The Moonspinners

by Mary Stewart

  Full in the glare, I turned to face the spear, and threw an arm up towards him. I was trying, I think, to get my breath to shout; to gain a little time in which his crazy anger might be checked, reasoned with. But even as I turned, he swung his spear-arm up again. The long shaft gleamed golden, the barbed blades glittered; the light beat me down, hammered me into the water, held me there, like a moth frying on a flame. His other hand was on the tiller. If the spear missed this time, the boat, swinging on that radar beam, would run me down, and plough me back into the sea.

  I gulped air, watching for the first flash of metal as his muscles tensed for the throw. The flash came: I turned and dived for the darkness. Nothing followed, no blades, no rope; he must have missed. I held myself under as long as I could, thrusting down and away, steeply, into deep water . . .

  The moment came when I had to turn upwards. I was rising towards the light . . . it was everywhere . . . the sea paled to a luminous green, to a wavering of blue and gold, barred with the ripples of the boat’s passage, blocked with the formidable shadow of her keel.

  The turquoise and gold thinned, lightened, fizzed with sparks as the foam ran from her screw . . .

  Just before I broke surface I saw him, a shadow towering above a shadow, tall on the thwarts, huge, distorted, wavering like a pillar of cloud. He was up there, waiting, the spear still poised. I don’t pretend I saw anything except the moving shadows above the light, but I knew, as surely as if the sea were clear glass, that he still had the spear. He hadn’t thrown it before, it had been a feint. He would get me now, as, gasping and exhausted, I surfaced for the last time.

  Then something touched me, drove at my outstretched hand, breaking my dive, and sending me sprawling untidily to the surface. The boat rocked past, her bow-wave piling. The spear drove down at the same moment, a flash among the million flashing and glittering points of light; stars, water drops, splashing foam, the dazzle of my water-filled eyes. There was a crack, a dreadful jarring, a curse. The world swam, and flashed, and was extinquished, as the massive shape of blackness surged up between me and the light. I hadn’t even known what had knocked me to the surface, but the animal in me was already clinging, gasping and sobbing for air, to solid rock. That last, long dive had taken me into the wake of one of the stacks of the rock ridge. The spear, striking prematurely, had hit it, and the prow of Stratos’ boat, following me too closely, had taken it with a jarring graze, and was even now, roughly headed off by the rock, swerving fast away.

  The moment’s respite, the solid rock of my own element, were enough. My mind cleared of its helpless terror as the air poured into my body, and I saw that I was safe, as long as I kept among the rocks.

  Psyche turned again, wheeling for my side of the stack. I dropped back into the sea, and plunged round into the darkness at the other side.

  I reached out for a handhold, to rest again until she could come around.

  Something caught at me then, holding me back from the rock; something under the water . . . It was thin and whippy as a snake, and it wrapped round my legs, dragging me down like the weight roped to the feet of a man condemned to die by drowning.

  I fought it, with the new strength born of instinctive terror. I had forgotten the other danger; the light and the spear were of the upper air, this horror came from the world below. This was the swimmer’s nightmare, the very stuff of horror; the weed, the tentacle, the rope of a net . . . It held me fast, pulled me down, choking. And now the light was coming back.

  My flailing hand met rock again; clung, with the thing dragging at my knees. I was done; I knew it. The light was coming.

  Then it vanished, switched off. The sudden darkness, printed with its image still, roared and dazzled. But the roaring was real, the night suddenly shaking with a confused uproar of engines, a medley of shouting, the sharp crack of a backfiring motor – and then I saw other lights, small and dim and moving wildly across the water. The darkened light-boat hung between me and the stars, as if hesitating, then, suddenly, her motor was gunned, and the jet of white foam that shot from her stern almost dragged me off my rock. Her wake arrowed away, to be lost under the dark. In its place, came, gently, a biggish shadow, with riding-lights steady at mast and prow.

  Someone said: ‘Hang on, sweetheart,’ and someone else said, in Greek: ‘God protect us, the sea lady,’ and Colin’s voice said breathlessly: ‘She’s hurt.’

  Then a boat-hook ground into the rock beside me, and the boat swung in gently. Hands reached, grabbed. The side of the caique dipped, and I managed to grab it and was dragged half inboard, to hang gasping and slack over the side until the hands gripped again and lifted me in, and whatever it was that had twined round my legs and tried to drown me, came too.

  I was down in the well of the caique, hunched on the thick rope matting, gasping and shivering and sick. Vaguely I was aware of Mark’s voice and hands; something dry and rough rubbed me smartly into warmth, something sharp and aromatic was forced down my throat, while the caique swung and ground against the rock, and Mark cursed steadily under his breath in a way I hadn’t thought he was capable of. Then came the dry roughness of a tweed coat round my bare shoulders, and another mouthful of the heady Greek brandy, and I was sitting up, with Mark’s sound arm around me, feeling the warmth of his body comforting my own, and clutching his coat to my nakedness with numbed and flaccid fingers.

  ‘Stay quiet; it’s all right, just stay quiet.’ It was the voice he had used to comfort Colin.

  I shook, clinging to him. ‘The spear,’ I said, ‘the weeds.’

  ‘I know. It’s all right now. He’s gone.’ Reassurance seemed to flow from him in tangible waves. ‘It’s all finished; you’re quite safe. Now relax.’

  ‘It was because of Josef’s knife. I took it out of Lambis’ pocket in the church, when we held him up. I forgot it. It was in my pocket. They saw it. H – he must have come after us.’

  A moment or so, while he assessed this. ‘I see. But it still doesn’t explain why he—’

  ‘Mark!’ A shadow that I recognized as Colin dropped down to squat beside us.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This stuff that came up with her. It isn’t weeds, it’s rope.’

  ‘Rope?’ I shivered again, uncontrollably, and the protecting arm tightened. ‘You mean a – a net?’

  ‘No. It’s a length of rope, with a float, and a sort of lobster pot at the other end.’

  The scháros pots; of course. It seemed like a memory from another life.

  I said: ‘He has pots laid along there. I forgot. That was all it was, then. It felt horrible, like weed.’

  ‘Chuck it back in,’ said Mark.

  ‘But there’s something inside.’ Colin sounded suddenly excited. ‘Not fish. A sort of package.’

  Mark let me go. ‘Send a light down, Lambis.’ He got down on his knees beside Colin. The wicker pot lay between them, a dark stain of water spreading from it. Gingerly Mark thrust his fingers in, and brought out a package, which he laid on the boards. Colin leaned close, Lambis, from his place beside the engine, peered in over their shoulders. The three faces were grave, absorbed, tense with a curiosity that was just about to break into excitement. The caique throbbed softly, swinging away from the rocks in a long, gentle drift seawards. We had all completely forgotten Frances.

  Mark unwrapped the package. A layer of oilskin or polythene; another; a third. Then a bag of some soft species of skin, chamois leather, I supposed, drawn together at the neck. Its coverings had kept it quite dry.

  Mark pulled the drawstring loose, then up-ended the bag. There was a glitter and a coloured flash, a gasp from Colin and a grunt from Lambis. Mark picked up a kind of chain, very heavily ornate, and worked in gold; as he ran it through his fingers, red glowed and burned among the gold. Colin reached out, gingerly, and picked up something – it looked like an eardrop – with a hoarfrost glitter round a flash of green.

  ‘I said it was jewels,’ he said breathlessly.

  ‘This is the
loot?’ Lambis’ voice, over our shoulders, was deep with satisfaction.

  ‘This is the loot, the highly identifiable loot.’ Mark let the gold and ruby necklace trickle back into the mouth of the bag. ‘It begins to make sense now, doesn’t it? We wanted evidence, and oh boy! What evidence we’ve got! If this isn’t why Alexandros was murdered, then I’m the Queen of the May!’

  ‘“The London job”,’ I quoted.

  ‘Big deal, eh?’ Colin still sounded almost awe-stricken. He was turning the emerald drop from side to side, letting it catch the light. ‘I wonder how many pots he’s got?’

  ‘That’s a question that can wait for the police. Let’s put these things back. Drop that in here, will you?’ Mark held out the bag for the ear-ring, then pulled the drawstring tight, and began to tie it.

  I said slowly: ‘He must have thought that’s what I was after. The knife made him suspicious, but he thought we were safe under his eye for a bit. Then he came out here to check over his pots, and found me beside them, in the water. I’m not surprised, after all that’s happened recently, that he saw red, and went for me regardless. I wonder if he even thought Josef might be double-crossing him? With me, I mean. He did shout something about him, and of course he must be wondering like mad where he is.’

  ‘What were you doing in the water?’

  ‘We broke the torch, so we couldn’t signal. I was coming for you. I – Mark!’ I put a hand to my head, which was only just beginning to clear of the sea noises and the confused terror of the chase. ‘I must have gone crazy myself! Get Lambis to put back to the rocks! There’s—’

  ‘You’re hurt?’ Lambis interrupted me sharply. ‘That is blood, no?’

  ‘No . . .’ I must have looked at him with vague surprise. I had felt nothing, was feeling nothing even now; my flesh was still cold and damp to the touch, and too numb to feel pain. But as Mark snatched up the lantern, and swung its light round to me, I saw that there was, indeed, blood on my thigh, and a dark line of it creeping down on to the deck. ‘He must have got me with the edge of the spear,’ I said, faintly, because I was beginning to shake again. ‘It’s all right, it doesn’t hurt. We’d better go back—’

  But I was interrupted again, this time by Mark, who leaped – no, surged – to his feet. ‘The bloody-minded bastard!’ Colin and I – crouched at his feet like famine, sword and fire at the heels of the war-god – gaped up at him, dumbly.

  ‘By God, I’ll not stand for this!’ Mark towered over us, possessed, apparently, by one sudden, glorious burst of sheer, uninhibited rage. ‘I’m damned if we cut and run for Athens after this! We’re getting after him, if it’s the last thing we do! Lambis, can you catch him?’

  I saw a grin of unholy joy split the Greek’s face. ‘I can try.

  ‘Then get weaving! Colin, throw me the first-aid box!’

  I began feebly: ‘Mark, no—’

  I might have known they would take no notice of me, and this time it was three to one. My feeble protest was drowned by the roar of the caique’s engine, as she jumped forward with a jerk that set every board quivering. I heard Colin shout: ‘Man, oh man, Lambis, cool it wild!’ as he dived into the cabin. Mark dropped back to his knees beside me, saying, simply and rudely: ‘Shut up. We’re going back, and that’s that. Hell’s teeth, do you think I’d have sat there and let them do all they’ve done, if they hadn’t had Colin to hold me to ransom with? What d’you take me for, a bloody daffodil? Now I’ve got you and Colin safe under hatches, I’m going to do what I’d have done in the first place, if I’d been fit, and the pair of you hadn’t been a sitting target for them. And now shut up, and for a change you can sit quiet and let me bandage you! Colin! Where the – oh, thanks!’ This as the first-aid box hurtled from the cabin door. Mark caught it, and pulled it open. ‘And find the girl something to wear, will you? Now, keep still, and let me get that tied up.’

  ‘But Mark, what are you going to do?’ I sounded infuriatingly humble, even to myself.

  ‘Do? Well, my heaven, what d’you think? I’m going to hand him over to the police myself, personally, and if I’ve got to paste the living daylights out of him to do it, well, that’ll suit me!’

  I said meekly: ‘Do you have to be quite such a sadist with the Elastoplast?’

  ‘What?’ He stared at me quite blankly. He really was looking very angry indeed, and quite dangerous. I smiled at him happily, well away now (as I was aware) on what Frances would have called Stage Three. Then the black look faded, to be succeeded by a reluctant grin. ‘Was I hurting? I’m very sorry.’ He finished the job quite gently.

  ‘Not so much as I hurt you, I expect. Look, do you really think this is a good idea? I know how you feel, but—’

  A quick look up, where, even in the lantern-light, I could read irony. ‘Darling, I admit I lost my temper, but there’s more to it than a simple desire to clobber this thug. For one thing, this is the chance to connect him here and now with the jewels and Alexandros’ murder – if we can catch him and identify him before he gets the chance to run home and cook up alibis with Tony. What’s more, if we don’t get straight back and alert the village elders, what’s to stop Stratos and Tony lifting whatever other lobster pots they’ve got, and being a hundred miles away, with bulk of said loot, before we even sight Piraeus?’

  ‘I see.’

  He shoved the things back in the box, and clipped the lid shut. ‘Mad at me?’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Because when my girl gets hurt, I’ve got to have another reason for hitting the chap that did it?’

  I laughed, without answering, and slipped painlessly into Stage Four – a stage Frances wouldn’t have recognized, as it was new to me, too.

  ‘Will these do?’ Colin emerged from the cabin, clutching a thick, fisherman’s-knit jersey, a cotton-mesh vest, and a pair of jeans. ‘You can put them on in the cabin, it’s warm there.’

  ‘They look marvellous, thanks awfully.’ I got up stiffly, Mark helping me, then Colin put the clothes into my hands, and retired modestly aft into the shadows.

  The cabin was warm after the smartly moving breeze on deck. I took off Mark’s jacket. The wisps of nylon which – I suspected – had been almost non-existent as garments when wet, had now more or less dried on me, and were ready to reassume their functions as clothing. I rubbed my cold flesh again vigorously with the rough towel, then wriggled into the jeans. They must be Colin’s; they would be tight on him, and were even tighter on me, but they were warm, and fitted comfortably enough over the Elastoplast. The jersey – Mark’s, at a guess – was wonderfully warm and bulky, and came fairly well down over the jeans. I pushed open the cabin door, and peered out.

  A rush of starry wind met me, the roar of the motor, the slap and race of water . . . We had swerved, close in, round the second headland, and were tearing across the mouth of the bay towards Agios Georgios. I could see, low down, a few dim lights, and a yellow gleam that must mark the harbour mouth. Our own riding-lights were out. Lambis, at the tiller, was hardly visible, and Mark and Colin, standing together in the well, were two shadows peering intently forward. The caique jumped and bucked like a bolting horse as the cross-wind met her round the headland.

  I opened my mouth to say ‘Can I do anything?’ then shut it again. Common sense suggested that the question was a purely rhetorical gesture, and therefore better unasked. Besides, I knew nothing about boats, and these three were a team which, freed now of everything but a single purpose, looked a formidable proposition enough. I stayed quietly in the shelter of the cabin door.

  To seaward of us, the light-boats bobbed and twinkled. Some had worked their way inshore, and one – probably the one that had passed so close to the Bay of Dolphins – was barely fifty feet from us as we roared past.

  I could see the faces of its two occupants, open-mouthed and curious, turned towards us. Lambis yelled something, and their arms shot out, pointing, not towards Agios Georgios, but at the inner curve of the bay, where the hotel lay.r />
  Lambis called something to Mark, who nodded, and the caique heeled till she lay hard over, then drove towards the looming crescent of cliff that held the bay.

  Colin turned and saw me, and flashed a torch. ‘Oh, hullo! Were the things all right?’

  ‘Fine, I’m as warm as anything now. The pants are a bit tight, that’s all, I hope I don’t split them.’

  ‘They don’t look it, do they, Mark?’

  Mark turned, looked obediently, and said, simply: ‘Boy, oh boy!’

  Colin, laughing, vanished past me into the cabin.

  ‘Well, well,’ I said, ‘something tells me you must really be feeling better.’

  ‘Sure. Try me. Just one hundred per cent – there he is!’

  I dived after him to the side, peering to starboard. Then I saw it, too, barely a hundred yards ahead of us, a small shape, a dark tip on an arrow of white, hurtling into the curve of the bay.

  ‘They’re right, he’s making for home!’

  ‘Nicola!’ Lambis hailed me from the stern. ‘What is it like? Is there a landing place?’

  ‘No, but there’s flat rocks right to the edge of the water. It’s quite deep, right up to them.’

  ‘How deep?’ This was Mark.

  ‘I can’t say, but deep enough for a caique. He takes the Eros in himself, and it’s bigger than this. I’ve swum there; I’d say eight feet.’

  ‘Good girl.’ I must be far gone, I thought, when this casual accolade from an obviously preoccupied man could make me glow all through. Stage Five? Heaven alone knew – and heaven alone could care, because I didn’t . . .

  Next moment a more substantial warmth met my hands, from the mug which Colin thrust into them. ‘Here, it’ll warm you up, it’s cocoa. I’d say you’ve just time, before we waltz in to clobber the bastards.’