by Mary Stewart
‘Lambis?’
Neither of us said it, but the question was there, hanging between us, in the blank, frightened bewilderment of our faces. Vaguely, I remembered Lambis’ evasive replies when I asked him about his birthplace. It had been Crete; was it here, perhaps? Agios Georgios? And had he used Mark and Colin as the cover for bringing his caique here, for some purpose connected with Stratos and his affairs?
But there was no time to think now. Lambis was approaching fast. I could hear his footsteps already on the rock beyond the hollow.
Beside me, Colin drew in his breath like a diver who has just surfaced, and I saw his hand close round the butt of the gun. He levelled it carefully across his wrist, aiming at the point where Lambis would appear on the track beside the church.
It never occurred to me to try to stop him. I simply found myself wondering what the range of an automatic was, and if Colin was a good enough shot to get Lambis at the fore-shortened angle he would present.
Then I came to myself. I put my lips to Colin’s ear. ‘For heaven’s sake, hang on! We’ve got to talk to him! We’ve got to know what’s happened! And if you fire that thing, you’ll bring Josef back.’
He hesitated, then, to my relief, he nodded. Lambis came out into the clearing below us. He was walking easily, without even a hand on his knife – as well he might, I thought bitterly. I remembered the way he had followed Josef out of sight yesterday – to have a conference, no doubt. Another throught struck me: if Josef had been to the village, then he would have told Stratos and Sofia that I was involved. But they had not known . . . or they surely could not have behaved the way they did. So he hadn’t yet been back to the village . . . and now we would do our best to see that he never got back there again.
The rights and wrongs of it never entered my head. Mark was dead, and that thought overrode all else. If Colin and I could manage it, Josef and the treacherous Lambis would die, too. But first, we had to know just what had happened.
Lambis paused at the door of the church to light a cigarette. I saw Colin fingering the gun. There was sweat on his face, and his body was rigid. But he waited.
Lambis turned, and went into the church.
There was the sound, magnified by the shell of the building, of stone against stone, as if Lambis were shifting pieces of loose masonry. He must have used this place as a cache, and he had come this way to collect something he had hidden there.
Colin was getting up. As I made to follow, he whispered fiercely: ‘Stay where you are!’
‘But, look—’
‘I’ll manage this on my own. You keep hidden. You might get hurt.’
‘Colin, listen, put the gun out of sight. He doesn’t know we saw him with Josef – we can go down there openly, and tell him you’re found. If he thinks we don’t suspect him, we can get the rifle from him. Then we can make him talk.’
As clearly as if the boy’s face were a screen, and a different picture had flashed on to it, I saw the blind rage of grief give way to a kind of reason. It was like watching a stone mask come alive.
He pushed the gun back out of sight under his cloak, and made no objection when I stood up with him. ‘Pretend you’re a bit shaky on your pins,’ I said, and slipped a hand under his elbow. We went down into the hollow.
As we reached level ground, Lambis must have heard us, for the slight sounds inside the church stopped abruptly. I could smell his cigarette.
I squeezed Colin’s elbow. He called out, in a voice whose breathlessness (I thought) wasn’t entirely faked:
‘Mark? Lambis? Is that you?’
Lambis appeared in the doorway, his eyes screwed up against the sun.
He started forward. ‘Colin! How on earth—? My dear boy – you’re safe! Nicola – you found him?’
I said: ‘Have you anything to drink, Lambis? He’s just about done.’
‘Is Mark there?’ asked Colin, faintly.
‘No. Come inside out of the sun.’ Lambis had Colin’s other arm, and between us we steered him into the church’s airy shade. ‘I was just on my way down to the caique. There’s water in the flask. Sit the boy down, Nicola . . . I’ll get him a drink.’
Mark’s haversack lay in one corner, where Lambis had dragged it from its hiding place in a tumble of masonry. Apart from this, the place was empty as a blown egg, the stone-flagged floor swept clean by the weather, and the clustered domes full of cross-lights and shadows, where the ghost of a Christos Pantokrator stared down from a single eye. The rifle stood where Lambis had set it, against the wall by the door.
He was stooping over the haversack, rummaging for the flask. His back was towards us. As Colin straightened, I let his arm go, and moved to stand over the rifle. I didn’t touch it; I’d as soon have touched a snake; but I was going to see that Lambis had no chance to grab it before Colin got control. The automatic was levelled at Lambis’ back.
He had found the thermos. He straightened and turned, with this in his hand.
Then he saw the gun. His face changed, almost ludicrously. ‘What’s this? Colin, are you mad?’
‘Keep your voice down,’ said Colin curtly. ‘We want to hear about Mark.’ He waved his gun. ‘Go on. Start talking.’
Lambis stood like a stone, then his eyes turned to me. He was looking scared, and I didn’t blame him. Colin’s hand wasn’t all that steady, and the gun looked as if it might go off at any moment. And Lambis’ question hadn’t been quite idle: Colin did indeed look more than a little unhinged.
‘Nicola,’ said the Greek sharply, ‘what is this? Have they turned his brain? Is that thing loaded?’
‘Nicola,’ said Colin, just as sharply, ‘search him. Don’t get between him and the gun – Lambis, stand still, or I promise I’ll shoot you here and now!’ This as Lambis’ eyes flicked towards his rifle. ‘Hurry up,’ added Colin, to me. ‘He hasn’t a gun, but he carries a knife.’
‘I know,’ I said feebly, and edged round behind Lambis.
Needless to say, I had never searched anyone before, and had only the vaguest recollection, from films and so on, of how it was done. If it hadn’t been for the grim relics buried in the gully, and for the look in Colin’s face, the scene would have been pure farce. Lambis’ English had deserted him, and he was pouring forth a flood of questions and invective which Colin neither heeded nor understood, and to which I didn’t even listen. I found the knife straight away, in his pocket, and dropped it into my own, feeling stupid, like a child playing pirates. I stood back.
Lambis said furiously, in Greek: ‘Tell him to put that thing down, Nicola! What the hell are you playing at, the pair of you? He’ll shoot someone! Has he gone crazy with what they did to him? Are you mad, too? Get hold of that bloody gun, and we’ll get him down to—’
‘We found the grave,’ I said, in English.
He stopped in mid tirade. ‘Did you?’ The anger seemed to drop from him, and his face looked strained all at once, the dark sunburn looking almost sickly in the queer cross-lights of the church. He seemed momentarily to have forgotten Colin and the gun. He said hoarsely: ‘It was an accident. I would have you to understand that. You know I would not mean to kill him.’
I was standing back against the door jamb – the unheeded Doric column – fingering in my pocket the knife I had taken from him. Under my hand I could feel the chasing of the handle, and remembered suddenly, vividly, the pattern of the blue enamelling on the copper shaft. I remembered his using this very knife to slice the corned beef for Mark . . .
‘You did it?’ I said.
‘I did not want him dead.’ He was repeating himself in a kind of entreaty. ‘When you get back to your people in Athens, perhaps you will help me . . . if you tell them that this was an accident . . .’
Something broke inside me. Where I found the Greek words I do not know: looking back, what I spoke was probably mainly English, with bits of Greek and French thrown in. But Lambis understood, and so – he told me later – did Colin.
‘Accident?’ I forgot the need for quiet, a
nd my voice rose sharply. ‘Accident? Then I suppose it’s an accident that you’re running round now on the hillside with that swine who shot at Mark and wanted them to murder Colin? And don’t think I don’t know all about you and your precious friends, because I do! You can take it from me, I know every move your filthy gang have been making – Stratos, and Tony, and Sofia, and Josef . . . and now you! And don’t try to pretend you’re not in it up to your neck, because we saw you – no, hold your damned mouth, and let me finish! Help you? You want shooting out of hand, and I shan’t raise a finger to stop Colin doing it, but first of all we want to know just what you’re doing in all this. Who pays you, and why? Why did you have to bring him here? And why did you kill him? Why did you have to pretend to save his life, you filthy Judas? Was it because I happened along? If I’d stayed – he was such a marvellous person – if only I’d known – I’d have murdered you myself before I’d have let you hurt him! If only I’d stayed . . .’
The tears came, then, uncontrollably, but the blurring of my vision didn’t prevent me from seeing, over the speechless, half-comprehending stupefaction of Lambis’ face, the flash of a different expression, as his eyes flickered from my face to something just beyond me. Behind me, and beyond, outside the door . . .
A shadow moved in the doorway. Baggy breeches and a Cretan cap. A man coming in fast, with a knife in his hand.
I shrieked: ‘Colin! Look out!’
Colin whirled, and fired. Lambis shouted something at the same moment, and jumped for him. The shot thudded into the door jamb, midway between the newcomer and me, and the noise slammed, deafeningly, round and round the walls. Then Lambis had Colin’s gun-hand; his other arm was tight round the boy’s body; the gun went flying to the floor. I never moved. In the same moment that I cried out, I had seen the newcomer’s face.
Now, I said: ‘Mark!’ in a high, silly voice that made no sound at all.
The shot had stopped him just inside the doorway. Lambis let Colin go, and stooped to pick up the gun. Colin stood blinking against the light, looking dazed and stupid, as if a touch would have knocked him over.
‘Colin,’ Mark said.
Then Colin was in his arms, not saying a word, not making a sound, you’d have sworn not even breathing. ‘What have they done to you? Hurt you?’ I hadn’t heard that voice from Mark before. The boy shook his head. ‘You’re really all right?’ The boy nodded. ‘That’s the truth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we’ll go. This is the end, thank God. We’ll go straight to the caique.’
I didn’t hear if there were any more. I turned and walked past them, and out of the church. Lambis said something, but I took no notice. Regardless now of who could see me, I started up the slope of the hollow, back towards Agios Georgios.
The tears still blurred my eyes, and twice made me stumble; stupid tears, that need never have been shed. I dashed them away. I had cried more over this affair than I remembered having done for years. It was time I got out of it. It was over.
Besides, it was getting late, and Frances would be wondering what had happened to me.
16
This done, he march’d away with warlike sound,
And to his Athens turn’d.
DRYDEN: Palamon and Arcite
Before I had gone thirty yards, I heard him behind me.
‘Nicola!’
I took no notice.
‘Nicola . . . please wait! I can’t go at this speed.’
I faltered, then looked back. He was coming down the track with no noticeable difficulty. The only sign of his recent injury was the sling, made from the hanging fold of the Cretan head-dress, that cradled his left arm. He looked very different from the unkempt, half-bearded invalid of yesterday; he had shaved, and washed his hair, but – as with Colin – it was the relief and happiness of the moment that altered his appearance so completely. My first thought was a vague surprise that I should have recognized him so quickly; my second, that the ‘heroic’ costume suited him disturbingly well.
‘Nicola—’ he sounded breathless – ‘don’t hurry off, please; I’ve got to thank you—’
‘You shouldn’t have bothered. It’s all right.’ I thrust my damp handkerchief out of sight into a pocket, gave him a smile of a sort, and turned away again. ‘You and Colin had better get down to the caique, and away. You’re all right now? You look a whole lot better.’
‘Lord, yes, I’m fine.’
‘I’m glad. Well, all the best, Mark. Goodbye.’
‘Wait, please. I—’
‘Look, I’ve got to get back. Frances will be sending out search parties, and it’ll take me all of three hours to get home.’
‘Nonsense!’ He was standing in front of me now, squarely in the middle of the path. ‘Two hours downhill, if that. Why did you run away like that? You must know—’
‘Because it’s all over and done with, and you don’t want me mixed up in it any more. You and Lambis and Colin can go to your b-boat and sail away, and that is that.’
‘But, my dear, for goodness’ sake give us time to thank you! It’s you who’ve done everything, while I was laid up there, about as useful as a pint of milk! And now everything’s wonderful – mainly thanks to you. Look, don’t be so upset—’
‘I’m not upset at all. Don’t be absurd.’ I sniffed, and looked away from him at the level brilliance of the sun. To my fury, I was beginning to cry again. I rounded on him. ‘We thought he’d murdered you. We found that grave, and . . . it . . . had your clothes on. It was quite horrible, and I was sick. If that isn’t enough to upset me—’
‘I know. I’m desperately sorry that you should have come across that. It’s the man Colin calls Josef; you’ll have guessed that. Lambis killed him, yesterday morning, when he followed him down the hill, remember? He didn’t mean to; naturally what we wanted out of Josef was information about Colin, but it happened accidentally. Lambis had been stalking him, not daring to get too close, because of the rifle, when he came suddenly round a bend of that gully, and there was Josef having a drink, with the gun laid to one side. I suppose the noise of the stream had prevented his hearing Lambis coming. Well, catching him like that, Lambis jumped him. Josef hadn’t time to reach the rifle, and pulled his knife, but Lambis was on top of him, so he didn’t get a chance to use it. He went down, hard, with his head against the rock, and that was that.’
‘I . . . see. Yesterday? When Lambis came back, and sent me away, for the food . . . he told you then?’
‘Yes. He’d hidden the body behind some bushes, and come back to report.’
‘You never said a word to me.’
‘Of course not. But you see why we didn’t dare to go down and stir up the local police? We didn’t even know who the man was, or where he was from. And Lambis was worried sick, naturally. I thought it best to let ill alone, until we knew where we were.’
‘If I’d known . . .’ I was thinking about the spectre of Josef, which had stalked so frighteningly behind my shoulder this last twenty-four hours. ‘You could have trusted me.’
‘Good God, you know it wasn’t that! I just thought the less you knew about that, the better. I didn’t want you involved.’
That did it. I said furiously: ‘Involved? Heaven give me strength, involved? I suppose I hadn’t been involved enough already? I’d been scared to death by Lambis, I’d spent a perfectly beastly night with you, and I’d ruined a very expensive petticoat. I’d also dressed your horrible shoulder, and cooked and slaved and – and worried myself silly! About Colin, I mean. And all you could think of was to get rid of me because I’m a g-girl, and girls are no use, and you were too damned bossy and stiff-necked to admit I could help! Well, Mr Godalmighty Mark Langley, I did find Colin, and if he’d still been locked up in that filthy windmill, I’d still have found him! I told you I could go about on the mountain and in the village safely, and I can, and I have, and I’ve found out more than you and that horrible Lambis have in days. And you needn’t think I’m going to
tell you any of it, because you can just go and find it out for yourselves! You didn’t tell me anything, so of course I thought he’d murdered you, and Colin and I were going to shoot you both, and you’re jolly lucky we didn’t!’
‘I’ll say we are. That bullet was pretty near on target as it was.’
‘Stop laughing at me!’ I cried furiously. ‘And don’t think I’m crying about you, or that I meant a single word I said about you to Lambis just now! I couldn’t have cared less if it had been you in the g-grave!’
‘I know, I know—’
‘And I’m not crying, I never cry, it was only that awful body . . . and . . . and—’
‘Oh, Nicola, darling, I’m sorry, truly I am. I’m not laughing. I’d give anything if the pair of you hadn’t had that shock, and I’m desperately sorry you had that fright just now, over Lambis and me. But we’d been planning to go down into the village, you remember, and I thought Josef’s clothes might just help me to get by, in the dark.’ He grinned. ‘In any case, my own were pretty well past it. Those pants were hardly decent as it was.’
‘I saw the tear in them when Colin pulled the earth off, and the s-socks had a h-hole in.’
And I sat down on a stone, and wept bitterly.
He dropped down beside me, and his arm went round my shoulders, ‘Oh, Nicola . . . Dear heaven, can’t you see, this is just the sort of thing I was trying not to let you in for?’ He shook me, gently. ‘And they weren’t my socks, darling, I did draw the line at his footgear and underthings! We took everything else he had, and buried the boots . . . All right, go on, cry, you’ll feel better just now.’
‘I’m not crying. I never cry.’
‘Of course you don’t. You’re a wonderful girl, and if you hadn’t come along when you did, we’d have been sunk.’
‘W-would you?’
‘Certainly. I might have died of Lambis’ poultices, or Josef would have found me in the hut, or Colin might never have got to us safely . . . What’s more, you saved me from getting shot last night, though you didn’t know it. I was in that shed, along with the cat, when you stopped to have a smoke with your fierce friend in the lane.’