The Tower of the Winds

by Elizabeth Hunter

  have to shoulder so much responsibility. Is there no one else in your family who could have helped you?'

  ''I have a bachelor uncle, my father's brother, but I haven't seen him for years! And I wasn't so very young!' she added. An imp of mischief lit up her warm, sherry-brown eyes. 'There was Colin, of course.'

  Loukos nodded. 'Of course. I had forgotten him. No doubt that was why Nikos didn't fly to England when your father died.' He smiled at her across the table. ''I am glad you had this Colin to make all the arrangements for you. It is not right for a woman to have to do these things.'

  Charity felt the warm colour suffuse her cheeks, but she said nothing. How could she possibly tell him that Colin had been away on business at the time and that even if he had been there, he wouldn't have dreamed of interfering with something that he would have considered to be wholly her business? It was difficult, though, not to think how pleasant it would have been for someone else to have taken the immediate decisions out of her hands at that particular time. There had been so much to do, and she had hated it - all of it!

  Fortunately, Loukos was busy talking to the wine-boy and didn't see the confusion on Charity's face. She didn't approve of making comparisons between people, but it was difficult not to remember how Colin had concluded that she would cope, not only with her own problems, but often with his as well; whereas Loukos might not consult her about what she wanted to eat - or drink! - but he took charge of other things as well. It seemed there were two sides to what she had first thought was merely arrogance on his part.

  He looked up, satisfied by his final choice of wine, and smiled at her. I think unresinated wine until you are used to it,' he said. ''I am told it is an acquired taste.'

  'But if you prefer it,' she protested, 'I'd like to try it.'

  He shook his head. The decision had already been made. 'If you wish to try it, I shall order it for you in Delphi. The

  Parnassus water is so delicious that it will not matter if you prefer not to drink the wine!'

  She made no objection at all. She even likedhim to decide the matter for her. And that worried her. She set her mind to fretting at the problem until she could solve it to her own satisfaction and, up to a point, she did. It was because she was still numb from the news of her sister's death and didn't much care about anything. Yes, that was it! Only she didn't feel half as badly as she had felt earlier in the evening, and that was thanks to him too. He had given her something else to think about. Well, she had feltsomething, at any rate. In fact she had felt a great deal. She eyed him covertly from under her eyelashes and wondered at herself. If this was the effect Greece had on her, the sooner she was returned to the safety of home and Colin the better it would be!

  'Wasn't it Apollo who held the three graces in the hollow of his hand?' she asked aloud.

  His laughter suddenly burst out of him as if she had kicked him. He doubled up with mirth, his great laugh ringing out across the restaurant. Charity thought it was excessive. She imagined that everyone would be looking at them, staring in astonishment at the noise he made, but it soon became clear, even to her, that to all but her this was considered quite normal behaviour from anyone trying to have a good time. What reason was there to keep one's voice down and mutter in one's beard, if one felt like shouting with laughter, or joining in the non-stop song and dance? It was as if the Greeks had to constantly prove to themselves that they were alive and intended to make the most of it.

  'My dear girl, 'I must assure you that I am not Apollo, no matter if you do think I look like him! I am Loukos Papandreous! Isn't that enough for you?'

  She drew her dignity about her, even more disturbed by that arrogant announcement. 'I am Loukos Papandreous!She tried to imagine herself declaiming that she was Charity Archer in the same tone of voice, but her mind boggled. She

  wasn't that sure that she was anyone in particular, and she envied him his certainty.

  'Anyway,' he went on, ''I think the Graces was only another name for the Fates, and I don't think I'd like to have much to do with them. But there is a statue of Apollo somewhere, stark naked, with the three Graces standing on his hand. They were apt to trail after him, poor dears. I expect it was because they were something to do with the moon in her death-aspect—'

  'Oh yes,' Charity said brightly. 'He would rather outshine them when he came up in the morning. Poor things, as you say!'

  'They had the nights in which to weave their spells, as women do. It is only when the sun comes up that a man must go about his own business.'

  'Leaving the women behind them?'

  'Why, yes, if they will stay there. Most of them, I have found, are more interested in Apollo than waiting for the darkness to come again. Even you wish to make your pilgrimage to his shrine tomorrow. Would you wait quietly in Athens for me to bring the baby back for you to see?'

  'You promised I could go with you!' she protested. He didn't know how much she wanted to go to Delphi! It was nothing to do with her sister, or any of the things that had happened since she had come to Athens. It was a dream that had haunted her as ever since she had first read that people had gone to that one spot for perhaps five thousand years. She had always wanted to know why, sure that its secret would be revealed to her if she could see it for herself.

  'If you don't take me,' she said, 'I'd trail after you like -like Nemesis!'

  'Does it mean so much to you?' he asked her. There was an inscrutable look on his face.

  'Yes,' she said. 'It's silly, I know, but I've always wanted to go to Delphi.'

  'Then go you shall.' He reached out a hand to her, crush-

  ing her fingers in his strong grasp. ''I hope you won't be disappointed.'

  Charity felt quite muzzy with noise and wine when he took her back to her hotel. Her eyes were drooping with fatigue and she didn't dare to look at her watch to see what the time was in case it was as late as she suspected. She had learned a lot about the Greeks in one evening, she thought. She had learned that they never slept, for a start! And that they had a zest for living that made her long to throw her bonnet over the nearest windmill and join them.

  She had learned something about Loukos Papandreous too. He had told her that he was a business man, with the usual interests in shipping and olives, but it was not that that had interested her. She had learned something about herself too, and that was something she wanted to think about for a long time all by herself. It had to do with the wine-boy who, if Loukos was to be believed, had compared her hair to the rays of the sun, and who had expected her to enjoy his enjoyment of his discovery as much as he did. It had a whole lot more to do with the way Loukos had looked at her, and danced with her, and had kissed her hand when they parted. It had all added up to a strange sensation that she had never consciously felt before. She had felt feminine and glad to be so.

  Colin, whom she thought she loved, had never made her feel that her sex was a precious, lovely thing, a gift from the gods. No one had. But tonight it had all been different and, despite her tears and her misery at her sister's death, she had caught a glimpse of what life was all about and she couldn't be sad any longer.

  Tomorrow, she thought, she would think again about Faith, and Faith's son, and whether she could trust Loukos or not, but just for tonight, she would dream her dreams and be glad she was alive, as Loukos was. She stared at herself in the glass for a long moment and was surprised to see there

  were no traces left of the tears she had shed. Her eyes were as brilliant as his were when they laughed at some joke. Oh, Charity Archer, she said to herself, this was no time to go on some voyage of discovery to goodness knows where! She was going to need all her wits about her to carry out Faith's dying wishes, and that was what she was there for!

  She turned out the light and pulled the blankets about her, determined to have some firm plan of campaign before she saw Loukos again. But she was asleep from the moment she set her head on the rock-hard pillow and tried to summon up her powers of concentration. She remembered th
inking something rather pleasant about the next day - and then there was only a blessed nothingness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Delphi! 'The shrine that is the centre of the loudly echoing earth',as Pindar described it. Charity stared at the ruins that nestled into the steep cliffs of the mountain behind them, cliffs that had been known for centuries as the Shining Ones. It was hard to see why they had been so named in the light, drizzling rain that blew through the valley. Their summit pierced the cloud that had been caught against their craggy heights. Below the clouds were the ruins themselves, the theatre, the six remaining pillars of the Temple of Apollo, and the Sacred Way, lined by the various treasuries representing all the different parts of Greece, up which the pilgrims had made their way to consult the famous oracle.

  Loukos drew the car into the side of the road and let her look her fill. 'The ruins further down, on the other side of the road, is where the pilgrims waited for the required three days before they could go up to the oracle,' he told her. 'The Temple there was dedicated to Athene and was known as Athene Pronaea. In the spring you can find hyacinths and bee-orchis growing wild there. It was down there that the athletes practised for the Pythian Games, which were held every four years up in the stadium above the theatre.'

  'Why Pythian?' Charity asked.

  'Because before Apollo made the sanctuary and oracle his own, it was dominated by the Python who had pursued Leto, Apollo's mother, because Hera, who was Zeus's official wife, was jealous of her and was determined that she should have no resting place in which to bear Apollo and his twin sister Artemis. Later, Apollo killed the Python and took over guardianship of the oracle. The Games were held every year at one of four sites. Olympia is the most famous today, but all four were considered equally prestigious in those days.

  But because the Games only came to each site once even-four years then, today the Olympic Games are held only every four years just the same.'

  Charity had to confess that she was more interested in the oracle than in the Games. She could scarcely conceal her eagerness to see everything at once. The most beautiful of the ruins at first sight was a completely circular building down by the Temple of Athene. Loukos told her it had once housed the snakes that had symbolized Apollo's interest in medicine.

  'There was a good reason for making the pilgrims wait for their turn to visit the oracle,' he said. 'When we go up to the Temple you will be able to see the traces of the secret path that the priests took to visit the applicants below and find out what they were going to ask the oracle when their turn came. It was a very flourishing business, you see, and they wished to make sure of their profits by having their answers ready.'

  'But it couldn't always have been like that!' Charity objected. ''I don't believe it!'

  'The person 'I feel sorry for was the poor girl who had to mouth the oracles, sitting in a dank cave on her stool, half drugged by chewing bay-leaves—'

  'I thought they were laurel leaves. Daphne, whom Apollo loved and pursued, was turned into a laurel tree. He sadly picked the leaves and they became associated with him and were put about the brows of victors. I'm sure it was a laurel tree!'

  'Sweet laurel,' he said, 'which is a bay tree.'

  'Oh,' said Charity, reluctant to abandon the argument, 'Do let's go and see where the oracle was! If you're ready?' she added, conscious that he might not be sharing her impatience to visit the famous shrine.

  He drove the car to the foot of the actual shrine, parking it in the space provided. Charity hurried up the steps ahead of him. She could hardly bear to wait while he bought their

  entrance tickets, so anxious was she to set her steps on the age-old Sacred Way that zigzagged its way upwards.

  'You will miss something if you are in too much of a hurry,' Loukos teased her. 'First you must look at the treasuries on the way up. Depending from- where you came from, you would offer your gift to your own treasury before you went on up to the Temple.'

  Obediently, she agreed to pause at the Syphnian Treasury, the fabulous frieze of which is now in the museum, and at the restored Athenian Treasury where Loukos would have left his own gift if he had come two or three thousand years before. He pointed out the ruts that had been carved in the stones beneath their feet to stop the animals from slithering about as they were taken up to be sacrificed at the altar just outside the temple. Charity was dismayed by the thought of the animals being forced up the slope to their death and she looked away quickly, unwilling to dwell on their sufferings.

  'If they shivered, they were considered unworthy and their lives were spared,' Loukos comforted her.

  'What happened to them then?' Charity demanded.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ''I don't know,' he admitted. 'I can't imagine the avaricious priests allowing many animals to escape their grasp!' He laughed at the expression on Charity's face, putting a hand lightly on her shoulder. 'Don't think about it, if it upsets you, though the end result of a modern abattoir is exactly the same! You will be more interested in this containing wall,' he smiled. 'Directly above is the Temple. The Athenians built a kind of verandah along the side of the wall in which they displayed the spoils they had captured from Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. But just look how this wall was built! You see how all the pieces fit one another? This is typically Greek. No mortar was ever used in Greek building, that was an innovation introduced by the Romans. But the wall is interesting for another reason. It is covered in writing, giving details of

  the various expenses and so on of the shrine. It is rather like a very ancient newspaper and has been of incomparable value to the archaeologists.'

  Charity didn't see the writing at first, not until she came right up against the wall, but then she could see that it was covered from end to end in the tiny hieroglyphs of the Greek script. Loukos read out some of the words to her, but in so long a time the language had changed considerably and, mostly, he could only guess at the meaning.

  When they climbed up to the Temple itself, he left her to her own devices, for which she was grateful. She needed time to look about her and to tune herself into the meaning of this ancient sanctuary.

  'There isn't much left of it,' was all he said before he moved away. 'And what there is is the remains of three Temples. One was destroyed by earthquake, the second by fire. The last was pulled down by Christians who tried to destroy all the old pagan shrines. The three scourges of God, one might say!'

  Charity climbed up and down between the different floor levels, looking upwards towards the Shining Ones, and down to the waving branches of a sea of olive trees that could be counted in thousands rather than hundreds. She found the place where Pythia, the name given to the woman who mouthed the oracles, had actually sat on her three-legged throne. The area had been filled in now to stop the more boisterous tourists from jumping down into the area and ruining the ancient floor and walls. The stone on which the Pythia had sat lay beside the Temple now, the three holes into which the legs of the stool had fitted separated from another hole through which the vapours had poured upwards, surrounding the girl, by a gully through which the sacred waters had run, brought all the way from the sacred fountain higher up on the slopes of Parnassus.

  Charity sat on the edge of the Temple with her feet on the stone and felt more peaceful about her sister's death. The

  long drive from Athens had been haunted by the knowledge that they would be passing the actual spot where Faith had met her death. Loukos had driven the whole way in a near-silence. True, he had pointed out the spot where the luckless Oedipus had unknowingly killed his father, before going on to Thebes to answer the riddle of the Sphinx that was terrorizing the city and mounting the throne of his father by marrying his own mother, Jocasta. She had shivered when she had seen what a long way down it was from the new road, that was even now being widened, to the ancient meeting of the roads below.

  'Was it near here?' she had asked Loukos, and he had nodded, but he had never told her exactly where it had been, and there were so many ea
rth-moving vehicles being used on the narrow ledge along which the road ran that it was impossible to see any sign of the double tragedy that had killed both Faith and her husband.

  Charity thought about her now, and her letter which had brought her hurrying to Greece. Her own life had always been like that, she thought. She had hurried from one to another of her family, picking up the odd pieces of their lives, but she had never had much life of her own to live. She wanted to be someone in her own right, to follow a path of her own, for good or ill, so that she too could hold her head high and claim, 'I am Charity Archer!' Was that too much to ask now that her father and one of her sisters were dead, and there was only Hope who had no need of her?