by Juliana Gray
“Rubbish. I have met his lordship’s paramours before, and the experience has had no lasting effect on my moral constitution. Moreover, we have not a single moment to waste on such idiotic considerations.”
“Idiotic? Oh, Miss Truelove—”
“Yes, idiotic. I assure you, my delicate mind is quite up to the task of rousting his lordship out of bed with a wanton barmaid.”
Mr. Higganbotham turned quite pale, and for a moment I thought I should have to call for another bottle of brandy, or perhaps a vial of smelling salts, if such a thing were to be had on an ancient island in the Aegean, peopled by a race long accustomed to hardship.
And do you know, I found it all rather satisfying. If you had told me two weeks ago that I should say such a thing to a man of Mr. Higganbotham’s undoubted decency, I should have said it was impossible. But I had said it—roust his lordship out of bed with a wanton barmaid, good heavens, very brazen—and what was more, I had relished the words. I took a mild but unmistakable glee in the expression of pale horror that disfigured poor Mr. Higganbotham’s face.
My God, what was happening to me?
I finished my coffee and rose from the table, causing Mr. Higganbotham to throw down his napkin and shoot reflexively upward, as a gentleman ought.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, quivering with the joy of rebellion, “I shall just fetch my jacket.”
The town was not large, and Mr. Higganbotham had armed himself with a map. At this early hour, the streets were quite empty, though when I looked down the hill to the harbor I saw that the fishing fleet had already left. The Isolde’s tender bobbed by the southernmost mooring, looking somewhat chastened after its bad behavior the previous day.
“How far outside of town does this barmaid live?” I asked Mr. Higganbotham, as we tramped up the narrow and winding street. The houses were all pale and plain, facing the harbor, and while the air was now light, the sun had not yet reached above the eastern hills to touch the rooftops.
“About a half mile, or so I understood. Beyond the citadel, to the northeast.” He paused, and said reluctantly, as if the information were somehow shameful, “Her name is Desma.”
“How lovely.”
“We must, after all, have something to call her by.”
In the wake of the storm, the air was mild and damp, and the cobbles still wet. The town seemed to be waking up from a long sleep. I walked by Mr. Higganbotham’s side, brisk and silent, past the clustered houses and around the shoulder of the hill, until the buildings began to thin and I happened to look down again and see the small islet to the north, connected to the harbor by a narrow causeway, and I stopped short.
“What is that?”
Mr. Higganbotham followed the direction of my pointing finger. “That? Oh, it’s the Portara, the lintel of a temple to Apollo that was never finished. Rather extraordinary, isn’t it? A single white rectangle, all by itself.”
“How old is it?”
“I believe it was built by the tyrant Lygdamis, in about the sixth century BC. He was overthrown before he could finish it, poor fellow. In any case, this was all perhaps a thousand years after our Minoans flourished on Crete.”
I resumed walking, though I craned my head from time to time, not quite able to leave the sight behind. “What a glorious setting, too. On that little island, like a teardrop.”
“As it happens, the island is not without meaning to our own concerns,” said Mr. Higganbotham. “According to legend, it’s where Theseus landed with Ariadne, when bad weather forced them into Naxos.”
I looked back again. “And he left her there.”
“So the myth has it. Then Dionysus happened along, fell in love with her, and brought her up to heaven to marry her. Although according to certain accounts, old Bacchus had already fallen in love with her by the time they reached Naxos, and it was he who ordered Theseus to abandon Ariadne.”
“Leaving the lady no choice in the matter, of course.”
Mr. Higganbotham craned his neck northward. “Homer even has it that she was already married to Dionysus at the time of her elopement. That Theseus only deserted her because Dionysus caught up with them and accused her of adultery.”
“I suppose every generation of storytellers must fit the myth to serve the particular needs of the audience,” I said. “Unlike the study of history, there’s no need to convey truth.”
“Why not?”
“Why, because it didn’t really happen. It’s all made up.”
Mr. Higganbotham didn’t reply, and for some time we walked in a comfortable silence, while the Portara disappeared from view behind us. A mild breeze struck my cheek, hinting of spring, but for some reason I could not seem to warm myself properly. Inside my chest, the chill of foreboding had taken hold, and the higher we climbed, the more uneasy I felt, until all at once we came free of the buildings and rounded the shoulder of the slope. The sea stretched off to the left, impossibly blue, while before us meandered the gray-white road, bordered by green grass and the occasional small villa.
I paused to secure my hat more firmly on my head, for the breeze now came briskly off the water. “I presume the lady inhabits one of these houses?” I said, in so detached a voice as I could manage.
“So I understand.”
“Which one?”
“I believe it stands to the right, facing the sea, and there is a distinctive outbuilding, made recently of stone.”
We resumed our walk. The houses looked snug and comfortable, each one trailing a thin, pale stream of smoke from its chimney. The air smelled of salt and grass and burning wood, and the track was still damp and muddy in patches. At one point, a torrent of water had actually washed away a section of road, creating a small ditch of mud and debris. I picked my way around this obstruction, accepting Mr. Higganbotham’s assistance for the sake of his pride, and as the short heels of my boots sank into the mess, a thought occurred to me.
I stopped, turned my head to peer behind me at the outskirts of the town, and frowned.
“Is something the matter?” asked Mr. Higganbotham.
“I was only wondering . . .”
“Wondering what?”
“Wondering why Lord Silverton would have put himself to the inconvenience of traveling a mile along a dark and unknown road, in the middle of a midnight tempest, instead of simply repairing upstairs with his companion.” I returned my body to its ordinary forward posture. “Particularly when he had only just dried out from our earlier adventure.”
Mr. Higganbotham shifted his feet and stared into the distance, where our destination presumably lay. “For the sake of discretion, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“She is, I’m told, an especially beautiful woman.”
I resumed walking. Mr. Higganbotham fell in beside me. I said, “But are we not making the same sort of assumption as the scientists at Knossos? Because the barmaid is beautiful, and Silverton is, well, Silverton, we accept without question the suggestion that he has gone with her for the sake of pleasure.”
“By God.” Mr. Higganbotham lengthened his stride.
I matched his speed, and then increased it. “And he’s been gone for hours now. Nor have we encountered him on the road, returning to town.”
Mr. Higganbotham swore under his breath, unaware, perhaps, of the clarity of the atmosphere following the storm.
We took the next quarter mile almost at a run, until a small white house appeared to the left of the road, set back about fifty yards, flanked by a square structure made of gray volcanic stone. A roof of clean red shingles topped this outbuilding, and Mr. Higganbotham said, wheezing slightly, “This must be it.”
“Yes, that roof looks new, the one on the outbuilding.” I raised my hand to my brow. The sun had risen over the mountains now, white and determined against the blue sky directly ahead.
“I
t seems rather lifeless, don’t you think?” said Mr. Higganbotham. “There’s no smoke from the chimney.”
“Perhaps they haven’t awoken yet,” I said acidly, but my heart wasn’t in it. I struck down the muddy path from the road to the house, not pausing to confirm whether Mr. Higganbotham followed me.
The door was old and thick. I pounded on it with my fist. “Hello! Silverton! Hello!”
There was no answer, no sound at all.
I pounded again, and this time Mr. Higganbotham’s cries joined mine, calling Silverton’s name in an urgent chorus made to shake the heavens.
“Shall we try the door?” said Mr. Higganbotham, when our efforts died away into silence.
I didn’t answer, but rather placed my fingers on the handle of the door and pushed. To my surprise—or perhaps not—the portal yawned easily open, unbolted.
“Well, there’s a lucky stroke,” said Mr. Higganbotham.
Inside, the house was chilled and damp, the fire unlit. Through the eastern window came a square of pale sunlight, the sole source of illumination, which reflected efficiently against the whitewashed walls to give the impression of great and fleeting lightness.
The room in which we stood contained the necessities of life, and nothing else: a hearth at one end, surrounded by various implements intended for the preparation of food, and a rectangular table at the other, bearing a pair of candles and served by four rush-seated chairs, all of which had been pushed in snugly, as neat as a pin.
I knelt before the hearth, removed one glove, and passed my hand over the pile of ashes therein. Not a trace of warmth remained.
“There’s a bedroom back here,” called my companion, and I rose and turned, replacing the glove over my fingers. He was standing in the narrow doorway at the opposite end of the room—it was not large, this living chamber, perhaps twelve feet square—as if he had not quite made up his mind whether it was proper to step inside.
I had no such scruples. I nudged him aside and slipped through the opening, and though my heart beat fast and my head felt a little dizzy, I saw at once that I had no need for embarrassment. The narrow bed lay empty and neatly made, exhibiting not the slightest sign of recent passion.
“It’s empty,” I announced, though unnecessarily, as Mr. Higganbotham had stepped in behind me and now stood, frowning, turning his head from one side of the room to another. “And I don’t believe anyone slept here, either.”
“Unless she—or they—rose early and returned to town by another route than ours.”
I placed my hand atop the flat quilt. “I don’t think so.”
“But how do you know?”
I could not quite explain this to Mr. Higganbotham. How could I sensibly describe the scent that remained in the air, the peculiar metallic salt, after recent human habitation? How could I represent, in words of logic a scholar might comprehend, the lingering electricity of the human spirit, which was not something to be seen or heard or smelled or touched, but rather to be felt in the marrow of one’s bones, in the folds of one’s brains?
This bedroom was empty of both.
“I just do.” I turned away, and as I did, I caught sight of a small, leather-covered trunk in the shadow beneath the window.
A trunk of some sort was to be expected in a bedroom, particularly in the absence of a wardrobe or a chest of drawers. I should not have given the object a second glance. And yet it drew my gaze irresistibly back, though I could not have said why.
A leather trunk, secured with a pair of brass buckles, perhaps two and a half feet wide: a compact space, speaking for the parsimony of its owner.
Or else because it is a traveling trunk, I thought. An English traveling trunk, nearly identical to the one I owned myself, down to the small brass plate in the center of the lid that would—if, in fact, the trunk were identical to mine—bear the owner’s initials.
“Wait a moment,” I said to Mr. Higganbotham, who had already turned to leave. I stepped to the window, which faced south toward the slope of a green hillside, and bent over the trunk. Though the light was dim, I could read the Roman letters perfectly well, for they were etched in a deep and confident type:
AMH
“My God!” I exclaimed. “We’ve found him!”
But I was not to know Mr. Higganbotham’s immediate reaction to this news, for the last word was swallowed by the decisive bang of the front door, and a Greek voice demanding to know who the devil we were.
(Or so I deduced, for the Greek language remained a mystery to me.)
The Hero carried the stricken Lady ashore in his own arms, and found shelter for her among the caves. In the morning, the storm had cleared and the Lady was much improved, yet she was loath to revisit the sea while still so delicate, and told the Hero, ‘Return to your ships so that the King your father will have news of your safe redemption, and the mothers of your companions may embrace their sons and daughters once more, and I will wait for you here in Naxos as a bride awaits her bridegroom.’
The Hero made protest, for his love for the Lady did each day grow a hundredfold, from the proof of her bravery and her loyal heart, but she held her hand to his lips to silence his grief, and said, ‘Do not fear, for I swear by my love for you, and by our child that grows in my womb, that you shall find me faithful in these caves when you return, and my arms will open for you as the flower opens for the bee.’
So the Hero embraced the Lady tenderly and left her with such food and drink as he could spare, and set off for Athens with heavy heart, as fast as the wind could carry him . . .
THE BOOK OF TIME, A. M. HAYWOOD (1921)
Nineteen
At the sound of the intruder, Mr. Higganbotham’s startled eyes met mine. Of course I hadn’t thought to bring a weapon, and I very much doubted that he had, either.
But his manhood quickly asserted itself. He gathered himself upward, held up one strong, gloved hand, mouthed a muscular Stay here! in my direction, and strode through the doorway to the main chamber.
I followed him directly.
A man stood outlined near the entrance of the cottage, dressed in a thick woolen jacket and a cap drawn low over his forehead. The sunlight struck the side of his face, and I thought he looked familiar, though I could not quite place the point of recognition.
Mr. Higganbotham addressed him in Greek, and when the intruder gruffly replied, glancing at me from beneath a dark and stony brow, I realized who he was.
The innkeeper.
“Why, what are you doing here?” I exclaimed.
Mr. Higganbotham lifted his eyebrows and spoke dryly. “I believe he asks the same question, more or less, of us.”
I addressed the landlord directly. “Us? We’re here because your barmaid went off with Lord Silverton last night, and he hasn’t turned up again, and here’s Mr. Haywood’s own trunk, right here in her house—”
“And my Desma has not come to the inn this morning! So I ask you, what sort of man is this English lord, and what is he doing with my Desma?”
“I rather thought that was obvious,” I said.
He shook a fist. “She has not done this before! She is a good girl.”
“They’re all good girls, aren’t they? Until they’re not.”
The landlord turned to Mr. Higganbotham and spoke in fluid Greek, something with a great many details and flourishes, until I tapped Mr. Higganbotham on the shoulder and demanded to know what they were talking about.
“I beg your pardon. It seems he’s genuinely worried about the girl. She’s never done anything like this before, lives here quietly with her brother, virtuous as the day is long.”
“Her brother! I don’t understand. Does he mean Mr. Haywood?”
“So I presume.”
“But Mr. Haywood hasn’t got a sister, and in any case, where would he sleep?”
The innkeeper pointed to the window, and I
followed the direction of his finger to the small stone outbuilding, just within view. “There?” I said, astonished.
“Yes, there! But he is not inside, either,” the man said. “Something is happen, and is all because of this English lordship!”
I thought of the trunk inside the bedroom, bearing Mr. Haywood’s monogram. Brother, indeed. But if the innkeeper spoke the truth, and he slept by himself in a tiny and presumably unheated shelter, then why on earth had he gone to so much trouble and secrecy to elope with this Desma? If, indeed, Desma was the woman in whose company he had left Knossos.
And if she was that woman, and Mr. Haywood had been living here with her all this time, why had the innkeeper claimed yesterday to know nothing of Mr. Haywood’s whereabouts?
And, good heavens, if Silverton had indeed actually discovered Mr. Haywood’s whereabouts last night—had perhaps even met him, within the walls of this very house—then why hadn’t he sent us word?
Mr. Higganbotham was frowning pensively. I turned back to the innkeeper, whose eyes had formed into suspicious dark slivers beneath his thick eyebrows, examining first me, and then my companion, as if we were a pair of spiders that had wandered into his kitchen.
Rather than the other way around.
“You seem to bear a great deal of concern for this girl,” I said. “And for her brother. Perhaps you can tell us more about them? Our friend Silverton, after all, seems to have involved his fate with theirs.”
Mr. Higganbotham shot me an amazed look, and then returned his gaze to the innkeeper, whose lips had compressed in an expression of stubborn silence. My blood raced along my limbs, light and keen, anticipating the thrill of discovery. I folded my arms.