The Age of Olympus

by Gavin Scott

  For a quarter of an hour they climbed steadily uphill until both the fortress and the village of Drakonaris were far below them. Then a great bell began to toll and they turned to see, to their right, the sprawling whitewashed complex of the Monastery of St. Thomas where, doubtless, the hapless Chrystomatos was even now trying to put the right relics back in the right reliquaries.

  Then the path levelled out and they were in the forest, the scent of the warming pine needles rising like incense in the heat of the morning sun; above them, through the dark green of the trees, the sky was a deep, perfect blue. Soon, as the carpet of fallen needles swallowed their footfalls, it was as if they were walking out of the ordinary realms of existence into a separate, timeless world. Sophie put her hand on Forrester’s arm and they stopped for a moment and listened to the silence. Even the tolling of the monastery bell had disappeared.

  “It’s very easy to imagine meeting Dionysus in a place like this,” Sophie said softly. “You might just glance through the trees and see him standing there.”

  “All too easy to imagine,” said Forrester, thinking of the maenads. Then he put a finger to his lips and pointed ahead through the trees. Something white moved in the shadows of a glade ahead of them, about waist height. A tiny movement, left to right, and then the white thing was still. They looked at each other. “Most likely somebody herding goats,” Forrester said. But as they followed the path towards the shape, he placed himself ahead of her, just in case.

  “Good morning,” said Keith Beamish, when they reached the glade. He was seated on a three-legged canvas stool, sketching. The movement Forrester had seen was his white-shirted arm as it moved across the paper. “Peaceful spot, isn’t it?”

  “Sacred, I would say,” replied Forrester, looking across the glade at four marble columns supporting a pediment. “Perhaps to our friend Maia.”

  “There’s rather a nice statue in there,” said Beamish, “which might be her. There’s a stone amphora by her feet with a spring flowing from it. But be careful if you go inside – it doesn’t look entirely stable.”

  Sophie and Forrester walked over to the little ruin, and cautiously mounted the shallow steps to the marble platform where the columns, their fluted stone deliciously cool to the touch, leant gently towards one another. The effigy of a woman, much smoothed away by time, stood at the back of the shrine, a carving of a stone jar at her feet. A tiny trickle of water emerged from the jar and slid away over the edge of the plinth into the forest.

  “She has a lovely face,” said Sophie, and her fingers stroked the woman’s cheeks. “You could almost believe she was alive.”

  “No hint of Dionysian fury,” said Forrester.

  “No,” said Sophie. “She looks very serene.”

  “Do you think I’ve got her?” asked Beamish. He came up after them, showing them his notebook. Sophie studied it.

  “You draw beautifully. You’d think she was still with us.”

  “Thank you, Countess,” said Beamish.

  “By the way, Keith,” asked Forrester, “did you talk to anyone down at the kastello before you came up here?”

  “I did not,” said Beamish. “I was determined to get away from that emotionally tense venue before anybody woke up.” He looked through the trees in the direction of the house, as if expecting its inhabitants to appear, en masse, to disturb his peace.

  “What did you make of last night’s shenanigans?” asked Forrester.

  Beamish raised an eyebrow. “It made me realise why Helena Spetsos was so determined to get here,” he said.

  “So she was the one who got Larry to add Hydros to his itinerary?”

  “She and Charlie Runcorn, though I think it was chiefly her. She’s quite a force of nature, isn’t she?”

  “You know about her affair with Alexandros during the war?” said Forrester.

  “From her own lips,” said the artist. “And according to her it wasn’t just an affair, it was a cosmic event, two great souls coming together to change the future of Greece.”

  “So she must have been quite shocked to discover Alexandros was going back to his wife,” said Sophie.

  “Incandescent with rage, I’d have said. But that was a pretty neat trick, fainting on the relics. Stopped everything in its tracks pretty effectively, I thought.”

  “Mind you,” said Forrester, “Penelope Alexandros is a force to be reckoned with too. She’s not going to let that woman steal her husband after she’s waited for him all these years.”

  Beamish looked at them uncertainly for a moment, and then said, “I don’t like to be crude, and I know it seems odd in view of her passion for Alexandros, but do you think she’s a lesbian? Helena, I mean.”

  Sophie grinned. “You’re thinking about her relationship with Ariadne?”

  “I am, to be honest,” said Beamish.

  “And you want to know because…?”

  “Well, because I’m rather keen on Ariadne myself, and I’ve begun to wonder if I’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”

  “By barking up the wrong tree he means—” Forrester began, but Sophie held up a hand.

  “Mum’s the word,” she said. “I know what he means.” Then to Beamish: “I think Helena Spetsos makes love to whoever she wants, whatever their sex. I’m sure Ariadne is under her spell at the moment, but spells like that can wear off.”

  “Particularly if Helena’s preoccupied with trying to get Ari back,” said Forrester.

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Beamish, “because Ariadne and I began to get to know each other on the trip here, and I got the impression Helena didn’t like it.”

  “She wouldn’t,” said Sophie. “But I wouldn’t let that put you off. In fact, I think it would be a good thing for Ariadne to be rescued from her captor. She deserves gentler treatment than Helena has been meting out to her.”

  “Thanks,” said Beamish. “I’ll take your advice to heart. And now I’m going to do a close-up of this amphora.” And he squatted down beside it, the pencil already moving across a fresh sheet of paper.

  “Show us the result when we get back,” said Forrester. “We’re off to Limani Sangri.”

  “Have fun,” said the artist, already absorbed in his work, and Sophie and Forrester set off again through the wood.

  * * *

  When they finally emerged from the pine trees they were on an undulating upland plateau; there were windmills on the hilltops and flocks of sheep grazing on the short, sage-scented grass. Half an hour later as they reached the centre of the plateau, they came upon a small lake, where they lay down on the springy turf and Sophie rested her head on his chest.

  “Will Penelope prevail, now her Odysseus has returned?” she asked. “Or will the wicked suitress claim her prize?”

  “Perhaps the gods will intervene and decide the matter for themselves.”

  “All the way from Olympus,” said Sophie, closing her eyes.

  “‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods’,” said Forrester as Lear’s lines came unbidden into his mind. “‘They kill us for their sport’.”

  “Do you really think so?” said Sophie. “That sounds rather fatalistic for you.”

  “You’re right,” said Forrester. “I’m not sure why I thought of it. I like to think of the gods as kinder than that.”

  For several minutes they lay there in companionable silence, watching tiny clouds drift across the blue bowl of the sky.

  “The gods help those that help themselves,” said Sophie at last, rising to her feet. “Come on, let’s go and look for your lost treasure before Oberleutnant Kretzmer spirits it away again. If he’s still in the land of the living and hasn’t been turned into a tree.”

  “Or a merman,” said Forrester, and more of Shakespeare’s lines came unbidden to his mind. He sometimes found that when one piece of poetry came into his mind, others followed, almost as if he had opened the lid of a chest that lay there, waiting to be rediscovered. “‘Full fathom five thy father lies. O
f his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him that doth fade. But doth suffer a sea-change—’”

  “‘Into something rich and strange’,” finished Sophie. “My governess taught me that.”

  “I first read it in Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, sheltering from the rain under the canopy on Hull Pier,” said Forrester. He remembered looking up from the book and gazing out through the rain across the wide mud-brown waters of the Humber, wondering if that was the only river he would ever know. Well, he had moved beyond that. Far beyond.

  He looked up at Sophie, marvelling at her beauty, and smiled as she said, “In fact I think it would be a mercy for that poor creature to be turned into something rich and strange, as long as he leaves your stone behind.”

  And then she was striding ahead of him along the edge of the lake and the memories came flooding back once more and he called after her. “‘Then went Sir Bedivere the second time, across the ridge and paced beside the mere, counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought…’”

  Moments later they were walking together, side by side, her hand in his. “You are feeling poetic today. What was that about?”

  “It’s Hydros,” said Forrester. “It’s definitely a magic island. And the poetry was from Tennyson’s ‘Morte d’Arthur’. Sir Bedivere has promised to throw the enchanted sword Excalibur in the lake, but he can’t bring himself to do it, and when he returns to Arthur and lies about what he’s done, the king sends him back to finish the job. For a moment as you walked along the shore, you reminded me of Bedivere.”

  * * *

  The inlet of Limani Sangri had a very different aspect from the bay below Drakonaris. It was surrounded not by wooded hills but by open country covered in windswept shrubs. The littoral was composed of grey pebbles interspersed with jagged rocks, instead of white sand, and the village itself was a secretive huddle of houses that seemed to turn their backs on the outside world. Altogether, despite the bright sunshine, there was an air of foreboding about the place. The path leading down to it from the plateau was steep and narrow. A few hundred yards above the village they paused at a turn in the path and scanned the shore from left to right. At first it seemed as though the storm must have destroyed whatever trace remained of Notre Futur, but then, a quarter-mile to the east of the village, Sophie spotted something. As they stared the image resolved itself, and finally it became clear that it had to be the remains of a vessel, smashed into so many pieces it looked as if it had been crushed in a giant fist.

  “If our German friend survived that, he’s superhuman,” said Forrester.

  A black dog came out onto the path and barked fiercely at them as they neared the village. Forrester walked straight towards it, his eyes never leaving the animal’s, and as soon as he was above it reached down to the back of its neck and gently ruffled its fur. Instantly the barks died away and were replaced by increasingly satisfied growls.

  “How on earth did you do that?” asked Sophie.

  “I was trained to, actually. In case I ever had to deal with a Doberman Pinscher behind enemy lines.”

  “And did you ever have to?”

  “Couple of times.”

  “Like that?”

  “Not exactly,” said Forrester. “The dogs I came across didn’t seem particularly susceptible, so I shot them. But I did use a silencer. Nice to know the trick can work, though.”

  Apart from the dog, the village seemed to be deserted as they made their way carefully down its steep streets to the narrow waterfront. Beside the water sat an old man mending a net with fingers that looked as if they had been carved out of arthritic oak, and he did not look up when they greeted him. They turned right, walked to the end of the quay and scrambled down onto the jagged rocks that lined the inlet.

  It took them twenty minutes to reach the wreck, and by the time they got there they were scratched, bruised from several falls, and beginning to feel tired. The remains of Notre Futur, spread among the rocks half in and half out of the water, were so tangled that searching them seemed pointless, but they began, methodically, to turn over every piece of wreckage they could reach.

  After forty minutes, they had found nothing.

  “Alright,” said Forrester.

  “Now for the hard part.”

  “How do you mean?” said Sophie.

  “The rest is underwater, so I’d better go down and have a look.” He saw the expression on Sophie’s face, reached into the pack and pulled out the Luger. “You know how to use this, don’t you?”

  Sophie nodded, and took it. “Do you really think he’s still alive?”

  “No,” said Forrester. He looked round at the silent village, the grey, forbidding cliffs at the entrance to the bay. “But after Koros I’m not taking any chances.”

  He stripped down to his shorts and removed a facemask and snorkel from the pack.

  “Be careful,” said Sophie.

  “Of course,” said Forrester, and slipped into the water.

  He swam a little way out first, because the waves were banging hard against the shore and he wanted to avoid being thrown against the rocks. Besides, he wanted to know how widely the wreckage of the boat was scattered before deciding his plan of attack. Finally, twenty feet out, he pushed his head down and kicked his way towards the bottom.

  As the sea closed over him he felt instantly at home, with the brightly coloured fish darting to and fro over the sea floor: entering the water felt akin to entering the past. And then he saw the first piece of wreckage – an ugly, broken leatherette seat from the Futur’s cabin – and knew where he had to begin. He surfaced again, checked that Sophie was still where he had left her, waved, and dived once more.

  For the next thirty minutes, diving and surfacing at regular intervals, Forrester turned over every piece of debris he could reach, without success. Then, when he felt he knew the rhythms of the water well enough, he risked going right up to the rocks against which the Futur had foundered, feeling into the crevices between them in case the force of the storm had jammed the stone into one of them. And suddenly, without warning, his fingertips were tracing tiny incisions that could only be the shapes of Linear B, on a stone that felt exactly like the one from the Gorge of Acharius. With his heart thumping wildly in his chest Forrester began to haul it out.

  Or tried to, but within seconds it was clear it was too strongly wedged. He shot up to the surface, took a deep breath, waved to Sophie to reassure her and dived once more, thrusting both arms into the crevice until he could close two hands around the rock. Bracing his feet against the rocks, he began to pull – as a long, lazy tentacle snaked out of the crevice and wrapped itself around his forearm, clamping its suckers on his skin.

  Jesus! How could he have forgotten the bloody octopi? A second tentacle slowly followed the first, enclosing his upper arm in its clammy grip. Ignore it. Pull. Pull the damn stone until it’s free. Don’t think about the head emerging from its lair, the beak snapping. Think about the stone. No – don’t think, bend your knees, keep your grip, brace your feet – and heave.

  He heaved. The stone came out as if it had been fired from a gun. Forrester shot backwards in the water as if he had been fired from a gun. The octopus, ripped from its hiding place, its tentacles still wrapped around his arm, came out with him. Suddenly he was desperate for air, shooting up towards the surface, and as he exploded from the water there was Sophie, up on the rocks with the gun in her hand and without thinking he called out and threw the stone towards her.

  As it left his arms he knew he was a fool, that it would fall short and smash to pieces on the rocks that had destroyed Futur. But to his amazement in one swift, sure movement she dropped the gun, opened her arms and caught the stone as delicately as if it had all been rehearsed.

  Before the octopus could disentangle itself Forrester was smashing it against the rocks, until the water went black with the creature’s ink. The dead tentacles still gripped him as he scrambled out of the water, until he scraped them off a
gainst a piece of wreckage, leaving ugly cuts up and down his arm before he clambered over to Sophie to look down at his prize.

  Which was a lozenge of mudstone in which ancient sea snails had carved loops and whorls of mindless creativity. It was not the inscription stone: it was a mocking parody.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Sophie.

  “It’s alright,” said Forrester. He nodded towards the dead octopus. “At least we can bring something for dinner tonight.”

  15

  THE PEDIMENT

  From the wreck they made their way back along the edge of the inlet to Limani Sangri where the old fisherman was still mending his nets. They climbed down beside him and questioned him in slow, patient Greek about what he had seen the night before when the Futur foundered, and whether anyone had come ashore. The old man’s reaction was odd. He listened carefully, met their eyes with a shrewd, humorous gaze, and said absolutely nothing, returning to the process of mending his nets as if they had never been there. He was apparently neither deaf nor mentally deficient, nor hostile: he just seemed determined not to answer. It was an altogether curious and baffling encounter, which concluded with them thanking him politely and returning to the streets of the village, which were as deserted as ever.

  The trek back across the island was as long and wearying as the trek out that morning had been full of promise, and halfway there Forrester began to regret bringing the octopus, whose ink was still leaking steadily into his shirt. And then, as they reached the glade where they had seen Keith Beamish that morning, he forgot the octopus, his discomfort and even the missing stone, because the peace and silence that had permeated the glade when they first saw it had utterly vanished.

  The first thing that struck them as they entered was that there was something horribly wrong with the shrine where they had examined the statue. Two of the pillars now lay flat on the ground, pointing away from the rest of the shrine like skeletal fingers. The pediment they had supported had fallen too – and beneath it lay the broken body of Giorgios Stephanides with General Aristotle Alexandros kneeling beside him. Alexandros turned to look at Forrester.