Carver's Quest Page 32

  The professor waved the shirt in his hand like a flag of distress. His rage had dissipated. He now looked more forlorn than angry.

  ‘I cannot be certain, Adam,’ he said, ‘but I think not.’

  ‘They have taken no money? No papers?’

  ‘There was little in the room worth the thieving.’

  ‘The professor placed some items in the hotel safe,’ Polly explained. ‘It is, perhaps, a blessing that they were not here.’

  ‘They are of little value,’ Fields said, still awkwardly holding his shirt as if he could think of nowhere to put it. ‘They would have been of no interest to anyone other than a fellow scholar.’ He threw the second shirt to the bed and seemed to feel another burst of rage.

  ‘It is not the loss of any object that is so infuriating,’ he said. ‘It is the thought of some wretch invading my privacy. I thought better of your establishment, Pikopoulos. Can any rascal off the streets of Athens simply march into the Angleterre and rifle through the possessions of your guests?’

  Polly launched himself into a further round of abject apologies. Adam picked up one of the drawers from the writing desk, which had been left lying on the carpet, and slotted it back into place. He looked around in search of the other drawer.

  ‘We could contact the gendarmerie, if you wish, Professor,’ he said.

  ‘A bootless exercise.’ Fields waved the idea aside, much to the hotel manager’s relief, Adam noticed. ‘The Chorophylaki may be of use in chasing bandits through the Attic hills but they will prove of no value in a business like this.’

  ‘I regret to say that the professor is right. They will show little interest in the matter.’ Polly’s anxiety at the thought of gendarmes trampling through his hotel and disturbing his guests was obvious. ‘If nothing has been taken…’ The hotel manager shrugged and left his sentence unfinished. Meanwhile, Adam had found the other drawer from the writing desk, hurled into a far corner of the room, and was now putting it back into position.

  The professor was making short circuits of the room, occasionally picking up one of his scattered belongings and throwing it towards the bed. Some landed there, some fell back to the floor.

  ‘I will send two of the maids to put your room once more into good order,’ Polly said, making towards the door.

  ‘There is no need,’ Fields called after him. The manager stopped and turned towards the two Englishmen; he looked uncertain what he should do next to placate them. ‘I prefer to do it myself.’

  ‘As you wish, Professor.’

  Polly bowed first to Fields and then to Adam before leaving the room.

  * * * * *

  Clouds of tobacco smoke and the sound of half a dozen languages greeted Adam as he pushed open the door to the Oraia Ellas. Quint and the professor followed him into the café. At a table to their left, a group of Italians shouted cheerfully, one to another. Further into the room, three young Frenchmen, students perhaps at the École Française d’Athènes, were engaged in heated political debate. As Adam passed, he heard one of them loudly expressing his disgust with the conduct of Napoleon III and his undying support for Gambetta. He looked about the large, rectangular room that was one of the great gathering places for visitors to the city. As always, the place was noisy and full. Slightly to his surprise, he could see none of his fellow countrymen amongst the crowd of the Oraia Ellas’s customers. Equally surprising was the presence of so many Greeks. Usually, native Athenians left the café to the foreigners, but there was no mistaking the nationality of several knots of young men scattered about the room. A number of them were even dressed in the traditional embroidered jackets and white fustanelles that advertised old-fashioned Greek patriotism. Rather incongruously, two of the men so dressed were bent over a billiards table. Adam smiled to himself as he saw how clumsily the clothing forced them to play. He gestured to one of the waiters behind the wooden counter and led the way towards the only unoccupied table in the place. Even in the short time it took for the Englishmen to make their way to it, Adam was aware of the unexpected hostility hanging in the air of the Oraia Ellas. The café was usually a haven for English visitors but the atmosphere today was significantly less welcoming than usual. He glanced towards his companions but neither Quint nor the professor seemed to have noticed anything different. A plump and extravagantly moustachioed waiter came over to their table, looking acutely uncomfortable, and then scuttled away with their order as quickly as he could. There was no doubt that something was amiss. One of the players at the billiards table had straightened up and was staring insolently at Adam, holding his cue as if it was a hoplite’s spear. Across the noise and smoke, the young man stared back. Eventually, the Greek’s eyes dropped and he returned to his game.

  The door opened again and Rallis entered, accompanied by Andros, attracting the sort of half-admiring, half-astonished attention he got wherever he went. The professor waved and the lawyer, returning the greeting, began to push his way through the crowd.

  ‘The Oraia Ellas is in its usual pandemonium, I see,’ he said, as he took his seat. His giant servant, head almost brushing the ceiling, stood behind the chair.

  ‘A better name for it would be Babel,’ Fields said amiably. ‘Because the language of all the earth is certainly here confounded. Everywhere I turn I hear a different tongue.’

  ‘Not quite all languages today, however,’ Adam commented. ‘Do you notice we are the only English present?’

  Rallis glanced around the room. Adam could see that the lawyer was also surprised by the absence of English faces.

  ‘It is certainly unusual,’ the Greek said thoughtfully. ‘But it is not just your countrymen who are missing from the happy throng.’ He nodded in the direction of the young Frenchmen. ‘It is perhaps also lucky that the café has no German visitor today.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the Gaul and the Prussian are currently at each other’s throats, are they not?’ The professor sounded delighted by the fact. ‘The French, as I understand it from the newspapers at the Angleterre, have shown once again that, when it comes to martial affairs, their bark is worse than their bite.’

  ‘The emperor has gone, I understand,’ Adam said.

  ‘He is no great loss to the stage of European affairs,’ Fields said, seizing hold of the lapels of his jacket as if about to launch upon a lengthy disquisition on international politics.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ Quint said shortly, interrupting before the professor could begin.

  The other three men looked up to find that one of the billiards players, the one who had glared so markedly at Adam, had left the game and was standing over them.

  ‘I spit upon you English,’ he said in English and then very nearly did so. Little yellow blobs of phlegm spattered across the wooden floor close to Adam’s foot. The young man began to rise in outrage from his seat but Rallis stretched out his arm to hold him back.

  ‘Do not rise to his bait, Adam. The man is drunk, I think.’

  Certainly a strong smell of spirits had accompanied the Greek to the table. Rallis began to speak to him in his own language, very rapidly and very angrily.

  The man responded with equal vehemence. Adam, still held back in his chair, could make out snatches of what he said. The names of Herbert and Vyner could be heard amidst the Greek. After a short burst of invective, the man turned on his heel and marched to the counter where the waiters tended the coffee urns. Only then did Rallis release his grip on Adam.

  ‘I should have thrashed the impudent wretch, Rallis,’ the young man said. He was enraged by the insult that had been offered him. Only in the distant days of his childhood, during an argument with the eight-year-old son of his father’s housekeeper, had anyone ever spat at him before. ‘Did you see what he did? Why did you hold me back?’

  ‘I saw how he insulted you. But the Oraia Ellas is no place to fight.’

  ‘Rallis is correct, Adam,’ the professor said. ‘We cannot indulge in brawling in public, no matter what the provocation.’

 
; ‘Why was the man so exercised?’ Adam turned and looked towards the counter where the Greek was laughing with two of his compatriots. Adam was tempted still to stride over to them and knock their wretched heads together. ‘Did I hear something about this Dilessi business?’

  The lawyer nodded. ‘Since the killing of Mr Herbert and Mr Vyner, there has been much anger against the English.’

  ‘Why the devil should that be?’ The young man turned back to Rallis. He had mastered his anger and was now more curious than enraged. ‘It was the English who suffered. Herbert and Vyner were English. They were the ones who were kidnapped by bandits on a perfectly innocent journey to Marathon and then murdered by their captors.’

  ‘Ah, but it is not as simple a story as you think, Adam. There is much resentment in Greece.’

  ‘Resentment? Why should there be resentment?’

  ‘The patriotic Greeks wish that their government should be strong and independent. They do not wish it to be – what do you say? – a puppet of other nations. And yet, as a consequence of the murders, the English say, “Jump!” and our government says, “Yes, sir,” and jumps. The young firebrands – they do not like this.’

  ‘We want only justice,’ Fields said. ‘Someone must pay for the deaths of Herbert and Vyner.’

  ‘Yet, in pursuit of this justice, hundreds of Greeks are now harried or imprisoned in the countryside north towards Dilessi and here in Athens. Very nearly all of them are innocent. This man who insulted us, perhaps his father or his brother is one of those imprisoned.’

  ‘I still cannot see that the English are anything other than victims in the whole sorry story’ – Adam raised his hands in mock surrender – ‘but I am prepared to drop the argument. Quint, go and find out what has happened to the coffee we ordered. The waiter has been gone long enough to prepare a banquet.’

  Quint stood and made his way to the wooden bar where the waiters stood when they were not scurrying between tables with drinks. When Adam glanced over his shoulder a minute later, he saw that his servant had buttonholed the plump waiter who was gesticulating in either excuse or apology.

  ‘The agitation will soon die away, Rallis,’ he said. ‘The men who actually killed poor Herbert and Vyner are under lock and key, are they not? All but they will be released, if they have not been so already, and the country will return to its usual state.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The lawyer looked unconvinced. He seemed about to say more but there were sudden sounds of commotion from across the room. All over the café, faces turned towards their source. Quint was standing by the wooden counter, his fists raised. At his feet a figure in embroidered jacket and white fustanelle was doubled up and writhing on the ground. Fists still high, Quint backed slowly away from the coffee urns and towards the table where his friends were sitting. He kicked out at a chair in his path and it fell to the floor with a clatter. The sound was lost amidst the café’s continuing uproar of voices. Most people had turned back to their drinks. Quint had now stepped backwards as far as the others. He lowered his fists.

  ‘I had to knee him in the gooseberries,’ he explained.

  ‘So we gathered.’

  ‘It was the same cove as gobbed at us. He’d been outside to relieve hisself. When he come back, he started on at me. He give me a shove in the chest, and he spoke ’arsh words about my mother.’

  ‘You never knew your mother, Quint.’

  ‘No,’ the servant conceded, ‘but as the monkey said when he pissed across the carpet, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. So I give him something to bellyache about.’

  ‘I’m not certain it’s his belly of which he will be complaining,’ Adam remarked. ‘But I think perhaps we should forget our coffee.’

  ‘I agree, my boy,’ the professor said. ‘I believe the time has come to beat a strategic retreat.’

  The young Greek patriot, still clutching his groin, was being helped to his feet by his friends. From the four corners of the Oraia Ellas, other Greeks, slowly realising what had happened, began to converge on the injured man. Voices were raised in unmistakeable indignation. A dozen men started in the direction of the English party. Chairs were scattered as they moved purposefully forward. The first man to come within striking distance aimed a clumsy punch which Adam easily ducked. He returned the blow and had the satisfaction of seeing his opponent drop to the floor, holding the side of his face. But others were upon them. Adam glimpsed Quint, a stranger to the boxing code so recently introduced to England by the Marquess of Queensberry, kicking out at two assailants. Rallis and the professor were backing away from another half dozen, holding out their arms in placatory gestures. The lawyer was calling out to them in Greek. Some of the patriots had pulled apart two of the café chairs and were beating broken lengths of wood menacingly on the tables. One man swung a section wrenched from a backrest towards Adam’s thigh, but he was able to dodge it and aim a swift jab at the man’s nose. Another Greek leapt upon his back and began to pull at his ears and hair. Tugging furiously at the man’s arms, Adam was able to roll him sideways and force himself free. He aimed a series of short blows at the man as he fell. He could hear Rallis, abandoning any attempt at peace-making, shouting to his towering servant to enter the fray. Adam was seized from behind and his arms held. Another Greek approached him from the front, grinning evilly. Bidding a reluctant farewell to fair fighting, Adam followed his manservant’s example and kicked out. The man fell to the floor, clutching his knee. Adam pulled one arm free and elbowed the man behind in his stomach. With a whistling intake of breath, his assailant released Adam’s other arm.

  The young man heard the professor’s voice calling out a warning and turned swiftly to his right but he was just too late. He was struck a glancing blow with half the broken leg of a chair and fell to the ground, momentarily stunned. Consciousness deserted him for the briefest of periods. For the span of little more than a minute he was adrift in a dream world of bright colours and enchanting music before a soothing voice, speaking accented but near-perfect English, brought him back to reality.

  ‘There is a side entrance, sir.’ It was the plump waiter, leaning over him. He smiled ingratiatingly. ‘If you will follow me.’

  ‘What of my friends?’ Adam asked, pulling himself to his feet.

  ‘They are already outside.’

  The young man looked over towards the table where they had been sitting. Only Andros was there, standing amidst a chaos of broken furniture. He was in the act of throwing one of the few Greeks still upright in the direction of the Frenchmen. Most of the other patriots were lying on the floor. None showed any inclination to rise again in the near future.

  ‘Just the tall one remains,’ the waiter said.

  ‘He does not appear to require my assistance.’ Adam wiped his hand, bloodied from one of the punches he had delivered, across his brow. He staggered after the waiter, who made his way to a low green door hidden behind a curtain in the corner of the Oraia Ellas. It opened onto the busy street outside where his three friends gathered breath after the fray. None seemed harmed save Quint, whose knuckles were bleeding.

  ‘Ah, you have been able to join us, Adam,’ the professor said, running his hand through what little remained of his hair. ‘We were just beginning to feel a little anxiety for your welfare.’

  ‘Andros will have dealt with our attackers, I assume,’ Rallis said, with perfect confidence in the ability of his servant to have done so.

  ‘Achilles killing the Paionians by the Scamander River could not have presented a more terrifying spectacle than your giant, Rallis.’

  ‘He is a gentle man for the most part but he is a dangerous one to annoy.’

  As the lawyer spoke, there were sounds behind him. Crouching to use a door that seemed designed for men half his size, Andros emerged onto the street. He smiled and nodded his great head at his master.

  ‘Shall we make our way to the Angleterre,’ Rallis asked, ‘now that our little party is complete again? I have yet to partake of my mid-m
orning coffee and I doubt that any of us will be welcome again in the Oraia Ellas in the near future.’

  PART THREE

  THESSALY AND BEYOND

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Quint stared morosely at the mule. The mule stared back. Quint had a wealth of bitter and unhappy memories of mules from his first journey through Macedonia. He had an unpleasant feeling that one more was about to be added to them. In the early morning sunshine, the mule had uncomplainingly allowed him to load it with an assortment of packs and panniers but, once loaded, it had refused point blank to move forward. No kind of cajolement or threat could make it budge an inch. Now, as Quint watched, a long jet of yellow liquid hissed into the ground between the mule’s back legs. It trickled down the slight slope on which the beast was standing and formed two neat pools around Quint’s boots. He swore beneath his breath and looked across to where another mule was tethered. Beyond that equally obstinate animal, he could see the three horses on which the gentlemen of the party rode.

  A dozen yards away, Adam emerged from the blankets in which he had wrapped himself the previous night. He had spent the hours of darkness turning from side to side in the hope that he might chance upon the one posture in which sharp stones did not make their presence felt. He had failed to find it. He had ended by gazing up at the stars. He had wondered whether there were any other creatures up there somewhere in the heavens looking down on the earth and, if there were, whether they were as uncomfortable as he was. He had finally drifted into a fitful doze an hour before sunrise. Now, barely two hours later, a new day was upon him. He yawned and, rising to his feet, trudged towards the small stream beside which they had set up their encampment.

  The giant Greek, Andros, as impassive as a cigar-store Indian, was already standing by the water. He was gazing to the north-east in the direction in which they would have to travel that day. He turned as Adam approached.

  ‘Kakos dromos,’ he said briefly and then walked away.