False Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) (2 page)

And again, after a brief pause, “There is
so
a difference! It's a subtle distinction, but an important one! Vital, even! No, I'm not going to explain it to you. You're the god;
you
figure it out!”

Nose held high (making her look rather like half the other folk in attendance), Madeleine lifted her skirts and swept gracefully toward the exit. She passed through pockets of conversation about the general ungainliness and lack of competence among the serving staff—apparently, her own near miss was far from the evening's only unfortunate incident—and muttered a number of polite farewells on her way out.

Only a few even noticed her passing. Not that they were deliberately slighting her at all, no; rather because their attentions were focused elsewhere. In the room's far corner, occupying a bubble all to himself as though his mere presence repelled the spinning dancers or even efforts at conversation, was a middle-aged fellow in the simple brown cassock of a monk. Perhaps as a peace offering to an angry Church, the Marquis de Ducarte had invited Ancel Sicard, Davillon's newly appointed bishop, to his gathering. The fact that Sicard had chosen not to attend, but had sent his assistant instead, was cause for even more gossip throughout the party than the lackadaisical efforts of the servants. The monk, Brother Ferrand, stood, and smiled, and engaged in what conversation came his way, and if he noted the puzzled or hostile glowers, or the angry mutters directed toward him, he certainly gave no sign. Madeleine threw him a final, curious glance—recalling another monk of the same order whom she'd known only briefly but liked to think of as a friend—and then slipped out into the moonlight.

A path of cobblestones wound through garden and orchard, an inebriated earthworm twisting through the grounds of the Ducarte estate as it made its way toward the gates and, from there, the main road. Thick grasses and rich flowers perfumed the night, enjoying the last moments of a fruitful spring before the oncoming summer began to pummel them with fists of heat and sun. Again, Madeleine couldn't help but think of her last visit here…of the breaking glass, the quick plummet, and a desperate escape across this same meandering pathway…

She couldn't remember what the gardens or the trees might have smelled like, then. She'd been too wrapped up in the scent of her own sweat and blood.

“Okay, Olgun,” she announced with a headshake that threatened to send her carefully coifed wig toppling into the dirt. “Enough with the reminiscing.” (As though it'd been
he
who'd been doing it.) “Let's get on with it.”

Madeleine Valois had done her part; it was time for the noblewoman to take her leave, and the street-thief Widdershins to take the stage.

It was one of her standard techniques, a methodology that had served her well time and time again: use one identity to scout and study the target; the other to relieve said target of just a small portion of excess wealth. Charity was a civic duty and a religious obligation, after all; one could even argue that, as one of the poor who needed said charity, she was actually doing them a
favor
.

(In fact, not only could one argue it, but she had done so, in her time. Oddly, few of the city's wealthy—or the Guard—ever found her logic particularly convincing.)

Her name had once been Adrienne Satti, and though not born into high society, she'd found her way into the aristocracy thanks to the efforts and kindness of the noble Alexandre Delacroix. The apparent fairy tale had not, alas, brought about a fairy tale ending; Alexandre was dead, now, and Adrienne wanted by the city's elite for a series of horrific crimes that she'd never committed. Today she was mostly Widdershins—thief and, far more recently, tavern owner—but she still kept up her presence within the aristocracy under the name Madeleine Valois. It all might have been confusing enough to make her head spin, if she hadn't had the misfortune to live all of it firsthand.

But at least she wasn't alone. No, Adrienne Satti hadn't been the only survivor of those crimes for which she herself had been blamed. There was one other.

Olgun. A foreigner. A god.

A god few had ever heard of, and only one now worshipped.

A god who now kept careful watch, alert for any interruptions as his disciple and partner disappeared into a shadowed alleyway, gown and wig and other signs of Madeleine Valois sliding into the maw of a black canvas sack. Dark leathers, precision tools, and a blackened rapier emerged from that same hiding place. The young lady—slender and fine-featured, brunette—who scrambled up the nearest wall to perch, staring carefully at the Rittier estate, really didn't much resemble the absent noblewoman at all.

“All righty, Olgun, now it's time for the fun part, yes? You know, the waiting. What? Well of
course
the waiting's fun! Why else would we do so bloody
much
of it? For a god, you're really not all that good at logic.”

And then, “I can
tell
when you're making those kinds of faces at me, you know.”

After that, Olgun lapsed again into an amused silence, and Widdershins really had nothing to do but wait (which was not, despite her efforts at convincing the god or herself, the “fun part” at all) and watch for the activity at Clarence Rittier's manor to slowly taper off.

Windows of stained glass, worth more than Davillon's average laborer would make in years, cast the sanctuary in a soft rainbow glow. The steady gleam of the moon and stars, augmented by the flickering of a dozen streetlights, threw reflected images of countless holy symbols and scenes across row upon row of pews and kneeling cushions. The most oft-repeated symbol was, of course, Vercoule's crown-and-sun, but here was the golden pyramid of Geurron, the silver face of Demas, the white cross of Banin, the bleeding hand of Tevelaire, and more. Those gods most prevalent in Davillon boasted the largest and most frequent icons, but every single deity of the Hallowed Pact—all 147—were represented somewhere.

Here in the Basilica of the Sublime Tenet, the heart of worship in Davillon, it would have been improper to do any less.

Perfumed censers and waxy candles breathed a pungent, greasy smoke that left a sweet aroma in its wake as it swirled toward the domed ceiling. From the raised dais at the front of the sanctuary, a priest's melodious voice rose and fell through a litany as familiar as his own name.

It was a litany few heard. That the sanctuary should be sparsely populated was no surprise; the midnight mass was never a well-attended function, even at the best of times. But this night—and, for that matter, the past two seasons—could not, for either Davillon or the Church, qualify as the “best of times.” Tonight, the priest and his assistants outnumbered the parishioners.

Nor had it been that much better during the day.

From a shaded balcony above the sanctuary proper, all but invisible to the smattering of parishioners below, an old man watched, his eyes red with unshed tears. Ancel Sicard had always loved his Church, and the many gods whom he had the honor and privilege to represent. But in his past six months as bishop of this conflicted city, he'd come to love Davillon as well. And to see the two of them at odds ate away at him, body and soul.

He was a large man, but far narrower of girth now than when he'd arrived. His thinning hair and thickening beard, previously an even salt-and-pepper mix, was now entirely gray save for a smattering of dark patches. It seemed to him that even his white cassock of office had grown dim and discolored, though he knew, in his less emotional moments, that this could only be a trick of the mind.

Bishop Sicard kissed the tips of his fingers and held them up toward the largest of the stained glass windows, then spun on his heel and moved toward the nearest stairway. His footsteps echoed back to him as he plunged downward, a rhythmic counterpoint to the rapid beating of his heart. Through a heavy doorway and along plush carpeted halls he strode, into the small suite of chambers that were his own home here in the basilica.

Here, he paused for only a few moments, long enough to swap out his cassock and miter for the simple tunic and trousers of a commoner—a sort of outfit he'd had little cause to wear in over a decade—and to gather a satchel of yellowed parchments and old, cracked, leather-bound books.

He did
not
pause to question what he was about to do.
Those
concerns he had made peace with long ago.

Then he was off once more, through the halls and out into the Davillon streets. A number of sentinels—both Church soldiers and City Guard—stood watch around the property, just another testament to the growing rift between the sacred and the secular. Yet these men and women, though skilled at their duties, were watching for vandals and other angry threats from
without
; not a one of them thought anything strange of an old man leaving midnight mass, assuming they even noticed him at all.

Once clear of the basilica, Sicard took a moment to orient himself. In the months that he'd been here, he'd done precious little traveling on his own. Always with an entourage, usually inside a coach, he'd had scant reason to learn the layout of the city's streets. He'd
certainly
never traversed the city in the dark, alone.

Unprotected.

A frisson of worry coiled around Sicard's spine like a hungry snake, but he swiftly shook it off. He'd been to the house once before, had memorized the route. He wouldn't get lost, not so long as he paid attention to his surroundings.

As for robbers or other hazards of the city? Well, either he'd make it to the Dunbrick District or he wouldn't; either the gods approved of his actions, or they didn't.

And either the rather disreputable individuals with whom he was supposed to meet would keep their promise of safe treatment, or they wouldn't.

After the relative silence of the cathedral, the hustle and bustle of the city, even so late, was something of a shock. Scattered merchants carried goods across town, making ready for the next morning's custom; somewhat less legitimate vendors hawked stolen, illicit, or simply socially unacceptable wares from dim venues. Sicard grinned briefly in morbid amusement, wondering what some of the dealers, fences, and streetwalkers would think if they knew they were propositioning the city's new bishop.

His route took him only briefly by the Market District or other crowded quarters, so he was bothered only sporadically by Davillon's nocturnal population, troubled only momentarily by the stale sweat, dried horse manure, and other lingering odors of the past day.

Sicard thought, as he walked, of William de Laurent. The archbishop had been one of his teachers and mentors in the seminary, and—though they'd never been
that
close—a friend. He'd survived a lifetime of laboring on behalf of the Church; two wars; half a dozen attempts on his life; and decades of the political infighting that plagued the clergy despite their best efforts to squelch it.

He'd survived everything the world could throw at him, until Davillon.

William would never have approved of what had happened in Davillon since he died; of this, Sicard was absolutely certain. He could only hope that the venerable archbishop would have understood what Sicard had to do to make things right.

The house, when he reached it, was—well, a house. Old but sturdy, small but comfortable, with once-fine paint only slowly starting to peel from the façade. A mundane, commoner's home in a mundane, commoner's neighborhood, it was one of many properties the Church owned throughout Davillon—one that had been left to them in the last will and testament of a devout parishioner, back when the city was on better terms with its shepherds.

A quick glance either way was enough to convince Sicard that he hadn't attracted any undue attention, and then he was across the street and through the door. The carpet and the sofas were thick with dust, save for those spots where the small group awaiting his arrival had seated themselves.

He didn't explain himself; if they were here, they already knew why. He didn't introduce himself; he'd never heard their names, and he had
zero
intention of telling them his. No, Bishop Sicard removed the old parchments from his satchel—parchments that were very clearly
not
liturgical or sacred in nature—and then, after a simple, “Does everyone know what's required of them?” began to read.