‘This must be Peirithoos, the king of the Lapiths. Yes, the lettering makes it clear.’
‘And these are the drunken centaurs,’ Adam remarked, pointing to the half-men and half-horses reeling across the vase’s bulging middle.
‘An illustration of the dangers of inebriation.’
‘Never allow a centaur more drink than it can hold,’ the young man said.
‘A lesson that Peirithoos learned to his cost.’ Fields straightened and stood up. ‘I am pleased to have seen this but I cannot linger over it as long as I would like. I have another appointment.’
Adam, directed so autocratically to meet his mentor, could not help feeling exasperated that the professor was hastening away so swiftly.
‘I had hoped to have longer to speak with you, sir.’
‘Of course you did, my boy. But it was not to be. You have seen the Tankerville Vase and that must suffice.’
‘You will not be able to dine with me tonight?’
Fields waved a hand, as if to suggest that the very idea of dinner was ludicrous. ‘I must return to college.’
The two men made their way back through the museum towards the entrance.
‘I believe that I shall make a diversion here and see the Phigalian Marbles,’ Adam said, as they reached a door to another gallery. ‘So we must go our separate ways.’
He held out his hand and Fields took it. ‘We will see one another again soon, Adam. Of that I am certain.’
Several inches shorter than his one-time pupil, the professor looked up at Adam’s face as if scanning it for signs of continued irritation. He let go of his hand and smoothed the thinning hair on the top of his head. Then he turned abruptly and marched briskly in the direction of the door to the outside world. Adam watched him go, his annoyance slowly fading, and then turned to enter the gallery on his right. He would see how the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths appeared in marble.
CHAPTER THREE
On the evening of the Speke dinner, held to commemorate the achievements of the late African explorer and member of the Marco Polo, Adam asked the cabman to drop him at one end of Pall Mall. It was a fine night and he wanted, however briefly, to take the air. As he strolled up the street towards the entrance to the club, he was in a cheerful mood. The world in general, and London in particular, seemed to be filled with the promise of pleasure and enjoyment. Entering the door to the Marco Polo, with its mosaic portrait of the Venetian traveller above the portico, Adam was immediately aware of the hurly-burly of what had become, in a few brief years, one of the busiest events in the club’s social calendar.
As he paused just inside the threshold of the main room and looked around, he caught sight of himself in a large, extravagantly framed mirror that hung on a wall to his right. His spirits still high, he liked what he saw. Tall and well built, he filled out the evening dress he was wearing. His black hair shone with the macassar oil he had applied earlier. He looked, he decided, exactly as a fashionable young man in the greatest metropolis on earth should look. He turned to face a room of men all dressed like himself. Of all ages, from fresh-faced youth to bewhiskered maturity, the members of the Marco Polo seemed to Adam, in his elevated mood, a happy band of brothers. He was inspired by a feeling of collegiate attachment to them all. Here, he thought, were some of the most enterprising men of the day. The kind of men whose spirit made the country great. Here were men who had ventured into the furthest corners of the known and unknown world. Here were men whose travels around the globe made his own journeys in Turkey in Europe seem small beer in comparison.
Filled with the glow of comradeship and admiration, he moved further into the room. Instantly, he was caught up in the crush. In a moment he had, it seemed, lost his own power of volition and was obliged to surrender to the movements of the crowd, which pitched him back and forth across the room from one group of people to another. Around him swirled the curious fragments of a dozen conversations. To his left, a peppery little man was squinting upwards at the much taller man by his side and spluttering with indignation.
‘Damn Landseer and his wretched lions. I’ve seen real lions in Africa and those beasts in Trafalgar Square are all wrong.’
‘Bit of artistic licence, old man,’ his companion suggested.
‘Damn his artistic licence. If a man’s going to sculpt a lion, it should bloody well look like a lion, if you ask me.’ The peppery little man looked furious that the artist hadn’t taken the trouble to ask him.
To Adam’s right, a red-faced man kept saying, ‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.’
‘No, Montagu, I swear to you, it is the truth,’ the man with him said. ‘The whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have it on the highest authority. Absolutely unimpeachable authority.’
‘Well, I still don’t believe it,’ Montagu said. ‘It’s not possible to believe it. You’ll be telling me next that Franklin is fit and well after twenty-five years and sharing his life with a little Eskimo bride.’
‘He probably is, old man. And enjoying it more than he would London society with Lady Jane.’
Whirled through the throng, Adam was finally catapulted out of it into a part of the room where the crowds were thinner and it was possible to walk freely. In front of him was a languidly drooping young man, wearing a monocle, a moustache and a look of snooty disdain.
‘Wemarkable! Weally quite wemarkable!’
The languid man was talking to an older and plumper companion. Adam found it difficult to decide whether his speech impediment was natural or affected.
‘Weginald Womilly was welating this extwaordinawy stowy about a woman he met in Wussia. Appawently, she…’
Adam was never to know exactly what the woman in Russia did because the speaker and his friend passed out of earshot. A faint fragrance of perfumed oil lingered after them. Adam’s attention was now caught by the approach of Mr Moorhouse.
Mr Moorhouse’s ancient dress coat was spectacularly creased; he looked as if several hefty men had recently forced him to the floor and sat upon him.
‘Is he here, Mr Moorhouse?’
‘Is who here, Carver?’
‘The man who was asking for me.’
‘Asking for you?’
Adam felt his patience with the forgetfulness of the elderly departing but summoned it back. ‘The gentleman who visited the club last week and asked if I was there.’
‘Ah!’ Mr Moorhouse’s face could have been used as an illustration of sudden enlightenment. ‘Creech.’
‘Creech?’
‘His name is Samuel Creech.’
‘I don’t remember you telling me the name last week, Mr Moor-house.’ Try as he might to disguise it, Adam could feel a note of exasperation enter his voice. Mr Moorhouse did not appear to notice it.
‘Didn’t know it then, old boy. Baxendale’s only just introduced me to the fellow. They’re both over there. Somewhere.’ The old man waved vaguely at the throng. ‘Oh, I say, there’s that bounder Burton over by the door,’ he went on. ‘Surprised he has the gall to turn up at a dinner for Speke, when you think what went on between them.’ Mr Moorhouse’s commentary was interrupted by a deep boom that echoed around the room. ‘Ah, there goes the gong. Better move along, I suppose.’
The reverberation was heard twice more. The gong was one that had been appropriated from a Buddhist temple in Kandy sixty years earlier by a founding member and brought back to London. Since then, it had been used to summon the members of the Marco Polo Club to dinner. As the echoes of its third rumble echoed in their ears, they began to troop into the large, wood-panelled hall in which their formal dinners were held.
* * * * *
The man serving at Adam’s table was clearly unaccustomed to his duties. Instead of appearing discreetly and quietly at the diner’s elbow to offer each dish, and then retiring, he arrived amidst a clatter of clashing plates and serving spoons. He then remained within touching distance of the table long after diners had helped themselves, as if
intent on joining the conversation at an opportune moment. On two occasions during the opening courses, Adam’s neighbour on his left irritably waved the man away, only for him to reappear seconds later, thrusting forward further plates of food with a threatening air.
Adam spent the first twenty minutes of the meal in conversation with Hoathly, a retired army officer, whose account of his travels in the Gold Coast had briefly excited the public a decade earlier. Hoathly was telling him, in greater detail than was necessary, about the funeral rites of the Ashanti. From time to time, Adam glanced at the man to his left who had finally persuaded the inexperienced waiter to keep his distance and was talking to his neighbour, a bearded giant who, Adam remembered reading in the press, had returned last year from a plant-hunting expedition up the Orinoco. What was the Orinoco man’s name? Dawson? Davidson? As Hoathly prosed on in the background about death on the Gulf of Guinea, Adam struggled to recall. Dodson, that was it. William Dodson. He had just published a book entitled Plant-Collecting Along the Lower Orinoco, which Adam had seen in the window of Hatchards only the other day. It sometimes seemed as if every member of the Marco Polo apart from Mr Moorhouse had published at least one book about his travels. There was little wonder that Adam’s own opus had long since ceased to attract attention. The competition was too much for it.
‘Of course, when the king is buried, the sacred stool is ritually blackened and…’
Hoathly was still talking about the Ashanti. The man to Adam’s left had now finished his conversation with Orinoco Dodson. He turned to his right.
‘Your name is Carver,’ he said, with an abruptness that suggested Adam had been disputing this. ‘My name is Samuel Creech.’
Now that the man had turned towards him, Adam could see the distinctive scar above his eye that Mr Moorhouse had described.
‘It is a coincidence that we should be seated next to one another, Mr Creech. I understand from my friend Mr Moorhouse that you have been asking for me.’
‘It is no coincidence. I arranged it with Baxendale. I have matters of the highest importance to discuss with you.’ Creech lowered his voice. ‘I would have spoken to you before now but I could not persuade this gentleman to cease from his prattle of South American orchids.’
‘I’m delighted to think that I might have some connection with matters of the highest importance,’ Adam said. ‘But I cannot, for the life of me, guess what they might be.’
‘It is simple enough, Mr Carver. You went with Burton Fields to Macedonia, did you not?’
‘I did indeed.’
‘I believe you also did some travelling on your own account.’
‘A little.’
‘I think I recall from reading your book that you found shelter in several villages south of Salonika.’
‘I did.’
‘Koutles? Barbes? Do I recall the names correctly?’
‘I’m flattered, Mr Creech. You have obviously read my book with great attention.’ Adam smiled amiably at his neighbour. He was beginning to wonder where the conversation was leading. ‘I can scarcely remember the villages in question myself. They were little more than collections of filthy hovels.’
‘But you were there for several days?’
‘Yes, we saw the sun come up over the shanties on more than one occasion. Not quite Homer’s rhododaktylos eos, as I recall.’
Creech, who clearly did not recognise the quotation, stared at the young man for a moment as if he thought he might have been taken suddenly ill.
‘The dawn was not exactly rosy-fingered in Koutles,’ Adam explained.
‘Ah, of course. It is many years since I have read Homer.’ Creech dismissed Adam’s remarks with a shake of the head and continued with his interrogation. ‘Professor Fields was not with you when you visited the two villages?’
‘No – Fields stayed in our encampment further north.’
‘No one was with you during your visit?’
‘Only Quint. Only my servant.’
Adam was growing ever more puzzled by Creech’s questions. Why, he wondered, was he interested in Koutles and Barbes, which Adam recollected only as dirty and impoverished villages he was glad to leave?
‘A very great secret lies hidden in the hills where you travelled, Mr Carver.’ Although he was still speaking in the ordinary, restrained tones of dinner-table conversation, Samuel Creech was clearly filled with barely repressed excitement.
He glanced over his shoulder, as if to see whether or not the overeager waiter was still nearby, and then lowered his voice until it was little more than a fierce whisper. Adam had to strain to hear it above the din of the Marco Polo club dining room. ‘It is a secret that has been lost in darkness for centuries. But I know of a manuscript that can bring it back into the light. Its revelation will be a sensation.’
Adam looked at his neighbour with surprise. There was an almost unhinged intensity to the way he spoke. He had seized Adam’s arm in his agitation.
‘What would this sensational secret be?’ the young man asked after a pause. He looked down rather pointedly at Creech’s hand on his arm. The older man let go his hold. ‘What is it that lies hidden in the hills?’
‘I can say no more here. Even in the Marco Polo, the walls may have ears. Perhaps especially in the Marco Polo.’ Again Creech looked about him as if he suspected persons unknown were loitering with the intent of robbing him of his secret. ‘But I need your assistance, Mr Carver. I need your knowledge of the region. No Briton has travelled there more extensively or more recently than you.’
‘I will certainly offer any advice I can.’
‘I have made several journeys into Turkey in Europe myself,’ Creech said, ‘but I have never been so far north as you and Fields.’
‘Perhaps you should speak to the professor rather than me,’ Adam said casually, still puzzled by the fervour with which his dining companion spoke. ‘His knowledge of the hills of Macedon far outstrips mine.’
Creech waved his hand impatiently, as if the idea of speaking to Fields was one that he had considered and long ago dismissed. ‘I have already consulted with those whose knowledge of the region is of the bookish variety; those who can tell me what it was in classical times. I need someone who knows the lie of the land as it is now.’
‘As I say, sir, I will offer you what advice I can.’
‘I want more than advice, Mr Carver. Not only do you know the area, you have archaeological training. I want you to join me in mounting an expedition to Koutles and Barbes. We must dig to reveal the sensation.’
There was a silence as Adam considered what it was that this strange man wanted from him.
‘I am not sure that I can oblige you, Mr Creech,’ he said eventually. ‘I have work and interests in plenty to keep me here in London. I am not at all certain I wish to roam the wilds of Macedonia again.’
‘You must join me.’ Creech spoke as if these words settled the matter. ‘Come and visit me at my house. Herne Hill Villa. It is on the left on the road that leads up the hill. Next Thursday at two in the afternoon. I will tell you more then. Believe me, Mr Carver, this is the most important opportunity that life has offered you so far. You must not spurn it.’
Having said, it seemed, what he wished to say, Creech turned back to the bearded giant and began to talk to him of carnivorous plants and their habits. Adam was now ignored. Only at the end of the meal did Creech turn to him again. He raised his glass of dessert wine. ‘To the secrets of Macedonia, Mr Carver.’
Adam reached out his hand for his own glass. He hesitated briefly, as if doubtful of the proposed toast. Then he picked it up and touched it briefly against Creech’s.
‘The secrets of Macedonia, Mr Creech.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Several days passed and Adam found his mind turning frequently to Samuel Creech and to the secret the man claimed was hidden in the Macedonian hills. Adam remembered the country through which he and Quint had travelled two years earlier. He remembered it only too well. Could t
here really be something of value to be found in the ramshackle collections of hutches and hovels that made up Koutles and Barbes? What else had there been there? The surrounding countryside had been unusual, it was true. Covered with tumuli that had reminded him slightly of the long barrows to be found in the West Country. Had Fields spoken of them? He recalled that his friend and mentor had said that the French had dug in them recently but found very little. What could Creech know that those French archaeologists did not? The villages themselves had been habitations from a nightmare.
Adam remembered the scene when he had ridden into Koutles, Quint twenty yards behind him, grumbling relentlessly about the heat and the flies. He could close his eyes and immediately bring to mind the dirt and the degradation. The men and women, in filthy clothing, staring at them with undisguised suspicion. The sullen children, old beyond their years, who refused to return his smiles. It had taken an hour of negotiation with the proestos, the village headman, to win them even a place to stay for the night. They had been obliged to bed down in a poor cottage where eight people and two goats had huddled together in the same room to sleep.
The following morning, no one had been prepared to admit to possession of any food. Requests for eggs, chickens, even bread and milk, had been met with denials that the villagers had any for themselves, never mind any to spare for idle travellers. The goats with which they had shared accommodation were, according to the proestos, dry and could give no milk. Used to the open-armed hospitality that most Greek villages had extended to them, Adam had been disturbed by the hostility at Koutles. He had hated the place, and he and Quint had lost no time in leaving it behind them the following day. Barbes, another wretched village built of mud and faggots, had been little more welcoming when they had passed through it. Why should Samuel Creech care a fig about Koutles and Barbes? Or wish to enlist the assistance of someone who had travelled there?
* * * * *
In the Chelsea studio of his friend, Cosmo Jardine, Adam was able to relax. He and Jardine had known one another both at Shrewsbury, where they had shared a study, and at Cambridge, where, although they had attended different colleges, they had met for dinner at least twice a week. Since Adam’s return to London, the two men had fallen into an easy habit of association. Weeks might pass in which they saw nothing of one another but Adam knew that he was always welcome to call whenever he liked at the house in Old Church Street, which Jardine shared with two other impecunious artists.
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