Lost Covenant: A Widdershins Adventure Read Free Page B

moved on.
    After the third such occasion, Shins padded up to stand directly behind her host, almost silent on the snow. “What's with all the guards, Maurice?” she whispered.
    “Widdershins…I realize that you and I are acquainted, but it really would be more proper to call me ‘Brother Maurice.’ At least when on holy ground such as this.”
    “ William didn't feel it was improper,” she said pointedly. And then, “What's with all the guards, Maurice?”
    The monk glowered for a moment, then simply sighed and turned once more into the dancing flurries. “Just in case any of the unrest should happen to pass into the cemetery.”
    “Unrest?”
    Maurice's jaw dropped; she could tell from behind him. “Did you not notice the protesters shouting on every major street corner? The scrawled slogans and flyleaves that crop up all over? The city's had a bear of a time keeping up; they clean one block, the next just—”
    “I avoided major street corners,” she said with a shrug. “And major streets, in general. Beyond that? Just looked like Davillon to me, except even richer and more pretentious.”
    “Lourveaux,” he insisted through gritted teeth, “is not Davillon. This is not normal here.”
    “Right. So why the ‘unrest,’ then?”
    “We'll get to that. That's another ‘out of the cold’ conversation.”
    Their voices fell. The wind picked up.
    Shins waited until it was quite clear he wasn't about to say more, then asked, “So what's the real reason for the guards?”
    Maurice jumped as though he'd just discovered a mole in his small clothes. “What?!”
    “Come on, Brother Maurice. You're a monk, and a devout one at that. I could hear it in your voice and see it in your posture if you were planning to lie to someone tomorrow .”
    “I wasn't lying,” he protested in a soft grumble. “I was just…waiting to tell you everything.”
    “Stop waiting.”
    Another sigh. “Fine. The guards…” He turned aside as a particularly brisk breeze hurled a few random flakes into his hood. “For the same reason I was so cautious approaching you,” he said, voice raised just enough for her to hear him over the gusts. “We've had a number of…suspicious characters here on and off over the past few months.”
    “And you're sure they weren't just family members visiting the tomb of Lord Suspicious Character IV, or something?”
    “We aren't complete fools here, Widdershins. Don't say it.”
    “I wasn't going to. Too easy.”
    Inside her head, Olgun was quietly having hysterics.
    “They managed to pass themselves off as mourners initially,” Maurice admitted. He drew them both to a halt, took a long moment to peer both ways down a main road, struggling to see through the gray, and then continued once more. “But we figured out fairly swiftly that the same group of people were rotating through. This fellow one day, that fellow the next, and so forth. I've no idea what they're doing here—there's been no vandalism or robbery—and we haven't the right to do anything but escort them out if they're here improperly.
    “But…”
    A long silence stretched between them.
    “I think one of your sentences slipped its leash,” she said finally.
    He offered another sallow grin, then pointed through the snow to a small building—the same size as the more modest mausoleums but far less ornate. She nodded, and they both headed toward the door.
    “But,” Maurice continued, producing a large, iron key from within his robe, “I couldn't help notice that most of them have been spotted not too terribly far from His Eminence de Laurent's tomb. Could certainly be coincidence, and his is far from the richest mausoleum here, so I can't even say for sure…”
    The monk continued, unlocking the door with a heavy clonk , ushering his guest inside, and locking it once more with equal volume, but Widdershins wasn't hearing his words anymore. The groundskeeper's abode nicely retained the heat, and a small pile of embers