by Ari Marmell
“That's because we're not going to get in the door without being stopped and reported! I'm covered in dust and cobweb from the tunnel, and you look like a raw fillet trying to rise above its station!”
The younger woman drew herself up, proud and straight, and then slumped again with a wince at the tug on her slowly scabbing wounds. “I've gotten in there before!” she protested.
“Uh-huh. Through the front entrance?”
“Well, no…”
“And how many walls are you going to be climbing in your current condition?”
“Oh, come on!” Shins protested. “We just need a diversion of some sort.”
“Hmm. All right. You pass me the cloak, so your wounds are obvious, and then go collapse in the street. Then, when everyone's gathered around you…”
“Yes?”
Igraine offered an almost helpless shrug. “I'll leave.”
Widdershins's first comment was directed at Olgun, not the priestess. “How do you snort like that without a nose?” Then, more loudly, “Cute plan.”
“I thought it had some charm to it.”
“May I,” Shins asked haughtily, “make an alternate suggestion?”
“I was almost certain you would.”
It didn't require much, all in all. A nearby stable provided the raw materials. (“Raw materials,” in this instance, meaning “horses.”) A bit of shouting and arm-waving bolstered by a surge of artificial panic from Olgun, and the beasts began rearing and screaming, agitated without quite being alarmed enough to injure themselves.
After that, as the building's private guards and those few people out and about in the street gravitated toward the commotion, it was simple enough for Igraine to help Widdershins stagger away from the stable, as though she'd been injured by a frenzied hoof.
And then they really did just walk through the front door.
The one and only time Shins had previously visited the Golden Sable, she hadn't seen the entryway, the open lobby, the broad halls. Carpet, thick and lush enough to warm a bear in winter, led to a series of doors here, a massive staircase there. Clean-burning lanterns of polished brass and scintillating crystal held the shadows at bay to all but the deepest corners. Several servants in livery or other fine outfits looked down their noses at the shoddy pair, but none of them said a word. They all had their own duties to think about, and probably assumed Shins and Igraine would be hearing an earful from their own employer soon enough.
Three flights up, several corridors in, and they finally halted at what Widdershins believed was the proper door. (Having only ever entered the suite via the window, and never having set foot in the rest of the building, “believed” was as certain as she was getting, and “guessed” was probably a more honest assessment.)
“This place is unbelievable!” Igraine sounded almost offended rather than impressed. “This is an inn?”
“Not exactly,” Shins said, hesitantly kneeling beside the door and fumbling for the last few picks that remained hidden in her belt and boots. “The Golden Sable's sort of long-term manor-sized suites for the high and flighty who aren't in town often enough to be worth buying something more permanent. Comes complete with servants, if you don't have your own. The Davillon Home for Wayward Aristocrats.”
“However often the Finders hit this place,” the other woman muttered, “it's not enough.” She started, then, and the faint clank-slosh-fwump as Shins took a swig of something from a faceted crystal decanter, then set the vessel down beside her as she worked. “Where in the Shrouded God's name did you get that?!”
“One of the aforementioned servants. He was too busy sneering at us to pay attention to the contents of his tray.
“Oh, don't give me that look! I have so much dried blood coating my mouth and throat, I couldn't even smell the frog-hopping stables! It's pure luck I'm even still able to talk!”
“I don't know if ‘luck’ is the word I'd have—”
“Shut up and have some brandy.”
Igraine did nothing of the sort, instead looming over Shins's shoulder and wincing at the occasional click within the lock. “Do you want me to do that?”
“I'm a little better at it than you are,” Shins insisted, tongue slightly protruding in concentration as she worked the tumblers.
“You're also injured,” the priestess pointed out.
“That's why I'm only a little better at it. And there's that look again. You're going to get bored of it eventually, yes?”
“Not at this rate.”
“You're way too uptight about this.” Shins leaned back in triumph as a much heavier clank announced the lock's unconditional surrender. She reached up, using the latch to heave herself to her feet as she slowly, silently began to open the door. “I told you, he's not going to be here.”
“And if you're wrong?”
“Then we reason with him. I'm not exactly his favorite person in the world—or even in this hallway—but he can be reasoned with. Weaaaaaughk!!!”
Something yanked the door away from her, taking her already precarious balance with it. Shins crashed headlong to the carpet, unable to catch herself or even to react at all, save to bite back a whimper at the renewal of agony across her back and stomach. Inch by inch, she twisted her neck until she lay on her cheek rather than her aching nose, struggling to see.
What she saw was the unwavering tip of a rapier, some few inches from her eyeball, and the onyx-haired, hawk-featured man standing at the other end of it.
“I suggest,” said Evrard d'Arras, “that you start reasoning.”
She squirmed, occasionally thrashing, caged by shackles of fever between waking and sleeping, dreaming and thinking. Sweat plastered the light sheets to her body—light yet stifling, as though it were thick wool in the height of summer. Even had she the presence of mind to kick it off, though, as she had a time or two already, the result was just a fit of shivers instead.
The faint buzzing of Olgun's touch, the burning at the edges of the wounds, the ointments Igraine had applied after washing off the worst of the grime and gore, the unfamiliar itch of the bandages and the bed, combined in Widdershins's feverish, semiconscious mind into a skintight covering of twitching, biting, dancing ants. She moaned, absently slapping at herself, and rolled over yet again, further twisting the sheet into a veritable rope of cloth.
Voices from the next room, voices from inside her head; she found it difficult to tell, between the bouts of oppressive silence, which were which. Still, a time or two, she'd caught snippets of conversation that were, she was almost sure, passing between the priestess and their rather grudging host.
“…wasn't going to throw her out in the street in that condition,” Evrard was snarling, or so she thought. “I'm not a savage! But you need to get her the hell out of here!”
“She's in no condition to be moved!” Igraine's voice lashed back. “And even if she were, I've nowhere to take her.”
“Not my concern. Damn it, Vernadoe, you know what she did to me, to my fam—”
“Oh, don't even start. She's a thief. That's what she does. Your family hadn't even seen that stuff in years!”
“Not the point, and you—”
“And I rather clearly recall you fighting alongside her almost a year ago.”
Soft thumps suggested pacing, followed by the much louder and quite distinctive thud of fist on wall. “That was an emergency! Just because I've decided I don't necessarily want her dead doesn't mean I've forgiven her, that she has any right to ask me for any sort of aid! The bloody gall of that little…”
At this point the voices were drowned out by a semi-waking dream in which Shins could only hear the horrid laughter of that ghostly chorus that had accompanied the creature Iruoch, except this time Robin's voice sounded clearly among them. Before she could even begin to contemplate that, she was out again.
And awake once more, to the sound of heated argument. And out again. Awake to the slam of a cupboard of some sort; for no reason she could articulate, sh
e was quite certain it was a wine closet. Then out again.
Jolted away by the staccato, percussive clatter of a fist banging on the front door. The slow, soft patter of feet creeping across the carpeted foyer.
She pushed herself up on wildly trembling arms that felt less like flesh and bone, and more along the lines of a desperate effort to support her weight on two snakes doing headstands. The muscles in her back and her stomach seemed to be trying to switch sides. Nevertheless, no matter how difficult, she was determined not to lie here helpless, to go see who had arrived and what was happening in the rest of the suite.
It was a determination she kept all the way back down to the mattress, and once more into uneasy, hallucinatory slumber.
It was the cold—gentle, soothing—that finally woke her properly, hauling her slowly but steadily through the depths of fever and pain and exhaustion. A soft, cool touch, washing away some of the sting across her skin. She felt the shimmer of Olgun's power as the god worked his own magics, adding his influence to the herbs and clean water that Widdershins knew, without checking, were contained in the soft cloths caressing her.
Sheer bliss, in that peculiar way that pain can be a relief when it replaces a greater agony; Shins almost sighed aloud.
At which point, four semi-related thoughts sprinted across her mind in quick succession, chasing one another like maniacal weasels.
Gods, that's so much better on my back than that fig-flipping blanket was, even if the smell does remind me of week-old tea! Dumb sheet felt like it was woven of hemp!
It would've been nice of everyone to keep their voices down, though. What if they'd woken me up before the balm did? I'd have felt like—
Wait, “everyone”? Why is this room suddenly so crowded?
And finally, if someone was tending to her back…
Oh, monkeys! I'm not wearing a shirt, am I?
Through sheer force of will, Shins broke through the last remaining layers of fluff and cobweb draped across her mind, pried her eyes open, and took stock. Her face was all but buried in an airy pillow, so she still couldn't see much. She was still covered by the sheet, she realized, now that she was paying attention. She could still feel it; from her hips down. From there up, she could only give thanks that Igraine—she assumed it was the priestess cleaning her wounds and changing her bandages—was working on her back, not her stomach.
Not that it would have mattered, had Igraine been the only one present. But in the babble of voices—at least four—Shins could clearly make out Evrard d'Arras, complaining almost petulantly about the number of people who had invited themselves into his home.
And, too, the voice of Renard Lambert, arguing with him.
Only when Igraine snapped, “All of you, be quiet! She's awake,” did Widdershins realize that she herself had been the source of that sudden, mortified squeak.
“Is she going to be okay?” Another voice, familiar, quivering with concern.
Robin. Robin's here, too?
Then that probably made the speaker she hadn't been able to identify, that she had only barely recognized at all…. What was her name? F-something…
Faustine.
Robin's lover.
Igraine was in the midst of telling Robin that if she wanted to know how Shins was doing, she could very well ask her directly, now that everyone's lack of consideration had woken her up, but the priestess didn't get to finish. For it was then that Shins finally rediscovered her own voice.
“Renard!”
She actually heard the impact of his skin on the inside of his clothing as he jumped. “What?!”
“If you've taken one tiny peek at anything you shouldn't have,” she said, trying to squish herself more tightly against the mattress, “you're going to lose your eyeballs. And you'll be lucky if it's just the eye-kind!”
“My dear Widdershins!” The foppish thief sounded truly aghast, and perhaps just a bit defensive. “I would never even think of—”
“—admitting to such a thing,” she finished for him.
“And why is it,” he sniffed, “that I receive such suspicion and ill-treatment, and Monsieur d'Arras does not?”
“You leave me—!” Evrard began.
“Because I'm not yelling at him,” she said, “until I either feel a lot better, or I know there are no sharp objects within reach.”
“—out of this,” he finished with a sigh.
“I think everyone needs to leave,” Shins grumped. “I am too tired, too sore, and apparently too naked for this much company.”
“All right, everyone,” Robin announced firmly. “You heard her. Out.”
“This is my home—!” Evrard once more began without finishing.
Shins swore she could hear the scowl on Robin's face. “Then you should be quite well acquainted with the location of the doors.”
Carrying a varied array of whispers, comments, and mutters with them, the ad hoc assembly trooped out into the next room. Robin whispered something to Igraine—Shins couldn't make out what, but even at so low a volume, she knew the younger woman's voice—and then the bed shifted as the priestess, who had been sitting at the edge of the mattress, stood up.
“All right,” she said, in response to whatever Robin has asked. “But just cleaning them. Come get me for anything after that.”
Steps sounded, the door shut, and the bed shifted again as someone took Igraine's spot. Shins suddenly found herself grateful that she lay on her stomach, face buried in the pillow, so she wouldn't have to meet her friend's gaze.
Although she still felt him tending her injuries, inspiring her flesh to knit far faster and more neatly than it ever should have, Olgun began to fade. Not completely, not ever, but enough so he remained only the slightest presence, a stray thought, all but forgotten.
It was, she knew, his way of offering Shins her privacy for what they both knew were the awkward moments to come. She loved him for it.
I should probably tell him that more often.
I should probably tell a lot of people that more often.
The soft slosh of heavy fabric, dipped in water; a renewed whiff of the herbal concoction; and then, once more, a gentle, cooling touch, feather-light across the worst of the welts and slashes.
And beyond that, and the muted susurrus of conversation leaking through the far wall, only silence. Only silence, until Shins couldn't stand it any longer.
“I can't believe Igraine let everyone in here with me like this,” she observed, her tone so brittle a mistimed sneeze could shatter it.
“Well, there were some important things being discussed, and she did have you face-down….”
“Hmph.” Another pause, then, “Guess it's just like old times. I've been back two days, and I'm already a bloody mess, and you're in danger and hiding again.”
Robin's chuckle was faint, but it sounded genuine. “I'm surprised it took that long, really.”
“Well, I am out of practice.”
Another soft laugh, from both this time. The atmosphere in the chamber remained thick as gruel, but Shins found herself breathing just a bit easier.
“So,” Shins said again, a brief eternity later. “Faustine?”
“Yeah.” Robin's ministrations halted for perhaps a second, then resumed. “Does that bother you?”
“I…no. No, Robs, it doesn't bother me. I just…never noticed some things, I guess.”
“No.” A tinge of bitterness, now, subtle enough that Shins would have missed it coming from anyone else. “You wouldn't have.”
What the hopping hens is that about?
As this didn't seem quite the right time to ask for clarification, however, she chose a different tack. “Is she taking care of you?”
As Shins had practically heard her friend's scowl earlier, so she swore she heard the broad smile now. “When I need it. And the other way around. She's good for me, Shins, if that's what you're asking.”
“I'm glad. You need good people in your life.”
In the distant
corner of her deepest thoughts, Olgun slapped a nonexistent hand to a nonexistent forehead. That had been, Shins realized when Robin's hands tensed, exactly the wrong thing to say.
“Oh, figs. Robin…”
“Faustine's been with me every second I needed her,” Robin replied in a near monotone. “Renard's been by the Witch pretty regularly. Always somehow manages a free mug of something out of the deal, but it's nice to have him around. Also that guard, once or twice. Julien's friend; what was his name? Paschal, right?”
“Uh…”
“Never for very long, just sort of poking his head in. Even Evrard's been in a few times.”
“Ev—he—what?”
Robin's shrug shifted the mattress a hair. “Well, he has.”
“That's probably guilt, you know. From the whole ‘kidnapping you’ thing.”
“Probably. But at least he was here.”
“Robin, come on! I told you, I had to…had…”
Had to get away. Couldn't face losing Julien on top of everything else that'd happened, everyone else who's been taken from me.
She'd said it before, aloud. She'd said it a thousand times in her head. She'd believed it, wholeheartedly, when she left.
She had not believed it since Aubier, not since she'd nearly died in Castle Pauvril. Not really. She'd admitted as much at the time, to herself, even to Olgun. So why cling to it so stubbornly now?
And once she'd asked herself the question, the answer came as clearly as if Olgun had spelled it out for her in the stars.
She'd been wrong, selfish; and it meant she could no longer justify, even to herself, any of the hurt she'd caused.
Widdershins wasn't sure precisely when she'd begun weeping into the pillow. She knew only, now, that she couldn't stop. Her sobs were gasping, ugly, leaving splotches of tears all over the fabric. Her shoulders heaved, tugging, if only lightly, on wounds and bandages.
When she felt Robin's hands on those shoulders—gentle again, comforting, no trace of their earlier rigidity, no hint of anger—it only drove her into further, more copious tears.
