Lost Covenant: A Widdershins Adventure Page 3

  Shins nodded once. “So?”

  “Let me just brew up a pot of—”

  “Oh, no!” Shins lurched away from the pantry, standing fully upright. “You've already used up your grace period, going off on that tangent about your wardrobe.”

  “I used it up?!”

  “Well, of course. It's not as if I could choose how you spend your time, is it?” And then, “Olgun? Is the vein in his forehead supposed to do that?”

  “It's been building for the better part of a year now,” Maurice said, apparently having decided that answering his guest's questions was the safest route to maintaining at least a semblance of sanity. “Ever since the Church appointed His Eminence's successor as archbishop of Chevareaux.”

  Widdershins winced as William de Laurent sprang once more to mind. A quick pivot and she began to pace the length of the tiny kitchen, past the pantry and stove in a handful of steps, and then back.

  And then—whether she came to it herself or it was a nudge from Olgun, she couldn't fully say—it dawned on her where the monk must be leading.

  “Oh, figs…Church politics, Maurice?”

  “Um, well…”

  “So nice to visit with you. Thanks for putting me up for the night. I'll be leaving now.”

  “Wait! Widdershins, please!”

  She was already nearing the front door, ears all but deaf to Maurice's pleas—or Olgun's protestations of curiosity, for that matter—until something finally punched through the mental cotton she'd stuffed in her ears.

  “Widdershins, she wants to see you!”

  She stopped, one gloved hand inches from the latch. She felt her shoulders and back tensing, so tight they might just deflect a flintlock ball. “Who wants to see me, Maurice?” Even she was frightened by the utter, icy calm in her voice.

  “Her Eminence Archbishop Faranda. William de Laurent's successor.”

  It took Widdershins roughly three or four years to turn from the door to face her host once again. Perhaps another year or so before she could choke back her growing fury enough to be sure she could speak to him without violence. Olgun's suspicions simmered beneath her own, not yet ignited into the same fiery rage, but certainly starting to smolder and spark.

  “And how does ‘Her Eminence’ know I'm here, Maurice?” Not so calm, now, her voice, but rather something approaching an animal snarl.

  “What? Oh! No, no!” The monk held both hands out before him, though whether the gesture was beseeching or defensive was far from clear. “I haven't told anyone you're here! I meant, she's wanted to meet you since she heard of you! Asked me to arrange it if, by any chance, I could. I told her I didn't expect to ever see you again, but…Well, I mean, you're here….”

  Somebody might as well have unstoppered a drain, so swiftly did Shins's anger diminish, leaving only a frustrated—and perhaps frightened—weariness. For a moment, it was almost enough to make her dizzy, and she could only smile her thanks when a quick surge of strength from her partner ensured that she kept her feet.

  “I think,” she said, carefully making her way to the table and lowering herself into the nearest chair, “that you'd better make that tea after all.”

  “‘Nicolina Faranda’?” Widdershins repeated, transforming the name she'd just heard into a question. “That doesn't sound Galicien.”

  Maurice, seated opposite her once again, nodded through the herb-scented steam rising from his teacup. “It's not. She's from Rannanti.”

  Shins couldn't quite keep her jaw from dropping.

  “The Hallowed Pact is hardly limited to our country. You must know that.”

  “I do, but…” She glanced down at her own drink—in a simple wooden cup this time, she'd noted with some amusement—and gathered her thoughts. “I thought all High Church clergy had to be Galicien?”

  “That's been the custom, since the Basilica of the Waking Choir is here. Initially, it was just simpler to draw new officials from nearby, and eventually it became a matter of politics—”

  “Everything does,” she groused softly.

  “—but it's not a rule in any formal sense,” Maurice concluded.

  “But…Rannanti?”

  “You're hardly the only one to have gotten the impression that the Church has become a Galicien institution, in fact if not in name. The appointment of Her Eminence Faranda—”

  “You know,” Widdershins remarked casually, speaking to Olgun but quite deliberately pitching the comment loudly enough for her mortal companion to overhear, “he could talk at least twice as quickly if he didn't insist on using everybody's full title every single time.”

  Maurice glared over his teacup, an effect largely ruined when he accidentally banged the rim into his teeth. “…of Her Eminence Faranda,” he continued through his pained wince, “was meant to cut such growing sentiment off at the knees. To say nothing of, just perhaps, being the first step in an end to the rivalry between our nation and hers.”

  Widdershins didn't so much scoff as snort. “Galice and Rannanti have been rivals for—”

  “Yes, thank you, I did study history in the monastery.”

  “I didn't study history anywhere, and I still know that! Going to take a bit more than a Church appointment to fix that, yes?”

  It might have been her own mind, might have been Olgun, might have been a cooperative effort between them, but once again she found herself leaping ahead, realizing precisely where Maurice was leading.

  “And you all just learned that the hard way, didn't you?”

  Her host muttered something toward the table (which, despite being nearer than Widdershins, probably couldn't make it out, either).

  “Figs and finches, Maurice! Did nobody at the basilica have the brains to realize this might make a few Galicians just a wee bit irritable? Pretty sure a lot of older folks still remember losing parents and grandparents—”

  “I'm not one of the high officials, Widdershins. I don't know what they thought or didn't think! My guess is that they expected problems, but not to this extent.”

  “And the city guard? Lourveaux does have a city guard, yes?”

  “Church soldiers. The, uh, the secular government is really just more of a recordkeeping bureaucracy than…Um…” He looked briefly like a turtle, trying to retract into its shell from Widdershins's level stare. (Olgun presented her with an alternate image to the turtle, accompanied by what could only be called a dirty-minded chortle of the soul, but she quickly shoved the image aside before she burst into laughter, blushed red as raspberry jam, or both.)

  “So just to be clear,” Shins said, drumming the fingers of one hand on the table and of the other on her teacup, “the Church appointed a new archbishop from Galice's oldest rival, took no steps to handle any resulting social unrest, and now has riots on its hands in the city that is only the seat of power for the entire Hallowed Pact. Have I left anything out?”

  “They're not riots, not yet. Just a lot of protesting and vandalism, mostly.” Again, he seemed suddenly to want to shrink away from her expression. “No, I…think you've got the gist of it.”

  “Are you sure? None of the bishops decided to poke a few sleeping bears? Throw darts at a grimoire and read random passages?”

  “I believe that's on next year's agenda.”

  The wisecrack, unexpected as it was, silenced her for a moment—which, a gleefully snickering Olgun assured her, was almost certainly the monk's whole point.

  “She wants your help, Widdershins. At least if she decides you can be trusted.”

  “She?” Shins shook her head, trying to throw off a sudden daze or perhaps dislodge an insect buzzing in her hair. “She who? Wants what? Who what?”

  “Her Eminence. We're fairly sure there's someone orchestrating at least some of the unrest, and they're far too adept at ferreting out anyone we send to find them. The archbishop was hoping that you might—”

  Widdershins shoved herself back from the table and stood, knocking the chair over behind her; spun on her heel an
d all but dashed for the exit. This time, the monk's pleas for her to wait didn't even slow her as she hauled open the door and threw herself into the blustery winter winds.

  Lourveaux really was very much like Davillon, except for the ways in which it wasn't.

  Here, in the poorer neighborhoods and back alleys, as distant from the beating heart of the Church of the Hallowed Pact as one could be and still stand within the city proper, things looked almost familiar. Streets caked with dirty-gray snow, passersby in threadbare coats and worn shoes; the same scent of cheap woods and even less pleasant fuels, smoldering away in a desperate defensive line against winter's advance; the same sorts of buildings, blocky and bordering on decrepit without ever quite threatening to just give up the ghost and collapse like a bad soufflé.

  Even here were differences, however. The roads were paved far more often than not, in even the meanest neighborhoods, and more frequently with brick than with cobblestone. The architecture was just a bit more ornate, more ostentatious; flared eaves here, an artfully rounded corner there. The clothes had, on average, been just slightly nicer before they'd been ravaged by use and time.

  And then there were those moments, when the clustered buildings and winding streets collaborated with the clouds above and the winter haze below, to part all at once. Then, for a sun-drenched moment, even from the ugliest outskirts of Lourveaux, a passerby could see the center.

  The center of the city. The center of the Church.

  Great arches and bridges of gleaming, white granite. Marble pillars and windows of exquisite glass. Spires and domes and steeples of classical styles, atop which flapped 147 different pennants, each with the unique icon of a god.

  And towering above it all, a single cupola, large enough to have given birth to any handful of the others, gleaming silver despite the overcast. Unengraved and unadorned, save for the repeating motif of the Eternal Eye.

  Beating heart and quickened soul of the Hallowed Pact, focal point of the world's largest religion. The Basilica of the Waking Choir.

  Widdershins couldn't flee swiftly enough.

  The streets, though far from empty, were remarkably uncrowded for early morning—though whether that was unusual for Lourveaux or just another difference between here and Davillon, Shins couldn't have guessed even if she'd cared enough to try. Where the gaps in the traffic of people and horses and carts were wide enough—as they usually were—she slipped through without so much as brushing against anyone. Where they were not, either Olgun reached out to prod someone into a mild stumble or sidestep, clearing a path, or else Shins simply pushed around whoever was in her way with just enough muttered apology not to be entirely rude.

  She made no deliberate effort to avoid the young monk who'd come racing after her, panting breath sending little puffs through the cold air, struggling to get his arm through the sleeve of a heavy coat—but neither had she bothered to slow down for him.

  “Widdershins, please! For the gods’ sakes, would you—”

  “Not the gods, Maurice,” she snapped without turning. “The Church. For the Church's sake. And I've had enough of church people and Church politics in my life! Just leave me out of it!”

  “What have you got against the Church, anyuuunnngghk!”

  Widdershins didn't even remember reacting; reaching; moving. For a single heartbeat that dragged on forever, she wasn't in Lourveaux, wasn't seeing the semibustling roadway before her.

  She was seeing an orphanage, whose caretakers—clergymen and -women, all—had lost the ability to care over hard and thankless years.

  A religious zealot, the demon he'd summoned, and the trail of corpses they'd left behind—including an entire room of her friends and brethren; including William de Laurent; including the man who'd been a second father to her, Alexandre Delacroix.

  A foolish priest who'd meddled with powers he couldn't remotely comprehend, who had drawn the murderous Iruoch to Davillon.

  The bodies…Gods, so many bodies, consumed by that horrible fae creature and the chorus of phantom laughter that surrounded him. Adults, children…

  Julien.

  She saw them all. She heard their screams. She smelled the blood; it choked her, winding through her nostrils and lungs, a serpent bent on poisoning her from the inside.

  Just as swiftly, they were gone. The images, the sounds, the asphyxiating miasma—washed away by a gentle stream, clear, cold, happily burbling.

  A stream named Olgun.

  When her vision cleared, she found her fists wrapped in Maurice's tunic, his back shoved hard against the façade of a building that—when last she remembered seeing the world around her as it actually was—had been a good few yards away.

  From the wild, panicked glaze in the monk's eyes, she guessed his journey across the street, driven by her hands and her fury, hadn't been pleasant.

  “I'm sorry. I…” She wanted to pretend the sudden rush of shame, the heat in her cheeks that even the breeze couldn't cool, was more of her divine companion's doing. Wanted to, but couldn't; she knew better.

  “I'm sorry, Maurice.” And then, more softly, “And you, too.

  “This…” she continued, voice slightly raised once more. “This isn't…I just…Please don't ask me about this anymore. I can't help you. I can't work with your archbishop. I can't. I—”

  The back of her neck twitched, as if her skin had just been crawled over by a bumblebee in satin socks. Her hackles rose, and she didn't so much hear a call of warning as abruptly discover that she, for some reason, was expecting to hear one.

  One of Olgun's “cries,” that, one she'd experienced enough times to know precisely what it meant.

  “Who?” she demanded, already spinning away from the startled figure half-slumped against the wall. Her eyes scanned the crowd—smaller now even than it had been, as many had fled when it appeared she was assaulting her companion. Those who remained all stared at her as intently as she did them, clearly wondering if she was a madwoman. It should have been impossible to pick one individual from the throng, one man watching her with a very different intent, and had she been alone, it would have been. With Olgun guiding her eyes, however, she noted the faint narrowing of his own; the posture minutely, invisibly tensed; the way he examined her, knowing, studying, rather than wondering.

  And now she couldn't help but wonder, herself. Had she seen him many minutes ago, loitering about when she left the cemetery? She'd hardly been paying attention, couldn't say for certain, but she was fairly sure she had.

  “Maurice?” She muttered from the side of her mouth, allowing her attention to wander past the man she'd pinpointed. “Left side of the street. Blue-and-yellow coat, tarnished buckles on his boots, hair that looks like cheap twine.”

  Whatever else he might think of her at the moment, the monk clearly recognized the importance of her tone. “He looks vaguely familiar. I think…”

  “Think faster, yes?”

  “I think he's one of the grief-stricken children of Lord Suspicious Character we talked about.”

  Shins nodded, turning slowly back toward her quarry—and then not so slowly, when the man abruptly bolted, tearing back down the road as though he was late for his mother-in-law's funeral. Many of those nearby turned to watch him go; the others were still fixated on Widdershins herself.

  She'd been so cautious! What had tipped him…?

  Oh.

  The young woman and her god both rolled their eyes at Maurice (or Olgun did, at least, the spiritual equivalent), who had been staring openly at the fellow he'd been asked to examine, and then they swiftly leapt to pursue, leaving their less savvy companion behind.

  The befuddled citizens of Lourveaux all but fell from her path as she neared, clearly willing to let the crazy lady pass unmolested. The notion that, so far as they were concerned, she had just attacked one innocent passerby for no good reason and then launched herself after a second like a wolf made of springs only barely flitted across her mind before she cast it aside as unnecessary weight
.

  It would have been so easy, in Davillon. She could have taken to the rooftops, knowing with absolute certainty where she could intercept him based on which corners he turned; could have darted through courtyards between buildings, or even some of the buildings themselves, and known precisely where she'd emerge; might very well even have anticipated his final destination, based on his general direction. She could have kept up until he slowed, utterly undetectable, and then tailed him until she knew who'd sent him, or could confront him at a site of her own choosing.

  In Davillon.

  In Lourveaux, she knew almost nothing of the streets, nothing of the layout, nothing of the interiors. In Lourveaux, the more ornate and more frequently sloped buildings made hopping from one to the next a slower, riskier proposition. In Lourveaux…

  All she could do was call on Olgun to help her outrace and outlast her prey, and run.

  She felt the familiar tingle over her skin, followed by a surge of strength in her legs, a soothing balm in her coldly burning lungs. The buildings and passersby to either side surged past her, her hair writhed in a brown pennant behind her, in defiance of the wind. So fast did her feet fly, the crunching beneath her boots sounded less like snow and more like a carpeting of dead beetles.

  It surely wasn't as swift as it felt; Olgun's magics reached only so far, could drive her body only to amazing feats, not impossible ones. But it felt glorious and, more to the point, it enabled Shins—despite her ignorance of these streets, despite winding through people who didn't clear her way swiftly enough, despite leaping over a small cart that trundled into her path—to close on her target in a matter of moments.

  When the disreputable fellow made a sidelong dash into what even a newcomer to the city could tell was a blind alley, she knew she had him.

  “Oh, don't be a ninny!” she snipped at the warning image parading before her inner eye. “Of course I know. Are you ready?”

  Olgun's reply, translated as nearly as possible from emotion and imagery to actual vocabulary, was, “Don't be a ninny!”

  Widdershins hit the mouth of the alley at a dead run and dropped, leaning back at a nigh-impossible angle. Her momentum carried her forward on her knees, digging parallel trenches in the ash-gray snow, cloak and hair billowing behind her. The sharp crack of a flintlock bounced around her ears, and she was certain she actually saw the ball fly overhead, punching through the space her torso would have occupied had she remained upright.