False Covenant

ancestral home! You took heirlooms that had been with us for generations!”

“And which you hadn't touched, or even looked at, in over a decade,” she pointed out.

“Utterly immaterial. This was about family honor!”

“Oh, I see.” She couldn't possibly have masked the scorn in her voice, even if she'd bothered to try. “So threatening to take away my dead best friend's tavern, kidnapping an innocent girl… These are about honor, are they?”

Evrard's face flushed, but he couldn't quite meet Widdershins's eyes. “Why,” he growled again, “are you here?”

“I need your help.”

Evrard burst into a belly laugh, doubling himself over-it was probably more luck than anything else that he didn't stab himself in the forehead with his rapier-and even Widdershins couldn't quite keep the grin off her face. “Yeah,” she said when his fit had finally subsided. “I know.”

“All right,” he said, wiping away tears of near hysteria with the back of his hand. “I'm listening.”

So he did, and Widdershins spoke. She didn't keep much from him-only some of the details of Olgun and their relationship-and over the course of her narration, the last of the humor faded from his face.

“There are some,” he said carefully, “who would call me crazy for even considering that you might be telling me the truth.”

“There are,” Widdershins agreed. “There are also some who would call me crazy for coming to you with this kind of story if it wasn't entirely true.”

“There is that. But-”

“And if you'll trust me just long enough to come with me, His Eminence, the bishop, should confirm it. Unless you think I've got him in my pocket, too.”

“Suppose,” he said slowly, “I'm not prepared to trust you even that far?”

Widdershins sighed loudly. “Do you think I want to be here, Evrard? Do you think I want to be talking to you, instead of dropping something heavy on you from a very great height? We need you!”

“Why should I help you?” He asked it as an honest question, with no challenge in his tone.

“You're not. You're helping all of Davillon. You're helping a whole bunch of people who'll be slaughtered by this creature if it's not stopped.”

“And why do you think that matters to me, either?”

“Because you care about your family's honor. And because you were about to let Robin go.”

“Damn it…” She knew she had him wavering, could literally see the indecision working its way across his features. “Widdershins, I don't know…I-”

“When this is all over,” she pressed, “assuming we're all still around, I'll challenge you to your stupid duel.”

“Will you, now?”

“I swear it. Time and place of your choosing.”

“And my rapier?” he asked, apparently just to be ornery.

“This isn't your rapier. But if I'm dead, you're welcome to take it.”

“All right…All right.” He somehow seemed to nod with his entire body as the decision was made. “Just let me get properly dressed.”

Widdershins smiled brightly. “Don't forget to untie the valet on your way out.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“I don't know,” Widdershins hedged, her fingertips trailing across a dusty stretch of old, cracked marble. “This is starting to feel a little disrespectful, don't you think?”

Sicard turned slowly away from his painstaking preparations, accompanied by a melodious popping in his back and cracking in his knees, and sighed. In the tone of a man repeating himself for the umpteenth time, he said, “The creature is most uncomfortable on hallowed ground, so we require just such an advantage. A cramped space, with lots of surfaces to climb, favors him over us, so the church would be inappropriate, even disregarding the danger to innocents. This truly is our best option, Widdershins. I think the families would understand-and I know the gods will.”

Widdershins frowned even as she nodded, glancing around once more at the array of tombstones and burial plots stretching away in every direction. They had set up shop at a crossroads of the footpaths that wound between the rows of resting dead, and Julien had stationed members of the Guard at the entrance to dissuade mourners and visitors from entering, but she still didn't feel as though they were even remotely alone.

She knew, also, that she should be upset that-despite his high-sounding justifications-Sicard had chosen the Verdant Hills Cemetery, which serviced workers, craftsmen, and other citizens of moderate means, rather than one of the wealthier, upper-class graveyards with which he'd probably have been more familiar. (He'd told them it was so Iruoch wouldn't have the mausoleums on which to climb, but Widdershins wasn't sure she bought that logic.) Should have been upset, except that she could only give thanks, however ashamed she might feel of herself for it, that neither Genevieve's nor Alexandre's graves would be impacted by what was to come.

His Eminence, apparently realizing that no further questions or objections were forthcoming, returned to his efforts, laying out a broad circle of various herbs and incense, fine links of silver chain, small two-faced mirrors, and other esoteric components for his forthcoming mystical endeavors. Widdershins, in turn, tore her gaze off the stretches of thick green grass and sprouting flowers, the meticulously carved stones and raised patches of earth, and studied her motley allies instead.

No Robin; Widdershins had shouted and ordered and eventually threatened to tie the girl up until she swore to remain behind. The thief understood her friend's burning need to help, but really, she could have done little except put herself, and the others, in greater danger. Similarly, no Constable Paschal. Julien had stationed him with the other soldiers at the gate, to ensure that no innocent mourners wandered into danger, but the man's injured arm would have made him a liability in the battle to come. He knew it, of course, which is why he'd swallowed his pride and accepted the “lesser” assignment.

All of which left, in addition to Widdershins herself (and Olgun, of course): the bishop, who would be responsible for the casting and maintaining of the enjoining incantation; Igraine, who would do what she could against Iruoch, but served primarily as Sicard's assistant; Brother Ferrand, who would share (as much as the spell would allow) in Olgun's power; Evrard d'Arras, who stood off on his own, shoulders stiff and chin raised against the mistrustful glares constantly lobbed in his direction; Renard Lambert, resplendent in his usual finery, who had won the coin toss and would be linked to Evrard, in order to share his dueling acumen; and Julien Bouniard, whose own loss of that coin toss had probably rendered him relatively useless in the coming confrontation and had sent him into a furious sulk, though he was doing his damnedest not to show it.

And they were supposed to not only stand against Iruoch, a creature from myth and fairy tale who had already taken everything Widdershins could throw at him-twice-but to destroy him. It would have been laughable, if it wasn't quite so terrifying. Despite her every effort to remain upbeat, Widdershins found herself looking again and again at the various grave plots around her and wondering if her own final resting place would be so neat and tidy.

So preoccupied was she in her grim ruminations that she almost missed it when Renard suddenly pushed away from the tombstone against which he'd been leaning and strode purposefully to Evrard's side. Only Olgun, metaphorically tapping her on the shoulder and pointing, was enough to draw her attention. Worry wrapping her fingers into fists, she sidled closer to listen in.

“…threats you're planning to make,” Evrard was saying, not even deigning to face the shorter man, “you needn't bother. Widdershins asked me to be here. Our personal issues can wait until later.”

“Maybe yours can,” Renard replied. “Maybe hers can. But I wasn't consulted, and I made no such agreement.”