by Laura Powell
‘I never get tired of looking at it,’ said Opis’s voice behind me.
Startled, I turned round and touched my hand to my brow in greeting. ‘Honoured Lady.’
Her eyes remained on the painting. ‘It would be such a tragedy if we had to let it go.’
‘Let it go?’
‘Since the crash, our financial security cannot be guaranteed.’ She gave an elegant shrug. ‘Even a High Priestess needs to balance the books. But don’t look so dismayed, Aura – we won’t be selling the family silver just yet. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.’
Opis’s salon was in feminine contrast to the formality of the ground floor. The furniture was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and the pretty wallpaper featured birds of paradise. A host of framed photographs displayed Opis with the American ambassador, Opis with an uncomfortable-looking Archbishop of Canterbury, Opis at the royal wedding.
Her PA brought us tea and cinnamon biscuits as the Irish wolfhound, Argos, pressed its nose against my knee. The High Priestess always keeps a dog, but Opis had the look of a cat person, being slim and dark, with slanting eyes and high cheekbones, a precise red mouth. She sat back on the sofa and kicked off her heels with little purr of satisfaction.
‘Did you enjoy the festival yesterday, Aura?’
‘Very much, Honoured Lady.’
We made chit-chat about the weather, the guests, the Lord Herne’s speech. Everything but the main talking point, in fact.
‘The man with the snakes . . .’ I began hesitantly.
Opis frowned. ‘Lunatics are not worthy of our attention.’
‘I know he must have been crazy. I just . . . I just wondered if you’d met him before, maybe? I mean, he knew your name. Your old one, that is.’
I regretted it at once. ‘You are mistaken,’ Opis said acidly. ‘That is an absurd idea. Frankly, I find it a little disturbing that you are so determined to dwell on yesterday’s unpleasantness. It suggests an appetite for drama and scandal that is unbecoming in a handmaiden of the cult.’
I lowered my head, ashamed. I sometimes worried that I had a knack for rubbing Opis up the wrong way. ‘I’m very sorry, Honoured Lady. I didn’t mean to cause offence.’
‘Very well.’ Opis granted me a gracious smile. ‘We won’t speak of it again. After all, there are much more important matters to attend to. The oracle warned us of tests to come.’
An oracle is always given at the festival, after the parade is over and the High Priestess and the Lord Herne enter the temple alone. The High Priestess then descends to the Chamber of the Oracle, inhales the smoke of laurel leaves and other secret herbs, and waits for divine inspiration to strike. The prophecy that Opis had given yesterday spoke of ‘a time of trial and a new hope’.
‘What do you think of this election business, for instance?’ she asked.
I nearly choked on my tea. Then I realised that she was talking about the general election. We didn’t follow politics very closely in the cult, but I knew that the prime minister, Nicholas Riley, had just won a new term in office despite the Electoral Commission finding evidence of vote-rigging and fraud.
‘It’s very troubling, Honoured Lady. The country lacks leadership.’ I searched for something intelligent to say. ‘However, maybe this could be a chance for the cult to take a more active role in public life?’
‘Indeed it could. I worry, however, that some of us have become a little too set in our ways. A little too complacent.’ She paused. ‘However, I believe you, Aura, are different. It strikes me that you are a realist. Not a romantic.’
‘I think priestesses need to be a bit of both.’
‘Well, it’s clear you’re a credit to the cult. Your teachers speak very highly of you. I enjoyed reading the choral ode you composed in Greek class last week. “Star-jewelled queen of the midnight chase . . .” ’ She repeated it in Greek. ‘Quite charming.’
‘Thank you, Honoured Lady.’
‘But learning is not everything, you know – leadership requires something more. Grace and poise can’t be learned from books.’
I realised I was fidgeting with my teacup and, with effort, stilled my hands. ‘No, Honoured Lady.’
‘As it happens, I’m holding a supper party here tomorrow. Just a few Trinovantum guests and their friends. I’d like you to come.’
I was given little chance to express my thanks. Opis was already ringing for her assistant to show me out. As I was leaving, she licked a smudge of cinnamon off her finger, neat as a cat. ‘Ask Callisto to pop round, will you?’
I had been a guest at quite a few society events. Horse racing at Ascot . . . rowing at Henley . . . opera at Glyndebourne. On these occasions, cult representatives were mostly silent and decorative. A private dinner party was different. It was an honour to be asked, but it would also be a test of my social skills and networking ability. Cally’s too, presumably.
I went back to Artemisia House and into the handmaidens’ sitting room to tell Cally that Opis wanted to see her as well. She and the rest of the girls were sprawled on the over-sized velvet sofas, watching a Disney film. The floor was littered with shopping bags and wrapping paper, as well as boxes of chocolates that had been left at the temple for us on Festival Day. Since our allowance was given in the form of credit marks rather than money, I didn’t know much about the actual business of pounds and pence. Until Opis threatened to sell the Titian, I’d never really thought about how our shopping habit was paid for.
Artemisia House was by far the largest of the set of buildings, known as the Sanctuary, that occupies the block between the Temple of Artemis and Newgate Street. The house was rebuilt at the height of Victorian swagger and was far too big for us.
A grand staircase of treacle-dark wood led to a warren of shadowy corridors and cavernous rooms. In spite of their size, they always looked cluttered, thanks to an abundance of antiques (gifted to the cult by wealthy patrons) and temple bric-a-brac. Embroidered altar cloths and tapestries lined the walls; the alcoves were filled with statues of classical heroes and decorative bronze urns. And then there were the stuffed animals, which lined the halls in glass cases like a zoo for the dead. Wolves, boar, even a leopard . . . eyes glassy, fangs bared.
As I climbed the stairs to our dormitory, I started to wonder about the cost of heating and lighting the building, not to mention the army of domestic staff employed to look after it. It was time I got some financial know-how, I decided. Surely it was a good sign that Opis had told me it was a requirement of her job.
I felt a fizz of anticipation. Things were changing and I had a part to play. ‘I’m going to a party,’ I said aloud, as I stood in the empty dormitory.
Then I thought how the evening would be full of stern old men and pompous dowagers. Everyone there would be assessing my table manners and conversation, comparing my charm to Callisto’s. My high spirits evaporated.
I pulled off my headscarf. It was white silk, and worn draped over the hair and round the neck. When we were required to veil up, we drew one end across the lower face and pinned it to the other side. But I’d expected to be barefaced at a private dinner party. Among strangers, it would feel like nakedness.
I looked in the mirror and practised my smile. My face stared back, unconvinced.
Cally’s cheeks had the same rosy flush, her hair the same coppery-gold gleam, as the goddess in Titian’s painting. Her blue eyes glowed with holiness. Mine were washed-out grey. I was small and skinny. My hair was fine and dusty-fair, my skin pale as a ghost’s. Next to Cally, I was colourless.
I didn’t start off colourless. I was famous, in fact: the baby left on the temple’s steps as a gift for Artemis. There were only two handmaidens when I arrived, and they graduated to priestesses a couple of years later. In the beginning I was everyone’s pet, the cult’s lucky charm. But as I grew older my novelty wore off. Sometimes I was a nuisance, mostly I was a non-entity. I was always alone.
So I prayed to Artemis to send me a friend. I got Callisto instead.
According to gossip I overheard from the cleaners, Callisto’s mother was on the edge of celebrity, thanks to a bit of acting and some famous boyfriends – though which of these was responsible for Cally has never been clear. Following a stint in rehab, she’d gone public about putting her daughter in the temple to ‘give her a better life’.
Intrigued and excited, I watched the new handmaiden’s arrival from an archive store that overlooked Temple Square. I wasn’t the only one: word had spread, and a crowd had gathered.
Paparazzi sprang into action when a car swept into the square and a dainty little girl in a pink frock got out. She was followed by a woman in a very tight dress and dark glasses. Cameras whirred and clicked as the pair climbed the temple steps to where Opis was waiting to receive them. Mother and daughter embraced, the woman removing her glasses to brush away a single glistening tear. The girl turned to wave goodbye to the crowd. She was perfectly posed, perfectly adorable.
Her own tears came later. A whole tantrum’s worth of them, according to the whispers in the priestesses’ sitting room. When she finally came into the room we were to share, I saw that even red eyes and crying-blotches couldn’t obscure her prettiness.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m Aura.’
She regarded me silently. Then she reached over and gave my hair a yank, so hard I yelped. Tears of shock sprang into my eyes.
‘Ow! Why’d you do that?’
Callisto smiled. It was a smile I’d get to know very well over the years: satisfied, secretive, shining with righteousness.
‘Because the goddess told me to.’
The goddess told Callisto many things. On any given day, she might instruct her to take the last slice of cake, to blame me for a stained altar cloth or trip up the younger girls when they were noisy in the corridor. Whereas I’d been dumped on the temple steps like any old rubbish, she, Callisto, had been Chosen. Artemis had appeared to her in a dream and called her to the cult.
Her mother still visited, occasionally. Sometimes she was polished to a high-impact shine; sometimes she was dishevelled and her eyes didn’t focus properly. In the first year after Cally joined us, her mother made regular appearances in the press, gushing about her daughter, ‘Artemis’s Own Angel’, and the heart-rending sacrifice of giving her up.
The cult wasn’t above a bit of PR spin either. Last year, there was a special feature in the Daily Mail, complete with a soft-focus shot of Cally in ceremonial robes, gazing pensively out of a window. According to the journalist, our days were a merry round of ‘sacred rituals, charitable works and feminine accomplishments’. Cally and I, of course, had turned all these things into a competition.
The day of the dinner party, Opis decreed that Cally and I were to move out of the dormitory into a double room. The peace and quiet would help us prepare for our initiations next week. And so we’d been put back in the room we’d shared when Cally first joined the cult. Nothing had changed, from the two four-poster beds with tasselled canopies to the wardrobe the size of a small bathroom. It had been one of Cally’s favourite games to lock me in it before prayers.
Once we’d unpacked, it was time to get ready for the evening. I fingered last month’s shopping-day purchase: a pale green chiffon dress with a beaded bodice. But only priestesses got to wear their own clothes to private social functions; the rest of us used any excuse to get dressed up – Phoebe had even been known to wear a ballgown to Sunday lunch. I turned away from the chiffon and reached for a clean navy tunic and my special-occasion mantle with a border of embroidered peacock feathers.
‘Feeling nervous?’ Cally asked, smoothing down her veil.
‘No. Why do you say that?’
‘You’re doing that weird thing with your lower lip. Pulling it out. You always do it when you’re anxious. It’s kind of disgusting.’
I abruptly moved my hand from my mouth. Callisto, as ever, knew me far too well.
‘Poor Aura. I know how awkward you get on social occasions. Follow my lead, and you’ll be fine.’ Her voice was sugar with a dose of syrup. ‘You might as well start getting used to it.’
Chapter 3
There were two reception rooms in the High Priestess’s Residence. The Silver Room housed the Titian, and the Gold adjoined the dining room at the back of the house. Cally and I entered the Gold Room together, side by side.
Opis had arranged for us to arrive last so that our entrance would have maximum impact. She glided over to greet us, wearing a low-cut black evening gown and the pearl headdress she used for parties. ‘How lovely to see you, my dears.’ She gave a conspiratorial smile. ‘Why don’t you show yourselves to our friends?’
Cally and I drew back our veils. It would be the first time members of the Trinovantum Council had seen our faces. Opis knew what she was doing – a dash of theatricality is part of what’s kept the cult going over the years. Silence fell. Eyes front, shoulders back, I told myself. Don’t let them see you flinch.
Before the moment could go on too long, Opis drew us into the room and started making introductions. The most prominent guest was Lionel Winter, the head of the Trinovantum Council and the Lord Herne. He was a frequent visitor to the Sanctuary and was a handsome man, thin-lipped, with a high domed forehead and a sweep of silvery-blond hair. He was accompanying the Honoured Apollonia, who had been High Priestess before Opis. A doll-like woman in her mid sixties, she blinked at the gathering with faded blue eyes as if she couldn’t quite work out what she was doing there. Since her retirement she rarely visited the cult, and she seemed keen to keep her visit that evening to a minimum, slipping away soon after Cally and I arrived.
Of the other guests, I already knew the hawk-faced Lady Sudely, one of our major donors, and the shrivelled old council treasurer and his even more shrivelled wife. The two younger councillors with whom they were standing were the type Cally called chinless wonders, and who always pop up at this kind of event.
Gathered together, these people were even more than usually intimidating. Without the veil to hide my emotions, I could feel my face turning as wooden as a doll’s.
‘Let me introduce you to my nephew, Sebastian,’ said Winter as a tall young man turned from the fireplace.
It was King Brutus. He shook my and Cally’s hands, looking just as regal and bored as when he was riding in the parade. ‘Call me Seb.’
‘And I’m Scarlet,’ announced the girl next to him. She had a dishevelled crop of dark hair and glossy lips the same colour as her name. I could see Cally eyeing her dress disapprovingly. It was leopard print, skimpy yet expensive-looking, accessorised by towering black stilettos. She certainly wasn’t the usual kind of visitor to the cult. She must be the daughter of some big patron, I decided.
Small talk was mostly confined to the festival and, as others joined us, the shocking episode with the snakes. Various people lamented the scandalous state of social services that meant that hordes of lunatics were free to wander the streets. Seb’s bravery in tackling the man was widely praised.
‘You must have been right at the centre of things,’ one of the chinless wonders said to me. ‘Any clues as to what the nutter was on about?’
I was pretty sure he was joking, but I could feel Opis’s eyes on me. ‘Uh, no. Not at all. I was just too, you know, shocked.’
‘Poor Aura’s always been highly strung,’ Cally said. She turned to me, a look of tender concern on her face. ‘I really thought you were going to pass out with fright.’
Before I could think of any sort of comeback, the conversation had moved on.
My best hope was that the attention would go to Cally’s head. She’d already had quite a lot of champagne. Maybe she’d become flighty, indiscreet. While Opis was distracted by Lady Sudely, I took the opportunity to slip out into the hall. I needed a moment to collect myself.
Click-clack-click went the tap of toenails on polished wood. ‘Argos!’ I whispered. ‘What are you doing here?’ The wolfhound looked at me with mournful eyes. His tail wagged in apo
logy.
Opis wouldn’t want him on the loose. As I looked around for the maid, Argos trotted off, nudging open the door to the Silver Room across the way. Muttering under my breath, I went to retrieve him.
Argos wasn’t alone. A stranger was standing in front of the Titian. He was unlikely to be a burglar, since he was dressed for dinner in white tie and tails. I tried to grab Argos’s collar and back away before we were spotted, but the dog wriggled free.
The unknown guest, however, barely glanced in our direction. His eyes were fixed on the painting as he began to speak.
‘For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,
and we are so awed by because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us . . . ’
For the second time in two days I stared at Actaeon’s agony, the goddess’s vengeful gleam. The words hummed through my body, almost as if I’d heard them before. The guest had recited the verse quite softly and unselfconsciously, as if he was talking to himself.
‘Sorry,’ he said abruptly, turning round. I saw he was younger than I’d thought at first, only a couple of years older than me. ‘I’m not usually so pretentious at parties. I’m Aiden. Which one are you?’
As if we were all interchangeable. I put a hand on Argos’s wiry grey head for reassurance. ‘I’m Aura. It’s nice to meet you.’ He might be rude, but I couldn’t afford to make a bad impression.
I’m used to being gawped at; it goes with the uniform. But of course a handmaiden unveiled is even more of a spectacle. Now that this Aiden person was giving me his full attention, he made no attempt to hide his curiosity. His look was bold, assessing, amused. I felt myself flush, though I didn’t lower my eyes.
