Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) Read Free Page A

him, and he’d start to sweat.
    “You heard it from Mathe,” Heden said, sitting down in the armless chair.
    “I want to hear it from you,” Domnal said, scowling.
    Domnal was Mathe in ten years. A big man in every sense of the word. Tall, wide, gone to fat. His pale complexion meant his face went flush any time he was angry or ashamed or had exerted himself. It was currently beet red. His hair grew in short brown wisps. He was loud, brutish, and effective.
    Heden recounted what happened, and voiced his own culpability.
    “Well what did you come here for if not to help,” Domnal threw his keys on his desk, half at Heden, in disgust. They clattered and rang on the wood and slid down off the table again, landing at Heden’s feet.
    “Ah, fuck it,” Domnal said. Heden, aware Domnal’s outburst was not directed at him, reached down and picked up the heavy iron key ring. He placed it on the desk, out of reach of Domnal.
    “We don’t see you for a year and then you show up and one of my men dies,” Dom wasn’t really talking to him, Heden knew. He was just angry. “Why didn’t you just stay home?”
    Heden didn’t say anything. Dom needed to let it out. Heden knew that if he tried to defend himself, Dom would just get angrier.
    “I’m going to have to go talk to his wife,” Domnal said, his voice now betraying weariness.
    “Want me to do it?” Heden asked.
    “You?” Dom said, not fully listening.
    “Done it before,” Heden said. “Spent lots of time with families of dead. . .,” he wasn’t motivated to finish the sentence. “You know.”
    Domnal grunted a negative, adjusting his bulk. “It’s got to be me. She’d think I didn’t care if I sent you.”
    Domnal was probably right. Heden could see his friend was no longer angry at him. Sometimes it paid to keep your mouth shut.
    “Where do they come from?” Domnal wondered. Heden had not used a prayer to calm Domnal and now he’d bled all his anger out and had time to be resentful.
    “I dunno,” Heden said. “You want a real answer? The king, I guess.”
    Domnal straightened up, frowned and made a questioning grunt.
    “The king burned down the bridge across the Mal,” Heden said. “He had reasons. But now there’s no bridge, so no trade. Folks start to struggle, they don’t know any other work and they get desperate. Then they listen to a priest of Cyrvis telling them they don’t have to live like this.”
    Domnal listened, then scowled and grunted. “That don’t explain it. My da was poor for two years after the Duke took his farm. He didn’t kill no-one. It don’t explain it.”
    Heden knew both of them were right. “No, it doesn’t,” he granted.
    “How’s Megan?” Heden asked after a moment.
    He saw Domnal’s face flash blank for an instant, and Heden’s stomach turned. He recognized the sign that something was wrong between Domnal and his wife, and that just saying her name caused him discomfort. Domnal was about to lie to him.
    “She’s fine,” he said without feeling. “Keeps saying we should invite you to dinner.”
    “You should invite me to dinner,” Heden agreed.
    Dom sighed at his friend. “You wouldn’t come,” he said with sympathy. “You’d find an excuse to stay in that fucking inn you never open.”
    Heden didn’t say anything. He wasn’t aware his desire to avoid the world was so obvious to everyone.
    “She says you just need a woman,” Domnal said, gaining interest in talking about something other than the Eseldics and his dead guard.
    Heden shrugged. “What did you tell her?”
    “I asked her if she was volunteering,” he said, flashing a quick smile. Heden smiled a little for show. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he found that kind of talk distasteful.
    Domnal took the question seriously and answered; “I told her it was too late for you. Tried to explain.”
    “What’d she say?”
    “She didn’t listen. She don’t believe that stuff. Not a romantic, like you,” Dom said,