Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  He narrowed his eyes and looked out the door, into the darkness where Domnal had retreated.

  “That fucker,” he said, to no one in particular.

  Chapter Four

  “Heden, I said I’d…” Domnal stopped. All the guards in the main room stopped to look at him.

  Heden was carrying the young girl, asleep, in his arms. She felt almost weightless to him. They saw the leather strap he put around her head. They didn’t know what it signified, but they knew something had not gone according to plan, and Domnal was upset.

  Domnal scowled. “Is she alive?”

  Half of the Eseldics had been processed and assigned cells. The rest were still here, manacled and gagged. Someone had cleaned up the bodies. All the guards stood around tensely looking from Domnal to Heden. All except Teagan who leaned on one of the heavy wooden beams holding the roof up, his long legs crossed at the ankles. Teagan didn’t seem to be looking at anything.

  Heden stared at Domnal. Domnal’s pained face betrayed his understanding of what Heden had discovered.

  “Heden, I can’t…you know what the church said. You can’t take her out of here!”

  “I’m taking her out of here,” Heden said.

  Domnal ran his thick fingers across his jowls. He was unsure of what to do.

  Heden began to walk out, which meant walking at Domnal. Heden didn’t look at him.

  “I don’t care what you tell the church,” Heden said, walking past the guards. They looked to Domnal, wondering if he would order them to stop Heden. “Tell them you saw me carry the body out myself. Be as vague as you want. I don’t care what you tell them.”

  Domnal, upset but unable to bring himself to do anything about it, stepped out of the way.

  “I don’t care what you tell Megan either,” Heden said after he’d passed Domnal.

  He stopped at the door and threw a look at the guard next to it. The older man realized what Heden wanted, and rushed to open the door for him, letting Heden out into the new day.

  Domnal wiped his hand over his forehead and into his hair. “Shit,” he said. The other guards watched him, uncomprehending.

  Teagan just smiled and shook his head.

  Chapter Five

  She woke up in an expensive feather bed and for a moment thought she was back at the Rose Petal. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she realized this was not the case.

  The room was small and appeared to be a room at an inn. It was long and narrow; there was a large chest and a bureau for clothes. An expensive full-length mirror told her much about the quality of the inn. Most had no mirrors.

  She was upstairs. She could tell because the roof slanted down directly over her, and there was a kind of skylight in it. Grayish-white light filled the room. It was overcast outside. She sensed it was morning.

  There was a noise, and she realized there was a man in the room with her. His back was to her. He took clothes from a pile on a chair, folded them, and put them in the bureau. They were not her clothes.

  The man didn’t seem aware she was awake. He seemed of shorter than average height, but gave the impression of being fit. Well-muscled. His skin was pale. He had short black hair and seemed to be in his forties. She couldn’t see his face.

  She knew what was expected, however. Though utterly exhausted, her mind wasn’t tired. She sat up and adjusted her hair.

  “So, do you want me to…uh…” she stopped when the man turned and look at her.

  He had a dress folded in one hand. His clothes, an unstylish but practical combination of leather and wool, ill fit him. His face was hard; it looked chiseled out of granite. There were deep lines in it. While old and weathered, there was something handsome about him.

  The look he gave her was a kind of appraisal. She found herself unable to read him, and this bothered her. He betrayed no purpose or intent, no desire. She could tell neither what he was thinking, nor what he wanted, and this made her shiver.

  The feeling passed, and left her vulnerable. She felt like she was nine again. She found herself pulling the sheets up to her chin without realizing it.

  He opened his mouth to speak and she couldn’t shake a strange sense of being threatened. There was something about him that scared her.

  She startled when, without warning, a large and very heavy black cat appeared on the bed. It had jumped up from the floor without a sound. The cat’s presence interrupted the man before he could talk.

  The cat walked right up to her without making eye contact, stood on her stomach and when she reached out, it pushed its head into her hand as though it had known her all its life. It was black with bright yellow eyes and seemed made of muscle.

  She liked cats. Most inns had them, to keep the mice and rats down. Some used small dogs. But she was surprised that this man kept a cat for any reason.

  The man opened the door and, without saying anything, walked out, leaving the way open to the hall beyond.

  Petting the cat, she looked around the room, wondering where she was and what, if anything, she should do. Run for it? Her instincts told her this was not necessary.

  She was in a nightshift, but it was not her own. She pulled back the covers and looked at it. It was expensive. But it meant…

  The man came back in, carrying a tray with hot food on it. She was starving, she realized. But she was more angry than hungry.

  “Where are my clothes?” She tried being demanding.

  Heden looked around.

  “I…don’t know,” he said. His voice sounded dark and rough. Hearing him speak, she felt awkward. She was alone in a strange man’s room and he was not a potential customer. He reminded her of something, but she didn’t know what. She felt very small.

  “I threw out the shift the guards put you in. I didn’t think to ask what they’d done with your clothes.”

  “The guards?” she asked, frowning.

  Heden put the food down on a table. “This is for you,” he said. “You’re going to be hungry. Eat as much as you want.”

  “Did you dress me in this?” she asked, indicating her nightshift. The cat purred and tried to position itself to get petted again. She pushed the cat off the bed, but it jumped back on making a little trill, walked to the end of the bed, and curled up.

  Heden looked at her and then at the food, then back at her. He sighed, picked up the clothes he’d placed on the chair, and sat down. “I gave you a bath, cleaned you, and dressed you.”

  None of this made sense to her. She was confused and getting scared and this made her angry. She wanted to get back to the Rose Petal, and the safety of an existence she knew.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Heden.”

  She shook her head once. “I mean what…”

  “When I found you, you’d been put in the jail. You were having a fit.”

  She stared at him, mouth slack. Her skin began to crawl and she understood what he meant. Discovering she couldn’t remember the past few days, her chest began to tighten up. Her eyes started to turn red and her cheeks flushed.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “What?”

  Heden got up, picked up a bowl of soup and a spoon, and approached her. She flinched away but he just stood there, proffering the soup.

  There was a smell about him. He didn’t wear perfume as many men she knew did, but he smelled…good. Smelled like leather and wood, metal and oil. It was an earthy smell and though it was not familiar to her, it gave her comfort.

  She took the bowl of soup and the spoon and began to eat. This seemed to satisfy the man, and he went back and sat down.

  “I’m going to tell you something,” he began, but she wasn’t really listening. She was thinking about what he just said. She’d been having a fit. The last one she remembered lasted almost a whole day. She had wondered what Miss Elowen would do, knew she’d have to do something eventually. Cold realization struck. She put me in jail is what she did.

  “I gave you some medicine,” the stra
nger said. It was a term she’d heard but was unfamiliar with. “I gave you something to eat. And you slept for a long time. All through yesterday. But now, I think, you’re better.”

  She continued to work on the soup. It was good, and she felt life and normality returning.

  “I don’t think you’ll have any more fits,” he said.

  Light dawned.

  “You’re a priest,” she said. She didn’t know exactly what he was talking about, or what had happened while she was having her fit, but she got the gist of it and now all his behavior made sense.

  Heden pulled a silver medallion out from under his shirt. She couldn’t see the sigil on it, but recognized it as a saint’s talisman. She narrowed her eyes. He didn’t look like any priest she’d ever seen. Nor act like one. But there was something about his attitude toward her that only made sense if she thought ‘priest.’

  He knew she hadn’t been listening to him. He already knew her story. He adjusted his guess of her age up by a year. He concluded she was fifteen and went to work at the Rose Petal when she was thirteen. It wasn’t unusual.

  “What’s your name?” he asked again.

  She looked at him with big, dark eyes. “Violet,” she said.

  Heden nodded. “What’s your real name?”

  She just stared at him, the near-empty bowl of soup cooling in her hands, and heard herself say “Vanora.” There were not many people left who knew her real name.

  He smiled. “That’s a pretty name. But I can call you Violet if it helps.”

  “What…” she said, and to her ears she sounded small and girlish. She cleared her throat. “What do I owe for the room?”

  “Nothing,” Heden said. “This is my inn.”

  “This is your inn?”

  Heden nodded.

  “You own a whole inn?”

  Heden shrugged.

  She nodded, eyes wide, and looked around again. She looked at the cat curled up at the foot of your bed.

  “That’s your cat?” she asked.

  “Her name’s Ballisantirax.”

  She lowered her head and gave him a look from under her eyebrows. “You don’t seem like someone who’d like cats,” she said.

  Heden shrugged. “I like this cat.”

  She nodded again. She’d known this person less than a turn, but his response seemed entirely typical.

  He stood up.

  “There’s bread and cheese,” he said, indicating the plate. “And milk. Fresh. Vegetables and fruit. Try to eat them in equal measure. If you feel sleepy, go back to sleep. Balli will watch you. There’s a chamber pot under your bed, and a bath down the hall. Use either at your convenience. I’ll be back up here in an hour to clear everything away.”

  She looked up at him with something like a sense of wonder. He looked back at her, and she realized he had blue eyes. He seemed to make some sort of judgment about her, took a quick inventory of the room, pursed his lips and nodded to himself, turned and walked out of the room, closing the door. She did not hear him lock it.

  Chapter Six

  Heden knew as soon as he closed the door to Vanora's room that someone was downstairs. The air changed. Something was downstairs absorbing small sounds that were usually present and making small sounds that were usually absent. These were the instincts you built up in the forest or under the ground that never left you.

  Pausing only for the moment it took to take stock of the situation, he proceeded downstairs. He made no attempt at stealth; he was terrible at it anyway.

  As he descended he first caught sight of his guests' shoes. The expensive red-dyed suede and silk hose told him who his guest was before he ever saw his face. Gwiddon. The bishop's adjutant. The man responsible for representing the bishop to the heads of the city.

  He was sitting, striking a pose, in a chair at a table near a window, the wan grey light from outside spilling into the room. Doing little to chase the shadows away. Gwiddon rested his prominent cheekbone on a thin finger and smiled through the window at the people walking by outside. Occasionally someone would see him inside and press their faces, hands cupped near their eyes to block out the light, and look in. There’s a person in there! Is the place open? No. No I guess not. Just one man inside, nothing else.

  Gwiddon didn’t look at Heden, he just kept smiling with little humor and looking out the window.

  “Let me get you a drink,” Heden said.

  Gwiddon gave no introduction and seemed to expect none. If Heden was being rude by not saying “good day to you,” Gwiddon didn't appear to notice.

  “I try to tell them,” Gwiddon said, waggled his fingers at the people walking by. “Roughly once a month someone mentions you and this place and they always ask the same thing.”

  “I have some wine, imported from Rhone,” Heden said as he rummaged around behind the bar. “Not even noon yet. Brandy, port. Ale will have to do.” Heden dusted off two thick glasses.

  “'Why doesn't he open that place? Why did he waste his money?'“

  Heden came over with the ale and sat down. He took a long drink from his. It was only a few hours after dawn, but it had already been a long day.

  Gwiddon picked up his glass without looking at it and toasted the passersby. He spoke in a slow, measured cadence, each phrase following the next like a steady machine.

  “I love the look in their eyes so I make a point to ask them to guess how much you paid for this place. They never guess high enough, they've never been inside of course, and when I tell them...well, the look alone is worth it. Then I smile and explain that the reason you don't try to recoup your investment is that for you, it was such an insultingly small amount of money.” This last was said while chuckling.

  “You tell them that?” Heden asked.

  “Yes,” Gwiddon said, absently, still looking outside. “We had the Castellan over to dinner once; he choked when I said it. Poor man.”

  Gwiddon took a drink from his glass and frowned at it. Turning to face Heden across the oak table, he said; “This is terrible.”

  Heden shrugged and had some more. “It was fine when I bought it.”

  Gwiddon’s face was thin and fine boned, his straw hair curling with a natural wave. His lips were thin and bright red against a complexion that matched his hair, light without seeming pale or unhealthy. His eyes transmitted intelligence to anyone who might receive.

  Gwiddon tried more ale. It wasn't to his liking, but he was getting used to it. His lips turned down in a small frown. “What do you do, buy new stock every six months?”

  “Yes,” Heden said.

  Gwiddon coughed into his drink. “Honestly?”

  “Honestly,” Heden said, leaning back in his chair. “I have deals with the Fool and the Vine. I sell them my unused stuff. Stupid to let it go to waste.”

  Gwiddon looked into his ale as though expecting to make some discovery about its contents. “Now I know why I keep away from the Vine, the place serves the stuff you've had sitting here rotting.” He placed special emphasis on ‘rotting,’ letting the word roll off his tongue. His sentences always came out like a performance. He was a natural. Heden always felt like a thug next to him.

  “Another story for you to tell at dinner,” Heden said with a sigh, feeling tired.

  “You jest,” Gwiddon said, flashing a wide smile, “but I will tell it. If they had any idea how much you came back with, they'd not turn their nose up at what you did.”

  “Yes they would,” Heden said.

  Gwiddon was among the most cultured, well-educated, well-read, well-written and expensively outfitted men in the city, and he knew it. He made sure other people knew it. He was Heden’s height, but slim. Heden envied him for having the kind of build tailors made all their clothes for. The two of them could not have been more different. But they shared one thing in common.

  “What does the bishop want?” Heden asked.

  “Really, Heden, why don't you hire someone to run this place?”

  Heden took a deep breat
h. “You offering?”

  Gwiddon chuckled. “In two days I could find you a man you could trust, who knew bartending and innkeeping, and this place would produce five hundred crowns a month in profit.”

  Heden shrugged. “I don't need the money.”

  Gwiddon's loud smile was somewhat muted by this. “No, I suppose you don't. You're the only person I know who had nostalgia for a future instead of a past. And when you built it, you found you didn't want it. Now you think: better not to have built it, eh? At least then you'd still have the nostalgia, which you loved, as opposed to this, which you don't.”

  “You've been talking to the abbot,” Heden said.

  “Please,” Gwiddon seemed affronted. “It is possible for mere mortals to possess insight into the human condition. Especially concerning someone I've known for…” he waved his hand, “…however many years.”

  Heden didn't say anything. What was there to say?

  “How was your visit to the jail?”

  Heden shrugged again. Some people found the gesture annoying but Gwiddon didn’t even see it anymore.

  “Bunch of boys swearing and spitting and playing at being men. I don’t imagine it’s time for the Captain’s yearly bath yet, so I can guess how the place smelled.” Heden didn’t like it when Gwiddon talked like this. He didn’t believe Gwiddon cared that much about class or rank in the first place, and was just doing it for show, which somehow made it more offensive to Heden.

  “The bishop imagines you fit in down there, imagines everyone loves you. He has some romantic idea of what life outside the church is like. It’s why he likes you.”

  “I know,” Heden said.

  “He thinks you’re one of the rank and file. It gives him some kind of thrill to talk to you. I think he forgets you can read and write,” this amused Gwiddon.

  “I know,” Heden repeated with emphasis. Gwiddon didn’t have a point, he was talking to avoid something.

  Gwiddon smiled. “I don’t tell him how absurd that all is.” He took another drink. “He likes you, so he doesn’t see that nothing could be further from the truth.”