The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 119: My New Cohort of All-Human Slum-Dweller Priests

A fresh wave of murmurs swept through the crowd. She doubted anyone had ever bothered to teach them theology, but they were a cynical lot, and the logic resonated with them.

The mother from before stood on tiptoe and cried over the heads of the crowd, "How? How do we earn them?"

Floridiana flung her arms wide. (Thanks to Dusty, she could do that without hitting anyone.) "Why, through your devotion and your offerings, of course!"

(Just the offerings, really. But stroking Heavenly egos never hurt.)

She checked her audience, confirmed that if she were doing a street performance – and not in a slum – now would be the time to pass the alms bowl. Pressing a hand to her heart, she lowered her voice as if to entrust them with a secret. The crowd rippled as people leaned forward to catch her words. They needn't have worried: She made sure to speak loudly enough for everyone to hear.

"I, too, come from a place like this. My mama and papa – they didn't have much. They couldn't feed all of us, and I was the oldest." Even after all these years, it was still surprisingly hard to say, "So they sold me to a dance troupe. I danced in marketplaces and on street corners for many, many years."

A murmur of comprehension now. Many of the families here had probably already sold or were considering selling their older children. Somehow, their understanding lent her strength.

"So I know how little you have. I know how hard life is for you. I know that you don't have anything to offer to the gods." She paused. "Anything material, that is."

"Ma-tee-rial?" asked someone with a frown.

Right. No big vocab.

"Stuff like food. Silk. Jewelry."

The offerings weren't physically sent to Heaven or destroyed in the process of being offered, of course. Only their spiritual essence was dedicated to the gods, and then the food could be consumed and the silks and jewelry donned or stored in a treasure chest – but that fact didn't help these people in the slightest. If they had the food and silk and jewelry to set on an altar before an image of a god, then they wouldn't be selling their children to dance troupes.

Or, apparently, army recruiters here.

"Ain't none o' that here!" yelled the youngish man who was still hanging out his empty window frame.

"I know!" she shouted back. "That is why I have come to grant you a different way to gain the Kitchen God's favor!"

"How!"

If she didn't know for a fact that Piri had never set a claw in this slum, she'd have assumed that the demon mind had planted him here for this very call-and-response. On the spot, she resolved to take him back to the Temple. "You earn the Kitchen God's favor by serving him in his Temple! We need priests!"

The chatter of the crowd swelled into excited rumbling.

"You will serve the Kitchen God, and in return, the Temple will provide you with food, clothing, and shelter! And a stipend that you can spend as you please, or send back to your families!"

"A sty-pend?"

"What's a sty-pend?"

"Sounds like a good thing!"

Oh, she'd gotten a little carried away. Maybe she shouldn't have promised an actual salary. But surely Piri, who had wrangled enough funding to commission silk robes for the priests they didn't even have yet, and who intended to build temples all over Serica, could scrounge up enough coppers to pay her priests. It would surely cost less than the lavish Temple adornments she was plotting.