Castle of the Lion

by Margaret Rome

  Petra's heart swelled with indignation as she noted his weary look of frustration; his dust-streaked, sweated brow. A suspicion that Stelios might be punishing Gavin for her own shortcomings prompted an impulsive suggestion.

  'Let me help you out. School has closed down for the day, so I've plenty of time to spare. What's the second subject you have to research?'

  'Soujoukos,' he breathed hopefully, 'some sort of sweet usually made by elderly ladies for their grandchildren.'

  'In that case, Sophia is bound to know everything there is to know about it. While you're busy with the saddlemaker I'll go and ask her,' Petra decided. 'Then when I've gathered all the available information I'll type out the notes and leave them in Stelios's study. If we both remember to be careful,' she breathed in deeply, her courage faltering, 'there's no reason why he should learn anything about my involvement.'

  She found Sophia busy in the kitchen, weighing and measuring ingredients for yet another of the dishes which she cooked so superbly.

  'One oke eggplants… one oke ripe tomatoes… half oke of mincemeat,' she murmured, double-checking items spread out upon the table as she expertly wielded a chopping knife through a bunch of fresh green parsley.

  'Are you too busy to talk, Sophia?' Hopefully, Petra hovered on the threshold, reluctant to interrupt the queen in her kitchen.

  'Of course not, kyria!' Sophia's smile encouraged Petra to advance a few steps towards a chair placed next to the kitchen table. 'In just a few more minutes I shall have finished preparing lunch. I hope you will enjoy my papoutsakia ston fourno—"little shoes in the oven".'

  With a gurgle of appreciative laughter Petra assured her: 'I know I shall, Sophia. Both my brother and I look forward to sampling local delicacies made as only you can make them.'

  It was a genuine compliment—not extended solely to flatter—yet Sophia's gratified response provided Petra with the opening for which she had been searching.

  'Though I do say so myself, there are not many cooks left on this island who are capable of preparing dishes exactly as they were prepared in the old days. I've even heard it said,' she snorted with disgust, 'that some so-called chefs employed in luxury hotels dare to offer visitors dishes prepared with dried herbs sprinkled out of a packet! What on earth must their guests think of such supposedly traditional dishes?'

  'Not much, I guess,' Petra nodded agreement. 'Traditional methods are fading fast, and will soon disappear completely. The kyrios is so concerned about this that he has asked my brother's help to compile a record of ancient crafts and customs, practices that were once common to the island but which are nowadays confined only to the mountain villages. The making of soujoukos, for instance…'

  'Ah, yes!' Sophia laid down her knife, her interest obviously aroused. 'As a child the kyrios so much enjoyed sitting around the fire on winter evenings nibbling the nutty confectionery while I told him tales about the kalikantzari, small gnome-like creatures who come down to earth on Christmas Eve and roam around the villages after midnight doing all sorts of mischief—teasing weary home-wenders, frightening the womenfolk, stealing food, and playing all kinds of practical jokes. If ever you should suspect that you might have become a victim of the kalikantzari, kyria,' she instructed quite seriously. 'You must scare them away by carrying a black-handled knife, or by twisting a piece of red thread around your finger! On the other hand, if you prefer placating the impish creatures, you must leave a plateful of sweetmeats where they are sure to find them. Soujoukos is said to be their favourite.'

  Making a mental reservation to leave out a plateful of goodies just in case her present troubles could have some connection with a gnome who had mislaid his calendar, Petra groped inside her handbag for a notebook, then waited with pencil poised to jot down further items of fascinating folklore.

  'Shortly,' Sophia did not disappoint her, 'when the vineyards change colour and grapes are waiting blue-black or yellow on the vines, village women will begin cleaning their cauldrons or having them newly lined with zinc. Roofs will be swept clean, and also every patch of sunny courtyard where raisins can be spread out to dry. Children will be given the job of cracking nuts and stringing the kernels into long necklaces which they will tie to forked branches, ready to be dipped into grape jelly in much the same way as they dip their fishing rods into the river. Meanwhile, large cauldrons of grape juice will have been brought to the boil, sweetened with a handful of "white earth", then taken off the fire so that the froth which forms can be skimmed away. After it has cooled, the juice will be strained through a cloth, thickened with flour, then put back on to the fire to boil until it has reached the consistency of jelly into which the eager children will be allowed to dip their strings of nuts several times until they take on the appearance of strings of sausages. These will then be hung up in the sun to dry and some days later the soujoukos sausages will be cut into lengths and stored away until winter, when it will be nibbled in the evenings—a sweetener for the mouth that provides pleasure and nourishment for the children.'

  'Strange,' Petra mused, too absorbed in her scribbling to realise that she was wandering on to dangerous ground, 'I cannot recall my mother ever mentioning soujoukos.'

  'How could your mother have had knowledge of a sweet that is peculiar to the mountain villages of Cyprus?'

  When Petra looked up she saw Sophia eyeing her thoughtfully. 'One guest, who was present at your wedding only because she happened to be visiting relatives in the village, seemed convinced that she had seen you and your brother many times before, kyria. She even went so far as to suggest that you might have relatives—a grandfather, I think she said—living in her own village which is situated not far from here on the lower mountain slopes. Of course, we assured her that she was mistaken,' Sophia frowned, her lips pursing doubtfully, 'for how could she be speaking the truth, what possible reason could you have for deceiving the kyrios who introduced you into his household as a stranger?'

  Feeling a childish urge to snatch up a black-handled knife as protection against mischief making kalikantzari, Petra jumped to her feet and managed to avoid responding to Sophia's tentative enquiry by stuffing the writing pad back into her handbag and pretending to have suddenly gone deaf.

  'Thank you so much for your help, Sophia.' Nervousness caused her to stammer as she began backing out of an atmosphere of hurt disbelief, from a look of rigidity on Sophia's features that seemed indicative of deep shock, and even deeper disapproval. 'I can't wait to tell my brother about the interesting information you've supplied—such a large amount that I shall be forced to spend the entire afternoon transposing barely decipherable scribbling on to neatly typed pages.'

  She escaped with relief into the castle gardens, regretting the slip of the tongue that seemed to have opened floodgates of doubt in the mind of the elderly servant whose first loyalty would always be tendered towards her beloved kyrios.

  She walked for a while between flowered borders, enjoying the warm stroke of sunshine upon hair which Stelios had insisted must be left loose, so that whenever he felt the need he could stroke his hand across a sheen he had likened to the glint of pale sunlight upon a stream of rich Greek honey.

  She had also started dressing to please him in gathered skirts and matching tops made of soft striped cotton fashioned by the village dressmaker in a range of jewel-bright colours that had an effect upon her pale cheeks that was positively glowing. Today, she had chosen a dress with a silken amber sheen that had the sort of low, scooped-out neckline so much favoured by precocious young peasant girls who loved to flirt with their eyes across one bared, rounded shoulder, then pretend to be offended by the hot lingering stares of susceptible males.

  'But what good is a play without an audience?' Petra murmured to herself as she turned her steps towards the castle and the hours of work that were waiting.

  Feeling certain that Stelios would once more have followed his week-long routine of driving away from the castle early in the morning, and remaining absent for the rest of th
e day, she made straight for his study where she knew she would find a typewriter. But the moment she slipped inside the book-lined room she sensed his presence, felt her eyes drawn as if magnetised towards the outline of his head and shoulders rearing above the padded leather back of an armchair.

  She froze, then began silently backing away from his finely drawn profile, his motionless body, and from hands restlessly fingering the traditional male-Greek toy known to some as a prestigious sign of leisure and to others as worry beads.

  'Don't go, elika!' He startled her by swivelling his chair around to face her. For a couple of stress-filled seconds he studied her fiery-cheeked confusion, then continued in an indolent drawl that somehow managed to sound more disturbing than a threat: 'It is time for us to talk, time to sort out the problems that concern us and which consequently can only be resolved by us.'

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Slowly, feeling a need to touch him that was almost compulsive, Petra moved into the centre of the room, then stood nervously clasping and unclasping her hands while Stelios strode around the desk to meet her. She braced, expecting a punishing stab of words from the tongue he used like a double-edged sword that cut both ways, one edge condemning, the other slicing sweetly into her heart, reducing it to a thousand quivering pieces.

  Anger aroused during his solitary wrestling with problems she suspected were in some way connected with their marriage seemed slowly to abate as she stood trembling in his shadow, looking pale and drawn but with a new, lovely bloom of maturity softening the planes and hollows of her delicate features.

  'Why are sacrificial offerings always so colourless?' he grated the hurtful question. 'Milk-pale calves; snow-white lambs, and pearl-pure virgins.' Suddenly he relented by offering a little less irritably: 'It is customary for a bride to receive a gift of jewellery from her bridegroom, kallista— would you prefer pearls, the recognised symbol of purity?'

  'And of tears,' she reminded him quietly, then regretted the response that had thrown a cloud over features looking unusually drawn, cast in the grim, weary mould of one who had shared her agony of sleepless nights spent searching for reasons to explain painful solitude.

  'I'm sorry if all you have learnt from our marriage is the language of grief,' he apologised grimly. 'You shall have pearls, and when you receive them you must wear them nightly. I shall take care to choose gems that are flawless and white—the holy colour worn by virgins as protection against evil spirits who might attempt to prey upon an unconscious—and therefore vulnerable—sleeper.'

  Petra flinched from dark eyes flashing daggers of scorn and felt flattened as the carpet ground beneath his heel when he turned aside, muttering an imprecation so vicious it left her quivering.

  'Sto thiavolo ola! To hell with everything!'

  As she watched him striding back to his seat an old Greek warning flashed through her mind: 'Poke not a fire with a sword!' Being careful not to irritate him with sharp words that would serve only to increase his rage, she sifted compassion gently as sand on to dangerous flame.

  'You're looking tired, Stelios, have you been overworking?'

  'Of course I am tired, of course I have been working hard!' Rifling an impatient hand through piled-up papers on his desk, he glared a look of condemnation. 'I retreated from the city to the peace and quiet of the mountains hoping to reduce a backlog of important correspondence, only to find myself becoming more and more encumbered with unforseen distractions.'

  Such as an unwanted wife? Petra almost blurted. One whose too-eager responses have inflicted boredom and embarrassment upon a husband who, by his own admission, considers that catching ends the pleasure of the chase!

  She sighed, dismissing for ever any hope of mating with her husband in thought, purpose, and will, growing with united heatbeats into a single pure and perfect being. Yet even though he seemed determined to reject close communion in favour of a marriage run along the lines of casual recreational sex, she knew she possessed one talent he was bound to find useful.

  'Let me help you with your work, Stelios.' She moved towards the desk, viewing its feast of pamphlets, memos, reference books and piled up correspondence with the eyes of a starved child too long deprived of substantial nourishment.

  A trace of some undefinable emotion flickered across his features before his eyes narrowed to the watchfulness of a cat standing guard over a dishful of cream.

  'Of course you may, if that is what you wish,' he agreed with a smoothness she found faintly disturbing. 'Perhaps you could begin by attempting to interpret the complex terminology employed by the writer of this letter.' He flicked a sheet of foolscap within her reach. 'I am beginning to suspect that our Civil Service has grown into a monument in danger of collapsing beneath a weight of official forms, red tape, and paperclips, and that the officialese used in correspondence is designed not so much to display wisdom as to cover up stupidity!'

  Petra almost smiled as she picked up the offending letter thinking, not for the first time, how much he and Sir Joseph had in common, how equally impatient they both were of long-winded officials, pomposity, and all communiqués that were not sent out in as brief and concise form as possible. She scanned the letter, competently unravelling bureaucratic jargon as she went, discovering contents that were blessedly familiar.

  In her eagerness to help she did not pause for thought, but embarked upon a verbal de-coding of an obscure point of international law which only a few months previously had overtaxed Sir Joseph's patience. He had passed it into her hands, offering it as a grumpy challenge to her capabilities, a challenge she had found both absorbing and informative.

  But immediately she had finished reading, silence fell like a heavy, sinister cloak over the book-lined study. She looked up, half expecting to see admiration written across Stelios' features, perhaps even to hear a grudging expression of gratitude, and instead saw bleak condemning eyes; heard a grated, accusing question.

  'Why did you lie to me about your profession, Petra? Why was it so important that I should believe you had trained to become a schoolteacher?'

  His attack took her completely by surprise. Shocked speechless, she endured his long, deeply penetrating, quite frightening stare with eyes mirroring grave, gentle appeal. But the menace in his movements as he prowled towards her gave clear indication that he was in no mood to consider being merciful—more ready to savage the victim caught in his neatly-set trap.

  'You apparently possess a considerable talent for deception, Petra,' he accused coldly. 'Indeed, if acts were angels that walk with us, I suspect that your most frequent companion would be Lucifer!'

  His stance was rigid, his expression thunderous, when he directed a challenge across the narrow chasm of space dividing them.

  'Earlier today,' he spelled out steadily, 'I received a most informative telephone call from Sir Joseph Holland, a senior British diplomat, who was anxious to know the whereabouts of a girl recently employed by him as his senior secretary, a paragon of intelligence by all accounts, a brilliant scholar, expert linguist, and dedicated career woman who resigned her position in case she should be accused of using her diplomatic status to influence the release of an imprisoned brother.'

  Petra's visible flinch at the mention of Sir Joseph's name must have destroyed any lingering doubt he might have been nurturing, even before she quivered a sigh and murmured flatly:

  'So you know…'

  Her damning admission had the effect of a lighted match on a pile of paraffin-soaked charcoal. Slumbrous temper ignited. Sparks of anger seemed to crackle all around her when Stelios' hands clamped down upon her shoulders, jerking her near enough to become aware of his volcanic heartbeat, to feel the scorch of his explosive breath against her cheek.

  'All I know for certain is that you have deceived me, Petra! Again and again you have cheated and lied—initially by tricking your way into my office, then afterwards by pretending to be a simple, unpretentious schoolteacher. What a fool you must have thought me! How easily I fell for your l
ine of unsophisticated innocence, the Miss Grundy image you projected with such skilful pathos!'

  Savagely he shook her until she felt punished as a puppet in the hands of a crazed master. Yet she felt even physical pain was preferable to the shock of humiliation inflicted by a tongue that lashed.

  'I consider the most wicked deception of all to be your act of virginal shyness in the bedroom, your ability to wear the cord and cowl and white silk habit of a saint over the body of a sensuous wanton!'

  'Don't, Stelios!' she cried out, closing her eyes in an agony of shame. 'You're being unfair!'

  'Unfair!' he spat, highly infuriated. 'Have you any notion how debauched you made me feel? How reluctant to become responsible for a virgin's first sexual encounter?' He tossed back his head to direct a bitterly mocking parody. 'Hail, goddess! Just as legend has foretold, once more the waves have flung forth a shameless Aphrodite!'

  When he contemptuously withdrew, leaving her feeling charred to the heart, as, weak and brittle as a wand baptised by flame, she sagged against the desk yearning for the support of Aphrodite's girdle, the mythical cestus Greeks believe is worn by all women of irresistible attraction because of its magical power to arouse men's ardent love.