‘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 have 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?’