"What about the Albanian, though?"
He shrugged. "They say an Albanian was here looking for Captain Stephanes, too."
"Yesterday?"
"Sure, it was yesterday. Late, long time after dark, he come around."
"Do you know where the Albanian is now?"
"No. But your American friend, the redhead, the Mr. Harris? He hears that the Albanian was asking for Captain Stephanes, so maybe Mr. Harris goes to find Stephanes, too, eh?"
Durell began to feel a sense of urgency. He looked up the valley to the little ruined temple shining atop the last peak. Perhaps Harris, hunting Shkoeder, had followed Shkoeder's search for the Captain Stephanes the proprietor mentioned. He left the owner of the Minoa some drachma notes and took Lisette aside to stand beside Xanakias' car. She trembled slightly.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I don't know. This seems such a peaceful place, but all at once, I feel frightened. Do you trust the hotel man?"
"No reason to think he lied to us."
She looked about the valley. "Yes, it looks peaceful. And beautiful. But men have killed each other in this valley for thousands of years. These hills—I don't know—it seems to me they hide something very important from us."
"We'll soon find out," he said. "Let's go."
The sun glanced off a slope of broken shale and sank deep into the shadows of a pine ravine, shone on a small limpid pool where a stream came tumbling and gushing from the cleft stone. Above, at the end of the winding upward path, stood the temple of the ancient Hellenes, in quiet pride, jewel-perfect, although its Doric columns to the north were split and broken, and most of the marble roof tiles had long been stolen or lost. The base and remaining walls were in perfect harmony as they soared from the weed-covered stone steps leading to the cella where the altar to Apollo had once stood.
The sound of a pick battling the stubborn Greek soil was a faint clink-clink against the distant song of a bird, the sigh of the lonely wind, the soundless rush of white clouds in the blue of the Hellenic sky. There was no respite in the steely battle with the stone. The rhythmic strokes went on as Durell, leading Lisette by the hand, crossed the broken area of the steps at the base of the temple ruins and headed around the back of the hill summit. Here a few old cedars bent majestically to the wind, and wild flowers dotted the opposite slope that descended to a far valley and a distant view of the sea again.
Alone under the hot sun, a sturdy half-naked figure stood with legs apart on the rocky shale, as adamant as the earth, his brawny torso gnarly with muscle, silver and gray with hair that matched a wild, white mane crowning a stubborn old head.
"Captain Stephanes?" Durell called. "Panayotis Stephanes?"
He imagined the wind had snatched his words from the other's hearing. Now the lift and fall of the pick had ended; the careful, sensitive scrape of a shovel was heard, and then an even more delicate sound of excavation, pebble by pebble.
"Captain Stephanes!" he called again.
"It is he." Lisette was breathing quickly from the uphill climb. "I'd remember that head anywhere. A very unusual old man, absorbed in his work."
He called a third time, and then led Lisette carefully down the slope from the back of the temple ruins. Pebbles and chunks of Pentellic marble, rosy with tiny veins of iron, made a small landslide toward the gnarled figure of the old man. His pick had been laid aside. Thick, calloused fingers penetrated where he did not dare strike with steel. A grunt of satisfaction came from the massive throat. The hands plunged down like the drop of a hawk, removed a stone, then became very still, very delicate; then two knotty arms held an object aloft for the sun to see again, for daylight to adorn once more. It was a shallow drinking cup with a tall stem, a kylix, with one delicate handle still intact; faintly visible on the bowl was the image of a marvel, a trireme on the sea sailed to a distant shore by Poseidon himself,
A sigh came from the gray-bearded face. With great delicacy and reverence, the old man put the drinking cup aside. Only then did he lift his eyes to Durell and the girl as they approached.
There was quick suspicion, a challenge, and then a straightening of the aged shoulders, a gallant bow, a twinkle in faded blue eyes. "Madame Pollini, I am not so old that my memory can fail me in the case of a beautiful young woman."
He spoke Italian well, and after a swift, impressive survey of Durell, he spoke in English. "You are American, sir?"
Durell nodded. "A friend of mine was here earlier, perhaps before sunrise, to see you. I sent him, from Athens. Did you meet with him? His name is Harris."
Captain Panayotis Stephanes shook his head. "How could he? Last night I slept down by the stream. I have some wine and cheese and olives and bread. I doubt if he could find me where I slept. But why should I go home, when Apollo himself calls to me every hour?" He bent and moved his pick and indicated the excavated outlines of a stone wall. "I am through with the heavy work now. The cup proves it. From now on, the work must be of utmost delicacy. I know Apollo's image is here, and I must live long enough to find it. They say it was the work of Phidias himself—not a major work, of course, but for me to discover it would bring meaning to my life. To take it into the light of the sun once more, to find it—" The old man shrugged and smiled at himself. "Well, never mind. Apollo is here. And now at last I hope to see it one day."
"But you are sure a Mr. Harris has not been here?"
"He may have been. As I said, I slept down the hill last night, in the open. You are the first strangers I have seen in a week. Madame Pollini, even in these rough hills, we learn the news, the good and the sad. I was sorry to have heard of the General's death. I find that even my enemies slowly abandon me to these hills, and more and more I am left alone, to commune only with the ghosts of the old gods."
The old man was a charmer, Durell thought—and a thing of old oak and bronze, as resistant to time as the hills he both loved and attacked. Captain Stephanes took Lisette's hand and kissed it, and Lisette flushed slightly with pleasure; but Durell did not miss the cool weighing and judging that went on in the old Greek's pale blue eyes. A flock of rooks suddenly took to flight from among the Doric columns of the temple that stood in white splendor against the sky. The old man lifted his head and squinted at the circling black birds.
"Is someone coming?" Durell asked quietly.
"I think so, yes. A long way off, perhaps."
"You have not lost your touch."
"Too many of my years were spent like a hunted animal, hungry and frightened. The habit will not die until the body dies," Stephanes said gravely. "Please tell me how I may serve you."
Durell mentioned Xanakias' name, and the old guerilla fighter nodded and accepted it for authority. Now and then his eyes under bushy, gray brows flicked to Lisette's figure, outlined by the wind that whipped her skirt against her thighs and legs. Durell guessed that old Stephanes might still be the terror of the peasant girls in this neighborhood.
Lisette spoke earnestly. "Please, Captain Stephanes, tell Mr. Durell about the gold cache in Debrec. He has come about that matter, and something else, too, which he may or may not choose to divulge. But he does not quite believe me."
The old man smiled, looked at Durell, and nodded. "It is well to be skeptical. Yet think of the manner in which all the tales of my ancestors, the heroes and the gods of this land, were once thought to be idle myths, tales for children and babes. And day by day, we find more truth in these stories, a little more each time. We know the heroes lived. Perhaps even the gods lived, too. Who can know?"
"Was there a cache of gold bullion in Debrec?" Durell asked.
"There was. And there still is. But no one will ever see it again," the old man said emphatically. He handled his delicate, antique drinking cup with a tenderness that was remarkable in his tough, gnarled fingers. He watched the circling rooks in the blue sky. Durell saw no one approaching from the valley below. The road was visible, a mile away, and much farther, a faint, dim glimmer of roof tiles from the Minoa Hot
el where he had stopped for information. Nothing more. Captain Stephanes said: "This man Gregori Shkoeder, this Albanian who seems to have turned traitor to his motherland—he turned traitor then, too, long ago. Perhaps he was even then a Communist, although only through convenience, I am sure, knowing royalty was dead in his country. And he went to General Pollini as the Italians advanced and told him of the royal cache of bullion in the Debrec village. It had been hidden in a cave nearby."
"How much was there?"
Stephanes shrugged his massive shoulders. "Who can guess? A million of your dollars? Perhaps five? No man alive now knows. But it was there. I saw it myself, with my own eyes."
"You're certain of it?"
"I know gold, young man, when I see it. I was with the Albanian guerillas, then, fighting the Italians. But I was younger, and always enjoyed a good fight. They paid me well, too, the Albanians. And there was a certain young woman in the village who easily persuaded me of my loyalty—but that is of no importance." Stephanes smiled briefly in a romantic memory that would always be his own. "Gregori Shkoeder was a local politician, a postmaster, I think, but his government position made a petty tyrant of him in those days, in those primitive hills. He led Pollini and his Italian troopers into a pass above the village, looking for the cave and the gold."
"There are other caves in that area?" Durell interrupted, thinking of modern rocket emplacements, of silos used not for grain but for nuclear carriers.
"Many. A honeycomb of caves, sir. Anyway, it was bitterly cold, snowing and sleeting. We were not comfortable, lying in wait for the Italians to walk into our trap. That Judas goat, Shkoeder, had actually done us a good turn, you see. But everything turned out successfully for us, except for the gold."
"How so?"
"Weil, we opened fire on the Italians, and they realized at once that it was an ambush. Pollini was not a clever tactician, as officers go, but he was not a coward. He fought back bravely. But he never had a chance. His men were shot down; it was pitiful. Half frozen and filled with terror, they were. They went stumbling back to the village and when some of my men opened fire on them from the rear, they supposed the villagers were turning against them, too. In their panic, they began a massacre of all the men, women, and children in the community. Not many survived. It was an unfortunate result, and something I did not foresee. It preyed on Pollini's conscience, I am sure, until the day he died. He spoke of it to me, when he was here with the signora, last year. He simply could not control his terrified troops in the village."
"And the gold? Did you retrieve it, afterward?"
"No. The gods turned their wrath on all of us, perhaps. There was an earthquake, and a landslide. The whole area was devastated. The landslide buried most of the village and the atrocities committed by Pollings troops. It also hid the cave forever, and buried the gold so deep and changed the appearance of the land so much that even I could not guess where that particular cave might be." Stephanes laughed grimly, a deep-chested, throaty sound in the hard, clean sunlight. "I looked for a long time, as you may well believe. But it was hopeless then—and hopeless now. That gold will never be recovered."
"Shkoeder seems to think he has a chance for it." "He could not find it all this time, when he was in a position of power in his homeland. But now things have changed. He is out of his prison, eh? He has been to Pol-lini. And now he is here, in Epidaurus?" "We think so."
"So he has come to ask me about the gold, yes? He went to Pollini, he has bargained for your help, and now he comes here to learn exactly where the gold is, so he can find it when you take him back to Debrec." "I think that's it."
"I must tell you, Shkoeder has not been here." The rooks had flown away. Fleecy white clouds chased their shadows across the quiet valley, and the blue sky shone brighter for their brief presence. The barren hills seemed to sing in their silence.
"Captain Stephanes, will you help me a bit more?" Durell asked quietly. "Shkoeder doesn't know his search for the gold is hopeless, since he hasn't seen you yet, but he's told me enough to know that someone must go in there."
"Indeed?" The old Greek looked wise and amused. "And why? For gold that cannot be found? I could take you there, yes, but I think not. It is the past that interests me now—not my own wicked years, but the glory of my ancestors." He held up the long-stemmed kylix so that the sunlight poured through and around the delicate artifact, flooding it with new life. "I shall spend my last years in this place, digging for the old stones and the old messages, and not for gold that is tainted by the blood of innocent mountain people."
"But you may be the only man who can lead me into Albania. I think this is why Shkoeder came here, too, even though he has not found you yet. Which in itself is a strange thing, since you were not difficult to find. But could you do it?"
"I could take you into Albania. But I will not." "You know the way over the frontier?"
"By sea would be easier—you fly to Corfu, which the old people called Korkyra, and from there you take a fishing boat to a cove near the Debrec cliffs. Then an eight-mile march will bring you to the area ruined long ago by the earthquake—to the ghost village left lifeless by Pollini's frightened troops. Yes, that would be easier. But by land or by sea, I will not go with you. That part of my life is finished."
'Then I must depend on finding Shkoeder, and letting him lead me in?"
"If you must depend on anyone—but he is a poor staff to lean upon, my young friend."
"I know that. I would prefer to go with you, Captain Stephanes. And you would be well paid, you know."
"I do not care for payment. You could not name a sum great enough."
"I know it isn't fear that stops you, and yet—"
"I fear nothing in this world." Captain Stephanes frowned and turned the antique wine cup around and around in his great hands until the sunlight seemed to infuse and pour through it, revealing the old carvings of a ship, and men in crested helmets, with spears and shields, challenging the sea as dark as wine. "I must go back to my work. I am sorry, Mr. Durell; I cannot help you more."
Durell started to reply, summoning up another argument that, even as he began it, he knew was useless. The old Greek guerilla was like the hills he loved—craggy and unchangeable, denying the will of man through all the ages.
They heard the echo of the shot rather than the shot itself.
One moment the old man stood holding the ancient, delicate cup aloft in his hands.
And then it seemed to explode in his fingers the next instant, shattering into a small cloud of white dust as the bullet went through it.
Another shot—and a third—followed.
Chapter Twelve
The rooks went screaming aloft again from their nests in the old temple ruins. There was no way to guess where the shots had come from. The explosive sounds died away, lost in the bare, sunlit hills.
For a moment more, Captain Stephanes stood with his arms uplifted as if in prayer, his hands holding nothing where a moment before the shape of the antique cup had been drinking in the sunlight. Then he moved with a speed Dwell thought incredible. With one sweep of his thick, bare arm, he knocked Lisette flat upon the sharp shingles of stone on the hillside and threw himself down beside her. Durell hurled himself to the earth at the same moment
Nothing more happened.
Stephanes breathed angrily, a thick sound,
"What is it?" the old Greek rumbled.
"I don't know yet."
"You have enemies, my American friend. But they are poor shots."
"I think, if they had wished, they might have aimed a bit better."
"You think this is merely a warning?"
"Or a call to parley."
"So they shot my cup deliberately?"
"It would seem so."
The old Greek growled deep in his thick throat and muttered a stream of bitter curses. Beads of sweat shone on his flat forehead. He snorted, wiped his nose with a thick forefinger, and turned his head to Lisette, who lay prone between the
m.
"I am sorry, dear lady. Are you hurt?"
"N-no," Lisette whispered. "A little scratched—"
"Keep your head down. When a man fires at me, I am not as convinced as our American here that there was no intent to kill behind the trigger finger."
A fourth shot suddenly racketed back and forth from the sunny hillside. The bullet whined only a foot overhead and kicked up marble dust from the steps of the temple ruins nearby. From far off, by a trick of the wind, came the bleating of sheep. It seemed to Durell that they were as exposed here on the hill as if they were flies on a wall. He wriggled his gun free from the holster inside his coat. Stephanes' eyes flicked to the .38 and he shook his head.
"It is a rifle, Durell. You do not have enough."
"I know that. We'll get to the temple, for shelter."
There was nothing to be seen in the valley, above or below them. Durell guessed that the shots had come somewhere from the right, at a distance above where the road ended at the little Minoa Hotel far below. He could see the glint of sunlight on the roof of his parked car there, a fragment of splintered light far off—but there was certainly no sign of alarm from the hotel, no hint that the shots had been heard down there, so far away. They were trapped. He did not know whose finger was on the trigger of the rifle that covered them. Was it Shkoeder? But an attack by the Albanian did not fit with Shkoeder's need for help from them. Who was it, then? Dinov?
He looked sidewise at Lisette. The girl was pale, and a thin streak of dust marked her cheek. A wisp of her dark auburn hair lay across her forehead.
"Lisette? Lisette, Dinov sent you to Athens. Did you tell him we were coming here?"
"Of course not. I am running from him." Her mouth hardened with resentment. "You think I brought you here, to this trap? I told you I am through with Dinov's type. No matter what happens, do you think I would betray you like this?"
"I don't know what to think. Are you certain he hasn't been following you?"
She shrugged slightly. Her great green eyes were angry and embittered. "I "am not sure of anything. It is possible that Dinov is watching me, yes, even now. But there are political traitors even among the police, you know." Her eyes flashed with bitter pain. "Even traitors among your own comrades, now and then. Perhaps that is one of them up there with a gun."
Assignment The Girl in the Gondola Page 11