Thief's Covenant Part 9

"No, she wasn't!" Joseph drove his curved dagger through Pierre's ear, full to the hilt. Mouth agape in an eternal silent scream, the young man twitched and convulsed horribly, his feet dancing spastically across twig-littered earth. Only when Joseph yanked the weapon free, steel grinding hideously on bone, did Pierre finally collapse and lie still.

"We attack now," Joseph coldly informed the others.

"Joseph," Anton the scarecrow protested, glancing nervously at the bleeding corpse, then gesturing roughly toward the carriage with his crossbow, "you sure? They've been warned now, and I ain't exactly looking forward to-"

"I said we attack now, d.a.m.n you! So what if they've been warned? We outnumber them four to one! Move!"

Anton sighed in resignation and, like the others, moved.

In the glow of the lanterns that hung from the carriage, Adrienne could clearly see the face of the man who escorted her, and grew ever more convinced that he was indeed the same who had once tried to shoot her down. From his neck hung a pair of medallions, one bearing the masked-lion crest of House Delacroix, the other the same feline visage without the mask. She wondered what it meant.

"Bring her inside!" came the clipped, authoritative command from the carriage. Adrienne jumped, startled at how familiar the voice sounded, though she'd only ever heard it speak a handful of words.

"Sir," the guard protested, "we don't know that she-"

"Now, Claude!"

Adrienne was shocked to see the servant blatantly roll his eyes at his master's command, even as he acquiesced. "Yes, sir. May I at least take her rapier from her first?"

"I think not."

"Very well. I'll say a nice prayer at your funeral." The carriage door loomed open. Unable to see much within, Adrienne felt as though she entered an abyss of endless darkness as she mounted the single step.

"Sit down," the voice instructed.

She did, just as the attack began.

Men charged, screaming, from the trees. Crossbows tw.a.n.ged and firearms roared; bolts sliced through the air, lead b.a.l.l.s and pellets tumbling beside them in a hail of metal, punching cruelly through flesh and bone.

It was a slaughter, but not the one Joseph and his thieves had planned. The cover offered by the heavy wooden panels of the carriage-not to mention the sheets of iron installed within each, for precisely this purpose-made the guards nigh impervious to any attack that didn't come from directly before them. And any bandit foolish enough to try to venture into that particular field was fired upon in turn. Six blunderbuss fuses burned down, six flocks of lead shot flew, and six flintlocks appeared from G.o.ds-knew-where. They, too, discharged, before the smoke of the first volley faded.

Between Adrienne's defection, the execution of Pierre, and the opening fusillade, Joseph lost half his men before laying even one of the enemy low.

As the last of the loaded ammunition flew, rapiers, broadswords, and knives appeared with a sequence of leathery rasps, a horde of hissing serpents. Joseph charged, his men following on his heels, and the guards moved to meet them.

Without the advantage of cover, it seemed the greater number of the bandits might yet turn the tide. Joseph was the first to draw blood, his blade painting a gash of red across a dark-clad rider's leg. The other thieves flooded in behind him, ma.s.sed too tightly for the mounted soldiers to take advantage of their horses' speed, pressing them back against the unmoving carriage.

But for all their numbers, all their desperation, even their lives of violence on the streets, these were not men trained for this sort of melee. Horses reared on command, hooves lashing out to shatter bone. The soldiers used their mounts' bulk to force their adversaries back, then set about them with a vicious array of cuts and thrusts, each carefully considered, each aimed at whatever flesh left itself exposed. Joseph's cry of triumph was cut abruptly short as the man whose leg he had slashed delivered a perfect riposte, the height of his horse providing devastating leverage. His blade plunged neatly into the soft spot at the base of Joseph's throat, and the large bandit died with his face forever locked in a parody of disbelief.

The carriage rocked with the surrounding tumult, and Adrienne desperately wanted either to scream till her voice went raw or to dive for cover beneath the seat. Alexandre Delacroix did neither, however, so her pride allowed her no other option but to maintain her seat as chaos raged around her.

It ended mere moments after it had begun. Two of the defenders lay bloodied upon the ground-one who might be saved with proper attention, the other of whom had been opened from gut to groin and was clearly beyond help-alongside six or seven bandits. The few who survived, led by the gaunt and raggedy Anton, fled for the cover of the looming trees.

Everything was silence then-a moment between life and death when the hue and cry of battle faded away but the sounds of the night had not yet returned. The tentative peep of a mockingbird shattered the pall of quiet, followed by the buzzing chirp of crickets, and the night resumed its normal cacophony.

"It's over, Master Alexandre," the nearest guard called into the carriage. "All but a handful of the brigands are slain, and the rest have fled."

The old aristocrat surely made some reply to his man-at-arms, but Adrienne didn't hear it. Her blood hummed audibly in her ears, and sweat broke out fresh on her face.

All but a handful have been slain....

"Pierre!" she shrieked, lunging at the carriage door. She flung it open, utterly unaware that she'd knocked the speaking bodyguard clear off his feet, and sprinted for the woods the moment her boots touched the road.

Adrienne never saw the blunderbuss, swung stock first. An abrupt fire blazed across the back of her head, and she fell unconscious to the roadway.

The world was bouncing.

With a groan, Adrienne forced her eyelids open, staring at the carriage ceiling. It swayed back and forth, bounced up and down, made her dizzy, jarred her already throbbing head against the seat, and she knew that within a matter of seconds she would- "Here," someone said, shoving a wooden bucket in her direction. She accepted it a bare instant before she would have emptied her stomach onto the floor. As it was, she very nearly upended the bucket-and its acrid, unpleasant contents-when she fell back with a gasp to lie once more upon the wooden bench.

"I think we'll just get rid of that," the same voice suggested. "Somehow, I think the cost of a new bucket is one I can absorb."

Adrienne continued to stare at the ceiling, even as she heard the sounds of the door opening and the bucket falling to the side of the road, where it would no doubt provide food for all sorts of desperate scavengers.

"That's a fine sword you've got," the carriage's other occupant continued conversationally. "Seems I've seen it somewhere before."

Though it hurt even to think about moving, Adrienne tilted her head just far enough to look at the man across from her. Alexandre Delacroix appeared much as he had at the market: hawk-nosed, sharp featured, practically bald...and smiling. Why in the name of all the G.o.ds was he smiling?

"Do..." Adrienne squeezed her eyes shut against a sudden wave of pain. "Do you...want it back?"

"I think, child, that it's a small price to pay for you saving my life back there."

"Just...just repaying a debt."

The carriage hit another rut, and Adrienne moaned. The older man's features clouded with concern. "I'm terribly sorry about this, child. You, uh, rather startled my guards, leaping from the carriage like that. I'm afraid that Martin hit you harder than he intended. You'll be all right, though. I'll have my best healers see to you personally.

"What did you mean," he continued a moment later, "about repaying a debt?"

"You...saved me from your man...in the market."

Delacroix's face twisted in puzzlement, then lit in comprehension. Softly, he chuckled. "I'm flattered you think so highly of me, child, but I fear you ascribe to me motives far more n.o.ble than I deserve. You were running smack dab through the middle of a crowded market, and the blunderbuss is not a precise weapon in even the most expert hands. The truth is, I was afraid that some of Claude's shot would strike bystanders in the crowd. If I could have been utterly certain of his accuracy, I'd have allowed him to fire."

Adrienne's mouth worked, but no sound emerged.

The aristocrat read her mind, or at least her expression. "What happened two years past is just that, child: past. You've saved my life tonight, and that wipes clean a great many sins. You are in no danger from me. After you've recovered, you'll be permitted to leave. Unharmed, I a.s.sure you."

That simple statement, far from bringing the rea.s.surance Delacroix intended, served instead to dredge up the recollection of why she'd run in the first place.

"Pierre...," she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Delacroix nodded slowly. "Pierre Lemarche? Yes, I recognized him. I knew his father, before the family's unfortunate decline. I fear he didn't survive the altercation. It looked as though one of the bandits killed him before the attack even began."

He looked on kindly, sitting silent as Adrienne wept.

Only when the girl had cried herself out did he continue. "I understand," he said, his tone sympathetic. "My wife pa.s.sed nearly two years gone. Not long after you and I met, actually." Another pause. "What's your name, child?"

She sniffed once, trying to focus past the grief and the pounding agony in her skull, wanting nothing more than to drift off to sleep for a very long time. "Adrienne," she told him softly.

"Adrienne. Adrienne." He repeated the name, rolling it about his mouth, examining the taste just as he would a fine vintage wine. He seemed to be contemplating something, something beyond the simple presence of the girl before him, and through her pain, Adrienne grew afraid.

But for now, at least, there was little to be done. She couldn't run, couldn't even stand. And so she lay where she was, her head leaning back upon the bouncing bench, with its insufficient padding. And all she could do was pray that this strange aristocrat told the truth when he told her he meant no harm.

NOW:.

Julien Bouniard strode past the ponderous door, rough with age but st.u.r.dy as the day it was hewn. He yanked the gauntlets from his hands as he walked, sticking them haphazardly through his belt. His nose wrinkled in distaste beneath the a.s.sault of the clinging mildew. Through ugly, claustrophobic corridors he pa.s.sed, his path illuminated only by cheap lanterns suspended from the ceiling. The d.a.m.n miserly city bookkeepers wouldn't even spring for decent lighting down here. The lamps were so poor that the light from one barely reached the circle of illumination from the next, and they smoked something awful, a constant irritant to the eyes and throat.

A second door, identical to the first, slowly materialized from the darkness before him. He fumbled at the keys on his belt, clanking them together softly, and unlatched the gargantuan lock with a resounding click.

The room beyond was cleaner than the hall, though this wasn't really much of an accomplishment, and was lit by modern lanterns far more efficient (and far less suffocating) than those in the cramped pa.s.sage. A faded beige rug-or at least it was beige now, though Demas alone knew what color it might have been when new-covered the stone floor, and several old tapestries partially concealed the walls. An enormous desk occupied the room's far side, a series of cabinets stacked beside it, and yet a third door-not only locked, but barred with an iron-banded shaft as thick around as Julien's calf-lurked beyond.

The fellow behind that desk, garbed in a uniform that mirrored Julien's own, glanced up from beneath an uneven black hairline. He recognized Bouniard, of course, but policy was policy. Instantly he aimed a pair of enormous crossbows, swivel-mounted to the desk, in the newcomer's direction.

"Today's pa.s.sword!" he demanded harshly.

"Holy water."

The other guard stood and saluted. "Major," he offered with far more courtesy.

"Jacques." Julien nodded. "Be seated." The constable sat, his chair digging furrows in the carpet, and the major was just opening his mouth to speak when his jaw fell ever so slightly agape. Shouts, m.u.f.fled to the point of utter incomprehensibility, and the clattering of something beating on the bars, penetrated even the heavy door.

"Is there a problem in there, Constable?" Bouniard asked seriously, mustache wrinkling as he frowned.

"Not really, sir. The new tenant's making a racket. Doesn't feel she belongs here, arrested unfairly, all the usual hogwash-but, uh, louder. To be honest, Major, I've sort of drowned it out."

"I see. And she's been at it since she got here?" He sounded more than a little amazed.

"Well, after a fashion, sir. She's kept it up ever since she woke up, but that wasn't much more than two hours ago. I-"

"Woke up?" Julien leaned forward, hands on the desk. "Was she injured?" His d.a.m.n ceremonial duties had kept him from hearing more than a perfunctory report on Widdershins's arrest.

"Again, Major, after a fashion. Way I hear tell, she was pretty bad off, but it wasn't our guys who did it. Seems they walked in on her and some big ox of a fellow having it out in the alley." He grinned. "Seems it was his life they saved, too, not hers."

Julien suppressed a grin of his own. That does sound like her. Aloud, he said, "I suppose I'd better go see to her, then. She's seen a healer?"

"Yes, sir. He felt that rest would be sufficient treatment."

"Well, she'll have plenty of time for that here." He paused. "The other man?"

"Sir?"

"The one she was fighting with."

"Ah. Couldn't say, sir. I understand he was long gone by the time any of our people got back there."

"I see. Be sure to get his description and pa.s.s it to the men, if it hasn't already been done. I'd like to have a word or two with him about fighting in the streets." Especially with a girl.

"I'll see it's done just as soon as I'm off shift, sir."

"Splendid, Constable. Which cell?"

"Twenty-three, sir. Put her in there alone, since she was hurt and all."

Jacques muscled the bar from its brackets, letting it thump heavily to the floor, and turned his key in a lock far more intricate than those on the previous doors. It swung open with a ghostly groan, a maw that opened into the depths of h.e.l.l. With a shrug, Julien stepped through.

Another hallway, mildewed, smoky, and ill-lit with cheap lanterns, but this one was far from featureless. Every ten feet stood a door of heavy iron bars. And behind some of those gates stood, sat, or slept a rogue's gallery of Davillon's more unpleasant (or, in some cases, merely unfortunate) inhabitants. Catcalls, shouts, threats, and pleas rained down in a veritable blizzard as the major strode the hall. He made a clear show of ignoring them all.

Until he reached cell twenty-three, anyway. Widdershins, garbed in the drab brown that was Davillon's standard prisoner's wardrobe, her face marred by a few lingering trails of dried blood, shouted angrily and slammed her prison-issue ceramic mug-now cracking and crumbling into so much powder-into the bars.

"Those cost money, you know," Julien told her calmly.

Widdershins glowered at him. "You let me out of here, Bouniard! Right now!"

"What's with the hysterics?" he asked, arms crossed over his chest and standing well beyond arm's reach.

"I just wanted to get your b.l.o.o.d.y attention! Now let me out!"

"You know better than that, Widdershins," Julien told her, not entirely without sympathy.

The young woman sagged, her ruined cup falling from slackened fingers. "Bouniard, I didn't do anything!" This time, she added silently.

"Maybe, but I know you, Widdershins, and I can't risk a.s.suming that your proximity to the archbishop-to say nothing of the city's rich and famous-was happy coincidence. Besides, I'm told you were fighting."

"Oh, self-defense is a crime, now, is it?" she barked. "He hit me with a hammer, Bouniard! Have you ever been hit with a hammer? It's not actually as funny as you'd think."

The major raised an eyebrow. "You look like h.e.l.l, Widdershins, but I don't know that you look as bad as all that."

"I recover quickly, Bouniard. I-" The young woman shuddered once, and Julien saw her eyes roll back in her head. He lunged forward, arms reaching through the bars, catching her just before she would have collapsed in a jellified heap. Gently, he lowered her to the ground.

"Maybe not as quickly as you think," he told her softly. "You'll be safe here, and you'll have time to heal. Once the archbishop's gone, you'll be free to go."

Widdershins nodded weakly.

Julien rose and marched back toward the outer door. Was, in fact, reaching out to ring the bell that would alert Jacques he wanted out when he stopped, hand abruptly flying to his belt.

"Widdershins!" His face reddening, he pounded once more down the hallway, skidding to a stop before the young woman's cell. She'd moved back into the center of the room and now stared at him through a mask of pure, angelic innocence.

"Is there a problem, Bouniard?"

"You d.a.m.n well know there is, Widdershins! Give them back!"

She blinked once. "Give what back?"

"My b.l.o.o.d.y keys!" Julien snarled, no longer in any mood to be accommodating. Imperiously, he gestured at the manacles that hung from the back wall of the cell. "Put those on, Widdershins," he ordered. "Now!"

"Wait a minute. I don't think-"

"Put them on, or I'll call a few constables in here and we'll put them on for you! And don't even try to leave them loose. I can tell!"

Muttering, Widdershins rose to her feet, staggered to the rear of the cell, and latched the heavy iron bands to her wrists.