‘Your suggestion of reading the manuscript here is no longer feasible, Adam.’ Rallis sounded in no doubt. ‘The professor has offended the hegumen deeply. Mortally, is that the word you use? He is unwilling to let any of us enter the library again.’
‘Wretched man that he is,’ Fields said with venom. It was clear that the idea that he might bear any blame in the dispute had not occurred to him.
‘We have only one option left open to us,’ Adam said. ‘We cannot use violence against the monks.’ For a moment, Fields looked willing to dispute this but he contented himself with an angry shake of his head. ‘We will have to go over their heads. The monasteries here at Meteora are under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox authorities at Larissa?’
Rallis nodded.
‘Then we must go there and persuade the bishop to give us written permission to buy the manuscript. He is likely to be a more worldly man than our friend here. He will understand the logic of our arguments better.’ Adam had no great desire to embark on the plan of action he was himself proposing, but he could see no other honourable way of taking possession of the Euphorion manuscript. ‘When he approves our purchase, we can return to Agios Andreas and the hegumen will be obliged to bow before a higher authority.’
‘Weeks will be wasted in this senseless rigmarole,’ Fields protested.
‘There is, alas, no alternative, Professor.’ Rallis spoke with certainty. ‘We will take advantage of the hospitality of the caloyeri for one further night and then we will journey to Larissa.’
And so, on the following morning, after they had breakfasted on bread and olives, the men sat once more in the monks’ net and were lowered down the rockface. They collected the mules from Kalambaka where an amiable farmer, his palm crossed with the silver of several piastres, had stabled them, and took the road east towards Larissa.
For many miles, as they trudged on, they were able still to look behind them and see the strange pinnacles of Meteora on the horizon, like the unearthly architecture of a fevered dream.
They travelled for most of the day in silence. For Andros this seemed to be his natural state. The others were wrapped in their own thoughts. Quint was forced to struggle with the mule he was leading, and what little he said consisted largely of curses directed against its obstinacy. Adam and Rallis, relieved of any duty to guide the mules, had the leisure for conversation but found almost nothing to say to one another. The young Englishman spent his time running through the events of the last few days in his head. The delight he had felt at locating the Euphorion manuscript was fading a little but was still present. The obstinacy of the abbot in refusing to part with it, he thought, had been aggravating but understandable. Their enforced journey to Larissa was a nuisance. Nonetheless,
they would soon return, almost certainly armed with the papers necessary to buy the manuscript. Despite what Fields’s bad temper might suggest, the delay was endurable. And then they could read what perhaps only one other man since the old Venetian scholar Palavaccini had read. The very great secret of which Creech had spoken at the Speke dinner in London might be revealed.
And yet there was still so much of which Adam could make little sense. Where did Rallis fit into the equation? Whose side was he on? What had the Greek lawyer and his servant been doing in the monastery the night before last? To whom had they been signalling? Adam could think of few legitimate reasons to doubt the lawyer. Had Rallis not led them here to the manuscript as he had said he would? Had he not argued their case to the hegumen as eloquently as he could? However, the young man could think of equally few reasons to trust him. What, after all, did they know of him? Little more than what Samways had told them. Perhaps, as Fields had suggested before the party had even reached Agios Andreas, Rallis had some involvement with the brigands who had robbed them of their horses. Adam began to think he should have told the professor of the lantern-waving in the night. He had chosen not to do so because he still retained his belief in Rallis’s essential goodwill towards them. Fields, if informed of what he and Quint had seen, would have had no such belief. Who knew what consequences would have followed?
Adam looked at the professor. Blessed with a more tractable beast than the one at which Quint was swearing, his old mentor was wandering ahead of the group. Earlier in the day, Adam had seen him take a book from his pocket and begin to read it. He was still holding it now. A volume of his beloved Thucydides, the young man assumed. The professor’s mule was travelling towards Larissa with little need of any guidance. Fields had one arm looped through the animal’s halter and his eyes half on the road in front of them and half on his book. Adam noted with surprise that the rage which had possessed the professor so thoroughly the night before seemed to have entirely dissipated. He was now a study in serenity.
That night, they camped once again beneath the stars. Andros took a hatchet from his bag and, hacking at branches of a tree only he could reach, swiftly gathered enough wood for a fire. The travellers sat round it in a circle to eat. They stared morosely at one another through the flames.
‘We shall be in Larissa in little more than a day,’ Adam said eventually, breaking the silence. ‘Is that not so, Rallis?’
‘Perhaps by tomorrow evening. Or the following morning.’
‘With luck we shall quickly win an audience with the bishop. He will see reason in our proposal, Professor.’ Adam was struggling to remain as optimistic as he had been in the morning. He was beginning to wonder whether the bishop might be no more willing to countenance their taking possession of what they wanted than the old hegumen. ‘We will be back at Agios Andreas in no more than a week with permission to take the manuscript. They will not be able to deny us again. The manuscript will be ours.’
The professor was hunched by the fire, looking like a pile of old clothes awaiting a washerwoman. As he listened to what Adam said, his shoulders began to shake and strange sounds emerged from deep within him. For several terrible moments, the young man thought that Fields might be weeping. How, he wondered, was a gentleman supposed to behave in the wilds of a foreign land when a distinguished scholar broke down in tears in front of him? Should one ignore the outburst? Or attempt, however clumsily, to offer comfort? Adam was still pondering these unexpected questions of etiquette when it dawned on him that the professor was not crying, but laughing. The rocking of his body was not the result of sobs and lamentations but of great waves of laughter. Adam looked across the fire at Rallis. The Greek was clearly as puzzled as he was. He turned to Quint, whose face was split by a fiendish grin. The manservant began to make the unearthly wheezings that his master recognised as his own peculiar version of mirth.
‘What is it, Quint? What is going on?’
The servant said nothing but continued to sound like an incompetent piper slowly filling his bag with air. The professor swayed back and forth in front of the fire and then let out one last shout of laughter.
‘The manuscript is already ours, Adam,’ he said. ‘I sent Quintus out last night to take it from that damp hutch those benighted monks call a library.’
There was silence. Adam looked in astonishment from the professor to Quint and back again. Rallis, his face tight with anger, stood and moved away from the fire.
‘You have stolen the Euphorion manuscript?’ Adam was numb with disbelief.