In a span of seconds, the wire was back in her pouch and Widdershins was inside the darkened room.
That was the good news. The bad was that she'd just come to the end of any real knowledge she possessed about the manor's layout, as she'd never found the opportunity to examine the second floor.
“Keep your eyes and ears-or whatever-open,” she told Olgun in her inaudible whisper.
After listening for a full minute, ensuring that her own heartbeat was the only sound in the room, she took the tinderbox from her pouch, along with a candle stub, and struck sparks until the wick caught. Keeping her back to the window, she quickly examined the small chamber.
Between the comfortably padded chair, the heavy mahogany writing desk liberally dusted with sundry scraps of parchment, and the overburdened bookcase that skulked dejectedly against the far wall, she knew this must be Doumerge's study. Moved by a sudden sense of idle curiosity that could just as easily have come from her or her empathic ally, the thief-turned-aristocrat-turned-thief leafed hurriedly through the nearest stack of writings. It contained little of any real interest: various calculations on the worth of this product or that market; some letters of identification, presumably for servants running errands in the baron's name; and a few attempts at romantic epic poetry so teeth-gratingly, mind-numbingly, soul-shrivelingly awful that it might have doubled as a form of interrogation. With a quiet “Bleah!” of disgust, Widdershins dropped the parchment back into place and moved to the door, as though afraid that the verses might leap off the page and pursue her screaming down the hall.
Her hand was on the latch when Olgun yelped a warning. Unable to repress a startled gasp, Widdershins fell back, instinct alone keeping her soundless as a snowfall as she snuffed the light of her candle and vanished, an insubstantial phantom, into the darkened study.
Muffled footsteps trod slowly down the hallway, pausing once for a brief instant by the study. Widdershins modulated her breathing, as motionless as the statues in the garden, until the footfalls resumed and slowly faded away.
“Thanks,” she whispered to her unseen guardian. “Though you didn't have to yell.”
Olgun's reply was more than a little perturbed.
“Yes, I should have been paying more attention!” she admitted, her voice rising slightly. “I made a mistake. It happens. I've already thanked you! What more do you-what? I did so mean it! All right, fine! See if I thank you again anytime soon!” Widdershins pressed her ear to the door, making absolutely certain this time. “Condescending creep,” she muttered as her gloved hands once more worked the catch. “Thinks he's so much better, just because he happens to be a god….”
Still murmuring-though low enough that none but Olgun could hear-she drifted out into the hall. She was prepared, if necessary, to search room by room until she found what she needed, but here, at least, her task proved easy. No need to hunt down Baron Doumerge's bedchamber; the prodigious snoring was more than sufficient evidence.
At least, Widdershins assumed it was snoring. Judging by the sheer volume and variety of tones, the noise could just as easily have been a cold-stricken lumberjack chopping down a copse of trees with a wild boar.
“All right,” she breathed, “here's where it gets tricky.” Ready to dive in any convenient direction should she be interrupted, she crept toward the bedchamber.
The door opened inward, unfortunately, meaning that she couldn't grease the hinges. The baron probably ordered his servants to keep them oiled-little disturbs the idle rich so much as petty annoyances-but Widdershins hated trusting to luck. Then again, what was luck, really, but divine intervention?
“Olgun? Could you take care of any creaks or squeaky hinges?”
Petulance was his only reply; well, that and the emotional equivalent of a wet raspberry.
“Olgun,” she coaxed in a breathy undertone, “you're not still mad at me, are you? It was such a little argument….”
With an obvious roll of nonexistent eyes, the god twiddled his equally nonexistent fingers at the door. Widdershins felt the tingle of Olgun's power in the air around her.
“Thank you, sweetie,” she teased. “I'll rub your tummy later, all right?”
Grumble.
Widdershins lightly pressed the catch and opened the door just enough to squeeze through the gap. The sound of the baron's somnolent rumblings intensified, and the young woman experienced the sudden sensation that she was stepping into the gullet of some fantastic beast that would gobble her down as an appetizer.
As the sensation faded and the chamber steadfastly insisted on remaining a chamber, she shut the door and consciously commanded each and every muscle in her body to relax as she waited for her vision to adjust to the near darkness. Thankfully, the window faced west (can't have the baron awakened by something as inconsiderate as the dawn, can we?), from which direction there currently shone a sliver of the vanishing moon.
The room was gaudy, the living space of a man who'd never outgrown the childhood conceit that more is always and automatically better. Paintings, bejeweled weapons, and even a few small tapestries jammed the walls, resembling nothing so much as a bargain bin at a market stall. A tacky chandelier in the shape of Geurron's golden pyramid hung above the bed. The dresser sitting beneath a large silver mirror was covered in knickknacks, doodads, and diverse baubles, from gilded brushes to jewel-inlaid boxes to haphazardly scattered jewelry.
Widdershins ignored it all. Anything stolen from Doumerge Estates would be too easily traced-anything except hard currency. A man as paranoid as the Baron d'Orreille would certainly keep a strongbox of coin close at hand for emergencies. It was this, and no other, that she sought in the man's bedroom, mere moments before the first stirrings of dawn. Sure and silent, she crept from corner to corner, eyes and hands roving, examining. The baron continued to snore, obliviously if not peacefully, as his room was methodically ransacked.
Drowned out by the sound of the baron's nocturnal symphony, all but smothered by the thick quilts and comforters of the bed, the room's other occupant almost completely escaped even Widdershins's methodical examination. Only as the thief reached the far corner of the bed did she spot the young woman-a high-class courtesan, to judge by the clothes carefully laid out on the floor and the smeared makeup that still smudged her face-slumbering beside the noble rodent. Widdershins went statue-still, but the woman remained asleep, if not deeply so. Her eyelids twitched as dreams pressed against them from within, and every few breaths a tiny portion of her voice would escape with a slight moan.
Widdershins, whose desperation had more than once driven her to within a finger's breadth of the profession herself, during her hungriest years, had to force down a sympathetic sigh.
At least she's got access to a high class of clientele. Somehow, though, that wasn't much of a consolation. Chewing the inside of her cheek, Widdershins resumed her hunt.
It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, under the bed that Widdershins finally found her prize: a heavy mahogany box, equipped with the finest steel lock that money could buy. She knew it was the finest, because it took her two full minutes to open it. Inside, hundreds of gold marks glittered, newly captured stars, wealth enough to live on for many months.
This was, by far, the most dangerous moment of her night: transferring the hoard, or as much as she could, into the heavy black sack.
Fortunately, unlike most people who worked alone, Widdershins never worked alone. Olgun would warn her if anyone approached, or if the baron began to awaken. Furthermore, her “plunder sack” was woven of a heavy cloth, intended to at least partly muffle the inevitable clank of coins. Nevertheless, handling the cache was a slow and arduous process, one that wreaked havoc on the nerves, and Widdershins was covered in a sheen of sweat by the time she was through. The sky had grown bright enough that she could see the stirrings of dawn even through the window's western exposure. It was time, and past time, to go.