To serve the protection of Jaris upon the eligible maidens of the ruling family

Back in the present...

The city of St. Marmelise - the second richest city of the Griffinwald Theocracy, the proverbial market just inside the fortified gates of the Theocracy's more militant cities - was where Claudia had spent nearly her entire life. She was quite intimidated at the prospect of having to venture into the wider world and face all its dangers - so for the moment, as she strode between the two ranks of knights, she tried to put it out of her mind, and focus on how she would pass whatever ordeal was in store for her as the final test of her training.

It had been a long two years, with an arduous, demanding schedule... though with a most peculiar curriculum, by the standards of the past. First, Cardinal Velnius and his four deaconesses spent many months teaching the labyrinthine doctrines and lengthy parables of the faith of Jaris to Claudia. Soon, the religious lessons were joined by mentoring from a number of repentant mistresses of the nobility and madams who had agreed to become servants of the priesthood to spare themselves punishment during the brutal final years of the previous cycle. They taught Claudia every secret of cosmetics and how to dance seductively. In particular, great emphasis was placed on a particular style of dance performed up against a man's lap, to stimulate his arousal or even bring him all the way to release. Then, of course, they moved on to teaching the ways of more skillfully bringing a man pleasure with her mouth...

Soon Claudia was 'practicing' her skills on the Grand Cardinal on a daily basis. As he explained, it was for the best if he did not engage in coitus with his beautiful chosen pupil, so it fell to her to find other, more indirect ways to service his holiness. Although he daily lauded Claudia's ever-more-refined beauty and technique, she couldn't help but grow frustrated... for months on end she only gave, never received, and never managed to attain the heights of pleasure that she was delivering to the Grand Cardinal.

Many Sisters of Holy War were brought in to teach Claudia in the ways of the sword. She found such lessons very difficult. As the Sisters of Holy War explained to her, unlike them, Claudia would not be expected to be a hardened slayer of men. As a holy idol, a paladin, Claudia would be expected to take pains to avoid taking lives even when threatened by wicked men. Only beastfolk and other malformed filth truly deserved the sword - even the most depraved humans at least deserved the dignity of a proper execution instead of being messily slain in combat, under ideal circumstances. Therefore, it was more important for Claudia to learn to wield a sword so that she *looked* skilled... performing elaborate flourishes and tricks to impress anyone who saw her and leave the impression that she was a mistress of the blade, rather than focusing on the more brutal and practical aspects of personal combat.

It had been nearly two years since she was chosen now. At 20, Claudia was in the bloom of womanhood, and as the priestesses often said, she would surely be able to easily bring the truth out of the wayward faithful with her winsome smile, and convince them of the right path with her pleasing curves.

At the very least, Claudia knew that all of the Griffinwald knights watching her from their positions of honor were drinking in her scantily-clad appearance and wanting to lay their hands upon her holy personage. She knew because, thanks to her blessing as a chosen, she felt a faint pleasant tingle in her skin whenever someone was looking upon her with lustful eyes.

At the end of the throne upon which High Lord Matthias Lorenz sat, a greying man with a sharp, pointed beard on his chin. The frilly red-and-white striped doublet and pantaloons he wore did little to hide his middle-aged girth. The Lorenz dynasty were, in effect, the rulers-in-waiting of St. Marmelise. Although each city was ultimately ruled by a Grand Theogonist, they were, up until very recently, expected to live lives of celibacy so that they could focus on glorifying the gods and the Empire as a whole. Families which, in ages past, had been chosen by Norvaskr as exemplifying purity and order, served as pools from which the Grand Theogonists were chosen... Families of slightly less beneficent status served as a source for knights, priests, priestesses and the other elite of society. Though these 'pure' families - so named because they have supposedly never had a trace of non-human blood in their lineage - had but little practical authority, they boasted great wealth and privilege.

A chorus of adolescent choirboys sang a single verse about the beneficence of Norvaskr and Jaris being his right hand. Lord Matthias stood up and clasped his hands together. "I am so glad to finally make your acquaintance, great Sin-Tax Taker. To have a a divinely blessed paladin assigned to protecting the virtue of my daughter and niece for the next fortnight... I could ask for no higher honor! Your calming presence will be most welcome while a final decision is made on which one is to be married to continue our line, and which is to take the holy oaths of Norvaskr and become a priestess. Though I had prayed many nights for the gods to bless my house with a male scion, it was not to be, and I have the greatest faith that the girls will carry our name proudly into the future."

The eyes of the high Lord suddenly dropped to Claudia's steel high heeled shoes, and a note of worried entered his sagacious voice as he continued. "That is, if you can but mend some minor and forgivable faults in their womanly character... and safeguard them from any, shall we say, outside influences."

Claudia, still being very new to courtly speech, nodded her head politely but said nothing, and blinked to politely indicate her confusion.

Prudence, a zaftig, heavily made-up woman in her fifties who always wore an elegant red songstresses dress and kept her silver streaked hair in tight curls, leaned forward and whispered advice in Claudia's ear. "Milord means he wants to make sure his daughter and her cousin don't go fucking around or running off with anyone unapproved before milord can trade their hand in marriage ( to a chosen man or the church) for some political favors."

"Ah!" Claudia smiled brightly and nodded. "Yes High Lord, I shall do my best. With the blessing of Jaris, I shall ward away any impertinent young men, and keep them free from the influences of a certain unsavory god whose name I shall not profane this holy place with."

"Marvelous!" Matthias clasped his hands, with a beam in his eye, before turning to the rest of the assembled clergy and knights. "In recognition of this great honor, my family shall commissioned a great stained glass window in honor of the Lawgiver." Standing from his throne, he took one of Claudia's hands, and began to lead her towards the towering mahogany double doors of the throne room. As she left, Prudence - long Claudia's mentor, since long before she was chosen - gave a soft, purring chuckle just loud enough for Claudia to hear and just barely inclined her head to the chosen, giving a little twitch of her nose in the direction of Lord Matthias and implying what course of action might be best...

Upon being led to High Lord Lorenz's personal carriage, an elaborate hardwood-and-brass affair drawn by a pair of fancily decorated chestnut stallions, Claudia stopped in her tracks for a moment and swallowed hard. There, standing guard at door to the carriage, were a pair of daevas. The sparkling, unearthly pink-skinned women dropped to their knees in unison and bowed their heads in respect as soon as Claudia came near. But having come so very close to **** and **** at the hands of these servants of the gods, Claudia didn't even want to walk past them, unable to shake the subconscious fear that they were just lulling her into complacency before rising and striking her down.

"Ah," Lord Matthias said, mistaking Claudia's fear for awe. "I see you have met my personal guards. The chosen lineages of Norvaskr are, of course, too important to leave to those who have less than total loyalty to our pantheon. They have... made my life far safer, and more pleasant, I can assure you." the noble said with a smug stroke of his pointy little beard and a swaggering nod. Shamelessly, he reached down to cup one of the daevite guardian's breasts, sliding his hand underneath her breastplate. To Claudia's astonishment, the strange female was as still as a statue during all this.

Though rarer in the Dwarven Kingdoms and other human lands, Daeva existed in great numbers in the Griffinwald Theocracy, serving many roles and constituting a major portion of the military forces protecting cities, cathedrals, and eminent personages. Claudia knew she would have to get used to them... but for now, she still found them unnerving. "Erm, might we have a private audience inside while we ride to your estate, milord?" she asked sweetly.

Releasing the daeva, Lord Matthias nodded, looking very pleased with himself as he led Claudia inside the velvet-upholstered interior of the vehicle. It smelled of pleasant perfume and incense... and with the davea guards out of sight, Claudia relaxed. Sitting next to the High Lord, she thought back to Prudence's gesture, and what her former madam had told her on the eve of her final ordeal of training - that whatever the priests said Claudia was to do, judging by the way they'd dressed her, she was obviously intended to bed the patriarch of the family she'd be staying with. 'Be straightforward and up-front with the man, so that he doesn't start to grow frustrated or think you are stringing him along,' Prudence had advised sagely while brushing Claudia's shimmering blonde hair.

Claudia leaned in against Lord Matthias's shoulder and rested a hand on his chest. He wasn't exactly the most attractive man that Claudia had ever seen, his once-athletic body bloated by too much food and wine... but then, she had been teased to great heights of frustration during her long and arduous training, always giving pleasure but receiving only a little in return, so she still looked forward to 'taking his sins'.

"So, my lord... as you know," Claudia said sweetly, tracing a finger over his chest, "all that would normally be a sin of lust is immediately forgiven if it is done upon me, or with my approval. Since you are already giving so generously to the Grand Cardinal, you may have me as soon as you wish, in any way you imagine." Claudia tried to keep her voice even as she spoke, but couldn't help but give a little squirm of embarrassed excitement, and a flush of red creeping up around her cheeks and nose showed her relative inexperience.

At first worried she'd done it wrong or been too hasty, Claudia gasped and smiled as she felt a hand squeeze her supple upper thigh, Matthias enjoying the silky soft texture of her leggings as he explored the contours of her ass. But then, she saw a nervous twinge in the corner of the High Lord's eye, and he cleared his throat, making no move to go further than that. "Oh, but you do know how to show proper respect to your lord, don't you dear paladin... But I think now isn't the time. I would ravish you like a boar, but we are not far from my manor and I don't think my wife will be understanding of the situation, at first."

Even as he spoke, Claudia experienced something very odd. There was a shrill, unnatural ringing to Lord Matthias's words that wasn't there before, reverberating as if he were speaking to her through a pane of glass. It actually hurt her ears to listen to. Claudia's eyes glazed over for a moment, and words came to her mind unbidden. It was a missive presented suddenly before her mind's eye, and Claudia somehow knew instinctively that it was true. 'High Lord Lorenz does not speak the truth. He has been impotent for over a decade, and his fondling of his guardswomen is a vain attempt to stir feeling in his flaccid manhood.'

Claudia awkwardly gulped and **** a smile, deciding that... revelation? ...was best left unannounced. Lord Matthias kept resting his hand on Claudia's thigh during the journey but no more.

Indeed, when the patriarch of the house of Lorenz began to give Claudia more details of his assignment, worry intruded into his voice. "My own daughter, Yvonne, is a flower of great beauty and has a gentle soul. But I fear that she is... naïve and that her beauty shall lead her to trouble. I've kept a very tight rein on her so far, seldom letting her out of my sight for more than a day and ensuring she has no contact with any male servants. But now that she has been introduced to the other noble families of St. Marmelise, I fear that... she might attract those men who would try to cheat her out of her honor. She is too accommodating and affectionate for her own good, always speaking to me of romantic notions and obsessing over frivolous plays and novellas. Naturally, I shall need you to keep their hands away from her, however necessary."

"Ah, yes, I think I understand, your lordship. You spoke of another maiden in your household as well? A cousin of Yvonne, I believe?" Claudia inquired.

"Mhm, ah, yes, my niece - that presents a challenge as well. Sterling is her name." Lord Matthias arched an eyebrow in thought and turned to look out the window at the garden of religious statuary that the carriage was passing. "Before he died, my dear brother-in-law, like me, raised her with an eye towards safeguarding her virtue... but through a very different method. You see, up until the past year, Sterling's father, Auric, had deliberately misled all the other families of the city as to his daughter's true sex. He raised her as he would a boy, essentially, and skirted the edge of outright lying... he never outright claimed that he had a son instead of a daughter or that Sterling was a boy rather than a girl, but he always dressed her in masculine clothes and even schooled her in swordplay, riding, and other manly pursuits... and when everyone who met the lass made the natural assumption about Sterling, Auric never bothered to correct them."

Matthias chuckled and gave Claudia's breast-hugging armor a gentle caress. "It was helped along by the fact that, though she is 19 years of age now, Sterling has a lanky figure and has never developed womanly assets like Yvonne... or yourself." Claudia smiled serenely at the compliment and nodded her thanks.

"So," Matthias continued, shaking his head wistfully, "A year ago, my dear brother-in-law was struck down before his time, and now I must deal with a wild girl running about the household, a spitfire who spends all her time attending knightly tournaments even when it is against the rules. Sterling is always talking about going questing, and I fear she may be unmarriageable. I have thought that perhaps I could sponsor her as a priestess of great Norvaskr... but the only possibility she has entertained is joining the Sisters of Holy War, which I find intolerable. I suspect that some of the local knights are encouraging her in such foolishness... but I cannot discount the possibility that it is a ploy by a priest of the god-who-we-shall-not-name to undermine my family's honor. Truth be told, I fear that Yvonne might be too delicate for many of the possible matches I could make with her, so it would be better if I could marry off Sterling to a man of quality instead. I think you might serve as a fine example of the new standard of pious behavior ... and if not, you can always distract these talkative knights and make sure they aren't still luring her towards improper behavior with all their tales of adventure."

"Ah!" Matthias clapped his hands softly. "We have arrived. I don't mean to sound over-concerned, Claudia... you are chosen, so of course I am sure that you will resolve all this perfectly, as Jaris would have it. I shall introduce you to Yvonne and Sterling over dinner..."

Even as she stepped out of the carriage and beheld the magnificent marble estate before her, a dozen servants and maids already lining up to escort her to a guest room, Claudia couldn't help but play all of the High Lord's words over in her mind. Once again, there was a prickling sensation in her mind. This mysterious intuition told her that Lord Matthias's description of the situation could not be counted on... but unlike when Matthias gave his reasons for not wanting Claudia in his bed, the Lord's words about his niece and daughter did not ring with deliberate falsehood. Claudia just knew that Matthias was terribly mistaken about this situation somehow, but how exactly, she wasn't yet sure. Was this the hand of Jaris somehow guiding her observations and alerting her to falsehood? That thought was both awe-inspiring and a bit frightening. Shaking her head as the servants escorted her to a luxurious room with a feather bed, Claudia resolved to focus on the task at hand, for now... dinner would be in just a few hours.