Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  The folk around looked at the man like he had the plague, pulling away from him.

  Heden advanced in two quick, long strides. He grabbed the man by his thick woolen jerkin.

  “You stole it,” Heden pronounced, pulling the man up and off his feet. Everyone was silent but the pigs and chickens. The man’s eyes went wider still and he looked around furtively. Heden could smell the thick odor of sweat and pig. “You stole Maelon’s silver,” he said.

  “What?!” a man cried out behind them.

  “The blacksmith wouldn’t take credit or trade from you, so you took it,” Heden’s voice came fast. “You crept into his house and took it. And the dog,” he shook the man, holding him up with one hand. “It knows you, it knows you don’t belong in that house so it barks and you don’t know what to do, they’ll find you. They’ll find out what a filthy little thief you are. So you killed it. You stole their silver and killed their dog to stop it barking and hid the body.”

  “Please!” the man Gowan cried. He’d pissed himself.

  “Black gods!” someone said.

  “But you couldn’t spend it could you?” Heden’s voice went low, but no matter how low it went the folk around him could hear every word. “Everyone would know, and where did you get that kind of cash? You who never had a streak of luck in your life. So it’s to the tavern then, and women. Twenty-two silver on women, what did it get you? Three hours? Five? Did you spread it out? An hour a day for a week?”

  “Gowan!” a young woman stood behind the man and cried for him. She was only five feet away but she didn’t dare reach out to help. All the townsfolk looked on in fear, in fear at Heden and what he was doing.

  “Gods, please. Please don’t!” Gowan cried, flakes of spit sailing out of his mouth, the tendons on his neck like cords.

  “Cavall sees you, Gowan,” Heden said, his eyes were fire burning into the man.

  “Ahh, gods!” the man cried. Heden’s words, a brand searing his skin.

  “I am his eyes!” Heden voice was a trumpet.

  “I did it!” Gowan shouted. As the words left his mouth, Heden dropped him. He fell to his knees, sobbing. But Heden wasn’t done.

  He drew his sword, the old, notched blade of his father’s father and swung it back, holding it up and behind his head. His face was a thundercloud.

  “Know then that I am an agent of Cavall, come to do judgment upon you!” His pronouncement was a lightning strike and with it, a score of townspeople surged forward, their hands grabbing Heden’s arm, his sword, his shoulders, pulling on his pack. They shouted, they pleaded.

  Heden relented. He relaxed, and the fugue was gone, that raindrop of Cavall’s power, granted him to do justice in his god’s name, drained away leaving him a normal man, with normal sight. He no longer saw the truth, the awful fetid truth of every man around him. He no longer heard a dozen voices wondering and fearing.

  With care, as though tending a sick man instead of a confessed criminal, a knot of country folk picked Gowan up by the arms and carried him away. His thin wisp of a wife followed, crying and reaching out to him. All the women, Sirona, Gwennog and many others, followed. The men stayed behind and stared at Heden in awe and wonder and fear.

  “By the bald pate of Nikros, man,” one of them said, and the spell was broken. They all looked away. The one with the rough voice, Dyfan, Gwennog’s husband was accusing Heden of doing something indecent.

  “Sirona said a thousand urq,” Heden said looking into the far distance.

  Dyfan, nor anyone else contradicted him.

  Heden sheathed his sword, turned and looked at these famers. Men with skin wrinkled by the sun, days’ worth of dirt caked casually into them.

  “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  “Aye,” Dyfan said, looking at the ground. The men nodded. Few would look at Heden and none for more than a moment.

  “Gowan ain’t a bad man,” one of them said.

  “I know it,” Heden said, and when he said it many of the men looked at him like he was a normal person.

  “You folk came to his defense,” Heden said. “You forgave him in an instant. That’s why Cavall is your god.”

  It was a compliment. A way of saying, ‘Cavall is proud to be your god.’

  “The guards at the gate,” Dyfan said. “They’ll let you in with us,” he said. “They’ll just ask your name is all.”

  “And I will give it to them,” Heden said, “as I gave it to you.” This was a mild reproach and it worked. The men showed a little shame in having been so distrustful. Heden took it easy on them.

  “So,” he asked, his lip curling into a smile “where’s this little birdie makes the young girls sigh?”

  Dyfan’s lips slowly spread into a grin, matching Heden’s.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Renaldo stopped playing and looked down into the large cooking pot the innkeep let him use to collect payment. Gold crowns made a distinct sound when dropped amongst the copper and silver. He’d learned over the years to pick it out, even from amongst the noise of a large crowd such as the one packed into the Steaming Turnip.

  He looked at the man standing at the edge of the small stage. Wide, honest eyes set in a chiseled, age-weathered face and a compact body.

  “Please,” Renaldo said, his accent heavy, no attempt made to hide his disgust. “Remove your coin and then that shipwreck of a face before you scare my customers away.”

  Heden looked down into the pot and then back at the bard. “I just put a gold crown in there.”

  “I will lose two just by talking to you and my stomach just by looking at you. Now be a good little priest and go away.”

  “I…” Heden stopped and looked around. The tavern was packed with people, none of them seemed to pay either he or the minstrel any mind. They jostled him.

  “Hang on,” Heden said. “Let’s, ah, let’s try this again.” He started to speak but then Renaldo began to play again, nodding at the pot.

  Heden took a deep breath, bent down and fished his coin out. He stared at it in his hand, and then looked back up at Renaldo.

  “I was just hoping to….”

  Renaldo played louder.

  Heden clenched his fist around the gold crown and surveyed the inn. It was smaller than his. There were maybe sixty people packed in the common room which could not comfortably seat more than thirty. None of these folk cared. Most of them weren’t paying Heden any mind, but some were. Some were. Heden thought he recognized some of the men from the gate. They were spreading the word and in a small town such as this, the word didn’t have far to go.

  Heden didn’t think he could get what he needed from any of these folk and there was a kind of unspoken agreement, a tradition. Heden couldn’t put words to it, but he took it for granted, and Renaldo was breaking it. He knew Riojans liked drama.

  The windows were wide open, letting the spring air and bright sunlight in. The sun and air fought the fug of farmers greasing their joints with ale. The minstrel probably worked hard to get these people to trust him, based on Heden’s experience at the gate. He’d know that being seen with Heden, another stranger, would alienate some of his paying audience, and so wanted to avoid it. Another time and Heden would have respected this. But he’d come a long way, and done at least one awful thing to get here, and now he needed information.

  Heden turned back to the minstrel, stepped up on the tiny stage picking up the pot as he did so. He turned and in one smooth motion he pulled his arm back, preparing to fling the cooking pot, heavy with coin, out the window.

  He felt the cold bite of steel at this throat and tensed in a blink. Motionless, his arm still flung backward, he heard the sound of the chair tipping over and hitting the stage, along with the clash of strings from the lute hitting the floor. Black gods he’s fast. Heden was in real danger and there was a certain thrill to it. He wanted to test the minstrel, but dared not. Men in the inn would die in the battle. There was a time when he’d not have given these pe
ople a second thought.

  “Now I must ask you,” Renaldo said, and everyone in the inn was watching, “to trust me.” His voice was casual, light. Uncaring. At the word ‘trust’ he pressed the blade and it bit into Heden’s neck. “For you feel the blade is thin and you think ‘’tis but a trifle.’ Think you can make some move, push the blade away. Please believe me when I say; you would be on the ground bleeding your life out before you moved an inch. This is no broad sword like you have there, not one of those great two-handers I could dance along the blade of before a man swung it once around. Far deadlier in fact. So please do not make the mistake so many of your countrymen have made. You will naturally want to fight back…”

  “Not against Jacanda steel, I won’t,” Heden interrupted, not moving a muscle, trying to ignore the audience watching.

  “You…ah. What?” Renaldo stammered, backing out of the dancing pose he held. He pulled the blade away and looked at Heden anew. Heden moved only his eyes and raised one eyebrow.

  “Not against a Riojan troubadour, I wouldn’t.”

  Renaldo assumed a dueling pose, his rapier pointing straight down, tip touching the stage. One hand on his hip. His mouth was open.

  Heden saw the man had assumed a deferent position, and he allowed himself to move.

  “And not against a playwright of the Leaf,” he said, smiling.

  Renaldo clasped his free hand to the top of his head, a reflex from one used to wearing a hat.

  “I…” he said, and frowned, looking around the stage as though he’d misplaced his own name.

  He noticed the folk staring. He took a deep, resigned breath, and let it out slowly.

  The Riojan waved a hand while he sheathed his rapier with a flourish and whistled a sharp three tone scale, a perfect imitation of the call any of these farmers might have used to disperse their pigs.

  The inn went back to its collective business, the show was over. Renaldo plopped down on the stool, still frowning, still confused.

  “Dangerous way to start a friendship,” Renaldo murmured without looking at Heden. “Give me the money,” he out his hand.

  Heden gave him the gold.

  Renaldo waggled his fingers.

  Heden fished out another gold crown and handed it over.

  “I will make no more coin this afternoon,” Renaldo said, and pocketed the money as he stood up. “These people do not like being reminded I am a ‘ratman,’ as they put it. Two of us talking to each other, and now I am a stranger again.”

  Renaldo put on his hat, picked up his flask of wine and his lute, and walked past Heden. He stepped lightly off the small stage and a table cleared for him before he reached it. These people held him in high regard.

  “A ratcatcher,” Heden said, turning to follow.

  “Eh?” Renaldo said. He sat down and a maid pushed through the crowd to bring him a glass for his wine, but he shoo’ed her away and plunked the wine flask in the middle of the table, cradled his lute in his lap.

  “They call campaigners ‘ratcatchers,’” Heden took the chair opposite.

  “Ah, yes. That makes some sense to me. I see the similarity. Filthy jobs, sometimes necessary.”

  “And best forgotten,” Heden said.

  “Well it is a dangerous business,” Renaldo said, picking up a fluted bottle of wine and drinking directly from it. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, peering at Heden. “Though you seem well-suited to it.”

  “Was,” Heden said, looking Renaldo up and down. He was dressed in what Heden knew a Riojan troubadour would consider a discreet outfit. The wide-brimmed green hat on the floor held only one brightly colored peacock feather. Around his neck, a single blue scarf, no pattern. The collar of his doublet open only a few inches revealing a tan chest and some wisps of curly black hair. The doublet had gold sewn into it, but no jewels and his red hose ran with tasteful pinstripes rather than the brightly colored checkers favored in Capital when Heden left.

  The people here would think he was a jester.

  “I work for the church now,” Heden said.

  “Yes, I know. A priest. Very valuable in any company.”

  Something occurred to Renaldo and he flinched as he looked at Heden.

  “The church. So you are not from the Jack?” his black eyes flashed, his eyebrows long, thin, and flourished like the stroke of a pen.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Heden said.

  “It is a who.”

  “Oh,” Heden said. “Well, ah…no.”

  “You have not come to extract some kind of vengeance then?”

  “Nope,” Heden said.

  This seemed to deflate the man even more. “Ah well,” he said.

  “That disappoints you?”

  “Many things disappoint me,” Renaldo said, taking a weary breath. “The world seldom lives up to its reputation.” He shrugged. “You are here for some mundane reason then and I will have forgotten you in the time it takes to drag a nail.”

  “You’d prefer it if I wanted to kill you?”

  “Well,” Renaldo gestured with a hand as though making an obvious point. “Yes.”

  “Give me a little while,” Heden said, “I’m warming up to the idea.”

  Renaldo smiled a very little at this and raised his eyebrows. “Bravely said.”

  “So who’s the Jack?”

  Renaldo shrugged. Heden liked him.

  “You know the Leaf, you know my steel. I thought perhaps you knew my work, were sent by a man I recently maligned in a popular production.”

  “Recently?” This was not in accord with Heden’s knowledge of geography.

  “Oh, a year,” Renaldo admitted. “I confess I rather appreciate the idea of a man pursuing me for a year. No epic tragedy ever featured a man who was pursued for a day, or, thirty-two weeks,” he said, picking a random number. “It must be a year, you understand.”

  “I understand,” Heden said.

  “The Jack is a very powerful master assassin,” Renaldo said, submitting this fact for Heden’s approval, obviously hoping it would earn Renaldo some esteem in his eyes.

  Heden nodded. “I was friends with the Wire.”

  Renaldo scoffed. “The Wire has no friends.”

  “I was,” Heden rephrased, “someone it amused him not to kill.”

  “Yes, he has many amusements. I, for one, remain content to bore him. So you have been to Rioja.”

  “I lived in Capital for six years.”

  “Pagh!” Renaldo said, and mimed spitting on the ground. “Built by your ancestors to rule my ancestors. All true Riojans despise that city.”

  “Sure,” Heden said. “What are you doing here, Renaldo?”

  “Ah no,” the troubadour said, taking another pull from his wine. “You have me at a disadvantage. We are not wizards you and I, but names first, nonetheless. It is polite.”

  Heden nodded and told Renaldo his name. Renaldo doffed his hat.

  “I am Renaldo de Merisi, a temporary exile brother Heden. The master of the Leaf thought it best if I spend some time abroad after Catch as Catch Can opened.”

  “Your play,” Heden said.

  “A play? No I do not write plays. I wrote plays when I was a lad, now I craft carefully aimed and highly entertaining attacks on the enemies of the Leaf. In this case, the master of the Fulcrum.”

  “Not wise to upset the men who hold the money.”

  “I reasoned they were a small guild, only newly come to power. They would retaliate certainly, but how bad could it be?”

  “They could try and have you killed.”

  Renaldo deflated at that. “Ah yes, this is true. When they assassinated my leading man, I knew it was time to take a trip. And so here I am!” he gestured to take in the entire inn. “The Steaming Turnip. Which I, not properly decoding the sign out front, took to mean the Steaming Turd.”

  Heden snorted at this. The woodcarving sign outside did, indeed, look like a steaming turd.

  “You imagine my disappointment,” Renaldo s
aid. “I so preferred the Turd. I thought perhaps I could steal the sign, take it home. Lie about the name. I feel the Steaming Turd so perfectly captures the…you know. Wouldn’t be much of a lie. It can hardly be my fault if the innkeep chose the right sign but the wrong name.”

  “How did you know I was a priest?” Heden asked, remembering the minstrel’s earlier words to him.

  Renaldo deflated a little and gestured to the room.

  “They told you?”

  “I am a troubadour,” Renaldo reminded him.

  “Just seems fast is all,” Heden said, turning and looking at the townspeople. “I came straight here.”

  “A mile for a man is a yard for a tale,” the minstrel said.

  “That’s good,” Heden said, appreciating the quote.

  “That’s mine,” Renaldo said.

  “You’re good,” Heden said.

  “Occasional flashes of legend amidst a tempest of brilliance.”

  “Okay,” Heden said. No point in getting carried away. “How much does the two gold get me?”

  “How much do you need?”

  “I just got here,” Heden said. “You tell me.”

  “Fair,” Renaldo said. “Less than two gold’s worth, certainly.”

  “Everyone said there’s an army of urmen marching.”

  “That is what everyone says,” Renaldo said. No way for the minstrel to tell if it was true, they both knew. “I think it likely. These people have experienced this phenomenon before, they know the signs.”

  “They don’t seem worried,” Heden said. The townsfolk were smiling and laughing and eating. Enjoying the circumstances that had them all pressed together in the town. “Why is that?”

  Renaldo plucked a chord on his lute and then pointed to his head. “The tempest of brilliance.”

  “I see,” Heden said, giving up.

  Renaldo sighed.

  “They await the arrival of an order of knights, the Green, who defend these lands from all manner of incursion. They believe the order will save them.”