Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  “You mean chastity and purity and all that,” Heden said wearily. The subject exhausted him more than physically.

  “No, the pact. Not the oaths, they made those up too. I can’t imagine any better way to take the fun out of life. Chastity? They can keep it.” She smiled at him and he smiled back.

  She stopped smiling suddenly.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she said severely.

  “What?” He was confused.

  “Lynwen told me all about you. You know what I mean.”

  He was afraid she did. She smoothed her robes over her bare legs.

  “All those things, the vows the cant. Chivalry,” she said. “They’re just there to remind them of things they feel people take for granted. They think people speak too quickly, too often and with too little thought. The cant makes them think before they open their mouths. But they don’t need the cant to be knights. They only have to honor the pact.”

  “What’s the pact,” Heden asked.

  She looked around at the forest. “This,” she said. “The forest and everything in it. And men. It’s all that really matters. I know it’s hard to imagine now, but for thousands of years before my knights the border of the forest would shift, north, south. Wiping out whole cities over centuries, or being cut back to almost nothing. It was a war. As much as the one you fought in. But it happened so slowly, men couldn’t see it. The tide of centuries is meaningless to us. So I invented the order to keep the peace and since then,” she spread her hands. “Things have been nice. The forest and the men all get along.”

  Heden nodded. He understood.

  “I’m sorry about Idris,” he said. She nodded, accepting his apology.

  “At the river,” she said, “you kept your promise to Elzpeth. That counts for something.”

  He frowned, alarmed.

  “Heden I’m a saint, I can use her real name.”

  He relaxed. “Not on my own I didn’t,” he said. “I had a vision of Lynwen.”

  Halcyon smiled.

  “I know, but that doesn’t count.”

  “It doesn’t? Felt like it counted to me.”

  “You did enough,” she said. “The two of you needed and wanted each other as much as two people can. Lynwen didn’t force you to do anything, it was still your will. Your choice. We just gave you a nudge, you did the rest.”

  “We?”

  “Aderyn is my servant, Heden, of course I was watching. I have little else to do these days.”

  Heden remembered his time with Aderyn. He had a vision of her standing before him at the river. “I’m not sure she chose the right vow,” he said, grimacing. He wanted to keep talking about Aderyn because he felt like he was in trouble and this helped avoid it.

  “The chastity vow is perfect for her. For the same reason it’s meaningless to Isobel and Taethan.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Aderyn is a passionate woman. In every sense, and in every sense that is good and right. Denying that, bottling it up…gives her power.”

  “You’re saying Taethan and Isobel don’t get power from their oaths?”

  She shook her head. “Isobel gets her power from dedication. She was never a creature of lust. Nor Taethan.”

  “What does he get his power from?”

  She looked at him. “Heden, I can inspire you. But I can’t tell you anything you wouldn’t be able to figure out on your own. There is a rule against that.”

  He thought for a minute. “He’s pure,” he said.

  “No,” she said.

  “They all think he is.”

  “What do you think?”

  He shook his head. “I do not know,” he said. It frustrated him.

  “Well, you better figure it out,” she said. “It’s the only thing that’s important in all of this and if you of all people can’t see it,” she sighed and stood up. “Then that’s it and we’re back to the beginning.”

  He sat up, felt better and attempted to stand. Though uneasy on his feet, he mastered himself. “What do you mean: me of all people?” he asked, standing before her.

  She looked at him with naked pity. “Heden, I’m sorry.” She seemed moved by some great sadness. “I’m sorry for everything that led you here. And I’m sorry for everything that’s going to happen. If it’s any consolation, everyone agrees,” he had no idea what she meant by ‘everyone.’ “If you can’t do it, no one alive can.”

  “It’s because I’m an Arrogate,” he said.

  She nodded as though it should have been obvious to him earlier. “Yes.”

  “You want me,” he felt like he was wading through molasses, trying to push through solid fog. “to take Taethan’s burden on…”

  “No, Heden, not that,” she said sadly. “But you’re right next to it. And by Cavall I hope you crack it.” She smoothed out her dress and the toadstool went back to its original size.

  “That’s it?” he asked. She seemed to be saying their meeting was over.

  “I will tell you one more thing,” she said.

  “Something I couldn’t figure out on my own?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Let’s call it a piece of advice. Nothing wrong with that.” Heden wasn’t sure who she was defending herself to. Possibly Cavall or the other saints.

  She looked at him as though sending a favored son off to his apprenticeship.

  “The perfect knight may have no place in an imperfect world. But you do.”

  “What?” Heden asked. She was talking about Taethan. Saint Halcyon looked at Heden and shook her head.

  “Lynwen likes you too much, she’d never say this. You’re not the hero, Heden. Stop trying to solve the problem and do your job.”

  Heden drew himself up at that.

  “My job,” he said, perhaps confrontationally, perhaps unwisely, “is to absolve the order of Kavalen’s death.”

  Halcyon shrugged, mimicking Heden’s favorite gesture.

  Heden’s mind raced as he tried to think of what Halcyon meant. He was afraid to ask a direct question, afraid he’d frighten her off. He noticed a honeybee land on her shoulder and then realized there were several there. He saw many buzzing around.

  She nodded, though to what or whom Heden couldn’t know. She was still looking at him. “Well, that’s it,” she said. “Time for me to go.”

  She turned and began to walk away.

  “Wait,” Heden said. She stopped and turned. “Tell me Aderyn’s going to be okay.”

  She looked at him with something like affection and nostalgia. “I can’t tell you that Heden, it’s not up to me. I will tell you that we were all very impressed back there at the river. Don’t waste it. She kept her oath too, remember that. Find a way to honor it, if you won’t honor your own.”

  “What does that mean?” Heden asked. He was beginning to feel like he’d forget all this, had she given him any answers? Was this all going to slip away, as his meetings with other saints had, leaving only a memory of light?

  “It means,” she said, and brushed the bees off her shoulders. They took flight but seemed to orbit around her. “Chastity is one-sided, but Fidelity is not.”

  Heden looked at her blankly.

  “You’re faithful to a person, remember. Not an idea.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well,” she said, sighing again. “I don’t talk to mortals that much anymore, it’s probably my fault. Sorry.” She smiled winsomely and turned and walked away.

  As she turned and disappeared behind the nearby tree, Taethan came walking out from behind it. He was missing most of his armor, but he seemed otherwise no worse for wear. Someone had tended to him, just as Halcyon had tended Heden.

  “That was a bloody great swarm of bees,” the knight said, using what was left of the carpet, in one hand, to ward off the cloud while he brushed them off his linen shirt with the other hand. Shirt, hands, and torn carpet were covered with blood. Heden looked down at himself, and saw that his leather pants were also soaked
in blood.

  The knight stood before Heden and handed him the carpet before looking at him. There were bees swarming all over the place, buzzing madly, apparently eager to get away from Heden and Taethan. Taethan waved more bees away, annoyed, and noticed they were crawling all over Heden.

  “What did you do, land in a beehive?”

  Chapter Forty Three

  They were walking back to the priory. Both men limped like aged war veterans. Heden’s mind was compulsively replaying the conversation with Halcyon, looking for meaning. Taethan intruded on his thoughts.

  “You seem withdrawn,” Sir Taethan put forward with some hesitation. Heden didn’t respond immediately. He was looking down at his feet eating up the miles. He’d been in many situations where he had to walk for weeks with no mount, and the only way he could do it was head down, one step at a time.

  “I don’t like talking,” Heden said without looking up. “I like quiet.”

  “It’s just that,” Taethan said after a moment, “you talked a great deal before we arrived at the lake.”

  Heden didn’t reply.

  “I had grown used to it,” Taethan admitted.

  Heden glanced at him and read his expression.

  “That had to be hard to say,” Heden said without sympathy.

  Taethan shrugged, trying the expression out.

  “You’re not going to tell me what happened to Kavalen,” Heden said. It wasn’t a question. “Not sure what there is to talk about. At this point, we get back to the priory, I can go home. Not sure why I bothered coming back up here, except to almost get killed.”

  Taethan, he knew, was trying to bridge the gap between them. Heden was reminding him that Taethan put that gap there and it wasn’t going away as long as Kavalen’s death remained a mystery

  The two men continued to crunch through yellow and red leaves. For a while, neither spoke.

  “I fear I let you down at the lake,” Taethan said.

  “Don’t see how there was anything you could do,” Heden said.

  Sir Taethan frowned but said nothing. Heden let him off the hook.

  “What did you think of Lynwen?” he asked, taking a guess at what Halcyon had meant when she said Heden’s saint was ‘busy.’

  “I found her…” Taethan began. “Difficult.”

  Heden nodded. “Yeah.”

  “She does not seem to think very highly of you,” Taethan said, his frown deepening with confusion.

  “Well,” Heden said with some resignation. “That’s only because she knows me.”

  “Were you speaking with Halcyon?”

  “Not exactly,” Heden said.

  This alarmed Taethan.

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “It was more her talking and me listening.”

  This seemed to relieve the knight.

  “She said a lot of things that didn’t make sense to me.”

  “Saint Lynwen did the same.”

  “Did she come on to you?” Heden asked.

  “Did she…?”

  Heden glanced at him.

  “Did she try and seduce you?” he asked.

  Taethan blushed.

  “Don’t worry,” Heden said. “She knew you’d refuse her.”

  “She knew?” Taethan asked, not sure what that signified.

  “Yeah,” Heden said. “If she thought you’d, ah…succumb,” he said. “She’d never have bothered with you.”

  “That does not make sense,” Taethan said.

  “You haven’t known many women, have you?”

  Taethan said nothing.

  “Well, Lynwen is like most of them, only more so.”

  “And you are her only follower,” Taethan observed.

  Heden suspected this told Taethan more about him than he found comfortable.

  “How did that come to be?” Taethan asked. It was the most personal question he’d asked thus far.

  “How far to the priory?” Heden asked.

  Taethan didn’t respond at first. It seemed Heden was changing the subject.

  “Half a day,” he said.

  “Half a day,” Heden repeated. “That’s not long enough for me to tell the story.”

  Heden watched the ground being eaten by his boots step by step, but out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Taethan smile.

  “We have no mounts,” Taethan said. “I’m afraid we are ill prepared.”

  “I was prepared,” Heden said, “before that thing ripped my carpet in half.”

  “Can it be repaired?”

  “I dunno,” Heden said. “What’s left is still usable, but no more riding two,” he said. “Pity.”

  “There was no danger I’d get on that thing again in any case,” Taethan said.

  “Feel like walking anyway,” Heden said.

  “Myself as well,” Taethan said. Heden was reminded that the knights lived solitary lives.

  They continued their slow journey to the priory. Neither had the strength to muster a prayer to grant them speed.

  “If that thing,” Heden began.

  “The Yllindir,” Taethan offered.

  “Yeah,” Heden said. “Let’s say the urq are controlling it or driving it….”

  “They could not control it,” Taethan rejected the idea. “They may be herding it south. If there are enough of them. They would need a great many. They would be like gnats to it.”

  “Okay,” Heden said. That wasn’t his point. “If it showed up at Ollghum Keep, could the Green stop it?”

  “You mean a fight?” Taethan asked.

  Heden shrugged. “You tell me.”

  Taethan marched with Heden through the forest. They looked a pair.

  “Lady Isobel could stop it,” the knight said eventually.

  Heden glanced at him, read his expression, then went back to watching where he was going.

  “Okay,” Heden said. This was good news. He’d been thinking how futile everything was now. The Celestial siege engine would make short work of the keep, Green Order or no. “How?”

  Taethan seemed reluctant to answer. Heden let him work it out. Silence seemed to bother him now.

  “Do you know the fae?”

  “Yeah,” Heden said, nodding. “Yeah I do.”

  “They can influence the Yllindir.”

  Heden nodded. “That makes sense.” Both were created by and servants of the Elves.

  “And Lady Isobel is counted as an ally of their Queen.”

  “Okay,” Heden said. Taethan didn’t seem to mind questions that furthered the rescue of Ollghum Keep. Heden was worried the presence of the Yllindir rendered any attempt at rescue moot.

  “Do you think the urq know that?”

  “No. Her demesne is leagues away, these urmen have no direct knowledge of her.”

  “Whose demesne are we in now?”

  “The lake belongs to us all,” Taethan said. “But the priory and the area surrounding were our commander’s. The urq know him best.”

  Heden took this in as they walked.

  “That lake is holy to you, right?” Heden asked.

  “It is our most sacred place.”

  “And everyone knows that?”

  “All the wode.”

  “Even the urq?” Heden asked.

  Taethan did not reply. Heden took this as a ‘yes.’

  “Do the urmen know Kavalen is dead?”

  “I cannot see how,” Taethan said, trying to see what Heden was getting out. “Why do you ask?”

  Heden shook his head sharply, trying to dislodge a thought.

  “I’m trying to figure out what the urmen are thinking.”

  “I think they plan on sacking the keep,” Taethan said.

  “No, not what they’re planning,” Heden snapped back. “What they’re thinking.”

  “I do not understand the difference,” Taethan said.

  Heden glanced at him.

  “No, I guess you don’t,” he said. “If they’re planning on attacking the kee
p, okay. Fine. But what about you?”

  “Me?”

  “No, I mean the order, what about the order?”

  “The order would prevent it.”

  “Normally.”

  “Normally,” Taethan repeated, beginning to see. “Yes.”

  “But Kavalen’s death makes things different.”

  Heden stopped without realizing it. He was swimming down several different streams at the same time. Taethan stopped as well.

  “They don’t know Kavalen is dead. They’re expecting the order to try and stop them at the keep, so they go round up the Yllindir to even the odds. But first they send it to the lake. Why? How could they have guessed you and I would be there?” He looked at Taethan and presumed the knight was wondering the same thing.

  Taethan looked at him blankly.

  “The only reason they’d send it to the lake,” Heden reasoned, “is if they thought the knights would be there. Which maybe you would after the death of your leader. Go have some ceremony at your holy place. But if they know Kavalen’s dead, why bother with the Yllindir? Why not just go sack the keep while you’re all sitting around mourning at the priory?”

  Heden shook his head.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” he said.

  “I hope you figure it out,” Taethan said raising one eyebrow.

  “Well someone has to,” Heden shot back. “And you’re sure as shit not going to do anything.”

  Heden was trying to figure it out. He was doing exactly what Halcyon told him not to do. He was trying to solve the problem. Figure out who killed Kavalen and why. But the order was Taethan’s challenge, that’s what the knight said, and Taethan was Heden’s.

  Heden looked at Taethan’s bloody clothing under what was left of his armor. They had almost died at the lake. At the lake Taethan led them to.

  “You took us to the lake,” Heden said, his eyes flitting to Taethan and then away, afraid of what he was discovering, dread coming over him.

  “You took me to the lake.”

  Taethan looked at Heden, his face somewhere between fear and hope. Heden knew he was right.

  “I’m the only one trying to do anything about what happened,” Heden said. “And you took me to the lake.”

  Taethan tilted his head expectantly.

  “You knew the Yllindir was going to be there,” Heden said flatly. “You had planned to go get killed fighting the urq alone. But you hadn’t reckoned on me. The two of us might be able to stop the urq army,” he said. “So that plan was out. So we go to the lake, where you knew the Yllindir would be. It would make short work of both of us. Then your problem is solved. The urq get Ollghum Keep, the gods only know why, I can’t interfere if I’m dead, and you get to satisfy your self-obsession and guilt by being killed in the process.”