Handmaiden, The

The Handmaiden or K'ahtirts'yne is a novel written by an unknown Vht'shjenjé author sometime in the mid-Bronze Age. It is perhaps one of the earliest works of secular fiction ever written, and certainly one of the earliest to achieve widespread popularity. It is an account of court life around the Shjevtyrín in the mid-Thousand Year War era, containing several historical personalities but official chroniclers consider it to be a heavily fictionalised depiction. However, as the novel is highly popular many do consider its storyline to be the "true" course of history.
===Plot===
The protagonist of the story is the eponymous handmaiden Essjentír, who was captured as a infant and sold to the court as a slave. She was raised there and received training to become a handmaiden, of which she excels and is eventually immersed in the immortal's inner circle. The two are forbidden to speak at first and the first years of their life together they communicate solely by subtle secret codes. Special coloured beads in their hairstyles, scents, embroideries upon their exquisite robes, flower-petals arranged in strange symbols, all of these play out a love-story between the two that is hidden in plain sight for the entire court. It is not until Essjentír is promoted to be the immortal's right hand that their bodies touch for the first time, and nearly an entire chapter of the novel is dedicated to their first night.
While the bloody Thousand-Year War rages outside, their love story proceeds until the antagonist of the story, the charismatic schemer Ikhjetsjiren, begins to try to manipulate the Shjevtyrín for his own ends. He tries to disrupt the love between the two, and tries to manipulate Essjentír by unsuccessfully seducing her. No woman has ever been able to resist him before, and his failure with Essjentír drives him to hatred of her and the two commence a secret war within the court. The entire court lives on as normal, hidden from outsiders, but those involved in the secrets can see the signs everywhere, the handmaiden being torn between her love for her mistress and her hatred for Ikhjetsjiren. 
Essjentír eventually meets her end by a fanatic who denounces her as a black-blooded sorceress, stabs her with an obisidian blade and casts her down the long temple stairs where she dies. The novel does not explicitly say the fanatic was sent by Ikhjetsjiren but certainly suggests the possibility. The palace still remains as before, the glittering beads, the flower-petals and the perfumed braziers still speaking of a love but without someone to interpret the secret signals, the secret world of the Handmaiden is forever lost.
===Cultural significance===
The Handmaiden is one of the earliest examples of secular literature in Vht'shjenjé and its language is extremely archaic, though it relies far less on religious allusion than the Akhnjajeshtvá, making it easier to read for common people.
The novel was most likely written by a poet in Varvardnársh and almost immediately copied several times. It spread very quickly and became enormously popular among some classes and a source of immense controversy among others. Religious fanatics ritually mutilated themselves upon the streets of the city, lamenting the sacrilegious depiction of their immortal leader as a homosexual. Still far more have praised it for its beauty and creativity in the use of symbolism. 
The Handmaiden has yet to be translated into any other language.
Category:Literature
Category:Culture