Tarue stood nude before the full length mirror in her cell. The mirror was perfect of surface, evenly silvered. It was the work of several skilled, careful craftsmen to cast such a device. It was an expensive luxury. She would have marveled at when she was a novice.
For a Priestess of Worship it was a necessity. She must always have a clear, unclouded view of herself in order to reflect the glory of the Goddess before her worshippers. The mirror represented truth, not vanity.
At the age of 30 summers, Tarue was no longer the svelte girl who had taken her first vows to honor the Earth Goddess at 14, when her menses began. Now she was in bloom, full of the power of the Goddess.
She had matured physically through her noviate, and was the most beautiful of her class. Her breasts had filled out like summer melons, the nipples long and firm, the areola broad and brown and sensitive to the touch. The rounded orbs defied the pull of the full earth.
Later, as a Sister of Access, she had borne a child, a joyful time among the sisterhood. She nursed the little girl for a year. In that year her breasts had settled lower on her chest. But they were even bigger, and she knew the worshippers were stunned by the perfection of their shape, their sensual smoothness, the firm fullness of them.
Her hips had broadened. She looked critically at herself in the glass. She was in almost perfect proportion, the High Priestess often told her. She was as tall as most of the men who worshipped at the shrine of the Goddess. Her shoulders were broad, as though to support the bounty of her breasts. Her skin was pale and unlined. Part of that, she knew, was that she was a little heavier than when she was 20 summers old.
Her black hair fell down her naked back to her rounded buttocks. She brushed her hair each night, some hundreds of strokes, which helped both the hair and the tensioning of the muscles that supported her chest.
Her eyes were black and snapping, under eyebrows that were unplucked but carefully trimmed at the edges to subtly shape them. Her nose was prominent. One day far in the future, after the Romans spread their civilization this far East, it would be called a Roman nose. She opened her eyes a bit wider, to ease the little lines that tried to appear at the outside corners.
Her lips were lush and the color was that shade of red which must have some artifice but appeared natural. Her mouth was wide, her teeth white and perfect. Her cheekbones, indeed all the planes of her face, loved the light. She was in that ageless zone when a woman is full and complete and still sculpted.
Her legs were straight and full and rounded, up to the holy junction. A thicket of black hair covered her mons, and, growing thinner, crept up the sweet rounded belly almost to her navel. The pubic hair curled down to the tops of her thighs. The sisters would never have seen a need to cut back the very glory of the One they served.
"I thank the Goddess," She murmured, satisfied that she was worthy to continue to serve in the ritual of worship.
She scooped up a heavy, plum-colored robe and wrapped it around herself, suddenly modest. It was not meet to admire oneself for the gifts of the Goddess. She slipped on a pair of simple, leather sandals and walked past a hanging curtain into a hallway. She made her way to the Temple of Individual Worship. A bell rang the hour, which was one glass since the sun had disappeared. The breeze off the plains was cool. It was not the holiest of hours, but it was still propitious.
She entered the candle-lit chamber with no ceremony, but the three persons already there stood at once, to honor the Goddess she represented. She nodded to them.
The Worshipper was a hero, granted the rare opportunity to be in a full priestess and not a Sister of Access. Indeed there were only three Priestesses of Worship at a time. And now there were only two, as Sister Maune had recently passed away. The only higher rank was the High Priestess, who Tarue thought was the most beautiful woman in the world although she had lived 50 summers.
The hero was a soldier's cloak and sandals cross-bound up his calves. Tarue remembered that he had performed some marvelous act of courage, facing a host of enemies with his bronze sword, saving many of his comrades. He was a fearless warrior who had risked his life for those of his men. Now, however, he looked rather like a frightened boy.
Tarue settled onto the stone dais at one end of the rectangular room. The wall behind was blue, decorated with semi-precious stones that cast back flickers from the candlelight. The dais was not cushioned. All the softness of the worship ceremony was to come from the humans locked together. The priestess spread her cloak, which was at least thick enough to block some of the chill. She was naked, open, proud. She was not the Goddess. But in some sense tonight she would become the Goddess.
