Authors: Nick Rennison
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.’
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.
‘That is true but then what would we do? Retrace our steps to Meteora? Bury the secret of the treasure in Agios Andreas once more?’ Rallis waved his hand dismissively at the thought.
‘Euphorion is telling us where the tomb of Philip of Macedon is to be found. I believe that we should listen to him. If we do not, then others eventually will.’
Behind them came the sudden sound of voices and shouting. The professor had returned to the campfire and was calling to Adam.
‘We should go back,’ Rallis said. ‘The professor has allowed us these moments of discussion, I think, but he is anxious to know what we propose to do. Shall we tell him that we
travel with him?’
Adam needed little time to make a decision. As the Greek said, and as Fields had known, there were few alternatives.
‘Onward to Macedonia then,’ he said, and strode back towards the fire.
M
uch more of this digging and they’ll be measuring me up for a wooden suit,’ Quint said bitterly, throwing aside his spade.
‘Fear not, Quint. Those bones of yours will never be laid to rest so far from London.’
Adam’s manservant was not listening to him. He had crouched to the ground and was scrabbling amidst the earth he had just upturned. He pulled something from the soil and held it up.
‘What’s this, do you reckon?’ He sounded momentarily excited, as if he had chanced upon something new, but his voice soon fell. ‘It’s just another coin of some
sort, ain’t it?’
‘We have found enough of those, have we not? And the villagers probably dig them up by the thousands when they plough.’ Adam took the dirt-encrusted object out of Quint’s hands
and held it up to the light, angling it so that the sun would fall on its face. He brushed some of the soil from it. ‘It has a figure on it. Heracles, I think.’
‘He’s ’itting something,’ Quint said, standing and peering at the coin.
‘Heracles spent much of his career hitting things. It was his special skill.’
‘It’s a lion. ’E’s ’itting a lion.’
‘The Nemean lion. The first of his labours. Heracles was forced to club the lion to death when his arrows failed to kill it. He stunned it and then strangled it.’
Quint whistled. ‘’E must ’ave been stronger than the Great Sam-soni,’ he said, with a note of respect in his voice.
‘The Great Samsoni?’
‘Cove I saw in a circus once down Lambeth way. ’E lifted an ’orse above his ’ead.’
‘A horse? Are you sure, Quint?’
‘A small ’orse,’ Quint admitted.
‘Well, there are no records of Heracles juggling horses above his head. At least none of which I am aware. But lions he could slaughter with ease. Once the Nemean lion was dead, he used
its own claws to strip it of its pelt.’
Adam pocketed the coin. For a moment, it seemed as if Quint might protest as his master took possession of an object he had found but he decided against it. Instead, he picked up the spade from
where he had thrown it. The two men began to dig again.
* * * * *
Two weeks had passed since the night by the campfire when Professor Fields had revealed the theft of the Euphorion manuscript. Adam still felt very angry over the deception
Fields had practised upon him. Indeed, in his darker moments, he regarded the professor’s behaviour as tantamount to a betrayal of their friendship. Yet he had reined in his feelings. He had
deemed it politic not to take issue with Fields. He had not even informed him that he now knew of his apparent association with Creech. What, he told himself, were the choices before him? They were
either going to find the treasure of which Euphorion had written or they were not. Either way, it would be best to wait upon developments. Fields clearly had some agenda of his own, and he would no
doubt pursue it regardless of Adam’s opinions on the ethics of doing so. And the young man was still unsure of Rallis. Were the Greek lawyer’s revelations about Fields and Creech and
their role in smuggling works of art out of the country entirely to be trusted? Adam remained unconvinced that his former tutor would involve himself in such basely mercantile transactions. The man
was, first and foremost, a scholar. Although nothing, of course, was certain: the more he saw of Fields on this expedition, Adam had to admit, the more he felt that he did not really know the
professor and never had done.
As for Quint’s involvement in the theft of the manuscript, this matter was at least more straightforward. Adam’s initial anger and outrage towards his manservant had soon dissipated.
Quint had explained at great, even tedious, length that he had only done what he had done because he had thought it the best course of action. No servant, he had maintained with a look of injured
innocence, had ever been more attentive to his master’s needs than he and look at the thanks he got. Adam had taken his protestations of good faith with a pinch of salt but he had come to
accept Quint’s blunt arguments about the Euphorion manuscript: the theft of the book, however injurious to the monks of Agios Andreas and however ungrateful in the light of their hospitality,
was a
fait accompli
.
They had made their way northwards by a circuitous route. In the first week, they had circled the city of Larissa, admiring from afar its minarets glittering in the noonday sun. They had moved
on and, a day later, entered the Vale of Tempe. Cliffs had towered above them on either side of the ravine, surmounted by the ruins of two ancient fortresses which had once commanded the pass. For
a further day they had journeyed through the valley. As they rode, Fields had explained what he had discovered in the pages of the volume he had stolen from Agios Andreas. On two occasions, he had
even allowed Adam and Rallis to take the manuscript from him and read it themselves. The ancient Greek geographer had not only known that a treasure existed in the Macedonian hills. He had
travelled in those same hills a few centuries after it had been buried there with the remains of the Macedonian kings. He had spoken to the peasants who lived there and listened to their legends of
what lay beneath the tumuli in their native land. He had noted with remarkable precision the site which they claimed held the gold of the ancients.
‘How can we know that he was writing the truth?’ Adam had wanted to know, as the travellers had emerged from the Vale of Tempe and led the mules over a stone bridge across a
meandering stream. ‘How can we know that his informants had any real idea of what was buried? Perhaps the treasure was dug up long ago and long since disappeared? Although can we even be
certain that Philip was able to get his hands on gold?’
Fields had handed the reins of his mule to Quint and crouched by the little bridge, peering closely at its stones.
‘Probably a work of the ancient Macedonians,’ he had said, making no immediate response to Adam’s remarks. ‘We have just ridden over stones that were in place when
Alexander departed for Asia.’
He had then risen to his feet. ‘There can be no doubt that the ancient rulers of this land had access to gold,’ he had continued. ‘There were rivers in Macedonia from which
alluvial gold could be obtained. And Diodorus Siculus, for one, speaks about the mines Philip controlled. His mints were striking gold coins by the thousands, probably. The coins were even known as
philippeioi
.’
‘So the Macedonians had gold in plenty,’ Adam had acknowledged. ‘But we cannot know that it is buried where Euphorion says it is. The villagers were reporting their myths to
him, not what we would recognise as their history.’
‘Perhaps,’ the professor had conceded. ‘As you say, we cannot know for certain. But it is a risk worth taking, is it not? To believe Euphorion? The worst that can happen is
that we waste a few weeks of our life in fruitless digging. But, if the man was right, we will make the greatest discovery of the century. Layard and his exacavations at Nineveh will seem like
little more than idle scrabblings in the dust of Mesopotamia.’
‘When the villagers learn we are digging,’ Rallis had said, ‘they will assume we are looking for treasure.’ The Athenian had seemed uncharacteristically anxious.
‘They will either chase us from the land or they will rob us of what we find.’
‘We have our papers,’ Fields had said. ‘I made certain of them before we left Athens. They will not dare touch us when we have a letter from a minister of the Porte.’
‘Maybe so.’ The Greek had looked unreassured. ‘Maybe not so. This is a long way from Constantinople.’
But the professor had proved correct. A week later, they had arrived at a site near Koutles. The ground was uncultivated and was covered in tumuli for hundreds of yards in all direction. Fields
had pointed with confidence towards the largest of these and announced that this was the spot that Euphorion had identified as the place to dig.
‘His Greek is, for once, blessedly clear and correct on the point,’ Fields had said. ‘Many of the rest of his geographical descriptions are marred by the infelicities of his
prose but of this one there can be no doubt. He writes quite unambiguously of the largest amongst a hundred mounds.’