Lost Covenant: A Widdershins Adventure (19 page)

“There would have to be a copy of the map.” Calanthe seemed taken aback as much by the interruption as the words, but either way, she permitted Cyrille to speak. “A means of matching the numbers, section to section, to be certain of no miscommunication. We do a quick search for a map like this one. If it's not there, I'll help deliver Widdershins to the reeve myself.”

This was it, then. Everything she and Cyrille had discussed hinged on these next moments. Would they go along with it, if only to assuage any tiny flicker of doubt?
Would
the traitor have such a map? It wasn't
probable
she would try to memorize it—the divisions were many, the odds of error high—but neither was it impossible. Would they—?

Calanthe gazed, unblinking, first at Widdershins and then her youngest son. Widdershins thought she saw the barest quirk of the matriarch's lips. And it was all the thief could do to keep from bursting out in laughter herself.

She's going to go for it just so Cyrille can see for himself that I'm wrong! To “break my spell.”

“Very well,” Calanthe said. “But I will hold you to this, Cyrille. Josephine, dearest, wait here with the others. Anouska and I are just going to poke around your room a bit, all right?”

“I don't like her!” Fifi wailed, pointing at Widdershins.

“I know. As soon as we're done, she'll be gone. For good. Anouska, shall we—?”

“No!” Fifi actually stamped her foot, scowling. “I don't want you looking through my room. It's not nice.”

Anouska shook her head. “We'll put everything back—”

“Don't want it!” She hugged the lantern to her chest, squeezing it as though it were a stuffed animal. “I'm allowed my privacy, too. Just like all of you.”

“Josephine, you stop this!” Calanthe ordered. “What's gotten into you? You have the staff in your room on a regular basis!”

“Um…” Arluin practically chewed his beard, clearly not certain he wanted to speak. “The staff haven't been permitted in Fifi's room for weeks. She's been doing her own straightening. Hugh mentioned it to me, once, while collecting my laundry. We dismissed it as just another of her whims.”

Nearly everyone was standing at this point, save the matriarch
herself, and the attentions they'd turned on Josephine were perhaps a touch less certain, a touch less sympathetic, than they'd been.

“I don't understand!” Tears ran freely down Josephine's face, now. “Mother, don't do this!”

“I'm afraid I have to, Josephine.”

The face behind those tears and curled locks of hair
twisted
in sudden rage. The hatred and resentment seemed almost to push at her flesh from within, angry snakes behind a mask of skin. Not since the inhuman Iruoch had Widdershins seen an expression so horrid; she wasn't certain she'd
ever
seen it on a human being before.

“Fine!” It was a banshee shriek, raw and ragged. Widdershins throat hurt just
thinking
about it. “Fuck you all!”

Josephine spun and hurled her lantern against one of the looming bookcases. Glass shattered. Burning oil, such a tiny amount, sprayed out from the wreckage.

The books ignited instantly.

Widdershins was moving almost as instantly, springing across the room, vaulting over any furniture in her path. “Move that sofa! Get the carpet out of the way!”

The bookcase itself was hardwood, heavy; maybe enough to smother the flame before the burning tomes ignited the wood itself. But only if half a dozen things went right.

“Olgun, I can't move this thing! I need every—”

Except, she realized, she wasn't working alone. Arluin appeared only a step behind her, arm raised to shield his face from the sparks and embers. He saw her scrabbling for a handhold, away from the flames, nodded once, and dashed to the other side of the bookcase. “On three!” He called, then coughed as a puff of smoke drifted his way.

Shins glanced back, saw Anouska, Chandler, and Calanthe herself dragging the sofa that would otherwise have interrupted the bookcase's fall, as well as the carpet beneath it. This was as good as it was going to get.

“One!”

“Olgun, I need you to try to make sure any of the books that slip out…”

“Two!”

“…fall straight, so they're still beneath the wood, don't go scattering across the—”

“
Three!
”

Face turned away, eyes squinting against the heat, Widdershins heaved, even as she felt Arluin do the same. Her arms quivered, muscles protesting; Olgun's power surged through her, but not so much as she might have hoped, not with the god also focusing on the burning books. The bookcase teetered, rocked back, settled itself straight, teetered forward once more…

And finally tumbled with a resounding, ember-spouting crash.

Olgun came close. Only a few bits of burning paper or showers of sparks escaped from beneath the massive weight, and those were easily smothered by the curtains Shins and Arluin tore from the window. By the time they were done, even the tiniest tendrils of smoke had ceased to trickle from beneath the fallen furniture, and the wood itself remained blissfully not on fire.

Widdershins only then realized she was hearing a sound unrelated to the fire, a shrill howl that only vaguely shaped itself into vile obscenities and gruesome curses.

Her hair fallen loose, all semblance of childish innocence gone, Fifi struggled and screamed. Cyrille and Helaine held her arms pinned behind her, slowly marching her away from the main doors at which she'd apparently made a final dash. Judging by their expressions and the emotional tremor of their limbs, Widdershins was pretty certain that, had the fire caught and spread, Josephine might well have found herself flung into its embrace.

She halted her tirade as Widdershins approached, her glare hotter than her lantern had ever been. She spit, once, but Shins sidestepped
the splatter without breaking stride. The thief stopped just beyond arm's reach, finger held to her lips in thought.

“Middle children,” she observed. “Always under the most scrutiny, yes? Doesn't do the younger ones any good to scheme and play politics, but you guys? Only have to discredit a few siblings to become top dog of the heap.” Then, softly, “Hush, Olgun. They're my metaphors, and I'll mix them as I choose.”

She spoke aloud once more. “Playing dumb was clever. Keeps that scrutiny off you. Don't know if I could've done that for years on end, but I guess the role came naturally.” She smiled sweetly. “Please, tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that your part in all this wasn't just the spoiled brat who's not inheriting as much as she thinks she's due and”—she stepped back a few paces, scooped up the evidentiary wineskin, and held it up as emphasis—“wants to punish her family for it.”

“Stupid bitch.” It was Fifi's only overt reply, but the slow flush in her cheeks and grinding of her teeth were all the answer Shins needed.

“So, here's what you're going to do—” Widdershins began.

“Go to hell! I'm not doing anything for you!”

“Oh, yes, you are.”

Shins and Josephine both turned to watch as the matriarch of House Delacroix approached. Her cheeks were puffy, her eyes rimmed in red; whether from the face full of smoke or a show of humanity Shins would never have dreamed her capable of, the thief wouldn't dare guess. Whatever it was, whatever she
had
been feeling, showing, she was granite now.

“You are going to do
precisely
what you are told. Without argument, without hesitation, without deception. Am I clearly understood?”

“Mother, you can go to hell, too. Am
I
understood?”

From the sequence of gasps, one might've thought that talking to
Calanthe that way was a more shocking sin than Fifi's initial betrayal, or trying to burn them all alive.

“You stupid, idiot girl!” For all her defiance, Josephine recoiled from the sudden venom in her mother's voice. “You were smarter when you were playing dumb! What are you expecting out of this? Grounding? Chores? Maybe even exile to one of our other properties?

“You are going to
prison
, Josephine! I will hand you over to the reeve and testify against you at your hearing myself!”

The girl's face went pale, as did several of her siblings’. “Mother? I—”

“Don't call me that. How would you care to be treated by the constabulary and the courts? As noble blood, or a nameless peasant? Shall I disown you before or after your sentence is passed?”

Josephine literally stopped breathing for a moment before breaking down in racking, heaving sobs. “Mother,” Arluin said tentatively, “perhaps we should—” He flinched, his speech smothered beneath the matriarch's disapproval.

“Your cooperation,” she continued, hammering her daughter with every word, “determines at what point of the process you cease to be my child. Do you understand
now
?”

The girl's frantic nods splattered the toes of Widdershins's boots with tears. Contemptuous of Fifi's petty, selfish treason, she couldn't help but feel a bit of pity for the weeping aristocrat.

“So,” Widdershins repeated, “here's what you're going to do….”

When the wagon trundled to a halt, when the bouncing and juddering over uneven cobblestones ceased to rattle his bones like dice in a gambler's hand, it still took him some time to realize that they had truly stopped; that this was not some pause mandated by late-night traffic or the driver taking the time to reorient himself, but a final destination.

Emphasis, quite possibly, on
final
.

His disorientation wasn't just from the discomfort of the ride itself, though that was severe enough; Major Archibeque of the Davillon Guard wasn't nearly so young as he used to be, nor were his joints so resilient. Still, had it been
only
wooden wheels clattering on uneven roadway, he'd have been a tad sore at worst. Archibeque, however, rode not on the bench at the wagon's front, but stretched out in back, buried under foul-smelling heaps of old fabric and scraps. And the beating it had taken to get him there made the everyday aches of aging absolutely pale in comparison.

His memories of how it had happened were jagged, broken, and sporadic at best. He'd been walking home, tired, after his shift. He was, it seemed,
always
tired after his shift, these days; ever since the Guard had lost several of its best people around the so-called Iruoch affair. No, Archibeque wasn't fool enough to believe the rumors that the actual fairy-tale creature had appeared in Davillon, but whatever the truth, the repercussions had been real enough.

So he'd already been at rather less than his best when the first of the thugs had jumped him just outside his house.

He recalled a brief tussle; lashing out, connecting with a fist here, an elbow there. Cost someone teeth with that one, he hoped. In the
end, however, he'd had no chance even to draw rapier or pistol, let alone for victory.

Archibeque
did
have the presence of mind, however, to note that his attackers wielded saps and small clubs, and that even during the worst of the beating that followed, they took special care to avoid his face, head, or neck.

Someone badly wants me alive.

Not a comforting thought, that, but also their mistake. He'd been a fighter all his life, and if they thought age had robbed him of that spirit, they were sorely—

“Up and out, geezer!”

He felt the weight atop him shift, hands close around his wrists and collar, before he was manhandled from the wagon. Archibeque blinked, studying his surroundings.

They stood before an old house in middling condition, not all that different than his own, save for its larger size. A vegetable garden, barren for the winter, was the only concession to aesthetics he could see. The other homes nearby looked much the same, and the street was, at this hour, largely empty.

The old guardsman knew he must look a fright: disheveled, filthy, limping faintly, and—despite the care his assailants had taken—he could taste a bit of matted blood in his mustache. He wasn't even certain if it was his or not.

Shout for assistance, or even just attention? This wasn't the most upstanding of neighborhoods, but neither did it appear a bad one. It would take only the right person to peer from a window at his cry….

Either something in his face or his posture gave him away, or—more likely—the brigands were simply taking no chances. A fist sank into the flesh of his gut, forcing the breath and very nearly the most recent meal from his body. Doubled over, wheezing, Archibeque felt hands lifting him by the arms, hauling him like a sack of meal. Drunken meal, in fact.

It was the piercing and all-too-familiar tang of gore, no longer fresh but not too aged, that snapped him out of it. As he glanced around, equilibrium gradually returning, he saw a fairly simple dining chamber, a plain but sturdy table, and a pair of corpses. Man and woman—
married couple
, the major's guard training suggested, based on a dozen tiny signs—shy of, or having just crossed into, middle age. He lay flat on the floor, facedown, pointed away from his chair; she was slumped on the table, chest in what, a day or two ago, had been dinner. Both had died violently, but at least, from appearances, swiftly.

Unfortunately, while Archibeque was no stranger to carnage, the gut punch already had him on the verge of vomiting. He felt his shoulders spasm, the sweat form on his forehead; tasted bile in his suddenly burning throat. The guardsman successfully choked back his surging gorge—no chance would he show any such weakness in front of these bastards!—but it was a long and difficult struggle.

By the time he'd recovered from
that
, several more people had entered the room. One or two he recognized from past experience—members of the bloody Finders’ Guild. The woman between them, however—slender, sharp-featured, hair like searing flame—he didn't know.

“If you're having difficulty with this,” the woman told him, gesturing vaguely at the bodies, “I strongly suggest you not take a look in the grandfather's bedchamber. Or the children's.” Then, at his expression, she merely shrugged. “We do what we need to.”

“Your Shrouded Lord is growing sloppy and stupid,” Archibeque snarled, determined to take charge of the conversation. “If you think the Guard is just going to ignore the slaughter of a family, let alone the abduction of an officer—”

“Relax, Commandant. We don't represent the Guild.”

Archibeque stiffened. Was this all a bizarre case of mistaken identity? “You've been given bad information. I am not Commandant Trivette.”

“Oh, we know who you are. Archibeque, Major, Trivette's most probable successor. My name is Lisette.

“And as for Trivette himself…” The woman's grin was positively unholy. “Who do you think the dearly departed grandpa I mentioned might be?”

The guardsman choked, staring once more at the corpses, only now seeing the family resemblance between the woman and Archibeque's superior officer. Or former superior, apparently. He found himself struggling, thrashing, and accomplishing nothing at all. The men held him too tightly, were still too strong.

“Whatever you thought to gain from Commandant Trivette,” Archibeque announced, back stiff once more, “you'll not have from me, either.”

Lisette laughed, a rather twisted chuckle. “So easy to say, old man. Perhaps you should wait until I've explained.”

“Explain all you like. You'll have no cooperation from me.”

A second, softer chuckle. “I've been flitting around Davillon for a little while, now, Major. I've offered a proposition to a great many important people. Some accepted. Some are dead. Strangely, there is no overlap between those two groups. I can't imagine why that is.”

She stepped nearer, grinning, and delivered a light, almost playful slap to Archibeque's cheek. “Can
you
guess why that is?”

“Of course Trivette declined. As, to my last breath—”

“Oh, shut it.” A second slap, harder, made his ears ring. “I'm tired of hearing it.

“Listen well, Major. I didn't
ask
your commandant a thing. My plans hinge on a few particular people, people I can't
afford
to have reject my generous offer. For them, I've had to resort to…other methods. Trivette, unfortunately, was too old. The process killed him. I do believe, though, that his successor is a stronger man. Let's find out, shall we?”

Other methods?
“What are you—?”

The words turned into a scream, high, piercing, like a child trapped in a nightmare. It tore his throat ragged, strained his lungs, and kept coming.

And at first, he didn't even know why. He felt no pain, saw no horrors. Nothing had changed, save for a sudden alien scent, vaguely herbal and sickly sweet, and the involuntary shriek that he could not, no matter how he tried, make himself stop.

Lisette's thugs released his arms and stepped back. Archibeque felt his body slump, every one of his muscles slacken, and yet he remained upright, if slouched. The room blurred as his eyes grew unfocused. He tried to clear them, and realized he couldn't even blink. Felt a wet warmth down his leg, as his final grip on control was wrenched away.

Finally, as his face purpled and he felt ready to pass out, the scream pouring from between his lips finally ceased.

“See? This one survived.” Lisette took a step back, studying the guardsman as though he were a work of art. “Now, shall we discuss our next step?”

This time, his scream was purely internal, resounding through his thoughts without the slightest audible sound, as something
else
began to answer Lisette's questions through Archibeque's own lips and breath.