The Tomb of Zeus Page 8

  “So—that's me, Mr. Gunning, and Aristidis. And do you have a task for your three musketeers?” Letty asked.

  “Four musketeers, in fact,” he said mysteriously. “You will meet the fourth on arrival in the village. And—yes, indeed—I have a task. A plum! A gem! Do you see this mountain, Laetitia? It's quite close to Kastelli…an easy walk to what you might call the foothills—the lower slopes.”

  “That's Juktas, isn't it? I saw it from the coast.”

  “That's right. Juktas—the holy mountain, sacred to Zeus. Now, there has been a little sporadic, halfhearted digging done up there— a peak sanctuary exposed—and Arthur himself walked around surveying the area a year or two ago. From his reconnaissance he concluded that there were distinct possibilities. Things move slowly in Crete, I must warn you, Laetitia, and there are rules—stoutly upheld—and these William will be able to fill you in on—concerning digging by foreigners or natives and the disposal of finds. Written permission has to be obtained and all that. Thinking ahead, I obtained the requisite bits of paper allowing us to excavate a particular site on the slopes of Juktas. The whole legal procedure was greatly eased and speeded by the kind offices of Aristidis, whose farming family seems to own a large slice of the mountain.”

  Gunning passed him a file and he selected a sheet of paper. “I've drawn up and had traced for you a map of the area, marking on the exact location of the proposed dig. Matter of fact, I was up there last month, thinking and planning, assessing possibilities and, poking about as one does, I came across this…”

  He felt in his pocket and, with a flourish, placed a small object in front of her.

  “What do you make of this? Should numismatics not be your forte, Laetitia—there must be, after all, some limit to your areas of expertise—we can help you.”

  She looked dubiously at the tiny coin, turning it this way and that, suspecting another trick.

  “I've never seen such a one before,” she said. “I can tell you it's not a Minoan seal…It's not even ancient…At a guess, I'd say it was Italian…Renaissance…so it would be safest to hazard…Florentine.”

  “Close. Well done. It is in fact Venetian.”

  He savoured her puzzlement and gave a slight smile. “You're wondering what on earth a single Venetian coin has to do with a Minoan excavation? Think of the coin you hold in your hand as the end of the ball of thread that led Theseus into the heart of the Labyrinth where lurked the Minotaur—half man, half bull, wholly monster. This is where you begin. You have there, in that coin, a clue which will lead you back through the mists of Time. There you will solve a mystery that has tantalised travellers in this land since Antiquity. If all goes well, you will be the last in a glorious succession of historical researchers! Let me enumerate: Callimachus in the fourth century B.C. describes his quest; Ennius a hundred years later gives us the precise location; Cicero, Diodorus Siculus, Saint Paul…all laid a trail, and on to the Venetian explorers, one of whom left behind this evidence of his presence at the site. Along with precise details of its location. One only has to have faith and follow them, and the name of Miss Laetitia Talbot will be added to the scroll in the twentieth century.”

  “Good lord!” breathed Stewart. “Sir, you can't mean…?”

  “I do indeed. On Crete we're all familiar with the folk tale…” Theodore looked around him, and all except Letty nodded sagely. “But is it merely a fable? Or, as Schliemann was to discover at Troy—is it a historical fact, cocooned in legend and buried deep, awaiting discovery? I refer, of course, to the Tomb of Zeus!”

  His announcement was greeted with awed silence. No one looked in her direction. Theodore continued with the careful precision of a stalking cat: “It's a notion I find rather piquant: that here, in this goddess-worshipping island, the stripling upstart god of the place, the Cretan Zeus, so long buried, should be resurrected by a woman.”

  “A sort of Sleeping Beauty in reverse,” Stewart remarked. “How are your kisses, Miss Talbot? Potent enough to wake the Thunder God?”

  Left alone in the library with Gunning with instructions to “familiarise herself with the topography of the target area,” Letty listened to the footsteps receding down the corridor and heard the sudden release of male guffaws as they rounded the corner. She knew their laughter was at the expense of Gunning and, judging by the slight tightening of his shoulders, so did he. The other three were calculating his chances of surviving a season in the company of this arrogant girl who found ignorance no handicap to ambition.

  They watched each other steadily, Letty waiting for the familiar caustic sideswipe, but he didn't even wag an admonishing finger.

  So it was she who broke the uncomfortable silence: “The British School has a hostel for students somewhere near the harbour. They rent out rooms. Get me their address, will you, William, and I'll make arrangements to transfer myself and my things there as soon as I can,” she said calmly. “I will not stay another night under that man's roof.”

  “Your initial opinion of our host has not improved, I see?”

  “It has not! What's the matter with the Cretans—reputedly such swashbuckling bandits—that they've left him alive so long? I can't put up with his nonsense for another day. So condescending! Does he reserve all that ‘Mists of Time over this Land of Antiquity’ rubbish just for me?”

  Gunning laughed. “I had noticed he turns on the grandiloquence for you. It has the effect of setting you at a distance and marking you out.”

  “A target, you mean?”

  He shrugged. “That would be going too far, I think. But you're certainly not treated to the peremptory naval tone he takes with the rest of us. I'd say he doesn't like you any more than he likes me.”

  “But he speaks highly of you, William.”

  “He'd never admit to making a poor choice. All his geese are swans—apart from you, of course. And I've helped him through a stressful time—got him out of a tight corner, dash it! But that's no reason to expect his genuine regard. My work here is really done. I had been waiting for him to pack me off back to England but then he unexpectedly renewed my contract. Actually increased my salary. And now I discover why!”

  “Recompense for riding herd on the brash new arrival? Sending you off into the hills with me and getting rid of two uncongenial people at a stroke. Poor William! Fate, it seems, has it in for you—lurking around the corner to cosh you a second time? How unkind! But, you must have got to know the man well? You seem very close, at least when you're working…Tell me: Why is he obsessed with testing me? So unnecessary! It's not a struggle I can win.”

  “But you mistake him, Letty! He wasn't trying you out just now.”

  “Good gracious! You're not saying he genuinely thinks that little figure is genuine?”

  “He does. But so do several experts in the field. I'm not one of them! Stewart was overcaustic perhaps, but he spoke the truth. May I ask you, Letty, what made you so certain of your extraordinary analysis? Quite a surprise, your demonstration—illustrated as it was by a most entertainingly produced side-elevation! Dickie, for one, will never again be able to tooth a Cox's Pippin without a blush.”

  “I just knew it wasn't right. Even before I held it. Difficult to say why.”

  “You didn't seem to have any problems justifying your judgement?”

  “I've spent the last six weeks in Athens undergoing a crash course on Minoan civilization with Andrew Merriman. He recommended me to Russell—he wanted to take no chances I was going to let him down. Andrew has many good friends there—professionals and amateurs—all experienced and all happy to talk to me on their favourite subject. And he didn't neglect my practical training.”

  “I'm sure Merriman was thorough in all aspects of your instruction,” said Gunning coldly.

  “I've been to museums and private collections—cabinets of curiosities have creaked open for me! I've been to excavations but also to goldsmiths and jewellers, forgers' workshops…I've seen such things, William! Wonderful but alarming! I'm not
sure I'd accept anything as genuine unless I'd turned it up with my own spade. When the reproductions are skilfully done and the materials used are not subject to decay—like gold and gemstones—well…the only thing you can go by is intuition inspired by your own knowledge and sense of style. But it's never sufficient to say to a man, ‘I've made my mind up in a second and I'm sure I'm right. Just believe me.’ You have to go through the business of counting tiers and testing for tea stains. A useful lesson I learned from Andrew.”

  “I trust you were adequately chaperoned for your forays into the Athenian backstreets?”

  “Isn't that a bit stuffy—even for you, William?” she retorted. “One has to be more circumspect than in London, of course, and I never went out alone. Andrew was usually available—I stayed with him and Mrs. Merriman. They'd taken a house on the Lykkavettos.”

  “Oh—Maud was there, was she? I'm surprised to hear she'd made the journey…Athens? Not the place one might expect her to choose to spend the winter. How was she bearing up?”

  “Her usual self. Getting better slowly; ensuring everyone around her suffered the effects of her mysterious condition. Do you know her?”

  “I stayed with them in London last summer.”

  “So that's where you went! Andrew didn't mention it. What an extraordinary thing to do—”

  “Listen, Letty!” He seemed suddenly anxious to turn her back to her original request. “I can tell you where the student hostel is, of course, but…this is a little difficult…surely you or your father has already—I'm guessing now—invested a certain sum in this venture? Can you afford to turn about and run for home before you've even got started?”

  “Oh, come on—say what you mean, William! My father has paid for me to be here. He's donated funds to the Cretan-British Exploration Society, and some of this gratefully received cash has doubtless made its way sideways into the pocket of Theodore Russell, who happens to be the Society's chairman. He makes no mention of it, naturally, but silently acknowledges the transaction by offering hospitality and underwriting the dig he's dreamed up for me. The knowledge that I'm funding this little jaunt probably annoys him like anything, if what you have to tell me is true. But that's the way things are done in this world. I know the system. I use the system,” she said repressively. “Oh, hello, Phoebe! We were just…”

  Phoebe swept into the room bringing with her the sudden light of a summer morning. “Theo told me I'd find you here, plotting and planning. I've just been hearing about your project. And you're off to the palace? How wonderful!”

  She seemed invigorated by the sunshine—even her clothes suggested a renewed confidence: daffodil-coloured blouse tucked into black divided riding skirt and shining black boots. Her fair hair was freshly washed, fluffing up in an unruly way and lightly scented with lilies and sandalwood. “It's going to be a warm afternoon. I thought we could have a picnic among the ruins. And, Laetitia, I've had another good idea—why don't we find George and ask him to lend us his car? Can you drive it, do you think? I should so enjoy swanning up to the Ariadne in a Bugatti!”

  Letty was intrigued to see that she had dared to put on makeup even on a Sunday—the cheekbones were delicately rouged, the sweet mouth slightly reddened. All this for her benefit? Surely not? Phoebe's face was animated and clever, Letty realised in the sharp light of morning. Not elfin—there was too much mischief bubbling in the sideways glances. A sprite, Letty decided.

  Phoebe turned her attention to Gunning. “I don't know, William, if you were planning to spend the afternoon marching Laetitia round the site? I bet you were! Every inch of every level explained in precise order and in exhaustive detail…Oh, essential, of course—I know that—but she has all the time in the world to study the place. I thought today she should just be at leisure to enjoy it. To sit on the stones in the sun like a lizard…sniff the mimosa and the rosemary and dream a bit. No notebooks allowed! No guidebooks! In any case, you'd need to hire a spare donkey to cart that around with you!” She pointed a dismissive finger at Evans's thick The Palace of Minos. Vol 1. “What do you say, Laetitia?”

  Letty was instantly caught up by her gaiety. “That's just exactly what I'd like! I can drive the Bugatti—yes. And there's just about room for a small hamper aboard. But do you really think George will let us take it? You know how possessive men can be about their motorcars.”

  “Don't worry—George wouldn't refuse me,” Phoebe said with a slight smile.

  “Then I'd better change my outfit,” Letty said doubtfully. “Sunday picnic in tricky terrain…?”

  “Desert boots rather than parasol, my dear,” advised Phoebe firmly. “This is Crete, not Birdcage Walk.”

  * * *

  “Slow down! Slow down or you'll miss it! There's the carriage drive on your right. You go up between the pine trees,” Phoebe shouted and pointed.

  They'd driven through the narrow bazaars of Herakleion and past the museum, joining the southern road where it wound down through the old moat and breached the ramparts. After a short halt at the gates for Phoebe to dole out a handful of coins to the flock of beggars who gathered around the car, they chugged on through untidy straggles of houses and out into open country. The recent rain seemed to have settled the dust; the driving was proving not to be the challenge Letty had expected.

  Phoebe's call had come unexpectedly soon. “Golly!” said Letty, braking and holding the car back to a docile rumbling approach. “The Palazzo Evans already! I hadn't realised it was so close to Herakleion.”

  “The Lodge at the end of the drive—the Taverna, they call it—is where the students are housed. You could have stayed there, Laetitia, but I don't think you'd have liked it. Trails of dirty socks everywhere, uncertain hot water, and a constant squabbling going on.” She caught Laetitia's quickly suppressed smile. “So unlike the home-life at our own dear villa, of course.”

  Fifty yards up the hill the land flattened out, and there ahead of them in a grove of sheltering trees was the Villa Ariadne. At last she was here, seeing it for herself, this bit of Arcadia talked of with a gusty sigh of nostalgia and a far-off look in the eye of everyone she knew who'd ever sampled Sir Arthur Evans's hospitality. The sighs were inevitably followed by stories of convivial parties, nights of deep drinking fired by raki and dark red Cretan wine, days of muscle-cracking exertion in the trench or on the tennis court, life lived against the stimulating beat of archaeological derring-do. Letty ached with longing to have been a part of it.

  Here a changing cast of young and active scholars had helped to reveal to a fascinated world a society only hinted at in legend. Ancient writers had been confident that the empire of Minos had existed, had even pointed clearly to the slope near Herakleion as the centre of the culture, but no one had quite liked to believe in any of this until, in the first three years of the century, Arthur Evans in a series of swift and frenzied digs had laid it bare to the light once more. And here, to the villa he'd built on the hill commanding the excavations, one team had retired at the end of each day's work to cool off in the ground-floor rooms, to write up their accounts, draw profiles, argue and speculate and joke.

  Constructed of sand-coloured stone slabs, large and flat-roofed, the Villa Ariadne occupied a perfect position overlooking the Palace of Knossos and the olive and cypress-covered slopes of the valley of the Kairatos. A garden had been contrived in the shallow soil, Edwardian in its formality but enlivened with pots of bright flowers and shy statuary placed amongst the shrubs by a discreet hand.

  “Leave the car in the shade over there,” instructed Phoebe, “and I'll go and see if anyone's at home. Back in a tick.”

  Phoebe returned after a few minutes, accompanied by two middle-aged Cretans, obviously man and wife. “No luck, I'm afraid. No royalty, no heads of state, no operatic tenors—not even an archaeologist, for goodness' sake! The curator's gone off to Rethymnon. But here are Kostis and Maria to greet you, Letty. They look after Arthur when he's here and they're going to provide us with tea when we've finish
ed at the palace. I said four o'clock…I think that will be late enough.”

  Letty was introduced to Evans's butler and his wife and, instantly catching on to their plans, Kostis whistled up two boys who seized the hamper from the car and set off down the hill. Phoebe and Letty followed after, Phoebe chattering nineteen to the dozen about the palace. She talked confidently about the excavations and about preclassical history, Letty noticed, intrigued. But Phoebe's information was not ponderously displayed: It skittered and bounced along the surface of what Letty guessed to be a depth of knowledge. And the deserted state of the Villa Ariadne had in no way dampened her mood, as one might have expected. Showing off and socialising were not, evidently, the reason for this outing.

  They followed the boys down the road for about a hundred yards, crossed over and, passing the deserted guardian's house, entered the site from what Phoebe called the West Court. She gave directions for leaving the hamper in the shade, dismissed the boys, and stood scanning the terrain like a general. “Deserted! Good! I hate to arrive at the same time as a charabanc-load of tourists, leaving piles of orange peel all over the place and yammering like monkeys.”

  Letty looked about her at the vast slope, covered with a jumble of grey limestone walls and hummocks of stones stretching onwards down the headland towards the river, and her heart sank.

  Reading her expression, Phoebe laughed. “I know! How does anyone ever make sense of this maze? It's a palace surrounded by a town; it's a site two hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide. Buckingham Palace and its gardens would fit into it twice over with room to spare, I'm told. Every inch packed with detail. And don't forget the third dimension—depth and height. Theo says some parts of the palace could have been as high as five storeys, most two or three. After your tenth exposure to all this, you may begin to have a glimmer of understanding, but today you're not even to try! Quite shamelessly, I'm going to show you the most dramatic bits—the Violet and Rose Creams of the Charbonnel et Walker assortment. Come on! Follow me—and keep your eyes looking straight ahead—if you start poking about in some of these holes, I know I'll lose you! I'm going to fire you with romantic enthusiasm for this place—others can instruct you as to the laws of stratification, destruction layers, sondages, cultural overlap, and all the rest of it.”