Babylon Read Online Free PDF Page A

teacher.’ She blushed. ‘But of course—’
    ‘But of course Madeleine wishes to become a temple-maiden.’ The Duenna looked me straight in the eye. ‘Is that not true, Madeleine?’
    ‘It is certainly true that she is good with numbers,’ interjected the headmistress, who always interpreted the ‘seen and not heard’ rule in the strictest of terms. ‘Not just subtraction, multiplication, and division, mind, but fractions, percentages, decimals, and interest, too.’
    ‘And algebra,’ piped in Miss Nelson.
    ‘And geometry,’ added the headmistress, unwilling to be outdone.
    ‘Please,’ said the Duenna, seemingly unafraid of the two teachers, even though both had a well-deserved reputation for being complete
     
    Turks. ‘I wish to avail myself of the young lady's opinions.’ Miss Nelson turned puce. ‘Madeleine?’ said the Duenna, prompting me.
    ‘Well,’ I said, nervously, ‘I have a good attendance medal. And I received a book at last year’s prize day.’
    ‘She comes from a most respectable family,’ said the headmistress. ‘Most respectable. Her mother is a confidante of Mrs Henrietta Barnett.’
    ‘ Please ,’ said the Duenna, plainly exasperated. The headmistress fell as silent as Miss Nelson. Indeed, both teachers looked so abashed that the world might have been turned on its head, for they resembled nothing so much as two erring schoolgirls sent into a corner to share the dunce’s cap.
    The Duenna smiled. It was an intimate smile. It was a smile that said I had won her sympathy.
    ‘I’m glad to hear you’re so bright,’ she continued. ‘We need bright girls in Babylon.’ How well connected was the Duenna? She spoke with an assurance that suggested a social standing I was unfamiliar with, except in books. Perhaps she was distantly related to the Rothschilds, I thought, letting my imagination run away with me, or even—however fantastic it might seem — the Weishaupts. ‘In fact,’ she added, ‘I think I could promise you a very good position—as a personal companion to one of our High Priestesses, say.’
    ‘Or a scribe?’ I said, feeling confident enough to make a suggestion of my own, and thinking that writing had always been my métier.
    ‘Perhaps,’ said the Duenna. ‘It would certainly be better than being a pupil teacher, don’t you think?’ And her smile grew wider.
    ‘Yes, Madam,’ I said, retreating into my natural shyness.
    ‘But to become a scribe it is necessary to know more than your ABC.’ She picked up a pen, dipped it in an inkwell, and scribbled something in the register that lay before her. ‘Now,’ she said, looking up and setting the pen to one side, ‘let’s see just how cle ver you really are.’ The headmistress and Miss Nelson folded their arms across their chests. Their faces were pinched, their eyes cold and shrewd. I might have been one of the insects or seashells t hat they kept in their specimen cabinets. ‘Answer me this, Madeleine: How did the ancient Babylonian priestesses of Ishtar create the first interdimensional gate between Earth and the parallel world that has come to be known as Modern Babylon?’
    I smoothed down my pinafore. ‘By means of sex-magic,’ I said, 'sometime during the seventh and sixth centuries before Christ.’ I hesitated, unsure of how detailed my response should be. ‘The parallel world — a fecund place, with varied flora and fauna, but devoid of—’ I was reciting by rote, of course, and rather thought I'd said too much, but the Duenna nodded for me to continue. 'But devoid of indigenous human life, was declared sacred to Ishtar, under the code of Hammurabi. And great stone images of Ishtar’s favourite animal, the lion, stood guard beside the portal that linked the two worlds, for it was decreed that if any man entered that holy land, Babylon the Great would fall.’
    ‘Very good,’ said the Duenna. ‘So many ancient secrets were lost, of course, after Babylon the Great did fall. But thanks