Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  Brys took the assault without comment.

  “Taethan knows what happened,” Heden said.

  Heden took Brys’ silence for affirmation. He thought some more.

  “He’s your brother in the order,” Heden was working through it, watching Brys for some reaction. “If you just tell me what happened, you’re betraying him. You all are. So you point me in the right direction, and hope I figure it out.”

  Brys, eyes cast down, frowned and took a deep breath. He was questioning his own motivation, something Heden recognized. He was on the right track.

  “He did something awful, did something terrible so you wouldn’t have to. I can understand that. Believe me,” Heden said with import. “Whatever it was, you hate him for it, and respect him for it. That’s why I can’t read any of you.

  “Kavalen was going to do something, or had done something, and Sir Taethan took it on himself to stop him. Or punish him. Said he was doing it for the good of the order. And maybe you believed it. So you let him do it. You let him do some awful thing, and hoped that would be the end of it. But Halcyon doesn’t accept it. You think I didn’t notice Aderyn’s hair?”

  Brys was shocked, had been shocked as soon as Heden had forwarded the idea that Sir Taethan had done something awful. He took a step away from Heden as though in horror. As though Heden had stabbed him. The knight couldn’t know how much his face betrayed him.

  “She’s not a knight yet,” Heden said. Brys turned away. “Because Halcyon won’t allow it. Not until I perform the ritual. You thought ‘let Taethan deal with Kavalen and everything will be back to normal,’ but it didn’t work out that way. Halcyon rejected it. So here I come, ritual in hand, prepared to deal with everything. So everyone gives me this ‘Talk to Taethan’ horseshit hoping you can all close ranks and let me get on with the dirty work you wouldn’t do. That’s fine. Listen to me,” he said, grabbing Brys, turning him around. Brys wouldn’t look at him.

  “I’m telling you; that’s fine. It’s why I’m here. It’s what I do. Just give me one thing: look at me and tell me I’m wrong,” Heden said.

  Brys looked at him, eyes red on the verge of tears, and Heden didn’t know what to believe. When Sir Brys finally spoke, it was like the words were being torn from him.

  “Sir Taethan was the best of us,” was all he said, his voice rough. “He is beyond your judgment.”

  Heden released him. Heden could tell when someone was lying to him, which was why Brys was making him so angry. He wouldn’t say yes or no, he evaded, evaded, evaded. It was a strange talent for a knight who spent his life alone to have.

  “What are you saying?” Was Taethan dead? No, that didn’t make sense.

  Brys refused to respond.

  Heden gave up. Brys had obviously given up, and he felt bad pressing the man.

  “You’re not like them,” Heden admitted, by way of apology. “That’s the only reason I…” Heden stopped, lamely. “It’s just that…you’re the first one of these people I can talk to.” Brys shot him a look. Heden regretted the ‘these people.’

  “I’m sorry,” Heden said finally. “I’ll talk to Sir Taethan.”

  Brys bent down and hefted his horn-studded helmet. He seemed to have recovered himself from Heden’s onslaught.

  “Make no mistake, brother Heden,” he said, helmet under his arm. “You and I, we can talk to each other, yes. I think we understand each other. But as sure as green leaves in spring, we are enemies.”

  He said it so casually, Heden had to replay it in his mind.

  “You’re just going to say that?” Heden asked.

  “You are wrong about a great many things. Not least of which: I am like them,” he said. “Do not judge our outward bearing and appearance,” Brys said, and fitted his helmet on. He looked far more imposing with the massive helm, its bloodied antlers projecting forward menacingly. His eyes barely glinting out from under the visor.

  “We are all more alike than we are different. And we will all oppose you,” he said without malice.

  “All of you?” Heden asked, frowning.

  “Speak with Sir Taethan,” Brys said.

  “Right,” Heden said, giving up.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  The two men stood there looking at each other for a moment, and then Aderyn ran out of the priory and looked with happy anticipation at the forest.

  “Lady Isobel has arrived,” Sir Brys said without feeling. Heden couldn’t tell how Aderyn sensed this, or how Brys could tell without looking that Aderyn had come out of the priory.

  A few moments later, a tall, willowy woman rode out of the forest on a heavy warhorse. Her face was noble and lean. Her helm was strapped to her horse. She had green hair, streaked with silver. He would have known this was the baron’s sister, even if no one had told him.

  She looked at Brys and Heden with no expression, then smiled as Aderyn ran across the clearing, under the tent, and to her mistress.

  “Come,” Sir Brys said. “We should retire to the priory.”

  “Okay,” Heden said, watching behind them as Lady Isobel handed over her shield and lance to Aderyn. After Idris and his cronies, after Brys, Heden wasn’t eager to talk to another knight. But he watch Aderyn and Lady Isobel for a moment, wondering if Brys wanted to give them some time together to get their story straight. That didn’t seem like Aderyn, but he didn’t know Lady Isobel.

  As Heden and Brys approached the priory, Heden noticed the walls on the outside were normal granite. When he arrived, before his first encounter with Aderyn, the outside of the priory had been black with soot.

  The two men entered the stone building.

  “Was there a fire here recently?” Heden asked.

  Brys made a point of looking around before answering. “No,” he said. He approached the altar. Heden stopped and watched. “Not ever, to my knowledge. But the priory is very old.”

  Brys knelt at the altar and prayed. Heden sat down in a prayer bench, rested his arm on the armrest nearest the aisle and watched.

  The prayer was simple. Heden was surprised at how simple, but in the middle of his muttering, Brys extracted something from his person and placed it in his mouth. It looked like a leaf. He chewed it and swallowed it. A sacrament, Heden thought. Made sense. They were servants of the forest. Or the other way ‘round, Heden was beginning to lose track.

  When Brys was done, he rose, pushing himself off his knees with some difficulty. Heden knew the feeling. Age.

  The knight walked back to Heden.

  “So who’s missing?” Heden asked. He was suddenly tired. Exhausted. No rest since before Vanora woke up yesterday. Was it only yesterday?

  Brys did not sit down, he leaned against one of the prayer benches. “Sir Perren,” Brys said. “He will not be joining us.”

  “Why?”

  “Why is no matter.”

  “Sounds better when you say it,” Heden said, yawning. “I usually just tell people to go fuck a pig.”

  Brys looked at him with disgust. The knights did not like Heden’s mode of speech and liked it even less when he swore.

  Heden shrugged, not apologizing, but sympathizing. We each have to put up with the other, he was saying, for a little while at least.

  Brys’ manner softened.

  “How long has it been since you slept?” he asked.

  “Two days,” Heden said.

  “Not so long,” Brys said with a little smile.

  “Long days,” Heden said.

  Brys nodded.

  “What’s with the, ah…” he gestured to Brys’ armor, festooned with moss, lichen, and vines. “The greenery?”

  Brys looked at Heden for a moment, and it seemed to Heden he was judging the question, working out whether it was alright to answer, or tell Heden to talk to Sir Taethan.

  “Squire Aderyn told you we might go months without meeting another knight?”

  Heden nodded.

  “But we still communicate,” Brys said. “We pick a spot, a tree usu
ally, that seems particularly blessed by Halcyon,” Heden didn’t bother to ask how one might tell such a thing, “and meditate. We cast our minds out into the wode and find the mind of another knight. And this way our demesnes do not overlap and we know where to look for trouble.”

  Heden absorbed this. It was not unheard of. “She said something about quiet contemplation,” he said.

  “You thought she was being poetic,” Brys said.

  Heden nodded.

  “Doesn’t answer my question though,” he said.

  Brys sighed. “Sometimes a knight may be like that for weeks. In that time, the forest grows over the knight, protects him.”

  Heden thought. “What happens if…”

  “The wode protects us. It alerts us to any nearby danger to our bodies.”

  Heden couldn’t put words to it, but this seemed unnatural to him. It was like a parasitic relationship.

  He pictured Aderyn, sleeping against a tree, moss growing over her. He tried to order events in his mind.

  “So if she was doing this for weeks, and Kavalen died four days ago….”

  “Brother Heden, we might go weeks without bathing,” he said. “After a casting,” Heden presumed this was the knight’s term for what he was talking about, “it may be days before finding a clear stream or lake to bathe in. And in any event, the raiment of the forest is a badge of honor.”

  Heden nodded. He didn’t think Brys was hiding anything.

  “So who’s going to be the next knight-commander?” Heden asked.

  Brys looked at the stained glass window. Saint Godwin, the Vigilant.

  “Halcyon decides,” he said.

  “Is that,” Heden began. “Is that you’re way of saying ‘who knows?’ Or does…”

  Brys turned from the image of Saint Godwin and gave Heden a look.

  “Halcyon decides,” he said.

  “Halcyon decides,” Heden said, nodding once in understanding. “Does she literally show up here and point at someone and say….”

  “Did you learn nothing of us?” Brys asked with some annoyance. “Sent here from the High City, did you take no time to learn of us, or our traditions?”

  Heden tried to wake himself up. “Not really. I spent some time with the bishop. He’d never heard of you before he learned about Kavalen.”

  Brys nodded as though confirming a suspicion.

  “Should you speak the ritual,” Sir Brys said, “Then you will see.”

  Heden nodded. He didn’t like badgering Sir Brys, but liked doing nothing and feeling useless even less.

  “Halcyon picks the next commander, but Cavall absolves the order,” Heden said, looking to see how Brys felt about that. He didn’t seem to feel anything.

  The three dastards and Sir Nudd came in, all smiling. Whatever else was true, Nudd seemed to like the other three. When they saw Heden, they stopped laughing, and Nudd resumed his earlier sadness.

  The huge knight walked up the nave, between Brys and Heden, and knelt to pray.

  The three dastards swaggered up to Heden.

  “This is normally a time for celebration,” Sir Idris said accusingly, looking down at Heden. “All of us gathering.”

  “You think me being here spoiled it?” Heden asked, without moving. His eyes flitted to Sir Nudd, trying to watch the man pray and keep an eye on these three at the same time. “You don’t figure the death of your commander might have put a damper on things?”

  Dywel, the weasel, moved forward again and this time it was Sir Brys who stepped forward stopped him. Heden noticed the little knight waited an instant, to allow someone to hold him back. Heden had his full measure, and knew he could take the knight if it came to that.

  “You did not know Commander Kavalen,” Sir Idris said, his jaw clenching.

  “No,” Heden said. “And if he hadn’t been murdered, I’d have never heard of him. Or you. Or had to come up here in the first place.”

  No one said anything. Idris’ lapdogs looked to him for reaction. Brys was watching Dywel. But no one bothered to deny that Kavalen was murdered.

  Black Gods, I know something, Heden thought.

  Then: Yeah, the same thing I assumed when I was back in Celkirk.

  Lady Isobel walked in with Aderyn following behind. Aderyn looked nonplussed. Heden wondered what has passed between her and the Lady.

  Isobel was beautiful and regal. If anything, more regal than her sister the baron. She was obviously the older sister. Heden realized this meant the Lady Isobel had rejected her hereditary barony to join the Green Order. Probably sixty years ago, if Heden was any judge of age.

  The antlers on her helm were not small like Aderyn’s, they were among the largest of the knights but thin and spindly, not the heavy, roughhewn blades of Sir Idris’ helm. Pointed and deadly nonetheless, and covered in dark brown stains.

  Her armor was highly polished and reflected the light with a green tint, but the effect was muted—or perhaps enhanced—by the effusion of moss and branches and even a few small mushrooms growing on her. She smelled like rich soil. If Heden had seen her when he was a lad, he’d have thought he was seeing one of the deathless, risen from her grave. She was thin and her face narrow. Her eyes a pale blue.

  The Lady looked at the assembled knights, all arrayed around Heden. Either confronting him or ignoring him. She walked up the center aisle of the nave. They all retreated from her. No one said anything.

  She approached the altar and knelt before it elegantly. She prayed for several minutes in silence. Removing a leaf from a pouch on her belt and eating it as she looked up at Saint Godwin fighting Saint Pallad.

  Heden looked at Aderyn. She glanced at him, and looked away.

  After a long silence, Lady Isobel rose, turned and walked back down the nave. She was looking at her boots.

  She stopped before Heden, and locked eyes with him.

  “Mine squire hath spake to me of thee and thy seeming interest in us,” Lady Isobel said. Her voice light.

  Heden didn’t say anything.

  “Thou must know by now, thou shalt not gain e’en the smallest bit of purchase ‘gainst us.”

  Heden had to remind himself that while Lady Isobel was the oldest of the knights, she wasn’t actually three thousand years old. She wasn’t any older than Heden’s mother. She spoke the knight’s cant so naturally, so fluently, she seemed part of the past come alive.

  Heden realized Lady Isobel was done talking, and everyone was looking at him. He shifted in the bench to get more comfortable.

  “I am named Heden,” Heden opened, looking at the other knights, then back at Isobel. “Named for my grandfather’s father. My father is Efan and his father was Gowan.”

  Sir Brys, standing behind Lady Isobel, smiled discreetly and turned away.

  Isobel stiffened almost imperceptibly.

  “Thou thinks to shame me, reminding me of the proper forms of introduction.” Isobel observed. She looked at the other knights, each expecting her to do something. Heden didn’t think they were all expecting the same thing.

  “Verily,” she said, straightening. “I am shamed. I am the Lady Isobel,” she began, looking more regal in shame than any of the others in pride.

  Heden cut her off. He looked relaxed, but he knew he was fighting for the lives of the people of Ollghum Keep and he wanted to keep Lady Isobel off-guard.

  “I know,” he said. “Knew as soon as I saw you. I met your sister.”

  Lady Isobel was about to say something, her mouth open, but she stopped. Closed her mouth. Saw Heden anew.

  Two tricks to me, Heden thought. Your deal.

  “How,” Lady Isobel began, and stopped. Aderyn watched her, concerned. Heden noticed this. “How fares the Baron Noth,” she asked.

  “Just like that?” Heden asked. “You’re just going to come out with that, with all of you standing around here like one o’clock half struck?”

  “I,” Lady Isobel said slowly. “I do not get your meaning.”

  “Horseshit,�
� Heden said. Aderyn drew her sword.

  “Knave!” She said. “Thou forgets thyself!” Heden ignored her and continued.

  “She’s waiting for you and your band of moss-ridden blackguards to ride out of the forest and save her people.” There was not a knight in the room who was not angry now, and showing it. Even Sir Nudd loomed over the rest, frowning angrily at Heden. Brys was looking between Isobel and Heden. Isobel was aware she was under assault, and the only one not angry. Not at Heden, at least.

  “But that’s not going to happen, is it? Those people are all going to die, aren’t they?”

  “What happens to the folk of Ollghum Keep is their fate, just as…” Sir Idris began, sneering. Heden snapped his fingers at Sir Idris without looking at him, bringing him up short. Idris was furious and surged forward.

  Now it was time for Cadwyr and Dywel to stop him. “Not here!” Dywel hissed.

  “Not in the priory!” Cadwyr said. “And not a priest!”

  Heden, ignoring them, held up a hand and then pointed at Lady Isobel.

  “I’m asking you straight,” he said. “Those people at Ollghum Keep. Your sister and her family and all her subjects. They’re all going to be torn apart by urq, aren’t they?”

  “There is still time to act,” Lady Isobel said, her face clouded.

  “Did you know the forest won’t let anyone up here?” Heden asked.

  All the knights looked at Lady Isobel. Not all of them had heard this.

  She took a moment to confess her answer. The priory became cold.

  “Yes,” she said flatly, not looking at Heden.

  Heden hadn’t expected this. The other knights were frowning. Brys seemed upset.

  “You did?” Heden asked. “You knew that and you…”

  “How could it be otherwise?” Isobel said. “In any event, it is no matter.”

  “That’s a popular attitude around here,” Heden said, looking at Sir Brys.

  “You are a cleric,” Lady Isobel said. “I couldst see that e’en had my squire not said the words to me. Of what saint do you avail yourself?”

  Heden looked around, unsure of what was going to happen next.