Chapter 4: Not Her Maid

Supper that evening was in the Hall of the Gate, a vaulted room with a hundred courtiers at long tables.

The Saint sat at the head.

Hinata had been seated on a gold chair, with Mai on a bench below the dais among the clerks.

Chancellor Vernier rose with a cup in his hand.

"My lords, my ladies. The Saint of the Dawn has come to us in our hour of need."

The hall cheered.

"In honor of her rank, the household of the Saint must be fit for her."

He lifted the cup higher.

"His Highness Leon will be called to meet her within the week."

A murmur went around the tables, and Mai saw the whole court look at Hinata and then at the prince's empty seat.

"The Saint's servants will be housed in the servants' wing, as is proper," Vernier went on.

"That includes the foreigner Kurosawa, whom the Temple has kindly kept in her shed."

Mai felt every eye turn to her.

She put down her spoon.

"I'll go," she said, quietly, to the bench. "It's only a room."

"No."

Hinata had stood up.

She was small in the gold chair and then, somehow, she wasn't, with her chestnut hair down and her white robe glowing in the torchlight.

"Lady Saint," Vernier began.

"I'm not finished, Chancellor."

Her voice was soft and clear and carried to the back wall.

"The High Priestess told us yesterday that no maid may touch my body. She said the law is older than you are."

"It is the Temple's law."

"Then it's mine. Only my household touches me. Mai is my household."

Hinata looked down the whole length of the hall.

"If she sleeps in the servants' wing, I will not bathe. I will not pray. I will not bless one field in Mirelle."

Nobody breathed.

Vernier's silver beard twitched.

"Lady Saint, the grey rot is spreading. The harvest is a month away."

"Then I suggest you let me sleep next to my sister."

The word sister ran down the tables.

Odile, at the end of the dais, set her cup down very gently, and Mai thought she was hiding a smile.

"The Saint's wishes are the Temple's wishes," said the High Priestess. "The household stays."

Vernier looked from one to the other and bowed, stiffly, from the neck.

"Until the Harvest Blessing," he said. "Then we shall see what she is worth."

The court went back to its soup.

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