by Laura Powell
‘But –’
‘It’s for your own good, but most of all hers. Aura –’ She stopped, took a deep breath. ‘Aura can’t be seen running around the city with young men. Especially idiots like you. So stay back and keep your mouth shut. We’re going home.’
Aiden tried to say something else, then stopped. Like me, he’d heard the note of fear in the old lady’s voice, underneath the fierceness.
Shakily, Leto and I descended the stairs. There were two brawny policemen waiting to clear our way but people kept back of their own accord, murmuring uneasily. I wondered what they had heard and what, if anything, they would make of it.
‘Leto,’ I whispered, as we got into the car. ‘The voice . . . whatever . . . whoever it was, it was . . . real.’
She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. Trust me, it won’t do you any good.’
Chapter 6
Back at the Sanctuary, there was nobody to tell even if I’d wanted to. Opis was attending a reception at the Royal Opera House, along with Cally and a couple of other priestesses.
‘Go sleep it off,’ Leto said as we parted. ‘Don’t cause trouble for yourself.’ I was too on-edge and exhausted to argue.
As I lay in bed, my head still echoing and body humming, I touched my lips, remembering the taste of blood, and a tremor ran through my spine. Green Knight . . . Python’s Child . . . Iron Lord . . . The words might as well have been in a foreign language. An alien tongue.
I was afraid to go to sleep. What if the hounds came for me again? I tossed and turned, imagining I could still hear the snap of their teeth, feel their hot animal breath on my skin. When Cally came in around midnight I closed my eyes and burrowed into the bedcovers so I wouldn’t have to deal with her. The next thing I knew, it was morning.
I watched Cally move about, humming under her breath, her face lit up with that private glow again. It didn’t trouble me. The tremors had gone; I felt calm, detached. There was no question of heeding Leto’s muddled warnings – my destiny was in Artemis’s hands. She’d given me an oracle and I was going to be High Priestess.
I wanted to see Opis before breakfast, but her PA told me she had already left for a meeting. I would have to wait until lunch.
In the meantime, I headed for the staff accommodation block. That’s usually the best place to get news – either from newspapers and magazines left in the bins, or else from overheard conversations. I was in luck: two of the cooks were on a cigarette break. Cally and I discovered long ago that their smoking area was the best place for eavesdropping; it even has an ivy-shrouded wall to hide behind.
‘. . . She fell down in a shopping centre,’ the younger cook was saying, ‘and started prophesying the End of Days.’
‘Well, the Goddess Squad do like their shopping,’ said her mate.
‘No, I’m serious – it was on the radio this morning. A priestess, it was. There were witnesses and everything. One of ’em said she heard an animal howl and this really creepy laughter. I dunno about the prophecy, though . . . something about snakes and metal men.’
The other woman laughed. ‘What, like robots?’
I would have liked to listen longer, but I was afraid of getting caught. As the morning wore on, my sense of calm deserted me. I wondered if the goddess would give me another oracle, and whether I wanted her to. I wondered if Opis could make sense of the words spoken through me.
On the way to see her, I passed Cynthia loitering on the lawn. She was the priestess who tried to run away. She used to be very pretty but there was something not quite right about her: she was too wispy and watery and, aged twenty-two, still sucked her thumb. ‘Woo-hoo, Opis is after you!’ she said in a babyish sing-song voice. I ignored her. Everyone does.
As I rang the bell on the Residence, I remembered my worries about the dinner party. They seemed so childish now. By the time I was shown into Opis’s salon, my palms were sweaty and mouth was dry. She was sitting at her desk, in her most formal suit (Armani, navy) and most intimidating headdress (spiked, jet).
‘I’ve already spoken to Leto and Aiden Carlyle this morning,’ she said crisply, and without preamble. ‘Now I’d like to hear your version of events.’
Haltingly, I tried to explain the impossible. ‘Well, um . . . Artemis and I . . . the goddess, that is . . . the goddess spoke to me? And she gave me an oracle?’
I had no idea why everything I said sounded like a question. The sceptical expression on Opis’s face just made everything worse. Every word I tried was clumsy and inadequate.
‘Leto and Aiden think you were ill,’ Opis said when I had finished. ‘They believe it was some kind of panic attack. After all, you were in a highly stressful situation.’
I was prepared for Leto’s treachery, even though I didn’t understand it. But what was Aiden’s game? I’d seen the shock and awe on his face; I’d heard it in his voice. I was sure he didn’t believe I was hysterical – did he?
‘Honoured Lady, I know it must have seemed strange – crazy even – to people on the outside. I can only say that what I felt, and saw, and heard wasn’t like anything I’ve ever experienced. I don’t understand it, but I know it was real. As real as me standing here and talking to you now.’
My voice trembled, but Opis didn’t respond. Argos stirred in his corner by the window and let out a plaintive whine.
I waited some more. ‘Don’t you . . . don’t you believe me?’
‘Dear Aura,’ Opis said at last, in the same cool tone as before, ‘I’ve always thought your judgement sound. And I’m sure you’re sincere. My main concern is the issue of information management. We don’t want the rumours to run wild.’
‘What do you think it meant? The Green Knight and the Iron Lord who cries –’
‘Certainly, the matter requires careful consideration. That’s why I must forbid you to speak to anyone about it. It will take time to form an appropriate response. There can be no room for error.’
Our High Priestess was right to be cautious. If I was going to be appointed her successor, she needed to make absolutely sure I was telling the truth.
I just wished that she could have acted a little more warmly, been a little less remote. It was almost as if she didn’t want to believe me. Maybe she thought Cally would have been a more worthy recipient of Artemis’s prophecy. Maybe Opis thought it should have come to her, as High Priestess, instead.
For the first time, I started to wonder how Opis might feel about giving up her powers. Unease prickled at my neck.
I went to the archive, but Leto refused to see me. Phoebe was there to give me the message that my services were no longer required. There was no sign of Aiden. I remembered the firm warmth of his hands, the shake in his voice when he said my name. He was denying his own experience as well as mine. He and Leto were as bad as each other, I fumed. Traitors and cowards.
Whatever ‘information management’ Opis was operating behind the scenes, it didn’t seem to be entirely successful. Several hours before evening prayers, a boisterous crowd started to collect outside the temple. Many were clutching the little goddess dolls sold in the temple gift shop, and others had brought offerings – home-made cupcakes, cheap jewellery, bottles of wine. After a TV news crew arrived to report on the scene, the Trinovantum Council sent a squad of minders to escort us from the Sanctuary as we made our way to the temple for weeknight prayers.
The priestesses kept trying to shush the handmaidens’ whispers and fidgets, even though they were as unsettled as everyone else. Rumours were flying, but nobody knew for sure what was involved. Or who. Most of the cult had been out and about yesterday; Leto and I weren’t the only ones to have been caught up in the disturbances. Cally was in an extra-specially snappish mood.
Just you wait, I thought.
I watched the High Priestess make the libations of wine. Behind her, Artemis’s statue rose up through a blue cloud of incense. To compare it or any other representation of the goddess to what I’d experienced was like holding up a child�
��s drawing of the sea to an actual ocean. What if the goddess visited me here and now? I felt sick and shivery at the thought.
An oracle is supposed to take place in the temple, after the proper rites have been performed. A question is asked and an answer given. A direct revelation is much rarer. One of the most famous examples was in 1665, when a handmaiden of nine years of age foresaw the Great Plague and ensured the evacuation of the cult; she was made High Priestess at the age of ten and lived to the age of thirty, but never gave another oracle of value. I’d shown her prophecy to Aiden, I remembered, with a returning wrench of anger at how he’d betrayed mine.
There was generally a low turnout for weeknight prayers. It was a full house tonight. After the show ended and our visitors had reluctantly shuffled out, we waited, as usual, for our High Priestess’s closing address. The silence throbbed with expectation.
‘My dear friends,’ she began, stepping up to the dais, ‘I have always known my position in this cult is both a privilege and a duty. I am a servant of the goddess, just the same as you.
‘The gift of prophecy is as mysterious as it is precious. Our mortal flesh is weak; our minds are clouded and easily confused. When I pray to Artemis to guide the words of my oracles, I tremble before her glory.
‘Yet sometimes even divine inspiration is not enough to show us the way. In the midst of confusion and despair, we long for the miracle of revelation. I am here to tell you that such a revelation has occurred. One of our number has been called by the goddess herself.’
She paused to let her audience react. I was grateful that we were veiled. I sucked in my breath along with the rest of them.
‘Her oracle will soon be shared with you all. For now, though, I wish to protect the identity of the prophetess. She needs to prepare herself to face the wider world and the demands it will make on her. And so I ask that you refrain from speculation and gossip. These are miraculous days and we must strive to be worthy of them. May Artemis Selene, Holy Lady of the Moon, inspire us all.’
We filed out of the temple in silence, the tension crackling between us like static. It wouldn’t be long before the guessing games began, but nobody wanted to be the first to be caught speaking out of turn.
I should have been reassured by Opis’s speech, yet there had been something in its tone that made me ill at ease, something slightly overblown. ‘I tremble before her glory . . .’ Is that how she spoke on important occasions, or had I only just started to notice it? I had no idea how I was supposed to prepare to ‘face the wider world’ either. Opis had her own PR rep and press officer. Why weren’t they, or anyone else, coming to talk to me?
At least I wouldn’t have to face Cally. Tomorrow was her sixteenth birthday, the day she would be initiated as a priestess, and she was spending the time before the ceremony in isolation, fasting and prayer. Afterwards, she’d move into her own room. Just a few weeks ago, the two of us had enjoyed a rare moment of harmony when we’d picked out the wallpaper and bed linen for our new priestess rooms. I’d been so excited by the prospect of an en-suite bathroom . . . It seemed like another life.
The following day the Sanctuary was besieged by journalists and miracle-seekers. Nobody was allowed in or out. The newspapers weren’t delivered to the handmaidens’ sitting room until twelve, when I pushed ahead of the younger girls to get first look. As usual, some articles had been cut out, but on this occasion we were only interested in one news item. AN ORACLE AWAKENS? was The Times’s headline. The cult’s press release was pretty much a summary of what Opis had said in the temple last night and was followed by a statement of support from the Trinovantum Council. Then came the oracle itself.
My oracle.
Except it wasn’t, quite.
The Green Knight will run red, but the match will be saved by the Iron Lord. He arises from havoc, and the Python’s Child shall preach until the troubles are done.
The next moment the newspaper was snatched from me and passed around, the other girls exclaiming and gasping, debating who the lucky handmaiden or priestess might be. The favourites were Cynthia, because she was odd, and Cally, because she looked the part. I barely heard any of it. There was a rushing and whirring in my head.
‘Honoured Lady, I don’t understand. These aren’t the words of my prophecy –’
I’d rushed over to the Residence and into the Gold Room without even waiting for the maid to announce me. Opis and Lionel Winter were going over the accounts, sitting close together and laughing about something. When they saw me standing before them, they abruptly straightened up. Lionel Winter gave me his flintiest stare.
Opis, however, didn’t look angry. She spoke slowly and calmly, as if to a wayward child.
‘There were witnesses to your oracle, Aura. Reliable ones.’
‘Witnesses? Do you mean Aiden and Leto?’
‘Yes. They’ve made an official statement.’
‘But – but you said they didn’t believe me – they thought I was having a panic attack –’
‘Whatever they thought of your state of mind, they were quite clear as to what they heard you say.’
I tried to speak again, but Lionel Winter talked over me.
‘You were possessed by a god,’ he said. ‘Your mind was assaulted, your senses scattered. It’s not surprising your memories of the event are confused.’
‘Exactly.’ Opis leaned forward, took on a confiding tone. ‘When I give the oracle, I hardly know day from night, up from down. That’s why the Lord Herne is by my side when I receive the goddess. I need someone to bear witness, as well as help interpret the prophecy.’
I bit my lip. It felt as if the words I’d spoken had been seared into my brain:
The Green Knight will run red, for the march is stolen by the Iron Lord. He cries havoc, and the Python’s Child shall preach with a double tongue.
‘March is stolen’ was very different to ‘match will be saved’. And the phrase ‘until the troubles are done’ was more clunky, if less mysterious, than ‘double tongue’ . . . I pressed my hands to my eyes, trying to recall every last detail of my vision.
‘I can’t forget what I heard. I’m certain I got the words right.’
‘Events will decide,’ Lionel replied. ‘After all, your prediction has yet to be fulfilled.’
‘If and when it’s been proven,’ said Opis sweetly, ‘we’ll talk again. That’s when we will present you to the world, and you can tell your story however you wish.’
I shook my head in frustration. ‘By then it will be too late. The prophecy’s a warning – I’m sure of it. If we can just work out –’
Lionel held up his hand to silence me. ‘The High Priestess and I have extensive experience of interpreting the words of the goddess. It would be presumptuous of you to even attempt the task.’
‘Besides,’ said Opis, ‘you have other responsibilities to attend to. Callisto is dedicating herself to the cult today, and your own initiation is the day after tomorrow.’ She smiled, though her eyes were flat and cold. ‘Whatever the future holds, dear Aura, it’s the present you should be concerned with.’
Chapter 7
The first part of my oracle came true the next evening. It was announced by a shrieking storm of police and ambulance sirens, but they were so common these days we barely noticed. And all the handmaidens were preoccupied anyway, with preparing Cally for her initiation.
It began with a bath. There was a room in the depths of Artemisia House that had been specially built for this purpose. It was meant to evoke the mystic grotto where the goddess bathed with her nymphs, and has a kind of marble paddling pool in the centre, surrounded by potted ferns. The walls were painted with scenes of ancient Greek nymphs as imagined by the late Victorians, all plump pink flesh and rosebud mouths.
We rigged up curtains round the pool to give Cally some privacy, and put tea lights among the greenery. Although the water came from a London tap, we added a few drops that were bottled at the sacred spring in Delphi in Greece. We were suppose
d to sing choral odes as the initiate splashes about, though without Cally to keep us in tune it was all bit creaky.
When she emerged, bathed and dressed, it was to a chorus of admiring coos. She was wearing a white silk tunic, fastened with gold pins at the shoulder, and a gold girdle round her waist. Her veil was crowned by a wreath of white asphodel and dark purple amaranths. After the ceremony, she would be presented with a priestess’s mantle of violet wool with a silver trim.
I scanned Cally’s face for signs of anxiety. She must be worrying about the oracle, and people’s reaction once they found out it wasn’t her. She was upright and stiff, with two spots of colour high on her cheeks. But that just showed she was taking her initiation with the proper seriousness.
Although the service wasn’t open to the general public, the Sacred Hall was full to bursting. Cally’s mother was in the front row, wearing a dangerously low-cut top. She kept dabbing at her eyes throughout the ceremony, collagen-swollen lips quivering with emotion. Most of the Trinovantum Council had turned up. Seb was there, and Aiden too.
This really surprised me. What was in it for him? It occurred to me that he’d made some deal with Opis and the council, in return for reducing his community service. That would explain his behaviour over my oracle. Bitterness flooded me – so much for his high-minded, man-of-the-people act. I wanted to catch his eye to glare at him but he spent the whole time staring stiffly at the floor.
Health and safety regulations, not to mention animal rights, had put a stop to the traditional sacrifice of a white hart, so we handmaidens had baked a honey-cake in the shape of a deer to place on the altar as an offering. It was the priestesses who would lead Callisto down to the crypt and deliver her to the Seat of the Oracle.
I tried to imagine the same thing happening to me on my own birthday, the day after tomorrow. It didn’t feel real. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the words of the prophecy, and how far I could trust my own mind. Or how far I could trust Opis . . . Perhaps I should have paid more attention when Aiden had made references to her ruthlessness. But he was a liar, I told myself. I should forget all about him.