“This is a beautiful place.” Fitrat walked at his side. “I could live somewhere like this with my family.”
“No one can live here, actually. It’s against the law. The only residents here are a French archeological group that have been working digs on the island since the 1870s.”
“They still haven’t finished?”
Lourds waved around them. “There’s a lot to dig up on this island. You’re talking about almost three thousand years of history since the Greeks landed here, and there were people who lived in these islands before that. It’s just harder to get to them. And with all the sites, space gets cramped.”
They walked past the shops in the Agora of the Competaliasts, the paved square directly behind the harbor. Lourds pointed to it.
“That’s an ancient marketplace. Slaves were sold on the island. Sometimes as many as five thousand a day. That particular market was devoted to the Competaliasts, a union of freemen and slaves who worshipped the Roman gods of crossroads.”
The sun beat down on them as they walked. Lourds took off his hat and mopped his brow. He couldn’t help looking around for gunmen to come charging out of nowhere.
“Feel safe while you are here.” Fitrat clapped him on the shoulder. “The good thing about an island as flat and small as this one is that no one can sneak up on you without you seeing them come.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Taken away by the history surrounding them, Lourds felt his fears melt away for the moment. He pointed at a small, circular building made of marble stones in the center of the agora. “There is the temple that was dedicated to Hermes, the god of commerce. This is where the slave trade proliferated.”
“It is a shame for a thing of beauty to be tied to such an ugly business.”
“Living is an ugly business, my friend. Many things haven’t changed.”
They stepped onto a stone path that was forty feet wide.
“This is the Sacred Way. It leads to the Sanctuary of Apollo.” Lourds pointed at the columns nearby. It looked like a large, stone square that had large porches that led up to it. Ex-votos, offering places meant to give tribute to the gods, lined the Sacred Way.
“I assume since he was the god of the sun that he found the idea of a roof offensive?”
Lourds grinned. “Perhaps. But inside there — see the long building? — that’s the Oikos of the Naxians, the house of the people from Naxos. That’s a nearby island, the largest in the Cyclades. The Cycladic civilization that lived there dates back to 3000 BCE. Some truly fascinating artifacts have been found there.”
He led the way down into the Agora of the Delians, where more long porches stood beside ex-votos. Carefully, Lourds began inspecting the porticos, looking for the name that had turned up in the scroll.
Fitrat began looking as well. “What are you looking for?”
“An inscription made by Pittacus of Mytilene.” Lourds kept moving, reading the inscriptions quickly. “And unless you’ve suddenly learned how to read Ancient Greek, you’re not going to be much help.”
Fitrat sighed. “I feel useless.”
“You can make dinner tonight as a way of apology.”
The captain grinned. “Sure. Who was Pittacus?”
“One of the Seven Sages of Greece, and that’s with capital letters. Each of the sages was supposed to represent an edict of worldly knowledge. Something everyone should know.”
“And what did Pittacus propose?”
“‘You should know which opportunities to choose.’”
“Under the circumstances, I suppose that is fitting.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Why Pittacus? Because of what he said?”
“I don’t think so.” Lourds kept moving and reading names. “Pittacus was from Mytilene, the people on the self-named island that was also called Lesbos.”
“Where Aristotle went for a time. I remember you mentioning that.”
“Exactly. Aristotle studied and taught there, and one of the people he would have covered in his material was Pittacus. Callisthenes knew that. I think the final bits of the code I’m struggling with are from the saying here because Pittacus was mentioned as having words of wisdom at Delos in the House. Furthermore, Lesbos tried to secede from the Delian League. As a result, the League made an example of them, ordering all men to be killed. They finally stopped the gendercide, to borrow a term from Mary Anne Warren, after killing a thousand men. The word lesbian was actually coined from the name of the island and referred to the fact that all those women were left alone, and too, the poet Sappho lived there. Sappho, as it turned out, was quite the ladies’ lady. If you read through her poetry, you’ll discover that it focuses almost exclusively on women and her sexual attraction to them.”
“Amazing.”
“What? The story?”
“No. That you know so many things. I think if I knew so many things, my head would blow up.”
Lourds brushed away some dirt on his latest find. And there, carved into the marble, was the name Pittacus. He grinned. “I found it.”
“What does it say?”
Lourds took out his phone and shot pictures of the inscription. Then he took a piece of paper from a drawing pad inside his backpack and placed it over the inscription. “Basically, it’s a repeat of what he was known for. Making the right choice. But the words are different. I suspect Callisthenes used some of them as replacements for the nonsense text I’m reading now. Hold this paper.”
While Fitrat helped him hold the paper in place, Lourds used a charcoal stick from his art box to take a rubbing. Then he carefully rolled the paper up and put it inside the protective case with the scrolls.
“All right. We’re finished here. Unless you want to take a look around.”
Fitrat shook his head. “Perhaps another time.”
Together, they headed back to the harbor. Lourds’s head was spinning as some of the words — now that he had them — were already dropping into place. But he wanted confirmation of his ideas and thought he knew exactly where to get it.
“We need to make another stop, Captain.”
Fitrat glanced at him. “Here?”
“No. In Athens. Will your gun permits work there as well?”
“As long as we are protecting you, and as long as the places you go have some relevance to the document, then, yes.”
“Trust me, this place has relevance.”
41
“Are you sure there is nothing else you need me to do?”
Anna looked into Lieutenant Emil Basayev’s face and smiled at him as they sat in front of the house where her parents now lived. “No. Thank you for everything you have done. You have been a prince. But I’m sure the general will want you back at your post.”
Emil sighed dramatically. “This is true. I am glad we got this time to spend together. We both lead such busy lives these days. It is very hard to find time to be with friends.”
“When I get a spare moment, I will give you a call. Perhaps for lunch?”
“I would love lunch.” Emil smiled at her.
At another time, she might have enjoyed his attentions. He was a handsome man, and he looked splendid in his uniform. She had seldom seen him in it except in pictures. When they met at functions with friends, he was always in street wear.
Anna opened the door and let herself out. He waited at the curb, and she knew he wouldn’t leave until she was inside. She turned and trudged up the walk toward the tall, turreted alabaster house her parents had bought and moved into during her pre-teen years from the flat where she’d grown up.