False Covenant

“I'm not.”

She held up her wrist and once again shook the chain.

Evrard growled something unintelligible. Turning back to the nearer table, he lifted the carafe of wine and began to pour, then flinched as the liquid dripped through the cracked vessel. With a grunt he tossed the useless cup to the floor and took a large and very unaristocratic gulp from the decanter itself-a decanter which was, Robin couldn't help but note, already half-empty.

“Classy,” Robin said. Evrard pulled a second, smaller chair out from the table and slumped into it.

“I'm no kidnapper,” he insisted again, sulking.

“My chain and I would like to debate that.”

“Gods damn it! This is all her fault, you know!”

“Who? Widdershins?”

Evrard's lips actually peeled back from his teeth at the sound of that name. “Who else?”

“This is her fault, is it? Maybe she paid you to kidnap me? There are easier ways of firing me, if that's what she-”

“This isn't a joke!” Evrard was again on his feet and again pacing, though this time it was toward and away from his less-than-willing guest, rather than parallel to the windows. “I didn't want it to come to this. She was supposed to…” He stumbled to a halt, then shrugged. “I thought that surely this would do it. But no, apparently your precious Widdershins won't even put herself out for her so-called friends!”

“She'll be here!” Robin realized she was screaming and forced herself to calm. “You don't know her. She'll be here, and you'll wish she wasn't.”

“I doubt it.” Evrard shook his head and returned to the carafe of wine. “I don't believe anymore that she has even that much honor.”

Robin didn't remember rising to her feet. “Honor?!” She was shouting again, and this time couldn't be bothered to care. “You're talking about honor? You?! You threatened to destroy her life! You kidnapped me! And over what? A few stolen treasures that your family hadn't bothered even to look at in a decade or more? What gives you the right to impugn anyone's honor?”

The carafe shattered against the wall, leaving a series of divots in the wood and a blotch of wine that gave the impression of someone having just swatted a two-foot mosquito. “What else would this be about, you stupid little girl?!” Evrard, too, was shouting, his fists clenched and shaking. “Everything I've done has been to erase the stain on my family's honor! A stain left by your precious Widdershins!”

“Oh, right.” Robin looked meaningfully at the shackle on her wrist, at the wine stain on the wall. “Mother and Father would be so proud of you right now, wouldn't they?”

For a moment, Robin really thought she'd gone too far. With a strangled cry, Evrard was across the room and looming over her, his arm raised for a brutal backhand blow. Robin whimpered and fell back, cringing away from the coming pain…

But the blow never fell. For long seconds Evrard hovered, his face twisted-and then his shoulders slumped and he fell back. Robin, who could see him only blurrily between squinted lids, forced her eyes all the way open.

Evrard blinked slowly, just once, and then he made his way once more to the far table. “Let's just hope you're right,” he said, “and she gets here soon. I want to get this over with.”

Robin couldn't help but nod in heartfelt agreement. And as neither of them had anything more to say, they waited in silence, each lost in his or her own tumultuous thoughts.

So lost, in fact, that when Robin next blinked herself out of her near fugue and glanced around, the oil lamps that provided the room's only illumination, set roughly equidistant around the chamber, were beginning to gutter. But that meant…

Hours. It'd been hours since she and Evrard last spoke. Hours in which Widdershins had failed to appear.

Those guttering flames grew suddenly broad and bleary through Robin's unshed tears. She wouldn't give up; she wouldn't! And yet…

She couldn't quite repress a startled shriek as Evrard appeared in her peripheral vision, his approach heralded by the ominous echo of footsteps-a sound she had utterly missed until he was right there. Perhaps he'd come to the same conclusion-that Robin's usefulness as bait had proved sorely lacking-because his stare was hard, his hand darting into a heavy leather pouch at his belt. Robin recoiled, squeezing herself back into the chair, as that hand emerged, clutching…

A key?

Robin held her breath as Evrard knelt for an instant at her side. A slight jostling, a loud click, and the manacle around her wrist fell away. By the time she rose, carefully rubbing and poking at the slightly chafed skin, he was already stepping away once more.

“Go home,” he told her, unwilling or unable to meet her gaze. “I don't-”

Pistol shots shattered the nighttime silence in the streets beyond the warehouse. The wood of the window shutters cracked and splintered as lead balls punched their way through, hurtling upward to embed themselves in the ceiling with a shower of dust and splinters. Robin screamed as something heavy slammed into her, knocking her to the floor. Except it wasn't something at all, but someone.

Evrard. Evrard was actually lying atop her, shielding her with his own body.

Not, they both realized at roughly the same moment, that it'd been necessary. The pistols had clearly been aimed upward, intended to fly over the heads of anyone within the chamber. Neither Robin nor Evrard himself had been in any danger, save for the risk of shallow cuts from flying shrapnel.

A diversion, then? If so, it had done its job well, for by the time Evrard had climbed back to his feet, his ruby-hilted rapier unsheathed in his right hand, it was already too late.

The door hung open, the lock apparently having been picked, and two men clad in blacks and grays had darted through, one to either side of the door. Both held muskets, aimed steadily at Evrard's breast. A third dark- garbed intruder-this one female, to judge by the shape, but otherwise similar to the first two-had crept in from one of the entrances at the back, and now stood at the rear of the chamber. She, too, had her weapon locked squarely on the young aristocrat.

“Well,” Evrard said, his focus flickering from one to the next, “I suppose I should have seen this coming.” He stopped and faced a fourth figure, who was only now appearing between the two men at the door. “Too much to expect for you to come alone, wasn't…”

His teeth came together with an audible click when the new arrival revealed itself to be not Widdershins at all, but rather a short dandy in bright tunic and hose, a half cape slung over one shoulder, his mustache perfectly trimmed. He wore a hat with an ostrich plume and a rapier at his side, and in his right hand he clutched a flintlock pistol.

“You're not Widdershins,” Evrard said, his voice almost accusatory.

“Goodness, no. I believe if I were, you should never entice me to leave the house.” He bowed low. “Renard Lambert, at your service. Robin? Are you injured?”

“No,” she said, her voice quavering as she crawled a few feet from where she'd fallen and then stood. “No, I'm fine. Is…Where's Widdershins?”

“I fear the good lady couldn't attend. I've come in her stead.”

“Hah!” Evrard shook his head. “I knew the woman had no honor, no loyalty! She-!”

“You would do well, monsieur, to be more careful about insulting people whose friends have loaded weapons pointed at your heart.”

Evrard, apparently, felt there was some wisdom in that, as he fell silent.

Renard directed his attention once more toward Robin. “Come on, girl. Over here.”

She obeyed, her limbs moving mechanically, but her lips were pale, her jaw quivering. She felt the wet warmth of tears on both cheeks, and couldn't be bothered even to wipe them off. She knew she ought to be grateful, to be delighted that rescue had come (even if it was starting to look as though she might not need it), but