Carver's Quest (50 page)

‘What is ridiculous is that a gentleman and a scholar of your standing should stoop to such petty theft.’ Adam had rarely, if ever, spoken to his mentor in such a way but he was
almost beside himself with anger that Fields should have behaved in so dishonourable a way.

Rallis had walked back to the fire. He sat down once more.

‘I am not certain that any good purpose will be served by going back to Agios Andreas, Adam,’ he said. ‘If the loss of the manuscript has been discovered, they may not wish to
see us again. They will fear the theft of further treasures. They will not pull us up in their net.’

‘And if it has not been discovered?’

The lawyer shrugged. ‘Perhaps, for them – what is your English saying? – ignorance is bliss. We can show the manuscript to the bishop in Larissa. Tell him our story and let him
be the Solomon who makes a judgement. Whether we should keep it or give it back to the
caloyeri
.’

‘We shall not be going to Larissa.’ Fields spoke with certainty. ‘Or rather, we shall avoid entering the town. Instead, we shall journey through the mountains to the coast,
through the pass at Tempe, and then up the coast towards Salonika.’

‘And why the devil should we do that, sir?’ Adam asked furiously.

‘Ah, Tempe,’ Fields sighed, smiling sweetly as if the young man had not spoken. ‘The place where the peoples of Thessaly once gathered, Adam. For sacrifices, symposia and
parties of pleasure. Aelian, you may recall, wrote that sometimes the whole air of the valley was perfumed with incense. I doubt that such aromas will greet us now but there will be much for us to
see. And much perhaps for us to discover.’

Adam realised suddenly that it had not been the writings of Thucydides that had held the professor’s attention earlier in the day.

‘You have been reading the Euphorion manuscript as we rode,’ he said.

In reply, the professor held up a small volume which Adam recognised from the hidden library at the monastery. ‘Entirely correct. Here it is. Written some time in the thirteenth century, I
believe. But undoubtedly copied from much earlier manuscripts. Who knows? Perhaps the line of transmission goes back another five hundred years. And now we have it – a little volume, bound in
black leather by monastic craftsmen in the last century. So small, so simple to hide.’ The professor laughed at the thought of how easy it had proved for him to carry it from the
monastery.

‘Your reading of it has suggested this change of plan, I assume.’

Fields ignored Adam’s remark and asked instead, ‘Did you not wonder why that man Creech was asking you about your visit to Koutles in sixty-seven? I assume he
did
ask
you?’

‘Of course I was puzzled by Creech’s interest in that godforsaken spot,’ Adam acknowledged, ‘but what has Koutles to do with the Euphorion manuscript? Is it one of the
sites that Euphorion visited?’

‘Fifteen years ago, a French scholar named Heuzey travelled in the hills where you and Quint rode.’ The professor once again took no apparent notice of Adam’s questions.
‘He saw what you no doubt saw – that the region is filled with tumuli. He realised the importance of these burial mounds. He returned to dig in them six years later, with money granted
to him by that popinjay emperor who has just lost his throne.’ Fields sniffed contemptuously. ‘One of the few deeds of which
Napoléon le Petit
can be proud.’

Rallis, who had appeared lost in his own thoughts, suddenly spoke up. ‘Did this Frenchman find anything when he dug in the mounds?’

‘Very little. He abandoned his work because of the fear of malaria.’ The professor’s voice suggested that this was exactly the kind of cowardice to be expected from the French.
‘But he was convinced that there was something there to be found.’

The Greek lawyer nodded as if this merely confirmed what he had already suspected.

‘What was to be found?’ Adam asked. ‘Are you talking of the golden treasure of which the Aldine editor wrote? It truly exists?’

‘Ah, those are questions I shall leave you to ponder yourself.’ Fields stood and stretched. ‘I am growing weary and there may be days of hectic activity ahead of us. I shall
unpack my sleeping bag and retire for the night. I recommend that you should do the same. In the morning, you may feel differently. Unless, of course, like Achilles, you choose to remain sulking in
your tent.’

As the professor walked towards the tree to which Quint had tethered the mules, Adam exchanged a glance with the Greek lawyer.

‘I trust you understand that this is none of my doing, Rallis. I had no notion that Fields planned to steal the manuscript.’

The Greek made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

‘The deed is done,’ he said. He pointed out into the night. ‘Let us walk for a while. Away from the fire. It will be easier to talk.’

The two men stood. Adam glared at Quint, still crouched by the flames, who stared defiantly back. For a moment, it seemed as if the young man might speak again to his manservant but he turned on
his heel and strode into the darkness. Rallis followed him. When he had gone a hundred yards from the campfire, Adam stopped and allowed the Greek to draw level with him. In the moonlight, each of
them waited for the other to speak.

‘The time has come for us both to place our cards on the table, Rallis,’ Adam said eventually. ‘If we are to deal with this new turn of events, we should both be honest with
one another.’

Although it had been his suggestion to talk, the Greek made no reply.

‘I had no prior knowledge that the professor was planning to rob the monks of their manuscript. And I do not condone the taking of it.’

‘So you have said.’

‘And I was speaking the truth. But you have been hiding the truth from me. You have been signalling to someone following us. You have been doing so since we first crossed into European
Turkey.’

The Greek continued to stare across the plain at the distant mountains. For the briefest of moments, Adam wondered if he had not heard him.

‘You are right, Adam. I have not been honest with you,’ Rallis said after a further pause, turning towards the young Englishman. ‘I have been obliged to mislead you. The work I
am doing has forced me into this – what is the word you English would use? – this subterfuge.’

‘The work? What work? I was under the impression that Fields and I had invited you to join us on our travels in search of the Euphorion manuscript. That is the only “work” of
which I know.’

‘That is the impression I wished you to have,’ the Greek said, with the smallest hint of complacency in his voice.

‘What other work could there be?’

Rallis moved closer to Adam, so close the young Englishman could feel the lawyer’s breath on his face when he spoke.

‘Have you any idea how many antiquities, how many treasures of the past, leave my country each year?’ the Greek asked in an almost menacing whisper. ‘How many are lost to the
country that produced them and end up in museums and the collections of rich men all across the rest of Europe?’

‘Of course not.’ Adam was surprised by the turn the conversation had taken. ‘No one does. The number is incalculable.’

‘Exactly. Every visitor takes away with him a part of our nation’s past. I have no doubt that you yourself have transported objects to London. Coins, a vase, a small statue
perhaps?’ Rallis’s voice had grown louder but was still little more than a hissing in the darkness. ‘Trophies to adorn your rooms. To remind you of Greece and its former
greatness.’ The Greek made a gesture of obvious contempt for those who needed such spoils.

‘I have a few mementoes of my travels, yes,’ Adam said uncomfortably, thinking of a statuette of Artemis that was one of his most prized possessions. ‘But, as you say, so does
everyone who has ever visited Greece.’

‘It cannot continue.’ Rallis spoke with ferocity, suddenly and unexpectedly near to shouting. ‘This looting of our past. Not so much the petty pocketing of objects that you
describe’ – he waved his hand to dismiss this – ‘but the wholesale ransacking of sites. The despatching of hundreds and hundreds of objects from Athens to the four corners
of Europe for financial gain. That must stop. Otherwise there will be nothing left that we can pass on to future generations of Greeks. Our history will be scattered to the winds.’

The cool and collected lawyer now spoke with an animation and a vehemence that Adam had never before heard in his voice. Silence fell between the two men when Rallis finished speaking. Adam
could hear only the sound of bats flitting through the darkness above their heads. He was left with his own, far from gratifying reflections on what his companion had said.

‘I agree with you,’ he said, after a long pause. In truth, he had never given the matter a moment’s thought, but faced by the Greek’s passion, he was now certain that
Rallis was correct. ‘What happens is nothing but licensed piracy. But what has it to do with our own journey? Despite what Fields and Quint have done, we are not ransackers or looters. We
have taken one old manuscript from a library where, until last year, no one had consulted it in decades. Centuries, possibly.’

‘The manuscript is nothing.’ The lawyer almost laughed. ‘It is your precious Professor Fields. Have you really no notion of what the man has been doing?’

It was clear from the look of puzzlement on Adam’s face that he had not.

‘The professor and the man with the crescent moon scar, Samuel Creech. For many years they have been taking the treasures of my country and selling them. Creech lived in Athens until
recently. He sent boxes and boxes of objects to Fields in Cambridge. And Fields sold them. To collectors around England.’

‘Fields was working with Creech!’ Adam could not contain his astonishment.

The lawyer nodded.

‘But he has never spoken to me of knowing the man.’ Adam was bewildered. ‘He has not once suggested that he had even heard Creech’s name before I mentioned it to him.
Indeed, he denied knowing him.’

Rallis made a movement that was halfway between a shrug and a bow. Its implication was clear. Why, it said, would Fields do anything other than keep quiet?

‘He needed you, Adam. Creech was dead. He needed a new partner to travel with him in search of the manuscript.’

‘He knew about the Euphorion manuscript long before my visit to Cambridge.’

‘Almost certainly. Creech would have told him of its existence. Although I think perhaps that the man with the scar had not said where it could be found.’

Adam thought for a minute. Was this Greek lawyer to be trusted? Could all of what he said be true? If it was, then most of what he believed about Fields’s character would be wrong. Perhaps
it was Rallis himself he should doubt. It was Rallis who had been signalling to unknown confederates from the monastery heights. It was Rallis who had already fallen under suspicion during their
journey. Why should Adam believe him now?

‘Even assuming that what you tell me is true,’ he said eventually, ‘Creech and the professor were doing nothing illegal. You have no laws in Greece to prevent this.’

‘For the present, no,’ Rallis acknowledged. ‘But that will change. That is my work. To gather the evidence to persuade my government that laws must be enacted. To prevent the
trade in our past by people like Fields.’

Adam stood for a long time, struggling to assimilate all that the Greek lawyer had told him. It was painful to do so. From the very beginning, it would seem, he had been a dupe. The professor
had apparently gulled Adam into believing that he knew nothing of Euphorion when, all along, he had been aware of the manuscript and what it might contain. Fields had wanted a companion to assist
him in finding it and he had tricked his young friend into playing that role. Adam could now do nothing but contemplate his own foolishness. He was angry with Fields but even more with himself.

‘The people to whom you have been signalling,’ he said, after a minute or two had passed. ‘They are in your employ?’

‘In a manner of speaking. They are what you English would call brigands. But they have been following my instructions and I have been paying them.’

‘You have been paying brigands to follow us?’

‘You are shocked, Adam.’ Rallis smiled. ‘The thought of employing thieves and cut-throats offends your delicate sensibilities. But the reality of life here in Greece is more
complicated than you English believe. The politicians in Athens say that brigandage no longer flourishes. Everyone knows that is a lie. Many of the greatest brigands are paid money by those very
politicians. Are they paid money to give up their robberies and their murders? No – they are paid money to threaten and to scare the opponents of those politicians. I have merely chosen to
pay some of those same men for more peaceful purposes.’

‘But why the charade when we first arrived in Thessaly? Why did that man Lascarides and his men search our baggage and leave us without horses?’

Rallis shrugged. ‘I believed – I still believe – that Fields has records of his transactions with Creech. Of at least some of the antiquities they stole and transported from my
country. If I had these records, they would assist me greatly in my campaign. I looked for them in Athens.’

‘It was you who turned the professor’s room at the Angleterre upside down?’

‘While you were waiting for me at the Oraia Ellas.’ Rallis nodded in acknowledgement of his responsibility. ‘I found nothing.’

‘So you decided that you would try again when our journey had begun.’

‘Yes, but I could not very easily search his bags myself. And, if I found anything, I could not take it. Fields would have known immediately that I was the thief. I decided that the most
convenient method was to use Lascarides. If he searched and found, he could take. What else would a brigand do? He was instructed to take the horses. I needed to persuade you that his ambush was a
genuine one.’

‘But he did not find the documents you wanted in the professor’s belongings?’

‘No, he did not. Either Fields has left them in Athens or they are on his person. Together with Euphorion.’