The Fox Knows Many Things: An Athena Fox Adventure

by Mike Sweeney

  Robert waited to speak until we had privacy again. “‘Oans, zwoa…?’ You sure you’ve never been in Bavaria before? That was pretty decent Bayern.” He touched my cheek. “You are sad. Homesick?”

  “Not sad.” I shook my head. “Happy. I’m a performer, Robert. It’s in the blood. This is the best Oktoberfest I could possibly have had.”

  “You aren’t as selfish as you think you are,” he disagreed.

  I sighed deeply. “How good a friend is this partner of yours?”

  He responded with nothing more than a kind twinkle. “That’s the medication talking.”

  “That’s frustration talking,” I said. Tried not to pout. “A girl has needs.”

  “Come.” He clapped my shoulder with a friendly, partner’s hand. “Let’s see how good you are with a full sheet of German lyrics.”

  Part III

  La Donna é Andare

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT HAD BEEN with regret that I boarded the train again. This “If this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium” stuff got old fast. I hadn’t even found out until after I’d finally been released and Robert had gotten me safely back to the hotel that there was an entire separate section of the Wiesn devoted to the historical Oktoberfest. Old-style tents and turn-of-the-century carnival games. More history I’d missed.

  I did make a point of spending a few hours at the fabulous Egyptian museum in Munich the next day. Call it getting back to my roots. There was so much history that was so close. Neuschwanstein, Mad King Ludwig’s gingerbread castle, was only a couple hours away. Or go the opposite direction (in more ways than one) and visit Dachau. Cross the border into Austria because Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart, was just that close. Or go across the mountains the movie would lead you to believe Maria had unwisely chosen and you’d be just about at the Eagle’s Nest.

  And I’d finally had a proper Frühstück. When you asked for a continental breakfast in the States someone wheeled by a cart with instant coffee and a couple of stale donuts. This was a huge buffet of cold cuts, fresh-baked bread, muesli, yoghurt, eggs, and of course sausages. Small, cold, breakfast sausages. Those were at least safe for me to eat, unlike the yoghurt. Nothing fermented for two weeks? Were they serious?

  I’d love to stay in Germany. I’d love to come back. But right now I needed to be back in Athens. My stuff was all in Athens. My vacation was in Athens.

  The meaning of the sherd was in Athens.

  This was one of the newer DB trains; no private compartments. I snagged one of the seats that faced in pairs across a table. This was a day trip. No more hurtling through the unseen night.

  That was a big difference about trains. Trains were older. Cities grew up along the trackways. The highway system that stretched across the US detoured around everything and was walled away from the life of the land it passed through. You could drive through state after state and see little but the ribbon of blacktop in front of you.

  The train passed villages and farms and factories, commuters and commerce. It was all out there, an ever-changing world with new sights rolling into view with every curve of the rail.

  We were still in the big-city sprawl, the factories and car parks and auto shops and junkyards; the same overhead wires and drab concrete, rust-streaked corrugated steel and wind-blown trash silting up the feet of fences that you’d see in any part of the developed world. Only the language changed — and in the ever-present graffiti, even that was hard to tell.

  There was a term, “Paris Syndrome.” Apparently Japanese tourists had been suffering culture shock when they landed at Charles de Gaulle and didn’t find quaint old-fashioned European buildings, beautiful and friendly people and music everywhere. They hadn’t been prepared for a living, modern city with factories and banks, brokers and pickpockets, traffic and advertising.

  I felt for them. I’d been so focused on the Acropolis I hadn’t really had a chance to decide if Athens fell short of my expectations. Or maybe I was just too much the anthropologist; suspending opinion, passively collecting data, only tentatively forming hypothesis after hypothesis.

  Or maybe it was because I’d been in a big Western-style hotel, cocooned among fellow tourists. It was one of the great ironies of travel. You spent most of your time around other tourists. Your fellow tourists shared your interests. Shared a language, often. And you were both on vacation. The locals had a day job to get to.

  A castle brooded on a hill, so high above what was now urban sprawl and with walls so sheer it brutally underlined the ancient mechanics of power. Or not so ancient. The castles might look different now but ruthless power and sheer stone still remained. That was another thing that was true across the world.

  I was so very, very glad I didn’t have to deal with the bags I’d arrived in Athens with. The Germans were nuts about walking. Many of the train stations were decorated by long flights of stairs with even longer walks from one platform to another, and it would have been horrendous to try to do all of that dragging eighty pounds of luggage behind me on tiny squeaking plastic wheels.

  I was still wearing the Athena Fox outfit (now much cleaner). It was comfortable and hard-wearing and I was really getting used to it. It had that sort of travel-casual style about it, a kind of Rick Steves look now that I thought about it.

  I had books on Kindle IOS and a camera in the back of the phone and two different map aps with full GPS and as long as I didn’t run out of battery power again I was set. Comb and toothbrush, clean socks, panty liner, emergency toilet paper (you learned that trick in a hurry) and a few more necessities and it all fit, barely, into the leather bag I’d gotten in Ebernburg.

  It put it on top of the little table and fished out the phone. Drea responded almost immediately.

  Aren’t you going to ask about Oktoberfest? I texted.

  I don’t have to ask. I saw. That boy you were dancing with looked cute. Did you take him home?

  Say what now? Oh, please don’t tell me you got more video!

  She had. Apparently there’d been an HD web cam in the tent where I’d met the New Zealanders. Someone had done some nice detective work finding a good sequence with me in it. Oh, who could that “someone” be? And that wasn’t the only link. Damn. I hadn’t even noticed a camera during the sing at the Red Cross tent.

  Give me a moment here, I told Drea.

  It took more than a moment to find it all. I had to crawl into some of the uglier corners of the interwebs but apparently the fox was out of the bag. They’d named Athena Fox as the mystery woman at the Rotenfels dig. According to the accounts that were drifting around, she’d survived an attempt on her life and escaped with the key artifact. Next she’d been undercover in Munich. Even a poisoning attempt couldn’t bring her down; she’d finished up by volunteering to cheer up lost children at the Red Cross!

  I’d cross the Styx into Hades before I linked any of this back to Drea. She’d already confused the role with reality. All she needed was to see how the legend was growing.

  Vash had his revenge big time.

  Except this wasn’t really revenge. He was still using me, of course. The bigger Sharpe’s theory got, the bigger he looked for supporting it.

  I thought back to the outfit he’d worn at the Hacker Festzelt. That had been a very nice pair of lederhosen. Fine stitching and fully embossed. I’d seen the prices at the rental shop. His outfit would have set him back a considerable number of euros. In a weird way, he was a sort of Influencer. What he sold was misogyny and pseudo-science and race hatred, but it got him the money to support his lifestyle. It was an insight I wasn’t sure I welcomed. Vash wasn’t an ally I’d ever want. But I wanted him as an enemy even less.

  I couldn’t stand all this inaction. Got up and strolled the length of the train. Twice. I was still feeling weak but it was all coming back. And, no, I didn’t spot anyone suspicious. I’m not sure I’d be able to. But if there is one thing the excitement in Munich had taught me, it was that I needed to be a hell of a lot more paranoid.
r />   Refreshed, I settled back in my seat to watch the scenery.

  The slope of the land had gotten steadily more obvious as we approached the mountains around the border. We were up where snow had recently fallen, frosting the land with white like a Currier and Ives print. The evergreens seemed almost black against the white. It was deeply wooded, long stretches of unbroken forest rolling over the craggy hills. Behind them, the pale shapes of serious mountains were beginning to loom.

  Farm vehicles were parked by rude sheds, wires hung loosely from poles. It looked nothing like West Virginia, but I could still feel the struggle to make a living, the cold and the hard work. It should have been no surprise that the songs would translate as well.

  We passed into a long tunnel. Complete darkness outside. My face looked back from the window. I looked, for a moment wondering if it was really me that looked back from under that fedora.

  Now the serious slopes began, climbing up so steeply I couldn’t see the tops without pressing my face against the window. The trees were a solid mass. The mountains in the distance were now rising stark and challenging in sheer stone and icy white. Trees tall and straight framed the right-of-way — ridgepole pines perhaps?

  The mountains were amazing. On the flight to Athens I’d sensed a little of the sheer scale of our world. Here, it was from a ground level. The peaks rose in sheer harsh stone around me, mists winding about them to emphasize their size and distance and the bone-chilling conditions. I shivered in sympathy.

  There was so much to this world. So many peaks reachable only with the extremes of physical effort and skill, so many green valleys hidden between them and waiting for discovery. It filled me with a fire to climb, to ride, to soar, to pit myself against the snow and ice, to stand among the tall trees.

  Some hours later the descent began, green returning to the world as we left the Alps behind and descended into the warmth of Italy. But those mountains, those mountains I would remember always.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ON EVERY SIDE were quaint old-fashioned European buildings and friendly people. There was even music in the background. It was also dark out.

  Ciao, I typed, working on a thin-crust pizza.

  When did you learn to speak Italian?

  That would be half of what I know, I replied. Fortunately, the menu had been in English. They’d even had spaghetti and meatballs. A little bird, or maybe it was a polite cough, convinced me to skip over that. That’s when I thought of asking the guy how to say, “Hello” and “Thank you.”

  One moment, I sent. I slipped the bag back over my shoulder to look for the bathroom. Um, would it be “W.C.” here as well? Never mind; the same attentive man had seen me looking and had pointed the way.

  Two identical doors. Signori, one said. Signore, the other. I sighed. I should have continued the Italian lesson.

  I picked Signori and pushed on in. Saw unfamiliar fixtures attached to the wall. Backed out again. Language lesson achieved! A young man with dark curly hair gave me an odd look and pushed past me. He seemed to be in more of a hurry than I was.

  So how is Venice? Drea was waiting when I returned.

  I’ll let you know. I’m in Verona.

  What happened to Venice?

  Railway strike. In Rome I think. Nobody seemed to know so I gave up and got a room for the night.

  Thanks to the ap. I shuddered to think of trying to negotiate that in Italian. But then, considering I’d been stranded at nine at night in a strange town somewhere in the boot top of Italy, and I didn’t speak a word that wasn’t a bowing instruction for the violin, I didn’t think I’d done that badly so far.

  In the morning I did some exploring. Turns out the Arena wasn’t far from where I was. Maybe the Romans weren’t really my thing, but a full Roman amphitheatre from the first century? No way I’d miss that. That warm Tuscan sun…Tuscan? Was that the right part of Italy? Tuscan came from Etruscan, right? But they predated the Romans so what help was that?

  Boots and slacks and a long-sleeved shirt and a hat to keep out the sun — whatever sun it was — was great gear to explore in. I walked all over the amphitheatre, from high tiers down to the temporary music stage and the padded red chairs set out where there would have been gladiator games or whatever they had here before.

  If by before you meant last week, it had been someone named Claudio Baglioni. Pop music, I think. Handsome looking guy, from the posters.

  And that wasn’t even the only Roman ruin in town. This was great! I liked history, all of history, but the ancient world had a particular attraction to me. Classical Greece and Rome (as lousy as my scholarship was on those two), the Minoans, and of course Ancient Egypt. I could get lost here so easily.

  And I had to visit Juliet’s Balcony. Right town, but otherwise entirely fictitious. Not that it had stopped thousands and thousands of visitors from pairing so many names and drawing so many hearts on the walls of the short tunnel leading into the walled garden the stone was almost black. There was a bronze of the Shakespearian heroine in the garden, darkened with age and elements except for one boob that shone bright gold in the sunlight as if burnished by many hands. I really wasn’t sure I wanted to know. They did know she was, like, thirteen, right?

  There were several tourists crowded under the balcony, cameras out. I’ll bet even more of them flocked here later to get a picture in the proper romantic moonlight. There was a babble of voices, mostly in English.

  “Romeo, oh Romeo!” I heard a teen exclaim, hand shading his eyes as he looked around. “Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

  I sighed, exasperated despite myself. “It means ‘why,’” I said. Louder than I’d meant to.

  “What?” Faces were looking my way. I shrugged. In for a florin…

  “No, ‘why,’” I declaimed, in the strong, carrying voice of a stage actor. “Juliet isn’t looking for Romeo, she’s asking why he had to be born a Montague and she a Capulet. It’s in the very next line; ‘Deny thy father and refuse thy name!’”

  “Oh, come on.” The teen was getting belligerent. His parents and friends weren’t any happier. “What does it matter? Who are you anyhow?”

  “It’s the very heart of the play! Why celebrate it, quote from it, visit a part of its history and not understand what Shakespeare is saying? ‘What is a Montague? It is not hand or foot or eye or any other part belonging to a man.’ It is a play about two people being kept apart by labels, by old hatreds that have nothing to do with them.”

  Or it is about how two hormonal teenagers can totally fuck up their lives. But I wasn’t going to tell them that.

  “Amore,” a young man jumped in. Italian accent. “Love conquers all.”

  Well, it had certainly left enough bodies. Seriously, RJ had a kill count up there with Hamlet. But I would take what I could get.

  “Yes.” I smiled back at him. “Romeo stands there, under the balcony, and he calls up to Juliet; ‘Call me but love and I’ll be new-baptized.’ What’s in a name, after all? A rose by any other name…”

  “…would smell as sweet.” He didn’t pick up the cue line as smoothly as I would have liked, but it was done. I sketched a deep stage bow and got out of there.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “BUONGIORNO!”

  Giulio raised his eyebrows. “Salve,” he returned.

  I resisted a grin. By this time I’d figured out it was a semi-formal greeting, but every time I heard it I pictured a Centurion giving a Roman salute.

  I’d been expecting him to be friendlier. He seemed oddly reticent, almost wary, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  I saw him realize this. “Come stai?” he added belatedly.

  “Sto bene, grazie.” I’d learned that much, at least. “Um…E Tu?”

  He coughed, a small smile breaking through. “You surprise me again,” he said. “I change my mind,” he said suddenly. “This way. Come, come.”

  He’d asked me to meet him at a restaurant about twenty minutes from what’d I’d been told was
the Padova Centrale; the main rail station.

  Padua was a working town, a prosperous town, close enough to Venice to be considered part of one huge conurbation around where the rear cuff of the boot of Italy would be. Giulio had picked an older, more historic looking quarter not far from the University.

  We had been in front of a bright, modern place. Soul Food had a sign in neon colors and a younger crowd having a late lunch that seemed to specialize in hamburgers.

  Instead he led me through a couple of small piazzas, where stalls were marshaled together under white awnings to sell fruit and vegetables. There were arched walkways everywhere, some with colonnades, even on side streets that seemed too narrow for it. It was a cramped, worn-looking district, and I wondered at its history.

  He went directly for a place called L’Anfora. Small, dark wood, the menus were handwritten and were much shorter.

  “I used to work near, on Via Soncin,” he said. “The wine is good. Do not ask about the polenta. Better, do not speak at all about the polenta.”

  “I think I will let you order,” I grinned. “No wine,” I had to add.

  He did. After that the silence stretched uncomfortably. “How are you now in Italy?” He was making conversation.

  “I went to Germany,” I told him. “That dig they were talking about at Ariadne’s gallery. Decided,” I was really applying the soft pedal on that one, “to take the train back.”

  He livened up at that. “It is very beautiful over the mountains,” he said.

  “Yes.” I wondered if I could ever truly communicate that moment to anyone.

  The food came. He pressed me again about the wine. “The house wine is good. In the bottle, even better. The selection is large.”

  He didn’t even have to gesture. Selection indeed. Every wall held racks of bottles.