Tooth and Claw

by Jo Walton

There was a splendid chapel a little in the old style within Benandi Place, where the Exalt generally heard a Firstday evening service. In the morning she preferred to attend the church (which was dedicated to Sainted Gerin, but known to all as Benandi Church) conveniently located downwind in the valley. With many of our gentry who have chapels of their own but who prefer to attend divine service in public, the impulse springs from a desire to be seen, or to be seen to do one’s duty, or sometimes simply from a dislike of the early rising required to have a service in the chapel, which must necessarily occur before the one in the church. With the Exalt, however, everyone knew it was rather that she desired to see everyone else doing their duty in church. If she did not see any of her farmers, or indeed her neighbors, in church on a Firstday morning, she regarded it as part of her duty to visit them within a day or two and inquire into the matter. The dragons in the neighborhood of Benandi Place were thus much given to admirably regular and punctual churchgoing.