The Legacy of Priam Pt. 04

Chapter 10 : Poolside Party

The DVD that Freddie was watching in the lounge of his villa was proving useful from a number of perspectives. Freddie had thought it would be helpful but it had also proved both informative and entertaining. "The Spartan Women" was a documentary that Bethany had done after a series of excavations a year or two before and Freddie had learned a few things from it.

The main thing he had learned was that Bethany, whatever her academic qualifications, was an accomplished flirt as far as the camera was concerned. The video had opened with her sitting on a hill over looking the modern city of Sparta. The camera had zoomed in as she explained how women had played an essential role in the development of Spartan society. Her hair was loose, its auburn highlights picked out by the sunshine. The top she was wearing, light cotton in a vibrant purple, hung seductively askew to bare all of her right shoulder. The shot had been lit carefully. With all Freddie's years of experience he couldn't be sure if her top had revealed a glimpse of nipple as it stretched across her breasts or whether it was a convenient (or inconvenient) shadow. He still wasn't sure after re-running the scene several times.

It was all very different from the archaeologists that had been on TV in his youth, Freddie thought. Then, the main qualification seemed to be a bristling moustache and a military bearing. Now you needed nipples or the jolly bonhomie of the bloke next door.

As the programme continued, she dropped her eyes coyly as she mentioned some of the sexual practices that had supposedly accompanied a young girl's coming of age but looked straight into the camera as she concluded the point she was making. She brushed an errant strand of hair away from her face as the shot dissolved into one of the Bodleian library in Oxford. Bethany appeared wearing a sober grey suit with a dramatic flash of colour from a bright green neck scarf. She went on to explain how translations of many of the Greek classics handed down to us in libraries such has this had given a distorted view of the contribution that Spartan women had made.

Freddie looked at the clock. It was coming up to five o'clock. He'd enjoyed watching Bethany but now he was going to have the opportunity to meet the real thing again. He'd invited the girls up for a drink after their day's digging. "Come and use the pool," he'd said. "Wash some of the dust off."

They had been happy to accept. He'd been pleased. He'd decided what to do next and he needed to make sure that the girls weren't about to do anything that would change his plans.

Bethany and the others all arrived together about 15 minutes later. Freddie had put out some wine and beer. Bethany sank down gratefully into one of Freddie's pool side chairs and tossed her leather satchel to one side. The others were busily pulling on swimming costumes under carefully managed towels, encouraged by the prospect of the clear, cool, water in Freddie's pool.

Freddie picked up a bottle of wine and offered it to Bethany. She nodded. "Oh, yes please," she said. "It's been a busy day."

"Productive?"

"Oh yes," Bethany smiled. "Definitely. But we've all been hard at it."

Freddie poured a glass for Bethany and one for himself too. He lounged back in his own chair as Danni and Helen showered themselves off beside the pool and dived in. Judy and Stacey weren't far behind. Bethany's face was streaked with dust and sweat but she was evidently happy. She was wearing a cream shirt and the same dusty khaki shorts that she had on when Freddie had first seen her standing in the sea. She took the wine in one hand while unfastening her shirt with the other. Mistaking Freddie's look of interest for one of shock, she apologised. "Don't look so worried," she said, "I've got my swimming things on too!"

"I expected no less," said Freddie gallantly but, nonetheless, disappointed.

She shrugged her shirt back and took a sip of the wine. "Mmmm," she said. "That was needed and it has been definitely earned."

"So," said Freddie taking a drink himself. "More successes?"

"Yes," said Bethany firmly. "When Norah gets the TV folk over we'll really have something to show them. It all goes to show that you never do know what's under your feet."

No, thought Freddie, I guess you don't. He considered the fact that what was under Bethany's feet right now, in one of his hidden cages was the helpless Norah. It probably wasn't the time to tell her. Instead he said, "Anything a layman like me would understand?"

"Well, there's this," she reached into her satchel and pulled out a small plastic box. As she opened the lid, Freddie could see a layer of paper inside. She pulled it back and Clegg saw the glint of a piece of buttery, yellow gold. She held it out towards him.

"May I?" he said.

"Yes of course. Be careful though. That ring is over two and half thousand years old."

"It looks as good as new," Freddie said examining it closely. "Like it was made yesterday."

"That's the wonderful thing abut gold," Bethany said. "Unlike the rest of us it never shows its age."

"But it's that old?"

"Yes. It was in a small pit that had been cut down into the Mycenaean levels. It's much later than the clay tablets we found. But it's interesting given our suppositions about the site. Do you see the design on it?"

Clegg peered at the dark stone that was set in the ring. It did indeed have a carving but he couldn't really make out what it was supposed to be. "Yes," he said, "but if you told me it was a portrait of Helen herself I'd have to believe you."

"I know. It's difficult to recognise these things without a lot of practice but I can tell you what it is or rather who. That is Andromeda."

"And the significance is?" The name rang a bell with Freddie but he couldn't place it.

"She was the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia." Clegg felt he was better informed but really no wiser. "In order to placate a sea monster her parents had her chained to a rock on the coast and left as a sacrifice. She was rescued by Perseus."

Clegg nodded. He remembered the legend. He also remembered a number of agreeable paintings of it that had fuelled his adolescence. It was odd, he thought, how a naked woman chained helplessly could be art at one moment and pornography at the next. "I see what you mean about its relation to the site. Chained up women in legend, chained up women in reality."

"Yes. And what's really interesting is that this is about seven hundred years after the clay tablets; maybe a thousand or more years later than the earliest pottery we've found. It implies a considerable continuity of tradition, if not of actual use."

Clegg wondered what she would make of the evidence for continuity of tradition that the captive Norah, 10 metres below, represented.

Bethany pulled a wad of papers from her satchel and passed them to Freddie. "And have a look at these too," she said, "while I take a dip. I'm longing to get rid of the dust from the site."

She got to her feet, shrugged off her shirt and peeled off her shorts. The pale yellow, one piece, swimming costume was cut high on her hips and low at the back. Archaeologists aren't meant to look like that, Clegg thought as she half ran, half skipped, across to the pool side shower and then to the pool where her team was loudly encouraging her to join them. On the other hand she was certainly more agreeable to look at than a bearded bloke in a stripy jumper, so Freddie thought her really ought not complain. Clegg looked at the papers that Bethany had given him. They were computer printouts, maps or plans of some sort printed out on a grid. He studied them as Bethany swam strongly up and down the length of the pool. They looked, he thought, like a series of plans of the site but he could not tell what the blocks of colour were supposed to represent. He could, he thought, make out the semi-circular shape of the so-called slave market. Around it were a series of dark red blobs that he supposed showed where the buried cells had been. There was a similar row of blobs along one side of the plan. Bethany finished her swim and climbed from the pool like Botticelli's Venus arising from the waves; though perhaps with heavier thighs, Clegg thought uncharitably. It was as she started to walk towards him that he suddenly realised what the blobs on the side of the plan might be -- they could just be something to do with the complex of rooms under the swimming pool.

She came across to where Freddie was sitting and tossed the towel that she had used to dry her hair down onto the chair. Standing with her hands on her hips, she put her head on one side and smiled. "Can you tell what it is yet?"

"Well," said Clegg, "I assume its more work with the ground penetrating radar."

"Very good," said Bethany indulgently. "And?"

"Well, this is the area you've been digging," he pointed to the semi circular ring of blobs.

"Correct."

"But this is something new, I imagine. It looks like it's on this side of the valley between your site and the headland."

"Right under where the headland starts. It looks like a series of chambers or structures that have been cut out under the headland itself. They could go right under here."

"What could it be?" Freddie was worried what her answer might be. He thought he had a pretty good idea of what it was.

"Well, it could be an extension of the current site. It could be quarries or something like that although these responses look like voids rather than something that has been backfilled. It's all a bit odd. It's more than we can deal with though. I'm going to discuss with the people from the TV when they turn up. If then can let us have more resources we can do something about it. If not it will have to wait until another expedition."

Freddie was more relieved than ever that he had intercepted Norah.

"You won't say anything about this will you though? I mean not just about this but the ring as well."

Freddie shook his head. "No one I know is interested in archaeology," he said.

"Thanks, it's just that, well, after the incident with the Albanians or whoever it turns out to have been, I'd hate it if someone came down here thinking there was gold to be dug out of the site."

There was the sound of excited horse play coming from the pool. Freddie looked up. "Well, at least Judy seems to have got over her ordeal," he said as the girl he had bound and gagged in the hut chased the others over towards them.

"Yes," said Bethany. "It takes more than an Albanian to frighten her off."

True, thought Freddie, but sometimes being frightened off is the right response. The ground penetrating radar results had been the last straw.

Chapter 11 : The Collective Noun For Archaeologists

"Bronze age societies became resourceful in the face of an external threat, combining their resources their resources to counter an enemy. This is what the Ship List in Homer's Iliad shows us." Bethany Howes's assertion at the start of her programme, "The Ships of the Mycenaeans" reminded viewers of just how modern some ancient societies were, or perhaps how primitive modern societies can be. Freddie had just finished watching it. He looked at this watch. It was time for a swim.

What Bethany had asserted to be true of the Achaeans was proving to be no less true of those on the island of Agoras itself. Freddie had found no difficulties in bringing together all his local resources, once he had decided what needed to be done.

While Freddie didn't really like calling on his island friends for help too often, they had been happy to respond. As a result, Freddie's response to the threat posed to his livelihood by the archaeologists ran through the island like the thread that Ariadne gave to Theseus as he headed off into the Labyrinth in pursuit of the Minotaur.

It wasn't a mythical silken thread, though, that was currently wound around Danni's wrists as she lay on the floor of the room she shared with Judy in one of the old white painted houses up behind the harbour. Danni's wrists were tied with a length of relatively modern one inch rope.

She was slowly recovering consciousness, her vision painfully coming into focus with the shape of her attacker's weapon, a stone replica of an Athenian owl, in front of her.

Gradually, she became aware of her predicament. Her arms wouldn't move; her wrists had been tied. Her legs wouldn't move either; there was something around her ankles. She could feel something in her mouth, cutting into the corners. She went to groan but whatever it was that was stuffing her mouth turned her moan into a garbled grunt. She shook her head, trying to clear the pain from the blow at the back of her neck. Her first thought was that this had been the same people that had attacked Judy, though she could not imagine why they would do this to her, here. She tried to wriggle free, twisting her arms, trying to loosen the ropes around her wrists.

"I shouldn't bother." She heard a voice from behind her and struggled to turn around to see where it was coming from. Andrea was sitting on the bed, looking down at her with a smile.

Danni's puzzled, "What?" came out as "Ghhart?"

"The ropes," Andrea said. "I don't think you will loosen them. I help my brothers with their sheep. They don't get loose, you won't either." Andrea picked up a pack of cigarettes, pulled one out and lit it. She picked up a book from Danni's bedside table and thumbed through it. "You like thrillers?" she said looking at the book's cover. "That's good. You're part of one." Ignoring Danni, she started reading the book.

Danni continued to struggle on the floor of her room. She was still wearing the bikini top and shorts that she had put on ready for a day's digging. As she struggled she realised that Andrea was watching her with an appreciative stare. "Harrungh," she grunted, kicking out at the bed.

"Not nice!" Andrea scolded, interpreting Danni's grunt as one of disapproval. "I can make things more difficult for you." She got up laid the book down on the bed and found some more rope from somewhere. Danni, not anxious to be more immobilised than she already was, tried to wriggle away but Andrea was soon beside her. "This will help," she said, threading the rope around her arms and tying it across and between Danni's tits. She used a further length to jerk Danni's elbows close together behind her back, forcing a squeal from behind the girl's gag and another to fix her knees together. She finished of her efforts by tying Danni's ankles to her wrists and then extending the same rope around her mouth over the cloth that gagged her so that her head was pulled back towards her elbows. "See, more difficult," said Andrea, as if it was some strange initiative test. "Now you stay still and quiet. We wait."

"Mmuunggh!" A quiet groan of discomfort was all that Danni could manage as Andrea turned back to reading her book.

Judy had turned up at Alexander's bar in the hope of meeting the others for breakfast. It was still quiet this early. There was no one else around but the bar was open, as always. She was sitting outside enjoying the warmth of the early morning sun. They were late. She wasn't worried. There would be time for a coffee, some bread and jam and maybe some eggs, before they needed to get started.

"Hey!" she heard Alexander call from inside, waving the handset of the phone. It must be Danni or Stacey, she thought, probably they've overslept. Why hadn't they tried her mobile?

Judy got up, pushed her sunglasses up over her forehead as she went in from the bright outside to the dark of the bar, and headed towards the phone. It took her some time for her eyes to get acclimatised to the light inside but when she picked up the phone there was no one there. Irritated she slammed the handset back down. As she did so a hand reached across her mouth and she felt herself being pulled backwards.

"Oh no! Not again!" was all she could think. Whoever had grabbed her had one hand around her waist and the other over her mouth. She could make no sound and her assailant was much stronger than she was, stronger even than the man that had attacked her at the hut. Whoever it was, they were pulling her down behind the bar, forcing her first to her knees and then to the floor.

Some sort of cloth was over her mouth, she thought at first it was drugged as she gasped trying to catch her breath. In fact, it was just a wad of cloth being wedged into her mouth by her attacker to silence her cries. He held her down flat against the floor with a knee in her back while he fixed the cloth in her mouth with another strip pulled across it and then turned his attention to her wrists, wrenching them around behind her and dragging cords around them, with even more ferocity than that shown by the burglar at the hut. She groaned as the man pulled the cords from her wrists around her waist so that her hands were locked into the small of her back.

Her attacker rolled her over. To Judy's shock she saw it was Alexander and thought, at once, why was he doing this? Her puzzled reaction was cut off when Alexander grabbed her ankles and tied those together too. As he did so, she lurched back hitting her head against a shelf under the bar, knocking herself unconscious for what she assumed was a few moments. Alexander was unconcerned, he had taken the opportunity of her being out cold to finish tying her up; knotting cords around her knees and more around her chest, fixing her arms to her sides.

He examined his work critically before giving a satisfied nod. "Stay there," he ordered as he got to his feet and went to the front of the bar to shut up shop. Judy didn't think she had much choice.

At around the same time, Stacey was arriving at the Mermaid Café, hoping to meet up with Danni. To her annoyance, a delivery truck was almost blocking the road at the back of the Café and she was having to squeeze past between the side of the truck and the whitewashed wall of the café itself.

She got to the rear of the van and had to turn sideways to get past the van doors. It was as she cleared the back of the van that something was pulled down over her head and down below her waist. Suddenly everything was dark, she couldn't see at all. She felt herself being pulled backwards and before she could cry out a hand was clamped over her mouth. She tried to kick out as someone pulled ropes or a strap around her waist so that she couldn't shake herself free of the sack or whatever it was that was covering her. The hand came away from her mouth for moment but as she attempted to cry out a knotted rope was pushed between her lips and tied off around her head gagging her with the rough cloth of the sack forced back into her mouth. More ropes were pulled around her wrists and she felt legs grabbed as she was lifted, she assumed into the truck. She heard the doors slam shut as someone tied rope around her ankles and then the truck began to move. The whole thing had taken less than a minute and, with the streets so quiet so early in the day, Stacey knew it was very unlikely that anyone had seen her abduction. What was going on, she wondered, scared, as the van bounced off along the islands roads. Was it the Albanians again, imagining there was something of value to be got from the site after all?

Stacey wasn't the only one having an uncomfortable ride. Helen had been on her way down to the harbour, taking the short cut that she always used between the flat where she was staying and the road that lead to Alexander's bar. It was a favourite walk cutting around the back of an old shepherd's hut, through an olive grove and down between some ramshackle stone walls until the path emerged onto the road with a stunning view of the sea, the houses around the harbour and, across to the right, the valley where they were excavating. Helen had just reached the road. Parked across where the path came out was a car; one of the pale green Punto's that the police had said they were looking for. As Helen edged around the car, she saw Petros peering under the bonnet. She walked up to him to ask what the problem was, wondering if this was some sort of clue to the burglary at the site. She bent forward and said, "Hello."