Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (6 page)

“Knights must die all the time.”

It was a small room and the bishop’s writing desk took up most of it. The ornate wood paneling on the walls had at some point been covered over with expensive tapestries. They absorbed sound and Heden felt like he was packed in cotton every time he came in here. It was dark, lit with the steady golden light of four candles in sconces on the walls. Heden was dressed in his ill-fitting plain wool, but the bishop was wearing nearly his full regalia. All in blue and silver and black, the ceremonial colors of the largest church of Cavall.

“Are you sure you…,” the bishop indicated an untouched tray of biscuits.

Heden raised a hand. “Please, your Grace, no. I’ve been eating or drinking or watching people eat or drink all day.

The bishop smiled. His thin, angular face was, to Heden’s way of thinking, the iconic bishop’s face. Bishop Conmonoc was tall and gaunt with a hawkish face. His rheumy eyes betrayed his age. Conmonoc had ascended to the hierarch’s position when Heden was a boy and though he remembered his father talking about the previous bishop, and he knew there would be one after, Conmonoc would always be ‘the’ bishop to Heden. The archetype. Heden found it difficult to judge the man as a result.

“Gwiddon didn’t think you’d come,” the bishop said, his lips curling at one corner.

“He’s known me a long time,” Heden said. Giving a non-answer to a non-question.

“But you’re here,” the bishop said. Heden wondered if he was going to congratulate himself on being right. “I’ve asked Gwiddon for your service…perhaps three times in the last year and in each instance you refused.”

Heden squirmed a little in his chair.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

The bishop made a discreet flourish with one hand, encouraging Heden to elaborate.

“I just didn’t think I’d be any use to you.”

“That may be,” Bishop Conmonoc conceded. “But don’t you think that’s for me to decide?”

“If you believed that,” Heden said, looking straight at him, “you wouldn’t have let me say no.”

The bishop seemed to find that answer amusing. “We both know that’s not true. What made you change your mind?”

Heden shrugged. He hadn’t thought about it. He said the first thing that came into his mind. “I didn’t want to disappoint…” he wasn’t sure how that sentence was going to end and for some reason didn’t want to follow the thought. “Anyone,” he said.

The bishop studied him for a moment. Heden was obviously not talking about disappointing the bishop, or Cavall.

He lifted a biscuit from the silver tray and took a bite no larger than a bird’s, careful to cup his other hand under it to catch any crumbs. After he’d eaten three tiny bites, he threw the rest away, picking a damp cloth out of a small brass bowl to clean his fingers. Heden watched this without comment.

“As you say, knights die all the time,” the bishop flashed a brief, humorless smile, tossing the cloth back into the bowl. “The question is
how
the knight died, you see. Normally a dead knight is replaced by a squire trained up for the purpose but if the death is
unrighteous
, well then. The order’s patron reduces the size of the order by one. It’s a form of judgment. The order shrinks for every such death. Until the unrighteous death is atoned for.”

“The murderer punished,” Heden concluded.

The bishop raised a single finger of his right hand.

“It’s unclear that there is a murder. The order is so remote, we have no real idea what goes on up there. The idea that they could operate up there for centuries without anything like this happening means this is an extraordinary circumstance. Or they are extraordinary knights.”

“So murder or suicide.”

“You grasp these things so well,” the bishop said with a sigh. He knew Heden didn’t like it when he congratulated him on his insight, but he didn’t udnerstand why.

“So I figure out how he died and…do something about it.”

“You understand that if the death was unrighteous, justice may be very hard to attain. The whole order may bear some burden.”

“Yeah,” Heden said, turning away to look at one of the tapestries. “I understand that.”

“My apologies,” the bishop said. “I don’t mean to sound patronizing.” He wanted Heden to like him, and he suspected he didn’t. But like so much about this man, he didn’t know why.

“I know,” Heden said. “You can’t help it.”

The bishop flashed a smile again, vaguely aware he’d been insulted, but unsure how to respond. An awkward silence settled between them.

Heden felt bad for his early jibe, and filled the silence.

“Who’s their patron?”

“Halcyon,” the bishop said, raising an eyebrow.

Heden searched his memory and sunk back in the plush red chair. “I’m not familiar with the name, your Grace.”

“There’s no reason you should be. She’s one of a handful of saints who predate the Age of Saints. In her case, by almost a thousand years.”

Heden nodded.

“That’s how she has knights older than the Council.”

The bishop nodded once.

“What should I expect,” Heden asked.

The bishop spread his hands. “We’ve done quite a lot of research, none of it very helpful. They live in the forest, they fight all manner of creature, specializing in the kind of thing you used to do when you were younger,” he smiled in what he must have thought was a sign of camaraderie. “They have a reputation. It’s the environment, you see. Only the strong survive up there.

“We know precious little else. We’re trying to find someone who’s been up there and can tell us more. They report to the local barons, they have a priory. Apart from that, whatever’s happened must be…unusual. Deeply wrong, morally or perhaps spiritually. Otherwise we’d never have learned of it.”

“You could send the White Hart,” Heden said.

“I could,” the bishop agreed. “Especially if I wanted the Green Order hunted down and destroyed. The Hart are not that kind of tool, as well you know.”

“What are your wishes?” Heden asked.

“Only that you do what you think is right. You’re going to have to, ah, make a judgment on the spot, as it were.”

Heden shook his head, frustrated.

“Cavall has yet to reveal to me more than a sense that the order protects the people from the forest. From the things in the forest. And that they are critical to our safety.”

“That covers a lot,” Heden said.

“You seem skeptical.”

Heden wouldn’t look at the bishop. “The Wode is…it’s massive. I don’t think people have any real understanding of how big it is. And the things that live there, a lot of them were made by the Celestials, remember them. Carry their power. The place is a nightmare. Yeah, I’m skeptical. What could nine knights do?”

“One of the reasons Gwiddon recommended you. I don’t think either of us know anyone who’s ever been inside the Wode. Of course, if my instincts are correct, you would have been the only choice in any event.” The bishop looked bemused.

“Because your instincts tell you….”

“That this is a thorny problem requiring a nicety of judgment. I believe that when this is done you’ll have had to do …things you may never be able to reveal to me.

“The order must survive, Heden. They’ve been guarding out people from the forest for three thousand years. But everything ends. The order must end someday. I had never heard of them before a week ago, but I don’t want them to fail their mission, ah…on my watch, as the Castellan would say.”

Heden thought, and said nothing.

“You’ll learn more when you get to the keep. The people there, they live with the threat of the Iron Forest. They know the order. They know more about the order than they do the church or the king. You’ll be able to speak on my behalf though obviously, not on my authority.”

Heden didn’t seem impressed by this.

“The people up there won’t want to talk to me. They’re suspicious of strangers.”

“The knights won’t be happy to see you either. I doubt they know who I am, or that their order falls under my influence. Everything we’re read describes them as zealots, devoted to the forest.”

“They sound like a bunch of druids.”

“I came to the same conclusion,” the bishop said smiling. “We’ll give you the ritual. Once you’ve meted out justice to those who have transgressed, then the dead knight can be replaced and you can come home.”

Heden looked concerned. The bishop looked at him sympathetically.

“I can’t obligate you to go. Not anymore,” he smiled again.

Heden took out the holly at looked at it. Eight pale green berries, never ripening, and one milky white berry.

“What if the ritual can’t be performed?” Heden asked. Implying that there might be no absolution for the unrighteous death.

The bishop tilted his head to one side. “Then the order shrinks to eight members. If that’s what you decide,” he said, emphasizing ‘you.’

Heden took a deep breath and held the holly up to the bright candlelight in the bishop’s office. He twirled the branch. He let his breath out slowly and when he was done, he put the holly back in his vest.

He got up and offered his hand to the bishop. The two men shook hands. A special ceremony only Heden could observe. Saying nothing, Heden walked toward a bookcase behind and to the left of the bishop’s desk, pulled on an otherwise nondescript book, and the bookcase swung away revealing a lit passageway beyond. The same way he’d come in.

Heden exited. As soon as the false bookcase swung closed with a ‘click,’ the main door to the room opened and Gwiddon walked in. He flowed into position before the bishop, bowed, pulled his cloak into his right arm with a flourish and sat in the same chair Heden recently occupied.

He braced his hands together and smiled widely at the bishop.

“I was right,” the bishop said with some satisfaction as he wiped his hands with a damp white cloth.

Gwiddon bowed his head.

“Your instincts were correct,” Gwiddon betrayed a little amusement and chose his words carefully.

The bishop threw the damp cloth at the younger man and scowled without malice. Gwiddon snatched it out of the air.

“I was lucky,” the bishop said. “I see that now. Something’s different. I almost didn’t notice it, but our friend has changed somewhat.”

“He’s certainly changed,” Gwiddon said, remembering the girl back at Heden’s inn.

“He’s so humorless and dour.”

“He’s got a sense of humor. Or at least he did.”

“Ah?” the bishop prompted.

Gwiddon crossed and uncrossed his legs, delaying. He didn’t want to say what he was about to say.

“I mentioned this last time. After Andrim….” Gwiddon left it. “You know their knight killed himself. Heden at the inn it’s…it’s the same thing. I don’t know why he said yes, I’m not sure he knows. And then into the Wode of all things. I have no idea what it will do to him. I was surprised he accepted.”

“Perhaps his own way of ending it. Going into the Wode to die.”

“Hah,” Gwiddon said. “No, your Grace. Heden would never do that. He’s too....” he was at a loss to explain. “He’d consider that dramatic,” Gwiddon said, putting special emphasis on the last word. “Self-important. He’s too stubborn for that, your Grace.”

The bishop nodded his understanding. Gwiddon leaned forward and took a biscuit from the bishop’s silver plate. A bee had ridden in on the back of his cloak and now took the opportunity to buzz into flight and land on the colorful biscuit. He brushed it off, annoyed.

“Should I be afraid for our friend,” the bishop asked, frowning. The bee flew away.

“Afraid? For Heden?” Gwiddon shook his head. “I know of no one in Celkirk less deserving of concern. Rather, be afraid for the order.”

“He’ll be far from the city,” the bishop observed. “And he doesn’t know what the Green Order can do.”

“Well, as to that,” Gwiddon tilted his head in deference. “None of us do. A week ago we’d never heard of them.”

“Mmm,” the bishop said, turning to look at the bookshelf Heden had disappeared behind.

Heden arrived at the smithy just after noon, already weary from a long day getting longer. Though it was grey and overcast, it was hot and humid and he wasn’t dressed for it. He had a mail shirt on under his jerkin. When he realized it was the mail that was causing him discomfort, he was surprised to learn he’d put it on. He couldn’t remember doing so. Obviously, he thought, a part of him decided it was appropriate for some reason.

The smithy was known as the Sun and Anvil because the signs over the entrances had a stylized dawning sun rising over an anvil. The name had originally been Dawnforge, but very few people knew that. Unlike the vastly more advanced city of Capital, where shops and streets were named and the names printed on signs, shops in Vasloria used symbols to communicate what kinds of services you could find inside. It was only by intuition and common consensus that places acquired names. Having been to the distant city of Capital, Heden was surprised signs without words worked so well.

The dawning sun was one of a handful of symbols, the moon and stars being other common examples, which meant magic could be found within, for a price. Heden couldn’t remember when he learned this, but he was certain the majority of people who came and went didn’t know it. There was no reason they should.

The Sun & Anvil was more than a blacksmith shop; it handled metalworking of all types and employed over two dozen workmen, including specialists in fine metalwork and jewelry.

As soon as he was standing outside the wide stone archway, he felt the powerful heat radiating out from the shop. The throng of people on the street gave the place a wide berth to avoid the thick heat in the already humid day.

Heden stepped inside. It was busy. In the center of the large, warehouse-sized building was the main forge where metals were fired. It was built into a column of stone that went from floor to ceiling. The octagonal shaped building’s ceiling also tilted upward at the center, turning the whole building into a flue.

There were customers from across the strata of the city talking with workmen. Almost all men, but Heden could see a handful of polder as well, their short, diminutive frames looking a bit like children, but the way they held themselves and moved was subtly alien to the human experience.

There was nothing subtle about the two massive warbred urq who worked in the place. The wizards who created them decades ago bred no special love for craftsmanship into them, but they were strong and, cast adrift from the war they were made for, searched for jobs that brought honor and kept them away from the public. Living among men went without saying; there was no question of them making a life among the urq.

The forge was loud, the ring of hammers was loud, everyone in the place had to shout to be heard. Heden stood just inside the doorway.

There was a knot of people standing off to his right. Heden looked at them. It looked like two patrons and three craftsmen discussing a project. They were all smiling as they talked. It was generally a good place to work and do business.

One of them caught Heden’s eye and stopped smiling. The rest saw the man’s reaction and turned to look at Heden. The patrons’ faces were blank. The craftsmen all suddenly went grim.

The man craned his neck, looking farther into the shop at something Heden couldn’t see. Something obscured by the forge. He called out to someone, and then turned to Heden and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Heden nodded and made his way through the shop. As he passed by the craftsmen, they said nothing, just watched him.

As he rounded the forge, he found what he was looking for.

There were anvils of all sizes and function in the shop, but this was by far the largest. It was sunk into the ground in a neat bit of engineering that betrayed the influence of its creator, currently using the anvil to hammer on what looked to Heden like a long metal pike.

The dwarf, owner of the Sun and Anvil, looked up from his work. His squat, square face illuminated by the fierce orange glow of the heated metal, and stared at Heden. He wasn’t the only one in the city, but for a small group of people of a certain generation that included Heden and Gwiddon and many of the people who now ran the city, he was The Dwarf. Just as there were many elvish wodes, but only the Iron Forest was The Wode.

He was roughly four feet tall and though short, seemed massive. Heden knew he weighed a quarter ton, though he didn’t look it. It seemed to Heden as though the world around the dwarf bent and bowed in an attempt to make itself smaller.

His dusky brown skin appeared to be flesh. Heden knew this not to be the case. He was one of the stone dwarfs. Known to academics as the Granite Elementals. Any town that had one counted itself lucky. They were master craftsmen in every material, and stone was their preferred medium. His skin was a strange combination of flesh and rock. It was supple, it moved and flexed like skin, but a normal sword would spark off it, deflected as though bouncing off armor.

The dwarf stared at Heden for a moment, threw his hammer to the ground in disgust. A watching assistant scurried up to the anvil, used a pair of locking tongs to grasp the heated metal pike, and took it to another, smaller anvil to be finished.

Heden stepped forward and looked down at the dwarf. Many people throughout the shop were watching. The dwarf’s body was hairless. He wore a leather apron and leather pants. His broad face bore a thick scowl and his small eyes fired red. They gave a baleful look, but his eyes always did that. The dwarf radiated back the heat he’d absorbed from the forge.

“I need one of the swords,” Heden said.

The dwarf just sneered at him, and waited. Heden realized why.

“It doesn’t matter which one. You choose.”

The dwarf spat on the ground and turned his back on Heden. He selected a long metal rod from amongst the scrap on the floor, picked it up and inserted it into a small metal collar set into the bottom of the anvil. He pushed it in, then pulled on it with one strong arm.

With a burst of steam, the anvil slowly rose out of the ground and slid aside, revealing a large hole in the dirt floor. It was well-lit and walled, and there were steep stairs going down. The dwarf trudged down them soundlessly. Everyone in the building was watching. Many had their mouths open.

Heden had served the gods for as long as he could remember and one thing he’d learned; they influenced the world in direct and indirect ways. There were several traditions in his culture that deliberately subtracted conscious will from a decision, in order to grant gods or saints the opportunity to step in and influence things. Heden had no way of knowing what the dwarf would choose. Let fate decide.

Heden had met people who laughed at such things, and for them, probably the saints had no interest in influencing their lives. Heden was not so lucky.

The dwarf emerged with a long thin object wrapped in plain, dirty cloth. He held it out abruptly, unceremoniously. Heden took it from him carefully.

He unwrapped the handle revealing the hilt, pommel, and guard of a sword. It was beautiful but full of angles, as though it were built out of complex, geometric shapes. A contrast to the flamboyantly crafted sword guards that were the fashion, such as Gwiddon carried, that looked like flowing pen-strokes carved from gold.

There was a black gemstone in the pommel. Only a little of the blade was showing, but it was a dull purple-grey metal. Unlike any in the city. The metal threw off a light few humans had seen. It was a kind of glowing violet and it cast Heden’s features into sharp relief.

“Starkiller,” Heden said, regarding the weapon wryly. “Figures.”

The dwarf said nothing. He turned his back to Heden and pushed up on the metal rod. He removed it, and threw it aside with a loud clang as the anvil slid back into place, and an assistant brought forth another item for the master’s attention.

Heden stared at the dwarf’s back for a little while as the whole forge scurried back to work. He didn’t say anything. He looked at the ground for a moment. Then he wrapped up the sword, tucked the whole package under his arm, turned, and left.