The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) (38 page)

The words made him pause. Where had he recently read something similar?

With the customers now muttering to each other about his behaviour, and the proprietor equivocating over some manner of intervention, Noah cast previous editions of
the Times
to the floor
until he came to the one he had read in his own parlour some eight days previously. There, on the front page, was the advertisement he was thinking of:

‘Sir, your behaviour is rather irregular . . .’ ventured the proprietor, approaching from his counter.

‘Then bring me a cup of coffee in the Arab style and see to your other customers without disturbing me further,’ said Noah, distractedly taking a seat by the fire and spreading the
newspapers on the table before him.

The circled lines were in a rough form of modern Greek – that much was clear. But it was a grammatically suspect strain that made him doubt whether they had been placed by a native
Hellene. For example, the nouns
and
were missing their articles:
and ‘O’ respectively. And what on earth was
? He knew
that
was the Greek word for river and that the
suffix represented a plural . . . so
could the term refer to those who worked on or occupied the river?

As for
, he knew it only as an informal place name in the southern extremity of the Greek mainland – a rough Peloponnesian coast
of pirates and fighting men. But was not that particular place so named for its barren landscape of flat rocks which became so hot in summer that one might actually cook on them –
meant ‘frying pan’ in Greek.

The proprietor brought the coffee to the table and Noah smelled the sweetness of cardamom. He reached obliquely for the cup without taking his eyes from the words, burning the tip of his tongue
in the process.

Frying Pan wharf – the reference was irresistible. But what of the rest?

The first advertisement seemed to refer to
– ‘eggs’? Such a translation made no sense whatsoever: ‘Rivermen
– the eggs to the frying pan’. Noah searched his memory for scraps of language, remembered phrases, curious proverbs and arcane grammars. He had often mixed his ancient and demotic
Greek when a mariner in those balmy seas . . .

And then he smiled at his mistake. He had confused his vocabulary. The word was not ‘eggs’ at all.
That
word was
.
Rather, the sentence in
the Times
alluded to the word for ‘dawn’: ‘The dawn to the frying pan’.

He shook his head in consternation and sipped again at the coffee, which was quite excellent. The phrase still made no sense at all. Unless . . .

might be the modern Greek for dawn, but the Latin was ‘Aurora’. The
Aurora
to Frying Pan wharf: a code and an
instruction. He checked the date: the advertisement had been printed two days before the eponymous brig had vanished.