by Mary Stewart
Simon took out cigarettes and offered one to me. ‘How much of that did you understand?’
‘Nothing whatever, except that you were talking about Michael and the ELAS leader Angelos.’ I smiled. ‘I see now why you didn’t mind my sitting in on your private affairs.’
He said abruptly: ‘They’ve taken a very queer turn.’
I waited.
‘I’d like to tell you, if I may.’
‘Of course.’
So we sat there in the car and smoked, while he told me, fully and accurately, what had passed in the shepherd’s cottage. So vivid were my own visual impressions of the recent scene that I was able without difficulty to impose my picture, so to speak, over his, and see where movement and gesture had fitted in with the words.
When he had finished I didn’t speak, for the sufficient reason that I could find nothing to say. The instinct that had halted me at the foot of the alley steps had been a true one: these waters were too deep for me. If I had felt myself inadequate before – I, who had been afraid of a mild skirmish over a hired car – what was I to feel now? Who was I to offer comfort or even comment on a brother’s murder? The murder might be fourteen years old, but there’s a kind of shock in the very word, let alone the knowledge of the deed, however many years lie between it and the discovery. I didn’t know Simon well enough to say the right thing, so I said nothing.
He himself made no comment, beyond telling me the story of the interview in that give-nothing-away voice of his that I was beginning to know. I did wonder fleetingly if he would say anything more about Michael’s letter, or about the ‘find’ which he, Simon, had said he knew of … But he said nothing. He threw his finished cigarette over the side of the car into the dust, and it appeared that he threw the story with it, because he said, with a complete change of tone and subject:
‘Shall we walk up through the ruins? You haven’t seen them yet, and starlight’s not a bad start. Unless of course you’d rather wait and see them for the first time alone?’
‘No. I’d like to go.’
We went up the steep path through the pines. Now that my eyes were used to the darkness it was just possible to see the way. We crossed the narrow rush of water and were on a track soft with pine-needles.
After a while we came out from under the trees into an open space where fallen blocks made treacherous walking, and dimly in the starlight I could see the shape of ruined walls.
‘The Roman marketplace,’ said Simon. ‘Those were shops and so on over there. By Delphi’s standards this is modern stuff, so we bypass it quickly … Here we are. This is the gate of the temple precinct. The step’s steep, but there’s a wide smooth way up through the building to the temple itself. Can you see?’
‘Fairly well. It’s rather … stupendous by starlight, isn’t it?’
Dimly I could make out the paved road that zigzagged up between the ruined walls of treasuries and shrines. The precinct seemed in this light enormous. Everywhere ahead of us, along the hillside, below among the pines that edged the road, above as far as the eye could reach in the starlight, loomed the broken walls, the spectral pillars, the steps and pedestals and altars of the ancient sanctuary. We walked slowly up that Sacred Way. I could make out the little Doric building that once housed the Athenian treasure, the grim stone where the Sybil sat to foretell the Trojan War, the slender pillars of the Portico of the Athenians, the shape of a great altar … then we had reached the temple itself, a naked and broken floor, half up the mountainside, held there in space by its massive retaining walls, and bordered with six great columns that even in the darkness stood emphatic against the star-crowded sky.
I took a little breath.
Beside me, Simon quoted softly: ‘“The gods still walk there, and a man who would not go carefully in the country of the gods is a fool.”’
‘They are still here,’ I said. ‘Is it silly of me? But they are.’
‘Three thousand years,’ he said. ‘Wars, treachery, earthquake, slavery, oblivion. And men still recognise them here. No, it’s not silly of you. It happens to everyone with intelligence and imagination. This is Delphi … and, well, we’re not the first to hear the chariot wheels. Not by a long way.’
‘It’s the only place in Greece I’ve really heard them. I’ve tried to imagine things – oh, you know how one does. But no, nothing, really, even on Delos. There are ghosts at Mycaenae, but it’s not the same …’
‘Poor human ghosts,’ he said. ‘But here … I suppose that if a place was, like Delphi, a centre of worship for – how many? – about two thousand years, something remains. Something inheres in stone, I’ll swear, and here it’s in the very air. The effect’s helped by the landscape: I suppose it must be one of the most significant in the world. And of course this is just the setting for the holy place. Come up into the temple.’
A ramp led up to the temple floor, which was paved with great stone blocks, some broken and dangerous. We picked our way carefully across this until we stood at the edge of the floor, between the columns. Below us was the sheer drop of the retaining wall; below that the steep mountainside and the ghosts of the scattered shrines. The far valley was an immensity of darkness, filled with the small movements of the night wind, and the sound of pine and olive.
Simon’s cigarette beside me glowed and faded. I saw that he had turned his back on the spaces of the starlit valley. He was leaning against a column, gazing up the hill behind the temple. I could see nothing there, but the thick shadows of trees, and against them more pale shapes of stone.
‘What’s up there?’
‘That’s where they found the Charioteer.’
The word brought me back to the present with the tingle of a small electric shock. I had forgotten, in the overpowering discovery of Delphi, that Simon would have other preoccupations.
I hesitated: it was he, after all, who had sheered away from the story on to the neutral ground of Delphi. I said a little awkwardly: ‘Do you suppose Stephanos was right? Does it make any kind of sense to you?’
‘None at all,’ he said cheerfully. His shoulder came away from the pillar. ‘Why don’t you come up to the studio now, and meet Nigel, and have some coffee or a drink?’
‘I’d like to, of course, but isn’t it awfully late?’
‘Not for this country. As far as I can make out nobody goes to bed at all, except in the afternoons. When in Greece, you know … Are you tired?’
‘Not a bit. I keep feeling I ought to be, but I’m not.’
He laughed. ‘It’s the air, or the light, or the simple intoxication of being alive in Hellas. It lasts, too. Then you will come?’
‘I should love to.’
As I picked my way across the temple floor with his hand under my arm I had time to feel surprise at myself, and a sort of resignation. Here I went again, I reflected … Just in this way I had drifted along at Philip’s bidding, in Philip’s wake. But this was different. Just what the difference was I didn’t stop to analyse.
I said: ‘Aren’t we going down to the road? Why this way?’
‘We don’t need to go down. The studio’s away up above the temple, just over the mountain’s shoulder towards Delphi. It’s easier to go up through the rest of the shrine.’
‘But the car?’
‘I’ll go and get it later when I’ve seen you down to your hotel. It’s no distance from there by the road. This way, and watch your step. It’s easier here … These steps lead up towards the little theatre. That thing on the right was put up by Alexander the Great after a narrow escape in a lion-hunt … Here’s the theatre. It’s tiny compared with Athens or Epidaurus, but isn’t it a gem?’
In the starlight the broken floor looked smooth. The semi-circular tiers of seats rose, seemingly new and unbroken, towards their backdrop of holly-oak and cypress; it lay, a little broken marble cup of a theatre, silent except for the tiny scuffling of a dry twig that the breeze was patting idly along the empty flags.
I said on an impulse: ‘I sup
pose you wouldn’t – no, I’m sorry. Of course not.’
‘What do you suppose I wouldn’t do?’
‘Nothing. It was silly, under the circumstances.’
‘The circumstances? Oh, that. Don’t let that worry you. I suppose you want to hear something recited here in Greek, even if it’s only thalassa! thalassa! Is that it? … What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. Only that if you go on reading my thoughts like that you’re going to be a very uncomfortable companion.’
‘You ought to practise too.’
‘I haven’t the talent.’
‘Perhaps that’s just as well.’
‘What d’you mean?’
He laughed. ‘Never mind. Was I right?’
‘Yes. And not just thalassa, please. Some lines of verse, if you can think of anything. I heard someone reciting in the theatre at Epidaurus and it was like a miracle. Even a whisper carried right up to the topmost tier.’
‘It does the same here,’ he said, ‘only it’s not so stupendous. All right, if you’d like it.’ He was feeling in his pockets as he spoke. ‘Half a minute; I’ll have to find my lighter … If you want to get your voice properly carried you have to locate the centre of the stage … it’s marked by a cross on the flagstones …’
As he pulled the lighter from his pocket I heard the small musical chink of metal on stone. I stooped quickly after the sound. ‘Something fell; some money, I think. Here … not far away, anyway. Shine the light down, will you?’
The lighter flicked into flame, and he bent with it near the ground. Almost immediately I saw the sharp gleam of a coin. I picked it up and held it towards him. The orange-coloured flame slid alive and sparkling across the little disc in my palm. I said: ‘That’s surely – gold?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ He took it and dropped it into his pocket. He might have been discussing a lost half-penny, or at most a threepenny stamp. ‘That was one of the souvenirs that Stephanos sent us. I told you he sent what was on Michael’s body when he died. There were three of these gold sovereigns.’ He moved away from me, holding the lighter low over the flags, searching for the central mark. You’d have thought there was nothing in his mind except the pleasant task of showing a girl over the Delphic ruins.
‘Simon …’
‘Here it is.’ He straightened up, the lighter still burning in his hand. He must have seen my look, because he smiled at me, that sudden, very attractive smile. ‘You know, I did tell you it was no longer a present tragedy, didn’t I? I told you not to worry. Now, come here to the centre, and hear how your voice is picked up and carried high over those tiers of seats.’
I moved forward to the spot. ‘I know you did. But when you told me that, you didn’t know that your brother Michael had been murdered. Doesn’t that make a difference?’
‘Perhaps. There, do you hear the echo?’
‘Glory, yes. It’s weird, isn’t it? As if the sound was coming back at you from those crags up there, and swirling all round you. It’s like something tangible; like – yes, like sound made solid … Are you really going to recite something, or would you rather not?’
I thought he misunderstood me deliberately. ‘With this lack of audience, I think I might. What’ll you have?’
‘You’re the classicist. I leave it to you. But wait a moment. I’m going up into the back stalls.’
I climbed the narrow aisle and found a seat two-thirds of the way up the amphitheatre. The shaped marble of the seat was surprisingly comfortable, and the stone was still warm from the day’s sun. The circular stage looked small below me. I could just make out its shape. Simon was nothing but a bodiless shadow. Then his voice came up out of the well of darkness, and the great rolling Greek lines rose and broke and echoed, rounding like a wind among the high crags. A phrase, a name, swam up from the flood of sound, giving directions to the music, like flights to an arrow. Hades, Persephone, Hermes … I shut my eyes and listened.
He stopped. There was a pause. The echo went up the cliff, hung like the murmur of a gong, and died. Then his voice came clearly and softly, speaking in English; music translating music:
‘… Hades, Persephone,
Hermes, steward of death,
Eternal Wrath and Furies,
Children of gods,
Who see all murderers,
And all adulterous thieves, come soon!
Be near me, and avenge
My father’s death, and bring
My brother home!’
He had stopped speaking again. The words died into silence high above me, and in the wake of the echo, it seemed, the night wind moved. I heard the hollies rustle behind me, and then, further up the hill, a scatter of dust and pebbles under the foot of some wandering beast, a goat, perhaps, or a donkey; I thought I heard the clink of metal. Then the night was still again. I got up and started down the steep aisle.
Simon’s voice came, pitched quietly and perfectly clear. ‘That do?’
‘Beautifully.’ I reached the bottom and crossed the stage. ‘Thank you very much: but – I thought you said the tragedy was over?’
For the first time since I had known him (some seven hours? Could it possibly be only half a day?) he sounded disconcerted. ‘What d’your mean?’ He left the centre of the stage and came to meet me.
‘That speech was a bit – immediate, wasn’t it?’
‘You recognised it?’
‘Yes. It’s from Sophocles’ Electra, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ There was a pause. He had a hand in his pocket, and now as he withdrew it I heard the chink of coins. He jingled them absently up and down. Then he said: ‘I was wrong, then. It’s not over … at least not until Stephanos shows us the place tomorrow, and—’
He stopped. I reflected that Simon Lester seemed to have a remarkably royal habit of using the first person plural. I should have liked to say ‘Shows us?’ but didn’t. I said merely: ‘And?’
He said abruptly: ‘And I find what Michael found – what he was killed for. The gold.’
‘The gold?’
‘Yes. I told you I’d an idea what it was that Michael might have found. I thought that, as soon as I read his letters, and remembered the sovereigns he was carrying. And after what Stephanos told us I’m sure. It was gold he found. Angelos’ little hoard of British gold, stored away against the day of the Red Dawn.’
‘Yes, but Simon …’ I began, then stopped. He knew Michael better than I did, after all.
The sovereigns clinked together as he thrust them back into his pocket. He turned away towards the side of the amphitheatre.
‘This is the way up to the path. I’d better go first, perhaps; the steps are badly broken in places.’
He reached a hand back to me, and together we mounted the steep flight. At the top he paused and seemed to reach up into the darkness. I heard the rustle of leaves. He turned back to me and put something round and polished and cool into my hand. ‘There you are. It’s a pomegranate. There’s a little tree growing behind the topmost seats, and I’ve been longing for an excuse to pick one. Eat it soon, Persephone; then you’ll have to stay in Delphi.’
The path led us out at last above the trees, where we could see our way more clearly. It was wide enough now to walk side by side. Simon went on, speaking softly: ‘I think I’m right, Camilla; I think that’s what Michael found. I’d suspected it before, but now I know he was murdered by this man Angelos I’d bet on it for a certainty.’
I said rather stupidly, still following my own thoughts: ‘But Stephanos said he was killed in a quarrel. Angelos and he—’
‘If Michael had been quarrelling with a type like that he wouldn’t be very likely to turn his back on him,’ said Simon. ‘I’m surprised Stephanos didn’t think that one out for himself.’
‘But if it was an old quarrel, and Michael thought it was forgotten, but Angelos—’
‘The same applies. I just don’t see Michael trustfully turning his back on a man who’d once had – or thought he had – the
sort of grudge that leads to murder.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘But take all the bits of the picture and put them together,’ said Simon, ‘and what d’you get? I told you that we – the British – were flying in arms and gold during the Occupation, for the use of the andartes. Angelos, as we now learn from Stephanos, was working for the Communist putsch at the end of the German Occupation of Greece, therefore we can assume that he had an interest in holding back arms and supplies for later use. That’s an assumption; but what facts have we? Angelos, when his men scatter northwards to avoid the Germans, comes south – alone. He meets Michael and kills him. He is interrupted before he can search the body, and on Michael are found gold sovereigns, and a hastily scribbled letter indicating that he has found something.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but—’
‘If Angelos had such a cache of guns and gold, and Michael, the BLO, had found it, would it not be the complete motive for Michael’s murder?’
‘Yes, of course it would. You mean that Michael, when he met him, tackled him about it and – oh no, that won’t do, will it? There’s the same objection – that Angelos wouldn’t have had the chance to hit him over the head.’
‘I can’t help thinking,’ said Simon softly, ‘that Angelos saw something that told him Michael had found the cache. It’s probably in some cave or other – Parnassus is honeycombed with them – and supposing that Michael, after he left Stephanos’ house, had taken shelter in the one where the stuff was hidden? He’d stay there a few days till the Germans left the area, and then Angelos, doubling back to his treasure-chest, would see the British officer coming out of the cave, his cave … It could be, you know. And if Michael didn’t see Angelos, as seems obvious, the Greek waited and took his chance and tried to wipe him off then and there. Which means—’
‘Which means that, if you’re right, the cache was very near the place where Michael was murdered,’ I said.
‘Exactly. Well, we shall see.’
‘If there was anything it’ll have been taken long since.’
‘Probably.’
‘Angelos would come back and take it. If not immediately, then later.’