Thief's covenant

“What makes you so certain,” he asked when the tale was concluded, “that this has anything to do with the Finders' Guild?”

“It was well organized,” the major told him. “He had partners to set the fire, distract the guards. It was well funded, considering how much he was able to offer in bribes. And this all happened in front of a hall full of convicts. It took some doing, but I found a few willing to identify the fellow as one of yours.”

“I see. And you feel certain that he was there for Widdershins?”

“I am.”

Lisette seethed, but there was precious little she could do.

“Hers was the only door open; she was the only one missing,” the Guardsman continued. “I can't say if he was there to free her or to kill her, but either way, a Guardsman is dead because of it. If you're going to start coming into our house, we cannot justify allowing-”

“Major, I respect the risk you took in coming here. And while I know you didn't do it for our sake, an open war would indeed be as bad for us as for you-perhaps worse. So let me assure you, I did not authorize any operation within your gaol, either to free or to kill one of your prisoners.”

“I see. But I can't just accept that on faith and forget that it ever-”

“Nor am I asking you to. Taskmaster?”

“What?” she asked, voice sullen.

“You will spread this announcement for me. Whoever is responsible for this act has one day to come forward. If he does so, he will be turned over to the Guard for punishment.”

“That's hardly a convincing-”

“If he does not, and I later learn who he is, it will be I doling out punishments.”

“Oh.”

The major looked as though he wanted to object, then thought better of it.

“Further,” the Shrouded Lord added, turning his gaze toward the Guardsman once more, “should you succeed in identifying the rest of the conspirators before we do-assuming you have real proof, Major-nobody in the guild will lift a finger to shelter them from you, nor to take vengeance for their arrest and sentencing.

“I should think that this-in addition to your being allowed to leave here unharmed-should be more than sufficient to avert any additional conflict that might arise from this unfortunate misunderstanding?”

“I should think so,” the Guardsman agreed, unable to keep a touch of relief from his voice.

“Excellent.” The Shrouded Lord pulled a small rope all but hidden in the smoke, and the door opened once more. “Show this fellow out,” he ordered. “Politely.”

“Ah, of course,” the thief acknowledged. And then he was gone, the major trailing behind.

“I assume you had no prior knowledge of this, Taskmaster?”

“Of course not,” she offered, her tone sullen.

“I'm so glad.”

“This doesn't change what Widdershins did. We still have to-”

“No.”

Lisette's jaw dropped.

“I am gravely disappointed in Widdershins's actions,” the Shrouded Lord told her, his sepulchral tones weighted down with a light frosting of regret. “But even if Jean Luc's accusations are true-”

“We've no reason to assume they're not, my lord,” Lisette insisted, panicked as she felt her long-awaited victory slipping through her fingers. “It fits her pattern. Underreporting her takes, refusing to pay us our due… There's no reason to think that she wouldn't-”

“I will hear it from her. The assassin has been useful in the past, but he's not one of us. I will hear her confession, or her denial, from her own mouth, as I would any other of my thieves. More to the point and as I was saying,” he continued, trampling the objections forming on Lisette's lips, “even if the assassin's told us the truth, Widdershins is also clearly mixed up in something larger, something that seems to involve rogue elements within my own guild. And I won't have that sort of thing in my house, Taskmaster. So listen and listen well, Suvagne. I want her brought in alive.”

Though these were his chambers, and it was his custom to dismiss visitors from his presence when their audience was concluded, the Shrouded Lord rose to his feet with those words. Two steps backward and he'd vanished into the smoke-hued curtains, leaving Lisette to fret and fume in the thick haze.

“How'd it go, lad?” Chapelle asked, falling into step behind the stiff-legged major.

“I'm alive,” Julien said, holding out an open hand. “So I guess as well as I had any right to expect.”

The old sergeant placed the younger man's rapier into the waiting palm, waited for him to strap it on, then handed over his bash-bang as well.

“I think I learned something important,” Julien said finally. “The Finders aren't behind what happened. They don't want a war any more than we do, and they're worried de Laurent might just authorize one.”

“Assuming,” Chapelle noted, “that you can believe a word they said to you.”

“Assuming that, yes.” The rest of the walk was silence, broken only by their heavy footsteps.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Still now:

“Ouch!”

“Oh, stop fidgeting, Shins. This would all be over if you'd just stand still for a damn minute!”

“I can't help it,” the thief complained with a vague sense of deja vu, shrinking from her friend's skillful, but not terribly gentle, touch. “You're hurting me!”

“Oh, in Banin's name, Shins! You're such a whiner!” Genevieve retorted, pressing a strip of cloth over the wound, trying for the third time to sop up the excess blood. “It'll hurt a lot more if I have to keep reapplying this stupid thing, so stop dancing like some drunk floozy and let me get this done! And it wouldn't be feverish if you'd just come to me straightaway, you know.”

Widdershins gritted her teeth, partially against the pain, primarily to avoid saying something thoughtless. It's never a wise prospect to annoy the person currently poking and prodding at one's seeping wounds.

After her dramatic dive from the archbishop's window to the grounds of Rittier's estate, she'd made a beeline through the alleyways of Davillon toward one of her many bolt-holes, hiding out for almost a full day before she was convinced that neither the City Guard nor any Finder enforcers had followed her from the estate. Only then had she, limping and reluctant, found her way to the Flippant Witch. She'd nowhere else to go, though she wouldn't have blamed the barkeep for sending her away at the door.

Genevieve had, of course, done no such thing. Tired as she was from a busy night at the tavern, Gen took her friend in her arms and led Shins back inside to sprawl out on one of the tables. Only after Gen had relit the lamps, gathered supplies, offered Shins a stiff drink to dull the pain, and begun to tend to the embarrassed thief's injury did she set in on the lecture.

Widdershins didn't hear most of it. She was too busy having a silent argument with her ever-present partner.

“Tell me again,” she hissed at him, “why you can't just fix this up like you did the last time?”

She knew the answer, of course, even before she felt Olgun's irritated sigh. She'd been injured enough times to know that there was only so much healing the god could provide-and only so much a mortal body could take.