False Covenant

spy on me, or simply to attack me outright?”

Widdershins felt her jaw trying to unhinge itself again.

“Your plan was one or the other, was it not?” Sicard pressed.

“Um, of course not,” she lied.

“Of course not.” Sicard chuckled. “Widdershins, a man doesn't reach my position without learning the ins and outs of intrigue. You wouldn't last five minutes in the political wrangling I've seen.”

“William wasn't like that,” she muttered.

Sicard's smile fell. “William de Laurent was a great man. One of the best I've ever met. But he left his footprints on enough backs and shoulders on the way up. We all do.

“And you,” he suddenly roared, his wine threatening to spill across the table and his pristine cassock, “haven't the right to speak his name!”

Widdershins couldn't help it; she actually recoiled, sinking back in her chair against the unexpected surge of fury. Even Brother Ferrand jumped a little, and his expression was ever so slightly wild.

“What…What are you talking about?” she asked.

“You know damn well! I have no idea what your vendetta against the Church may be, little girl, but it ends now!”

“Vendetta? Vendetta?! I've done nothing-!”

“We know you were involved in Archbishop de Laurent's murder-”

“I was trying to save-!”

“I've read Brother Maurice's report. It's confused and spotty, and leaves out far more details than it includes. I doubt his conclusions, frankly.”

“But-”

“Especially since you're so obviously working to sabotage us now, as well!”

“I never-”

“Is it something personal, thief? Something in your past? Or is this a move on the part of your heathen god?”

Widdershins, who had by now realized that Sicard didn't intend to let her complete a sentence any time soon, clamped her mouth shut and tried her best to burn a hole through his forehead with nothing but the power of her stare.

“Oh, yes, I know about him,” Sicard continued. “Not his name, or where he comes from, but I know he exists. I felt his presence the first time you entered my church. Between what I read of Brother Maurice's report-”

“The one you doubt?” Widdershins growled, but the bishop didn't hear.

“-and everything else I've dug up on you, it would have been only a matter of time before I pieced it together even if you hadn't appeared in my church this morning. And of course, now that you're right here, I can just about see him! How you kept his presence from de Laurent-”

“He knew,” Widdershins said, relishing the chance to interrupt. “William understood. He approved.”

“Nonsense!” Sicard was practically spitting. “And your own actions put the lie to any such ludicrous claims!”

“And what actions would those-”

“You're a murderer as well as a thief!”

“If you interrupt me one more-Wait. You think I'm what?”

“Oh, yes, I know. I made certain, absolutely certain, that nobody would be hurt! Nobody! Everything was proceeding as well as I could have dared hope, with nothing but a few scrapes and bruises. And then, you! You stick your nose in, and now Davillon has blood running in the streets!”

Widdershins realized she was standing, as was Sicard, and wasn't certain when either of them had risen. Brother Ferrand virtually vibrated in place, as though torn in multiple directions at once.

“You think I killed those people? Me? Gods, why?”

“There's nobody else involved who-”

“It's not me, you idiot! It's Iruoch!”

She hadn't meant to just blurt it out, but at least-other than his heaving breath-she'd finally silenced the shouting old goat.

When he finally did relocate his voice, Sicard didn't seem certain what to do with it. “What…You…Did you just say ‘Iruoch’?”

Widdershins struggled to control her own breathing, her own temper, and sat back down. “I did.”

“Iruoch's a fairy tale, you stupid girl! A story!”

“Like the cavalier d'Ouelette?” she challenged.

“A story,” he repeated. “One of many I tell, to make a point. To teach. It doesn't mean I believe them, any more than my adult parishioners do. If you think I'd accept for one instant-”

“Look, you don't have to believe that he's literally Iruoch! But there's something unnatural hunting Davillon, and it sure as figs isn't me!”

“Ridiculous. You-”

“Ah, Your Eminence.” Ferrand sounded as though he'd rather cover himself in salt and dance for the lions than get involved, but he did so nonetheless. “I have been keeping an ear on what's going on, and it's true that there's definitely some sort of magic involved in these murders. The bodies-”

“That just proves that her heathen god has given her powers of witchcraft, Ferrand! She's the only murderer involved! She-”

By which point, Widdershins's patience, already stretched so far it would ache for days, snapped. With a sound somewhere between a grunt and a shriek she lunged from her seat, calling on Olgun's aid as she moved, less in control now even than she'd been when confronting Igraine in the shrine of the Shrouded God.

One hand on the edge of the table was enough to vault her across the room, not at the bishop, but at Ferrand. Her calves crossed around his knees and she twisted as she fell, sending him crashing to the carpet. It wouldn't hurt him much, except maybe his pride, but it would keep him out of the way just long enough…

Sicard was already recoiling, hand reaching for the staff of office leaning on the back of his chair, but he might as well have been swimming through cobweb. Widdershins was back on her feet-or, more accurately, one foot. The other rose, then fell in a heel kick atop one of the carafes, shattering it across the marble. A simple cartwheel, and she came up directly beside the bishop, one arm wrapped around his neck, the other clutching a curved length of broken glass that had previously been the decanter's handle. Her hand should have been bleeding all over it, but Olgun's will had allowed her to avoid every other shard on the tabletop.

It was all over before Widdershins's chair had finished its slow topple to the floor.

“If I were the murderer you believe me to be,” she hissed into the pallid clergyman's face, “you'd be dead. And I'd be out that window in another three seconds.”

At which point she dropped the makeshift weapon and was in the process of righting her chair before the guard outside had finally shaken off his shock at the abrupt eruption of sounds and thrown open the door to see what was amiss.

“Brother Ferrand tripped,” she said to the sentry's stunned face.

“He did no such thing!” Sicard's voice lacked the certainty it had held only moments before, but if he was having doubts now, it wasn't stopping him. “I want that creature in chains!”

“Well,” she said softly to Olgun, already beginning to flush with embarrassment at her brief lapse of control. What in the name of the gods is wrong with me? First Igraine, now Sicard? “That probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. That argument worked so well with Igraine…”

Martin approached, one hand on his pistol, and she was just trying to decide if it was worth resisting when Igraine herself appeared in the office doorway. Paschal Sorelle was beside her.

And they were followed by Julien Bouniard! Even though she'd known he was nearby, watching in case the bishop had slipped by her, she couldn't repress a gasp of relief (or was it just relief?) at the sight.