Remember the last time I tried to organize a gala, to celebrate the completion of the Claymouth schoolhouse? And how Stripey shot down all my grand plans for lack of funding? Well, now I had a second chance! And this time, this time, nobody was going to tell me that I couldn't hire entertainment and chefs from the capital – because we were literally living in the capital!
Take that, Stripey! I thought at him, wherever he was. If you want to rein in my spending, hurry up and awaken so we can meet again at Honeysuckle Croft.
I didn't say any of that out loud, of course.
What I did say out loud, to an all-hands meeting at my Temple to the Kitchen God, was: We need musssicians for the fessstival.
By now, the staff roster included not only us four core conspirators – er, founders – but also the steward, Camphorus Unus, and our freshly-half-trained priests. Clean and clad in colorful silk robes, they were verging on presentable – so long as they didn't move or talk. Etiquette was still a work in progress.
We need to hire the mossst famous and mossst talented musssicians and sssingers to perform the High Priessst's sssong cycle in praissse of the Kitchen God, I told them.
After weeks of enduring an angsty poet and an even angstier composer whom Camphorus Unus had dug up somewhere, I had my song cycle at last. The lyrics were everything I'd envisioned, with lurid encomiums of the Divine Intercessor and His Divine Love for all who dwelled on Earth under His Loving Eye. The music swooped and soared, as if to depict the mightiest feats from the beginning of the world: Lord Pan splitting the miasma to create Heaven and Earth, or Lady Nu shaping the first humans from riverbed mud, or something on that level. Such comparisons to the Father of the World and the Mother of Mankind would stroke the ego of a god who just wasn't that big of a deal.
I'd have loved for my priests to form the choir, but, well, let's just say that I hadn't told Floridiana and Dusty to filter for vocal talent. Just humanity. Our new priests were much more impressive mute.
Speaking of muteness, I needed to check on something that the priests would not be reading – at least, not until we fixed their enunciation. Oh, and taught them how to read.
Is the Official Text ready?
Clearing her throat and stepping out of the crowd, Floridiana rotated slowly to display the gigantic illuminated manuscript in her arms. "It is indeed."
She raised it up on high, like a Prime Minister presenting the next Crown Prince or Princess to the adoring masses. Gasps rose from Lodia and Katu, who'd never seen such fine craftsmanship on a book cover before, and from the priests, who had never seen so much gold and so many gemstones before.
Ex-sssellent. Then I believe that all that remains is to finalize the guest list for the seats of honor, hire the performers, and draw up a menu for the chefs. Steward.
Camphorus Unus met Bobo's eyes, keeping up our charade for the priests' benefit. "Yes, spirit?"
I leave thossse arrangements in your sssolid, capable branches.
As usual, he showed no emotion. He merely bowed the precise, correct amount. "Very good, spirit."
In Anthea's mansion:
"A festival? A festival to the Kitchen God?" screeched Anthea, clutching the invitation so tightly that the fine paper crumpled into a ball. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about it?"
YOU ARE READING
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
FantasyAfter Piri the nine-tailed fox follows an order from Heaven to destroy a dynasty, she finds herself on trial in Heaven for that very act. Executed by the gods for the "crime," she is cast into the cycle of reincarnation, starting at the very bottom...
