As I was going on an internal tirade, the door opened and several men entered the station.
“Thank you for waiting,” a man said as he walked in.
Is that a knight? Oh boy, here we go!
“Allow me to escort you to the royal palace. Follow me to the carriage, if you please.”
Did I say something horribly wrong or something? Did I insult the royal family or criticize the establishment, maybe? I don’t think I did...
If they were here to arrest a criminal, the people they’d dispatched would’ve been far too high-ranking for the job, and their demeanor was way too polite. The carriage was really nice too. I wondered what was going on, and then the realization hit me.
That’s what that low-ranking officer’s report was about!
If the purpose of that exchange was to call for these people, the answers I’d given during the interview had nothing to do with any of this. The only information I’d given them before the report went out was the fact that I was a free priestess, my name, and the purpose for my visit, which were all completely standard answers. The only thing that was different about me compared to other free priestesses was my name...
Waaait a minute! That’s it!
They’d come to secure Edith, the stray priestess with minor blessings of the Goddess, even before I’d told anyone about my upgrade!
“I’m glad you’ve come, Sister Edith!”
Well, since he’s not from the Temple, I suppose it doesn’t matter to him whether a priestess is affiliated with the Temple or not. All priestesses are the same to him.
On second thought, that wasn’t actually true. Temple priestesses would be beholden to the will of the Temple’s upper echelons, while free priestesses would rather work on their own in a poor environment than obey the Temple. Which would be easier for a third party to take in under their control? Not to mention, Temple priestesses only worked in the city, where there was more money to be made, whereas free priestesses took risks by going out into the boonies and offering prayers for free—being compensated with a place to stay and some food at best. It was pretty clear which would be better liked by the general population, especially when considering that the Temple didn’t think highly of free priestesses, even though they both worshipped the same goddess. Supposedly, they didn’t go as far as to harass or antagonize the powerless free priestesses, but I wasn’t sure if that was because they actually understood the concept of shame or they were just afraid of the negative reaction it would get from the masses.
“So, what is it you want?” I asked without bowing.
Everyone around, including the person who’d just spoken, glared at me. They were the ones who’d brought me here, no questions asked. And sure, they were polite enough when speaking to me, but they showed their true colors as soon as they realized I wasn’t groveling at their feet. So, I’d decided I would treat them coldly and see how things went.
I mean, the clergy were technically supposed to be free of secular status and influence. Of course, that wasn’t how things actually were in practice, but that was how things were “supposed to be” nonetheless. A servant of the Goddess shouldn’t be subordinate to a mere human, after all. Royalty and nobility were just statuses made up by humans, completely unrelated to the Goddess. This was the Temple’s ultimate weapon to keep themselves from taking orders from the royal palace and aristocrats and anyone who publicly denied that claim would be under fire from the Temple’s collective forces—that is, in a political sense, not a military one. They would boycott products from the offending aristocrat’s land and treat people from that territory coldly as retaliation. The Temple would accuse not just that aristocrat and their clan of being heathens who’d picked a fight with the Goddess, but also the entire population of their fiefdom and faction too. That was quite effective in a world where there was only one main religion, so no one could complain if a priestess refused to bow to anyone but the Goddess and her kin...though, generally, no free priestess acted that way. They didn’t want to make enemies unnecessarily or put themselves in other people’s crosshairs.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t afford to lick the boots of the aristocracy or the royal family, given my plans moving forward. Besides, if I did that, I wouldn’t know what to say to Celes. That’d be like saying someone who was favored by Celes was beneath those who weren’t. If everyone recognized that, even aristocrats wouldn’t dare act so pompous toward me.
From the looks of it, no one here seemed to be royalty. I had figured as much, since the royal family wouldn’t have abruptly decided to meet a commoner of unknown origin. Besides the two knights behind me, there were six men here, and they seemed to be aristocrats or commoners in senior bureaucratic positions. Judging from their demeanor, they didn’t actually believe I was blessed by Celes, and they just wanted to play along with that narrative so they could use me for their own gain. If they hadn’t believed it but also hadn’t intended to use me, they wouldn’t have called me here, and if they had believed it, their attitudes would’ve been different. They were dealing with a little girl here—they should’ve pretended to be believers at the very least. Sure, I may have acted a bit cheeky, but they were acting against their own interests by giving me reason to feel distrust and caution toward them right off the bat.
“I show you a bit of kindness and respect, and you let it get to your head, you stupid little girl,” the man growled. “Do you realize what happens to those who claim to be a saint or an Angel?! You’d better do as we say if you don’t want to end up hanged—”
“Oh, I’ve never once said I was any of those things. Who told you such false rumors?” I asked.
“What...?”
“I’m nothing but a free priestess with minor blessings of the Goddess, so I’d never make such bold claims. If you want to hang someone, you should hang whoever was spreading those rumors!”
There was a drawn-out silence.
Yep, he’s stumped now.
“Quiet! You just shut up and—”
There was a loud bang as the door slammed open. An important-looking man and several guards entered the room.
“What in the world are you all doing in such a crude place, calling in the priestess without permission, and without taking her to His Majesty?! Explain yourselves!”
“Huh?”
“L-Lord Chancellor? What are you doing here...?”
Oh? Does that mean he’s the second-most important person next to the king? That must mean you’d have to be around the rank of a minister, marquis, or duke to speak to him on an equal basis.
“Your Holiness, I’m terribly sorry about this! We’ll prepare a room for you right away, so please head to the guest room for now. You’ve gone through the trouble of coming all the way to the royal palace; would you like to meet His Majesty? Or perhaps you would like a tour of the palace with the princes and princesses?”
“Whaaaaaat?!” everyone—besides the guards who were desperately trying to maintain their composure—screamed in surprise, including me.
Sure, priestesses were respected religious figures, but this was completely unheard of!
“Wh-Wh-Wha...” the leader of the group that had brought me here stuttered, shaking with disbelief.
I mean, I felt the same way. Sure, I was a priestess, but why was someone so important giving a commoner girl like me the VIP treatment? It made no sense! Maybe they’d heard about my minor blessings, but they hadn’t even confirmed if the rumors were true yet. The skepticism and contempt from the group that’d brought me here was far more understandable, to be honest.
“This way, please...” the Lord Chancellor said to me, then turned to the rest of the aristocrats and said, “Oh, you’re all to stay here until you’re given further orders. Guards, stay here and keep them safe.”
“Yes, sir!” the guards responded.
Wait, what?
I couldn’t understand why he’d give that order to the guards. This was the royal palace, wasn’t it? Why would a bunch of aristocrats just waiting here need guards? There must’ve been some reason that a mere commoner like me couldn’t understand.
After the Lord Chancellor and Kaoru had left the room, the six aristocrats and two soldiers remained. The noblemen looked ghastly pale, and were soaked in sweat despite the mild temperature.
The urge to say something grew in the noblemen as the uncomfortable silence stretched out for what felt like an eternity. What was going to happen to them? What would the Lord Chancellor say to them after he spoke to that commoner girl? They needed time to talk so they could get their stories straight, but that was exactly why the two soldiers were keeping an eye on them. The Lord Chancellor had claimed it was to “keep them safe,” but what could they possibly need to keep them safe from?
Whatever they discussed now would go straight to the Lord Chancellor through the guards, so they had to choose their words carefully.
“Just what is going on here? Why is the Lord Chancellor treating that commoner girl with such respect?”
“We’ve done nothing to deserve this treatment. All we’ve done is invite a common stray priestess to the royal palace so we could offer to be her sponsors. It wasn’t as if we wanted to make a move on her or had any other ill intent. Besides, if I wanted to do something like that, I would’ve done it alone. And with a more attractive girl too. Why would possess me to share a commoner girl with such a scrawny body?!” one of the men complained, and the other five nodded in agreement. This was a highly convincing argument, and they didn’t mind if the Lord Chancellor heard it. Surely, the guards watching over them would agree, and it was the truth—the girl did in fact appear to be twelve or thirteen, and they hadn’t intended to do anything of that sort to her.
Their plan had been to use a mix of threats and kindness to make the girl who was supposedly slightly favored by the Goddess do their bidding. Of course, they knew she hadn’t been blessed by the Goddess at all, but she claimed she was, and the people believed her. There was no reason not to play along. Even if her lies were to be exposed later on, they could have claimed that they had faith in the girl because they were devout believers themselves, and no blame would be placed on them.
Perhaps the girl didn’t even think she was lying and believed her own story. It was only a matter of time before she was struck down by divine punishment for lying about being blessed by the Goddess Celestine. Celestine was known to be a ruthless deity, after all. It was hard to imagine a little girl like this one would have the guts to knowingly take such a risk.