Authors: Laura Powell
I didn’t know how to respond.
‘Afterwards, the men from the Trinovantum Council came, with the Civil Guard, to take my statement,’ she gabbled. ‘But they didn’t listen to me. No. They said I was wrong. They said I was drunk, unreliable. But I knew. I
knew
.’
She did look unreliable. A prematurely creased face, eyes a bit too wide, smile a bit too shaky. Smell of booze on her breath.
‘Thank you for believing me,’ I said. My voice felt rusty.
The rest of our audience certainly didn’t look convinced. They were young, mostly, and I found it hard to distinguish their features among the uniform layers of tattoos, piercings, shapeless clothes and hard stares. Next to them, Aiden, who was still in his suit, looked even more out of place than I did.
A freckle-faced girl got up to pat Argos. ‘So are you gonna have another one?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Another oracle?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you reckon you can see the future?’
‘I . . . suppose. When Holy Artemis wants me to.’
A boy with a spider tattoo on his neck stifled a laugh. Somebody else sniggered.
I looked at Aiden. ‘May I go to my room?’
Everything went quiet again. I’d obviously said the wrong thing.
‘Sure,’ said Aiden awkwardly. ‘I’ll, um, help you get settled.’
As soon as we left, the place erupted into noisy comment.
There wasn’t an actual room. Just a space carved out of the main library with a partition of empty bookshelves and filing cabinets. The mattress on the floor didn’t look particularly clean. Argos sniffed around suspiciously. I thought of the priestesses’ quarters I was supposed to have moved into this morning. The new bed linen I’d chosen with Cally, three hundred thread count Egyptian cotton . . . But I mustn’t think of Cally. Or Artemisia House.
‘Do you live in this place?’ I asked Aiden, trying not to let my dismay at the squalor show.
‘I stay here sometimes. There’s a flat – that is, my family has a flat. In the West End. But it wouldn’t be safe there.’ He frowned. ‘For either of us.’
‘How long am I going to stay?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We have to get my true prophecy out. We have to expose Opis.’
‘Right.’
But he didn’t say anything more. My escape had been so well thought out that I’d imagined Aiden had planned everything else as well. Now I realised that he, too, was improvising.
With Argos stretched out beside me, I curled up on the mattress. I was instantly plunged into a tangle of lurid and fragmented dreams. I woke up with a start, my heart pounding. A tall figure loomed over me.
‘It’s only me,’ said Aiden. ‘It’s nearly nine, so I thought I’d better wake you. And I got you something to eat.’
He’d changed into fraying jeans and a T-shirt and had brought a kebab and chips, plus a couple of burgers for Argos. ‘Sorry it’s not very fancy.’
I looked at the change Aiden was jangling in his hand. The small silver and bronze coins meant nothing to me. I’d never handled, let alone owned, actual cash. It struck me with renewed force that I wasn’t just a fugitive – I was a charity case. Eating chunks of grease out of a bag on the floor.
Still, by this point I was too hungry to care. I took my example from Argos, who gobbled up his burgers in about three seconds flat.
Aiden had also brought me a newspaper. The front page showed a man in military uniform. General Ferrer was his name, and he’d given a high-profile TV interview, calling for order. He was strong-jawed and broad-shouldered with a bluff, weather-beaten face and a fatherly expression.
I looked up from the paper. ‘Ferrer . . . like
ferrum
? The Latin word for iron?’
‘It’s an old English surname,’ said Aiden, helping himself to a chip. ‘Means blacksmith.’
‘The iron-worker turned Iron Lord.’
‘Exactly. The army’s seen as heroes by a lot of people. Victims, too, of an unpopular foreign war. The view is that they, like everyone else, have been shafted by the government. General Ferrer is a well-connected guy as well as a war hero. Plays squash with the chancellor, is old university buddies with Lionel Winter . . . And now there are whispers that all leave has been cancelled for the Civil Guard.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘That the second part of your oracle might be about to come true.’ He sighed. ‘Look. You said the Iron Lord steals a march and cries havoc, right? Well, “havoc” is an old military order – the signal to start pillaging. “To steal a march” is a military expression too. It means secretly moving your troops around. So your oracle suggests the army is going to make a move. A power-grab, in fact.’
I felt a creeping in the pit of my stomach. ‘And Opis and Lionel are in on it.’
Aiden nodded. ‘If there is, in fact, a coup, then I reckon the cult will support it. More than that – they’ll back it up with some nice supportive oracles. They know that the more frightened people are the more superstitious they get.’
Opis’s hissed accusations in the passageway suddenly made sense. She must have thought I’d overheard her and Lionel discussing General Ferrer and his plans. No wonder she’d wanted to shut me up.
‘I need to thank you properly,’ I said, a little stiffly. ‘I suppose it’s because I hardly know where to start. If it hadn’t been for you, and Leto –’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He flashed me a quick grin. ‘Rescuing a damsel in distress is all in a day’s work for us newfangled delinquents.’
‘The goddess led you to me.’
‘The goddess has nothing to do with it.’
‘But you believe –’
‘I believe you saw the future. But I don’t believe in some moon-lady perched on top of Mount Olympus.’
I frowned. ‘I am in the hands of Artemis. I’m her servant. She has a plan for me.’
‘You’re nobody’s servant, Aura. And there is no Divine Plan. After all, Artemis hasn’t shot down Opis with an arrow, has she? Or saved all the other girls who were drugged in that crypt?’
There was anger in his voice, yet he looked at me as if he was sorry for me. I couldn’t bear his pity. He was giving words to my own secret doubts.
‘So the rumours are true,’ a voice drawled from the entrance to my cubbyhole. ‘Life in the cult really is all sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.’
It was Scarlet, the rock star’s daughter.
‘You made it!’ Aiden exclaimed, clearly relieved at the interruption.
‘Fashionably late, as always.’ She sauntered over to shake my hand. ‘Well, hello there, Lady Oracle. Welcome to the real world.’
She didn’t look particularly real-world herself, in a slinky acid-yellow dress and oversized shades, cigarette drooping from her mouth. It was the kind of outfit that would turn heads wherever she went – she certainly had Aiden’s full attention. Surely her presence here was a security risk.
‘You’re part of the resistance?’ I asked doubtfully.
‘I tend to leave the manning-the-barricades stuff to Aid. Think of me as your personal media consultant.’
‘Scarlet’s really well connected,’ Aiden put in. ‘She’s got all sorts of contacts in the press.’
‘So you’re a journalist?’
‘I’ve appeared in a lot of newspapers,’ she said drily. ‘Mostly in the gossip columns. Attracting attention is something of a speciality of mine. That’s why I’m going to help get you into the spotlight.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, trying to sound like I meant it.
‘Oh, I’m thinking of my CV as well as yours. Let’s face it, managing the PR for a runaway priestess is a step up from blogging for crappy online style mags.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘No offence.’
Then somebody shouted from downstairs.
‘What?’ I asked, my heart in my mouth. ‘What is it?’
Aiden straightened his shoulders. ‘It’s begun.’
The prime minister, Nicholas Riley, was arrested this morning for the murder of Sir Alan Greendale and charges relating to electoral fraud.
An Emergency Governing Committee, formed by the chancellor, Malcolm Greeve, has ordered the dissolution of Parliament and called for new elections. Greeve is supported by General Sir Charles Ferrer, Chief of the Defence Staff and head of the Armed Forces.
A statement is expected from the committee within the hour.
BBC News
I pinned my veil back over my face and hurried downstairs, joining the other residents around the battered TV in the basement. It was there we heard the chancellor address the nation, General Ferrer at his side:
‘
The committee’s only concern is the well-being of our country, which has been in a state of upheaval and hardship for so long. Our goal is to hold credible elections in the shortest possible period of time.
In the meantime, I request that you remain calm and support us in the re-establishment of order. Together, we will rebuild this great nation . . .
’
Not so long ago I would have taken these soothing words at face value. I knew better now. This wasn’t the restoration of democracy. It was an outright power-grab.
Malcolm Greeve wasn’t nearly as impressive-looking as General Ferrer. He was small and sweaty, with oddly bulging eyes. I’d seen them up close plenty of times, since the chancellor was a regular worshipper at the temple. At the end of Greeve’s speech, I spotted an even more obvious link between the coup and cult – Lionel Winter, standing among the other Emergency Committee members in the background.
Over the rest of that long day and night, the rumours flew thick and fast. The cabinet were under house arrest . . . the armour units of the tank division were on standby . . . all TV stations were under the control of the Civil Guard . . . the royal family had fled the country . . .
None of this turned out to be true. The next morning, the BBC aired a live broadcast from the Temple of Artemis. The priestess who had prophesised the murder of Sir Alan Greendale, and the rise of the Iron Lord, was going to be formally introduced to the world.
There on the flickering TV screen were Opis and Cally, standing at the top of the temple steps, flanked by Sebastian and Lionel Winter. Cally was dressed as she had been for her initiation, but unveiled, her eyes demurely lowered for the duration of Opis’s announcement.
The Python’s Child shall preach with a double tongue.
The meaning seemed obvious now. The goddess warned of an oracle corrupted. Two-faced, dissembling . . .
Opis must have intended to give the pro-coup oracles herself, until my performance in the shopping centre had spoiled her plans and she had to make Cally her mouthpiece instead. There were no signs she was giving up her position as High Priestess, however. And Cally seemed more than happy to play along. She’d clearly got over her fear of divine retribution.
Then, as the speech ended and the party got ready to go into the temple, I saw her turn and look up at Seb. It was only a moment, yet the eagerness in her face made my heart contract.
Back in the television studio, a panel of experts was assembled to give an updated analysis of the oracle. Aiden immediately pressed the mute button on the TV remote. The rest of the audience looked round in surprise.
‘Those people don’t know what they’re talking about,’ Aiden said. ‘That’s why we’ve got to put Aura out there. She needs to tell her story. The oracle is being used as a propaganda tool.’
‘Sorry, but I don’t believe either or any of ’em can predict the future,’ said the spider-tattoo boy. ‘And what does it matter anyway? A load of mumbo-jumbo from the spirit world isn’t going to stop tanks rolling down the streets.’
‘Churchill consulted the oracle during the war,’ an older Asian man said.
‘Yeah, and he probably read his horoscope too. So what?’
‘But the Honoured Lady’s prediction has already come true,’ insisted the woman – Sal – from the shopping centre. ‘Just like I told you it would.’
‘She said it would be the Iron Lord – Ferrer – who took charge. But it’s the chancellor who’s leading the government, not the general,’ somebody pointed out.
‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ said Aiden impatiently. ‘And you can forget all those promises about “credible elections”. This Emergency Committee is a front for a military coup. The chancellor is its public face but it’ll be General Ferrer who calls the shots. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him who ordered the hit on Sir Alan Greendale – framing the PM for murder was all part of the takeover plan.’
‘Exactly,’ said the freckle-faced girl. ‘And if that bimbo on the telly starts having more chats with Artemis, and Artemis tells her we’d all be better off without democracy and under army rule . . . well, what if people start listening?’
A boy with a greasy quiff nodded. ‘My gran, right, she’s mostly Church of England. But she keeps this little statue of Artemis on her mantelpiece, next to my grandad’s ashes. She always says the goddess comes to her people in their hour of need.’
‘Your granny’s not the only one,’ said Scarlet. She had spent the discussion lounging on a beanbag, picking neon polish off her nails. I hadn’t realised she was listening. ‘There are literally millions of people like her. The cult will mobilise them. General Ferrer will mobilise them, so that people feel better about him, and themselves.’