Thief's covenant

many weeks hence. Banners of House crests, guild icons, and a multitude of holy symbols dangled from walls and windows, or even bridged the gaps between buildings. Between the sundry colors spread throughout the streets and the untidy heaps of trash waiting to be carted away, Davillon was starting to resemble the playroom of a very large and very spoiled child.

Through it all crept Widdershins, her mind just as focused on the day of His Eminence's arrival, though for entirely different reasons. She performed a few small jobs in the interim, nothing spectacular, nothing to draw attention. The City Guard was on high alert; Lisette was looking for any excuse to have her drawn and quartered. (Pockmark and Scarface, as she'd thought of them since that day in the Flippant Witch, had only been the latest Finders she'd had to duck-though she hadn't felt the need to drop part of a building on any of the others.) It was, frankly, all she could do to gather sufficient funds to keep the damn guild off her back.

And off her friends'.

Despite her relatively light schedule, Widdershins hadn't found the time, in the week since the fight with Brock, to go back and visit Genevieve, to make sure she was all right.

No, that wasn't true. She'd not found the time because she hadn't looked. A part of her feared to go back, and it had taken her this long-and the recent encounter with Brock's cronies-to talk herself into it.

The crowds were heavy as always, the ambient sound thick enough to ladle into bowls and serve as a soup course, but Widdershins slipped gracefully through the temporary cracks in the wall of humanity. Making her way again through the colorful flag- and banner-strewn marketplace, which was slowly but surely beginning to resemble the leavings of a rainbow with digestive upset, she found herself once more on the steps of the Flippant Witch.

She'd awakened at the ungodly hour of noon, so the tavern wasn't open for patrons. On the other hand, she knew that Genevieve typically arrived early, to ensure that the place was suitable for human habitation when the doors opened for the ravening hordes of drunks and drunks-to-be.

On yet a third hand (she was starting to feel vaguely like an octopus), the fact that Genevieve was probably here didn't mean a blessed thing. Even assuming she wasn't deliberately avoiding Widdershins, she might well ignore any knocking at the door before business hours. Doubtless every day saw a few drunkards convinced that they were worthy of special consideration.

With a dismissive shrug-either the door would open or she'd pick the bloody lock-she rapped loudly on the heavy wood.

“We're closed!” came the immediate response. “Come back in about two hours!”

“Gen?” Widdershins called back. “Gen, it's me!”

A moment passed, then a moment more. Widdershins was just about to slink away in dejection when she heard the sound of a heavy lock-followed by a second, a third, and two deadbolts. The heavy portal swung ponderously inward.

“Hurry up before you're spotted!” Genevieve hissed. “If they see me letting someone in early, I'll never hear the end of it!”

Widdershins darted into the darkened room. The shutters stood firmly closed, the huge stone hearth bereft of flame. Only the lanterns burned merrily away, sucking greedily at their reservoirs of oil, but their light was sullen and cheerless, as though they, too, were drinking away their sorrows. In the maudlin illumination, even the white cross of Banin seemed gray and dour.

“Is it always this gloomy before you open?” Widdershins asked, her voice artificially light.

“It's usually worse, but I've sent the skulls and implements of torture out for cleaning.”

Widdershins blinked. “You're feeling better,” she observed, her tone almost accusatory.

Genevieve shrugged, and returned to stacking several bottles of her most popular spirits behind the bar, where they'd be well within easy reach come evening. “I suppose I am, at that,” the proprietor admitted blandly as she worked. “Who'd have thought it?”

Widdershins stepped to the bar, watching her friend work for a few moments. At which point Genevieve slammed down one of the bottles-Widdershins jumped at the sound-and spun to face her.

“Why haven't you been back to see me, Shins?” No anger, there, only the vague seeds of hurt. “After what happened, I really needed a friend.”

Widdershins swallowed, her throat suddenly tight as a noose. She looked down at the bar, shamefaced. “I thought you were upset at me,” she admitted, suddenly a berated child rather than the adult she strove to appear. “I didn't think you'd want to see me.”

She looked up at the touch of Genevieve's hand on her own, saw the blonde noblewoman smiling sadly. “Shins, I'm, um, not exactly an admirer of what you do. And the people you do it with scare the hell out of me. But you're still my best friend. Which,” she added with a sudden smirk, “may say more about me, or about this damned city, than it does about you, but there you have it.”

Widdershins forced herself to match her companion's own smile. “I'd say it just goes to prove how lucky you are.”

Genevieve snorted, returning to the bottles. Widdershins continued to watch her work, her mind a playful kitten pouncing briefly upon a dozen different thoughts.

Then, “I am glad you're here, Shins,” Genevieve said over her shoulder as she deftly stacked the glass carafes, “but I can't help wondering why.”

“Do I have to have a reason?” the thief asked her, her attention dragged back to the issue at hand.

“You said you thought I was angry at you. Why pick today to come here and risk being smote by my great and terrible wrath?”

Widdershins sighed. “I ran into some of those guys again.” Genevieve's widening eyes suggested that she needn't specify which guys she meant. “It's all right,” she added swiftly. “It'll be at least a few days before they're up to causing any trouble. And they can't even pin it on me, not for sure.”

“But they will anyway, you know.”

“Yeah,” the thief acknowledged. “They probably will. Anyway, it just made me think-about what happened, about what could happen. So…” A shallow shrug. “Here I am. Lucky you.”

“Uh-huh.” Genevieve reached out and poked her friend in the sternum. “Tell me another.”

“It's true!” Widdershins protested. “Also, ouch.”

“All right, it's true. But there's more. I'm a barkeep, Shins. I hear more half-truths every week than you've told in your life.”

“Well, uh, there is one thing…”

“It's always ‘one thing.'”

“I want you to come with me next week,” Widdershins confessed.

The other woman blinked. “With you? Where?”

“The procession. I was planning to go and watch the archbishop arrive.”

“Shins…”

“I'm not going to do anything! Honest, I'm not! I just want to see what all the fuss is about.”

“I see. And this is in no way a means of thumbing your nose at the guild? Basically chanting ‘I'm not touching him! I'm not touching him! Nyah, nyah!' and then running away like a little girl? Or maybe about seeing who's all gussied up in their finest to greet him, so you know who to rob after he's gone?”

Widdershins mumbled something unintelligible.

“I see,” Gen told her. “What'd we just learn about me and half-truths, Shins?”

“I'm not asking you to do anything wrong, or dangerous,” Widdershins insisted. “I just want some company.”

“Half the city's going to be there.”

Widdershins shrugged. “So all of a sudden you're uncomfortable with crowds? You own a tavern!”

“I prefer my crowds to be less…crowded.”

“You,” Widdershins said, rising, “don't get out enough. It makes perfect sense that you're my only friend. I'm a thief. I live in the shadows. I have no life. You, on the other hand, are a nobleman's daughter, even if he's not really all that noble, and you own a very popular tavern. So how come you don't have more friends?”

“I have lots of friends! There's Robin, for instance.”

“She works for you.”

“Well, how about Gerard?”