Carver's Quest Read online

  ‘We shall not be going to Larissa.’ Fields spoke with certainty. ‘Or rather, we shall avoid entering the town. Instead, we shall journey through the mountains to the coast, through the pass at Tempe, and then up the coast towards Salonika.’

  ‘And why the devil should we do that, sir?’ Adam asked furiously.

  ‘Ah, Tempe,’ Fields sighed, smiling sweetly as if the young man had not spoken. ‘The place where the peoples of Thessaly once gathered, Adam. For sacrifices, symposia and parties of pleasure. Aelian, you may recall, wrote that sometimes the whole air of the valley was perfumed with incense. I doubt that such aromas will greet us now but there will be much for us to see. And much perhaps for us to discover.’

  Adam realised suddenly that it had not been the writings of Thucydides that had held the professor’s attention earlier in the day.

  ‘You have been reading the Euphorion manuscript as we rode,’ he said.

  In reply, the professor held up a small volume which Adam recognised from the hidden library at the monastery. ‘Entirely correct. Here it is. Written some time in the thirteenth century, I believe. But undoubtedly copied from much earlier manuscripts. Who knows? Perhaps the line of transmission goes back another five hundred years. And now we have it – a little volume, bound in black leather by monastic craftsmen in the last century. So small, so simple to hide.’ The professor laughed at the thought of how easy it had proved for him to carry it from the monastery.

  ‘Your reading of it has suggested this change of plan, I assume.’

  Fields ignored Adam’s remark and asked instead, ‘Did you not wonder why that man Creech was asking you about your visit to Koutles in sixty-seven? I assume he did ask you?’

  ‘Of course I was puzzled by Creech’s interest in that godforsaken spot,’ Adam acknowledged, ‘but what has Koutles to do with the Euphorion manuscript? Is it one of the sites that Euphorion visited?’

  ‘Fifteen years ago, a French scholar named Heuzey travelled in the hills where you and Quint rode.’ The professor once again took no apparent notice of Adam’s questions. ‘He saw what you no doubt saw – that the region is filled with tumuli. He realised the importance of these burial mounds. He returned to dig in them six years later, with money granted to him by that popinjay emperor who has just lost his throne.’ Fields sniffed contemptuously. ‘One of the few deeds of which Napoléon le Petit can be proud.’

  Rallis, who had appeared lost in his own thoughts, suddenly spoke up. ‘Did this Frenchman find anything when he dug in the mounds?’

  ‘Very little. He abandoned his work because of the fear of malaria.’ The professor’s voice suggested that this was exactly the kind of cowardice to be expected from the French. ‘But he was convinced that there was something there to be found.’

  The Greek lawyer nodded as if this merely confirmed what he had already suspected.

  ‘What was to be found?’ Adam asked. ‘Are you talking of the golden treasure of which the Aldine editor wrote? It truly exists?’

  ‘Ah, those are questions I shall leave you to ponder yourself.’ Fields stood and stretched. ‘I am growing weary and there may be days of hectic activity ahead of us. I shall unpack my sleeping bag and retire for the night. I recommend that you should do the same. In the morning, you may feel differently. Unless, of course, like Achilles, you choose to remain sulking in your tent.’

  As the professor walked towards the tree to which Quint had tethered the mules, Adam exchanged a glance with the Greek lawyer.

  ‘I trust you understand that this is none of my doing, Rallis. I had no notion that Fields planned to steal the manuscript.’

  The Greek made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

  ‘The deed is done,’ he said. He pointed out into the night. ‘Let us walk for a while. Away from the fire. It will be easier to talk.’

  The two men stood. Adam glared at Quint, still crouched by the flames, who stared defiantly back. For a moment, it seemed as if the young man might speak again to his manservant but he turned on his heel and strode into the darkness. Rallis followed him. When he had gone a hundred yards from the campfire, Adam stopped and allowed the Greek to draw level with him. In the moonlight, each of them waited for the other to speak.

  ‘The time has come for us both to place our cards on the table, Rallis,’ Adam said eventually. ‘If we are to deal with this new turn of events, we should both be honest with one another.’

  Although it had been his suggestion to talk, the Greek made no reply.

  ‘I had no prior knowledge that the professor was planning to rob the monks of their manuscript. And I do not condone the taking of it.’

  ‘So you have said.’

  ‘And I was speaking the truth. But you have been hiding the truth from me. You have been signalling to someone following us. You have been doing so since we first crossed into European Turkey.’

  The Greek continued to stare across the plain at the distant mountains. For the briefest of moments, Adam wondered if he had not heard him.

  ‘You are right, Adam. I have not been honest with you,’ Rallis said after a further pause, turning towards the young Englishman. ‘I have been obliged to mislead you. The work I am doing has forced me into this – what is the word you English would use? – this subterfuge.’

  ‘The work? What work? I was under the impression that Fields and I had invited you to join us on our travels in search of the Euphorion manuscript. That is the only “work” of which I know.’

  ‘That is the impression I wished you to have,’ the Greek said, with the smallest hint of complacency in his voice.

  ‘What other work could there be?’

  Rallis moved closer to Adam, so close the young Englishman could feel the lawyer’s breath on his face when he spoke.

  ‘Have you any idea how many antiquities, how many treasures of the past, leave my country each year?’ the Greek asked in an almost menacing whisper. ‘How many are lost to the country that produced them and end up in museums and the collections of rich men all across the rest of Europe?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Adam was surprised by the turn the conversation had taken. ‘No one does. The number is incalculable.’

  ‘Exactly. Every visitor takes away with him a part of our nation’s past. I have no doubt that you yourself have transported objects to London. Coins, a vase, a small statue perhaps?’ Rallis’s voice had grown louder but was still little more than a hissing in the darkness. ‘Trophies to adorn your rooms. To remind you of Greece and its former greatness.’ The Greek made a gesture of obvious contempt for those who needed such spoils.

  ‘I have a few mementoes of my travels, yes,’ Adam said uncomfortably, thinking of a statuette of Artemis that was one of his most prized possessions. ‘But, as you say, so does everyone who has ever visited Greece.’

  ‘It cannot continue.’ Rallis spoke with ferocity, suddenly and unexpectedly near to shouting. ‘This looting of our past. Not so much the petty pocketing of objects that you describe’ – he waved his hand to dismiss this – ‘but the wholesale ransacking of sites. The despatching of hundreds and hundreds of objects from Athens to the four corners of Europe for financial gain. That must stop. Otherwise there will be nothing left that we can pass on to future generations of Greeks. Our history will be scattered to the winds.’

  The cool and collected lawyer now spoke with an animation and a vehemence that Adam had never before heard in his voice. Silence fell between the two men when Rallis finished speaking. Adam could hear only the sound of bats flitting through the darkness above their heads. He was left with his own, far from gratifying reflections on what his companion had said.

  ‘I agree with you,’ he said, after a long pause. In truth, he had never given the matter a moment’s thought, but faced by the Greek’s passion, he was now certain that Rallis was correct. ‘What happens is nothing but licensed piracy. But what has it to do with our own journey? Despite what Fields and Quint have done, we are not ransackers or looters. We h
ave taken one old manuscript from a library where, until last year, no one had consulted it in decades. Centuries, possibly.’

  ‘The manuscript is nothing.’ The lawyer almost laughed. ‘It is your precious Professor Fields. Have you really no notion of what the man has been doing?’

  It was clear from the look of puzzlement on Adam’s face that he had not.

  ‘The professor and the man with the crescent moon scar, Samuel Creech. For many years they have been taking the treasures of my country and selling them. Creech lived in Athens until recently. He sent boxes and boxes of objects to Fields in Cambridge. And Fields sold them. To collectors around England.’

  ‘Fields was working with Creech!’ Adam could not contain his astonishment.

  The lawyer nodded.

  ‘But he has never spoken to me of knowing the man.’ Adam was bewildered. ‘He has not once suggested that he had even heard Creech’s name before I mentioned it to him. Indeed, he denied knowing him.’

  Rallis made a movement that was halfway between a shrug and a bow. Its implication was clear. Why, it said, would Fields do anything other than keep quiet?

  ‘He needed you, Adam. Creech was dead. He needed a new partner to travel with him in search of the manuscript.’

  ‘He knew about the Euphorion manuscript long before my visit to Cambridge.’

  ‘Almost certainly. Creech would have told him of its existence. Although I think perhaps that the man with the scar had not said where it could be found.’

  Adam thought for a minute. Was this Greek lawyer to be trusted? Could all of what he said be true? If it was, then most of what he believed about Fields’s character would be wrong. Perhaps it was Rallis himself he should doubt. It was Rallis who had been signalling to unknown confederates from the monastery heights. It was Rallis who had already fallen under suspicion during their journey. Why should Adam believe him now?

  ‘Even assuming that what you tell me is true,’ he said eventually, ‘Creech and the professor were doing nothing illegal. You have no laws in Greece to prevent this.’

  ‘For the present, no,’ Rallis acknowledged. ‘But that will change. That is my work. To gather the evidence to persuade my government that laws must be enacted. To prevent the trade in our past by people like Fields.’

  Adam stood for a long time, struggling to assimilate all that the Greek lawyer had told him. It was painful to do so. From the very beginning, it would seem, he had been a dupe. The professor had apparently gulled Adam into believing that he knew nothing of Euphorion when, all along, he had been aware of the manuscript and what it might contain. Fields had wanted a companion to assist him in finding it and he had tricked his young friend into playing that role. Adam could now do nothing but contemplate his own foolishness. He was angry with Fields but even more with himself.

  ‘The people to whom you have been signalling,’ he said, after a minute or two had passed. ‘They are in your employ?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. They are what you English would call brigands. But they have been following my instructions and I have been paying them.’

  ‘You have been paying brigands to follow us?’

  ‘You are shocked, Adam.’ Rallis smiled. ‘The thought of employing thieves and cut-throats offends your delicate sensibilities. But the reality of life here in Greece is more complicated than you English believe. The politicians in Athens say that brigandage no longer flourishes. Everyone knows that is a lie. Many of the greatest brigands are paid money by those very politicians. Are they paid money to give up their robberies and their murders? No – they are paid money to threaten and to scare the opponents of those politicians. I have merely chosen to pay some of those same men for more peaceful purposes.’

  ‘But why the charade when we first arrived in Thessaly? Why did that man Lascarides and his men search our baggage and leave us without horses?’

  Rallis shrugged. ‘I believed – I still believe – that Fields has records of his transactions with Creech. Of at least some of the antiquities they stole and transported from my country. If I had these records, they would assist me greatly in my campaign. I looked for them in Athens.’

  ‘It was you who turned the professor’s room at the Angleterre upside down?’

  ‘While you were waiting for me at the Oraia Ellas.’ Rallis nodded in acknowledgement of his responsibility. ‘I found nothing.’

  ‘So you decided that you would try again when our journey had begun.’

  ‘Yes, but I could not very easily search his bags myself. And, if I found anything, I could not take it. Fields would have known immediately that I was the thief. I decided that the most convenient method was to use Lascarides. If he searched and found, he could take. What else would a brigand do? He was instructed to take the horses. I needed to persuade you that his ambush was a genuine one.’

  ‘But he did not find the documents you wanted in the professor’s belongings?’

  ‘No, he did not. Either Fields has left them in Athens or they are on his person. Together with Euphorion.’

  Adam was silent again as he thought through the lawyer’s words. Rallis might be telling him the truth, but in the absence of the documents which the Athenian had sought, he could not prove it. Was Adam to believe him or to trust instead in the honesty of his old teacher? Once, the answer to the question would have been easy, but after the revelation about the theft of the Euphorion manuscript, he was no longer so certain of Fields’s integrity.

  ‘The rifle shots as I was being hauled up to the monastery in that confounded net,’ he said at last. ‘That was Lascarides as well, I presume.’

  ‘I can only apologise once more, Adam. He was acting on his own initiative. I instructed him to continue to follow us. He chose to fire on you. To scare you, I think, no more. It was probably his idea of a joke. I am assuming that you saw Andros and myself in the courtyard on the first night we stayed at the monastery?’

  Adam nodded.

  ‘I was ordering him to shoot no more. Under any circumstances.’

  ‘By lantern?’ the young Englishman asked sceptically. ‘A difficult message to convey, surely?’

  ‘Over the years, these brigand bands have developed a means of communicating across the hills by lights alone. You would be surprised by its sophistication.’

  ‘Are Lascarides and his men still close by us?’ Adam peered into the night, half expecting to see shadowy figures on horseback riding through the trees. The Greek shook his head.

  ‘Alas, they are on their way back to their homes. Men such as they – they do not much respect the borders that politicians and diplomats impose, but they were growing nervous of travelling so far into European Turkey. They wished to return and I decided that I had no further use for them. I am now regretting that I did so.’

  ‘What does all this mean, Rallis?’ Adam sounded almost plaintive. ‘Fields knows more than he has told me. You know more than you have told me. Sometimes, damn it, I believe that Quint and Andros know more than they have told me. What is this golden treasure of which Euphorion wrote?’

  ‘Do you recall anything of the tombs of the ancient Macedonian kings, my friend?’

  Adam looked at the Greek in surprise.

  ‘The tomb of Alexander? It was in Alexandria. Destroyed by the Mahometans centuries ago, was it not?’

  ‘Not Alexander’s tomb. Those of his ancestors. Of his father Philip and of even earlier kings.’

  ‘They are lost as well, surely? No one now can know where they lie buried. They went to their graves centuries before the birth of Christ.’

  ‘But what if someone did know where those graves lie? Would that not be a secret worth having?’ Rallis seized Adam by the arm. ‘And would that not be a “golden treasure” worth possessing?’

  ‘You are telling me that the manuscript contains information about the whereabouts of Philip of Macedon’s tomb?’

  ‘I believe so. The man Creech believed so. Your friend the professor believes so.’

&nb
sp; Rallis released Adam’s arm from his grasp and stepped back, satisfied with the effect of his words on the young man. His head whirling, Adam walked a few steps further into the night. Could Creech and Fields be right? Could the Macedonian kings be buried close to the villages he and Quint had visited three years ago? Could a manuscript lead them to the tombs? Philip of Mace-don had died in the fourth century before Christ. Euphorion had visited the region nearly five hundred years later but perhaps some folk memory of the burial sites had survived the centuries for him to record. Adam turned to face the Greek again.

  ‘And Fields plans to exacavate the tomb?’ he asked.

  ‘And ship its contents back to England. I cannot allow this to happen.’

  ‘What are we to do? Does he suspect that you are watching him?’ As soon as he spoke, Adam remembered the earlier conversation with Fields in which the professor had hinted at doubts about the lawyer. He wondered whether or not to report this to Rallis but decided against it.

  ‘Perhaps, but I do not think so. Luckily, it was you who saw me in the monastery courtyard. And your man Quint. Can we trust Quint to say nothing to the professor?’

  Adam paused a moment before replying.

  ‘An hour ago, I would have vouched for Quint’s silence immediately,’ he said. ‘But his part in the theft of the manuscript gives me reason to doubt him.’

  ‘I do not think that you should do so. I think that he took the Euphorion because he thought it was what you wanted as well as the professor. But you must speak to him at the first opportunity. Insist to him that he says nothing of seeing me signalling to Lascarides.’

  Adam wondered whether or not his insisting upon anything would significantly influence Quint’s behaviour but he nodded in agreement.

  ‘We have, I think, few options but to travel northwards with Fields,’ Rallis said. ‘It is what he is assuming we will do.’

  ‘Can we not force him to go with us to Larissa? Or dispossess him of the manuscript? He is but one man against four. The Euphorion manuscript could be ours before we all retire to our beds tonight.’ Even as he spoke, Adam wondered how circumstances could have so much changed that he was talking seriously of acting in such a way towards the professor.