The Priest (13 page)

“What are you, a sleepwalker?” Grey wasn’t
in a great mood.

“Yes, I am, since I had to work the whole
night,” he bit back, repeating Leander’s words.

“I’m sorry for you. I really am. You’ll get
to rest later. Now get to work,” Grey said, but at the last moment,
he gave Mauricio a sympathetic shrug of his shoulders.

Mauricio knew that Grey couldn’t cut him any
slack before the other men and began digging without saying another
word. He soon realized he didn’t mind occupying his restless body
on a physical activity when his thoughts were focused elsewhere. He
felt Rosie’s eyes on his back the whole time he worked, dislodging
a heavy rock from its bed. He scratched his hands repeatedly, and
blood came out of a superficial wound. Mauricio distinctly heard
Rosie gasp when it happened. He felt immensely pleased by it and
smiled. One of his coworkers looked at him.

“Are you okay?” the man asked him.

“Fine, never better,” Mauricio answered.

“Maybe you should drink some water. You look
dehydrated. I am going to fetch some for you.”

“No! Thanks, I know where it is. I’ll go.
Walking will help clear my mind.” Mauricio hurriedly put a hand on
the other man’s arm to stop him from going to the tanks that
happened to be where Rosie was standing. The man gave Mauricio a
worried look, but when he saw the determination in his face, he
murmured something to Grey, who nodded, and Mauricio was let
go.

Mauricio reached the closest tank to Rosie
and went down on one knee to fill a plastic cup. Guen was giving a
rather boring guided tour, but Rosie seemed to hang on the guard’s
words, asking questions and keeping the conversation going.
Mauricio could almost feel the warmth emanating from Rosie’s back
while he took his time filling a small cup. They stayed frozen,
back-to-back, unable to turn around and look at each other.
Mauricio drank several cups of water while he noticed out of the
corner of his eye that Grey was getting nervous, and that he and
the man who had offered to fetch some water were looking at him
impatiently. When he had almost given up and walked back to his
crew, Guen’s cell phone rang.

“Could you excuse me just for a moment,
Mistress?” Guen asked Rosie.

“Sure, go ahead,” Rosie answered maybe a tad
too enthusiastically.

Mauricio couldn’t see Guen’s face since he
was still facing the tank and the crew, but he imagined the
speculative look on the woman’s face at Rosie’s thoughtless
endorsement of leaving her alone in a field full of men. Guen
murmured something and then Mauricio heard her steps growing
softer.

“Is she looking at you?” Mauricio whispered
while pretending to drink from the cup.

“Yes.” Rosie stepped back a single long step
that brought her closer to Mauricio’s shoulders. Almost touching
him. Almost. But enough to make Mauricio aware of every atom of air
standing between them.

“Did you see the roses?” he asked.

“What roses?” Rosie replied and then, before
he could explain, she said, “I missed you.”

Mauricio stood frozen, incapable of
speaking. Nobody had ever told him something so intimate.

“I know why you are here,” she added,
confusing him with her worried tone. “Don’t say anything; just
listen to me. My mothers know everything... about us. I was
betrayed by the nurse who saw me outside your cell. She heard me
talking to you and decided that she couldn’t cover for my
perversion. She didn’t care to drag the Priestess along with me.”
Rosie was talking so fast that Mauricio had barely time to take in
what she was saying.

“Did they do anything to you—?”

“No, of course not. Don’t worry about me.
Nobody is going to do anything to me. I am who I am, after all.
I’ll be fine. It’s you I am worried about. The Priestess sent you
to Tarin in an attempt to save herself. My mothers discovered what
I was up to and flew to the Temple. They were furious with the
Priestess for not having informed them about my… plan. And there
was that recording…”

Mauricio was barely following her, and
Rosie’s voice was a whisper already, when she gasped, “The guard is
coming back—” She moved away from him. “The nurse sent my mothers
the recording where you entered my room, and they asked the
Priestess for an explanation of why you were still alive. She
answered that she had already disposed of you. But, I heard a
conversation the Priestess had with my doctor, and I knew where she
had sent you. I convinced my mothers it was a good idea to
anticipate their annual visit here, but I feared I was too
late…”

Mauricio could hear Guen’s steps getting
closer. Grey was walking toward him.

“It seems that you are too valuable as a
semental to be killed right away, so the manager here has decided
that some fresh air would improve your… skills… and then, when they
have enough semen from you—” Rosie crammed the last words in a
breathless sentence, but couldn’t finish.

“Sorry for the interruption, Mistress. I had
to take the call. It was your mothers’ assistant. Needless to say,
we have to go back immediately.” Guen’s voice was triumphant.

Mauricio felt cold when Rosie walked away,
but he slowly took one step after another and met Grey halfway to
the trench.

“I understand you’re tired from a sleepless
night, but I have a schedule and you’re slowing everybody down.
Just as a reminder, nobody gets to eat or sleep until we’re done
with the job. And the job today can’t be done if we don’t remove
this rock from our path. Is it clear now why you have to get your
act together and start doing something?” Grey was pinching the arch
of his nose in a pose that betrayed a painful headache.

“Understood,” Mauricio answered, lowering
his head. He was sympathetic to Grey’s plea.
Don’t worry;
I’m not going to be the one who makes everybody else suffer. I
don’t want to be a pariah, again.
The fact that Tarin seemed
more humane than the Temple didn’t mean that men weren’t treated
accordingly.
This is a slave farm, after all.
Absentmindedly, he touched the rigid collar around his neck.
I
know who I am; this is a constant reminder of my condition. Even
when I sleep, I’m not allowed to forget about this metal chafing my
skin.
What was different now was that his mind was otherwise
busy thinking about Rosie.
I shouldn’t be thinking of her, at
all.
But, she has just told me that my life is in danger.
How can I stop thinking about that?
He had to talk to her. He
had to find her and eventually tell her that he had reasons to
believe she was carrying his child.

Mauricio worked all day, doing what he was
asked to do, nodding and saying whatever was expected of him
depending on the tone of the conversation, but he wasn’t present
with the other men.
How am I going to find her, if I can’t go
anywhere by myself?
And, even if I come up with a plan and
find her, how am I going to say the things I need to say to her?
And which one first? The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll be
choked to death as soon as I step outside the threshold of my
cell
.
Time is running out; she’s going to leave soon and I
can’t think of anything that will help
… These and other
thoughts kept visiting him and left him exhausted.

Leander, who had watched him the whole day
from inside the trench, went to talk to Mauricio when the shift
finally ended. They were in line waiting for the van to come back
and pick them up. “What’s up with you?” he asked when it was
evident that Mauricio wasn’t in a talkative mood.

“May I ask you a question?” Mauricio said
instead, facing the other man.

“It depends,” Leander answered.

“You were a semental like me, right?”

“Yes—”

“Do the women ask you to produce?”

“Not anymore. Why?” Leander answered
slowly.

“Because it seems that I am being fattened
up, so to speak.” Mauricio didn’t like to dance around the words,
but talking about his death sentence wasn’t easy. Especially since
he had a suspicion that the other man knew something about it. He
had heard the same tone from both Arias and Leander, and somehow,
things were beginning to make sense, in a macabre sort of way.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,”
Leander tried.

“Thanks for telling me.” Mauricio almost
smiled.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You did,” Mauricio lowered his voice seeing
that other ears were listening.

“I—”

“It’s okay. You just nod.” Mauricio stepped
ahead with the rest of the line. It was their turn to get on the
van. He walked to the first two free seats by the window and let
Leander sit next to him.

“I know that I was sent to Tarin to die. The
manager is waiting for me to be in better shape to exact one last
production before being put to rest.” Mauricio enunciated every
word to be sure that Leander heard everything. Leander nodded, and
he resumed his soliloquy, “The men have been asked to leave me
alone. Arias appointed you as my personal bodyguard.”

Leander nodded immediately this time. The
van stopped, and again the drive hadn’t lasted as long as Mauricio
had hoped. It was either too long, or too short, but never right.
He stayed in his seat a moment longer. “Am I missing something?” he
asked Leander.

“I'm sorry, I can’t—”

The men sitting behind them rudely asked
them to stand up and get off the van.

“There’s nothing I can do but keep you safe
and make your life less miserable,” Leander finished while walking
out.

“Thank you, I guess.” Mauricio followed the
other man in silence. The cafeteria was full by the time they
arrived. Arias was waiting for them by the door.

“You must come with me,” the older man said
with a somber expression. Mauricio had known him for less than two
days and exchanged words with him only two or three times, but he
could see that the man had something on his mind by the way he was
walking. They went out and strolled around the cafeteria until
Arias stopped behind a small tree.

“I want you to have this.” Arias thrust a
small object in Mauricio’s hand as soon as they were out of
earshot.

Mauricio took it and looked at Arias
suspiciously. “What is it?”

“Something you might need. Drink the whole
bottle if… things get too painful.” Arias lowered his eyes to the
ground.

Mauricio weighed the object in his hands and
felt the whooshing of liquid. He held it before his eyes and, in
the dim light, saw that it was a miniature flask.

“Why are you giving this to me?” he asked.
He wanted the other man to say it.

“Because I can’t do anything else for you,”
Arias’ voice was a whisper, even though there was nobody out there
with them but the wind moving through the trees, making their
conversation difficult to hear.

“We need to go back. There are cameras
everywhere.” Arias took Mauricio’s elbow and didn’t give him any
chance to ask questions.

They went back inside where Leander was
waiting for them. Mauricio ate and was then escorted by both Arias
and Leander to the main door; Arias saluted him with a trembling
hand.

“Sleep well tonight,” the older man said.
Leander didn’t utter a word, but gave Mauricio a look that was
worth all he wanted to say.

Guen was already unlocking the door for him
to come in.

“Are there other slaves on this floor?”
Mauricio asked the guard abruptly. He knew it wasn’t wise being
disrespectful to a woman, but he was going to die soon, anyway.

The woman interrupted her stride for the
briefest moment and then, without taking out the whip, answered him
with a question. “Why do you want to know?” She looked straight at
Mauricio.

“I saw that I am the only one escorted to
this door. Nobody else seems to come here.” Although he knew she
wasn’t the usual mean, spiteful guard, he could barely believe she
was talking to him.

“You are a special guest,” Guen said with a
sad smile.

Mauricio’s expression mirrored hers. She had
just answered him, like Leander and Arias had done without having
any intention to do so. “How long do you think I will be enjoying
this special accommodation?” His voice was light, despite the
bitter aftertaste that was rising up his throat.

“Not for long.”

“Thanks for being nice to me.”

“It was nothing,” the woman said, but she
looked uncomfortable.

“You care. It’s a rare thing among your
race.” Mauricio kept talking. It hadn’t been his intention, but
somehow, the look in the woman’s eyes had made him change his mind.
“You don’t like the President’s daughter. Why?” He knew that asking
such a question was pushing it too far, but he thought that it was
worth a try to ask it anyway.

“How dare you?” Guen managed to sound
shocked by Mauricio’s liberty.

“Maybe it’s not that you don’t like
her
. Maybe you don’t like the President.” Mauricio was
throwing caution to the wind, and he was so angry at his situation
that he didn’t care anymore. He hated that he was already
considered dead. Arias had just tried to placate his own conscience
by giving him poison. Or maybe the man had given him a strong
painkiller. He didn’t know what was inside the little flask tucked
under the waistband of his pants.

“You better think twice before opening your
mouth.” Guen’s eyes darted around before focusing once more on
Mauricio.

He knew he had gone too far, but he couldn’t
stop thinking about the aversion Guen demonstrated while in Rosie’s
presence. The guard hadn’t reacted to the requests Rosie made. Guen
had reacted to Rosie. There was animosity in Guen’s dealing with
the President’s daughter.

“I’m not going to talk to anybody, anyway.”
Mauricio dismissed the topic with a wave of his hand. He was
grasping at straws, as if a slave’s word mattered. The problem
wasn’t that he was talking too much; there was no danger in that
for Guen. But plenty of trouble could come to her in the form of
cameras and speakers hidden throughout the hallway. “I’m sorry if
I’ve caused you any trouble.” He turned slightly toward the guard
and murmured for her ears only.