by Tom Harper
'We need to get out of here.' Grant found the tommy-gun on the floor where Marina had dropped it. Its barrel was bent like a paperclip. He kicked it aside and ran to the entrance, splashing through the shallow puddle that had formed round it. It was a testament to the ancient builders' skill that the vast door frame remained intact. The lintel alone must have weighed a hundred tons.
Grant peered round the corner and blinked. The top of the staircase had been blown open: it was no longer a tunnel but a deep trench open to the sky. The roof had fallen in, and huge slabs of rock now formed a steep ramp up to the world above. Water slopped over the edge and trickled down the slope, a new stream flowing between the cracked boulders and rubble into the temple. Somewhere underneath it all, he supposed, was Belzig.
He waited a moment, watching for movement. He saw none — but then, he couldn't see much. Billowing clouds of dust still filled the air, diffusing the sun into a muddy half-light. He would have to risk it. But not without protection.
He ran back to where Marina lay and ripped the coverings off the shield. Leaned up against the wall, to the side of the door, it had been well protected from the blast. He spun it round. The leather strap, if it had ever had one, had rotted away long ago, but there were two brass rings sticking out of the back. He slid his arm through them and lifted.
The weight was immense. Grant wondered how any man could ever have carried it into battle and still managed to wield a sword or a spear. Perhaps, he admitted, Achilles had been worth his reputation. But it was better than being shot. He walked back to the doorway, resting the shield against his thigh, and checked the passage again. Still nothing but smoke and dust. He edged through the door and began to climb, picking his way over the rubble. It was slow, awkward work: keeping the shield in front of his body as he dragged himself up the broken slope. The rocks grew larger; the cracks between them widened. But the dust was thinning, the light getting brighter. He scrambled up the final incline, his feet slipping and sliding on the wet stone, and staggered into the light.
The first thing he saw was the bodies. Whether it had been a stray bullet or whether the Russians had panicked when they saw Belzig trying to escape, the charges must have gone off too soon. Two Russian soldiers lay sprawled on the ground like abandoned toys, bloodied and battered. Dust gathered in the creases of their uniforms.
He heard a sound behind him and spun round, bringing up the shield to cover his chest. That saved his life. The shield shuddered with the impact, and Grant's body with it; dirt and corrosion flaked away to reveal gold and bronze underneath. But it didn't break.
Grant looked over the shield's rim. Kurchosov was standing a few yards away, beside one of the monolithic statues. The explosion must have surprised him too: his uniform was torn, his face smeared with dirt and blood. His eyepatch had been ripped away to reveal the scar beneath: a puckered contortion of skin that twisted together into a knot where the eye should have been. He looked dazed.
Grant lifted the Webley and shot him through the eye. The .455 calibre bullet went straight in. Afterwards, Grant could have sworn he heard the hiss of hot lead sizzling on the eyeball for a fraction of a second. A geyser of blood erupted from the socket, and the rock walls around them echoed with a hideous roar. Grant shot him twice more and the noise stopped.
Beyond the corpse, at the base of the statue, something moved. Grant looked up, just in time to see a shadow disappearing behind it.
Muir.
He crouched down behind the shield, glad to rest its weight on the ground, and aimed the Webley at the pillar. The barrel fanned from side to side as he wondered whether Muir would come right or left.
'Give up,' he called. After so much noise, his voice sounded stark in the misty silence. 'Kurchosov's dead.'
No answer. Grant slipped his left arm out of the shield's loops. Balancing it against his knee, he picked up a small rock and threw it towards the pillar. It skittered across the rubble and came to rest at the foot of the statue. Still there was no response.
'Muir?'
Something grated on the stone behind him. He turned; the shield overbalanced and fell on the ground with a resounding clang. He lifted the Webley — and stopped himself just in time. It was Jackson — but not the Jackson who had breezed into the hotel in Athens in his white tennis shoes, all sunshine and pomade. His hair was wild, his clothes torn. His face, under the blood and bruises, was pale as a ghost. He clambered out of the hole and stared numbly at the gun pointing at him.
'Shit.' The voice was dead, past caring. 'Not you too.'
'I thought you were Muir. He's…'
Grant's head whipped round as he heard rapid footsteps beyond the pillar. He sprang to his feet. Through the haze of dust he saw a dim figure sprinting away. He loosed a shot — then, when the figure kept going, he started to run.
The air cleared as he descended the valley. Now he could see Muir plainly, his coat-tails flapping behind him and his wiry arms jerking spasmodically as he scuttled towards the top of the cliff and the waterfall. He still had a gun. Grant saw him start to turn and immediately fired the Webley. It was a wild shot: he had little chance of hitting him while running at full tilt, but it changed Muir's mind. He put his head back down and carried on.
But he could not go far. He came to the top of the cliff and stopped. Grant slowed to a walk. Muir turned. If he'd raised his pistol even an inch, Grant would have shot him right there. Instead, Muir held it away from his body and let it drop over the edge of the cliff. The two men stood there for a moment, face to face, breathing hard.
'Mind if I smoke?'
Grant nodded.
Muir reached into his jacket and carefully took out the ivory cigarette case. He snapped it open. When he'd lit the cigarette, he threw the match into the stream. The current caught it and propelled it over the waterfall. Muir watched it go. 'You've chosen the wrong side,' he said without bitterness. 'You'll see. The Yanks'll ruin everything.'
'I didn't choose any side. You chose me.'
Muir took a long drag on his cigarette. The smoke seemed to inflate him somehow: he stood up taller, lifted his chin. 'I suppose they'll hang me when we get back.'
Grant shrugged. 'We're not at war — not officially.'
'Better if we were. Then they might shoot me. At least I'd die with a fucking cigarette…'
'You Red traitor asshole son-of-a-bitch.'
A blur of movement rushed past Grant and flew at Muir. Muir lifted his fists to defend himself but it was only a gesture, without strength. Jackson's momentum carried him straight into Muir's body. They wrestled for a moment on the edge of the cliff; then, locked together, they fell.
Grant rushed to the edge and looked down. He was just in time to see the splash — then nothing. The black water closed over them. A few minutes later he saw their corpses bob to the surface by the spout where the pool poured into the stream. The bodies teetered for a moment on the lip of the weir, then vanished.
Grant turned back. As he did, he felt his foot kick something. It slithered across the damp rock and came to rest on a patch of moss. Muir's cigarette case. The dull ivory stared at him like an eyeball on the black moss, white as death.
Thirty-three
Oxford. Trinity Term 1947
'Homer never intended that the shield of Achilles should be considered as an actual, literal object. The shield, as described in the Iliad, is meant as a metaphor for the world — a flat disc, made by a god, surrounded by the Ocean river, in whose compass lie all the stars, sun and moon; war and peace, commerce and agriculture; work and leisure; gods, men and animals.'
The undergraduate looked up nervously. He'd padded this paragraph out a bit in a slightly desperate attempt to eat up tutorial time. So far, his tutor didn't seem to have noticed. It didn't occur to him that his tutor might be quite as eager as he was to let the tutorial slip by painlessly.
'But, in reality, this glittering artefact is forged from words, not metal. Clearly, the poet expects his readers to suspend t
heir disbelief during the ecphrasis. Such a cumbersome weapon would have been wholly impractical on the field of battle. For all its poetic depth and power to dazzle, we must — with regret — dismiss the shield as fiction, a triumph of Homer's imagination, written at a time when the technical practice of Bronze Age warfare was merely legend.'
Reed stared out of the window. Outside in Turl Street, women in summer dresses flirted with men in blazers and flannel trousers. Behind the college walls, croquet balls knocked each other on the immaculate lawns. Reed was oblivious to it. In his mind's eye he was at the top of a cliff, straining on a rope with Grant as they tried to lower the shield without dropping it in the pool. He was tripping his way back down the overgrown stream, splashing through the shallows as he tried to support Marina with her broken leg. He was back in the lagoon, scrambling into the seaplane, praying no more Russians would come.
He realised his student was waiting to continue, deferring his essay to whatever great thoughts Reed's distant stare portended. Sometimes, he decided, there were distinct advantages to having a reputation for abstract brilliance. He smiled. 'Go on.'
'What is significant is the fact that Homer gives the shield to Achilles. He seems to be saying that Achilles grasps the entire world in his hand. When he fights, it is the world itself which shivers under the blows.
'In this age of atom bombs and a National Health Service, the unbridled violence and haughty elitism that Achilles embodies may fail to rouse our sympathies.' The undergraduate glanced up, wondering whether this was too daringly relevant, if his ethereal professor had ever heard of either atom bombs or a National Health Service. 'Odysseus, the man who prizes wit over strength, who suffers for ten years to return home and save his family, seems a more realistic hero in this country, in this century.
'But, I suggest, if we are to build a better world, it is Achilles who offers the parable of salvation. True, he spends much of the Iliad governed by rage, heedless of the destruction it wreaks on those around him: his fellow warriors, his friends, even his most intimate companion Patroclus. But the poem is the story of his humanising, his journey away from unthinking anger into an understanding of his responsibilities to the world.
'In metaphorical terms, we all exist on the shield of Achilles. When the warriors gird themselves for battle we tremble. If we are to survive the new perils of the modern age, we must hope that the destructive rages which drive men can be tempered by reason, by engagement and most of all by compassion.'
He shuffled his essay back together and put the papers down.
From his wing-back chair, the professor looked as if he might be asleep. 'Tell me,' he said at last, 'do you believe in Homer?'
The undergraduate looked alarmed. He hadn't prepared for that question. 'Well, erm, Mr Schliemann's finds in Turkey obviously pose some questions. And Mycenae.' He thought desperately — and, to his surprise, found an answer. 'I don't believe it actually matters.'
A white eyebrow rose in surprise. 'No?'
'The poetry is what matters. That's real. It's survived intact for two and a half thousand years, much longer than anything made of metal or wood. And…' He tried to think of something to expand his point. He was saved by a knock at the door.
'Beg your pardon, Professor. There's a gentleman in the lodge to see you. Says he's come from London.'
Reed didn't appear surprised; he'd expected this ever since he got back to Oxford. There was no point delaying the inevitable.
'Would you mind coming back in an hour?' he said apologetically. 'I shan't be long.'
Hardly able to believe his luck, the undergraduate picked up his essay and darted out of the room. A few moments later the porter showed in his visitor, a young man in a blue suit who sat forward on the sofa and held his hat.
'Wright,' he introduced himself. His face was kind rather than handsome, but there was a lively intelligence in his eyes and a suggestion of humour gently kept in check. 'Thank you for seeing me, Professor.'
Reed waved graciously.
'It's about a colleague of mine, a man named Muir. I understand you had some dealings with him.'
'I worked with him in the war. He came to me a few weeks ago. He wanted help tracing an ancient Greek artefact. I believe he was working with the Americans.' 'So we've gathered.' Wright twisted the hat in his hands. 'And not much else, unfortunately. He was a bit of an odd fish, Muir. Frankly, there's a suspicion he may have been involved in some rather queer business.'
Reed tried to convey a distinct lack of surprise. 'He always seemed a little… unorthodox. What's he done now?'
'Well, that's what we're trying to find out. You see, he's gone missing. We were rather hoping you would shed some light on it.'
Wright stayed for an hour. Reed answered his questions as best he could — which was to say as little as possible that was flatly untrue, or easily disproved. Wright took copious notes, frowning as he tried to keep up.
'We're also trying to trace this Mr Grant.'
'Yes,' said Reed. 'I can see that you would. I don't suppose you'll find him.'
'Do you have any idea where he might…'
'Not really. He may have mentioned Canada.'
Wright looked surprised. 'Oh. That's certainly news to us. Thank you.'
He stood and shook Reed's hand. At the door he paused for a moment. 'This… Homeric artefact. You don't think there was anything in it, do you? No chance of it turning up?'
Reed smiled. 'I shouldn't think so.'
* * *
The plane flew south-west through the night, high above the sea that had seen so many gods and heroes pass. Grant manned the controls; behind him, Marina lay on the floor under a blanket, her leg stretched out in a splint.
Reed made his way forward and squeezed into the copilot's seat. 'Where are we?'
Grant checked his watch. 'Just past the Dardanelles. We should make Athens in another couple of hours.'
Reed squirmed round and looked back down the cabin. At the rear of the plane, lashed to a steel bulkhead, the battered shield stared back at him. A canvas sack, bulging with all manner of strange shapes and nubbles, sat beside it.
Grant saw his gaze. 'Imagining how it'll look in the British Museum?'
Reed sighed. 'You know we can't keep it. The Americans would have it in a flash.'
Grant banked the plane left a little. 'Do you really think it could be used to make a bomb?'
'Are you willing to take the risk?'
Grant didn't answer. They flew on in silence for a few minutes. Reed pointed to a small island of lights in the darkness below. 'That must be Lemnos.'
'Maybe we should land there. Hide it in the temple we found until it all blows over.'
'No. Even there, someone will find it eventually.'
'Someone'll find it anyway. You can't unfind things.'
'It's already been missing for three thousand years. If it were lost for another three thousand, I shouldn't complain.'
Grant stared at him in surprise. 'But the shield changes everything. It proves it was all true: Homer, Achilles, Troy — everything. It's… it's history.'
Reed stared out of the window. 'That's exactly it. The world has enough history — more of it every day. But no one's making any more myths. And we need them. When I heard Schliemann talk in Kensington, it wasn't the fact that all this was true — it was being allowed to believe that it might be true. It's wonder that inspires us — the wondering, the delicious not-knowing. A sense of something just out of reach. History brings that back within our grasp.'
He unbuckled his seat belt and moved to the back of the plane. Grant didn't try to stop him. A howling gale blasted into the cabin as the cabin door slid open. Under her blankets, Marina stirred and opened her eyes. Holding on to the struts in the roof, Reed tottered to the shield and untied it, pulling away the lead blankets that had wrapped it. He knelt in front of it for a moment, staring at the images of life teeming in the metal. Then he got up, rolled it to the door and heaved it into the whirlin
g darkness.
The plane flew on into the night. Down on the water, nobody saw the small splash the shield made — or, if they did, they assumed it was just a dolphin broaching the waves. The water was deep; the shield sank quickly. And if a siren's haunting song ever echoed down to the deep place where it came to rest, or a kraken slithered past, or the shadow of a sea nymph flitted overhead, history never knew.
Historical Note
Linear B was actually deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick. The story of their achievement, one of the great intellectual feats of the twentieth century, is told with elegant clarity in Chadwick's The Decipherment of Linear B; and in full scholarly detail in their joint work Documents in Mycenaean Greek.
All the classical authors referred to in this novel are genuine and all the quotations from them are accurate. Reed's quotations from Homer are from the translations of Alexander Pope.
Acknowledgements
Researching this book required travelling almost as much as the characters in it. Though my journeys usually involved less danger, they certainly provided as great a sense of wonder and discovery. For that I owe thanks to Colin Macdonald, who graciously showed me around the Villa Ariadne at Knossos when I turned up on his doorstep; Lucy and Nik Ftochogiannis at the Apollo Pavilion on Lemnos, whose home-made wine I promised to mention; James Harrop, with whom I discovered lost cities and fried pancakes on the natural gas flames at Cirali; and my Greek family — Helen, George and Panos Hayios — for their help and hospitality during my trips there.
Back at home, Yulia Kovacs and Isabella Paul provided Russian and German translations, while my sister Iona helped with the classical references. Dr Jonathan Burgess was kind enough to share an early draft of his monograph on The Death and Afterlife of Achilles, possibly unaware of how I would misuse his research. My agent Jane Conway-Gordon provided constant support and regular sustenance. At Random House, my editor Oliver Johnson encouraged my vision of the book and gave it his usual masterful commentary, while Charlotte Haycock kept everything running smoothly. Both were hugely supportive in the face of a daunting schedule, which made a great difference. I'm also grateful to Richard Ogle, Rodney Paul, Claire Round, Louise Campbell, John Kelly and Richard Foreman for all their efforts on my behalf.