Goddess (20 page)

He was sitting at a table, nursing a mug of tea. The last time I’d seen him his eyes had been angry and staring, his hair wild. He looked thinner, greyer, than I’d remembered.

I stood in the doorway, waiting for him to look up. He lurched to his feet and the chair clattered to the floor. Without saying a word, he gripped me by the arms and looked me over intensely from top to toe.

Finally, with a sigh of disappointment, he released me. ‘You don’t look much like her.’

I didn’t look much like him either, I thought. But his abrupt manner suited me. I wasn’t ready for hugs of welcome. I picked up the fallen chair and sat down at the table. He sat down too. After a short pause, we tried to smile at each other.

‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘I don’t even know what my – what Carya looked like.’

Only the High Priestess gets her portrait painted, and since members of the cult are veiled in public and banned from taking pictures in the Sanctuary, they are never photographed barefaced. Harry Soames took out his wallet and very carefully passed me an old snapshot. It was taken at a party in the Trinovantum Council; I’d been for drinks there myself, in their wood-panelled clubroom. I thought I could see the council treasurer in the background, and the back of what might be Opis’s head. And a girl with light brown hair and a laughing mouth.

She was skinny and small, like me. We had the same wide brow, perhaps. Otherwise, she was a stranger. Just like the man before me now.

‘Lovely, isn’t she?’ he said, and there was an ache in his voice.

She looked ordinary, I thought. I didn’t want to give the photo back, but it wasn’t mine, and neither was she. Not really.

‘How did you get to know her?’ I asked as he tucked the photo carefully away.

‘We worked on some charitable projects together. It was something she thought the cult should do more of. She was proud of the cult, but there were things she wanted to change.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘That’s why I got involved in the resistance. Carya would hate what’s happened to the country. If she’d been High Priestess, she’d have been out protesting in the streets too.’

He shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘How . . . how’s it been? Your life in the cult, I mean?’

‘It’s been OK. Good, actually. Until suddenly it wasn’t.’ I gave a short, embarrassed laugh. ‘But I’m all right now.’

‘If I’d known, I’d have come and taken you. Looked after you. You believe that, don’t you? We’d have worked something out.’

‘I understand. It’s OK.’

He considered me again. ‘You might not look much like her. But you have her spirit. That’s why Artemis talks to you.’

‘You witnessed her oracle?’

‘I’ll never forget it. I was in the presence of something holy and inhuman. I don’t think I’ve ever been so frightened, or so exhilarated.’

I nodded. I understood.

‘Carya said there was a serpent in the temple. A serpent with a forked tongue. That’s why I threw the snakes at Opis, you see. She knew what they meant.’ He grimaced. ‘The woman’s poison. And as slippery as they come.’

‘Honoured Apollonia implied that my mother’s death was the reason I got the gift of prophecy. She said the power of the oracle is renewed by a blood sacrifice.’
And
, I thought to myself,
released by sacrifice too
. But exactly how this worked was still a mystery.

Harry frowned. ‘Carya wouldn’t have sacrificed herself. She was a fighter. She’d have fought to live for your sake, if nothing else. She’d be fighting now – to save the name of the cult, the honour of the country. As you are. It will give people a huge boost to see you at the demonstration.’

I wasn’t sure yet if I should make myself known. I was waiting for a sign. But I nodded all the same.

‘Today’s protest will be a turning point,’ Harry said. ‘Especially now that the Houses of Parliament have been closed – for security reasons, allegedly. Did you know that a group of MPs is going to meet in Westminster Abbey instead? They’re gathering there this evening, to debate the latest Emergency Committee legislation. They – we – have to show the committee that civil resistance isn’t going to go away.’

I had a painfully vivid vision of Aiden’s face, flushed and intent, leaning close to mine as he extolled the importance of people power. I shook it away.

‘Causing a ruckus outside the temple is turning out to be a family trait,’ I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Like father, like daughter.’

Harry blinked at me. ‘But I’m not your real father, Aura. You must know that. Don’t you?’

All the breath was knocked out of me. ‘Well, I thought . . . I mean . . . that’s what Leto and Apollonia . . .’

He was shaking his head. ‘No. I’m so sorry. Really – I didn’t realise they’d misunderstood. It was such a confusing, terrible time . . . You see, I said I’d marry Carya and care for the child. But Carya and I were never lovers.’

‘But you – but she –’

‘She didn’t feel like I did. When the scandal of her pregnancy broke, I still wanted to protect her. I wanted to take her and her baby away from the cult.’ He took my hand. ‘I loved her. I would have loved you.’

I pulled my hand away. ‘If you’re not my father, then who is?’

‘She said the goddess gave you to her. That was all. Carya was the true oracle though. She spoke for Artemis. Maybe we should believe her.’

His curls were sticking up all over the place, his eyes bright with conviction. A nice man. But he was only really interested in me for what I’d inherited from my mother.

The child of a virgin goddess, born to a virgin priestess . . . Well, it was no more impossible than the other impossible things that had happened to me.

I stood up abruptly. I felt emptied out, hollow with this new loss. ‘It was nice meeting you. And, er, thank you. For talking and everything. And helping my mother. But I’d better get to the demonstration. The chancellor will be at the temple soon.’

‘You don’t have to leave just yet. You must have more questions.
I
have questions –’

I was already out of the door, hurrying to lose myself in the crowd.

While I’d been in the café, the stream of people going to the demo had turned into a flood. They were becoming more animated the closer we got to the temple. Strangers were shaking hands and clapping each other on the back; an occasional cheer could be heard, along with bursts of nervous laughter.

As soon as the temple loomed into view, I felt a surge of homesickness. I’d tried not to have great hopes of Harry, but the idea of not being an orphan was more seductive than I’d let myself admit. Now I knew for certain that the temple was the only home I’d ever have, even if I’d been cast out of it. Its dome shone like a pearl in the early evening sun, the gilt-tipped columns soared heavenwards. Across the pediment, the carvings of Brutus, Artemis and Herne looked both solemn and peaceful, utterly sure of their power and their place in the world.

The square was already heaving with people. The late prime minister had been widely regarded as a crook, if not a murderer, but there were still a lot of
Justice 4 Riley
signs. Most of the banners called for free elections, free speech, a free UK. Others demanded a free oracle.
Aura IN, Callisto OUT. When Artemis Speaks, Let Us Listen.

A much smaller counter-demonstration in support of Cally had gathered at the bottom of the temple steps. Police were a heavy presence but there was no sign of the Civil Guard. Perhaps the foreign TV crews that had gathered had something to do with it. They were busy interviewing people in the crowd.

They had a wide variety to choose from. Scruffy student types, like Aiden and his activist friends. Middle-aged housewives. Veterans of the wars in the Middle East, many of whom were on crutches and in wheelchairs. Office drones, unshaven construction workers. And groups of muscular, flinty-faced young men in red or purple bandanas. The gangbangers were out too – and on a truce.

Shortly after I squeezed into the throng, a fleet of cars from the Sanctuary drove through the space cleared by the police. Veiled handmaidens and priestesses emerged to boos and jeers from the crowd. I looked for Leto’s hunched figure. The handmaidens were holding hands, the little twins stumbling on their drapes as they hurried into the shelter of the temple. They must be terrified. Why was the whole cult attending a private oracle? Opis and Cally must have already made their grand entrance, for the High Priestess’s gold chariot was parked at the bottom of the steps. All this pomp and ceremony seemed unnecessarily provocative.

More time passed. The shadows lengthened; the sun was a low, rich gold. The protesters weren’t tiring, though. In fact, they were only getting more energised. When Malcolm Greeve’s car finally arrived, the place erupted.

I’d seen a lot of General Ferrer in the news and I could see the appeal of his firm jaw and kind eyes. His ally, and the official leader of the coup, didn’t make such a good pin-up. Malcolm Greeve was just as creepy-looking as I remembered from his visits to the temple. Seb and Lionel Winter were waiting by the doors to welcome him.

The smatter of competing shouts and slogans had turned into an angry roar. ‘Oracle Out! Committee Out! Free Oracle! Free UK!’ The ranks of police stared on, impassive. The counter-demonstration stamped and yelled.

I shook my head, trying to clear it, and fixed my eyes on the last person I wanted to see. The only person I wanted to see.

Aiden.

At once I turned and tried to get away, but the crowd was too tightly wedged. ‘You can’t talk to me,’ I hissed. ‘You can’t look at me. You can’t be here. I told Scarlet to keep you away.’

‘Hey – I don’t need your or anyone else’s permission to be here. This thing is a lot bigger than the two of us, and whatever issues we have.’

Issues?
I stared at him in incomprehension. He glowered back.

‘Scarlet should never have helped you leave. We could have worked it out, Aura. What the hell were you thinking, vanishing like that?’

He was angry. That was no good; I needed him to be afraid.

‘I had to keep away from you for your own safety! Don’t you get it? The goddess possessed
me
to punish
you
. I can’t let that happen again.’

Aiden wasn’t even listening. ‘I was sure you’d be here,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve been looking for you in the crowd for the last hour. You can’t run away this time. You have to –’

It was too much. Too much noise, too much energy and anger. The air throbbed with it. I covered my ears.

It didn’t make any difference.

Artemis Selene was already here and burning through my blood. I thought my bones would crack from the force of her.

Aiden’s face loomed into view, as I twisted and groaned. He was briefly replaced with gawping onlookers. ‘Get back,’ he shouted, pushing them off. ‘It’s the oracle! The true oracle. Aura, your High Priestess. Listen to her! Listen to the goddess!’

Hot tears sparked from my eyes. My body was arched like a drawn bow, pulled back to breaking point. My voice would be the arrow: shining and merciless. I begged for release. I begged the goddess to let it fly.

I was not broken, not yet.

I was not released either. Instead, I was standing in a great city, its temples and watchtowers and palaces silent and peaceful in the night. I knew, though, that their quiet was an illusion.

The moon waxed and waned. Clouds rushed over it, fog rolled through the city’s streets. It stung my eyes and my lungs, bringing with it the stench of burning.

There was something dark and slick under my feet. Not oil, blood. The sky was on fire. I could hear clashes and shouts and wailing. And a voice of rage and grief in my head that wasn’t my own. I stood in a shadowed colonnade and watched Troy burn, as the goddess lamented her lost city.

Torn flesh, wrecked bone.

Rubble and ash.

A city of ruins, then of wilderness – creeping weeds and brambles, tangled grasses, spindly trees. And still the keening sobs of grief in my head. Not one voice, now, but a multitude: old and young, men and women, on and on.

‘For who will save the holy places? The old temple despoiled, the new one besieged. Now the iron men are on the march, and they will drag the lawmakers from the sacred altars. Alas for Troy, alas for her children –’

Chapter 20

My eyes snapped open. I was surrounded by a ring of strangers: tightly packed, silent, staring.

‘What did I say?’

Yet the words of the prophecy were already coming back to me. This time, however, I didn’t need a Lord Herne to interpret. I knew what the holy places were.

The old temple: the building we were standing in front of, where Opis and Lionel and Malcolm Greeve were busy despoiling the oracle.

The new temple: Westminster Abbey, where the rebel MPs had gathered to form an alternative government. The Gothic building wasn’t ‘new’ in the usual sense of the word. But the Christians came after us pagans. It was new as far as Artemis was concerned.

The MPs were the lawmakers. And General Ferrer’s soldiers – the iron men – were on their way to arrest them. Malcolm Greeve’s visit was a deliberate distraction, designed to draw the protesters away from Parliament Square, and the real business of the day.