Greek Wedding

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  A flash of lightning seemed to contradict his words, and showed Phyllida, for an instant, the pitiful ruins of the village street, and ahead of them black shapes, swinging slightly in the drenching rain. Yannis crossed himself. ‘God rest their souls.’

  After that, they did not try to talk, but plodded forward, with water seeping up through their shoes, and down through every gap left by the rough sheepskin cloaks. An occasional flash of lightning showed a desolate landscape of scorched fields with here and there the leafless skeleton of a savaged olive or mulberry tree. From time to time, Phyllida heard Yannis mutter a curse under his breath. These must be the fields where he had played, or, more likely, worked as a child. Fantastic to remember that he was still little more.

  After what seemed an age of this silent, water-logged walking, Phyllida thought she felt a slight slackening in the rain … There had been no lightning for a while and, above them, pale gaps were appearing among the clouds and at last, for a moment, she saw the half-moon before a flurry of clouds hid it again.

  ‘I told you God was with us.’ Yannis stopped to let them catch up with him. ‘This is Old Mandinia. The ruins are just up there.’ He pointed into the darkness. ‘The new village is on the hill, but we don’t go there. Our way lies along the shore, and, if you agree, kyrie, I think we should go on. The clouds are breaking up by the minute. By the smell of it, I’m sure it is clearing. There will be moonlight, when we need it.’

  ‘Good,’ said Brett. ‘Better to walk ourselves dry anyway. Don’t you think, love?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Standing still, she began to feel clammy coldness shiver through her.

  ‘This way then.’ The path led gradually downwards between dark hedges that Phyllida thought were reed rather than the usual prickly pear. Then, suddenly, ahead of them a great arc of pale light.

  ‘The sea,’ said Yannis. ‘Carefully now, kyria, over the stones.’

  They were large, smooth pebbles, worn by centuries of Mediterranean storms, and though the going was slow, it was not impossibly difficult. Besides, the rain had stopped; the clouds were breaking up and at last the moon shone out, turning the sea to silver and showing up a black mass looming beyond it. ‘Navarino’s beyond there,’ Yannis stopped for a moment to point. ‘A pity you can’t swim it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Brett’s arm was under Phyllida’s to let her lean against him for a moment and rest. ‘We could do with a couple of devoted mythical dolphins right now.’

  Phyllida laughed. ‘We certainly couldn’t be much wetter.’ But already Yannis had turned to plough forward again over the sliding stones. ‘We mustn’t waste this light,’ he called back over the rough sound of the gravel. ‘We’ll need it along the cliff-edge.’

  The moon was almost overhead now and Phyllida was able to see that the ground was gradually rising to their right, and the strip of pebble beach narrowing. ‘Lucky there are no tides here.’ Brett spoke from behind her.

  ‘Yes.’ It was extraordinarily hard work walking through the slipping, sliding shingle, and Phyllida breathed a sigh of relief when Yannis paused for a moment ahead of her, as if getting his bearings, then turned suddenly inland. Catching up with him, she saw that the way ahead was barred by a stream, rushing darkly between high banks.

  ‘Nearly there now.’ Once again, Yannis stopped to let them catch up with him. ‘The mill at Armyro is your next halting place. Your new guide will meet you there. I hope.’ He moved forward cautiously and they followed, their feet blessedly silent now, on beaten earth.

  The first sight of the mill was daunting enough. All its superstructure was gone, and it was nothing but a black lump, huddled over the noisy stream. No light showed anywhere. But, ‘It’s been like this for years,’ said Yannis, his whisper almost drowned by the rush of water. ‘Wait.’ He moved nearer the dark building and gave the unmistakable eerie hoot of a hunting owl.

  After a moment, another owl answered him, twice.

  ‘Good,’ said Yannis. ‘We wait.’

  A light showed in the building, a man appeared, and Yannis went forward for a quick, unintelligible exchange in the local dialect. ‘All’s well.’ he told them at last. ‘Petrakis expects you. He will send you on tomorrow night. God go with you, my friends.’ He turned on his heel before they could answer, and was gone, at a steady jog-trot, down the dark path towards the sea.

  ‘Dear God,’ said Phyllida. ‘He’s not going back tonight?’

  ‘Not all the way, I hope.’ Brett turned to answer the greeting of their new host, Petrakis, a silent man who led them without more ado into the desolate ground floor of the mill, fed them a curious meal of dried bean porridge flavoured with garlic, and left them to sleep. ‘Don’t stir out until I come for you. I must see where the Turks have gone now. The next part of your journey will be the most dangerous; they’re everywhere around Kalamata. A pity we can’t get you across by ship.’ He spat. ‘There are no ships. They’ve burned the lot. Sleep well, friends, and God guard you.’

  ‘I forgot to tell you.’ Brett was arranging his bundle as a pillow for her. ‘From now on, our hosts know of you merely as a boy.’

  ‘Well,’ said Phyllida as he bent to kiss her. ‘I might just as well be one.’ And fell asleep.

  She woke to the familiar, soothing sound of Brett’s pen scratching on paper. It was full light in the mill, sunshine pouring in from various holes in the roof, and she lay for a moment simply enjoying it after all their twilight living. And enjoying too the sight of Brett, hunched over a rough, trestle table, hard at work.

  Had she moved, or was it simply her gaze that brought his eyes round to her? ‘You’re awake?’ He dropped his pen and came to stand over her, so that she could see the tide-marks the rain had left on his shabby canvas trousers.

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled up at him. ‘A fine figure of a husband you are, love! I wish your cousin the Duke could see you now.’

  ‘Lord, how he’d envy me.’ He bent to kiss her. ‘But you’ve not met his wife. What a delicious word “husband” is, by the way. Did you sleep, love?’ His arms were round her, hard.

  ‘Yes, my darling.’ She pushed him away, lovingly, with both arms. ‘There’s someone coming. And I’m supposed to be a boy, remember?’

  ‘Well,’ he gave way, laughing, rueful. ‘It’s in the best Greek tradition, after all.’

  Chapter 28

  Petrakis reported that the Turks were still active on the plain round Kalamata. ‘They’re not leaving two stones standing together; the olive groves are burning, the orange trees cut down, and God help the people who didn’t get into the mountains in time.’

  ‘Can we get through, do you think?’ asked Brett.

  ‘If you’re lucky. Anyway, it’s as dangerous to stay here as to go on. They were at Mandinia last night. Lucky for you you came by way of the beach. I’m to take you as far as Nisi. We should be there in two nights, God willing.’

  They crossed the stream on the ruins of a bridge, made their way down to the sea again and started once more the slow plod along the stones. By midnight, their feet found sand, the cliffs fell away on the right, they had reached the Messenian plain.

  ‘Not a word from now on.’ But Petrakis had hardly spoken throughout the walk, except, once, to urge Phyllida to walk faster, impatiently, ‘Hurry up there, boy!’

  They spent next day huddled close together in a kind of wigwam woven of branches hidden deep in a little wood, close to a stream. ‘It will be better at Nisi,’ Petrakis said, as they finished the slabs of bean porridge they had brought with them, and made ready to start off again in the twilight. ‘I hope.’

  The walking was easier that night, along field paths, but the smell of fire haunted them, and once they had to make a long detour through a reed-bed to avoid a camping party of Turks. It was hard going and Petrakis kept looking anxiously at the paling sky. ‘Hurry, can’t you?’ he whispered to Phyllida, ‘there’s no safe house this side of Nisi.’

  ‘The boy’s tired,’ Brett caught up and gave a suppo
rting arm to Phyllida as they rejoined the path.

  ‘Tired!’ Petrakis spat. ‘At his age, I’d killed twenty Turks.’ But he stopped for a moment, not so much to let Phyllida rest, as to sniff the air, carefully. ‘No fire this way,’ he decided at last. ‘I think we’re in luck. We’ll need it, too; it will be daylight before we’re there. Be ready to hide in the reeds if you hear anything.’

  Rosy-fingered dawn, indeed. Phyllida was too tired to care, too tired to notice the chorus of frogs that greeted the splendidly growing light. But not too tired to imitate Petrakis and throw herself into the spiky reeds at the sound of noise ahead. It was only a small party of Greeks, late refugees, no doubt, from Nisi, but Petrakis let them go by in silence. ‘What they don’t know,’ he whispered as they emerged stiffly from their hiding-place, ‘They can’t tell.’

  It was full daylight when they reached the safe house at Nisi, a hovel on an island set in the middle of a swampy stream, which they had to ford, knee deep in icy water.

  As Yannis had done, Petrakis made them wait while he gave the owl-hoot signal, conferred briefly with their new host, then turned, without giving them time to thank him, and was gone.

  ‘But what will he do now it’s daylight?’ asked Brett.

  ‘He won’t go far.’ Their new host was an old, old man with white hair and about three very black teeth. ‘He thinks he’ll be safer on his own. He’s probably right. Come, then, I’ve food for you.’

  It was actually hot, fresh-caught fish cooked on a smokeless fire of charcoal, and Phyllida would have eaten it bones and all if Brett had not filleted it for her, as for a child. Then, instantly, she was asleep, and, almost as soon, it seemed, being roused again.

  ‘Only two more days,’ Brett did his best to encourage her as they ate a quick meal of cold fish. ‘Andreas here says he knows an old shepherds’ track that should keep us well away from the Turks. They’re out from Modon, anyway, not Navarino, so when we’ve crossed their trail we should be safe enough.’ He and Andreas were busy packing up the rest of the fish in vine-leaves. ‘A night in a deserted shepherds’ hut, I’m afraid. But he’ll see us all the way.’

  ‘And when we get there?’ As always, they were talking Greek, and it was Andreas who answered her.

  ‘There will be a Frankish boat waiting for you by Nestor’s Cave,’ he said. ‘Under Palaeokastron. The Turks are on top, of course, but they’ve never found the inlet. The Franks are to wait, each night, until you come. I hope the message you bear is worth their trouble, and mine.’

  If it was intended as a question, Brett did not choose to answer it. ‘So do I,’ he said.

  Inevitably, the night’s walk began by the cold plunge through the stream, but the pace Andreas set soon had them dry and warm again. As they came up out of the marsh, they were greeted with the familiar, horrible smell of burning.

  ‘There was a hamlet over there.’ Andreas paused for an instant to point and whisper. ‘They had submitted to the Turks. They thought they were safe. They burned them in their houses. Can you smell it, kyrie?’

  Brett’s hand was comforting on Phyllida’s. She thought he was going to say something, but it was only: ‘God rest their souls.’

  They crossed the broad path to Modon somewhere in the cold ebb-time after midnight. ‘No need for the Turks to travel at night,’ said Andreas, leading the way swiftly across. ‘And not far, now, to our resting-place.’ He had seen that Phyllida was beginning to flag.

  The shepherds’ hut was a crazy structure of wicker-work, this time set in a thicket of oaks on the rising ground of the promontory they must cross to reach Navarino.

  ‘It will be downhill all the way tomorrow night.’ said Andreas as they made their simple preparations for the day’s sleep. ‘The boy will find it easier.’

  ‘Just think,’ Brett leaned over Phyllida as they settled themselves, side by side, in their sheepskins. ‘Tomorrow, we may be on the Cambrian.’

  ‘It’s too good to be true. Brett—’ But his glance, quickly, over his shoulder to where Andreas seemed already fast asleep, was a warning. Anyway, she was too tired to formulate the odd uneasiness that had plagued her all day. Trying to understand it, she slept.

  * * *

  ‘Downhill all the way.’ Andreas repeated it cheerfully as they finished the rather battered remnants of the cold fish. ‘And a short stage at that.’

  ‘Short?’ Brett sounded surprised. ‘But won’t we have to make quite a detour, if we are to reach the north side of Palaeokastron?’

  ‘You’re well informed, milord.’ Was he slightly taken aback? ‘But, in fact, the Turks keep such poor guard, up there at the north end of the bay, that we can go in, most of the way, quite safely, on the old causeway.’

  For some time their tiny path, little more than a goat track, led through low scrub. Judging by the scratches she received, Phyllida thought there must be holly bushes among it, and they had to walk well strung out, to avoid lashing each other with backward-springing branches. At last they emerged, suddenly, into an open space with a broad view of leaden sea ahead, and a great semi-circle of lights showing.

  ‘Good God,’ said Brett as Andreas paused to let them catch up with him, ‘it’s the Turkish fleet.’

  ‘Yes. That’s the Bay of Navarino,’ said Andreas. ‘The dark patch beyond the lights is the island of Sphacteria, and there,’ he pointed south, ‘is the main Turkish camp at Neokastron.’

  ‘And I suppose that’s Palaeokastron, where we’re going?’ Brett had turned to look at the few lights scattered on what seemed to be a headland at the north end of the great bay.

  ‘Yes, but there’s a lagoon between us and it,’ explained Andreas. ‘We have to go down this way, to the causeway. It’s rocky going for a while I’m afraid. Keep close behind me.’

  As they stood, Brett’s hand had found Phyllida’s on the far side from Andreas. It was telling her something. She looked at him sideways, puzzled.

  ‘I’m going ahead for a while,’ he told her now, his voice impatient. ‘Make sure you keep up. I’m tired of lagging along at your pace.’

  For a moment she was furious, then understood the message his hand had given. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said meekly, falling in behind him.

  Though steep, the rock path was nothing compared to the ‘ladder’ they had negotiated with Yannis, and Phyllida was grateful both for this and for the fact that it was now Brett who turned back to help her over the difficult bits. She did not like Andreas. Why?

  Puzzling over this, she slipped and nearly fell, to be caught and angrily reprimanded by Brett. He seemed to be making a special point, tonight, of treating her roughly, like the boy she was supposed to be. ‘Keep your mind on the path,’ he said now, crossly, and she recognised it as good advice. Time enough to think about Andreas when they were safe on the Cambrian.

  Were there really British ships, out there beyond the dark patch that was Sphacteria? Suppose they had sailed away, gone to Zante for food and water, or, simply, been scattered by the storm that had drenched them, how many nights ago? She had heard Brett say what a difficult station it was for a squadron to keep, exposed there on the squally coast. ‘All very well for the Turks in the Bay of Navarino.’

  What would they do if they got to Nestor’s Cave and found no boat awaiting them? So far, on this twilight journey that began to seem as if it would never end, she had thought merely about each stage as she toiled through it. Now, nearing safety, she had time to think about that, and found herself, illogically, terrified. Why? she asked herself again, and, puzzling over it, fell a little behind on a smooth bit of path, and was surprised by Brett’s voice, genuinely angry now, she recognised, with anxiety. ‘Keep close, for God’s sake.’

  They must be nearly down to sea level. The rock had given way to what felt like well-trodden sand, and the path was winding among high reeds so that she could see nothing but Brett’s back, moving steadily ahead. Impossible, on this twisting path, to be sure of direction, but (she looked up at the stars),
surely they were still going south as well as west?

  ‘Brett?’

  ‘Hush!’ How had he known what she was going to say, and why was she so sure that he had? ‘Keep close,’ he said again, urgently, and she knew she had been right to be afraid.

  Somewhere, a frog croaked. But surely it must be hours, still, before dawn? They had not stopped yet for their half-way rest. It looked a long way up to the headland of Palaeokastron, and if they had to circle it, to the north, in order to get to Nestor’s Cave…

  Another frog. And Brett’s hand, hard on her own. ‘Whatever happens.’ He had let them get a little behind Andreas. ‘Keep close to me.’ For the first time, he spoke in English.

  Ahead of them, Andreas paused impatiently to let them catch up. ‘The boy’s tired,’ said Brett, in irritable explanation.

  ‘We’ll rest at the causeway.’ Andreas turned again to lead on through rustling reeds. And now, extraordinary after all these nights of walking with only an occasional owl for company, Phyllida could hear the sounds of humanity. A ship’s bell echoed hollowly across the water, another and another, sounding, she thought, erratically from here and there in that great semicircle they had seen from above. And—hard to tell about direction—but, surely, nearer, a horse whinnied … Could they really be so close to the Turkish camp?

  Brett had heard it too, had paused, instantaneously, ahead of her, was now going steadily forward as if nothing were the matter. She made herself do likewise. Forward. To what?

  Something dark, looming ahead, solider than the reeds. Andreas’ voice from ahead, oddly loud: ‘The causeway at last.’

  And, instantly, pandemonium all round them, turbanned figures, a scimitar flashing, Andreas’ voice, loud and terrified: ’The Turks!’