Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (14 page)

“How workmanlike you make it sound,” the knight’s voice had changed a little. His accent was different. “Like a carpenter hired to set a beam.”

Heden shrugged, no defense. “Sorry,” he said. He realized he sounded like a mercenary. He wondered what the knight’s interest in all of this was.

Then he noticed the path had disappeared again.

“We’re off the path,” he said.

“You will not find the order,” the knight said.

“What?”

“It was a mistake for them to send you.” The knight seemed bitter, almost angry.

Heden looked around. Was this the exact same spot they’d started off in, after walking for a full turn?

He looked at the knight anew. Pointed at him rudely.

“You never told me your name.”

“Dolt,” the knight shot back. “Everything that’s happened and of course they send you. A hundred children in a dozen towns could tell you who I am.”

Heden got goosebumps. “What order are you with?” he asked again, remembering now that the knight had not answered again.

“It matters not,” the knight said. “You will not gain the green chapel.”

“I will not…” Heden repeated. “Who are you to say? What business is it of yours?”

The knight grew visibly wroth and drew his sword. “What business of mine?! No
business
, clod. Thou dunce. Thou oafish ass. What business of
yours
?”

Heden stepped back at the drawn sword. Was this a knight of the Green Order? Was he being tested?

He held his hands up, showing he meant no harm. “I’m just here to….” The knight stepped forward, closing the gap, interrupting him.

“’Just?’” he quoted back. “Just indeed. Just and merely. Merely and barely. Barely here, barely a man. Thou shalt not gain the green chapel, dolt.”

“Well,” Heden said, trying not to let things get away from him. “Then we’re at an impasse, because it’s the only reason I’m here. You said you’d lead me there. Will you?”

“You are here,” the knight sneered, “for no reason of your own.”

Heden took this as a ‘no.’ “Okay,” he said, and turned to continue in the direction he remembered the knight indicated.

The knight leaped forward effortlessly, until he was blocking Heden’s way again.

“Turn around,” the knight said, and pointed his sword at Heden.

“I won’t,” Heden said. “You’re going to have to deal with me here, or let me pass, one or the other.” He took another step forward.

The knight took a step forward as well, until the two men were only two paces apart. He pointed his sword at Heden.

“Quit the field,” the knight pronounced, and in Heden’s eyes he’d changed physically since they’d met. He seemed larger, his armor brighter. The fine detail in it now recognizable as a vine with blooming flowers. “Or I will strike thee down.”

“What are you doing, man?”

“I say thee,” the knight spoke slowly, he pressed the tip of his sword into Heden’s breastplate. “Turn around, and get thee hence from this place, or I shall run ye through and no mistake.”

Heden locked eyes with the knight and covertly dug one booted foot into the dead leaves and dirt. “You think I’m going to turn around now? Because of you?” He leaned a little into the sword point, his breastplate and leather underneath more than enough to prevent harm. This forced the knight to press back to hold his ground. “You can go stick your prick in a pig’s ass.”

The knight bared his teeth. “Then it be battle between us,” he said.

But at the word ‘battle,’ Heden was already in action. He kicked the dirt and leaves into the face of the knight as he twisted away from the sword. The knight shouted with disorientation as he simultaneously tried to clear his eyes, and stumbled forward as Heden pulled away from the pressing sword point, causing the knight to lose his balance.

In the time it took the knight to recover, Heden drew his own sword, a little clumsily as he wasn’t used to sword fighting now, but in enough time to clear the scabbard and then hammer the knight in the back of the neck with the pommel as he stumbled past. He could have struck with the edge of the blade, but didn’t know how far the knight would take this.

“Knave!” the knight shouted, and wheeled, swinging his sword around. He was an expert. Better than Heden, even in Heden’s youth, and soon the two men were dancing and scrabbling through the fallen leaves and branches on the floor of the forest. Heden retreating all the while.

Heden spoke a prayer and warded himself. The knight’s eyes went wide with surprise, but he smiled as well, relishing the power of his foe and pressed the attack. As though Heden’s prayers had given him permission to let loose.

It was difficult, maybe impossible, for Heden to fight back while losing ground and think of another prayer at the same time. Too many options. Too many prayers learned and forgotten, and three years in the inn, shut in, alone.

The knight got through his guard, slashed his once across his right arm and when Heden winced, he struck again, stabbing into Heden’s left shoulder.

The pain brought clarity. Prayer wasn’t necessary. Anger would suffice.

And Heden was very angry.

He fought back with new ferocity, and now was pushing the knight back. The more Heden fought, the more ground he gained, the more the knight seemed to enjoy it. The more he smiled. This only angered Heden more.

Sloppy, fighting more with fury than any skill, Heden left many wide openings and though the knight was forced back by Heden’s wild attacks, he countered once, and then struck through Heden’s flailing, thuggish offense and the tip of the knight’s sword sliced at Heden’s neck, cutting a thin line that quickly oozed red.

The knight seemed pleased with himself and dropped his guard, smiling, as though offering Heden a chance to yield.

But Heden couldn’t see the knight’s attitude, his eyes saw only red, and he did not consider yielding.

Heden slashed out, the blade of his father’s father, not magical, merely very, very sharp, swung around and sliced through the knight’s neck.

He intended to trade sharp cut for sharp cut, and was therefore amazed when his blade cut clean through the knight’s neck, through bone and muscle and sinew. The knights’ eyes went wide with alarm and his mouth opened in surprise as his head flew off his shoulders.

Heden stood gawping. Breathing like a horse having run a league. He was amazed that his blow, not intended to kill, only to scratch, had decapitated his opponent.

But he was more amazed that the knight was not dead. His body did not fall to the ground. Instead it dropped its sword, and raised its hands to where its head once was. Felt the air where once was flesh and bone.

The knights’ head lay in the brush, eyes wide, mouth forming silent words. The head seemed to be talking to the body.

The body wandered over clumsily, bent down, and picked up the head. The knight’s hands placed the head upon his shoulders. He fitted it on like one might set a stone atop a wall, balance it to prevent it from falling off. When he took his hands away, he was whole again.

“Alright, you made your point,” the knight said, scratching his neck. His speech returned to normal. Or its mode when they first met. Heden didn’t know what normal was anymore. He was lost at sea. His mind whirring, immobilizing him, as he tried to find some context, some meaning, behind the headless knight made whole again.

The knight walked forward, approaching Heden, but only reached down to pick up his sword. He looked at Heden anew. Raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe pig-headed bloody-mindedness counts for something.”

He sheathed his sword. “Might be just what you need with that lot,” he said mostly, it seemed, to himself. He looked past Heden and clucked his tongue twice. Heden’s horse walked forward.

Heden, unbelieving, watched as the knight took the horse’s reins, took Heden’s unyielding left hand, and wrapped the reins around it.

“Good luck,” he said, and walked away, around a tree and out of site. Heden’s eyes followed him but he otherwise didn’t move from the spot from which he’d cut off the knight’s head, his mouth still hanging slack.

Then he took a great gulp of air, and burst after the man, knowing what he would find.

The knight had disappeared. There was only Heden’s horse. And the empty wode.

He stood behind a tree at the edge of the clearing for a full turn, staring at the priory. The building the headless knight with flowers inscribed on his armor called a chapel. Heden wasn’t sure what he’d meant by that. It was an obscure term.

He watched the priory. No one went in, no one came out, no movement within. It looked deserted. His horse stepped up and put its massive head over Heden’s shoulder, as though it were looking at the priory too. Wondering if they were going to approach, or just stand there. Then it made a horse noise, and Heden reached into his pack and gave the beast another apple. As the horse chewed, Heden reached up and absently scratched its ear.

It stood, a narrow stone building with a single large tower, on the far side of a large clearing, maybe four acres across. The trees marking the edge of the clearing were all very close to one another, in contrast to the rest of the wode. It was a dark building, and the dirt around it looked black.

Heden was watching the priory, and not watching it. He was thinking about the knight, or whoever or whatever it was, whose head he’d chopped off. He’d seen many strange things in his years as a professional, certainly much stranger than a man putting his own head back on, but something about this knight was personal. Directed at Heden. It unnerved him in a way dragons and celestials and floating cities had not.

The knight had been testing him. Had intended to test him from the beginning, and Heden had passed. Why the test? No one else had gained the priory since the death, the probable murder, of the knight-commander. Renaldo said anyone who came in, just came out again. Turned around without realizing. That was a kind of magic Heden understood. The knight mystified him.

There was a dreamlike quality about the man he fought. But nothing could be more real than the man who found him on his ass and helped him up. The man he talked to. Heden had replayed that conversation a dozen times as he followed the path that led here. It revealed nothing.

He related to the man. Understood him. Was he meant to? Was the knight he fought the real thing, and the man he conversed with the invention? A fabrication designed to find out more about Heden? He went through a dozen possibilities and then shook his head. No point. If there was anything to be gleaned, he wasn’t smart enough to do it. He missed Elzpeth.

He reached up to his neck. He’d healed the wound on his arm and his shoulder, but left this one. He wanted to remember the encounter was real. He pulled his hand away. The blood was dried, the thin cut already healing, but some dried blood came off on his hand. Real alright.

The horse sniffed the air, and Heden noticed there were two troughs of water in front of the priory. Looked like there was water in them. He saw no well. Could be rainwater. Didn’t matter. The horse needed water.

Heden and the horse walked into the clearing.

The sky was bright blue, the day brilliant. Large white clouds drifted by. It was beauty Heden was not immune to. He missed scenes like this in the inn. He checked the ground. It looked as though it had been churned and then matted down. If by horses, there was no obvious sign. But he knew he was terrible at reading the ground.

As they approached, Heden saw there was a large stained glass window set on the north facing wall. It would be on his right if he entered, and let the sun in. He led the horse to one of the troughs. It slurped up the clear water while Heden looked around again, taking in the whole clearing. He didn’t know what he had expected, but at least some horses. Knights rode horses, didn’t they? Maybe a pavilion.

The stone was granite, but black in many places. Most places. Heden’s boots sunk into the soft dirt all around. Rich soil, he thought.

He walked slowly around to the back of the priory, looking closely at the blackened stone. It looked as though the priory had burned, but whether recently or in the distant past, Heden couldn’t say. Wouldn’t rain wash away soot? Maybe not without soap or quicklime. The dirt within a few inches of the priory was also black.

Heden ran his hand over the granite and soot came off. He put his hand against the rough hewn rock. It was still warm. But no warmer, Heden thought, than it would have been just from absorbing the heat of the sun all day.

He looked up at the stained glass window, still intact. This was a puzzle. What kind of fire would leave this much soot and not melt the glass? Who would try and burn a granite building?
Someone trying to kill the people inside.

He walked back around to the front and looked in. A foyer lead to a long, narrow nave and several small rooms branching off. At the end of the nave, past several prayer benches, was a small altar on a raised dais. Where were the knights?

Feeling like an interloper, he walked into the priory.

The stained glass window dominating the north wall was large. It seemed odd to Heden, then he realized. He’d never seen a church oriented in this way. The entrance west, the nave leading east to the dais. Usually the entrance was north or south, so the stained glass window would be above either those entering, or the priest at the altar. Why the difference here? Was it significant? No way for him to know.

He stood in the middle of the priory, even empty it felt intimate compared to the cavernous enclosure of Llewellyn’s cathedral. He looked at the window. The glass artwork depicted a scene he recognized: Godwin the Vigilant, Saint of Cavall fighting Saint Pallad the Black, Saint of Nikros. He knew the story. Godwin lost. The glass depicted their final battle. It was, Heden thought, a strange moment to commemorate, but then he often felt that way about the stories of saints.

He turned and continued up the nave, his boots loud on the flagstones. The altar was typical. Raised. A stone rectangle with pictures of knights in Cavall’s service carved into it. Behind it, nested into a cubby hole at the back wall, Heden saw a font about four feet high in a recessed hole.

Something about the font triggered Heden’s instincts. He walked around the altar and examined it.

He resisted the urge to try and move it or inspect it to see if it hid anything significant. Sometimes even writing hidden away from view was useful, but this was a priory and he reminded himself it held nothing secret. No dwarf would arrive and use a metal pole to make the altar slide away revealing a complex underground chamber.

He leaned against the altar and looked at the font. There was a little water in it. This meant someone had tended it recently. It looked exactly like a bathing pedestal for birds such as noblemen had in their castle grounds.

Then he saw it. The font was of a different stone from the altar, the flagstones, the wall. Everything else was granite. Hard to work, requiring master masons to ensure the building didn’t collapse under its own weight. But the font was limestone. It was, Heden realized, much older than the rest of the building. It was weathered, heavily so. Heden suspected the priory was built around it. He imagined the small stone pedestal, its bowl filled with water, alone in the forest with no building around it. Sunlight reflecting off its water. Something that could not happen now. This priory had started off as a simple shrine, a font hidden away miles in the forest. How old was this place?

He touched the font. Ran his hand around its edge and put his fingers in the water. He said a prayer to Lynwen. Not much of one. Thankfully no response, and continued his survey of the priory.

Along both walls, five on one side, four on the other, were several crests painted on wood about seven feet up each wall. Each was very simple, and all followed the same theme. Each had a white field with a solid green circle in the middle. Each was adorned very discreetly with one additional element, no two alike. This crest has crossed swords. This one stylized shields. Each had a different number of elements, no two the same. Two shields, seven crossed swords. A spring of holly with six branches. Three horses rampant.

Heden noticed two things. Beneath each crest was a hook to hang a shield and below that a wooden brace, as though to hold a spear or a lance. They were all but one empty.

The one held a large metal shield. A knight’s shield. With the green circle on a white field, the sign of the Green Order, Heden surmised, and in the middle of that green circle, one yellow star. The sun.

Kavalen.

Without thinking, he reached up and lifted the heavy shield off its hook. The shield had been heavily damaged and some attempt at repair had been made.

Heden turned it around. Not repair, just reshaping. From behind, he could see the shield had been pierced twice. By what, he couldn’t tell, and the metal then pounded back in shape. The leather straps were new. But the shield was now useless. The reshaping was for show. Its owner, he knew, was dead. And the shield hung as a memoriam.

“Replace that shield upon its hook,” a soft voice came from behind Heden, causing him to jump almost out of his skin. He turned, alarmed, and saw a figure framed in silhouette in the entryway. “Or my lance will find your heart.”