The conductor sat in a little kiosk where he issued the tickets and kept order with splendid impartiality. Seeing the priest, he immediately commanded someone to give up his seat, and the priest sat down, gathering his black robes about him. When he was sitting down, Charity found she could watch him more easily than when he had been standing beside her. He was the first Orthodox priest she had ever seen, and she was fascinated by his stove-pipe hat and the completely Byzantine cast to his face. She was amused to notice the way his long hair was neatly knotted and pinned at the back of his head, and wondered if he used the same kind of hair-grips that she used herself, or whether priests had them specially made for them.
The journey passed quickly. At every stop, the conductor would bend forward and mouth some quite incomprehensible name into the microphone, the doors would swish open, and a few passengers would alight and others get in. Charity began to be afraid that she wouldn't recognize Daphni when it came and she began to move closer to
the kiosk, determined to remind him that she wanted to be told where to get out. She need not have worried. When they came to her stop, he reached over the counter in front of him and touched her on the shoulder.
'Daphni!' he announced. She began to push her way towards the door, waiting for it to open and release her. 'Kyria,'he went on, and pointed across the road and down a narrow side-road opposite. 'Daphni!'
She nodded and thanked him 'Efharistol'she called out, wishing that she knew more Greek.
The monastery appeared as a rather forbidding building against the grey sky. There were several trees round the entrance and a taxi waited for some American visitors just inside the gate. Charity smiled at the driver and went on, down a couple of steps, to the ticket office. Hesitantly she inquired in English if she had come to the right place. The woman inside issued her with a ticket and waved a languid hand, ushering her onwards round the monastery.
At first sight, Charity was aware only of disappointment. Was this truly a great example of Byzantine art? It seemed only dark and dreary and extraordinarily difficult to get into. But, once she was inside, she had her first glimpse of the famous mosaic of Christ, so designed that one could stand anywhere in the church and yet the figure of the Pan-tocrator was never upside down. It was a shame that they were busy carrying out repairs to the fabric of the building, for, without lights, the mosaics were flat and dingy, but she felt she had a very good idea of what they had once been like, gleaming with gold, and covering the walls from top to bottom. In the flickering lights of a hundred candles the figures would come to life, providing a rich, wonderful background to the splendid ceremonial of the Orthodox Church.
Glancing at her watch, Charity was surprised to find how quickly the time had passed. She had scarcely given a thought to Colin's interview with Loukos all morning, but
she thought now, staring upwards at the round mosaic of the Pantocrator, of how much she had wanted her own role in life, without being the handmaiden of the rest of her family. Yet here she was, doing her best to gain custody of Alexander, even to the point of agreeing to marry Colin to get him. Being married to Colin was something she had hardly thought about at all. What sort of life would she have? She shivered with cold and the darkness of the interior of the church, and wished that she hadn't thought about it now.
The Americans had left while she had been inside the church and she had the outside completely to herself. A few pillars told that there had once been an even older temple than the Christian one that stood there now. She sat down on one of these pillars and allowed the peace of the place to seep into her, so she was all the more startled when she saw someone coming over the grass towards her and recognized it to be Loukos.
She jumped up, rearranging her face so that he could not notice the mood of self-pity she had drifted into. But of course she didn't bluff him for a moment.
'Thinking of Colin?' he asked her.
'In a way,' she admitted.
'Good. It's time you thought a little further than the wedding ceremony, pedhi.'
She blanketed out the distaste she felt for any closer relationship with Colin than that which she had at the moment. 'Are you going to let us have Alexander?' she asked, not quite looking at him.
'No.' Loukos held out his hands to her and she put hers in his as if by instinct. 'Charity, I can't let Colin have the last say in his upbringing. He doesn't want the child for himself-'
'Why.else should he want him?' Charity cut him off. He was silent for a long moment. 'Perhaps because it means so much to you?' he suggested at last.
But Charity shook her head. 'He doesn't understand at
all,' she burst out, only aware of the truth of this herself as she put it into words. 'He doesn't care about Faith, or that she was my sister, or that Alexander needs - needs someone of his own to take care of him!'
Loukos sat down on a second pillar close by the one she had been sitting on and studied her thoughtfully. 'Then have you asked yourself why Colin wants Alexandros?' he asked, almost casually. 'He was very persuasive when he came to see me this morning. Too persuasive,' he added, dismissing the other man with a gesture of his hand.
''I don't think I want to think about it,' Charity said. 'It's only because you don't like him that you won't let me have Alexander!'
'That isn't true. I would allow you to have him, but Colin is something else again. He would have no sympathy for the Greek side of the boy.' He looked Charity steadily in the eyes. 'We will have no argument about it, my dear. I have decided and you will accept it'
'Why should I?'
He smiled. 'Because it will only make you more miserable each time I refuse you and I suspect you would far rather please me than waste your time setting yourself up against me. True, my Charity?'
'Certainly not!' she gasped.
'How determined you are to deceive yourself, but you do not deceive me!' He reached out a hand and touched her laurel-leaf brooch. 'I am tempted to teach you your true allegiance'
She looked frightened. 'I haven't got Colin with me now!' she reminded him hastily. 'You promised, Loukos!'
He gave a contemptuous jerk to his head. 'Your chosen protector does little to safeguard you when he is with you,' he commented.
'I can look after myself!' she claimed, her cheeks burning for she could not but think that she hadn't made a very good job of it as far as he was concerned.
Apparently he thought so too. 'If you were my yineka,no other man would kiss you and live. And as for you, you would soon be taught the duty you owe the man to whom you belong. You would not kiss another man again!'
'But I didn't kiss you,' she objected. 'You kissed me!' It was not the best argument she could have chosen, she thought miserably. Why, she had practically agreed with him that it was for the man to command and for the woman to obey, and everything else that went with it!
He gave her an ironic look and it was she who looked away. To be loved by Loukos - why, anythingwould be worth that!
'No doubt I would take your obvious reluctance into consideration,' he said dryly.
He had no right to read her mind as if it were an extension of his own, she thought indignantly. It was equally impossible to allow him the last word. ''I don't know what yinekameans,' she complained.
He put a hand under her chin, forcing her to meet the dark brilliance of his eyes. 'No?' he drawled. 'It is something you would very much like to be'
She stamped her foot at him, her heart pounding with a painful excitement. 'How dare you? You don't know anything about what I want! What I've always wanted! My own life, and my own identity to go with it. That's what I want'
He laughed, though his amusement was kindly. 'You want what most women want. A man you can love without shame; a man moreover who would enjoy making you his own. Is that sweetness within you really to be thrown away on this cardboard lover of yours? 'I think not!'
''I -Iwanted Alexander,' she attempted to explain.
His smile was very unnerving to her. 'And no
w that you will not have Alexandros, you will no longer agree to marry this man?'
He was going too fast for her, but she felt impelled to
voice her own doubts about her willingness to marry Colin. 'I don't think so,' she breathed. 'He doesn't seem the same here as he was in England!'
'If you wish to have Alexandros, there is one solution that would enable you to do so. Would you stay in Greece and marry me?'
The hot colour ran up her cheeks. 'But you don't want to marry me! You want someone who wouldn't mind being reduced to being the "woman of your house". A Greekwoman! I want to live my own life'
'The choice is yours!' He gave her a look that was so arrogant in its indifference that she was hurt to the quick.
'If - if I married you, you'd let me have Alexander?'
He nodded distantly.
'If I had Alexander, I promise I wouldn't interfere with you at all,' she pressed on, rubbing her brooch between desperate fingers. 'But I don't see why you should want to.'
His expression softened. 'Don't you? Suppose you leave me to worry about that. Do you want to have Alexander with you enough to marry me?'
His use of her nephew's English name made her look up quickly. The warm brilliance of his eyes jerked at her heart. She was not foolish enough to suppose that he would ever love her and she would have to turn a blind eye to any other liaison he might form, such as the one he had enjoyed with Ariadne. She would be hurt and humiliated by her own jealousy, but at least she would be his wife. She blinked, threading her fingers nervously together. He would not allow her a similar freedom, she knew that without being told. If she married him she would have to forget all about having her own path through life. She would have no choice but to follow him wherever he led. Was that what she wanted?
She turned impulsively towards him. 'Loukos, you do like me a little, don't you?'
He put his arm right round her, drawing her close against him. 'Yes, ylikia,I like you a little. You will be quite safe
with me, you know. I am well able to look after my own.'
She hid her face against his shoulder and found it surprisingly comfortable. He allowed her to stay there for a long time and she was grateful for his understanding, but at last he stirred, making her look up. 'Well, yineka,shall we seal it with a kiss?'
Charity took a deep breath. 'I'll marry you for Alexander,' she said in a voice that sounded quite unlike her own. 'It won't be easy for either of us, but his future has to come first, doesn't it?'
'If you like to put it that way,' he agreed.
She did. She felt it gave a businesslike, impersonal gloss to their future relationship behind which she could hide the melting desire she had to yield to him like wax to a flame. If he had said he loved her But there was no use crying for the moon!
'I'll have to tell Colin,' she went on, trying not to sound as doubtful about that as she felt. 'Did - did he say anything this morning?'
'What he said this morning was between the two of us. If you are wise, my dear, I should remind him that there was no firm engagement between you and therefore you owe him nothing. He is not above taking advantage of any sign of weakness you present to him.'
Charity smiled. 'Why do you dislike him?' she asked.
He gave her a little shake. ''I shall be glad when you are free of him,' he admitted. 'If there is any trouble, Charity, you are to telephone me at once and I shall make it clear to him that you have a family now'
Her smile deepened. 'I'm surprised that you are letting me tell him in the first place,' she teased him.
'If you were a Greek woman, I should not,' he retorted. 'But you will be kinder than I should be, and it was you who brought him to Athens and raised his hopes, so I suppose we owe him something.'
She chuckled. 'I may enjoy saying good-bye to him,' she
began, her eyes wide with mischief.
His laughter filled the cloisters. ''I am not afraid! You are signed and sealed with the badge of Apollo!' He touched her brooch and laughed again. 'Poor Charity, stumbling blindly into the path of the gods, to meet your fate. Colin cannot rescue you now, any more than Theseus could rescue Ariadne from Dionysius.'
It was an allusion that she ought to reject out of hand, she thought, and yet Hadn't Apollo held the Three Graces, the other name for the Fates of the ancient world, in the hollow of his hand, ready to do his bidding?
'I'm only marrying you for Alexander!' she claimed quickly.
He held her by the arms, his fingers biting into her flesh just above the elbows. 'It is your fate to be my yineka,the woman of my house, with or without Alexander. One day I will make you admit as much'
'Never!A woman needs more than'
He cut off her words with a hard kiss on her mouth that reduced her pride to ashes. What would she do if he ever knew how much she wanted him? 'A woman needs a man to cherish her, as I shall cherish you. If she has that, she must learn to be content with the life her husband marks out for her.'
'But it isn't fair!' Charity gasped, completely outraged by his bland assumption that she would allow herself to be subordinate to him for the rest of her life.
But Loukos only smiled, kissing her again with a thoroughness that made it impossible for her to think of anything but her burning need to respond to his firm touch. Her body arched towards his and she was kissing him as much as he was kissing her. She felt his hand on her hair, sliding down to her shoulder and down her back, holding her closer still. 'Oh, Loukos!' she exclaimed brokenly.
He pushed a lock of red hair away from her face, looking at her intently. 'Would you rather that I were less a man?
That I shared your cold ideas on how a man should treat a woman? But 'I am a Greek, my dear, and our ideas of marriage are not the same as yours. The man has his role and the woman hers. A Greek woman doesn't question her husband's right to be master in his house and, married to me, nor will you! It is understood?'
She hid her face against him, wanting him to kiss her again. 'Do you have to spell it out?' she complained. She put her hand on the front of his shirt, wondering at the hard warmth of his body. Her fingers trembled and she took her hand back quickly, a little shocked by the strength of her own emotions.
'Yes,' he said. 'I will not have you saying afterwards that you did not know. Greece is not your permissive society in London. When we marry, we stay married no matter what! So, are you prepared to be a Greek wife and put your whole future in my hands?'
Charity bent her head. 'I'll do anything for Alexander!'
He gave her a sharp, angry shake. 'We are not talking about Alexander'
'Yes!'she burst out. 'Yes, yes, yes!Anything you like!'
He held her away from him, a faint smile touching his lips. 'Was it so hard to say?'
'It wasn't necessary!' she'objected.
'Perhaps not.' He pulled her back into his arms. 'But I think it is better said. I have seen the other way with Faith and Nikos. She would never submit to him, yet her defiance gave her little happiness. I will not have my word questioned and doubted, and my wife made miserable and thinking that to escape coming to terms with me she had only to run away and I will give in to her.I will not have my wife falling to her death because she doesn't know that her place is to wait in my house until I come home to her.' He kissed her cheek and then her mouth, murmuring something in Greek, which she couldn't understand but which she found oddly comforting.
'It's getting late,' she said, when she could say anything at all. 'Isn't Electra expecting us for lunch?'
He kissed her one last time, f ondling the nape of her neck. 'Getting hungry?' he teased her.
The Tower of the Winds Page 13
