False Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) (8 page)

“Yes! Yes, I am. And I don't want to hear it. I'm sorry about whatever happened to you, or at you, or near you, but it wasn't my fault. The Shrouded Lord said so and the priests said so, so
get over it
!” By the end of the brief but heartfelt tirade, she was actually panting.

“I…Uh…I was just gonna say, you have serious guts coming here. I don't know if I could do it if I were you, even if I
was
summoned. I'm impressed.”

“Oh.” Widdershins felt her face grow warm even in the chilling rain.
What was that, three times today someone's made me blush? What in the name of Banin's overcoat is
wrong
with me?!
The fact that she could feel Olgun laughing at her certainly wasn't helping matters any. “Uh, thank you?”

“You're welcome.”

Silence, save for the faint patter of the rain. Then, “Um, can I come in now?”

“Oh, sure.” A loud clatter as several bolts drew back, a single, louder thump as the bar (a relatively new addition) was removed, and the heavy portal swung inward.

The hall beyond was largely as she remembered it, save for certain portions of the walls that had been more recently repainted—hiding bloodstains, for the most part. The door guard, a young man with a scraggly beard and so many acne scars that he looked as though he'd been shot with a miniature blunderbuss, might not have held any animosity toward Widdershins, but the same couldn't be said for a number of the others. As she made her way through the winding, twisting hallways beneath the pawnbroker's—the halls that were the true headquarters of the Finders' Guild—she couldn't help but note that one of every three or four faces went sour at her approach. A few frowned unhappily, but most of them twisted in angry scowls, baring teeth or mouthing profanity-laden threats. A few hands even dropped toward daggers or flintlocks, but invariably the fact that the Shrouded Lord had forbidden any retaliation was sufficient to prevent the potential violence from turning into
actual
violence.

Widdershins, for her own part, marched through the halls as though she were thinking of buying the place (but found it too drab and distasteful to seriously consider), ignored Olgun's worried chatter as best she could, and struggled not to quiver or look over her shoulder every time she turned her back on the angriest of those hostile faces. She briefly considered trying to find her old mentor Renard, if only for the comfort of a friendly face down here, but she decided, reluctantly, that she couldn't really spare the time such a hunt might require.

Ostensibly, she
should
make a point of stopping by the shrine before proceeding to her appointment. The Shrouded God—patron of the Finders' Guild, member of the Hallowed Pact, and the inspiration for the Shrouded Lord's own title—was not a demanding deity, but the guild still had customs and rituals its members were supposed to follow. The idol itself—mostly stone but with a hood of thick fabric hiding its features, because anyone other than the priests or the Shrouded Lord who looked upon that face was subject to an awful curse—stood in a thick-walled, carpeted chamber at the very heart of the guild's labyrinthine headquarters. Convenient to most of the organization's offices, it would have been a matter of minutes for Widdershins to swing by and offer a few prayers; and Olgun, since he knew full well that she didn't mean a word of them, certainly wouldn't have objected.

Widdershins, however, went nowhere near the heavy metal doors providing ingress to that shrine; shuddered, in fact, when she passed them by, and smelled the faint traces of incense from beyond. Lots of memories lurked within the shadows there, and not a one of them pleasant.

Instead, she moved straight for a door in one of the passages adjacent to said shrine. The wood had scarcely ceased vibrating from her first knock when a voice called, “Get the fuck in here!”

“Well,” she said to Olgun as she pushed the door open, “at least he's in a good mood, yes?”

Laremy Privott—or “Remy” to most Finders—had been taskmaster (that is, lieutenant to the Shrouded Lord) since the dismissal of Lisette Suvagne late the previous year. Imposingly tall and broad-shouldered, bald as a stressed tortoise from the neck up but hairy as a northman everywhere else, he looked very much like someone had simply shaved an ape's head. (Though this was not, it should be noted, a comparison that anyone actually made aloud when Remy himself was in the room.)

Today he was clad in heavy trousers, which helped to minimize said simian comparisons, and a white tunic, which
might
have done so if individual hairs hadn't been protruding through holes in the weave.

He also, Widdershins couldn't help but note, wasn't alone in the chamber.

“Taskmaster,” she greeted him with a bob of her head. And then, turning to his other guest, “Hey, Squirrel. How's the jaw?”

“Go to hell, bitch.”

“Hey!” Remy snarled across his desk—a massive, antique monstrosity that was clearly too nice for the otherwise frugal office and had most probably been stolen from somewhere fancy. “None of that! Both of you, sit!”

They sat. The office contained four rickety chairs (not counting Remy's own); perhaps unsurprisingly, Widdershins and Simon took the ones on the edges, leaving two empty seats between them.

“Good. Now, we're gonna have a couple of words about your little disaster at Rittier's manor last week.”

“She ruined—!” Simon began, simultaneous with Widdershins's own, “If that idiot—”

“
Shut up!
”

They shut.

“Widdershins, you haven't worked a lot of jobs since the Shrouded Lord promoted me, so maybe you've forgotten, but we're a
guild
, not a gods-damned social club! That means that if you're hitting a big target—such as, just for instance, anything likely to attract other Finders besides yourself—you
coordinate
! You keep us the hell informed!”

“But I—”

“
That wasn't a question!
”

“Got it,” she grumbled.

“And you!” Remy continued, swiveling to face his other victim. “Wipe that fucking smile off your face before I
carve
it off you! You're a bigger fool than she is!”

“But—”

“What the
hell
were you thinking, you diseased jackass? You bring an entire crew with you? Try to rob a noble estate at knife-point? To take
hostages
?!”

“Finders rob lots of people,” he protested.

“Not the
aristocracy
, gods damn it! You want to steal something from one of the blue bloods, you do it
quietly
! You
trying
to bring the whole fucking Guard down on us?!”

“What are
they
going to do? They've known where we are for years, and they haven't…they…” Simon trailed off, looking as twitchy as the rodent for which he was named, as Remy slowly rose and leaned over the desk.

“I,” he said, his voice abruptly calm, “am
this
close to wringing out your brain and using it as a sponge. At which point, I should point out, it will probably become
more
useful than it is right now. Are you hearing me?”

Squirrel nodded. Widdershins, deciding that safe was
definitely
better, at the moment, than sorry, nodded too. Just in case.

“If you'd killed any of the nobles,” Remy continued, “we'd probably have handed you over to the Guard ourselves. We
sure
as hell wouldn't even be considering paying bail for your idiot friends.”

Squirrel's eyes brightened, perhaps reflecting the escape route he suddenly saw for himself. “Nobody would've been caught at all if it wasn't for
her
,” he spat, pointing. (As if there were any other “her” in the room to whom he could have been referring.)

“Oh? And how's that?”

“She
helped
them, Remy! Helped the damn Guardsmen grab some of my boys!”

“That so?” he growled, turning once more.

Widdershins sat straight in the chair, refusing to cringe or even so much as frown. “Not initially. I actually got involved, even after Squirrel and his nuts messed everything up, to
keep
them from getting arrested.”

“Oh, horseshit!” Squirrel began. “You're such a—”

“Have some of your people ask around about a gaggle of Guardsmen getting a banner dropped on their heads if you don't believe me,” she said to Remy.

“I may do that. But even if it's true, you said ‘initially.’ That sounds to me like an admission that you
did
eventually throw some of our people to the Guard.”

Squirrel grinned a tight, evil little grin.

“Well, yeah,” Shins said casually. She actually crossed one leg over the other knee and began examining the nails on her right hand. “I mean, given how peeved you are about those idiots threatening a few aristocrats and servants, I can just
imagine
how irked you'd have been if—”

“She's lying!” Simon screamed, rising to his feet.

“—they'd actually succeeded in—”

“Shut
up
, you bitch!”

“—deliberately murdering officers of the Guard.”

Simon looked about ready to hurl himself across the room at her, but Remy's abrupt stare effectively pinned him to the floor where he stood.

“They…” He swallowed once, then tried again to answer the taskmaster's unasked question. “They were disguised as servants! How could we have known?”

“The first ones were disguised as servants, Squirrel,” Widdershins helpfully reminded him. “The ones that you actually tried to stab were in full uniform, though.”

“That so?” Remy asked again.

“No!” Squirrel insisted.

Widdershins shrugged. “As I said, I know you have sources in the Guard. Ask around. We'll be happy to wait.” She smiled sweetly at Simon. “Won't we?”

Simon might have had a response to that—probably not, though—but either way, it didn't matter. The door opened without so much as a knock, and Remy was immediately on his feet, Widdershins close behind.

There was, after all, only one man in the guild who'd dare to barge in on the taskmaster
without
knocking.

Framed in the doorway, illuminated by the flickering lantern light, stood the Shrouded Lord, unquestioned master of the Finders' Guild. His garb consisted entirely of charcoal-hued fabrics hanging in heavy folds, topped by a full-face hood not dissimilar to that worn by the nearby idol. The result was to make him look vaguely phantasmal (and, in fact, not
too
different from the mysterious figure stalking Davillon's streets, though he had no way of knowing about that unfortunate coincidence). It was a much more successful effect in his own audience chamber, which was kept full of a scented smoke whose color matched the fabrics, but even here it proved impressive enough.

Nor was he alone. Just behind and to the left loomed a tall, severe-looking, hatchet-faced woman of middle years. Her dark skin, her darker hair, and her eyes—piercing and black—contrasted sharply with her cassock of formal whites and grays. Widdershins had had only a few sporadic dealings with the woman, but she recognized her well enough. This was Igraine Vernadoe, the high priestess of the Shrouded God and the clergy of the Finders' Guild.

“Sit,” the Shrouded Lord ordered, gliding into the room, the priestess at his heels. His voice was rough, gravelly, and blatantly artificial. None, save the priests themselves, ever knew which member of the Finders' Guild wore the hood of the Shrouded Lord; but of course, the hood did nothing to alter his voice. That, then, was entirely up to him. Widdershins had long wondered just how badly the fellow's throat must hurt at the end of any given day. “What, pray tell,” he continued when everyone had done as he ordered, “is all the shouting about? We heard you from down the hall.”

Remy glowered one last time at Squirrel, who had the courtesy to cringe, and then repeated the entire exchange to the Shrouded Lord.

“I was,” the taskmaster concluded, “just about to start discussing punishments when you arrived, my lord.”

The hood rumpled forward in a nod, and then turned toward the priestess—who looked neither at Remy nor Simon, but had kept her attention locked on Widdershins from the moment she entered the room.

Widdershins was trying to return that look confidently without crossing the line into “challenging,” and was having a tough time of it. No other priests or worshippers in Davillon—in the
world
, so far as she knew—had the same connection with their deities as Widdershins had with Olgun. But she knew that many priests had
some
abilities that bordered on the mystical, including a surprising degree of insight. As such, she was never sure exactly what Igraine, or the other guild priests, actually knew, sensed, or suspected about her and Olgun. It made her nervous; it made Olgun nervous; and they, in turn, fretted enough to make each other even
more
nervous.

“I think,” the Shrouded Lord said slowly, “that Monsieur Beaupre has begun to get some inkling of how displeased we are with his actions, and could use some time to ruminate on that.” He slowly faced Simon, who had grown pale enough that even a professional undertaker might have mistaken him for a client. “Couldn't you?”

“Ah…yes, my lord.”

“Good. Go. We will discuss your punishment another time. Do be prepared to explain what you've learned from this, hmm? It may have some bearing on the severity of your penance.”

Simon rose, bowed—no mean feat, given that he was trembling at the time—and made for the door, edging around the room so as not to get too near the Shrouded Lord in the process.

“Well,” Widdershins said, standing up as the door clicked shut behind the fleeing Squirrel, “I guess I should be on my way, too. Taskmaster, thank you for—”

“Sit. Down.”

“Wow.” Widdershins sat. “Did the three of you practice that? Because, I mean, that was pretty much
perfectly
coordinated. I—”

“You should probably stop talking now,” Remy warned her.

“Now?” she said. “Probably a while ago, I'd think.”