Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (29 page)

Heden wasted no time. Knew the battle was lost. There was no way to win. But he didn’t know how to give up. Twenty years of instincts took over.
Get away!
they said.

Heden turned and leaned his body on the rail of the stone bridge. One eye burning, one arm useless, up onto the stone railing, he levered his body onto the railing. The exertion almost made him pass out. He’d lost a lot of blood. He heard Garth leap from a prone position to standing, guessed what he would do next.

In wool clothes, a steel breastplate over leather armor, a heavy cloak, Heden pushed himself off the bridge, and let himself fall into the Kirk.

The cold water shocked him for a moment, gave him some life. He saw the sun through his good eye, its light dappled and scintillating through the waters. The waters that grew darker, that blotted out the light as he sank.

He wondered if he would drown. He lost consciousness before he could find out.

He was aware of someone in the room with him, sometimes more than one person, but as he swam in and out of consciousness he couldn’t tell who it was, or where he was, or how much time had passed. He spent much of the time assuming he was dead.

Eventually he realized he was awake, though he couldn’t remember waking up, or what had come before. The light streaming through the stained glass told him it was early morning, but the glass itself left no impression on him. He thought, for a moment, he was back at the priory. Back in the wode.

He blinked. There was something wrong with his vision. He lifted a hand to his eyes and felt something alien clinging to his face where he expected his left eye to be. He panicked at the foreign object and then realized it was cloth. Bandages. That’s right. He’d forgotten.

He’d lost his eye.

Just then he noticed someone standing in the room, watching him. Leaning against the open doorway into the convalescent chamber.

The castellan.

Heden stared at him for a moment, unsure at what rate time was passing. The castellan looked like a wastrel. He was a big man, but he stooped and had a limp and his clothes hung off him like he’d walked under someone’s window when they threw out their old, soiled rags. He had a tangled beard and bad teeth.

Heden had never seen him clean, never seen him in new clothes, and had never seen him off-work. He was Heden’s age. Of that same generation that now mostly ran the city. The castellan was, as far as Heden could tell, perpetually on the job. He always had a nail hanging from his lip or from his thick fingers. His long, craggy face made him look like he was a bit thick, the way his jaw jutted out and his mouth often hung open slack. He was not thick.

“How you feel?” he asked. The ragman’s voice was rough from decades sucking smoke.

“What day is it?” Heden croaked.

“Cetain,” the castellan said.

Three days. Three days since the fight on the bridge.

“Groggy,” Heden said. “Not much pain.”

The castellan nodded. “Give it some time. You’ll start feeling something alright.”

“Oh good,” Heden said. It was hard to talk.

“You’ll get to keep the eye,” the castellan gestured at the bandages. “The priests here saved it. Called in some favors, I guess. I told them it was a waste, but they seemed to feel obligated.”

Heden relaxed. He still didn’t remember all of the fight, the loss of the eye didn’t seem real yet, and now it wasn’t. How many times had he been torn apart and put back together? He couldn’t remember. There was a limit, he knew, but he’d not yet reached it apparently.

“The abbess says you can go home tomorrow if you’re feeling up to it.”

“I’m in the church,” he’d been staring at the stained glass, not realizing what he was seeing. The bishop was somewhere in the building. And the abbot was not. Would never be again.

The castellan nodded.

“I’ll go home today,” Heden said, and tried to sit up. He started to feel it. His ribs were bruised like they’d been broken and healed again, which they had been, and his right leg was swollen and was starting to throb. His face was numb as though his jaw had been broken and he couldn’t feel his left arm. He was exhausted after only a moment’s exertion, and collapsed back in the bed.

“Uh-huh,” the castellan said. He let the butt of his spent nail drop to the floor and stamped it out with his boot.

Heden looked at the castellan as though seeing him for the first time. “What are you doing here?” he asked the ragman.

The castellan gave him a weary look.

“You come to arrest me?” Heden asked.

Pushing himself away from the door, the castellan stood and fired another nail.

“Could,” he said. He took a deep breath. Held it. “Lot of people be happy right now if I locked you up and threw away the key.” He blew the smoke through his nose.

Heden had killed four men on a city street and almost murdered another on the bridge over the Kirk. These were things the castellan would not ignore.

He came around from the end of the bed, pulled up a large oak chair and sat down in it next to Heden.

“You want to tell me about it?”

“Ah,” Heden appeared to think. He took a deep breath, but it hurt too much and he gave up. “No.”

The castellan nodded.

“Five men dead last week on Moorfield.”

Heden shrugged. That didn’t hurt.

“Three of them dead from sword wounds. Could have been anybody.” He looked around the room. There were other beds, currently unoccupied. “One of them ripped apart, another spread all over the road like I don’t know what. Not a lot of people in the city can do that.”

“Sure there are,” Heden said.

“Someone, probably Garth, kills your friend, the abbot, right here in the middle of the church and the next day the two of you are dancing on the High Bridge. Lotta people asking me what the fuck is going on. Say it’s all about the night dust, say you know something about it.”

“I don’t know anything about the night dust,” Heden said. This was probably not true, but it certainly
felt
like he didn’t know anything.

“You’ve got stab wounds all over you like a fucking pin cushion,” the castellan continued. “And enough poison in you to kill a dwarf. If I bring the king’s Magus in here, he’ll show me what happened. We can go back a week if we have to. You won’t enjoy it.”

Heden grunted and sunk back in the thick bedding.

“The men you killed, all members of the Guild.” There were three guilds, but they both knew who he meant. Only one of the thieves’ guilds actually called themselves a guild. “Except the alchemist. We sort of know they were after him, that’s probably not your fault.”

Heden maintained his silence; let the castellan fill up the space between them.

“Your victims all appear to be known criminals and wanted men,” he continued. “Except for the one you turned into soup, but we can make some conclusions based on the company he kept.”

Heden nodded. That didn’t hurt either.

“You’re going to run around my city butchering people, you could have done worse.”

There were very few people in Celkirk who could legitimately say ‘my city’ without hubris or exaggeration.

He was waiting for Heden to chime in. After a moment’s silence, when it was obvious Heden was going to keep his mouth shut, the castellan got on with it.

“You need to understand something,” he said, and got Heden’s attention with his tone of voice. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “I serve the king, and the law, and not in that order. I can help you, I
will
help you, but only as long as I think you’re on the same side of this I’d be on if I knew what was going on. That means you got to
tell
me
what’s going on, because I don’t trust you. You making a move against the Guild?”

“They attacked me,” Heden said.

“I bet they did,” the castellan said. “And you have no idea why?”

“’The pure heart is the constant target of evil men?’” Heden quoted.

“Uh huh,” the castellan said. “Listen,” he reached down, under Heden’s bed, and pulled out the empty chamber pot, knocked some ashes into it. “I don’t want to get involved with this,” he continued.

“I don’t
want
you to get involved with it,” Heden said.

“If I get involved with it,” the castellan said, ignoring him, “then you’ll probably end up in the citadel and whatever you’re working on, I won’t be able to get as far with.”

“Nice of you to say that.”

The castellan shook his head. “You been holed up in that inn for three years,” he said. “You come out and all of a sudden people start dying.”

“People didn’t die while I was at the inn?”

“You know what I mean.” Heden knew what he meant. “You’re not as young as you were. You’re not as smart as you think you are. But you might be as tough.”

“Better to be lucky than good,” Heden said, letting his eyes close.

“And you’re probably the most moral person any of us know.”

“Present company excluded,” Heden offered.

The castellan shrugged.  “If you’re dancing with the count,” he said, “I won’t be able to save you. But I want to know about it so I can go after him once you’re dead.”

“That’s comforting,” Heden said.

“It’s the count ain’t it?”

Heden waited just a moment, and nodded.

“Alright,” the castellan said. “Give it to me.”

Heden told him everything, leaving out the bishop for now. One problem at a time.

“You know as much about the dust as we do,” the castellan said. “Where’s he get it?”

“I don’t know,” Heden said, shifting in his bed. He was starting to feel like he could eat something. A horse maybe, or a couple of cows. Maybe get out of bed in a few years. “Maybe I can find out.”

“This isn’t a race,” the castellan said, pointing to Heden. “You find out where the dust is coming from, you tell me before you make a move.”

“Maybe,” Heden said. “Haven’t decided what I’m going to do.”

The castellan reached out and tugged on a sheet, straightening it, making a point.

“Good place to do your thinking.”

“You’re saying I’m in over my head and was lucky to get out of there alive.”

“They sent five black scarves after you, and Garth. The scarves are dead and you’re here talking. Not sure luck has anything to do with it, but they won’t make that mistake again. You got lucky with the sword from the dwarf.”

“Oh you know about that?” Heden asked, surprised the castellan had learned about Solaris.

“Garth won’t make that mistake again. We both know Garth could take you. Garth could take you in his sleep.”

“Show’s how stupid he is then,” Heden said, resting his eyes. “Coming after me in his sleep.”

The castellan stared at Heden.

“You’re going after the Guild,” he concluded.

“I’m going after the count,” Heden corrected.

“Because of the abbot? The girl?”

Heden didn’t say anything.

“I was you,” the castellan said, finally, “I’d do the same thing.”

Heden smiled weakly, thought of what he’d say to the abbot about all this. Then remembered.

“Garth didn’t kill the abbot,” he said.

The ragman raised an eyebrow. “Eh?” he said.

“The Hearth’s fixer, Pinwhistle, did.”

“That cock-high thief?”

“Yeah,” Heden said.

“You know he’s been hanging around here?” the castellan asked, incredulously. “The fuck is he doing hovering around you after he kills the man who brought you up?”

“I dunno,” Heden said, and realized that was a lie. “Probably he wants someone to forgive him.”

“Hah!” the castellan barked. Then he realized who he was talking to. His eyes narrowed. “You and the polder,” he said, making a leap. He took a long, slow, measured breath.

“There are things I can’t do,” he said. “Because of who I am.” Heden nodded. He knew what he meant.

“Last three castellans,” Heden said, “city might as well have been run by a donkey.”

The castellan shrugged. “I like to think I’ve earned the king’s trust.” Heden knew he’d earned more than that. “That gets me a lot. The king trusts me because he knows I will do what I say I’m going to do.”

“That and you’re a grand master hard-ass,” Heden observed.

“But there are many things I cannot do.” He looked meaningfully at Heden. “Things you can do.”

He stood up. Made a feeble effort to smooth out his clothes.

“I can turn a blind eye for a little while, but only a little while. Richard doesn’t want to see this place turn into Capital.” He looked at Heden’s recumbent form and shook his head with pity. “And you definitely need help.”

He walked to the door and opened it, then turned back to Heden.

“You’re thinking about asking that little thief,” the castellan said, “might think again. I’m sure he saw me coming in. If he’s who I think he is, his docket’s thick as a codex. If he knows what’s good for him, he’s left the city by now, which means you’re on your own.”

He gave Heden a sympathetic look and walked out the doorway, pulling the heavy door closed behind him.

The polder was standing behind the door, smiling broadly.