False Covenant

Julien, for his part, took one look at the broken glass, a second at Widdershins, and then just shook his head.

“I don't know what you're doing here, Major,” Sicard said, far more calmly. “But you couldn't have picked a better time. This woman is a thief and a-”

“You can save it, Your Eminence,” Bouniard said. “We heard all of it.” Then, when the bishop and the thief both gawped at him, “When Igraine saw you being escorted into the back, we improvised. Cup against the bishop's window. Thank you for pulling the curtain, by the way. Otherwise, you'd have spotted us in a second.”

Sicard was scowling, his jaw working, no doubt trying to recall if, in the heat of the moment, he'd said anything too terribly self-incriminating.

Widdershins was only too happy to help. “Which means,” she crowed, “they heard you admit that you arranged the initial attacks! Before the people actually started dying!”

“That doesn't justify your attack on me,” he insisted, though he'd begun to pale. “Major, I intend to press charges with the full weight of the Church.”

“And you have that right,” he said. “Of course, in the process, Igraine and I will have to testify to what we heard-and of course, if we make such a claim in court, we must inform the Church as well.”

“Why are you aiding this girl?!” Sicard demanded. “She's a murderer!”

“Actually,” Bouniard told him, “she's not.”

“I-what?”

“She has, in fact, been assisting us in our attempts to stop the creature committing these crimes.”

“Creature? You don't honestly-”

“Yes, Your Eminence, I do. I've seen its handiwork-including the injuries Widdershins suffered the first time it tried to kill her.”

“She could have faked-”

“No. She couldn't.”

Sicard literally fell backward, and it was only sheer luck that the chair was near enough to catch him. “But… William de Laurent? She-”

“I was there for some of those events as well, Your Eminence. She did everything she could to save the archbishop. And she lost her own closest friend in that mess.”

Widdershins turned away, memories of Genevieve-and, spawned by those, a new flare of concern for Robin- briefly overwhelming her.

“I was so sure.” Sicard's palms were shaking as though abruptly stricken with palsy. “I was so sure. It can't be because of us, we made certain…”

“What exactly did you do, Your Eminence?” Julien asked, not unkindly. But the old man-growing visibly older by the moment-seemed unable to answer. The monk knelt beside his master and held his trembling hand.

“Why,” Widdershins couldn't help but mutter, “does everyone want to blame me for everything?”

She hadn't intended to be overheard, but by one pair of ears, she was. “Because you're secretive,” Igraine said. “And you're impetuous. And you do find yourself near the center of trouble far more often than is good for you. And because some of us can sense that there truly is something abnormal, even unnatural about you. But mostly because you really, really annoy people.”

Widdershins couldn't think of a better reaction than to stick her tongue out. “Igraine?” she asked a moment later in a whisper, careful that nobody else in the room might hear. “Is what you heard really enough to start an inquiry? I mean, he only kind of touched on-”

“We didn't hear a damn thing, Widdershins,” she answered as quietly. “Cup against the window? We barely made out every fifth word.”

Olgun somehow emoted an “Eep!” and Widdershins stared through horror-widened eyes. “You mean…?”

“We just came running when we heard things get messy, and hoped that you'd gotten something useful from him.”

Widdershins couldn't tell whether she wanted to sob or hit someone, and was just deciding that she needn't choose one over the other when Sicard coughed once and straightened his shoulders.

“All right, Major,” the bishop said. “I don't know what's happened, or where things went wrong, but I never intended for anyone to suffer. I'll tell you the whole story.”

“Would you? Oh, splendid!” Every head in the room flinched in mounting dread as the door to the office slowly drifted open once more, admitting that awful, dual-toned voice. “I just love a good story!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Where is she?”

Robin watched from her seat-a comfortable, cushioned chair in the center of the room-as her captor paced as if he were the one caged. Her prison wasn't especially arduous; in addition to said chair, she had access to a table with an array of juices, cheese, and pastries, as well as a chamber pot if nature should demand its due. The only sign of her captivity at all was the manacle about her wrist, and the length of chain attached to it. Bolted to the leg of the table, it allowed her a substantial amount of freedom, though not enough to reach any of the four walls of the cavernous, and largely empty, chamber. A storage room or a warehouse, no doubt.

For his own part, Evrard passed to and fro beneath one of the room's rows of windows. A second table supported a carafe of wine and several loaded pistols; he'd spent substantial time with the first, and relatively little with the second.

“You could've left her a note, you know,” Robin told him, lifting a goblet of fruit juice to her mouth. (The cup was flimsy, a lightweight wood-very obviously provided because it would prove utterly ineffective as a makeshift weapon.)

Evrard ceased his pacing long enough to glare.

“No, really,” Robin continued. “I mean, if you wanted her to find you, then you could just-”

“She'll find me,” he snapped. “My family only owns a few properties in Davillon.”

“Like the tower?” Robin asked innocently.

“You're pushing it, child!”

Maybe she was; maybe she should just keep her teeth together. Robin was no Widdershins. Not a fighter, not brave, not…

But she also wasn't stupid, and damn it all, she wasn't just some tool to be used and thrown away at need!

“I don't think so,” she said, trying with only debatable success to work a touch of steel-a touch of Widdershins-into her tone. “You're not going to hurt me, Evrard.”

“So sure of that, are you?” His own goblet, of equally flimsy wood, cracked in his hand, sending rivulets of purple cascading across his fingers.

“Yes. Come on. You practically begged Gerard and the others not to make you shoot them when you abducted me. Hell, you apologized when you snapped this stupid cuff on my wrist!” She jingled the chain for emphasis, as if he could possibly have thought she meant some other manacle. “The food, the drink…You're not exactly a traditional kidnapper, you know.”

“I'm not a kidnapper!”

Robin just looked at him.