Paladin’s Faith

Paladin’s Faith (2023) T. Kingfisher (The Saint of Steel)

Marguerite Florian left town in a hurry after helping her friend Grace led her to trouble (Paladin’s Grace). Which wasn’t necessarily unexpected, since Marguerite is a spy.

So she turns to the White Rat.

Apparently one of the problems they had solved was bribery. You couldn’t bribe a Rat-priest. (Well, you probably could, but only by offering to donate the money to the poor.)

Bishop Beartongue of the White Rat agrees to Marguerite’s plan as it will not only cause problems for the Red Sail (the group after Marguerite) it will also help those members of the populace who were not part of the wealthy ruling class.

So Marguerite gets two paladins as bodyguards and they set off in search of a genius artificer.

Unfortunately, although berserker paladins make good bodyguards, they aren’t the best at subterfuge.

She eyed Wren thoughtfully. “You, uh, should probably avoid (the communal baths), though.”

“I should?” Wren covered her breasts self-consciously with her hands.

“It’s not how you look,” said Marguerite. “Or rather it is, but not bad.” She shook her head. “It’s the scars.”

Wren looked down at herself, apparently surprised.

“People are going to wonder about those,” said Marguerite gently, pointing to a particularly wicked slash mark across the paladin’s left arm.

Or social graces.

“Shane,” she said, turning to look at the paladin, “when a woman is lamenting that she doesn’t feel attractive, you’re supposed to tell her she’s beautiful. Not that you’re honored to kill people with her.”

He looked at her blankly, then said, “Oh.”

I’ll be honest, of the two paladins I found Wren the more interesting.

(T)he cook put anise in things that did not in any way require anise. Wren liked anise as much as the next person, but there were limits. A little fennel would work much better here, without turning everything into a weird licorice-flavored endurance test.

Oh, well. Much as Wren might like to break into the fortress kitchens and demand to know what personal trauma the cook was excising through spices, their mission would probably suffer.

I also really liked Davith, who is a scoundrel, but not necessarily an unethical one.

The ending was such that there is probably going to be another book, although there wasn’t a cliffhanger. Just more unanswered questions.

Publisher: Red Wombat Studio

Rating: 8/10

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