by Laura Powell
It was strange to be in such a place. All through the centuries, we’d been competing faiths, authorities, tourist attractions. I thought the abbey draughty and gloomy, and pitifully plain when compared to the temple’s glitter. Yet it was somehow also like home. There was the same smell of incense and candle smoke, the same solemn, hushed air. And the Christian priests – the dean and a canon – were kind.
They sat me down in one of the side chapels and brought me water. A couple of the MPs were there too. Like me, they were a little dazed, but soon began to regain their spirits.
‘It’s the beginning of the end,’ said a middle-aged woman who said she was a shadow health minister. ‘The Emergency Committee members are already fighting like cat and dog. After an embarrassment like this, there’s no way General Ferrer can hold them together.’
‘We can’t be complacent,’ said the dean. ‘That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.’
‘And it was Artemis who got us out,’ I said.
The clergyman gave me a wary smile. ‘Faith does indeed move in mysterious ways. You were very brave to challenge the general as you did.’
I shook my head. It wasn’t courage. It was the exhaustion of someone with nothing to lose. Just for a moment, part of me wouldn’t have minded if the general had shot me where I stood.
A couple of medics were attending to the injured, and now the canon went outside to appeal for any more doctors in the crowd. He came back to report that bonfires had been lit on the green, bottles were being passed around, and there was laughter and dancing. A lot of people were camped outside the main doors, waiting for me to emerge and perform miracles. One of them, he said, claimed to be a friend of mine and had left a message for me.
Aiden, I thought, with a clench of my heart. I remembered the glimpse of his bloody face, among the crush of bodies and police batons. I’d thought I’d caught sight of him urging on the crowd in the final push. But the priest said the friend was a young woman, and that her face was covered. She seemed frightened, he said.
Chapter 21
The note was from Cynthia, though her handwriting was so cramped it was nearly illegible. She said that she had run away from the Sanctuary just before Malcolm Greeve’s visit and now she didn’t know what to do or where to go. She would wait for me behind the abbey, on the corner of Solomon Street.
One of the medics agreed to be my decoy. We were about the same build and colouring. After we’d swapped clothes it wasn’t a bad match, in the dark. She left through a side entrance, to draw attention away from me as I made my own exit through the back.
The streets were full of people out in defiance of the curfew, even though the telephone networks were still down and the roads closed to traffic. Some of them were heading home after the demonstration, but many others were coming to join the ongoing celebrations. The city was being reclaimed by its citizens.
Cynthia was waiting on the corner, her face part-covered by a scarf. When she saw me, she started, looked around in a panicky sort of way, and headed down the street. I called for her to wait, then reluctantly followed.
The road was well lit and there were plenty of people about. We were only a few minutes away from the abbey. Even so, I regretted turning down offers of an escort. I had been worried that the presence of strangers might alarm the fugitive.
When she turned into an alleyway, I kept my distance. I didn’t like this. ‘Cynthia?’
She stopped and turned. ‘It’s not Cynthia,’ said Cally’s voice from behind the scarf. ‘I’m sorry –’
There was an engine’s roar, squealing brakes, screeching tyres. A felt hood was already dropping over my head, as an unknown assailant pinned my arms behind my back and bundled me into a car.
My heart was speeding, a thin, dry buzz. I felt smooth leather seats, smelled the faintest trace of cigar smoke and perfume. I thought I might be in one of the Trinovantum Council’s limos, the ones with blacked-out windows, and a pass for the curfew. After only a short drive – at high speed – the car came to an abrupt halt, and I was marched along the pavement, then down a steep flight of stairs.
A trickle of sweat ran down my back. I had already guessed where I was being taken. Then I smelled smoke and herbs and knew for certain.
Sure enough, when my hood was removed, I found myself standing in the Chamber of the Oracle. There was Artemis Selene in her alcove. There was the tripod seat and brazier on the stand. There was the little bronze door.
And there, standing in the lamplight and flickering shadows, were the people who’d tried to steal the oracle from me. Seb and Lionel Winter looked out of place in their suits, but Opis and Cally more than made up for it in their ritual finery. Malcolm Greeve had clearly been given the full show.
Opis was wearing the moonstone headdress, her white robes overlaid with a silver brocade mantel studded with pearls. She looked like a column of ice. Cally was swathed in purple-black drapes, presumably for dramatic contrast. Her hair was coiffured into an elaborate crown of curls, her face heavily made up with glittering eyelids and a glossy red mouth. She regarded me steadily but with no sign of recognition.
The two priestesses and the Lord Herne had the slightly smudged, tousled appearance of people who’ve stayed too long at a party. Lionel Winter was plucking irritably at his lip; Cally’s face was wan and pinched under the heavy cosmetics. Only Seb seemed untouched, his bronze helmet of hair smooth as ever, his face a perfectly regular blank. It must have been him who’d bundled me into the car; now he busied himself with binding my wrists and legs. He gave a little smirk, and I wondered how I’d ever thought him handsome.
‘What have you done to Cynthia?’ I asked, though my mouth was so dry it was hard to speak.
‘You needn’t concern yourself with her,’ said Opis. ‘She and Leto have transgressed, and they will be punished appropriately. Your crimes, however, are of a more grievous nature. You have sinned against Holy Artemis in thought, word and deed. And her judgement shall be merciless.’
Cally made a small muffled sound. Seb took her hand and patted it soothingly.
‘I’m not worried about the goddess,’ I said. ‘I’ve kept my vows – unlike everyone else in this room.’
‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done, girl?’ Lionel Winter’s eyes were rimmed with red and his pale sweep of hair was looking dishevelled rather than majestic. ‘Until recently, it’s true, you might have led a sheltered life, but I can’t believe you are ignorant of what’s become of this country. The poverty, the squalor, the chaos. The people have been crying out for leadership. Somebody had to step in. Somebody had to take charge. Yet you’ve done nothing but undermine the authority of our new government and incite rebellion. We are doing this for the good –’
‘No. You’re doing this out of vanity and greed.’ I looked at Opis. ‘You can’t still believe that I’m making the prophecies up. Aren’t you even a little afraid of what you’re doing?’
Cally made another choking noise.
‘Sebastian, take Callisto out of here,’ Opis said sharply. ‘The poor girl’s getting upset.’
Seb put his arm round Callisto’s shoulders, whispered tenderly in her ear. Then he led her by the hand up the stairs to the Sacred Hall. She didn’t look back.
‘What a lovely couple,’ I said. ‘Your pimping has really paid off. The two of you must be very proud.’
Lionel looked genuinely offended. ‘I am a sanctified person and loyal servant of the goddess. Everything I have done, for the cult and the country, has been in good faith.’
‘Yes, you little slut,’ Opis hissed. ‘Don’t think we don’t know what you’ve been up to with that lout Aiden Carlyle –’
Lionel gave a slight cough. ‘My dear, perhaps we should stay focused on the issue at hand. If Aura is to publicly renounce her oracles –’
‘That’s all very well. But first Aura needs to atone for her transgressions.’
I swallowed hard. Lionel and Opis were looking at each other, i
n silent negotiation.
‘Your time will come later, Lionel,’ she said. ‘For now, this is a disciplinary matter between Aura and me. And Holy Artemis.’
He seemed about to object, but Opis drew herself up to her full height. ‘I am still High Priestess and head of this temple. There are rituals to be performed, penance to be made. I will exorcise Aura’s demons and lead her back to the path of righteousness. You need to leave me to my work.’
The Lord Herne didn’t look happy. But he did, in the end, turn and go.
And then it was just me and Opis, alone in the underworld.
For a long time neither of us spoke. I looked past Opis to the small crude statue of the goddess. If one could see behind the carved veil, I thought she would be smiling, curved and secret and cold, colder than stone.
‘I can feel her,’ I said. ‘Artemis. She’s with us now. Watching, waiting.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not. And neither was my mother, Carya. Yes – I know the truth about her now. Harry Soames told me everything.’
‘Your mother was a lying slut. Just like you.’
‘Her oracle was true, and so are mine.’
‘Shut up.’ Opis thrust her head forward. Just for a moment, I thought I saw a forked tongue flicker from her mouth. ‘Shut up.’ She took a step back, gave a cracked laugh. ‘Funny. I used to think you were such a poor mousy little thing. Not like Carya, who was always so full of herself, so insolent, though she came from nothing. Sly too. She’d bat her eyes at every man who crossed her path, worming her way into their affections. Even after I’d won, and I’d taken my rightful place at the head of the cult, she was scheming to undermine me. Steal what was mine.’ Flecks of spit had gathered in the corner of Opis’s mouth; her make-up was smeared all around her eyes. I had never seen her less than perfectly polished, in perfect control. This was much more frightening.
‘It didn’t take long for Carya’s crimes to be exposed. By attempting to steal the position from me, that whore brought shame upon herself and the temple, and the goddess took her revenge. And I was generous in my victory. I gave her bastard a home. I gave you food, clothes, an education. You wanted for nothing. And then – then – you flung it all back in my face. Trying to mock me, to ruin me. Just as Carya had. You see, I know what you are. Like mother, like daughter. Yes. You are the real snake in this temple.’
I licked my dry lips. ‘Everything . . . everything I have done has been for the goddess.’
‘Oh? Then where is she now? If she’s watching, waiting, why isn’t she coming to rescue you?’ Opis flung out her arms. ‘Where is her thunderbolt, her silver arrow?’
Her laughter echoed around the crypt. Her smile was like ice.
‘You’ve forgotten the stories I raised you on, Aura. The gods are no better than us. Unfaithful, neglectful. Cruel. I think you are alone. I think you are all alone, with me.’
I braced myself for some act of violence. The High Priestess, however, had a ritual to prepare. She moved away from me with an impatient whisk of her skirts and set about lighting two black candles in the statue’s alcove. They had been studded with animal teeth. As the candles melted, fragments of yellowed fangs were released into pools of wax.
Opis held up a small gong and began to beat it rhythmically as she circled the brazier, pausing now and then to toss yew berries on to the dish of herbs above the fire. A purplish, sickly-sweet smoke soon filled the room. The shuddering clash of the gong pulsed in my head, so I could hardly hear the High Priestess’s chant. I knew what it was, though: the words of a casting-out ceremony. Where there is Light, let there be Dark; where there is Hope, Dread; where there is Love, Loss . . .
As the last quivers of the gong died away, Opis took out a small clay doll and a spool of black twine. Still chanting, she slowly wound the twine around the manikin. The words she was now saying were nonsense, mainly: a curse so ancient that most of the meaning was lost, fragments of Greek and Latin mixed with Arabic. Once the doll was entirely mummified in thread, she placed it in a small lead casket and shut the lid with a snap.
Her voice shook with a kind of fearful triumph.
‘Aura of the Cult of Artemis, you have betrayed your vows, made on the stones of Troy and the blood of Brutus. The Holy Lady of the Moon, Queen of Beasts, has set your punishment. I, as her High Priestess, must seal your fate.’
With that, Opis kicked the back of my knees so that I fell to the floor, forced into a clumsy bow to the goddess.
‘That’s right. Kneel before our Holy Lady. Ask her forgiveness. Beg for mine. You sought refuge in the temple of the Christian priests. But I, too, can give you communion.’
She had the gold chalice from King Brutus’s altar. I clamped my mouth shut but it wasn’t any good. She pinched my nose so I couldn’t breathe, and forced the hard rim of the cup between my lips. My lips stung and bled; I thought my teeth would crack. The drug wasn’t disguised by spiced wine this time. It was bitter and acrid and burned my throat. I coughed and spluttered as forcefully as I could, but some of the liquid still went down.
‘Where is the goddess now?’ Opis called. ‘Where has she gone?’ Her jagged laughter rocked around me as the world shattered into black.
Chapter 22
I slipped in and out of a sickly consciousness. I was swimming in the pool at Rick Moodie’s house, trying to catch my breath in between crashing waves of blackness. I was lying in the wood, among dead leaves, as the earth quaked with serpents. Cally had locked me in the wardrobe again and was rocking, rocking it . . .
When I regained consciousness, the ground was still and the air was dark.
My muscles felt like cotton wool. My legs were scraped, my clothes damp with mud. My ears still seemed to ring with the crashing of the gong.
For a long moment I blinked about with bewilderment. A small, hopeless part of me clung to the idea that I was in the grip of a hallucination. I put my hands out, brushed smooth stone to either side. Staggering to my bruised knees, I stretched my hands upwards, and touched something else cold and solid. Iron.
That ringing in my ears – it wasn’t the echo of the gong. It was the slamming down of an iron lid. The lid that sealed me into my tomb.
Frantically, I scrubbed at my eyes. The blindness, some after-effect of the drug, was lifting and I saw there was light in here, after all. The flickering of a small oil lamp revealed that I was in a circular stone well, just over a metre wide and two metres deep. The only furnishings were the lamp and a knife.
I bent double and began to retch.
I wasn’t in the Place of Punishment that Cally and I had been taken to visit. That was a sunken chamber, on a small hill in the centre of the cult cemetery. These days, it was fenced off with iron bars and left open to the elements. I must be in a secret back-up option. Somewhere I would never be found. The thought sent me retching again. It felt like my guts were being scraped up from my stomach.
Opis . . . Callisto . . . Aiden . . . Artemis. Maybe the goddess had meant for this to happen all along – ever since I’d kissed Aiden in the woods. Maybe this had always been my destiny.
In the sickly glow of the lamp, I saw scratch marks on the walls. It looked like someone had clawed at them with their nails. Other women and girls had died here. I could smell their fear, their thirst and their hunger, sweating out from the stones. How many agonised hours, days, had it taken before they were released into death?
But I wouldn’t have to wait.
Opis had untied my hands and given me the means to end it quickly. In that, she had been merciful.
The ancient Greeks didn’t spend much time speculating about the afterlife. The Elysian Fields are where the heroes go; Tartarus is for those who deserve the torments of hell. The details on both are vague. And when I tried to visualise Elysium, I could only imagine a larger-scale version of Artemisia House. An eternity spent wandering around gilded columns and faded tapestries. An eternity populated with stone heroes and taxidermy animals, brou
ght back to a dusty half-life.
Do you vow to honour the laws of the temple and this land? Opis had asked me once.
I do, I had answered, lest I suffer the arrows of Artemis and the waters of the Styx.
Styx, the river of hate. It was one of five rivers in the underworld. Rivers of pain, of fire, of wailing and of forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness. That’s what I wanted. I thought what it must mean, to be unfurled out of my body and out of the world, pitched into oblivion. After all, only a few hours ago I had been ready for death. I had wanted to be free. It was the price I had been willing to pay for being released from the goddess.
Well, Artemis had taken me at my word. I had rejected her and so she had left me. Opis was right: I was alone.
The stone walls seemed to close round me, squeezing out the air. Electricity sparked along every nerve, my heart bucked in my chest. I began to fancy I couldn’t breathe, even as the first scream raced through my veins, exploded up through my body. My voice howled, raw and animal, in the stone cell. On and on and on and on. The silence afterwards was like falling into another pit.
The lamp wouldn’t burn for much longer. I didn’t want to die in the dark. Most of all, I didn’t want to die alone. I wanted the goddess to be with me. I took up the knife. It was thin and razor-sharp. I fixed my eyes on the lamp. I took deep, shaky breaths.
Goddess. Holy Mother. Queen. I am yours. I have always been yours, now and forever. Forgive me, be merciful.
I closed my eyes. The blade of the knife grazed my chest, like the tip of the silver arrow at my initiation, a lifetime ago.
Come back to me, Holy Artemis. Have mercy upon me. Have mercy . . .
And, at the end, the goddess listened. A chime, unearthly sweet, shook the air, and the breath of soft laugher brushed against my spine. I heard a dog howl.
The wild hunt was coming for me, to take me to Elysium.
The blade pricked my skin. It would be the bite of a hound, sharp teeth ripping through my body and seizing my soul, dragging me into the afterlife –
