Page 15 of The Warrior Priest
“He has told you about her?” the high priest asked, frowning.
I shook my head.
“You look shocked, lad.”
I hadn’t expected to hear a name. I’d expected him to ask me to find the girl Rhys had fallen in love with, because the high priest didn’t yet know who she was. I’d expected to learn that it was someone he met with occasionally in the house that once belonged to his father. I had hoped it was me.
The numbness faded away, replaced with a dull ache. Rhys wasn’t in love with me. Why would he be?
“Giselle and Rhys used to be lovers.” The high priest didn’t seem at all shocked that a priest of Merdu’s Guards had broken his vow of celibacy. It confirmed my thought that indiscretions were overlooked as long as the priests were discreet. “He was saddened when she left Tilting years ago. I heard a rumor that she has recently returned, which would explain Rhys’s odd behavior lately, but I want to know if it’s true. If she is back, I want to know her plans for Rhys.” He removed a small coin pouch from the pocket of his robe. “Will you do that, Jac?”
“Rhys’s relationships are none of my business, or yours.”
He withdrew two ells and held them up for me to take. “I want to protect Rhys. Giselle isn’t the type to settle down with one man. She’ll break his heart again, I’m sure of it. He doesn’t deserve that.”
No. He did not. “I’ll find out if she’s back in Tilting,” I said. “But that’s all. What you do with the information is your business.” And what I did with it was mine.
“Good lad. She may be difficult to find. Giselle is…elusive. She used to live above the Cat and Mouse tavern, so I suggest you start there.” He held out the coins. “There’ll be more when you report back.”
I took the money. Not because I needed it, but because it would look less suspicious. I didn’t want the high priest, or anyone, realizing I wanted to know more about Giselle for my own benefit.
Chapter4
When I first settled into my disguise as a boy, I’d been surprised at how easy it was to move about the city. As long as I didn’t attract attention through thieving, no one took much notice of me. Heads never turned as I passed. Gazes didn’t fall to my chest when I spoke. Nobody whispered to their companion about my outfit or the way I’d arranged my hair or my unladylike snort in response to a stupid comment.
Being male was liberating and eye-opening. I could see the city as it was, not the way it was presented to me. The ugly side had shocked me into hiding when I first escaped my uncle’s manor house. I was terrified of the brawls that broke out between drunks, and of the half-naked women inviting me to touch them. But slowly I began to see that even the ugliest parts of Tilting could be interesting. The prostitutes helped one another. Some drunks were surprisingly good company. As they got to know me, they shared their stories with me, and their laughter. Some fed or clothed me, if they had anything to spare, and some protected me. I’d made friends, of sorts, and it was one of those friends that I visited now.
I caught her on a bad day, however.
“They took her!” Minnow cried. “They swept her and the other women up like they were the dung left behind by their horses.” Hands on hips, she paced the small kitchen of the tenement she shared with her partner, a prostitute who worked the area in which the Cat and Mouse tavern was located. “I have a mind to march down to the prison cells and…” She picked up a pot lid and threw it at the wall with surprising vigor for such a thin woman. The lid fell to the floor with a clatter. Minnow picked it up and pointed to a small chip. “Now look what they made me do!”
I’d never seen Minnow so upset. Her partner had a reputation as the fiery one. It was why she was such a popular prostitute with a regular clientele. Minnow had always been rather meek and sweet. In the year of my homelessness, she’d invite me inside on cold, rainy nights and feed me soup. She soon guessed that I wasn’t a boy, but had kept my secret to herself. After Rhys’s payments meant I could afford my own place, she sat me down and gave me sensible advice about keeping a man content while saving money on the side to one day gain my independence. After I explained that I wasn’t being kept by a man for sexual favors, she’d been so relieved that she told me she had no idea what she was talking about anyway since she only knew how to keep another woman happy, not a man. We’d been friends ever since.
Aged about thirty, Minnow was striking if not beautiful with her square jaw and beaky nose. She kept house for her partner and the two lived quite contentedly on the proceeds of prostitution. They took care of young girls new to the profession and provided food and lodging for women in difficulty.
“Who took them?” I asked her. “The constables?”
She nodded as she set the lid back on the pot. Usually something bubbled away in one of Minnow’s pots on the fireplace, but not today. She placed her face in her hands before gathering herself and sitting on a chair across the table from me. “The constables rounded them all up, every last one. If they were met with resistance, they used violence.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fined and released like every other time.”
That was what always happened when the constables conducted a raid. This part of Tilting was notorious for prostitution. Men from all classes knew they could find a woman to suit their needs here. While Tilting’s self-proclaimed upstanding residents either pretended the industry didn’t exist or turned their faces away, the authorities tolerated the business as long as it didn’t spill out to other parts of the city. The women were allowed to operate as long as they were discreet.
“This feels different,” Minnow told me. “The women did nothing wrong, Jac. They were working their own patches, minding their own business. There have been no complaints as far as I’m aware.”
“Have they been formally charged?”
“No. And if they don’t charge them they can’t fine them and release them.”
“It’s still early,” I assured her.
She chewed her thumbnail. “Jac, I’m worried. Why did he have them removed?”
“He?”
“The governor. He’s behind this. He must be.”
I tried to think why Uncle Roderic would round up the city’s prostitutes and imprison them without charge, but couldn’t. The women provided a service. In this area, they were peaceful, unlike in Merdu’s Pit where violence and crime were a disease that infected its desperate inhabitants.
