The Priest Read Free Page A

the Priestess. Thank you for your patience, Ancilla Martha,” the
young woman said with a pleasant lilt in her voice.
    “At your service, Mistress,” both women said
at the same time. Several steps echoed from the ventilation grid,
along with metallic sounds, and finally, a door was closed with a
gentle thump.
    Mauricio stood with his back to the wall,
staring at nothing, waiting to be summoned by the guard. A few
minutes later, his eyes turned back to the ventilation grid,
wishing that it was a window opening to the other room. Then
something happened. The young woman started singing. He had never
heard a woman singing before. Slaves usually sang at night when the
darkness was too much to bear, and they sang during the day when
the guards weren’t paying much attention to them. But the singing
he heard now was different. Apart from the obvious fact that a
woman’s voice is different from a man’s, softer and sweeter, the
girl was singing with joy and abandonment. She was happy to be
alive. And she had a beautiful voice.
    Mauricio had the absurd thought of wanting
to see her. He knew it was ridiculous the moment it came to mind,
but the thought kept nagging at him the whole time she sang. Her
voice soared through the ventilation grid and came down to embrace
Mauricio. She held one last note longer than he thought possible,
and then she abruptly stopped.
    “We're done with you,” a guard, different
from the one who had escorted him there, announced while opening
the door.
    Mauricio’s ears were offended by the
intrusion of the guard’s scratchy voice. He couldn’t shake the
memory of the melody he had just heard.
    “Move.” The guard poked him with a long
stick.
    Mauricio focused his eyes on the woman and
took a step toward the door. She looked like she was waiting for
him to do something. He silently cursed the woman, but didn’t give
her any reason to vent her frustration on him. Instead, he
memorized the route to his cell. They had made two right turns when
the guard’s pager started beeping loudly. She kept him at arm’s
length with the stick and paused to check the pager.
    “Blast it.” She reached for her cell phone
and dialed a number with increasing worry on her face.
    “Mariam reporting.” The guard’s voice was
tightly controlled, but the hand holding the stick was moving
around in wild circles. She muttered several sentences meant to
sound obsequious and then listened for a few seconds while
breathing heavily. She closed the cell phone with an angry look on
her face.
    Mauricio stood there, trying to blend into
the wall and avoiding the guard’s eyes. He had learned this trick
when he was just a toddler. Normally it worked. He didn’t even
flinch when the circling stick almost connected with his
cheekbone.
    “Stay there.” The guard opened a room on her
left, ordered him inside and slammed the door behind him
hastily.
    Mauricio heard her stomping in the hallway,
cursing out loud and complaining that she wasn’t a fathered woman
to be used as a fetching maid, not even for the blasted Priestess.
And then, nothing. He was alone again, the door left ajar. He
stared at the door, his mind running wild. The temptation was too
great. Such opportunities didn’t occur every day. On the other
hand, the retribution for taking the opportunity would be high. If
the guards caught him.
    Mauricio’s hand was on the door’s handle
before his brain could add anything to his already mixed thoughts.
He walked down the hallway and had turned left twice already when
he felt the first pang of worries knocking on his consciousness. He
put aside the feeling immediately. He walked past the door of the
room he had been in and went straight to the next door. He tested
the handle. The door was unlocked. No sound came from inside. He
looked over his shoulders. Nobody was coming. He took a deep breath
and slowly opened the door. He cautiously peeked inside and stopped
breathing altogether. The room was white, like the