Page 12 of The Warrior Priest
Rufus and Andreas had come up behind him, and Rufus now clapped his hand on Vizah’s shoulder as Vizah had done to me. The big man didn’t move an inch. “More like a donkey,” Rufus said with a straight face. I’d never seen him laugh in all the time I’d known him. Smirk, yes, and smile wryly, but never a grin or chuckle and certainly not a raucous laugh.
Vizah scratched his head. “Are you calling me an ass?”
Andreas clapped Vizah’s other shoulder. “Ass, arse…both apply to you, Brother.”
Vizah went to punch Andreas in the stomach, but Andreas anticipated it and deftly skipped aside. He winked at me, one of the few signs he’d ever given that made me think he did know I was female. Of all the friends, Andreas would be the most likely to see past the disguise. He was no stranger to the female form. I knew for certain he kept mistresses, sometimes visiting two or three on the same night. His womanizing was an open secret amongst the four men, but I doubted anyone else in their order knew. Their vow of celibacy was a sacred one and breaking it wouldn’t be tolerated by the stricter members, or the master.
I wondered if Rhys would continue to tolerate it, now that he was second-in-command. Would he clean up his own act? Drinking in inns was off-limits, yet he and his friends openly frequented a tavern, something which the master overlooked, apparently. Would Rhys be forced to give that up? If he still kept mistresses, would he let them go?
Andreas’s wink was a little unnerving, particularly when that shrewd gaze of his once again assessed me as if trying to identify feminine curves beneath my doublet and trousers. Fortunately, Vizah distracted him by withdrawing Andreas’s sword from its scabbard.
He danced away, surprisingly fleet for a man of his size, and waved the sword above his head. “Come and get it.”
With a growl of frustration, Andreas charged at him. Vizah ran off and dumped the sword in a pile of horse dung on the side of the street. Andreas swore as he extracted his sword carefully so as not to get any muck on himself. Vizah rocked back on his heels, laughing.
“Children,” Rufus muttered with not a hint of a smile.
A bell clanged from inside the temple compound.
“Time for training,” Rufus told me. “Wait here, Jac. I’ll send Rhys out.”
With stability across the three kingdoms and the one republic of the Fist Peninsula, the order of Merdu’s Guards could have become lazy, yet they trained for hours every day, in heat or cold, rain or blazing sunshine. Despite the rigorous schedule, the horrible food, and many rules, I’d never heard so much as a mutter of complaint from Rhys or his friends. They loved the order. It was their home. It gave them shelter, sustenance, and respect. They were lauded across the entire peninsula, not just in the kingdom of Glancia. It was no wonder the brothers never left it for the secular world.
Rufus, Vizah and Andreas returned to the temple via the door beside the main gate. Moments later, Rhys emerged alone. He strode toward where I stood beneath the tree, his steps purposeful and his brow furrowed. Something bothered him.
“You don’t look pleased,” I said. At his blank look, I added, “I heard you’ve been promoted. Congratulations.”
His lips flattened. “There was no one else.”
“Aren’t there fifty or so brothers in the order?”
“None of the right age and temperament who don’t ruffle feathers of either faction and are liked by both Master Tomaj and the high priest. I’m just dull enough not to be offensive to anyone.”
“No one would ever accuse you of being dull, Rhys.”
One side of his mouth flicked up in one of his familiar roguish smiles before flattening again. He looked away and cleared his throat. “You have something to report?”
I made sure no one was close enough to hear and lowered my voice. “There was a document, just as you suspected. It was already signed by the king and carried his seal.”
Rhys suddenly looked up, gaze sharp. It flicked over me from head to toe, assessing. “Did anyone suspect what you were doing?”
“No.” I considered telling him about my uncle spotting me later but decided against it. Rhys had enough on his plate and there was nothing he could do about it. It was up to me to be more careful in future.
“Tell me what was written on it,” he said.
I repeated every word, not missing a single one. My ability to memorize exactly what I’d seen was the reason Rhys paid me so well. “What will you do about it?” I asked when I finished.
The gate opened and a carriage slowly emerged, escorted on foot by a brawny man in his fifties dressed in a priest’s tunic. If I didn’t know it was Master Tomaj, I would have assumed he was just another brother. He was talking to a passenger inside the carriage. From where I stood, I couldn’t see whether there was an escutcheon painted on the door, but I heard the master call the occupant “Your Eminence.” It must be the high priest of Glancia.
“I must go,” Rhys muttered before striding off to join them.
I slipped further behind the tree trunk, peering around it to watch. Amid the rumble of the wheels and clip-clop of hooves of a passing horse and cart, I heard Rhys tell the master and high priest he had news. The high priest stepped out of the carriage and the three men moved away so neither the coachman nor the guard at the gate could listen in. As the only one of the three who knew I was still in the vicinity, Rhys must trust me deeply to allow me to eavesdrop on the conversation.
Neither man asked Rhys how he’d come by the information. Both expressed concern over its existence, but not surprise.
“We need to speak to the king,” Master Tomaj said. “Your Eminence, he listens to you. He’ll retract the document if you advise him to.”
“It’s too late to retract it,” Rhys said. “It already bears the royal seal.”
