Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2)

by Matthew Colville

  Heden said nothing.

  “If…if you had to…,” the bishop started. Heden knew what was trying to say. Let him say it, he thought.

  “If you had to kill them,” the bishop finally ventured. “I understand. I trust you.”

  Heden only nodded. Looked at a light sculpture of a woman. “Thank you, your Grace,” he said.

  “He said something about an army of urq.”

  Heden nodded. “Yes your Grace.” He glanced at the bishop. Tried to keep normal eye contact. Not act suspicious.

  “Should we be alarmed? Do you have any idea where they went?”

  This, Heden knew, had to be a question of some import. For he reasoned the army of urq was part of some plan. Thwarting the Green was part of that plan. Unleashing the dark power of the Wode on the lands of men. The sack of Ollgham Keep was, he suspected, just a test.

  “No your Grace. They sacked a small town, and retreated back into the forest best I can reckon.

  The bishop nodded, as though this confirmed a suspicion. He changed subjects. Casually ran his hand down a light sculpture, admiring his work in the starlight.

  “Am I right in recalling that you know the Duke of Baed?”

  “Yes, your Grace,” Heden said, taken somewhat off guard by the bishop’s question.

  “Personally?” the bishop asked.

  “Yes, your Grace,” Heden said. This seemed safe territory and so Heden relaxed a little. “He, ah…he counts me a friend, I think. He taught me a lot about…,” Heden was going to say ‘warfare,’ but as it came to him, he realized he knew nothing about war. The Duke had taught him more important things. “A lot about living, your Grace.” And how much of that had Heden done, these past 3 years? These past 20? How little accomplished.

  “What kind of man is he, would you say?” The bishop’s voice took on a pragmatic, straightforward tone. As though asking a servant the weather.

  “That’s something of a…broad question, your Grace.” Heden squirmed, wishing to get out of the atrium now. Being in the presence of this man was difficult for him.

  The bishop nodded. “Is he a man of his word?”

  Heden shot the bishop a look. Who could ask that of Baed?

  Baed was, Heden knew, a touchy subject among the great and good of Corwell. Under his command, the armies of Vasloria held back the Army of Night. Stopped them flooding out of Aendrim after they’d taken it.

  But he was a Duke of Graid, not Corwell, and now that same strategic and tactical brilliance was aimed at taking the land of Aendrim back. The king of Graid had, it seemed, promised all Aendrim to him privately. And now Baed intended to take it and install himself King. Tull, Farnham, Rhone, their regents had enough to worry about. But Richard, King of Corwell was cousin to Edward, King of Aendrim. Cousin and close friend. He considered Aendrim his by right.

  And the army Baed had commanded, had been Richard’s.

  “His word is inviolate,” Heden said. There were few men in all Orden Heden trusted as much.

  “Would you describe him as ambitious?”

  This was a strange question, and one that made Heden think in spite of himself.

  “I’d not have said so, your Grace,” he replied. “Not before the Oracle.” The tower of the Oracle at Adsalor was a powerful strategic asset. One the Army of Night controlled for three years. It lay at the border between Corwell, Graid, and Aendrim. Richard assumed it was his once the Army of the Star Elves retreated.

  Baed took it. It marked the beginning of his steady march toward Aendrim’s ruined capital of Exeder.

  “He never seemed to want anything but to do his duty,” Heden remembered. “But the man is a Duke.” Kings in Vasloria spent much more time managing their powerful, combative, scheming Dukes than they did worrying about rival kingdoms.

  “Mmm,” the bishop said. He changed the subject.

  “Gwiddon predicted you would retire the Arrogacy upon your return.”

  “I considered it, your Grace,” Heden said.

  “It is not for me to say, your station granted by Saint Lynwen and nothing to do with me, but I would be sad to lose so effective a tool.”

  Heden didn’t know what he was anymore. He didn’t feel like an Arrogate anymore. Felt more like a priest, but he belonged to no church.

  “I don’t know…,” he said, and suddenly felt incredibly weary. Was there any way to know? Any way to fight this man? There was so much Heden didn’t know, and he’d never been the best at figuring things out. He wanted to crawl back to his inn and shut the doors and waste away. But there was Vanora, if she were still there.

  She would be, Heden knew. He knew it like he knew his own name. She was waiting for him. He wasn’t going to let her down.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he admitted. “It’ll be a while before I’m any use to anyone.” He wanted to leave this place and have the bishop forget about him. “I should go,” he said, and half turned to leave.

  “If it’s any consolation,” the bishop said. “They couldn’t have been much use to anyone up there.”

  What? Heden thought. He stiffened, tried to hide his anger. Turned back to the bishop.

  “Nine knights, three thousand years,” Bishop Conmonoc explained. “None of us had ever heard of them. I can’t imagine them any great loss. I know you don’t like knights, perhaps in this case your distaste was justified.”

  Heden, mouth open slightly, stared at the bishop. The man had just lied to him. None of us had ever heard of them. Heden knew this was a lie. Knew he’d given the order. But there was no trace, no hint, not an iota of an inkling in the bishop’s bearing that he was lying.

  Heden has a preternatural ability to tell when someone was lying to him, honed over years as priest and Arrogate. This man had just lied to him, and he couldn’t tell. It struck him dumb. What did it mean? What power did Conmonoc wield and from whence did it come? Heden suddenly knew some degree of fear. Of the unknown. Of the power behind the man before him.

  The bishop’s expression changed. Something happened behind his eyes, his muscles shifted under his skin, a reptilian adjustment. Heden blinked.

  The man had recognized Heden’s recognition. The bishop knew what Heden knew.

  Heden took a deep breath. Steeled himself. Gave the bishop a look straight out of the mud and rain outside the Green Priory.

  Did a sneer cross the bishop’s face?

  “Perhaps they deserved to die,” he said, testing Heden.

  Heden would not be baited. The anger was there, but more, the drive. He would bring this man down. Fight whatever cancer grew in the church he’d once belonged to. Did the bishop have any idea the power Heden could array against him, if he was patient? No. The 80-year old bishop underestimated him, always had. But then, Heden had done the same to him. There was no way to know the bishop’s true power.

  “Someone thought so,” Heden said, eyes locked on the bishop. A flying insect grazed his neck. He brushed it away.

  “I hope someday you discover,” the bishop said, raising an eyebrow, making some subtle joke only he understood, “why you, and you alone, had to go into the Wode.”

  Heden pulled his hand back and saw the insect clinging precariously to a finger. Six legs gripped his index finger as though afraid he might casually kill it, or fling it away.

  It was a bee. Heden stared at it. A lone bee here in the starlit atrium. It appeared to look at Heden and wave its tiny antennae.

  Concealing his reaction, Heden gently blew on the bee, and it flew away.

  “I know why,” Heden said smoothly. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, turning his back to the other man. “I have an appointment.” He walked out of the atrium, left the starlight and darkness and headed to where he knew the sun was. Confident he knew the way. “Good afternoon, your Grace.” His voice echoed against the stone walls.

  Unseen to both men, the tiny bee buzzed after Heden.

  Chapter Thirty

  “We need to talk.”


  The abbot looked up from his quill and parchment, looked over the rims of his spectacles.

  Heden leaned against the stone archway leading into the study. He looked like someone wrung him out and hung him up to dry.

  The abbot replaced his quill and pulled the spectacles off his nose and ears, gestured to the backless, upholstered couch against the wall opposite his desk.

  Heden shook his head once, sharply. “No,” he said. “Not here.”

  The abbot sat back in his chair. “Your inn?”

  “No,” Heden said, pushing himself off the arch. “That’s being watched too. Come on.”

  The abbot frowned, but stood up and followed.

  The graveyard was older than the citadel, older than the castle, older than the memory of the city. It was huge, covered the entire northern edge of Celkirk, extending out beyond the walls into the rolling hills beyond. In the days of deathless it was a popular destination for cultists when young acolytes were tasked with patrolling it. But that was years ago. Now the only people who came here were people mourning the dead.

  “This is ominous,” the abbot said, looking at the name on the headstone.

  Stewart Antilles.

  Heden looked down at the headstone he leaned on, then looked down at the matted, spotty grass as though noticing it for the first time. “Hm,” he said.

  He stood up straight, cleaned the top of the gravestone off with the sleeve of his shirt. Then appeared to give up, and went back to leaning on it.

  “He won’t mind,” he said with a shrug.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” the abbot said. Then looked deeply at Heden. “How are you?” he asked, frowning.

  Heden took a deep breath and shook his head. “You need to know what happened in the forest.”

  “You can tell me what happened in the forest,” the abbot said, “but first I want to know how you are.”

  Heden shook his head. “I’m not here to tell you how I am,” he said, biting the word off. “We’re here because we have to talk about what happened.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” the abbot said, scowling. “You look…,”

  “What?” Heden barked, looking around the graveyard. He didn’t see anyone, but put his hand on the hilt of his grandfather’s sword just in case. “How do I look? Say it. We don’t have time to play games.”

  The abbot nodded as though Heden’s statement confirmed a suspicion. “You look ready for violence. Did you come back to commit murder, because that’s what you look like.”

  “Yes,” Heden said. “I did. I almost did. But Gwiddon talked me out of it. For now.”

  “Who?” the abbot demanded.

  “The bishop,” Heden spat.

  “Conmonoc?” the abbot said, taken aback.

  “Do you know what happened in the forest?” Heden asked.

  His face clouded with worry as he absorbed Heden’s statement, the abbot shook his head. “Only…only what you told me. The last time we spoke.”

  Heden pushed himself away from the gravestone and closed the distance between them.

  “He did it,” Heden hissed. “He sent me up there. He sent me because he thought I’d fail.”

  “You’re confused,” the abbot said, and it looked to Heden as though the abbot were trying to convince himself as much as anyone. “He sent you there to save those people.”

  “He damned them,” Heden bristled. “He ordered them to stand down. He lied to us, he said he’d never heard of them, but he needed them to let an army of urq march.”

  “You’re wrong,” the abbot said. “None of us had heard of the Green Order. Not for hundreds of years. No one had.”

  “He had. They receive their power from Halcyon, Halcyon is a saint of Cavall. Conmonoc is his bishop,” Heden spat the word. “That gave him the right. How many times had he tried before? Tried to assemble an army from the Wode? And failed. Because of twelve knights standing between him and who knows what? Years? Decades? Then he finally realizes why nothing happens. The Green. They do their duty, they stop of the urq and his plan fails. Well not anymore. Now there’s an army in the north big enough to take the city and no one left to stop it.”

  “No one…,” the abbot couldn’t absorb it all. “They’re dead? All of them?”

  “He ordered them to abandon their duty, just this once. But that’s all they had left!” Heden’s face was red with rage and other emotions. The abbot could see it. “And he took that away. Leaving them nothing.”

  The abbot found himself unable to deny Heden. “Why…what does he gain? Why would he do this?”

  “You tell me,” Heden asked.

  “I have no idea,” the abbot said, eyebrows raised. “I’m not even sure I understand the…I don’t know what….”

  “Let me explain it to you!” Heden barked. “Conomonoc is the Bishop of Cavall. But he is Cavall’s enemy.”

  This brought the abbot up short. “Heden. That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” Heden was going to force the abbot to see the truth. “Tell me something, how is he chosen? Is he chosen by Cavall?”

  “Yes!” the abbot said.

  “Is he really?” Heden took a step forward. The abbot took a pace back, looked alarmed. Would Heden strike him?

  “He’s…he’s chosen by the rectors in camerata,” the abbot said.

  “In secret,” Heden said.

  “But they’re…Cavall speaks to them. They choose on his word.”

  “But in secret! No chance of politics is there?”

  The abbot’s eyes stared off into the distance, past Heden. Through him. He was breathing rapidly. He put a hand to his chest. Overweight, aging, he felt his heart might burst.

  “I went to talk to him,” Heden continued. He paced over Stewart’s grave. “I wanted to give him a chance to…but I could see it. The more he talked…I could see it. He’s the most powerful man in the city, Corwell, maybe the whole region. And he doesn’t belong to us. Maybe never did. What in the worlds below was I going to do?” He couldn’t save anyone.

  Heden found himself staring at his aging hands. He clenched them into fists.

  The abbot pressed his hands to his eyes, tried to clear his head. When he took his hands away, opened his eyes, and saw Heden standing there, his whole body clenched for violence, his way was made clear for him.

  “Heden,” the abbot said. The arrogate ignored him. “Heden!” the abbot said louder.

  Heden looked at him dully.

  “Heden, forget the bishop for a moment and listen to me.” When Heden gave no indication he heard or didn’t hear, the abbot continued. “This will consume you. After what happened in Aendrim? The battle at Exeter? This will drive you until there’s nothing left.”

  “You going to tell me not to do anything?” Heden asked, his voice flat.

  “No,” the abbot said. “You can’t do nothing. But I’m not worried about the bishop, I’m worried about you. I know your heart. That’s what I’m worried about. If you move from your center,” he said, pointing at Heden’s chest, “you’ll be fine. I don’t know what will happen, but it will be the right thing, however it comes out.” The implication was clear.

  “Go on like this?” The abbot warned. “From hate and anger and fear? It will destroy you, and you’ll achieve nothing.”

  The two men stood in the graveyard, looking at each other. Only one seeing.

  “Go back to the inn. Talk to the girl. She needs you.”

  Heden gave no indication he heard the abbot.

  “Heden, please,” the abbot reached out, grabbed Heden’s arm.

  Reflexively, Heden pulled it away, looked at the abbot’s hand, at the abbot, with disgust.

  “You need someone,” the abbot said, delicately.

  Heden, his mouth twisted into a sneer, looked once at the abbot, then strode off, back to the heart of the city, out of the graveyard.

  “You can’t do it alone!” the abbot said, unsure if Heden was listening.

  He turned to look at
the grave of Stewart Antilles.

  “He can’t do it alone,” he said, to the dirt.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The next day, feeling almost hung over from the rage and poison he’d felt the day before, Heden woke to a nearly empty inn. He went downstairs.

  Vanora was washing up.

  “I haven’t killed anyone yet,” he said.

  She smiled at him. “Good,” she said. There was a distance between them. Heden was reminded of the abbot’s advice about children.

  Heden pointed to the wall of books on the far side of the common room. A unique feature in an inn.

  “Did you do any reading?”

  Vanora shrugged.

  “A little,” she said. “I…,” she started. “I liked the harlequin,” she admitted. She dried off a plate and held it to her chest like a shield, looking at Heden.

  “Good,” Heden said. That worked, at least. “What did you learn?”

  “Letters,” Vanora said, and then perked up. “I can write my name!”

  “I’d like to see that,” Heden said. Vanora was beaming, violence forgotten.

  They talked about nothing for a while. Vanora noticed Heden looking at the door to the basement.

  “I had to go down there,” she said. “When the ghoul…happened,” she didn’t know how else to describe it. “I know you told me not to.”

  “You did the right thing,” he said, and crossed to the door.

  “All the wine was down there anyway,” she said.

  Heden nodded. He sighed, not looking forward to doing something, opened the door, and went downstairs.

  This time Vanora didn’t press her ear to the door. And this time, Heden didn’t close the door behind him. She took a stack of plates into the kitchen, then came back out to collect the used mugs.

  When Heden emerged from the basement, he was carrying something egg-shaped, but as large as a lantern, and wrapped in brown cloth, like hide.

  “What is that?” Vanora asked.

  “A peace offering,” Heden said.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The dwarf ignored him.

  He stood there, feeling like an idiot, with Zaar’s men all trying to work around him