2 The High Priestess (aka the Popess, the Lady Pope)

She sits in splendour on a throne between two pillars, one light, one dark. Between the pillars is slung a curtain which obscures what lies behind. Her clothing is of rich blue and white and in some decks she wears the triple tiara of the Papacy. She has a richly inscrutable look on her face and may have the moon and stars at her feet. "Inscrutable" is one of the reasons why the esoteric Tarot associates her with the Hebrew letter "gimel" – which also means that most inscrutable beast of all, the camel. Indeed, some decks actually import a camel into the card to make this association. Dressed in blue and white, wearing a crown, with moon and stars at her feet also gives her a specifically Christian interpretation.

There is also the legend that in the latter part of the tenth century, a woman masquerading as a man became first priest, then bishop, then cardinal and Prince of the Church, then finally Pope Joan... the Catholic Church denies this, of course.

The range of meanings? A mysterious and occulty woman; witchcraft; getting involved with the feminine side of yourself, the anima; a magical initiation; a vision quest into a dark place; the mystic and occult side of the Middle East, especially Israel; a deepening of intuitive ability and a growing interest in the magic and mysterious world of the subconscious mind (she is partnered to the Magician in some Tarot schemes – he is the conscious rational mind). It can also depict a growing interest in conventional Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion, where the feminine side is buried and repressed under layers of patriarchy. She is a Psychopomp - she guards the portal to the Dreamworld. Only the flimsy veil strung between the two pillars seperates the sleeping world from the waking. At her decision, she may allow you past the portal and through the gateway behind her Throne to pass from Malkuth to Yesod and to what lies beyond.

The Right Reverend Extremelia Mume sat in the otherwise empty Temple of Anoia and scowled to herself. She crossed her legs and looked out on her new Temple – a Cathedral, really – from the vantage point of the Bishop's throne behind the main altar. The Cathedral of Anoia was a relatively new building on God Street, and could comfortably hold six hundred seated and three hundred more standing. The Church motto being what it was – IT COULD BE YOU! – was reinforced everywhere, from the hassocks to the embroideries to the stained-glass window. It had struck a chord in Ankh-Morpork, after the Miracle, and she was assured of a full congregation every Octeday from among the optimistic and hopeful. Regular bingo games three times a week kept the Faithful, reinforced the message, and assured a small steady stream of happy winners with small, unspectacular, winnings. It was a good revenue stream for the Church, even after paying Gamblers' Guild tax.

She sighed and her frown eased. Being High Priestess, or Bishop, as the Assembly had insisted, wasn't a bad life. It was just that nobody had ever told her, in those long-ago days when the Temple of Anoia had been a single poky room over a bookies in Cable Street, when she'd had to hold down two part-time jobs pulling pints, and acting as Paddy(1) the bookie's cashier downstairs.

Nobody had ever said to the younger Extremelia that in the future, when satellite Temples of Anoia were opening in Pseudopolis and Quirm and the Stos, and she would be elected its Bishop, that the further away you got from the ordinary priesthood, the more your life started to revolve around paperwork and administration and finance and day-to-day personnel management of junior priestesses and Church employees.

Well, Hughnon Ridcully had said it to her – and he'd been incredibly supportive at those acrimonious meetings of the Council of Churches, Temples, Sacred Groves and Big Ominous Rocks, where the City's (mainly male) religious spokespeople had raised the old endless prejudices against women being priests, let alone High Priests or Bishops.

"Pack it in, you fellows!" he had boomed across a crowded Small Gods. "She serves a Goddess, don't you know? And I'm not going to be the one to stand in front of a Goddess and tell her she has to have male priests and like it. Some short tempers, some of these female deities! You want to tell Sardok(2) she can't have women as priests? Anyone? No? Far as I'm concerned, the gel's served her time on the shop floor and she's good enough, or she would not have had a share in the Miracle!"

And afterwards, he had taken her aside and confided. "You do know the real work begins here? And precious little of it's got to do with Octeday Evensong, my girl! You need to be an accountant, a manager, a politician, you have got to slam down hard on schismatics or they'll split the bloody church and halve yer income – look at the Omnians. You'll be lucky for five minutes alone to say yer morning prayers! Oh, and get yourself a talented scribe to write your holy books and see nobody tampers with them. An Authorised Version helps glue a church together, you follow? And if those buggers from the Musician's Union come round demanding a Guild tax, on the grounds you're holding a public performance of singin' and music twice every Octeday – threaten 'em with lightning bolts. Or instrument cases that are locked shut forever, your woman's good at that!"

Extremelia sighed. She'd recruited an ex-sub-editor from the Inquirer – now a Deaconess - to put together the Gospel of Anoia, counselled her that she should consider what should be written with all due prayerful respect, and to "give it a bit of zip". The resulting holy book had become a best-seller and drew more of the Faithful to the Temple.

She shifted moodily on the throne.

The key to all this had been the Miracle, the sudden unlooked-for donative from the Postmaster, one day when he had gone into a religious rhapsody and the location of a buried treasure had been vouchsafed unto him.(3) Extremelia had had this written into the Acts of Anoia, the best-selling sequel to the Gospel, but given what had later been revealed about the character and previous life of Moist von Lipwig, she was inclined to doubt it.

It had bought her the freehold to the new Temple site. It had established the building. Money calls to money. People flocking to the Temple had brought in donations. The bingo sessions added more profit. Sales of the Gospel and the Acts were another revenue strand. Sales of gold and silver devotional spatulas and toasting forks were on the up. While the premises were protected by discreet subs to both the Assassins and the Thieves, she still thought it prudent to keep the more expensive and ornate jewelled ritual kitchenware under lock and key. and if Anoia didn't want a locked drawer or cupboard to open, it stayed closed...

But she looked back nostalgically to the days when practically the only visitor to the temple was Horace, and that because he thought Anoia was smiling on him every time his bets won. Which was often. Until Paddy banned him for winning too often and thus usurping the accepted bookie-to-punter relationship, he won his bets with uncanny frequency. But as he paid his stake to Extremelia through the steel bars of the cashier's window, he would add the unfortunately misinterpretable

"See you upstairs later, miss?"

Extremelia would nod, glare at anyone who dared to snigger, and later in the day, Horace would come round and hand over a percentage of his winnings in thanks to the Goddess, and ritually bend a fish-slice in her honour. She approved of this, as his donation meant she could eat at least one meal a day.

This happened week after week. Finally, curiosity got the better of her.

"How do you do it, Horace? Look, call this the confessional if you like. Secrecy applies. It goes no further than me."

And he told her…(4)

And so here she was. In the sort of Cathedral she'd dreamt of all her life, and it was hers. She'd worked for it, she'd planned it, she'd helped bring it about, and she was now head of an organisation with a six-figure turnover. Praise to Anoia.

She took off the mitre of office, festooned as it was with gold and silver cutlery. She wondered what the curtain between the two pillars was meant to conceal, in an arcane and occult sense. As far as she knew, it had been hung up to conceal Mrs Bolton the cleaner's broom cupboard. And why was there a camel in the design of more than one of the stained-glass windows? She'd never noticed that before…

"Your Grace?"

It was young Deaconess Tracy, nervously edging towards the altar.

"What is it?" Extremelia was annoyed at being interrupted in her reverie.

"Mr von Lipwig and Miss Dearheart to see you, Your Grace. You did say as patrons of the Cathedral, they should have access to you at any time."

"I'll be on my way."

Regretfully, she got up and donned the heavy uncomfortable crown again. Back to work…


(1) Paddy O'Mighty, the best odds in town! Originally a Hegenian immigrant who had worked long hours on building sites, studied the form religiously, and come to the conclusion that he'd make more money at it from collecting the bets rather than laying them. He'd employed Extremelia on the grounds that a priestess would be honest with the takings and act as a brake on unseemly language and behaviour in the shop.

(2) Sardok the bloody-handed had an exclusively female priesthood and devotional base in old Djelibeybi. Her High Priestess frightened all the other priests and even Dios treated her with respect. Something to do with all the tales about fearsome goings-on with sacred knives in ritual groves and it being a hard time for any man caught watching, apparently. See Terry Pratchett's Pyramids.

(3) See Terry Pratchett's Going Postal for the tale of Moist, Anoia, the mysterious gift of money, and Extremelia Mume as beneficiary.

(4) This will be dealt with later when we discuss the nature of Fortune, the tenth of the Major Arcana cards. See? I'm planning ahead…