reports, sir. Nevertheless, given the unnatural events surrounding that tragedy, and given her proximity to what's happening now, they want her brought in until they can determine for themselves whether she's responsible or otherwise involved.”

“And we're taking instructions on how to uphold the law from clergymen now, are we?”

The constable's look was more than enough to convey the various meanings that he couldn't, as Julien's subordinate, actually come out and utter.

“Yes, yes, you're right. Well, I can assure you that I have no notion of where Widdershins is at this point in time.”
As opposed to what would have happened if you'd shown up five minutes ago. Widdershins, your luck is incredible!
“But I will, of course, keep a lookout and do as we've been ordered.”

“I had no doubt of that, sir.” Paschal frowned behind his goatee. “Major, I'm sorry to be the one to put you in this position. I know that you're friends with the woman.” If there was just the tiniest hesitation before the constable pronounced “friends,” well, both men chose to ignore it.

“Bah. It's not as though you gave the order. Better to hear it from you, anyway.” Julien took a single step toward the door, then paused. “You do understand, of course, that given all the troubles facing Davillon just now, any hunt for a street thief—however genuine our efforts may be—cannot possibly take priority over other concerns.”

“I'm quite sure,” Paschal said with an almost straight face, “that nobody could argue that.”

Julien nodded once, brusquely, and stepped out into the corridors, his actively not-grinning friend close on his heels.

Not at all unlike his namesake, Squirrel crouched in the branches of a large tree that sprouted alongside the partially paved lane. Between the thickening darkness and the lush foliage of late spring, he was utterly invisible to passersby. (Or he would have been, had there been any.)

But while the world might have been oblivious to him, he was not at all oblivious to the world—much as he might wish he were. While the smell of the leaves and the fading aromas of Davillon's busy days might have overpowered the distant smell of peppermint, nothing—not even the hands he clasped desperately over his ears—could drown out the sounds emerging from the shop across the way.

“Ooh! Are we playing hide-and-seek? How high am I supposed to count?”

“Help me! Get away from me!
Get away!
”

“Well, that's no good. How are you supposed to hide from me if you're screaming like that? You really have no idea how to play this game, do you?”

“Help me! Somebody, please! Help…Oh,
gods
!”

“You're making me cross, now. Here.” Squirrel winced at the horrid, wet ripping sound, followed by a gurgle only vaguely recognizable as a human voice. “There! Won't be screaming without one of
those
, will you?
Now
we can play!”

The gurgle sputtered once, then faded.

“Oh. Huh. You're all so
fragile
.” The shop's old walls and shuttered windows kept Squirrel from seeing so much as a single gesture of what was happening inside, but he was certain the gaunt creature who was now his master must have shrugged. “But delicious.”

Squirrel's whimpers masked the worst of the lapping, squishing, and dry crackling to follow.

But what followed
those
, oddly enough, were a series of crashes and thumps, as though the thing inside was ransacking the shop. And accompanying the not-so-musical tones of a careless search, a cheerful, jaunty whistling.

Eventually, the clattering and the whistling both ended with a satisfied, “Aha! Here we are! Some of those and some of these, some for you's and some for me's…”

Wood thumped against stone, and one of the shuttered windows flew open. The floppy hat emerged, followed by the rest of Squirrel's master. He crawled across the wall with only a single hand; in the other, he clutched what appeared to be a bedsheet, tied into a makeshift sack and stained with fresh blood. Where the bricks ended, he dropped to his feet and progressed directly to the tree in which his reluctant servant was concealed.

“Come down, come down! I have surprises for all my good little boys and girls!”

It took every ounce of will for Squirrel to pry his hands free from the bark and force himself to descend.

“Uh, master?”

That mostly human head cocked to one side. “A question, a question! I think I have an answer or two just lying around. Shall we see if they match?”

“Well…I was just…”

“Oh, no. Never be
just
.” A long finger wagged in Squirrel's face. “Never, ever, ever. Understand?”

“Um…Yes?”

“Goody!”

“I was ju—that is, I was wondering…Was the shopkeep enough for tonight? For, uh, for you? I mean, that wasn't, well, it wasn't exactly quiet, and the Guard—”

“Enough?
Enough?
Silly, stupid child, there is no
enough
, oh, no. Never. The loud old man was stale and dry and not very sweet at all. We didn't come to him for supper.”

“No? Then why…?”

The creature's grin widened enough to split his face clear across the middle. With a dramatic flourish, he flung the bedsheet upon the earth, yanking it so that it rolled open as it landed. Within rested an entire array of glazed pastries; brightly colored hard candies; and rich, sticky toffees.

“I told you already, forgetful thief. Surprises for
all
my good little boys and girls! Just as soon as you show me where to find them….”

Squirrel stared in horror at the tempting treats spread out before him, and softly began to cry.

He'd known it had to be bad.

From the moment Constable Sorelle had appeared in the doorway to his office, scarcely capable of stringing two words together in any coherent fashion, his face fish-belly pale and his eyes wide as carriage wheels, Julien had known that his day was about to become very, very unpleasant. Throughout the journey, as Paschal led him through the afternoon crowds, carving a path through Davillon's bustling streets, he'd contemplated and considered, imagining a dozen and one scenarios, each worse than the last. He'd questioned the constable time and again, but the normally unflappable Guardsman was so distraught that Julien couldn't find it in him to berate the man for his unprofessional demeanor.

He'd known it had to be bad. But not even in the darkest of his imaginings could Julien Bouniard—who had been a member of the Davillon Guard all his adult life, who had been present a few years back at the discovery of the worst massacre in the city's modern history—have anticipated
how
bad.

A crowd had gathered in their path, facing a small courtyard formed by the corners of several modest houses. An angry grumbling pawed at his ears, punctuated by sobs and the occasional gasp. Scattered throughout that assembly were several men and women in the black and silver of the Guard; men and women who
should
have been dispersing the crowd, or otherwise securing the scene, and yet instead were only staring alongside their fellow citizens.

Major Bouniard began to shove and elbow his way through, barking orders and scowling at every constable failing in his or her duty…. And then stopped as something crunched beneath his boot. He looked down to study the broken slice of candied fruit, cracked and smeared on the roadway, and initially assumed it was simple litter, unimportant and readily dismissed.

Or so it seemed, until he saw a second sliver of the same confection, as well as an uneven wedge of chocolate, a peppermint stick, a gooey handful of pastry stuck to the brick of a nearby wall…

A
trail
. It was a trail of sugary leavings, just as one might find in the wake of a passel of schoolchildren or unsupervised urchins. It led…Why, it led toward that same courtyard to which Paschal had been guiding him!

A courtyard whose entranceway Julien could now see. An entryway in which lay a little toy pony, its stitches torn, its stuffing scattered. And beside that, just the faintest scrap of what, beneath the drying blood, might have been the hem of a brightly dyed floral print dress.