Rallis shrugged. ‘I believed — I still believe — that Fields has records of his transactions with Creech. Of at least some of the antiquities they stole and transported from my country. If I had these records, they would assist me greatly in my campaign. I looked for them in Athens.’
‘It was you who turned the professor’s room at the Angleterre upside down?’
‘While you were waiting for me at the Oraia Ellas.’ Rallis nodded in acknowledgement of his responsibility. ‘I found nothing.’
‘So you decided that you would try again when our journey had begun.’
‘Yes, but I could not very easily search his bags myself. And, if I found anything, I could not take it. Fields would have known immediately that I was the thief. I decided that the most convenient method was to use Lascarides. If he searched and found, he could take. What else would a brigand do? He was instructed to take the horses. I needed to persuade you that his ambush was a genuine one.’
‘But he did not find the documents you wanted in the professor’s belongings?’
‘No, he did not. Either Fields has left them in Athens or they are on his person. Together with Euphorion.’
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.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Much 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.