A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (26 page)

“You noticed it?”

“Miss Truelove, I'm wholly familiar with Mr. Haywood's field of interest. I naturally assumed that some anachronism would exist in this fresco that so fascinated him. And there it was, so obvious as to be laughable. No, the fresco is obviously a fraud, the unskilled effort of a mediocre artist who retains only a superficial understanding of his subject.”

“But why? Why go to such trouble?”

Mr. Higganbotham gave up his olive and nudged the plate
away. “If it weren't for the question of Mr. Haywood, I should say it was a hoax. You would be surprised, Miss Truelove, to see the lengths some men will go for a silly joke.” His eyebrows expressed exactly what he thought of silly jokes.

“But because of Mr. Haywood, you think it's something more sinister.”

“Bait,” he said succinctly.

The same conclusion to which Silverton and I had arrived earlier, but I wanted Mr. Higganbotham to say it on his own. “Bait?” I said innocently. “Bait for what? Why would anyone want to lure Mr. Haywood to Crete?”

“There you have me.” He paused. “Of course, now that I understand he's been made a duke, it casts a different light on the matter.”

“He wasn't
made
a duke. He simply inherited the title when his great-uncle . . .” I felt as if an icy palm had just been laid against my neck.

“When his great-uncle died,” Mr. Higganbotham finished for me.

“Yes. When the previous duke died.”

I thought,
Maybe this isn't about Knossos at all. Maybe we have all been fools.

“Miss Truelove? Are you all right? You look rather pale.”

“Only tired, I'm afraid.” I passed my hand over my eyes and thought,
I must speak to Silverton. I must speak to him at once.
“Such an exhausting day.”

“My God, yes. What an ass I am. Here I sit, rattling on about old myths and frescoes, when you have faced down death today.” He folded his napkin and laid it next to his plate. “I will leave you in peace. Shall I call the maid to clear away the dinner things?”

“Yes, please.”

He smiled and rose from the table. “Do try to eat a little more first, Miss Truelove. You are too slight already.”

I agreed that I would, and Mr. Higganbotham straightened his cuffs and his collar and turned for the door. I stared at my plate. The cold hand had lifted from my nape, but the chill remained under the skin, making my head ache. I lifted my fingers to rub my forehead, and as I did so, I realized that Mr. Higganbotham had not left the room, but instead stood arrested, while his hand gripped the back of the chair.

“Is something wrong, sir?”

He shook his head, as if coming out of a trance. “Nothing, nothing. It's just—for an instant there— No, no. It must be the strain of the day.”

The cold hand returned, exerting an icy pressure on the base of my skull. “For an instant—what?”

“Well, for an instant, I thought I saw a woman, standing there by the hearth, looking rather dismayed.” Another shake of his head, and he stepped to the door. His borrowed jacket hung over his shoulders, a bit too large. He put his hand on the knob and looked back, and the smile he gave me was small and rueful.

“Obviously, I was mistaken.”

As the door closed, I felt a renewed and desperate need to speak to Lord Silverton. I rose from my chair and peered out the single tiny window, but there was only darkness outside, a thick and restless night I could not penetrate, and the glass, when I pressed my fingers against it, was as cold as ice.

A moment later, the landlord himself arrived to clear away the
dinner tray. I inquired after Lord Silverton, and he replied that the English lord had not yet returned to the inn, nor the barmaid with whom his lordship had departed. He said this in a voice just above a growl, which did not bode well for Silverton's health when he did reappear.

“No doubt he will turn up smiling at the breakfast table,” I said, and in the privacy of my own head I added,
Where I shall happily poison his
coffee
.

For two days, the ships sailed north toward Athens under a hot blue sky, while the Lady and the Hero gave thanks to the gods for the blessings that had come upon them, but on the third day the wind grew mighty, and the rain rolled across the sea, and the green waves washed over the decks of the ships.

As the storm tossed the fleet about, the Lady was taken much ill, and so great was her misery that the Hero, fearing for her life and for the tiny babe that grew in her womb, ordered the ships to put ashore on the nearest land, which proved to be the island of Naxos, cradle of Zeus . . .

T
HE
B
OOK
OF
T
IME
, A. M. H
AYWOOD
(1921)

I
woke just before dawn, as suddenly as if I had been dropped from a cliff. The fire had gone out during the night, and the room was damp and chilled. I rose and went to the window to inspect the charcoal world outside. The storm had died away, but the sun had not quite risen, and the nearby rooftops were oily with rain. Around me, the walls and floors of the inn stood still in expectation of daybreak.

I dressed hurriedly in my own now-dry clothes, pinned my hair, and crept down the silent corridor to Silverton's room. There was no answer to my soft knock. I tried again, but he was either absent or heavily asleep.

The barmaid, I knew, was really quite lovely. Like Mrs. Poulakis, she had had dark hair and eyes, and that smooth golden-olive skin, as if she were bred for the sun, though she was taller and less bountifully made, and wore a shapeless brown dress. She had not
flirted with Lord Silverton, however. I remembered thinking that she was a modest young woman, who kept her eyes cast low and her shoulders straight. She hadn't spoken as she fetched the brandy and set out the glasses, and we had taken very little notice of her.

Well. It seemed Silverton had taken notice of her after all, and she had not objected to his interest. The women, it seemed, rarely objected to Lord Silverton.

Did he remember them all? I wondered. Or, over time, did they all blend and merge in his memory, faces and breasts and bottoms all converging into some pleasurable feminine mean, an Ur-woman he could address conveniently in his thoughts by a single name?

Was he still with her? It was a chilly morning, in the dissolution of the storm. I thought again of the Queen's words, and the effects of waking in your lover's embrace in the early dawn. The intimate warmth of someone's skin against yours. The scent, not of perfume or soap or tobacco, but of a man's genuine smell, the salty familiar musk of a human body. I could almost taste it at the back of my throat: the flavor of longing.

I turned away from Silverton's door and marched down the back stairway. I found the common room empty, but the landlord seemed to hear my entrance, for he appeared a short moment later, wiping his hands on the oversized apron that covered him from breast to knee.

His expression was dark. No, the Englishman had not returned, and if the landlord was not mistaken, my other companion had also walked out the door, not ten minutes ago.

Would madam be pleased to break her fast?

I was not pleased, but I sat down anyway. The landlord returned shortly with coffee and fried cakes and dates, and as if the food
itself had found voice and summoned him, Mr. Higganbotham blew through the entrance a moment later.

“Ah! Breakfast,” he said.

“Where have you been?”

He sat down heavily in the chair opposite, smelling sharply of the outdoors, and grasped the coffeepot. “Why, making inquiries. The lads out back, I thought, would know where Silverton's gone. That is to say, they'll know where to find this pretty barmaid of his.”

“Were you right?”

“Yes.” He was piling his plate. “She lives in a cottage just outside of town with her brother, and I shall go there directly after I've had a bite to eat.”

“You?”

He peered up from his work. “Should we send someone else, do you think?”

“I meant that I should go with you.”

“Go
with
me? Miss Truelove!”

“You object?”

Mr. Higganbotham gathered his composure in a mouthful of date, chased down by an enormous gulp of coffee. When he spoke, his voice had taken on the reasonable cadence of a father explaining to a greedy child why he cannot have a second slice of cake. “I could not live with myself, Miss Truelove, if I were to expose you to the sordid scene we are likely to encounter at the house of this
barmaid
.” (As he might say
harlot.
) “Moreover, she is not worthy to have the honor of your notice.”

“Rubbish. I have met his lordship's paramours before, and the experience has had no lasting effect on my moral constitution. Moreover, we have not a single moment to waste on such idiotic considerations.”

“Idiotic? Oh, Miss Truelove—”

“Yes, idiotic. I assure you, my delicate mind is quite up to the task of rousting his lordship out of bed with a wanton barmaid.”

Mr. Higganbotham turned quite pale, and for a moment I thought I should have to call for another bottle of brandy, or perhaps a vial of smelling salts, if such a thing were to be had on an ancient island in the Aegean, peopled by a race long accustomed to hardship.

And do you know, I found it all rather satisfying. If you had told me two weeks ago that I should say such a thing to a man of Mr. Higganbotham's undoubted decency, I should have said it was impossible. But I
had
said it—
roust his lordship out of bed with a wanton barmaid,
good heavens, very brazen—and what was more, I had
relished
the words. I took a mild but unmistakable glee in the expression of pale horror that disfigured poor Mr. Higganbotham's face.

My God, what was happening to me?

I finished my coffee and rose from the table, causing Mr. Higganbotham to throw down his napkin and shoot reflexively upward, as a gentleman ought.

“If you'll excuse me,” I said, quivering with the joy of rebellion, “I shall just fetch my jacket.”

The town was not large, and Mr. Higganbotham had armed himself with a map. At this early hour, the streets were quite empty, though when I looked down the hill to the harbor I saw that the fishing fleet had already left. The
Isolde
's tender bobbed by the southernmost mooring, looking somewhat chastened after its bad behavior the previous day.

“How far outside of town does this barmaid live?” I asked Mr. Higganbotham, as we tramped up the narrow and winding street. The houses were all pale and plain, facing the harbor, and while the air was now light, the sun had not yet reached above the eastern hills to touch the rooftops.

“About a half mile, or so I understood. Beyond the citadel, to the northeast.” He paused, and said reluctantly, as if the information were somehow shameful, “Her name is Desma.”

“How lovely.”

“We must, after all, have something to call her by.”

In the wake of the storm, the air was mild and damp, and the cobbles still wet. The town seemed to be waking up from a long sleep. I walked by Mr. Higganbotham's side, brisk and silent, past the clustered houses and around the shoulder of the hill, until the buildings began to thin and I happened to look down again and see the small islet to the north, connected to the harbor by a narrow causeway, and I stopped short.

“What is that?”

Mr. Higganbotham followed the direction of my pointing finger. “That? Oh, it's the Portara, the lintel of a temple to Apollo that was never finished. Rather extraordinary, isn't it? A single white rectangle, all by itself.”

“How old is it?”

“I believe it was built by the tyrant Lygdamis, in about the sixth century BC. He was overthrown before he could finish it, poor fellow. In any case, this was all perhaps a thousand years after our Minoans flourished on Crete.”

I resumed walking, though I craned my head from time to time, not quite able to leave the sight behind. “What a glorious setting, too. On that little island, like a teardrop.”

“As it happens, the island is not without meaning to our own concerns,” said Mr. Higganbotham. “According to legend, it's where Theseus landed with Ariadne, when bad weather forced them into Naxos.”

I looked back again. “And he left her there.”

“So the myth has it. Then Dionysus happened along, fell in love with her, and brought her up to heaven to marry her. Although according to certain accounts, old Bacchus had already fallen in love with her by the time they reached Naxos, and it was he who ordered Theseus to abandon Ariadne.”

“Leaving the lady no choice in the matter, of course.”

Mr. Higganbotham craned his neck northward. “Homer even has it that she was already married to Dionysus at the time of her elopement. That Theseus only deserted her because Dionysus caught up with them and accused her of adultery.”

“I suppose every generation of storytellers must fit the myth to serve the particular needs of the audience,” I said. “Unlike the study of history, there's no need to convey truth.”

“Why not?”

“Why, because it didn't really happen. It's all made up.”

Mr. Higganbotham didn't reply, and for some time we walked in a comfortable silence, while the Portara disappeared from view behind us. A mild breeze struck my cheek, hinting of spring, but for some reason I could not seem to warm myself properly. Inside my chest, the chill of foreboding had taken hold, and the higher we climbed, the more uneasy I felt, until all at once we came free of the buildings and rounded the shoulder of the slope. The sea stretched off to the left, impossibly blue, while before us meandered the gray-white road, bordered by green grass and the occasional small villa.

I paused to secure my hat more firmly on my head, for the breeze now came briskly off the water. “I presume the lady inhabits one of these houses?” I said, in so detached a voice as I could manage.

“So I understand.”

“Which one?”

“I believe it stands to the right, facing the sea, and there is a distinctive outbuilding, made recently of stone.”

We resumed our walk. The houses looked snug and comfortable, each one trailing a thin, pale stream of smoke from its chimney. The air smelled of salt and grass and burning wood, and the track was still damp and muddy in patches. At one point, a torrent of water had actually washed away a section of road, creating a small ditch of mud and debris. I picked my way around this obstruction, accepting Mr. Higganbotham's assistance for the sake of his pride, and as the short heels of my boots sank into the mess, a thought occurred to me.

I stopped, turned my head to peer behind me at the outskirts of the town, and frowned.

“Is something the matter?” asked Mr. Higganbotham.

“I was only wondering . . .”

“Wondering what?”

“Wondering why Lord Silverton would have put himself to the inconvenience of traveling a mile along a dark and unknown road, in the middle of a midnight tempest, instead of simply repairing upstairs with his companion.” I returned my body to its ordinary forward posture. “Particularly when he had only just dried out from our earlier adventure.”

Mr. Higganbotham shifted his feet and stared into the distance, where our destination presumably lay. “For the sake of discretion, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“She is, I'm told, an especially beautiful woman.”

I resumed walking. Mr. Higganbotham fell in beside me. I said, “But are we not making the same sort of assumption as the scientists at Knossos? Because the barmaid is beautiful, and Silverton is, well,
Silverton
, we accept without question the suggestion that he has gone with her for the sake of pleasure.”

“By God.” Mr. Higganbotham lengthened his stride.

I matched his speed, and then increased it. “And he's been gone for hours now. Nor have we encountered him on the road, returning to town.”

Mr. Higganbotham swore under his breath, unaware, perhaps, of the clarity of the atmosphere following the storm.

We took the next quarter mile almost at a run, until a small white house appeared to the left of the road, set back about fifty yards, flanked by a square structure made of gray volcanic stone. A roof of clean red shingles topped this outbuilding, and Mr. Higganbotham said, wheezing slightly, “This must be it.”

“Yes, that roof looks new, the one on the outbuilding.” I raised my hand to my brow. The sun had risen over the mountains now, white and determined against the blue sky directly ahead.

“It seems rather lifeless, don't you think?” said Mr. Higganbotham. “There's no smoke from the chimney.”

“Perhaps they haven't awoken yet,” I said acidly, but my heart wasn't in it. I struck down the muddy path from the road to the house, not pausing to confirm whether Mr. Higganbotham followed me.