Authors: Laura Powell
‘You’re funny.’
‘And you’re patronising.’ As soon as I said it, I regretted my rudeness. What had got into me?
But our guest didn’t seem offended. In fact, he gave me a comical little bow. ‘My apologies. And please don’t tell Opis. She’s even scarier than Artemis, I hear.’
‘Um, perhaps we should join the other guests,’ I suggested, after an awkward pause.
‘Oh God – Goddess, I mean.’ He tugged at his collar. ‘I was hoping to hide out here. In all honesty, I’d almost prefer to be ripped apart by that hound of yours.’
Argos wagged his tail obligingly.
I let the new arrival go ahead into the Gold Room, and managed to deliver the dog to the housekeeper before returning to the party. Luckily, Opis’s attention was elsewhere. She was talking to Lionel Winter, who had an arm round Aiden’s shoulder. Was Aiden another nephew, perhaps? I’d thought him self-assured – annoyingly so. But here he looked hunched and sullen. His face only lightened when Scarlet came up to him and kissed him on the cheek. Afterwards, they went to giggle in a corner like naughty children. I felt an unwelcome twinge of envy. What would it be like to have another person with whom to share a joke or hide away at a party?
At long last, we made our way into the dining room. The mahogany banqueting table was laden with china and candles and flowers. Candlelight glinted off the silver, sparked off the glass. I found I would be sitting next to Lionel Winter, with one of the chinless wonders on my other side.
Cally was a little way down the table, between the Trinovantum treasurer and Seb Winter. She was bright-eyed and pink-cheeked, and tendrils of hair escaped from her headscarf. Even so, I’d done better on the seating. To be placed next to the Lord Herne was an honour.
‘Tell me, Aura, why do you think the cult remains popular in an otherwise secular age?’ he asked as the fish course was brought in.
I paused, aware that others on the table were preparing to listen, and tried to block out Aiden’s mocking grin. ‘We’re not like other religions,’ I said. ‘Nobody’s bribed with the idea of heaven, or threatened with hell. We offer reassurance for the here and now.’
The people around me nodded and smiled. But Aiden gave a loud snort.
‘You offer reassurance to those who can afford it, and mumbo-jumbo to all the rest.’
Everyone looked down at their plates, embarrassed, except for Scarlet, who laughed. It was like the blasphemy of the man with the snakes, only worse, because Aiden was sane.
However, our High Priestess didn’t so much as blink. ‘I’m sorry you see the mystery of the oracle as “mumbo-jumbo”. When Artemis favours me with a prophecy, I feel her truth shine through me like a great light.’
‘That’s good to hear, but I’d have thought a god invading your mind would be a little more disruptive. Violent, in fact.’ Aiden popped some bread in his mouth and chomped noisily. ‘Because that’s what the oracle is meant to be, isn’t it – a kind of demonic possession?’
‘You’re thinking of the old stories, in which our goddess is something of a femme fatale.’ Opis spoke with admirable restraint. ‘These days, we take a more metaphorical view of her mythology.’
‘Wasn’t she always blasting people with thunderbolts?’ asked Scarlet.
‘A bow and arrow,’ said Seb. ‘Or else she was turning them into animals. Like your namesake.’ He nodded at Cally, who smiled and blushed, though she generally dislikes being reminded of the original Callisto’s downfall. Being turned into a bear isn’t very dignified.
‘I don’t think those stories are so important,’ I said hesitantly. ‘The myth that people really want to believe is the one of Artemis leading Brutus to his new kingdom. Because there is always a war, we hope there will always be a survivor. Following a vision in search of better things.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Aiden. ‘And to the goddess continuing to protect her own. Cheers!’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to staying nice and cosy in the Sanctuary.’ He smiled brightly round the table. ‘Fiddling while London burns.’
‘Why did you disappear halfway through drinks?’ Cally demanded, almost as soon as the door to our room shut behind us.
‘It was stuffy. I needed some air.’
‘You were skulking around with that awful Aiden boy.’
‘Hardly. I bumped into him in the hall.’
I didn’t want to think, let alone talk, about Aiden. Everything about him was unsettling.
‘Well, he’s a delinquent,’ Cally announced. ‘Seb told me. They used to go to the same school. Aiden was only invited tonight because his father is in business with Lionel Winter, and Lionel owed him a favour.’
Seb had been watching Cally that evening, from under heavy-lidded eyes. So had all the men, at one time or other. The more jovial they became, the more demure Cally became. Perhaps sexy King Brutus was part of the test, along with the champagne. His Uncle Lionel was no doubt preparing him for a leading role within the council. And a new High Priestess gets a new Lord Herne . . . Maybe I shouldn’t have been so pleased with the seating plan after all.
As I lay in the darkness, I forced myself to confront what life would be like if Cally was High Priestess. If I had to call her Honoured Lady. Arrange flowers for her dinner parties. Polish her headdresses.
A law was passed in 1979 to decriminalise priestesses who abandoned the cult. However, outsiders could still be prosecuted for encouraging or assisting a priestess to leave and, without back-up, most runaways didn’t last very long. It might have been possible five or six years ago, but with the country on the brink of all sorts of disasters it would be the worst of times to start a new life. I would have no money, no qualifications, no connections. No practical knowledge of the outside world.
In the sleepless hours that followed, I could hear Cally tossing and turning on the other side of the room. I tried to remind myself that it was a good sign that she was worried too.
‘Aiden’s a delinquent,’ said Opis over coffee the next day. ‘Though a minor one. He comes from a very good family indeed.
Such
a pity.’
She told me he was the son of the banker Philip Carlyle, one of the Trinovantum Council’s most distinguished members, and a close business associate of Lionel Winter. Mr Carlyle was now retired and lived in the Cayman Islands with his wife. It was hoped and expected that Aiden would take his place in the council, now that he’d turned eighteen. The family had always been very generous supporters of the cult.
But Aiden showed no appreciation for the privileges and opportunities given to him. First he got kicked out of his fancy boarding school, then he took part in an anti-government demonstration that turned into a riot. He’d been arrested and charged with public order offences, and sentenced to community service.
‘He can be a little challenging, as we saw at dinner,’ Opis said, stirring her coffee with a silver spoon. ‘But I think this rebelliousness is merely a phase. I don’t believe it runs deep.’
I could see that hard-core delinquents didn’t usually quote German lyric poetry. But I didn’t understand why I’d been summoned to a private meeting with Opis just to chat about Aiden Carlyle. I kept expecting to be reprimanded for something. Then Opis explained that Mr Carlyle had phoned his old chum Lionel Winter, to ask if Aiden’s community service could be carried out at the cult.
‘We thought he could be of use in the archive,’ Opis said blandly. ‘Do some filing and so forth. Since archive work is one of your specialities, I was hoping you would increase your hours there to help supervise.’
I opened my mouth and then closed it.
‘Leto will, of course, be on hand to manage and chaperone.’
My heart sank some more. Leto is Head Archivist. She would resent the intrusion and would no doubt take it out on me.
‘With a bit of luck, this spot of bother with the law shouldn’t harm Aiden’s long-term prospects. Considering his family’s wealth and connections, he could be a real asset to this cult. We need to make him feel welcome, and keep him engaged.’
So we were going to overlook Aiden’s blasphemy? His complete disrespect for everything we stood for? I decided that there must be further extenuating circumstances that the High Priestess was unable to share with me. The only thing I felt certain of was that I really, really didn’t want to have to deal with Aiden again.
‘I understand, Honoured Lady.’
‘
Perfect
. I know I can count on you.’
The cult’s archive is housed in a building overlooking Temple Square, the other side from the Sanctuary. The display room is open to the public by appointment. There you can see the famous oracles of ages past, like the ones that predicted the Gunpowder Plot and the death of Nelson, written down by the Lord Hernes of the time on vellum bound with silk.
Many of the records I looked after went back centuries. They included lists of donations, the Sanctuary’s visitors’ books, menus from festival feasts, shopping lists and accounts. I usually worked in the main office for two afternoons a week, sorting and cataloguing.
The archive was Leto’s lair. She spent most of her time there drinking black coffee and reading out-of-date magazines in a back room. I quite liked being left alone with the paperwork. It helped that Cally avoided archive duty where at all possible. Up until now, the place had been a refuge.
Aiden turned up at the agreed time looking even scruffier than he had at the dinner, unshaven and with red-rimmed eyes. Leto and I were both veiled and he peered at us dubiously when we met him at the door.
‘You’re the one from the party?’ he asked me.
‘Yes. Aura. It’s . . . er . . . nice to see you again.’
‘Where’s your mutt?’
‘It’s not mine. It belongs to the High Priestess.’
‘Oh. I thought it was part of the security settings. To guard your virtue.’
‘That’s my job,’ said Leto with a sniff. ‘Though to be honest, young man, you don’t have the brawn to be a threat or the looks to be a temptation.’
I blushed beneath my veil. Aiden, however, seemed to find this hilarious.
‘Fair point. OK, ladies – show me to the spreadsheets.’
Aiden’s community service was going to be spent entering data into the new online database. It had recently been set up for everyone who had consulted the oracle over the last hundred years, and we needed to input the pre-digital records.
‘Oof,’ he said, putting his head in his hands as the computer hummed into life. ‘The morning after the night before.’
He turned round and looked at Leto beseechingly. ‘I don’t suppose you could spare this hopeless delinquent a drop of coffee?’
To my surprise, she brought him a cup from her ancient coffee maker. I’ve never been offered any, or dared to ask.
Aiden took a gulp and winced. ‘Goddess. That’ll put hair on your chest.’ When Leto had returned, muttering, to her sofa, he pushed the cup towards me. ‘Want some?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘C’mon, live a little. Don’t tell me that artificial stimulants are against the rules – we all know the oracle’s one big chemical high.’
I kept my eyes on my papers. ‘I’d just rather not risk the chest hair.’
To my relief, he settled down after this and worked quietly for the next couple of hours. I could feel his eye on me now and again. But he didn’t try to make conversation. Leto ‘supervised’ from the comfort of her beaten-up sofa in the room next door.
Towards the end of the afternoon, Opis dropped by to check on our progress. ‘Dear Aura is so meticulous,’ she said to Aiden, with a benevolent smile. ‘She has a natural talent for this sort of work.’
I wondered if this was the future she saw for me. The next Head Archivist, the next Leto. Shut up among the dust and ink while Cally swanned about in a moonstone headdress . . . I’d go insane.
After the High Priestess had gone, Aiden paused by my desk on his way back from the storeroom. I was transcribing a list of donations made to the cult in 1981.
He bent to take a look over my shoulder and whistled.
‘Nice. Just as well you ladies don’t have to take a vow of poverty.’
‘I should have realised you don’t believe in paying for things,’ I said, moving my seat from under his shadow. ‘You go looting instead.’
‘Hey – I wasn’t looting. Or rioting, for that matter. I was part of a peaceful protest against the government’s alliance with corrupt capitalists. Things only got out of hand when the police started charging us with batons.’
Leto seemed to have nodded off over her pile of mouldering
Good Housekeeping
magazines. I lowered my voice. ‘Corrupt capitalists? Isn’t your father a banker?’
‘Yep.’ His face darkened. ‘And he’s as crooked as they come. A greedy bully, just like the rest.’
‘Well, having a crook in the family obviously has some advantages.’ I tried to keep my tone neutral. ‘That’s why you’re drinking coffee here, instead of picking up litter or scrubbing stairwells in some tower-block estate.’
‘Fair point. However, I didn’t do anything wrong and so I don’t believe I should be punished.’ He leaned back in his chair and regarded me narrowly. ‘I mean, d’you actually know how bad things are? Out in the real world?’