Page 6 of The Warrior Priest (After the Rift #1)

“Young man, mind your language,” Uncle Roderic went on. “This is a public square. There are ladies present whose menfolk may object. Next time, I may not be here to protect you from them.”

He signaled for the coachman to drive on. The guards jumped onto the footboards and sheathed their swords as the carriage drove off. I watched as it passed me.

The governor happened to be looking out.

I quickly flipped up my hood, but it was too late. With a hand on the door, he leaned out of the window aperture, and stared directly at me.

I ran.

I didn’t wait to see if anyone followed.

I couldn’t hear footsteps chasing me, but my blood pounded ferociously in my ears so I couldn’t trust my hearing.

I darted into the marketplace where the crowds of shoppers made pursuit harder.

Even so, I didn’t stop until I reached the large tree outside the temple of Merdu’s Guards.

With my back to the trunk, I tucked my hand down my shirt and touched the talisman pendant, rising and falling against my chest in time with my heavy breaths.

It was warm from my heated skin. It was safe, as was I.

I loitered in the shadow of the tree near the main gate of the temple, hoping Rhys would emerge sooner or later.

He had never told me who in the order knew about me, aside from his three closest friends, so I didn’t want to ask the priest guarding the gate to let me in.

Although the order accepted visitors, women weren’t allowed, and I was reluctant to break their rule, even if Rhys was the only one who knew I was female and I thought the rule was ludicrous.

I’d once considered scaling the temple’s walls to see inside but dismissed the idea. They were too high to scale without being seen. Rhys assured me it was rather dull inside anyway, with nothing more than a training yard, garrison and outbuildings along with the temple itself.

The gate opened and a warrior priest emerged.

It was Vizah, one of Rhys’s closest friends.

He spoke to the guard on duty, then both laughed heartily about an incident that had occurred at breakfast involving a young priest. After the guard closed the gate behind him, Vizah drew in a deep breath, rocking back on his heels as he did so.

He seemed content, without a care in the world.

I moved out of the shadows and hailed him. “Vizah. Is Rhys inside?”

He didn’t care that I hadn’t addressed him as Brother Vizah. None of Rhys’s three close friends cared that I dropped formalities. I didn’t know if they knew I was a woman. Rhys had never told me if he’d mentioned it to them, and I’d never asked.

Of all of Rhys’s friends, Vizah was my favorite.

Despite the curved scar bracketing the corner of his mouth and his bear-like size, he wasn’t at all intimidating.

He was a mischievous rogue who liked to drink and fight, sometimes at the same time.

His darker skin was a clue to his part-Zemayan heritage, but he had no idea who his parents were.

The orphanage where he’d spent his childhood claimed he’d been left on their doorstep as a baby.

At twelve, Vizah ran away after his constant misbehavior brought out the cruelty in the orphanage staff.

At thirteen, the master of Merdu’s Guards caught him stealing and took him in instead of turning him over to the sheriff.

Like Rhys, Vizah formally joined the order when he came of age at eighteen.

“He is, but he’s holed up with Master Tomaj and the high priest,” Vizah said.

“The high priest? Sounds important.”

“They elevated Rhys to second-in-command of the order. It’s an honor.” If it was such an honor, why did Vizah sound a little apprehensive?

“Rhys must be pleased,” I said.

“He should be.”

Vizah looked at the gate, then turned back to me with a shrug.

It was as though the action shrugged off whatever was bothering him, and he was once again his nonchalant self.

He clapped me on the shoulder, hard, then chuckled when I stumbled forward.

It was confirmation that Vizah didn’t know I was a woman.

I’d seen him in the presence of women, and he was always respectful.

I doubted he would be so rough with me if he knew the truth.

“Did you need to speak to him, Jac?”

“I completed an errand for him and I didn’t want to wait until tonight to report in.”

Vizah nodded knowingly. I knew Rhys had told his friends that I occasionally spied for him.

There didn’t seem to be many secrets Rhys, Vizah, Rufus and Andreas kept from one another, my true gender being the exception.

“I’ll let him know you’re here,” Vizah said.

“Do you need anything? There might be leftovers from last night’s dinner in the kitchen. ”

“As delicious as day-old sludge sounds, I’ll pass.”

“We had a feast last night. Sludge is on the menu for tonight.” He folded his arms over his chest and frowned down at me. “You’re too skinny, Jac. When I was your age, I was the size of a horse.”

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.