Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  “Why am I, uhh…” Morten began, but didn’t continue.

  “Okay,” Heden said. “Time for you to go.” He took the now empty glass from the stunned muscle, and guided him to the door. He opened it, and the man stepped outside and looked around, confused.

  Heden stood in the doorway. “Find someone to take care of that nose,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd walking by. People were studiously avoiding looking directly at Morten, while just as studiously glancing covertly at his ruined face.

  “What?” Morten said, holding his nose.

  Heden closed the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  Heden looked at the mess, the broken table. He waited a moment.

  “He’s gone.”

  Vanora danced down the stairs, still in her blue dress, and stopped once her bare feet hit the common room floor. She stared at Heden. There was a hungry look in her eyes. She was scared, but she also needed something from Heden, and was resisting whatever it was.

  “He’ll be back,” she said, accusing Heden of something.

  Heden shook his head. “No he won’t,” he said.

  “Someone will be back!” she demanded.

  Heden nodded. “Yeah,” he said. She was having trouble keeping her breathing from turning into sobbing.

  “She won’t try and take you again though.”

  “You don’t know that!” she said, almost yelling. “She won’t just let me go!”

  Heden sat in a chair next to the demolished table.

  “The Petal is a nice place,” Heden said. “Respectable.” This was, he concluded, why Vanora still seemed like a fifteen year old girl. Elowen took pride in getting them young, and training them. Treated it like a real apprenticeship. Even at fifteen, Vanora may only have had a dozen clients. And they’d be rich.

  It wasn’t illegal, most of the churches had no stricture against it. But Heden couldn’t shake the feeling that, in a better world, girls like Vanora wouldn’t have to fuck strange men for money.

  “Did you like it there?” Heden asked, as if this was a normal thing to say.

  She looked at the table next to her and shrugged. Almost imitating Heden.

  “Do you want to stay here?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I want to stay,” she said, she seemed desperate. She was desperate.

  Heden accepted this.

  “I don’t want…I want to learn to read.” Heden knew what she had been about to say.

  “Okay,” Heden said.

  “You said you’d teach me,” she complained, as though he’d already reneged on the deal. Literacy was not valued among the people Heden knew growing up, but was valued in the city. Almost everyone in the city could read well enough to make out the common words and phrases used in legal documents, but even people with money paid others to do their reading and writing for them. The nobility, of course, considered it a necessity. For someone like Vanora, it could be a doorway to better things.

  “I will,” Heden said. “And if you don’t want to leave, I promise you won’t have to.”

  “It’s not that simple,” she said darkly.

  Heden took a deep breath. “If I don’t want someone to take you from here, there’s maybe five people in the whole city who could do anything about it. And Miss Elowen is not one of them.”

  She dropped into a chair and crossed her arm, eyes downcast. “It’s not that simple,” she repeated, with less conviction this time. But with a level of resignation that Heden noted. They were sitting on opposite sides of the common room.

  “You’re probably going to, ah….” Heden said. He stood up and crossed the room. She wasn’t going to like this part. She didn’t look up at him. He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, settling on directness. “I’ve got to leave the city.”

  Now she looked up. “What!?” she asked, panicking.

  “You’ll be okay,” he said.

  “What are you talking about? How can you….”

  “Vanora,” he said, lowering his voice, she stopped panicking and stared at him. “If I tell you you’re going to be okay, you’re going to be okay. Do you understand me?” His calmness seemed to stun her. She just nodded.

  “When…when are you leaving?” she asked.

  “Soon. Today.”

  “Let me go with you!” she said, jumping to her feet.

  Heden just shook his head. “You don’t know where I’m going.”

  She waited a moment and when there was nothing else, she asked what seemed the obvious question.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to go into the Iron Forest,” he said, unable to keep the drama out of his voice.

  It did not have the intended effect.

  “Where the fairies live?!” Vanora asked, and clapped her hands together.

  This girl, he reminded himself, has slept with more people in more ways in three years than you have your entire life. It seemed important to him to maintain some context.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “There are fairies in the forest.”

  “Why do you say it like that?” she asked, not happy with his tone of voice.

  “They’re not…what you imagine.”

  “They don’t fly around on little butterfly wings?” This was obviously important to her.

  “Well, okay,” Heden said. “They are what you imagine. But they’re dangerous. They ensorcell people,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” She was deflating with every question. He answered, looking at the floor, avoiding her pleading eyes. She wanted the fantasy, but he couldn’t give it to her.

  “They trap people. Forever. They were made to serve the Celestials and when they left, the fairies had no one to serve. They went mad without their masters to tell them what to do. So any people stupid enough to go into the wode, any wode, they want to serve them. Forever. They’ll magic your mind and you’ll never want to leave, and they’ll feed you rich food and sing songs in your ears and pretty soon you’ve been there weeks and you’re starving to death because their food doesn’t…it can’t be digested the way ours can, and you’re shitting and pissing yourself because you forget to go to the privy but you don’t notice because you only see what they want to you to see. Only hear what they want you to hear. And then you die, and they don’t know why. It confuses them. But only for a few minutes. Then they’ve forgotten you ever existed.”

  He looked up at her. Her mouth was open.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s worse when you’re watching it happen to someone you know.”

  “I’ll stay here,” she said in a small voice.

  Heden nodded. “Good. There’s food enough in the pantry in the kitchen to last all the time I’m gone. Just don’t be too picky. If the bread gets moldy, just pick the mold off.” He remembered his father telling him exactly the same thing when he was a boy.

  “I don’t want to be alone” she said, quietly. Then appeared to have a thought. “Who was that man I saw down here before you went out?”

  “His name’s Gwiddon,” Heden said. “He’s probably my best friend.”

  “Maybe he could come by…” she began, and stopped when she saw Heden shake his head.

  “He’s complicated,” Heden said. “I can’t ask him to do things like that.”

  “You said he was your friend,” Vanora said.

  Heden shrugged. “I’d trust him with my life,” he said. “Yours too. But he has his own things to take care of.”

  “How long will you be gone,” she asked, looking out the window. She was thinking about something.

  “I don’t know. Could be a long time. Could be a month, but I really hope not.”

  She shrank more into herself.

  “I’ll talk to some friends before I leave. I’ll have them come by and make sure you’re okay while I’m gone. I know it’s going to be tough.”

  “A month? What am I going to do?” she asked, mostly to herself.

  Good question, Heden thought. He looked at th
e shelves of books.

  “Hang on,” he said. “I have an idea.” He stood up and walked toward a door set against the stairs. She padded behind him in her bare feet. “Have to go down here anyway,” he said.

  “What’s down there?” Vanora asked.

  He swung around and looked down at her. “You have to promise me something,” he pointed at her, it just having occurred to him.

  She looked up at him with eyes wide and nodded.

  Heden peered at her. She smiled at him.

  He sighed and leaned back against the door.

  “You remember when I said that if I don’t want anyone to take you from here, no one could take you from here?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I….” she said and her face screwed up with doubt. Then she remembered something. Her face changed into a look of determination. “Yes.”

  Heden nodded. “For the same reasons I can say that, you can’t go downstairs.”

  “What?” she asked, confused.

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “How dangerous?” she asked, trying to look behind him.

  “You can stay here as long as you want,” Heden said. “You’re safe. I’ll have someone come by and check on you. And Balli will keep you company. But if you go downstairs…you will not be safe,” he said. He kept his voice neutral. Like he was describing a simple fact. He didn’t want her to feel like he was threatening her.

  “I get to play with the cat?” she asked.

  Heden waggled his head back and forth, weighing the question. “You can try,” he said, half to himself. “But if you break your promise, she won’t have anything to do with you.”

  Vanora put her hands behind her back, stood up straight, and nodded. She was so…young and shapeless and normal, Heden often forgot what she’d done for a living. Probably because that’s what she wanted.

  “You promise?” he asked.

  “I promise,” she said.

  Heden looked at her hard for a second. She seemed to blanch.

  “Okay,” he said. “You’re telling the truth.”

  She relaxed. “You can tell that?”

  “Yep,” Heden said. He pulled a small keyring out from a pouch on his belt and flipped through it for the key to the basement door.

  “The door’s locked?”

  Heden nodded.

  “Well, then why…”

  “I’ll have to leave it unlocked,” he said, “when I go.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “It’s complex,” Heden said. He found the key and looked at her again. “If you see anything weird while I’m gone…don’t worry.”

  “What’s weird?”

  “A lot of things. You’ll know it when you see it.”

  She shook her head slowly and looked scared. Heden sighed. Gwiddon wanted him to open the inn and his life was already unacceptably complex with only one guest.

  “Just watch Balli,” he said. “If she gets angry or afraid, then there may be a problem.”

  At that moment, the cat came downstairs and sat on the bottom step, resumed cleaning itself. Vanora looked at her and smiled.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Heden turned and unlocked the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Once the door was closed behind him, Vanora pressed her ear to it and listened to Heden tromp downstairs.

  She heard him speak. Once, a single word, low, and then after a pause a longer phrase…several sentences. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it didn’t sound like Vaslorian.

  She waited, breathless. After a few moments, she heard the sound of heavy objects being moved around. Heden was looking for something. Some things.

  This went on for a while until Vanora got tired of standing up. She slid down and tucked her legs under her, resting her head on the door. She felt exhausted after everything with Heden and Morten.

  She dozed off, she didn’t know for how long, and was awoken by the sounds of conversation. It had been going on for some time. A conversation with someone she couldn’t hear. He was a priest…maybe he was talking to his god? His saint?

  She looked up at the door latch. Quietly she stood, pressed the latch down, and opened the door a crack.

  “Let’s say a fortnight,” she heard Heden’s voice, echoing from down below. “Could be longer,” he said. Then, with the door open, she could hear the response. The voice was…small. High pitched. Rapid. Quieter than Heden’s. She couldn’t make out words, just a patter of noises. What was down there??

  “Just someone to watch and make sure no one comes in. Deal with them if they do. Have to be in shifts, something could happen day or night.”

  More chittering.

  “You already eat whatever you want.”

  A squeak. Objection.

  “I don’t care.” Heden explained. “It’d spoil anyway. But it seems like you’ve already taken payment in food for services not yet rendered. Now you can render them.”

  More chittering.

  “Like what?”

  There was a sound like a piece of metal rattling.

  “No,” Heden said. “What about this?”

  Another sound, like a pile of pans and dishes moving. Then more squeaking.

  “You wear it and it protects you from being poisoned.”

  Chitter, squeak.

  “Most of them.”

  Chitter, chitter.

  “No, sorry.”

  Squeak, chitter.

  “Okay,” Heden said. “Deal.”

  Squeak, squeak.

  “Really?” Heden said. “Well, as long as she doesn’t come down here, she hasn’t broken any promises.”

  Vanora’s eyes went wide, and she quickly, but quietly, closed the door. She was certain he couldn’t have heard her. She walked to the nearby chair, sat and waited for Heden to come back up the stairs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eventually, after much heavy tromping, Heden opened the door and emerged from the blackness beyond. He was wearing a large backpack with many pockets. It appeared fully packed.

  He gave Vanora a look that indicated he knew she’d been listening. She smiled weakly back at him.

  Heden didn’t feel like explaining what she’d heard, and she followed some instinct that overrode her curiosity, told her asking would make things more complicated.

  “Okay,” Heden said. He walked to one of the many tables in the common room, unslung the backpack and dropped it on the table. “You’ll be safe while I’m gone.”

  She looked at the door, which he’d left unlocked. As he said he would.

  Heden opened the backpack, reached into it, and pulled out a domed glass case with a brass base. It was about six inches tall, and inside was what looked like a detailed carving of a man in some kind of dance pose.

  Vanora was immediately drawn to it.

  “This will help you pass the time,” Heden said as he pulled the delicate glass dome off the base, careful not to damage it.

  “What is it?” Vanora whispered, getting down on one knee and resting her arms and head on the table at eye level with the statue.

  “It’s a golem,” Heden said.

  She looked up at him quizzically. “I thought golems were huge stone or…”

  Heden shrugged. “It means anything made to look and move look like a man. Some are big stone guardians that can’t speak or do much except try and kill you. Some are…” he gestured to the little man.

  It was made, she saw now, of metal and ceramic. She could see hundreds of little joints and seams. Its face was a kind of ceramic mask. It was painted to look like it was wearing a skin-tight outfit made of diamond shaped patches of cloth in bright colors. Red, yellow, blue, and white.

  “This kind is called a Harlequin.”

  Vanora had never seen anything like it, and would not have known what a harlequin looked like. It looked, to her eyes, like some kind of alien jester.

  “Does it…does it move?” sh
e asked out of instinct.

  Heden looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She got the feeling he knew some delightful secret and enjoyed her curiosity, but the raised eyebrow was its only hint. He was otherwise stoic.

  He looked at the little man and spoke a few words in a language she didn’t understand.

  Nothing happened.

  “Shit,” he said, and coughed. Then he spoke again, something different.

  Nothing happened.

  “It’s been years since I used this thing,” he muttered. “Wait, I know…”

  Another short, spoken phrase she didn’t understand, and she heard in response the sound of a chime coming from the little man. There was a ticking noise as of a clock, and the little figure slowly began to move. Like someone walking through water, their movements slow and heavy. But the little figure’s motion sped up until it seemed normal speed.

  It looked once at Heden and then at Vanora. Its mask was also jointed, she saw, and moved to show expression.

  “Good afternoon, mistress!” the small automaton said, bowing deeply. “And master,” it took off its cap to Heden. Its voice sounded tinny and bright.

  “It’s a teacher,” Heden said. “They were created to instruct the sons and daughters of nobility in things like…I don’t know, reading and writing…”

  “Reading and writing and singing and dancing!” the small man said, twirling his body about while standing on one toe. It bowed again. “Plays and opera, science and mathematics. History and religion, diplomacy and war, I am well versed in all. ‘I cannot ride a horse,’” it said, placing a hand over its heart, the little holes for its eyes closing as it quoted someone. “’but I craft mighty leaders from little boys.’” It opened its eyes and peered up, smiling, at Vanora. “And little girls,” it added.

  “You used this?” Vanora asked in wonder.

  “I did for about three months. My friends and I had to sit in one place and wait for something and I used it to pass the time.”

  “No season was e’re better spent!” The harlequin said.

  “Eventually I got bored.” The harlequin looked affronted. “Actually I got bored pretty quickly, but there wasn’t anything else to do.”

  “Where did you get it?” Vanora asked in awe as she reached out for it.