Goddess (9 page)

But at half past seven the door opened again. Fat Atalanta was there, pink and breathless, and holding a clean tunic and a Thermos of soup. So I’d been forgiven, or at least reprieved. They were still going to let me become a priestess.

I lay, lapped by water, in the marble basin. Through a gap in the curtains, I saw one of the nymphs on the wall, peeping coyly from behind a cypress tree. There were only five handmaidens, now, to sing the choral odes, and after a half-hearted verse or two they’d given up and were whispering and giggling among themselves.

Once I was dressed, the girls clustered around, trying to
ooh
and
ahh
with appropriate enthusiasm. I could tell they were struggling. In the mirror they gave me, I saw new hollows in my cheeks, and dark rings round my eyes.

The temple was half empty for the ceremony. People had come for Callisto because of the rumours that she was the girl who’d had the oracle. I was a nobody, as Opis said. Once, this wouldn’t have particularly mattered. This place was the only home, and family, I’d ever known or needed. But as I walked into the smoky glitter of the Sacred Hall I felt a stranger in a strange land.

As I finished the purification rituals – sprinkling the altar with holy water, brushing dust from the dais with a broom of cypress boughs – I glanced up and saw Aiden in the front row. It was enough to temporarily jolt me out of my daze. He stared back, expressionless. He wasn’t in his usual ill-fitting, grungy clothes. His suit was as sharp as his cheekbones. His shaggy hair was sleeked back. Every inch the Trinovantum Councillor.

It was a relief to turn away from him and take my place in front of the statue of Artemis. The High Priestess picked up her ceremonial silver arrow and held its point to my heart.

‘Do you vow to honour the laws of the temple and this land?’

Opis’s gaze was as serene as the marble woman who loomed behind us. For a moment, I wondered if I’d imagined our midnight meeting in the passageway. Then I felt the metal point of the arrow press through the thin silk, right against my skin.

‘I do, lest I suffer the arrows of Artemis and the waters of the Styx.’

The Lord Herne stepped forward with an impatient swish of his green velvet cloak.

‘Do you vow to serve the goddess in all her rites and works?’

Lionel Winter passed me a shard of rock, a symbol of Troy’s fallen walls, and folded my hand tightly round its jagged edge. His eyes burned into me from under the antler headdress.

‘I do, for I am bound by the blood of King Brutus and the stones of Troy.’

On it went. Question and answer, promise and threat.

I hardly knew what I was saying but I must have made the right responses, for at the end the Lord Herne led me to where the sacred fire flickered in its brazier, and guided my hand as I put a taper to the flame. The other priestesses gathered to form an escort as I carried the taper through the door behind the altar, down the dark stairs to the crypt below. I was bringing the light of the goddess into the underworld. As the door closed behind us, I heard the handmaidens raise their voices in the final song.

In the crypt, I stood in front of the rough slab of stone that was King Brutus’s altar. The narrow opening to the Chamber of the Oracle was in the wall opposite, concealed by a curtain. What was waiting for me there? Above ground was a sprawling modern city of concrete and neon and exhaust fumes. Below, I could be standing in the temple at Troy. The shrine at Delphi. The gateway to Hades.

I carried the only source of light; the darkness around me was filled with the rustlings of robed women: Opis, Leto, Aphaea, Cynthia, Amarysia, Atalanta, Aeginaea, Aetole, Agrotera, Callisto . . . Familiar faces made strange by the shadows.

Leto, as the oldest priestess, fastened my new mantle to my shoulders, with her usual scowl.
It won’t do you any good
, she’d told me. She’d been right, and I still didn’t understand why. One by one, the others stepped forward to kiss me on the cheek. When it was Cally’s turn, I felt her fingers close briefly and tightly round my wrist. I couldn’t tell if this was a blessing or warning. Cynthia was blinking and shivering. I felt a shudder of my own run down my back.

Finally the others withdrew. I was alone with the High Priestess and the Lord Herne. In spite of myself, the hand holding the taper shook.

One of the priestesses had brought down a gold chalice and set it on the altar. Opis lifted its lid and steam rose into the air. There was a smell of wine and honey. With the point of the gold arrow, she made a cut in her wrist, and let a couple of drops of blood fall into the cup.

‘The gods’ veins run with ichor,’ she intoned. ‘And mortal veins run with blood. They drink nectar, and we drink wine. Blood to ichor, wine to nectar, human to divine. Tonight, you will face the miracle of metamorphosis.’

‘What . . . what is my task?’

‘To guard the goddess’s light and tend her flame. The rest is for Artemis to reveal.’

Then she reached out and stroked my cheek. ‘Dear Aura,’ she said, ‘you are so nearly one of us. I hope you have been thinking about what we discussed. I am sure you have prayed for guidance.’

‘I have, Honoured Lady.’

‘So do you renounce your false prophecy?’

She spoke so tenderly that in spite of myself, tears sprang to my eyes.

‘I – I can’t, Honoured Lady.’ I licked my cracked lips. ‘I don’t want to make you angry. But I have to speak the truth. My prophecy was real.’

The High Priestess sighed, soft and low.

‘It is your choice,’ she murmured. ‘Remember that.’

The Lord Herne lifted the cup to my lips. I saw his cufflinks glint from under the green cloak. The reflected flame danced in his eyes. I hesitated, just for a moment, and then I drank.

Chapter 9

I’d gone more than forty-eight hours with hardly anything to eat and very little sleep. I’d been feeling faint all day. But this weakness was different. My limbs had suddenly become slow. The taper I was holding had become almost unbearably heavy. Everything seemed very small and far away.

I don’t even remember going through the curtain and into a second stone room. The Chamber of the Oracle. Through bleary eyes I saw an alcove that had been carved out of a wall of sheer rock. The alcove contained a small statue. It was Artemis Selene, Lady of the Moon, veiled, with a crescent moon as her crown. But it was nothing like the elaborately carved sculpture in the temple. It was worn and crude, smoke-blackened. This was the goddess that had been carried out of the ruins of Troy.

I walked unsteadily towards the statue. There was a bronze tripod seat in front of it next to an unlit brazier on a stand. A dish was set above the coals, containing dried leaves or herbs of some kind. In the wall on my right was a small door, also of polished bronze. It was locked.

I must light the fire, I told myself. I must tend the sacred flame. I must think good thoughts about the goddess and her cult, and then Opis and Artemis wouldn’t be angry with me any more. When the kindling caught light and the coals began to glow, tears of relief filled my eyes. Maybe everything was going to be all right.

I climbed on to the tripod. It felt precariously high. The heat from the brazier soon caused the dish of leaves to smoke, releasing a heavy herbal scent into the room. I don’t know how long I sat there, gazing at the goddess, woozily soaking up the warmth. It could have been ten minutes or two hours. I closed my eyes.

I awoke from my sleep or trance or whatever it was with a start. Panic seized me. For a moment I didn’t know where I was.

Even when I remembered, it made no sense. There was a draught blowing through the room and the fire had gone out. Yet the darkness was filled with smoke; I could smell it on me, and the air had a strange thickness to it. I thought of Troy again, of burning houses, charred flesh. I thought of the dank black hole that was the place of punishment.

I’d failed my initiation. I’d failed the goddess. I was going to Hades –

But there, after all, was a small spark in the blackness. A fleck of light. Something was moving in the smoke.

I clambered down from my seat. I thought I heard footsteps and staggered after them, tripping up on my mantle, my garland slipping crookedly down over my eyes. I must catch the light, save the fire . . . Shape-shifting wraiths loomed out of the darkness, before falling back and dissolving into smoke. My ears rang and my breath rasped.

I found a gap in the wall. I groped for the curtain, and touched cool metal instead. The little bronze door was now open. There was a curved passage beyond. Was this another part of the initiation? How far did the crypt go?

I stumbled forward, following the light. No longer was it a small guttering flame, but a steady glow. It was coming from another door along the passageway, which had been left ajar.

The ringing in my ears was deafening. The smoke swirled in my head. I didn’t want to go on. But the door was already opening.

A green man, with the head of a stag, stood on the threshold of a forest.

I shrank back. I remembered my vision of the golden wood. The leaping, twisting body . . . the antlers springing from the skull . . . Metamorphosis, as Opis had promised. Or was it? My mouth tasted sour. Chemical.

I needed to run, like a hunted animal. I was sweating and panting, yet frozen to where I stood. Trapped prey.

The stag-man advanced upon me. The trees behind him flickered. It was a room covered in leaves. Painted leaves. Through the flickering and the fog, I saw an oil lamp and frescoed walls, a carved wooden bed. As the man drew me into the room, I tried to push him off and grabbed a fistful of velvet cloak. My hands were too weak to hold on to it. A new terror rose in my throat. I knew the goddess wasn’t here. I wasn’t possessed. I’d been poisoned.

The man had me by the wrist, was leading me towards the bed as I struggled limply in his grasp. My screams were trapped in my lungs; I was choking on them.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Hush. Aura, please . . .’

I recognised the antler headdress and the cloak. They belonged to the Lord Herne. This wasn’t Lionel Winter, though. It was a boy with green eyes and tangled hair. The poison was everywhere. Everything was infected.

‘
Get – away – from – me –
’

He let go. I lurched into a corner of the room, where I crouched on the floor, arms wrapped round my knees, stiff and shuddering.

‘Aura, it’s me. Aiden. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’m here to help.’

He removed the headdress and knelt down beside me. I flinched away.

‘Listen to me, Aura. You’ve been drugged. You’re ill. I can make you better, but you have to trust me. Here.’ There was a little pink pill in his hand. ‘Take it. It’s medicine – an anti-hallucinogenic. It will help.’

I shook my head, so the room dipped and swayed, and the leaves on the wall seemed to rustle. His voice became more urgent.

‘I’m going to get you out of here, Aura, and take you somewhere safe. But we have to make you better first. You have to trust me.’

‘Why . . . why . . . should I?’

He took a deep breath. ‘Because I believe in you. I believe in your oracle.’

We stared at each other.

‘Please, Aura. Take the pill.’

In the end, I was too exhausted to go on resisting. Afterwards, I lay curled on the stone floor, eyes closed, for what felt like a lifetime. Time slowed; so did the racing of my heart. My mouth still tasted of chemicals. But when I opened my eyes again, the painted forest was flat and motionless, and the smoke had cleared. Aiden was sitting at the end of the bed, chewing his nails and staring at me anxiously.

‘How did you get here?’ I said at last. I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper.

‘I volunteered. They – Opis and Lionel and the rest – think I’m one of them now. They think I’m part of it. But I came to help you escape. I’ve got a key – I can take you out the way I came in.’

‘I can’t leave the cult,’ I said numbly.

‘You have to.’ Aiden sounded exasperated. Despite myself, tears rose in my eyes. I knew he was right.

‘It’s not safe for you here. They’ll find a way of shutting you up, driving you crazy. Aura . . . they want to break you.’

‘Why?’ I whispered, though I already knew.

‘Your prophecy is getting in their way. Look, I’ll explain more later. But, if you’re feeling strong enough, we need to get out of here. It’s half past three now. Leto will be waiting.’

‘
Leto?
’

‘Yeah.’ Aiden rumpled up his hair distractedly. ‘She’s the one who told me you were in trouble, and that I had to get in with the Council.’

He helped me to my feet and picked up the lamp. I wondered if that was the moving light I’d seen earlier. We walked out into the passageway, which curved away from the Chamber of the Oracle and went on for some distance underground. The stairs at its end took us out to a dark cul-de-sac just a couple of buildings down from the Trinovantum Council’s clubhouse.

A hunched figure emerged from behind a skip. It was Leto. ‘About time,’ she harrumphed.