The Moonspinners (3 page)

I smiled at the myth-bred fancies, and bent to drink again.

Deep in the pool, deeper than my own reflection, something pale wavered among the green. A face.

It was so much a part of my thoughts that, for one dreaming moment, I took no notice. Then, with that classic afterthought that is known as the ‘double take', reality caught up with the myth; I stiffened, and looked again.

I had been right. Behind my mirrored shoulder a face swam, watching me from the green depths. But it wasn't the guardian of the spring. It was human, and male, and it was the reflection of someone's head, watching me from above. Someone, a man, was peering down at me from the edge of the rocks high above the spring.

After the first startled moment, I wasn't particularly alarmed. The solitary stranger has, in Greece, no need to fear the chance-met prowler. This was some shepherd lad, doubtless, curious at the sight of what must obviously be a foreigner. He would probably, unless he was shy, come down to talk to me.

I drank again, then rinsed my hands and wrists. As I dried them on a handkerchief, I saw the face there still, quivering in the disturbed water.

I turned and looked up. Nothing. The head had vanished.

I waited, amused, watching the top of the rock. The head appeared again, stealthily . . . so stealthily that, in spite of my common sense, in spite of what I knew about Greece and the Greeks, a tiny tingle of uneasiness crept up my spine. This was more than shyness: there was something furtive about the way the head inched up from behind the rock. And something more than furtive in the way, when he saw that I was watching, the man ducked back again.

For it was a man, no shepherd boy. A Greek, certainly; it was a dark face, mahogany-tanned, square and tough looking, with dark eyes, and that black pelt of hair, thick and close as a ram's fleece, which is one of the chief beauties of the Greek men.

Only a glimpse I had, then he was gone. I stared at the place where the head had vanished, troubled now. Then, as if he could still be watching me, which was unlikely, I got to my feet with somewhat elaborate unconcern, picked up the bag, and turned to go. I no longer wanted to settle here, to be spied on, and perhaps approached, by this dubious stranger.

Then I saw the shepherds' hut.

There was a path which I hadn't noticed before, a narrow sheeptrod which had beaten a way through the asphodel towards a corner under the rocks, where a hut stood, backed against the cliff.

It was a small, unwindowed penthouse, of the kind that is commonly built in Greece, in remote places, to house the boys and men whose job it is to herd the goats and sheep on the bare hillsides. Sometimes they are used as milking places for the sheep, and cheeses are made there on the spot. Sometimes, in stormy weather, they serve to house the beasts themselves.

The hut was small and low, roughly built of unshaped stones, the spaces packed with clay. It was roofed with brushwood and dried scrub, and would hardly be seen at all from any sort of distance, among the stones and scrub that surrounded it.

This, then, was the explanation of the watcher of the spring. The man would be a shepherd, his flock, doubtless, feeding on some other mountain-meadow above the rocks where he lay. He had heard me, and had come down to see who it was.

My momentary uneasiness subsided. Feeling a fool, I paused there among the asphodel, half minded, after all, to stay.

It was well after noon now, and the sun was turning over to the south-west, full on the little alp. The first warning I had was when a shadow dropped across the flowers, as sudden as a black cloth falling to stifle me.

I looked up, with a gasp of fright. From the rocks beside the spring came a rattle of pebbles, the scrape of a foot, and the Greek dropped neatly into my path.

There was one startled moment in which everything seemed very clear and still. I thought, but not believing it: the impossible really has happened; this is danger. I saw his dark eyes, angry and wary at the same time. His hand – more incredible still – grasped a naked knife.

Impossible to remember my Greek, to cry, ‘Who are you? What do you want?' Impossible to run from him, down the breakneck mountain. Impossible to summon help from the vast, empty silence.

But of course, I tried it. I screamed, and turned to run.

It was probably the silliest thing I could have done. He jumped at me. He caught me, pulled me against him, and held me. His free hand covered my mouth. He was saying something half under his breath, curses or threats that, in my panic, I didn't understand. I struggled and fought, as if in a nightmare. I believe I kicked him, and my nails drew blood on his wrists. There was a clatter of kicked stones, and a jingling as he dropped the knife. I got my mouth free for a moment, and screamed again. It was little more than a shrill gasp this time, barely audible. But in any case, there was nobody to help . . .

Impossibly, help came.

From behind me, from the empty mountainside, a man's voice called out, sharply, in Greek. I didn't hear what it said, but the effect on my attacker was immediate. He froze where he stood. But he still held me, and his hand clamped tightly again over my mouth.

He turned his head and called, in a low, urgent voice: ‘It's a girl, a foreigner. Spying around. I think she is English.'

I could hear no movement behind me of anyone approaching. I strained round against the Greek's hand to see who had saved me, but he held me tightly, with a low, ‘Keep still, and hold your noise!'

The voice came again, apparently from some way off. ‘A girl? English?' A curious pause. ‘For pity's sake, leave her alone, and bring her here. Are you mad?'

The Greek hesitated, then said sullenly to me, in strongly accented but reasonably good English: ‘Come with me. And do not squeak again. If you make one other sound, I will kill you. Be sure of that. I do not like women, me.'

I managed to nod. He took his hand from my mouth then, and relaxed his hold. But he didn't let go. He merely shifted his grip, keeping hold of my wrist.

He stooped to pick up his knife, and motioned towards the rocks behind us. I turned. There was no one to be seen.

‘Inside,' said the Greek, and jerked his head towards the shepherds' hut.

The hut was filthy. As the Greek pushed me in front of him across the trodden dust, the flies rose, buzzing, round our feet. The doorway gaped black and uninviting.

At first I could see nothing. By contrast with the bright light at my back, the interior of the hut seemed quite dark, but then the Greek pushed me further in, and in the flood of light from the doorway, I could see quite clearly even into the furthest corners of the hut.

A man was lying in the far corner, away from the door. He lay on a rough bed of some vegetation, that could have been ferns or dried shrubs. Apart from this, the hut was empty; there was no furniture at all, except some crude looking lengths of wood in another corner that may have been parts of a primitive cheese-press. The floor was of beaten earth, so thin in places that the rock showed through. What dung the sheep had left was dried, and inoffensive enough, but the place smelt of sickness.

As the Greek pushed me inside, the man on the bed raised his head, his eyes narrowed against the light.

The movement, slight as it was, seemed an effort. He was ill; very ill; it didn't need the roughly swathed cloths, stiff with dried blood, on his left arm and shoulder, to tell me that. His face, under the two days' growth of beard, was pale, and hollowed under the cheekbones, while the skin round his eyes, with their suspiciously bright glitter, looked bruised with pain and fever. There was a nasty looking mark on his forehead, where the skin had been scraped raw, and had bled. The hair above it was still matted with the blood, and filthy with dust from the stuff he was lying on.

For the rest, he was young, dark-haired and blue-eyed like a great many Cretans, and would, when washed, shaved, and healthy, be a reasonably personable man, with an aggressive looking nose and mouth, square, capable hands, and (as I guessed), a fair amount of physical strength. He had on dark-grey trousers, and a shirt that had once been white, both garments now filthy and torn. The only bed-covering was an equally battered windcheater jacket, and an ancient khaki affair which, presumably, belonged to the man who had attacked me. This, the sick man clutched to him as though he was cold.

He narrowed those bright eyes at me, and seemed, with some sort of an effort, to collect his wits.

‘I hope Lambis didn't hurt you? You . . . screamed?'

I realized then why he had seemed to be speaking from some distance away. His voice, though steady enough, was held so by a palpable effort, and it was weak. He gave the impression of holding on, precariously, to every ounce of strength he had, and, in so doing, spending it. He spoke in English, and such was my own shaken condition that I thought at first, merely, what good English he speaks; and only afterwards, with a kind of shock, he
is
English.

Of course that was the first thing I said. I was still only just taking in the details of his appearance; the bloody evidence of a wound, the sunken cheeks, the filthy bed. ‘You're – you're English!' I said stupidly, staring. I was hardly conscious that the Greek, Lambis, had dropped his hand from my arm. Automatically, I began to rub the place where he had gripped me. Later, there would be a bruise.

I faltered: ‘But you're hurt! Has there been an accident? What happened?'

Lambis pushed past me, to stand over the bed, rather like a dog defending a bone. He still had that wary look; no longer dangerous, perhaps, but he was fingering his knife. Before the sick man could speak, he said, quickly and defensively: ‘It is nothing. An accident in climbing. When he has rested I shall help him down to the village. There is no need—'

‘Shut up, will you?' The sick man snapped it, in Greek. ‘And put that knife away. You've scared her silly as it is, poor kid. Can't you see she's nothing to do with this business? You should have kept out of sight, and let her go past.'

‘She'd seen me. And she was coming this way. She'd have come in here, as likely as not, and seen you . . . She'll blab all over the village.'

‘Well, you've made sure of that, haven't you? Now keep quiet, and leave this to me.'

Lambis shot him a look, half defiant, half shamefaced. He dropped his hand from the knife, but he stayed beside the bed.

The exchange between the two men, which had been in Greek, had the effect of reassuring me completely, even if the discovery of the sick man's nationality hadn't already (absurdly enough) begun to do so. But I didn't show it. At some purely instinctive level, it seemed, I had made a decision for my own protection – which was that there was no positive need for me to betray my own knowledge of Greek . . . Whatever I had stumbled into, I would prefer to stumble out of again as quickly as possible, and it seemed that the less I knew about ‘this business', whatever it was, the more likely they were to let me go peaceably on my way.

‘I'm sorry.' The Englishman's eyes turned back to me. ‘Lambis shouldn't have frightened you like that. I – we've had an accident, as he told you, and he's a bit shaken up. Your arm . . . did he hurt you?'

‘Not really, it's all right . . . But what about you? Are you badly hurt?' It would be a very odd sort of accident, I thought, that would lead a man to attack a stranger as Lambis had attacked me, but it seemed only natural to show some sort of curiosity and concern. ‘What happened?'

‘I was caught by a fall of stone. Lambis thought it was someone further up the hill who set it away, in carelessness. He swore he heard women's voices. We shouted, but nobody came.'

‘I see.' I had also seen Lambis' quick glance of surprise, before the sullen brown eyes went back to the ground. It wasn't a bad lie on the spur of the moment, from a man who plainly wasn't as clear in the head as he would have liked to be. ‘Well,' I said, ‘it wasn't me. I've only just arrived at Agios Georgios today, and I haven't—'

‘Agios Georgios?' The glitter this time wasn't only put there by fever. ‘You've walked up from there?'

‘From the bridge, yes.'

‘Is there a track all the way?'

‘Not really, I suppose. I followed it up the ravine, but left it where this spring comes in. I—'

‘The track comes straight here? To the hut?' This was Lambis, his voice sharp.

‘No,' I said. ‘I told you I left the path. But in any case the place is seamed with paths – sheep tracks. Once you get some way up the ravine, they branch all over the place. I stayed by the water.'

‘Then it is not the only way down to the village?'

‘I don't know; I'd say almost certainly not. Though it may be the easiest, if you're thinking of going down. I wasn't taking much notice.' I opened my hand, where I still held some crushed shreds of the lilac orchids. ‘I was looking at the flowers.'

‘Did you . . . ?' It was the Englishman this time. He stopped, and waited a moment. I saw he was shivering; he waited with clenched teeth for the fit to pass. He was clutching the khaki jacket to him as if he was cold, but I saw sweat on his face. ‘Did you meet anyone, on your . . . walk?'

‘No.'

‘No one at all?'

‘Not a soul.'

A pause. He shut his eyes, but almost immediately opened them again. ‘Is it far?'

‘To the village? Quite a long way, I suppose. It's hard to tell how far, when you're climbing. Which way did you come yourself?'

‘Not that way.' The phrase was a full stop. But even through his fever he seemed to feel its rudeness, for he added: ‘We came from the road. Further east.'