Thief's covenant

CHAPTER ONE

Eight years ago:

Brick walls and wooden fences were the borders of her world, roads of dirt or broken cobblestone its fields, rickety staircases its trees. The city wasn't just “a big place” at her age, her size-it was all there was, all there ever could be.

She'd spent much of that day exploring the nearest reaches of that world, along with a number of friends who, like her, were ducking out on the various chores with which they were tasked. Rag-clad and dirt-faced, they moved in a feral pack, yipping and screeching and giggling. Their chins dripped with the juices of fruits they hadn't paid for; their wrists and arms and shoulders ached with the iron grasp of merchants who snagged them before they could run. But there were always more vendors, and those swift or fortunate enough to catch them were far less numerous than the shopkeepers who never knew they'd been robbed. The children pushed, slipped, shoved, and squeezed through barricades of flesh and cloth, making their way through the bustling markets and crowded streets. The heat of bodies pressed together in the throng was enough to make them sweat, despite winter's chill in the air and a light dusting of snow on the rooftops. They shouldn't really have been here unsupervised, so far from home, but their parents had long since given up forbidding them to go.

Futility was a common enough guest in the poorer quarters of Davillon. No sense in inviting him for an extra stay, no sense at all.

Young as she was, however, the girl had some vague sense of responsibility. While everyone knew that adults thrived on giving children meaningless busywork, there were some chores that needed doing. And of course, she wouldn't want her parents to worry. (The fact that it was growing late, and that her stomach-unsatisfied by purloined produce-was rumbling for dinner had, of course, nothing at all to do with her abrupt decision to head for home.)

A few shouted farewells, a few insults and protruding tongues, and she left her friends behind. She didn't quite skip along her way, for even if she'd been a happy enough child, the traffic on the roadways wouldn't allow for it. But she was, at least, as carefree as her lot in life would allow. Today, given her own limited frame of reference, had been a good day. She watched, with a delight that she hadn't yet outgrown, as clouds of dirt puffed up around her worn and ragged shoes.

The forest of legs thinned notably as she moved farther from the market, and she began to shiver as the season coughed and wheezed across her skin. She kept her head low, wrapped her arms about her chest in a quest for the warmth her tunic failed to offer, and mumbled aspersions upon her friends. It must, after all, have been their fault she'd stayed out so late.

It wasn't the change in the constant roar of the city's voice; people were always shouting about something or other. It wasn't the faint stinging in her eyes, or the almost dainty cough that kept traveling up and down her throat like a yo-yo. No, it was instead the sudden gust of warmth, a comforting yet confounding relief from winter's winds, that finally drew her attention from her feet.

She saw, at first, nothing but the various muted colors and shoddy fabrics that covered the legs and backs of the people before her in the road-more of them, in fact, than was entirely normal. Higher her gaze drifted, higher still, to the flickering glow and the plumes of smoke twisting their way skyward.

Even at her age, she knew full well the dangers of fire, especially in a neighborhood as poor as this. Should she run the other way? Find a place to hide? Offer, however small and feeble she might be, to help?

Mother and Father would know. Again winding between, around, and under a thicket of limbs, the hitch in her breath now as much fear as it was smoke, she wormed her way through the evergrowing crowd.

And then she was near enough to see precisely which building was on fire.

The frantic adults simply stepped over her as she fell to her knees in the middle of the road, and her scream was just another voice, lost amidst the many voices of the city.

“…and as ever and always, to your endless grace, Vercoule. To you, our most humble thanks for the prosperity you have brought us, the safety you have brought us. For Davillon, which is both your gift to us, and our greatest testament to you. In your name, above all, we pray. Amen.”

Sister Cateline smiled shallowly at the dull, mumbled chorus of amen, already drowned out by the scraping of cheap wooden spoons on cheap wooden bowls, scooping up mouthfuls of cheap porridge (probably not wooden, but who could really say for certain?). Stretched out before her were a quartet of long tables, crammed to bursting with unwashed children clad in undyed frocks. There had been a time, oh so long ago, where Cateline felt horrible that the convent couldn't provide a more comfortable life for these unfortunate waifs; when she would've felt guilty that the blue and silver of her own habit was so much better kept than the clothes they offered these lost souls.

Once, but not now. Still she did all she could, but no longer lamented her inability to do more. She'd seen too many of them in her years, and she simply couldn't afford to care any more than she had to.

She strode forward, wending her way between the tables, and stopped just as swiftly, pinned in place by two tiny, red-rimmed eyes. The new girl-what was her name…?

“You're not hungry, child?” Duty, more than genuine concern, but at least she'd bothered to ask.

“Who's Varcool?”

Cateline felt her jaw drop.

“You don't know Vercoule, child?” she asked, gently correcting the girl's pronunciation. Many of the nearby children had stopped to listen, some scoffing at the new kid's ignorance, others-just perhaps-hoping for answers to questions they'd never had the courage to ask.

When the girl shook her head, Cateline continued. “Why, he's our patron god! Vercoule, above all others, watches over Davillon.”

“What others?”

“The gods of the Hallowed Pact, of course.”

“What's the hollow pact?”

Good gods, was nobody teaching these children anything? Little heathens, running the streets of Davillon. The nun really wanted nothing more than to get the children finished up and put to bed, but even her cynicism recognized a spiritual obligation when it appeared before her.

“It refers to all the gods of the High Church, child. Uncounted gods ruled before our forefathers carved Galice from the lands of the barbarian tribes. The one hundred forty-seven greatest of them joined together over civilization, promising to watch over humanity.”

“And Varcoo-Vercoo-”

“Vercoule.”

“Vercoule's the biggest?”

Cateline smiled. “I certainly think so.” Then, somewhat more seriously, “Here, in Davillon, he's the greatest. In other cities, he probably stands as the patron of only a single guild, or a bloodline-just as, for instance…” She cast about for a moment. “As Banin is the patron of two or three of Davillon's noble houses, but elsewhere, he might be the patron of a great guild, or even an entire city.”

The girl nodded slowly as though she understood, though Sister Cateline doubted that was the case. The nun had just begun to turn away, when-

“Can I ask one more question?”

Cateline repressed a sigh. “One more. Then you need to eat your supper.”

“If Davillon has so many gods, how come not one of them got off his butt and saved my mommy and daddy?!”

Sister Cateline actually fell back a step, hand raised to her lips. A whisper of astonishment swept through the other children, but here and there, the nun was certain she heard a mutter of angry agreement from among the worst of the hard-luck cases.

Well, it was positively past time to nip this in the bud!

“Young lady, that is not an appropriate way to speak of the gods!”

“When they explain themselves to me, I'll apologize.”

The nun had the girl by the wrist and was dragging her out the door before the second round of shocked gasps-and supportive murmurs-had finished making the rounds of the hall. “We're going to have to teach you some manners and respect, child!”

“Stop calling me child!” the girl spat, not even bothering to try to pull away as she was hauled off to gods-knew-where. “My name is Adrienne.”

Adrienne did not, as it happened, learn either manners or respect from Sister Cateline, or any of the other nuns either. Despite the chains, the locks, the heavy doors, and the fact that she frankly had nowhere better to go, she was gone from the convent after only a few days-before the welts of her lashing had even fully faded.

Sister Cateline wasn't truly sorry to see her go. That one, she was certain, would have been nothing but trouble.