by Mary Stewart
It was already hot. On this stretch of the hill there were no trees, other than an occasional thin poplar with bone-white boughs. Thistles grew in the cracks of the rock, and everywhere over the dry dust danced tiny yellow flowers, on thread-like stalks that let them flicker in the breeze two inches above the ground. They were lovely little things, a million motes of gold dancing in a dusty beam, but I trudged over them almost without seeing them. The joy had gone: there was nothing in my world now but the stony track, and the job it was taking me to do. I plodded on in the heat, weary already. There is no one so leadenfooted as the reluctant bringer of bad news.
The track did not bear steadily uphill. Sometimes it would twist suddenly upwards, so that I had to clamber up what was little more than a dry water course. Then, out of this, I would emerge on to a stretch of bare, hot rock that led with flat and comparative ease along some reach of the mountain’s flank. At other times I was led – with an infuriating lack of logic – steeply downhill, through drifts of dust and small stones where thistles grew, and wild fig trees flattened by the south wind. Now and again, as the way crossed an open ridge, or skirted the top of a thorn thicket, it lay in full view of the high rocks that hid the shepherds’ hut: but whether I could have seen Mark’s ledge, or whether he, if he was still there, could have seen me, I did not know. I kept my eyes on the nearer landscape, and plodded steadily on. It would be time enough to expose myself to the gaze of the mountainside when I had reached the grove of cypresses.
It was with curiously conflicting feelings of relief and dread that, following the track round a jutting shoulder, I saw at length, dark against the long open wing of the mountain, the block of cypresses.
They were still a fair distance off. About halfway to them I could see the jagged scar, fringed with the green of tree tops, which was the narrow gully running roughly parallel to the big ravine up which I had first adventured. It was at the head of this gully, in the hollow olive tree, that Lambis had hidden the provisions yesterday.
It was downhill all the way to the gully. I paused at the edge at last, where the track took a sudden sharp run down to the water. At this point the stream widened into a shallow pool, where someone had placed stepping stones. Downstream from this, the stream bed broadened soon into a shallow trough where the water tumbled from pool to pool among the bushy scrub, but upstream, the way I might have to go, was a deep, twisting gorge crowded with the trees whose tops I had glimpsed from the distance. It was the thickest cover I had seen since I had left Frances in the lemon grove, and now, though reason told me that I had no need of cover, instinct sent me scrambling thankfully down towards the shady pool with the thought that, if I must rest anywhere, I would do so here.
Where the track met the pool it widened, on both banks, into a flattened area of dried mud, beaten down by the feet of the flocks which, year in and year out, probably since the time of Minos, had crowded down here to drink, on their journey to the high pastures. There had been a flock this way recently. On the far side the bank, sloping gently up from the water, was still muddy where the sheep had crowded across, splashing the water up over the flattened clay. Superimposed on the swarming slots in the mud I could see the blurred print of the shepherd’s sandal. He had slipped in the clay, so that the print was blurred at the toe and heel, but the convoluted pattern of the rope sole was as clear as a photograph.
A rope sole. I was balanced on the last stepping stone, looking for a dry place to step on, when the significance of this struck me, and – after a horrible moment of teetering there on one leg like a bad imitation of Eros in Piccadilly – I stepped straight into the water. But I was too startled even to care. I merely squelched out of the stream, carefully avoiding that beautiful police-court print, and stood there shaking my soaking foot, and thinking hard.
It was very possible that, as I had first thought, this was the print of the shepherd’s foot. But if that was so, he had the same kind of shoes as Mark.
This, again, was possible, but seemed unlikely. Most of the Greek country-folk appeared to wear either canvas slippers with rubber soles, or else a kind of cheap laced plimsoll; and many of the men (and some of the women) wore boots, as in summer the dry fields were full of snakes. But rope soles were rare; I knew this, because I like them, and had been trying both in Athens and Heraklion to buy some for this very holiday, but with no success.
So, though it was possible that a Cretan shepherd was wearing these rope soles, it was far more likely that Mark had been this way.
The thought brought me up all standing, trying to revise my plans.
The print was this morning’s, that much was obvious. Whatever had happened last night, this meant that Mark was fit enough to be on his feet, and heading away from the village – not for the hut, but back towards the caique.
I bit my lip, considering. Could he – could he have already found out what I was on my way to tell him? Had he somehow found his way into the mill, before Sofia had been able to remove traces of its occupant?
But there I checked myself. I couldn’t get out of it that way. I still had to try to find him . . . But it did look as if the job might be simplified, for there were other prints . . . A second, much more lightly defined than the first, showed clearly enough; then another, dusty and blurred; and another . . . then I had lost him on the dry, stony earth of the bank.
I paused there, at fault, staring round me at the baked earth and baking stone, where even the myriad prints of the tiny, cloven hoofs were lost in the churned dust. The heat, unalloyed in the gorge by any breeze, drove down from the fierce sky as from a burning-glass.
I realized, suddenly, how hot and thirsty I was. I turned back into the shade, set down my bag, and stooped to drink . . .
The fourth print was a beauty, set slap down in a damp patch under a bush, right under my eyes.
But not on the track. He had left it here, and headed away from it, up the gully bottom, through the tangle of trees beside the water. He wasn’t making for the caique. He was heading – under cover – up in the direction of the shepherds’ hut.
I gave a heave to the bag over my shoulder, and stooped to push after him under a swag of old-man’s-beard.
If it had been shelter I wanted, there was certainly plenty of it here. The catwalk of trodden ground that twisted up under the trees could hardly have been called a path; nothing larger than rats seemed to have used it, except for the occasional blurred prints of those rope-soled feet. The trees were spindly, thin stemmed and light leaved; aspens, and white poplars, and something unknown to me, with round, thin leaves like wafers, that let the sun through in a dapple of flickering green. Between the stems was a riot of bushes, but luckily these were mostly of light varieties like honeysuckle and wild clematis. Where I had to push my way through, I was gratified to notice various signs that Mark had pushed his way through, too. Old Argus Eyes, I thought, momentarily triumphant. Girl Crusoe in person. Not such a slouch at this sort of thing after all. Mark would have to admit . . . And there the mood faded, abruptly, back to its dreary grey. I plodded doggedly on.
The stream grew steeper, the way more tangled. There were no more signs now, and if there were footmarks I never saw them. The air in the bottom of the gully was still, and the shade was light, letting a good deal of sunshine through. I stopped, at length, to have another drink, then, instead of drinking, turned from the water with sudden resolution, sat down on a dry piece of fallen tree trunk in the shade, and opened my bag.
I was hot, tired, and exhausted by depression. It was going to help no one if I foundered here. If the news I was bearing (I thought crudely to myself) had knocked the guts out of me, better have a shot at putting them back in working order.
I uncorked the bottle of King Minos, sec, and, with a silent blessing on Frances, who had insisted on my taking it, took a swig that would have done credit to Mrs Gamp and her teapot. After that I felt so much better that – in homage to the gods of the place – I poured a few drops on the ground for a li
bation, then tackled lunch with something like an appetite.
Frances had also given me at least two-thirds of Tony’s generous lunch packet. With a little more help from King Minos, I ate a couple of the fresh rolls crammed with roast mutton, some olives from a poke of grease-proof paper, and then a rather tasteless apple. The orange I would not face, but dropped it back into the bag.
A little stir of the breeze lifted the tree tops above me, so that the sun-motes spilled dazzlingly through on to the water, and shadows slid over the stones. A couple of butterflies, which had been drinking at the water’s edge, floated off like blown leaves, and a goldfinch, with a flash of brilliant wings, flirted its way up past me into some high bushes in an overhanging piece of cliff.
I watched it, idly. Another slight movement caught my eye, a stir of light colour among some piled boulders below the overhang, as if a stone had moved. Then I saw that there was a lamb, or an ewe, lying up there, under a tangle of honeysuckle. The breeze must have lifted the fleece, so that the ruffling wool had shown momentarily above the boulders.
I watched, attentive now. There it was again, the stroking finger of the breeze running along the wool, and lifting it, so that the light caught its edge and it shone softly for a moment, like bloom along the stone.
I had been wrong, then. The footprint had not been Mark’s. The sheep were somewhere near by, and with them, no doubt, would be the shepherd.
I began quickly to pack the remnants of lunch away, thinking, more confusedly than ever, that now I had better revert to my first haphazard plan, and make for the cypress grove.
I got to my feet warily, then stood, listening.
No sound except the chatter of the water, and the faint hushing of the wind in the leaves, and the high liquid twittering of the goldfinches somewhere out of sight . . .
I had turned back downstream, to find a place where I could clamber more easily out of the gully, when it occurred to me that the sheep had been oddly still and quiet, all through the time that I had been eating. I glanced back. It lay on the other side of the stream, some way above me, half under the overhang. It could have slipped from above, I thought, unnoticed by the shepherd, and it might well be dead; but if it was merely trapped on its back, or held down by thorns, it would only take me a few moments to free it. I must, at least, take time to look.
I stepped across the stream, and clambered up towards the boulders.
The sheep was certainly dead; had been dead some time. Its fleece was being worn as a cloak by the boy who lay curled under a bush, in the shelter of the boulders, fast asleep. He wore torn blue jeans and a dirty blue shirt, and the sheepskin was pulled over one shoulder, as the Greek shepherds wear it, and tied into place with a length of frayed string. This, not Mark, was the quarry I had been stalking. The mud on his rope-soled shoes was hardly dry.
The noise of my approach had not disturbed him. He slept with a sort of concentration, deep in sleep, lost in it. A fly landed on his cheek, and crawled across his eye; he never stirred. His breathing was deep and even. It would have been quite easy to creep quietly away, and never rouse him.
But I made no such attempt. I stood there, with my heart beating in my throat till I thought it would nearly choke me. I had seen that kind of sleep before, and recently – that almost fierce concentration of rest. I thought I had seen those eyelashes before, too; I remembered the way they lay on the brown cheeks in sleep. And the way the dark hair grew.
The thick lashes lifted, and he looked straight at me. His eyes were blue. There was the quick flash of alarm shown by any sleeper who is startled awake to find himself being stood over by a stranger; then a second look, half-relieved, half-wary, as he registered my harmlessness.
I cleared my throat, and managed a hoarse ‘Cháirete.’ It is the country greeting, and means, literally, ‘Rejoice.’
He stared for a moment, blinking, then gave me the conventional ‘Good day.’
‘Kali méra.’ His voice sounded stupid and slurred. Then he thrust his knuckles into his eyes, and pushed himself into a sitting posture. He moved, I thought, a little stiffly.
I wetted my lips, and hesitated. ‘You’re from Agios Georgios?’ I still spoke in Greek.
He was eyeing me warily, like a shy animal. ‘Óchi.’ The denial was hardly audible, a thick mutter as he got quickly to one knee, and turned to grope under the bush, where he had put down his shepherd’s stick.
This was the genuine article, gnarled fig-wood, polished by years of use. Shaken by a momentary doubt, I said sharply: ‘Please – don’t go. I’d like to talk to you . . . please . . .’
I saw his body go tense, just for a second; then he had dragged the stick out from where it lay, and was getting to his feet. He turned on me that look of complete and baffling stupidity that one sometimes sees in peasants – usually when one is arguing the price of some commodity for which they are overcharging by about a hundred per cent. ‘Thén katalavéno (I don’t understand),’ he said, ‘adio,’ and jumped past me, down the bank towards the stream. Round the wrist of the hand that held the stick was tied a rough bandage of cloth in a pattern of red and green.
‘Colin—’ I said, shakily.
He stopped as if I had struck him. Then, slowly, as if to face a blow, he turned back to me. His face frightened me. It still looked stupid, and I saw now that this was real; it was the blank look of someone who is beyond feeling punishment, and who has long since stopped even asking the reason for it.
I went straight to the root of the matter, in English. ‘Mark’s alive, you know. It was only a flesh wound, and he was quite all right, last time I saw him. That was yesterday. I’m on my way to find him now, I – I’m a friend of his, and I think I know where he’ll be, if you’d care to come along?’
He didn’t even need to speak. His face told me all I wanted to know. I sat down abruptly on a boulder, looked away, and groped for a handkerchief to blow my nose.
14
‘Wonder of time,’ quoth she, ‘this is my spite,
That, thou being dead, the day should yet be light.’
SHAKESPEARE: Venus and Adonis
‘Do you feel better now?’ I asked.
It was a little time later. I had made him sit down then and there, by the stream, and drink some of the wine, and eat the rest of the food I had brought. I hadn’t asked him any questions yet, but while he ate and drank I told him all I could about Mark’s end of the story, and my own.
He said very little, but ate like a young wolf. They had fed him, I gathered, but he ‘hadn’t been able to eat much.’ This was all he had said so far about his experiences, but the change in him – since the news about Mark – was remarkable. Already he looked quite different; the bruised look was gone from his eyes, and, by the time the Minos Sec was half down in the bottle, there was even a sparkle in them, and a flush in his cheeks.
‘Now,’ I said, as he gave the neck of the bottle a final wipe, corked it, and set it down among the wreck of papers that was all he had left of my lunch, ‘you can tell me all your side of it. Just let me get all this rubbish stowed away, and you can tell me as we go. Were you in the windmill?’
‘I’ll say I was, tied up like a chicken and dumped on a bundle of rubbish,’ said Colin warmly. ‘Mind you, I hadn’t a clue where I was, when they first took me there; it was dark. In fact, I didn’t know till today, when I left, except that I’d got the impression I was in a sort of round tower. They kept the shutters up all the time – in case I saw them, I suppose. What are you doing?’
‘Leaving the crumbs for the mice.’
‘Crumbs for the mice?’
I laughed. ‘You’d be surprised how much the mice have done for us today. Never mind, skip it. How did you get away? No, wait, let’s get on our way. You can tell me while we go; and start at the very beginning, when Mark was shot at, and the gang jumped on you.’
‘Okay.’ He got to his feet eagerly. He was very like his brother to look at; slighter, of course, and with a frame at o
nce softer and more angular, but promising the same kind of compact strength. The hair and eyes, and the slant of the brows were Mark’s, and so – I was to discover – were one or two other things.
‘Which way are we going?’ he asked briskly.
‘For the moment, back down the gully for a bit. There’s a place quite near, a clump of cypresses, which you can see from anywhere higher up. I’m going over to that. If he and Lambis are somewhere about, they’ll be keeping a lookout, and they’ll surely show some sort of signal, then we can go straight up to them, via the gully. If not, then we’ll aim for the caique.’
‘If it’s still there.’
This thought had been worrying me, too, but I wasn’t going to admit it. ‘It will be. They knew, if you were free, that you’d make straight for it; where else could you go? Even if they’ve moved it again, you can bet your life they’re keeping a good lookout for you.’
‘I suppose so. If you’re going up into the open to signal them, had I better stay down here?’
‘Oh, yes. And whichever way we go, we’ll stay in cover. Thank goodness, anyway, one of my problems is gone – you’ll know the way from the old church to the caique. Come on.’
‘How did you find me, anyway?’ asked Colin, scrambling after me across the stream, and down the narrow gully-path.
‘Followed your tracks.’
‘What?’
‘You heard. That’s one of the things we’ll have to put right before we go. You left some smashing prints down by the stepping stones. You can sweep them out while I go up to the cypress grove.’
‘Well, but how did you know they were mine?’
‘Oh, I didn’t; I thought they were Mark’s. You’ve the same sort of shoes.’
‘Have a heart, Nicola, he takes nines!’
‘Well, I wasn’t really thinking. Anyway, you’d slipped in the mud, and the toe and heel were blurred, so the prints looked longer. If it hadn’t been for recognizing Mark’s shoes, I’d never have noticed them. He was – a bit on my mind, at the time. All the same, you’d better wipe them out.’