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“She was a very good Pythia,” she told me quietly.
“But?” I asked, because there had been one in there somewhere.
She bit her lip. But when she spoke, her voice was determined. “But she was too close to the Circle.”
“She and Jonas were lovers,” I pointed out. “Not that most people knew it.”
“They knew. Maybe not the man on the street—they kept it out of the papers. But there were rumors. And the major players, they always have spies. . . .”
The Senate sure did. I thought briefly of Kit Marlowe’s smiling face. The Senate’s chief spy had always been kind to me, charming even. I liked him.
I wondered if I still would if I knew everything he had on me.
“Enough people knew that the other groups felt excluded,” Rhea continued. “It didn’t matter so much with individuals, someone wanting a judgment on a personal matter. But if it touched the Circle . . .”
“And what doesn’t touch the Circle?” They weren’t the only magical game in town, but they were the biggest and everybody knew it.
She nodded.
“So what did groups like the Senate do when they needed a judgment? How did they approach her?”
“Most didn’t,” Rhea said quietly. “Not about the big things. It bothered her—I could tell—when they would sort things out for themselves, only to find that the solution they’d come up with didn’t work. She would have known, could have told them . . . but they hadn’t asked her.”
“You’re telling me their relationship was that damaging? To the point that no one listened to her afterward?”
“It wasn’t that no one listened. It was more that . . . it confirmed what everyone had always suspected. That the Circle and the Pythia worked in tandem.”
“So it started before Agnes?”
“Oh yes.” As usual, she looked slightly surprised at my ignorance. “It started with the Coven Wars.”
Damn. That sounded like more of the kind of stuff I should know about but didn’t. I sighed and womaned up. “The Coven Wars?”
“It’s the reason the Circle and the covens don’t get along. They had a huge war back in the sixteenth century over who was going to control Britain. The Circle won—barely—partly because the Pythia of the day prophesied that it would. The other groups took that as a sign that helping the covens would be a waste of time, and afterward, they couldn’t get allies anywhere.”
“A self-fulfilling prophecy.”
She nodded. “That’s what the covens said. They were furious, and many refused to allow any more of their children to go into the Pythian service. And those who did . . . didn’t do well.”
I remembered that Rhea had a cousin in the covens. It’s why she’d run to them when she found out my acolytes were rotten, and why the coven leaders had been willing to help me. But it sounded like her connections hadn’t made her too popular at court.
“The Pythias were unique in the ancient world, did you know?” she asked, sitting on the edge
of the tub, hugging an armful of soiled cotton. “Every other seer, every other temple, was dominated by wealthy men or women whose families had put them in that position. Every single one. Except for Delphi. Some of the Pythias came from wealth, too, from time to time, but there were just as many who were farmers’ daughters or shepherdesses or . . . or nobodies. Just nobodies. But these days . . .”
“These days?” I prompted when she trailed off.
“They say the power goes where it will. But it almost always goes to the one best able to use it. And that means the old Pythia’s heir, the person who has received the most training.”
I was starting to see where she was going with this. “But if you only allow some people to be trained—”
“Then you decide where the power goes—or where it doesn’t go. It has become a monopoly among a few old magical families that have strong connections to the Circle’s leadership. Lady Phemonoe was from one; her predecessor from another. And on and on, back beyond the wars.”
“And the current acolytes?”
“Old families, every one. Lady Phemonoe’s parents were unusual in not wanting their child selected. Most see it as a path to power, influence, and wealth, and push their daughters to get the position at all costs.”
“And so they breed a bunch of ambitious little hellions like Myra.”
