Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (28 page)

“That had to be hard to learn,” Heden said.

“You have no idea,” the little man said slowly. “For years I thought it was a myth. Even when I saw my instructor do it, I thought it was a trick of the eye.” Heden nodded, and indicated for the polder to continue.

“Well, at the same time,” he said, and leaned back. He picked up the empty glass from his first drink and just held it. “I’d have my dagger out, same principle, and then through your breastbone and into your heart and that’s it.”

“Heart through bone’s not easy,” Heden said. “Have to go under the ribs. Probably miss.”

“Nah,” the polder said. He put the glass down and suddenly there was a knife in his hand. Or something. Something Heden hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t a dagger, it had no blade. It was as long as a dagger, but it was just a thin shaft of metal with a scalloped point at the end.

“What’s that?” Heden asked, openly curious.

“A dirk,” the Polder said, handing it over. Heden examined it. It was about nine inches long, longer than any normal polder dagger would be. The hilt was wrapped in black leather.

“Had it custom made,” the polder said. It was simple, silver and black, but looked very expensive. There was no guard, only a small metal loop where the metal met leather. Heden fitted his finger into the loop and held the dirk.

“You use this?”

“Not if I can avoid it. Poison and I’m miles away before anyone cares.”

“Impossible,” Heden said. It was difficult to hold, the ring made it hard to grip. He took his finger out of the ring and handed the weapon back to the little man. “You’d break your wrist if you tried to go through bone with that thing.”

The polder smiled the smile of secret knowledge. “No,” he said, “
you’d
break your wrist if you tried it. Here,” he said, putting his small forearm on the table. He invited Heden to do the same.

Heden leaned forward and placed his forearm next to the Polder’s on the table. Heden noticed his enemy’s hand wasn’t shaking now.

“Look,” he said, “my arm’s smaller, but my wrist is thicker. Stronger.” He picked up the dirk and secreted it about his person. “Bone is no problem,” he said, sitting back.

“Nice,” Heden said.

“So the question is: can you call on the Dominion before I get my dirk in your heart?”

“It’s a short name,” Heden said.

The polder just snapped his fingers again, meaningfully.

Heden nodded.

“So we call it a draw,” the polder finished.

Heden opened his hands, displaying his palms. Yielding. He liked this little man and thought he sensed something behind the drink and violence.

“Okay, let’s trade,” Heden offered.

“Trade,” the polder said flatly.

“Sure,” Heden said. “You can’t get into the forest, I can. You know why you’re here, I don’t.”

The polder shook his head slowly as he thought it through.

“Not sure how my masters would feel about that.”

“How do you feel about it?” Heden asked.

“I feel like they don’t care how I feel about it,” the polder said ruefully.

“How about this? I’ll tell you what I know; you decide whether to give me anything.”

“Just like that,” the polder said.

Heden shrugged. “Just like that.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Goodwill to trade on later.”

Silence for a moment.

“You sure you’re not a spy?” the polder asked, mocking suspicion.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Heden smiled widely, genuinely. It seemed to disconcert his opponent.

The polder shook his head, his curls vibrating, as though he were trying to shake a thought loose.

“You understand how unlikely it is I’ll ever be…” the polder began, and stopped. He tapped the table with his middle finger, and looked up at Heden from under bushy eyebrows. “Listen, ‘goodwill’ is not my business. I told you, I’m not a spy. If I were, okay. But I’m not. Goodwill doesn’t get you anything with me.”

Heden shrugged. “I think it will.”

“You do,” the polder said flatly.

“Yes,” Heden said.

“Why?”

“I’m a good judge of character.”

The polder stared at Heden for a moment with his mouth open, looked away, stared out the window, realized his mouth was open, clapped it shut and looked back. He blinked.

“Ah…” the polder said, completely off balance as a result of Heden’s trust in him.

“One of the knights of the Green Order was murdered,” Heden opened.

“We know that,” the polder said, taking a deep breath. Happy to be on familiar territory.

“How do you know that?” Heden asked. Who could know that? Who could even know there was anything
to
know?

The polder shrugged. “Just a simple servant, me.” Heden accepted this; there’d be little reason to give a thief that kind of background.

“So you’re not here to kill Kalaven?” Heden asked.

“Was that his name?” the polder asked, raising his eyebrows innocently.

“I’m guessing you know it was,” Heden said.

“Good guess,” the polder admitted. “No, I’m not here to kill the commander.”

“Or me,” Heden said.

The polder looked at him for a moment, judging some thought. Then made a decision. “No one knows you’re out here but me,” the little man admitted. “I found that out myself.”

Heden nodded. “Thanks,” he said, gratitude for information the polder didn’t need to give.

“I’m trying the ‘goodwill’ thing. It doesn’t come naturally, just so you know.”

“It gets easier as you go,” Heden said, amused. Then his amusement vanished. “You checked into me in Celkirk.”

The polder nodded. “Yep. You know there’s a trull staying in your inn?”

Heden looked at him, his skin tightening. “She still there?”

The polder shrugged. “Was when I left.” He looked at Heden and then frowned trying to figure out why Heden was apparently angry. Then he saw it.

“Man I didn’t…look I don’t care if you’ve got fifty trulls back there working in shifts, why do I give a shit?”

Heden nodded.

“But you left some pissed off people back there,” the polder said smiling. He seemed to enjoy the idea.

“Pissed off about the girl?”

“Oh yeah. Everyone’s staying away for the moment, seems like a lot of people are afraid of you. Got a lot of interesting reactions bringing your name up.”

“I bet,” Heden said, relaxing a little.

The little man made a gesture, prompting Heden. “So, who killed the commander?”

“I don’t know,” Heden said.

“You don’t know.”

“Nope,” Heden said.

“Well then what the fuck good are you?” the polder was a little upset.

Heden shrugged. “I’ve been wondering that for about three years now.”

The polder shook his head. “Shit.”

Heden watched him.

“You don’t have a guess?” the polder asked hopefully, aware it was unlikely.

“All the other knights act like another knight, Sir Taethan, did it.”

The polder pursed his lips, filing the information away, and nodded. “I can tell you don’t buy that.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Heden said. “They shut me out and then told me to go fuck a pig.”

“Did they really say that!?” the polder was delighted at the idea.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“It’s just an expression.”

“How disappointing.”

“They’re all committed to some kind of conspiracy of silence. I have no idea what they think is going to happen, but they didn’t want me anywhere near the place. Wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t help me. Won’t let me help them.”

“Help them do what?” the polder asked.

“I perform the ritual that absolves the order of Kavalen’s death.”

“Why you?”

“I’m…” Heden thought about it. The same question the mysterious knight he met and decapitated asked him. “I’m not sure.”

“And the knights turned you away.”

“Yep.”

“That doesn’t make sense. What did you find out?”

If the polder was trying to get Heden to reveal something useful about the order, Heden knew he was going to be disappointed.

“Well,” he said, “he’s certainly dead.”

The polder waited and when it became apparent there was no more he raised his eyebrows and said “that’s it?”

Heden shrugged.

“You don’t know who killed the guy.”

“Nope.”

“You don’t know how he died.”

“Nope.”

“You don’t know where his body is.”

“Ah, no.”

“You have any idea why anyone would want him dead?”

“None.”

“No idea why you were sent up here.”

“Not really.”

“And no idea why no one will tell you anything.”

“I know what your assignment is now,” Heden said.

“You do?” the polder replied, surprised.

“You were sent here to cheer me up.”

The polder barked a laugh. Heden smiled. They liked each other. Heden liked having someone to talk to about this, and the polder seemed very at ease in the role. No argument.

“So why are you here?” the polder asked, indicating the inn.

“Going home. Giving up. Maybe convince some of these people to run while they can. Seems like the Green’s going to do what the Green’s going to do whether I’m there or not. No reason to be there and watch them all feel sorry for themselves until it kills them. Plus I hate knights. Not entirely sure why I was sent there. Can’t do my mission. Though I guess there was no way for them to know that,” he said, meaning the bishop and Gwiddon. How could they know?

“Maybe you weren’t sent up here to do anything,” the polder forwarded.

“What do you mean?” Heden asked as he rolled the idea around in his mind. He liked the taste of it, but wasn’t sure if it made sense.

“In my experience,” the thief said, looking at Heden’s drink again, “smart guy like you ends up wandering around looking like an idiot, it’s because he’s been sent to catch fog.”

Heden thought about this. It seemed obvious now, but at the same time made no sense.

“Plus,” the thief said, “you hate knights.”

Heden nodded, thinking about it. He was no longer looking at the polder. He wasn’t looking at anything. “Yeah. So I’d be the guy to send…”

“If you wanted someone to get disgusted with it all and leave.”

“Which is what I was doing.”

“’Was?’”

Heden nodded again and came back to reality.

“Either I was sent to do a job,” Heden said, “and so maybe I should stop feeling sorry for myself and go back and do it, or I was sent
not
to do a job in which case fuck that.”

The polder smiled and toasted him.

Heden smiled back.

“What about you?”

“Well,” the thief said. “Not going to tell you what I’m here for, but I’ll say I’m satisfied that things are going the way my masters would like.”

Heden accepted this, but there was a little doubt, which the polder saw.

The thief shrugged. “Can’t get into the forest anyway,” he said. “Didn’t know that when I left. You got a fucking flying carpet, nothing I can do about that.” He sighed. “So I stay here awhile, keep an eye out to see if you come back out of the forest and then maybe discreetly follow you and see what you found out.”

“Don’t want to just wait here in the inn? I could just come find you.”

“Heden,” the thief said, “you’re never going to see me unless I want you to.”

This confirmed Heden’s earlier suspicion.

“You let the minstrel see you.”

“I’m three foot eight and this place is packed with people,” the polder said gesturing. “You think I couldn’t avoid being seen if I didn’t want to?”

“You deliberately made contact with me,” Heden said, working it out as he spoke, “because you were sent here to kill someone, not me, but you don’t know who and don’t know how to find out. They just told you, ‘the Green Order.’ So you blow your own cover, see if you can find out what I know. Maybe I find out what you need to know so you can kill the man you were sent to kill.” Heden thought of Sir Taethan for some reason.

The polder frowned at Heden’s sudden insight.

“Nobody likes smart people, you know that, right?” he said.

Heden frowned. “I’m liked.”

“No you’re not,” the polder said, and got up, hopping off his chair. Heden watched the top of the polder’s head bob around the table until he was standing next to Heden, keeping a professional distance.

“Let’s imagine,” the polder said, putting a fist on his hip, “you found out who killed Kavalen and then performed this, uh, ritual. What happens to the murderer?”