Carver's Quest (39 page)

‘I have asked questions of many people I know. Of scholars who know much about the ancient manuscripts that are still to be found in Greece. Not one of them knows anything of
Euphorion.’

Adam looked crestfallen. ‘It seems we
are
on a wild goose chase,’ he said.

‘Not necessarily, my friend.’ The Greek was smiling to himself. ‘I have spoken also to a fellow countryman who spends his days drinking coffee at the Oraia Ellas.’

‘The café in town?’ Adam knew the Oraia Ellas as a haunt of visitors to Athens. He had been there himself on two occasions. The tables had been filled with Frenchmen and
Germans, Americans and English. Any Greek who spent long hours there, he thought to himself, was probably a government agent employed to eavesdrop on the conversation of foreigners.

‘You know it, of course. My fellow countryman remembers an Englishman who came there several times. About a year ago.’

‘Every Englishman who arrives in Athens visits the Oraia Ellas at least once, Rallis. What is the significance of one visitor out of hundreds? Thousands?’

‘This Englishman was tall. And he had a scar near his right eye.’ The lawyer waggled his finger above his own brow. ‘Like a crescent moon, my fellow countryman said.’

‘Creech. That must have been Creech.’

‘Precisely, my friend, the man you described to me two days ago. And he was asking a lot of questions. Some of them were very peculiar questions. He wanted to travel out of the city. But
not to the usual places Englishmen want to travel. Not to Marathon or to Missolonghi. This Englishman wanted to head north, out of the kingdom and into Turkey in Europe. He wanted to go to the
monasteries at Meteora.’

‘Meteora?’

‘You do not know Meteora, Mr Carver?’

Adam again shook his head. ‘Although Fields spoke the other day of Greek monasteries,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he meant these ones at Meteora.’

‘They are on the plains of Thessaly. They are among the most surprising buildings that we Greeks have constructed.’ Rallis smiled to himself at the thought of how surprising the
monasteries were. ‘This English gentleman with the strange scar, he wanted to go to one in particular. Agios Andreas.’

‘And Agios Andreas is known to you? It is one of the monasteries?’

‘Its fame is not as great as that of the Great Meteoron or the Holy Monastery of Varlaam. But, yes, I know of it. It has its own small renown.’ The Greek continued to smile, as if at
a private joke he might possibly be willing to share if the moment was right.

‘What kind of small renown, Rallis? You must not keep me in suspense in this malicious way.’

‘According to what I have been told, its library is said to contain many ancient manuscripts.’

‘Endless works by the dullest of the church fathers, no doubt.’

‘No, my informant believed that Agios Andreas held more than just religious works. It has manuscripts of the ancient pagans. Of Aristotle and Homer.’

‘Aha! And of Euphorion, perhaps.’

The Greek lawyer inclined his head, as if to suggest that this was indeed possible.

‘Did this man with the crescent moon scar who was so eager to visit Agios Andreas find the answers to the questions he was asking?’

‘Alas, my fellow countryman does not know. The Englishman, he says, did not come again to Oraia Ellas after the summer months. But whether or not he succeeded in travelling to
Meteora…’ Rallis shrugged. ‘Who can tell?’

* * * * *

Two days passed and Rallis invited Fields and Adam, accompanied by a grumbling Quint, to join him at his house overlooking Constitution Square. As noon approached on another hot
and cloud-free day in the city, the professor climbed the three steps to the main entrance and stared at the large brass knocker on the door. It was fashioned into the face of an old man with
flowing hair and untamed beard.

‘It is intended to represent Poseidon, I believe,’ he remarked, peering at the door knocker as if uncertain what purpose it might serve. ‘It seems a curious choice of
decoration. I cannot see what connection there can be between the god of the sea and admittance to a man’s house.’

‘Perhaps Hestia, as goddess of the hearth, might be more appropriate,’ Adam said, ‘but we are not here to debate Rallis’s choice of household decoration, Professor. Do
make use of Poseidon’s head.’

‘For gawdsake, knock on the bleedin’ door, will you?’ Quint muttered, although not loudly enough for the professor to hear him. ‘It’s ’ot enough to fry eggs
on the pavement out ’ere.’

Fields lifted the hinged image of the god. He rapped it firmly against the door. The sound of brass on wood echoed and reverberated through the house and was then followed by silence. The
professor was about to raise Poseidon once more when Adam rested a hand on his arm.

‘There is no call to do so, sir. I can hear footsteps inside.’

It was Rallis himself who opened the door.

‘I have allowed the servants to take the day off,’ he said, spreading his arms in a gesture of welcome. ‘All save one. We shall have the house to ourselves as we make our
plans. No eyes or ears upon us. Come this way, gentlemen.’

The lawyer directed them towards the staircase across the hallway, its perimeter lined with statues of nymphs in loose drapery. With Quint loitering a moment to examine the marble maidens more
closely, the three men followed their host up the stairs.

‘My library,’ Rallis said, throwing open a door on the first floor with a flourish. He stood to one side and allowed his guests to enter before him. There was another man already in
the room. He was standing in the shadows by the window drapes. It was difficult to see anything of his face but it was impossible to miss his size. Quint whistled as he saw him.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said under his breath. ‘ ’E’s the size of St Bride’s steeple.’

‘Andros has spent much of the morning watching the traffic passing,’ Rallis said. ‘He is not accustomed to the city. It is only the second time he has been in
Athens.’

The man, Adam thought, was like one of the Gigantes, giants of Greek legend. He towered over the other men in the room. Adam was more than six feet tall himself but Andros was at least a head
higher.

‘He was born on one of the farm estates my family owns in Attica,’ the lawyer continued. ‘He has lived and worked there, all his life.’

‘Are they all ’is size in Attica?’ Quint asked.

‘No, Mr Quint. Andros is an exceptional man there as he would be everywhere else.’

The huge Greek moved out of the shadow but he continued to stand impassively at the window, looking down at the streets below. Adam could tell that he was aware the others were talking of him.
The giant turned and spoke briefly to his master.

‘He is curious about the carriages in the street. He had forgotten how many there were.’ Rallis made a swift remark to his servant in Greek and then turned back to his guests.
‘But let us go through to my study.’

The lawyer opened an oak door between the bookshelves and indicated that they should all walk into the next room. As they did so, Andros, bringing up the rear, was obliged to stoop in order to
avoid knocking his head on the lintel of the door. Rallis’s reference to his study had suggested some cramped retreat from the world, but the room they entered was almost as large as the
library. Light streamed into it from a pair of long windows at its far end and fell onto a baize-covered writing desk beneath them. Another escritoire, pens and paper spilling from its numerous
drawers and compartments, was placed against the opposite wall. By its side was a large globe on an iron pedestal. Fields walked across to it and, reaching out his hand, set it spinning. More
bookshelves ran along the walls at either side.

In the centre of the room stood a mahogany table and three chairs. They looked out of place, as if they belonged elsewhere in the house and had only recently been brought here for this
conference. The Greek lawyer gestured towards them and Adam and the professor seated themselves at the table. Like two mismatched sentries guarding the entrance to a temple, Quint and the giant
Greek took up positions standing either side of the door through which they had all just come.

Rallis walked to the bookshelves behind Adam. He reached up and took down something from one of them. He came to the table and placed it in front of the two Englishmen. It was a map. The lawyer
carefully unrolled it.

‘Please hold the ends of the chart, gentlemen,’ he said. He crossed to the desk beneath the window and picked up first a glass paperweight and then a silver inkstand with a small
figure of Hercules, club in hand, standing on it. Returning to the mahogany table, he positioned both on the map.

‘Those will suffice, I think,’ he said. ‘And now we can look down, like eagles, on the land where we propose to travel.’

‘Which road shall we be taking?’ Adam asked, his eyes quickly scanning the chart.

‘There are few roads in my country that are worthy of the name. I am embarrassed to admit it, but once we have travelled from Athens to Piraeus, there is no road to take. Certainly no road
to match your English roads.’

‘So we must find another means of transport.’

‘Exactly. From Piraeus, we will sail up the coast as far as here.’ Rallis pointed his finger. ‘It is a good harbour and I can arrange for horses and mules to be awaiting us
there.’

There was a noisy snort from behind them.

‘Mules!’ Quint said, putting as much disgust into one short word as Adam had ever heard. ‘I ’ate mules.’

‘Ah, but they love you, Quint. They see you as a kindred spirit.’

‘I ’ate mules,’ Quint repeated. ‘Cussed beasts. No respect.’

‘These will be mules of a most respectful nature, Mr Quint,’ said Rallis, turning to smile soothingly at the manservant.

‘Mules of a saintly disposition, I’m sure,’ Adam said over his shoulder. ‘You’ll grow to love them, Quint, and they will grow to love you.’

Quint snorted again, as if to express his doubts and suspicions of all mules of whatever disposition.

‘Them as I’ve come across are so cussed they won’t even stand for saddling.’

‘Then you will have to ride them bareback like Menken in
Mazeppa
.’ Adam was gazing intently again at the map on the table. ‘I doubt that your legs will show to the
same advantage as those of the lovely Adah but you will be able to ride across Thessaly on one of the beasts, I am sure, saddle or no saddle. Do stop grousing and let us look where the mules and
the horses will take us.’

Quint subsided into grumpy silence.

‘From the harbour we will make our way inland,’ Rallis continued, deciding that concerns about the mules could now be ignored. ‘We will soon cross into European Turkey. We will
keep away from villages and towns. We will also avoid the wayside khans and sleep instead under the stars.’

‘That will be difficult, surely? To keep away from people?’ Adam suggested. ‘We will be passing through well-populated territory. We will not be in remote highlands or
uninhabited wilderness.’

The professor had been hunched over the map and had said nothing during the discussion about the mules. Now he looked up.

‘The papers I have obtained from the Ottoman consul here in Athens will allow us unhindered passage. We need not worry about that. But it will be easier to travel swiftly if we keep to
ourselves as much as we can. We will also avoid the endless demands for baksheesh.’

‘We will not be able to avoid people altogether.’

‘No, that is true. But the journey will take little more than two days,’ the professor said. ‘The whole of Thessaly is little bigger than the county of Lincoln.’

‘The journey may take us more days than two,’ the lawyer said. ‘We may have to go out of our path to avoid meeting thieves and robbers. There are many dangerous men in that
country.’

‘Brigands? We know the risks of brigands.’ Fields waved his hand in irritated dismissal of these risks. ‘We are not idle excursionists on a day’s jaunt to Marathon. We
have travelled extensively in the country before.’

‘I am sure the professor is a man of wisdom and discretion.’ Rallis was offended by the abruptness with which Fields habitually spoke. He now addressed his words to Adam alone. He
spoke as if the professor was already in some far-flung corner of the country rather than sitting at the table beside him. ‘I am certain that his knowledge of our country is such that it
would put to shame that of one such as myself who has rarely ventured far beyond the boundaries of Attica. Nevertheless, I feel obliged to warn him of the dangers of the journey we are
proposing.’

Fields, infuriated in his turn by the Greek’s sudden indifference to his presence, was puffing out his chest in preparation for a lengthy riposte, but Rallis ignored him and continued to
speak to Adam.

‘The English gentlemen who lost their lives at Dilessi recently? Mr Vyner and Mr Herbert? They were idle excursionists on their way back from Marathon. They were less than a day’s
journey from Athens. Yet they were taken. And eventually they were killed. A party of travellers, however experienced, heading to the north would expose themselves to considerable risk.’

Fields could clearly contain himself no longer and now spoke loudly.

‘I will not have our plans affected by worrying about a pack of damned rogues who ought to be rounded up and fogged.’

‘It is a complicated question, this question, Professor.’ The Greek lawyer made a determined effort to recover his good temper. He turned now to speak directly to Fields. ‘You
English are famously virtuous. You have won a great empire through your virtue. And so you look at our bandits and you see only thieves and vagabonds and murderers. But we Greeks are not so
thoroughly virtuous. We look at the klephts from the mountains and we remember how they fought in our War of Independence. And so we see a little of the hero in the brigand chieftain as well as a
little of the villain.’

For a moment it seemed as if the professor might continue the argument, but he was mollified by the conciliatory note in Rallis’s voice. He examined the unfurled map on the table.