Black Lion of Skiapelos

by Annabel Murray

  He certainly had a theatrical sense of timing, Lena thought as he remained stationary for a long moment before advancing into the salon, a tall, rather beautiful old man with a Byronic profile, curling white hair and flashing dark eyes.

  Then there were many cries of 'Chronia polla'—'Many years', the traditional greeting on someone's name day, Marianthe told Lena.

  The sense of protocol she had noticed aboard the yacht was observed here too, relations approaching him in strict order of seniority and rank. It was like a royal audience. It was amusing and yet it was awe-inspiring too, and this was the man she would have to face with her story of Irini and her errand here.

  It was a long time before Marcos came towards her, took her by the hand and led her over to his grandfather.

  'Poppa, may I present Thespinis Thomas, our visitor from England. Miss Thomas has a special errand here, which I hope you will allow her to tell you about during her stay.'

  The flashing dark eyes under shaggy white brows regarded Lena sternly.

  'Thespinis, I do not allow business affairs to interfere with family occasions.' His English was stilted perfection.

  'This isn't business, Mr Mavroleon, I assure you.' For different reasons, Thalassios Mavroleon had much the same effect upon her nervous system as his grandson.

  'Then I will grant you half an hour this evening, before the celebrations commence.' The white head nodded a dismissal.

  'That,' Lena told Chryssanti wryly, as she returned to her place by the younger girl, 'was your grandfather. Wow!'

  'He's very handsome,' Chryssanti said consideringly. 'Didn't he want to meet Stephen and me?'

  'First,' Lena said with feeling, 'I have to break it to him that you exist—that you're here!'

  That promised half-hour came round a little too quickly for Lena, even though, in the past two weeks, she had rehearsed over and over again what she would say to Thalassios Mavroleon. It was a relief when it was Marcos who came to conduct her to the interview.

  'I thought you might prefer me to be present?'

  'Oh, yes, thank you!' Her gratitude was profound. 'Frankly, I'm terrified.'

  'He will not bite you,' Marcos reassured.

  'No,' Lena conceded, 'but he looks as if he might bark a lot.'

  Marcos gave that familiar shout of laughter which so illuminated his normally serious features.

  'I like this about you very much, Lena. Come.' Suddenly he took her hand. His touch was very warm and comforting, but equally it was disturbing. 'Let your courage be as great as your sense of humour. My grandfather admires courage, as do I.'

  Thalassios Mavroleon received them in his own suite of rooms, in his study. Here there were no paintings, but framed photographs of ships and horses. On his desk was a bronzed sculpture of a racehorse which his long fingers caressed constantly as they talked.

  At first, at the mention of his daughter's name, the handsome old face became closed and unresponsive, and Lena feared the interview would be terminated before she could conclude her prepared speech. But Thalassios Mavroleon was a man of his word. He had promised her half an hour and half an hour she should have.

  'Does Irini imagine that I have forgotten her behaviour?' he demanded of Lena at one point. 'We Greeks have long memories.'

  'Not forgotten, perhaps,' Lena conceded pacifically, 'but I think she hopes you've found it in your heart to forgive her.'

  'Perhaps you can tell me, thespinis, why I should forgive her?'

  Remembering the white-faced Irini and guessing what it had cost her in terms of pride to appeal to her father, Lena knew a flash of impatience with the unbending, implacable old man.

  'She is your daughter!'

  'I disowned her when she disobeyed me.'

  'How about common humanity, then?' Lena's blue eyes darkened, a sign that betokened anger to those who knew her. 'Your daughter is probably going to die. I know I couldn't live with my conscience if I let someone die without my forgiveness, especially for something so… so petty.'

  It was Thalassios's turn to show anger. The black eyes, still young in the lined face and still as eloquent as his grandson's, flashed fire.

  'You think our traditions, deference to family authority are petty! Believe me, thespinis, if your generation had more respect for such things, the world would be a better place.'

  'Don't you think it would be a better place too,' Lena demanded, 'if your generation had a stronger spirit of forgiveness and compassion?'

  'You are very outspoken, thespinis,' he said gruffly, with a lowering look under his shaggy brow, 'and, I remind you, you are a guest under my roof.'

  'I'm sorry if I seem impertinent,' Lena said stiffly, 'but I feel very strongly about this. And if I've offended against your hospitality, I'll leave.'

  The verbal battle had waged to and fro so vigorously, neither prepared to cede an inch, that Lena had quite forgotten Marcos's presence. It was a shock when he intervened.

  'Poppa, Miss Thomas is only an emissary. She undertook this errand in good faith and feels a responsibility. She does not deserve the anger you feel towards Aunt Irini, nor do Irini's children, surely?'

  There was an interminable silence. It was impossible to tell what thoughts or emotions went on in the head behind the elderly aristocratic face. But either Lena must have made a better advocate than she knew, or Marcos's intervention had done the trick, for at last Thalassios cleared his throat and pronounced, 'I will meet Irini's children, thespinis. Bring them to me tomorrow morning,' he commanded, 'early, before the celebrations recommence.'

  When the Greeks celebrated, they really went to town, Lena thought much later that night. After a meal of many courses, some of which Lena had to refuse, there was music and dancing. The guests threw themselves into enjoyment and yet tradition was still evident, giving the riotousness a pattern and shapeliness.

  'This is your chance to hear the old music,' Marcos told her. 'The music of our villages and islands, the music of tsambouna, clarino and santouri—bagpipes, clarinet and dulcimer,' he translated.

  As the night wore on and the wine flowed freely, the Mavroleon family and their guests became more and more uninhibited. Those with good voices were called upon to get up and sing, a favourite song being taken up by the whole company. The energetic danced in frenetic solo performances, the younger, wilder element balancing wineglasses or bottles on their heads in an atmosphere of mounting kephi—good spirits. It was a whole world away from the sophisticated city parties of the Theodopouloses, but Lena found she was enjoying it hugely so long as no one expected such exhibitionism from her.

  She could not understand the words of the songs with their long, agonised and questioning notes, but somehow Marcos always seemed to be at hand to explain. The lyrics seemed to deal mostly with the ups and downs of love—'Will you not tell me if you love me? Or with a kiss, drive away my pain?' She found the words, murmured in her ear by his husky voice, infinitely disturbing. If only he were saying them to her, instead of just translating.

  In the small hours of the morning, the hardier souls who remained danced in groups, and Lena did find herself drawn into a performance of the stae tria, a circle dance in which the circle was never complete, but was led by a dancer who supplied special effects of leaps, foot slaps and kicks which caused much hilarity as his followers tried to emulate them. Flushed and laughing, she was aware more than once of Marcos's eyes on her.

  Mercifully, around dawn the musicians slowed to a throbbing, ambulatory pace. Lena was sought by many partners, and at last she found herself dancing with Marcos, a situation she had dreamed of but never hoped to realise. An inner voice warned her that it was madness to allow herself to feel this way as they swayed around the floor, her body close to his, the warmth and the masculine scent of him drugging her senses, forming images for the memory to hold thereafter. Tired, yet unwilling for the night to end, she moved in a dreamlike state of euphoria in which anything was possible.

  For the evening's events she had chosen
to wear a cocktail-length, backless dress and suddenly she became aware of Marcos's fingers tracing her spine. It was an exquisite torment which set her body on fire for more. After a while he pulled her closer, and she was startled to find him fully aroused. It must be the wine and the music having their effect. She tried to ease herself away from him, but as she did so his clasp tightened, restraining her, and it seemed to her that he deliberately moulded her body to his in a way he hadn't been doing before. She ought to protest, to make more of an effort to escape the intimacy of his embrace, yet she didn't want him to stop what he was doing to her.

  'Are you enjoying yourself, Helena?' he asked, his voice a husky murmur against her temple.

  'Oh, yes,' she said fervently, then flushed hotly in case he misunderstood. 'I mean… it's been a lovely evening. It's always a pity when something has to come to an end,' she gabbled, sinkingly aware of compounding her gaffe and of his amusement.

  'It need not end just yet,' he told her, 'if that is what you wish for. You have seen a Greek sunset. Let me show you the sunrise.'

  'Oh, but…' she faltered. 'I don't think… Marianthe might not… I mean…'

  'Marianthe went to bed long ago.'

  'That's not the point. I…'

  'And I assure you she will have no objection. Why should she?' His question seemed to imply that Lena was assuming more than he offered. Of course, why shouldn't he show a guest one of the attractions of his home? That was all he was offering, and by demurring she was making it sound as if she suspected his motives.

  'In that case…'

  Beyond the cultivated and tended grounds of the villa, a little gate opened into a grove of crooked olive trees dark with shadows. Lena was not sure she would have wanted to come here alone. Highly imaginative, she found it almost possible to believe in the mischievous satyrs of the ancient Greeks, lurking behind the gnarled trees, spying on them with lascivious eyes, able to read her thoughts.

  As they walked, gradually the tips of the leaves began to lighten, and when they emerged on to the far side of the grove the sun began to rise. Slowly at first, the grey veil of night receded before the dawn, with the promise of light in the mysterious pinkish glow that deepened and grew. At last, above the neighbouring islands the sun showed itself with a dazzle of gold that sparked a pattern of burnished ripples across the waters of the bay beneath. With the coming of the sun, colour drenched back into the landscape.

  'Well, was it worth it?' Marcos asked. As they watched he had draped a casual arm about her shoulders, his nearness adding to the intensity of an experience she thought she would never forget.

  'Oh, yes,' Lena breathed.

  They were in a place of wild grass, bleached blonde as honey, where worn lichened steps led to a hollow place of fallen marble stones.

  'It is an old garden,' Marcos told her. 'Heaven knows how long it has been here. Probably the private temple of some ancient Greek, destroyed by an earthquake centuries ago. My grandfather calls it "The Garden of the Gods" and insists that it remain just as it is.'

  Surely they should be turning back now? But with his arm still about her he led her further into the wilderness of mossy marble—an enchanted place that owed its enchantment to his presence, to the fugitive brush of his thigh against hers.

  'The Garden of the Gods,' Marcos said again, but musingly this time. 'Probably the gods were no more than larger-than-life human beings conjured up by the imagination of a simple people. Their loves, and their lusts too, were probably just a magnified version of the normal tendencies in men and women.' As he looked down at her, his back was to the now blinding sunlight so that his face was in shadow, hers exposed to its full glare. With an unexpectedness that gave her no time for evasion, he took her face in his hands. 'You laughed at me when I compared you to Helen of Troy. But yours is a face that might drive a mortal, let alone a god, to do many things.'

  Lena moved uneasily as an inner fire coiled and twisted in an unbearable, burning ache. She swallowed.

  'Marcos, I…'

  'No, let me finish. Let me look at you. Your eyes make the Aegean pale by comparison, and when you look at me as you are looking now, I feel I am drowning in their depths.' He had a poetic turn of phrase enhanced by his slightly accented, throaty voice. He went on with his verbal seduction. 'You have a delicate bone-structure that will still be beautiful when you are old. And your mouth…' At last his fertile imagery seemed to have run out. Instead he bent and brushed his lips across hers. 'I have wanted to do that for a very long time.'

  'Marcos, you shouldn't…'

  'Why not?' he challenged. 'For the moment let us forget everything except that here we are a god and goddess to whom everything is possible.' As though in agreement, the leaves of the olive trees rustled in a sudden delicate shiver of wind, as though something or someone living but invisible gave agreement to his words.

  His hands took a strong grip of her shoulders, holding her as though she might try to run away. He was going to kiss her again, she knew, and yet tantalisingly he was taking his time about it, studying her face again as though he would memorise it feature by feature. Then he moved a pace or two, taking her with him; leaning against a tree, he pulled her to him. With one arm he held her tightly, while his free hand stroked her throat. Quiver after quiver shook Lena's body, and weak with sensation she closed her eyes in a blankness of mindless enjoyment. Resisting, protesting no longer, mutely she awaited his pleasure.

  'Kalliste! Most beautiful!' he murmured as his fingers continued to play over her neck and shoulders, exploring and shaping the delicate bones he had admired. Strangely, the delicacy of his touch, the tantalising slowness of his caresses, were as excitingly sensuous as greater ardour from another man might have been. He was driving her wild with a need to know more, much more. But as yet he seemed content. He seemed to make no demand of her that she should touch him in return, and without his implicit invitation she felt shy of doing so.

  But when his mouth closed over hers again with the passionate fierceness she had longed for, she could restrain herself no longer. The hands that had rested passively on his chest rose to clasp about his strong neck, and at the feel of crisp, virile hair beneath her fingers she shuddered convulsively, pressing herself to him, a betraying little murmur of need escaping her lips.

  She felt the swift rise and fall of his chest as his arms tightened. He pressed her closer still, leaning further into the supporting tree, and she felt the fierce virility of him.

  She arched her back in willing surrender. She seemed almost to have stopped breathing as his hands slid down her spine, cupped her buttocks and pressed her to him with a violence that betrayed the force of his own desire.

  The kiss went on and on until Lena felt she must faint under the force of her own needs. Driven mad by the unslaked demands of her body, she no longer cared that Marcos belonged to someone else. She only knew that she wanted to belong to him, fully, here, now. She murmured imploringly in her throat and gradually his kiss gentled, until finally he lifted his head and held her a little away from him.

  'Marcos?' she implored, but he gave his head a little shake, not merely as a negative, but as though he sought to clear it.

  'No,' he told her huskily. 'I think that is enough—for now.'

  CHAPTER FIVE

  She gazed at him in bemusement, but at that instant she was not unhappy. His words, disappointing though they were, seemed to promise other occasions.

  'How do you like the idea of a Greek wedding?' he said to her as they began to walk back towards the villa.

  Lena started, and for a moment her foolish heart thudded expectantly, but sanity returned as he went on, 'Because you may have the opportunity to attend one while you are here.'

  'I shan't be here that long,' she said immediately, and saw his eyebrows rise.

  'Since the wedding takes place this week, and you can scarcely leave Skiapelos without me…'

  Lena's stomach rose and plummeted sickeningly, and her tongue cleaved drily t
o the roof of her mouth.

  'You said it wasn't for another three months,' she managed to croak, revealing very clearly where her thoughts lay.

  For a moment he looked puzzled, then he smiled enigmatically.

  'But I wasn't referring to my wedding.'

  'You weren't?' Relief made her dizzy, but it was only a temporary reprieve for common sense had fully reasserted itself now. Those moments in the grove could have meant very little to Marcos. She should never have allowed them to happen, she scolded herself. The rider to his words had been only a gentle let-down for the urgency he'd sensed in her. There would be no other occasions. She must see to that. Marcos was betrothed to Marianthe Lychnos.

  She felt tired now, really tired, so that it was an effort to put one foot in front of another. And, as she had discovered long ago, when she was tired it was easy to give way to depression. Marcos seemed attuned to her change of mood.

  'Bed for you, Helena. Today everyone will sleep until late.'

  'I can't,' she reminded him. 'Your grandfather wants to see Chrys and Stephen this morning—early. And I'd better not be late. I'm in his bad books already.'

  She managed to catch a couple of hours' sleep, however, despite her conviction that her unhappy thoughts would keep her awake. But she woke feeling unrefreshed and filled with pessimism, not so much over the coming encounter with Thalassios, but regarding her life in general. She didn't seem to be very lucky in love. One man had jilted her, the next wasn't free to return her love.

  'You don't look like a Mavroleon!' Thalassios told Chryssanti bluntly. 'No one in our family ever had red hair.' His attention had been given first of all to Stephen, and he had grunted his approval of the small boy, who in looks at least reflected his Greek heritage.

  'I'm not a Mavroleon!' Chryssanti retorted immediately. 'I'm a Forster—and I like having red hair.'

  Lena confidently expected the heavens to descend in the form of Thalassios's wrath. Instead, unpredictably, he gave a crack of laughter that reminded her of his grandson.