The Gold of Thrace

by Aileen G. Baron

  She found the impress of tire tracks and matted-down grass where a vehicle had turned around and a small puddle of grease where it had parked.

  She hesitated, then picked up the loose tesserae, put them in her pocket and began to clamber back up the escarpment, grabbing for roots, searching for toeholds. Her hat slipped off and dropped to the ground below. She watched it fall, and let it lie there.

  When she reached the top, she lay on the grass a moment to catch her breath, her arm shielding her face from the sun. Someone in the village must be involved. The looters must have known where to go, how to get here the back way. And the equipment. They came prepared. You don’t wander around the countryside with all that equipment on the off chance that you’ll find a mosaic floor in the middle of the night.

  For a moment, she thought she heard something stir in the grass, sat up to see what it was, and watched a channel in the dry grass undulate as some creature moved through it. Behind her, she heard Orman and Mustafa climbing up from the village.

  “What are you doing lying in the sun?” Orman called to her from across the site.

  “Cultivating skin cancer.” She rose to greet them. “What did they say? Did they know anything about it in the village?”

  “They complained about noises in the night and dogs barking all night long. Mostly, the barking annoyed them. The general consensus was that a man and a woman met for a night of dalliance. No one wants to talk about it because it could end in violence, even murder.”

  “So much for Sherlock Holmes and dogs that bark in the night.”

  “The looters must have been strangers,” Mustafa said.

  She nodded. “But how did they know about the mosaic? Know how to get here?” She turned toward the back of the site. “Come on, I want to show you something.” She signaled for them to follow and indicated the footprint.

  Mustafa put his shoe beside it. “Must be a big fellow, two meters or more. His shoes are a good four centimeters longer than mine.”

  “There are other footprints,” she said, and pointed to another trail of footsteps beside them, smaller in size.

  “Another member of the team,” Mustafa said.

  She led them to the rope marks from pulleys along the cliff face, and pointed to the tire tracks and oil stain below. “Right there, beyond my hat. A large vehicle, with wide tires, probably some kind of truck. They came prepared.”

  “How do you know the marks are from last night?” Mustafa asked.

  She pulled the tesserae from her pocket. “I found these on the ground next to the tire tracks.”

  Mustafa looked at the tesserae in her hand and lifted his arms as if making an offering. “You have to understand what something like this means to a poor peasant. Whatever he got for the floor was probably more than he could earn in three years. It could mean survival, the difference between starvation and just getting by.”

  “And if an archaeologist gets in the way of the transaction,” Tamar said, “what then?” Her voice caught when she remembered that horrible night in the Yucatan. “What then?” she asked again. “Kill the archaeologist?”

  “That doesn’t happen,” Mustafa said. “The poor peasant needs to eat. It’s better to feed starving people than hide tomb offerings in a rich museum where they gather dust in a dark cupboard for years.”

  For a moment, she forgot Hazarfen and the villa and remembered only that long night in Meride in the Yucatan. She remembered every moment of it, remembered her toes pinching in her high-heeled shoes as she paced the hallway, remembered the smooth feel of the silk shawl against her bare shoulders. She and Alex were going to celebrate, a double celebration for their first anniversary and for Alex’s discovery of the lost site of Katamul hidden in the jungle. They were going to dine in the roof garden on lobster and champagne, make love all night, and wake up in the morning smiling.

  She was still holding out the tesserae. “I know how it operates in the Yucatan. A poor peasant finds a ‘specimen,’ a ‘tomb furnishing’ when he plows his field, and he knows it’s worth more than his cash crops. He sells it to an estelero. The estelero sells it to a dealer in Meride for twice the price, who sells it to a dealer in Mexico City where it doubles again. That dealer smuggles it into Los Angeles. Now the price really escalates, three, four times. The L.A. dealer sells it to a movie star for ten times the price. The movie star donates it to the museum, which evaluates it at double what she paid for it. Everybody’s happy. Everybody makes a tidy profit, and the movie star gets a hefty tax write-off.”

  Mustafa reached for the tesserae and stashed them in his hip pocket. His clenched fist in his pocket made an outline against his hip. “What we dig up goes from one hole in the ground to another, ends up in the basement of a museum. In the end, no one remembers anything about the artifact and the archaeologist’s notes are torn and scattered and eaten by worms.” He took his hand out of his pocket and said in his significant voice, “These things should be seen, give others an appreciation of the past.”

  “You’re as cynical as Chatham.”

  Mustafa squatted near the rope marks, running his hands along the dry grass along the edge of the cliff. “I’m not saying I approve of it. I’m just saying that I can understand how it happens.”

  Tamar had started back toward the missing mosaic when she heard the stirring in the grass again. It sounded like the parched scraping of a rope along the dry ground. The grass shifted again, this time closer, moving toward Mustafa with a hissing sound.

  She saw a black snake loom out of the grass behind Mustafa, coiled and ready to strike.

  Instinctively, she grabbed a cobble from the ruined floor. “Don’t move,” she shouted, and hurled the projectile at the head of the snake. The rock flew past Orman, past the startled Mustafa and hit the snake squarely in its gaping mouth.

  The crushed head of the snake collapsed onto the grass.

  Mustafa was still at the edge of the cliff, white-faced, staring at the bloody remnants of the shattered snake with a mixture of horror and regret.

  “You killed it,” he said.

  “Of course she did,” Orman said.

  “You shouldn’t have done that. It was a snake. A black snake.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Orman said. “It was about to attack you.”

  “Still. She killed it.”

  “And saved your life,” Orman said. He turned to Tamar. “I didn’t see the rock coming. How’d you do that? You could have hit one of us.”

  “I’m a pretty good pitcher,” she said, but she was still shaking. “I taught myself.”

  “Taught yourself to kill the occasional snake? You threw that rock at from at least four meters away at the head of the snake and hit it.”

  “I had brothers. Whenever they went somewhere, they never took me. ‘You’re too young,’ they would tell me. ‘You’re only a girl.’”

  “So you taught yourself to throw things?”

  “I decided to show them. They liked baseball, so I hung a tire from the branch of a lemon tree and practiced throwing the ball through the tire from ten feet away, then twenty feet, finally the full sixty-six. Then I used smaller and smaller targets, ended up throwing the ball through an embroidery hoop.” She smiled and rubbed her wrist. “Then I went for speed and power. I got so good, they brought me to all their games and let me pitch. Until—” Her voice trailed off.

  “Until what?” Orman asked.

  “Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.” But she noticed that her hand was shaking. She made a fist and shoved her hand in her pocket so that no one would notice. “Anyway,” she said. “We always slaughtered the other team.”

  “Like you slaughtered the snake,” Mustafa said. “You shouldn’t have killed it.”

  “Why not?” Orman asked.

  Mustafa sighed and inhaled slowly. “In the old religions, you know, snakes were sacred. Snakes are special creatures. They shed their skins and renew themselves aga
in and again.”

  Orman played with his mustache. “You’re Yezidi.”

  “What’s Yezidi?” Tamar asked.

  “Devil worshippers,” Orman said.

  Mustafa’s nostrils flared. “Not devil worshippers.”

  Tamar was puzzled by his anger. She held out her hand in a helpless gesture, trying to calm him.

  He backed away. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Nobody thinks you worship the devil,” she told him.

  “The snake wasn’t poisonous,” he said. His face was red and his voice heavy with agitation. “It would never hurt anyone.”

  Tamar watched him. She was tempted to reach out again, then thought better of it.

  “About the mosaic,” she said after a while. “We don’t have pictures. I usually take record shots with a Polaroid, but I didn’t have time.”

  “You and Orman are the only ones who know what the mosaic looks like?”

  “It was the last day and we ran out of film, I thought your people could—”

  “Without pictures, how do you expect to find it?” Mustafa asked.

  “Tamar and I can go after it, identify it,” Orman said. “That’s the only way.”

  “You think they took it to Istanbul?” Tamar asked.

  Orman looked at her, shaking his head. “It’s long gone from Turkey by now. Probably shipped out through the Balkans, ending up in one of the big antiquities markets, Basel or Berlin.”

  “You’ll never find it,” Mustafa said.

  “Things are missing from Ephesus too,” Orman said. “Maybe Kosay at the museum there has some ideas.” He ran a finger along his chin and rubbed his upper lip. “We’ll stop there first. Then I’ll go to Berlin,” he said. “Tamar to Basel, see what’s hitting the antiquities market, see if we come up with the mosaic.”

  Tamar shook her head. “I couldn’t do that. I don’t know anything about the antiquities market. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  Orman rubbed his chin again. “What was it American archaeologists used to say in the ’60s? Archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing.’ You were trained as an anthropologist. Do a little anthropological fieldwork, a little participant observation. Nothing bad will happen to you.” He leaned toward her. “It’s Switzerland, where they yodel. The land of Heidi and chocolate bars.”

  “Besides, nobody kills anthropologists,” Mustafa said. “Or archaeologists, for that matter.”

  “Except Binali,” Orman said.

  Tamar took a deep breath. “And others.”

  That night in Meride seared her memory. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Orman signal to Mustafa and glance toward her.

  “Oh,” Mustafa said. “You said the Yucatan. That Saticoy. Alexander Saticoy?”

  Tamar remembered her last sight of him, standing in front of a stele in Katamul, notebook in hand, giving her a quick wink, a wave goodbye, and a smile as she walked toward the truck. “Yes. Alex. You heard about it here in Turkey?”

  “I was at the Society of American Archaeology meeting in San Francisco that year. It was the talk of the meetings.”

  “You were at the SAA?” Orman asked.

  “I’m a museum man, not a field archaeologist. There was a special session on setting up a worldwide computerized registration code and network. I was at the British Museum that year, and it was my turn to go.”

  While Mustafa spoke, Orman watched Tamar, his eyes narrowed and speculative.

  “You owe it to other archaeologists to do whatever you can to stop the looting,” Orman said to her. “To Binali and to Alex.”

  “To make the world safe for archaeology?”

  “And archaeologists,” Orman said gently.

  And for those who wait anxiously through the endless darkness of long nights in Meride with the cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine, with the humid air heavy as doom.

  “I’ll go,” she said at last.

  Chapter Five

  Svilingrad, Bulgaria, August 7, 1990

  Chatham hesitated at the compartment door to check the number. It was his compartment, all right.

  “Who are you?” he asked the woman in his seat. “What are you doing here?”

  The woman looked up at him with a shy smile, then shrugged. “We say in Bulgaria, ‘Every train has its travelers.’”

  Her voice was velvety and musical—like the rest of her, he thought, with her creamy olive skin, the soft curve of her cheek, her slate blue eyes. My God, she was beautiful.

  The train began to move, throwing him off balance. He gripped the doorframe, tried to steady himself. The train lurched away from the platform and he staggered into the compartment toward the seat opposite her. When it jolted to a stop, he fell forward on one knee, feeling awkward and foolish.

  “I don’t mind riding backwards,” he said and felt even more foolish.

  She lowered her eyes and her dark lashes brushed against her cheek. Chatham thought he detected a tear. A strand of hair, soft and glossy, cascaded across her face and danced with the movement of the train. He reached out to touch it and pulled back just in time.

  He wondered again who she was, how she got into his compartment. He wondered about the bracelet on her arm with the horse’s head. Thracian, maybe.

  She lifted her head and moved her hand with liquid grace to tuck the strand behind her ear. Her fingers were long and slender, her arms silky smooth.

  She gave him another smile and crossed her legs. The train jerked forward again. The compartment door slammed shut with the sudden movement and the train heaved out of the station.

  He waited for the woman to speak while they swayed with the motion of the train.

  “You must help me, Professor Chatham,” she said at last.

  “You know who I am?”

  “I waited for you. I need your help.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am called Irena.” She hesitated. She was shaking. “You must help. You are our only hope.” Her lip quivered and she extended her hand in a beseeching gesture.

  How delicate she was, how vulnerable. “I don’t understand.”

  “I must show you.”

  She clicked open the latch on the suitcase and lifted the lid. The case was packed with parcels wrapped in newspaper. She waited a moment. For drama, he thought. He watched the nervous slide of her tongue across her upper lip before she reached for a parcel, unwrapped it and held up a pair of elaborate gold earrings with a galloping horse and a small worked amphora dangling from the loop. She laid them on the seat beside her. Then she opened another—a golden laurel wreath—and still another—a necklace with a bull pendant.

  He leaned forward and caught his breath. It was Thracian gold, all right, all of it.

  The Thracians had villages and cities along the Euxine Sea: the Black Sea today. Even the fabled Byzantium, long before it became the gilded city where Constantine built his marvels and monuments to rule his empire, had been a Thracian settlement.

  “Thracian, like the bracelet wrapped around your arm?” he asked. Thracians, the wild people of the north, Herodotus had said. They came from the land where the Boreal winds blew, and they had gold.

  She moved her head in assent. “The bracelet is very rare.” She lifted her right hand to stroke the horse’s head on her arm and he envied her fingers.

  When he reached over to examine one of the earrings, he brushed against her knee. He held the gold between his fingers and traced the magnificent workmanship.

  “Beautiful, beautiful,” he said. “Where did you get these pieces?”

  “Are they worth a great deal?”

  “A museum or a collector would pay a lot of money for this at auction, but—” He hesitated. “I’m an archaeologist, I can’t help you sell it.”

  He put down the earring and picked up the delicate laurel wreath and looked over at her. Thracian women, according to Herodotus, were promiscuous and dripped with gold. The thought sen
t a tingle of desire through him. This time, he brushed against her thigh.

  “Where did you get these?” he asked again.

  She seemed distraught, concentrating on what she had to say, as her lashes brushed her cheeks again. “It’s all we have left,” she began in a low voice.

  He had to lean forward to listen, one hand reaching across the space between them to rest on her thigh. Carefully, she took his hand in hers, uncrossed her legs and crossed them again while he watched.

  She told him how her brother found a tomb on the grounds of their country house, and Chatham watched the seductive movement of her lips as she carefully pronounced each word.

  She told him how she and her brother had gone out each night to dig in the tomb, bringing back the treasure piece by piece to hide in her room, and Chatham wondered how it would feel to stroke her silken skin.

  She talked about the mansion where she was raised, about the dark wood paneling, about the broad staircase, the seat below the stained glass window at the landing where she would sit and read, and Chatham savored the motion of her crossed legs and watched her thighs, tight against her flimsy dress, swaying with the movement of the train.

  Thracian gold, he thought, and only I know about it. I can publish the find, make a name for myself, became a star of Near Eastern archaeology. With that, and my other project, I can be free of Emma, out of bondage at last.

  “When the Communists took over,” she was saying, “they took everything.” And he watched her uncross her legs and let her gently pry the laurel wreath from his hand before she wrapped the newspaper around it again.

  She told him how her father had died, drunk with grief, stumbling on the ice in front of a speeding car. She described her mother’s last days, hungry and gasping for breath, during that same cold relentless winter.

  “Irena,” he said, enchanted with the sound of her name. “Irena,” he repeated and longed to console her, to brush the tears from her cheeks, to enfold her in comforting arms.

  She kept talking and he was overwhelmed by the thrum of her anguished voice, the music of it slithering through his soul, the rocking of the train mesmerizing him until he was lost in a cloud of desire.