Page 3 of The Warrior Priest (After the Rift #1)
T hree years later, I peered out of the window in a room where Rhys used to take his lovers.
According to Mistress Blundle, the old woman who rented rooms on the ground floor, Rhys had a string of them before he became a priest. I discovered he hadn’t stopped when he became one of Merdu’s warriors, however. He simply became more discreet.
Not discreet enough, though, and I told him so after I overheard two women discussing him in the street as he passed by.
He’d assured me that liaison had ended and he never took women to our secret meeting room anymore.
From the way he avoided my gaze, I wondered if he still had lovers but just took them elsewhere.
I decided I didn’t want to know, so I didn’t try to follow him and find out.
There was very little I couldn’t find out.
That was why Rhys hired me. I found things out for him, and sometimes for myself.
Sometimes I found things out about Rhys, like Mistress Blundle’s offhanded mention of women.
Her comment intrigued me enough to investigate the ownership of the secret room.
A little nocturnal excursion to the Glancian property office revealed the entire building had been owned by Rhys’s father until his death when Rhys was aged just thirteen.
I knew Rhys had been raised by the order after he became an orphan, then taken his priestly vows once he reached eighteen, the legal age of majority.
According to the records, the building’s ownership had been formally transferred to the order at that point, no doubt along with any other belongings Rhys possessed.
The second-floor room had been left vacant, however, and Rhys continued to have access.
I wondered how many brothers in his order knew.
After the first time he employed me to undertake a little spying, we changed our meeting place to that room, and we’ve met there on and off for three years.
If he wanted to speak to me, he lit a candle and placed it on the windowsill, and I did the same if I had something to report.
The central location of the building meant it wasn’t out of our way to walk past and look up.
What began as sporadic meetings whenever he had a job for me became more frequent.
Then they became daily. Sometimes we discussed a task he needed me to do, but usually we just talked or watched the stars in silence from the balcony.
He was my friend—my only friend—while I was just one of many to him.
I watched him stride across the street, his cloak billowing behind him like a sail.
Even in the poor light cast by the flickering torches, I could make out Rhys’s brown hair, a little darker than the blond of most Glancians, and his impressive physique.
Once he was out of my sight, I counted slowly from one so I was ready for him to enter when I reached nine.
As usual, he'd taken the steps two at a time.
For someone who possessed patience in abundance, he had a distinct dislike for the slowness of stairs.
He removed his cloak and tossed it over the back of the armchair, one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, then placed his gloves on top. “Rain is in the air. You should stay here tonight, Jac, instead of going home.”
“A little rain doesn’t bother me.”
It was an old argument that he repeated every time bad weather struck Tilting.
Rhys paid me enough so that I no longer had to live on the streets, but even if I didn’t have a roof over my head, I would refuse his offer.
If I stayed in the same place where he and I met to exchange information, Mistress Blundle and the other neighbors would grow suspicious.
Rhys may have owned the house once, but he didn’t anymore.
The master of his order might put a tenant in if he found out Rhys met a woman here, even if she was just his information gatherer, not his lover.
That’s if they realized I was a woman. I still passed myself off as a boy.
Rhys was nothing if not persistent. “But it’s cold tonight.”
“Stop whining, you big baby. Put on an extra hair shirt before bed if you’re cold.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Only zealots wear hair shirts, and I don’t get cold.
My muscles keep me warm.” He flexed his arms, to prove the point.
“You’re skin and bone, Jac. Still. That reminds me…
” He dug into the pocket of his tunic and produced a slice of honey cake wrapped in a cloth.
“It was the cook’s special treat after dinner for the celebrations. ” He handed me the cake.
It was rare for the priests to be given treats.
All of the orders, whether dedicated to the god or goddess, had rules that required their priests and priestesses deprive themselves of worldly goods.
I would argue that delicious food wasn’t a worldly good, it was a necessity, but my argument would fall on deaf ears.
If Rhys’s friend Andreas was to be believed, Merdu’s Guards dined on gray sludgy gruel twice a day.
Then again, Andreas was prone to exaggeration.
I accepted the cake. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Rufus.”
“He knows I like honey cake?”
“I stole it from his plate when he wasn’t looking. You don’t expect me to give up my own honey cake, do you?” He ruffled my hair.
Ruffled! He still saw me as a child. Sometimes I think he also still saw me as a boy.
If my mother was alive, I’d be dancing at balls and playing the pianoforte, wearing pretty dresses with my long blonde hair elegantly arranged.
Yet here I was, sitting on a windowsill, eating honey cake brought to me by the man I loved, who treated me like a fourteen-year-old boy.
I ate the honey cake as the first drops of rain splattered on the windowpanes, and tried very hard not to dwell on something I couldn’t change.
Rhys built a small fire in the fireplace then warmed his hands by it. “You were at the parade ground this morning. Did you enjoy our display?”
“I did. There’s nothing more exciting than watching oversized men with oversized opinions of themselves pretend to fight each other with wooden swords.”
He shot me a wry smirk over his shoulder. “Blame the master for the swords. I wanted to use real ones for authenticity, but he thought drawing blood while the king, governor and high priest all watched on was a bad idea. Can’t think why. What do they expect from the protectors of the faith?”
“You had all the ladies swooning.”
“ Andreas had them swooning.”
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t sure if Rhys was truly unaware of the effect he had on women, or whether he was just being modest. “How did you see me? Half the city was there, and I had my hood drawn low.”
“I didn’t.” He sat in the armchair, stretched out his long legs, and smiled slyly. “You just confirmed it. You’re a good spy, Jac, but don’t get caught. Your captor will have the truth out of you before you’re aware you’re being interrogated.”
“This is hardly an interrogation, and I had no need to keep my presence at the parade ground a secret from you.”
His smile faded. “Just don’t get caught when you’re spying.”
“I’m too good to be caught.”
“You’re forgetting how we met.”
“I’ve gotten better at escaping since then.” A lot better, thanks to Rhys teaching me how to balance and use my small size to my advantage. “Besides, I was distracted that day.”
He arched his brows, waiting for me to tell him what I’d seen that I’d found so distracting. When I didn’t respond, he added, “Promise me you’ll be careful, Jac. Don’t get complacent.”
“I promise. What’s brought this on?” It was nicer than I thought it would be to have someone worry about me, particularly when that person was Rhys. Perhaps he’d always worried about me, just never expressed it.
He crossed his legs at the ankles and stared into the flames. The light flickered across his face, highlighting the strong angles of his jaw and cheeks and giving his eyes a moodiness that wasn’t natural on him.
I got up and stood between him and the fire. “Rhys? Do you have a new job for me?”
“You’re good, Jac, but I think I’ll ask someone else.” He shrugged without meeting my gaze.
“For Hailia’s sake, just tell me about the job. If I feel it’s beyond me, I’ll reject it, but don’t pretend there’s someone else you can ask because there isn’t. I’m your best spy.”
After a moment, he lifted his gaze to mine. “And you accuse me of having an oversized opinion of myself.”
Despite my irritation, I couldn’t help my smile. “What’s the job?”
“I want you to look for a document in the governor’s office.”
I went very still.
Rhys missed nothing. “What is it?”
I shrugged, dismissive. “What’s the document?”
He narrowed his gaze. “A declaration giving Tilting’s governor the power to make decisions without the agreement of his council.”
“That can’t be allowed! He’ll change laws to his advantage, assign contracts to businesses linked to his own interests… It’s dangerous to give a man like him so much power.”
Rhys’s gaze narrowed further. “That’s why we need to know if it’s just a rumor or not.
If the document exists, I want you to find it.
I don’t need to see it. I just need to know what it says.
The governor can’t be given more power. He already pays the magistrate and sheriff to do his bidding. This will be disastrous for the city.”
“The king won’t allow it.”
“King Alain has other things on his mind. Things that involve his kingdom, not its capital city.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the fact he’s dying and has no heir. If he dies soon, which is looking likely, there’ll be a power vacuum. Filling it will keep the nobles busy fighting amongst themselves and possibly fighting off the king of Vytill.”