The Tomb of Zeus

by Barbara Cleverly

  He called the men together, a bone-weary but still spirited crowd, to go over in a few words their achievements and set out his hopes and expectations for the next day's dig. Eager now to get back to their own firesides to tell their tales and recover for whatever tomorrow might bring, they made their way back to the goat sheds to clean equipment and leave all ready.

  Dutifully, Letty stayed behind with Gunning, who'd settled down at his drawing board, insisting on bringing his records of the last few hours' excavations up to date without delay. The light had been too difficult for supporting photographs and he was anxious to produce an adequate set of sketches. In the end, she had snatched the pencil from his hand and called a halt.

  “William! I am not paying you overtime, you know. You may stop work now.”

  “Whatever makes you think I'm working for you?” he said coldly, pausing to snatch back his pencil and sharpen it. “Pass me those lamps, would you, Letty? You're off now, are you? You'll have to step out a bit to catch up with Aristidis. Here, take my flashlight. There's still a bit of juice left in it.”

  She sighed with resignation. Then she set off by herself in the twilight to follow the well-known path back down to the village, hearing the merry shouts and conversation of the men half a mile ahead and lower down the hillside.

  Laetitia was distracted from her path by the stunning beauty of the headland. She had never lingered there after sunset but found herself lured past the temple remains and on, almost to the edge of the precipice, tracing the deepest indigo of the eastern sky, through an arc over her head and on to the bronze glimmer that still outlined the rim of the western sea. In the distance she could make out the lights of Herakleion and closer, in the valley bottom, lamps were being lit in the village houses. A chorus of women's voices was raised, musical calls summoning children inside, shouts announcing that supper was ready, fetching in men from the gardens, reassuring, ordinary, and ancient. Somewhere on the hill behind her a goat bell tinkled and from the olive groves below was answered by the coo-coo-vay of the Little Owl of Athena.

  And then the nightingales came onstage. Two of them, calling to each other, as far as she could work out. From this height it sounded like an inspired duet, improvised on the wing over a lemon orchard, a love-lure, liquid and enchanting. The purity pierced through her, bringing shivers and tears and she stumbled, whispering, through a few lines of Keats's ode to the bird:

  “The voice I hear this passing night was heard

  In ancient days by emperor and clown:

  Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

  She stood in tears amid the alien corn…”

  “Bloody birds! Shatter your eardrums! Disputing territory, I shouldn't wonder,” said Gunning's voice in her ear. “Probably just as well we can't understand what they're saying to each other!”

  “Well, I love them! The nightingale's song is so pure it could quench your thirst!”

  “I wish you'd come away from the edge, Letty, you make me nervous.”

  He grabbed her by the arm and tugged her some feet away over to a slab of rock still warm from the sun and, with a cursory “May I?” he sat down beside her.

  So far things were working out as she'd planned, but she remembered that with William Gunning nothing was ever predictable. Any other man of her acquaintance who'd caught her interest would be moving smoothly to whisper in her ear, hold her hand, drape his jacket around her shoulders, and, under cover of it, pass a tentative arm around her waist. It would all lead, at the very least, to a kiss. And here was the man who'd occupied her waking thoughts for the past year hauling her about and subjecting her to a rant against nightingales. Perhaps if she could just keep quiet for long enough he would explain himself. Even confess that he'd got fond of her.

  The unexpected hug the other day had settled two questions. Firstly—her own feelings, about which she had remained confused. She had wrapped her arms around him and held him gladly, not wanting to be separated from him. A fragile thing on which to base your hopes, when your head told you with certainty and frequency that this was a man quite unsuitable for the involvement you had in mind. He was much older than she was—fifteen years, perhaps? He had no money or prospect of ever having any as far as she knew. His past was littered with incidents too dreadful to confide, apparently, and he was still in the throes of an unresolved conflict and conversation with the God he had repudiated on the battlefield.

  He was not a man you could boast about to your friends and family. Her more worldly friends, concerned and puzzled, had delicately suggested a reason for his reticence. “Er, had you thought, my dear, that he may well be a man's man? They do exist, you know…the kind who only seek out male company…overgrown schoolboys, regimental types who never marry. They don't all have the self-knowledge of an Oscar Wilde and some go to the grave never even realising…”

  The hug had been close enough and long enough for Letty to establish that this was not one of Gunning's problems, and had given her hope.

  “Aristidis gone off without you, then? Not like him! Why on earth didn't he wait for you? Would you like me to say something?”

  “No, no! It could be because I told him to go ahead. I was waiting for you. But then I decided I liked my own company better and drifted over here. Thought I'd do a little moon-worship. Commune with the goddess Selene. I don't get much of a chance to be by myself these days, you know. There's always someone dancing attendance…watching…testing…being critical…it can get very annoying.”

  “Yes, chaperonage does cramp your style. I had noticed. Sorry to intrude! I'll leave you to your thoughts.” He was getting to his feet.

  “It's a perfect evening, isn't it?” She caught and held him with a question. “So romantic! I stage-managed it well, don't you think? I calmed the sea to a murmur, I conjured up a full moon, I switched on the nightingale. And here I loiter, misty-eyed, lonely heroine, heart full of longing. And only one thing lacking…”

  “I do know that,” he answered, with a touch of gentleness. “I'm sorry, Letty—I'm not a total insensitive—I do realise how much you must miss him.”

  “Miss him? Miss who?” Letty looked at him in puzzlement as he abandoned his pretence of leaving and settled down by her side again. And then, uncertainly: “Oh! Daniel? My godfather, Daniel, you mean? Well…just occasionally, I suppose. But, William—it's been a year. I was fond of the old feller, as you know, but not so devoted I'd still be standing on a mountainside sorrowing.”

  “Must you always wilfully misunderstand! It can be very tedious! He's not far off—over there to the north. Across the Cretan Sea. You were looking and sighing in just the right direction just now…Why don't you telegraph? He could be at your side in two days.”

  Letty turned a horrified face to him, trying to read his expression. His eyes drained of their bright colour in the twilight, reflected the austere gleam of the moon. They chilled her.

  “William, what on earth are you saying?”

  “That the chap you're teetering on the edge of a cliff, yearning for, is in Athens and just awaiting your summons. Probably had his bag packed for weeks. Your lover! Andrew bloody Merriman!”

  Letty was silent for a very long time.

  “How do you know?” she finally asked him quietly.

  Because your dashing friend Merriman told me himself. And he is not a man to be doubted. When the youngest professor of archaeology at a British university, a man fêted—notorious even—for his gallantry, good looks, and charming character, informs me that he has for some years enjoyed an intimate relationship with the girl I was being employed to keep on the straight and narrow…well…I'm astonished, but I believe him. Andrew was rather drunk at the time he made the confidence, but it's not the sort of thing you invent, even in your cups.”

  He was trying to speak lightly but he could not disguise his hurt and anger. “I'd just spent the summer squiring the young lady around France in accor
dance with her father's wishes, doing my best to keep her from harm and temptation. ‘To be returned virtue and fortune intact’—that was my brief from your doting father, who also, I noted, was thoroughly deceived.”

  “And nearly getting yourself killed in the process, let's not forget,” she said. “Well, since you seem to be making up a charge sheet—”

  “And the notion came to me that I'd been wasting my time. Chasing after a wild goose? Barring the door of the stable from which the horse had already bolted? There must be a phrase to sum up my laughable gullibility. There's certainly a word: dupe.”

  “And these revelations were made during your impromptu party at Fitzroy Gardens, last year, when we got back from Burgundy?” she said in a neutral voice. “Accompanied by a matey dig in the ribs and a knowing chortle, no doubt. I don't wonder you disappeared in the night. But this is not right. It isn't like Andrew to betray a confidence to a man who was virtually a stranger. I don't understand.”

  “It was probably something I said. We sat on together for a while after dinner. We got on well, as a matter of fact. Rather a surprising man, Andrew. Younger than me, twice as presentable, at ease with himself and the world. I liked him. He drew me out and I think I talked about you quite a lot over the brandy. Too much? Perhaps I gave a false impression of…of…our association. I think he over-interpreted the situation and, succumbing to male jealousy, warned me off, speaking of a long-standing affair. All delicately expressed, of course, but—man to man—I'd received a shot across my bows which I couldn't ignore.”

  He hesitated for a moment and decided to add: “I can't be unfair to the man—I'm certain that, had I been young, rich, and well-connected, he would have given me his blessing and kept his mouth shut. But, disreputable unknown that I was, he was doing no more than his duty in protecting you from me. He invited me to spend some time with him to check me out, I do believe. Just in case you were truly in danger.”

  There was no warmth in his slow smile. “Not sure what would have been my fate had he decided I really was a menace, but it would have been uncomfortable. He's a formidable man. But he was taking no chances, and shipped me off to Crete in short order. I was actually grateful to him for the opportunity. And remain so— let me make that clear. Merriman's deeply fond of you, Letty. More than you realise or deserve. And, of course, I had at last an understanding of why you'd insisted on hurrying back to London. Bad of you not to tell me he was to be there.”

  “I didn't know he and father had arrived. And we weren't expected back for several weeks, if you remember.” There was little she could salvage from the situation, but she could at least insist on accuracy.

  After a long silence, Gunning ventured: “Are you going to tell me that Andrew was merely expressing a brandy-fuelled fantasy? That you haven't been indulging in a clandestine affair of an amorous nature for years?”

  “Oh, good lord, William! Sleeping with him, you mean? It's none of your business, but—yes, we have been lovers on and off for a long time now.” She had nothing more to hide, nothing more to lose. The truth came as a relief. And, following on the relief, a surge of recklessness. He had no right to question or criticise her. He wasn't her confessor, not even her friend.

  “I had thought better of you, William. But I see you are ready, like most other men I've met, to judge a woman by her past experience, though the same standards are never applied to your own sex, it seems. None of your fault, Son of the Rectory that you are…” Even in her grim mood, she noticed his shudder at her reference to his past. “And I have to allow that you stepped out of the world ten years ago—again, certainly not your fault. You are to blame for many things, I think, William, but the Great War is not one of them, and you may not yet be aware that the world has gone on spinning. People are no longer what they were. I can only speak for girls of my own background, of course, and yes, I know you despise me for my advantages, but I can tell you—I acknowledge them, I celebrate them, I intend always to make fullest use of them. My friends and I read, we talk, we fight to get ourselves educated, and we claim for ourselves some of the freedoms men have until now kept for themselves. Perhaps you'll allow me to put a suitable reading list in your hand? Marie Stopes, perhaps? Yes, you should start there.”

  “Ah! Married Love? Or has the lady then written a sequel to her first work?” he asked, bitterly. “Unmarried Love?”

  “It started, predictably, in a room over the Café Royal,” she went on, lightening her tone, intending to shock. The gloves were off and she wanted nothing more than to give him a bloody nose. “As these things do. Not very original but an exciting experiment for me. He's an attractive, experienced, amusing, and thoroughly nice man. If he'd been free, I'd have married him. I love him. Many women do. My father never caught on, as far as I know. Fathers are always, I suppose, the last to suspect what their daughters are getting up to. You don't ask but I'll tell you—we were together for purposes of mutual carnal enjoyment—as you would no doubt put it before rinsing your mouth with carbolic—for the last time three weeks before I ran into you in Cambridge.”

  Letty started to get to her feet. “Now, unless you're intending to bend my ear with a reciprocal confession of sin, to which I would listen with some sympathy—we sinners must stick together—I'll be off. This stone we're sitting on is suddenly quite chilly.”

  He made no attempt to rise with her but sat on, glumly looking out to sea. She stood, silent, trying to calm her anger and her heartsickness, deep in thought. A chill wind suddenly swept up from the precipice, waking wreaths of mist from the land, and she shivered. On an impulse she turned around, bent, and kissed his lips. Her first kiss and her last, judging by his cold response. She took him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. “Come on, Mr. Misery! We've only got one flashlight and we've a mile to walk in each other's company. It's too dark to play ‘I Spy’ so you're just going to have to keep up polite conversation all the way down.”

  She passed him the torch and tucked an arm companionably through his. “Now—have you heard the latest gossip to come out of the British School at Rome?” Her tone was intimate and involving. Frivolous flapper-talk. Calculated to annoy. “No? Then prepare yourself for a sensation! Lalage Boyd-Brewster, one of the lady directors—you've heard of her? Fading beauty…did a lot of good work in Mesopotamia?…that Lalage?—has set tongues wagging the breadth of Europe! She's just taken a new lover. And not a female this time…No, no—this latest one is a young Italian man, thirty years her junior!…What do you think of that!…But you take such an interest in prurient gossip, William, I was sure you'd be fascinated…”

  On the point of leaving the headland, she dropped his arm and turned away from him. She stood for a moment, offering wet cheeks to the sky and casting an aggrieved glance at the impassive moon.

  There's a rider on the road!”

  Demetrios's sharp eyes were for a moment distracted from the dig they were about to embark on.

  “Twenty minutes away. Big black horse. Who's this?”

  Aristidis shaded his eyes and stared. “It's the boss. It's Russell,” he said.

  “Coming at quite a lick. Make that ten minutes if he puts the poor beast to the slope,” said Gunning.

  “Theodore? Oh, no! But why would he be coming?” Letty could not suppress her irritation. “He was sent a message yesterday. What did you say, William?”

  “Just what you told me to say. Aristidis's eldest took it down late yesterday afternoon when it became clear we weren't going to finish. I said we were staying on to work through Saturday, returning on Sunday, and staying over at the Europa for the funeral on Monday. I didn't go further and extend an invitation. Wouldn't have thought he'd have the time with so much on his plate at the moment.”

  “Not more bad news? He surely can't be bringing more bad news,” said Letty anxiously. “Didn't you tell me George was doing well?”

  “He's curious. And you can hardly blame him for being intrigued,” said Aristidis. “Let's not forget that the man
is first and foremost an archaeologist. The report you sent would have fetched him back from the brink of hell—or heaven. I think, out of courtesy,” he said, looking around at the diggers, “we should hold off for a few minutes. Let him enjoy the moment—or share in the disappointment—shall we?”

  Letty scowled. Gunning shrugged. The men grounded their spades and each lit another cigarette.

  Theodore came on site, leading his sweating horse, and handed the reins to one of the crew. “Miss Talbot! Laetitia! Top of the morning to you! And William, there you are! Greetings!…Aristidis…” He nodded briefly. “Wonderful! How good it is to be here for what may well be the find of the decade. Thank you for letting me know, William.”

  “If you're in a thanking mood, Theo,” drawled Gunning, “you should direct your thanks to Aristidis. We all should. For letting us dig up his land.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Theodore. “Care to show me around, Aristidis?”

  He had already started on a circuit of the tholos tomb. Aristidis let him complete it by himself.

  “Not much to look at, is it? No wonder it's been ignored for so long. Saw it myself the other week and never thought anything of it. Well spotted, Laetitia! And I see you've exposed a temple or some such? Will you do the honours, William?”

  He inspected the diggings, listening to Gunning's commentary, exclaiming and questioning, intrigued by all he saw.

  Finally, he came back to the group. “Now, you'll all be wanting news of George? With all the excitement up here, I don't expect he's been much on your mind?” he said blandly. He was looking at Gunning when he spoke. The accusation of careless lack of interest was plain.

  It was Aristidis who replied. “William has said a prayer for your son every morning and evening in Ayios Pavlos. I have knelt at his side. And my son Nikolas, who returned at dawn this morning, brought back the news he had requested from Dr. Stoddart.”