A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (33 page)

My eyes flew back to Lord Silverton, not because I was terrified (though I admit that I
was
terrified, that terror suffused every particle of my body) but because I detected a familiar and invisible change coming over him, as the impasse wore on. He was still watching me, and his eyebrows had flinched as the gun worked closer into my temple, but the fury in his face had now smoothed away into the pretty mask in which I had first come to know him.

And then he yawned.

“By damn. Are we going to carry on like this much longer? Because I could do with a spot of breakfast. How about you, Truelove? Has anyone here troubled themselves to arrange for a morning feed?”

“Shut up,” said Anserrat. “Dave, watch him.”

“Oh, Dave needn't bother himself.” Silverton yawned again. “Feeling a bit faint, actually. Loss of blood and all that.”

And then—well, it was as if that second Truelove, the one hovering above, came back to earth, hurtling herself back inside the corporeal Truelove in a thud of understanding.

I knew, without looking, that the prisoner on the beach was now circling around behind us, keeping just out of sight among the rocks and the brush that rimmed the sand. That he had drawn close, while Silverton was chatting on amiably, and when
Silverton fell forward, directly after saying the word
faint
, causing an instant of confusion, he would strike.

And he did, roaring in such a bestial manner as I have never heard from a human throat. He flew between us and launched himself upon Anserrat, and I did not even see the slash of that knife as it sliced open the man's helpless throat.

But I saw the blood, pints of it, as it gushed over the rocks to the sound of Desma's keening wail.

And I will never forget the sight of that beast, his terrible misshapen head, as he raised himself triumphantly from his kill, teeth bared, and turned toward me.

I screamed, and the man who held me released his grip and lifted the pistol. He fired once, into the center of that animal-like face, and the blast of the nearby gun erased all sensation of sound from my ears.

The beast fell, and so did his killer, and it was not until I looked up and saw Mr. Brown running toward us at full tilt, leading a pack of the
Isolde
's best men, holding a smoking pistol in his one good hand, that I realized the valet had fired a shot of his own—a bullet that had penetrated the chest of my captor—directly after the explosion that had deafened
me.

For many minutes the two men fought, while the Lady searched for the knife in the sand, where it had fallen. But the Prince's men soon recovered from their shock and advanced to protect their patron, and the Lady knew that they would show her no mercy if he were killed, for they had enjoyed many hours of drink and debauchery under his command, and worshipped him almost as a god.

At last the blade came under her fingertips, and she seized it in her hands and cried, ‘The next man who steps forward will see this dagger in his belly, and the man who touches me will know the vengeance of the Beast my brother, who protects me, for I wear the medallion of the Labrys on my breast as a shield against death.'

The Prince's men halted in fear, for the Lady spoke in a terrible voice, and her eyes and her hair were wild with fury. And then before their eyes, the three figures blurred and then disappeared, and the men later swore that the Lady and the Prince had ascended together into the heavens, while the Beast ran off into the hills and was nevermore seen by man . . .

T
HE
B
OOK
OF
T
IME
, A. M. H
AYWOOD
(1921)

D
o you really believe that?” I asked. “That this wretched, deformed man was the actual Minotaur?”

“That depends, I suppose, on what you mean by
Minotaur
. In any case, it is the least of the mysteries that surround us, at the present moment.” The duke turned a leaf in the portfolio of papers I had given him to review. “Is it really necessary to maintain twelve different country houses, scattered throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles?”

“Most of them are let.”

“Under what terms?”

“Long, in most cases. The estate's standard lease extends for ten years, paid in advance with an option for renewal at five years, a sum then invested in government bonds at a similar maturity. The income provides for upkeep and a reasonable profit.” I paused and fingered my pen. “Your business manager, of course, will be
happy to provide you with further detail. The previous duke took an active role in all the duchy's financial affairs.”

“I daresay.” He turned his head toward the March sun, which shone bravely through the portholes as we steamed north toward Athens. He occupied the sofa, on the strict order of the doctor in Naxos who had attended his wound—the bullet had only grazed his shoulder, but it was a nasty, open slice, requiring twenty-four sutures and a magnificent dressing that had to be changed twice daily for a week—and rather overwhelmed the poor furniture, in my opinion. He was not so tall as the towering seventh duke, only just reaching six feet, but he was a burly man, each bone manufactured to a high load-bearing specification that seemed intended by God for feats of strength rather than scholarship. Beneath his dressing gown of dark blue paisley, the bandage made a shocking lump on both sides of his right shoulder, giving him the look of prize-fighting hunchback. The brooding expression on his face did little to dispel this impression.

“It is not so bad as that, sir,” I said quietly. “You will have an immense and talented staff to assist you, and the duchess, I am sure, will be a great comfort.”

“The duchess?”

“I mean the lady below, sir, who will become your duchess in a matter of days.”

“Yes, of course.”

I sifted through the papers in my desk. “I have here the telegraphed reply from Reverend Armitage in Athens, who will be honored to perform the marriage service at our convenience.” I looked up. “The sooner the better, I should think. When is the—er, the happy event expected?”

“June, I believe.”

“Very good. She's in deep mourning, of course, so I'll make the arrangements as simple as possible, but I believe a small wedding breakfast is in order, don't you think, to mark the occasion? She will be the Duchess of Olympia, after all.”

“Very small, Miss Truelove, and very simple. I should like to stay aboard the ship, in fact, and to set off for England immediately afterward. Silverton can give her away,” he added, as an afterthought.

I made a note on the paper before me. “Of course.”

“And I suppose you will have to be bridesmaid.”

“It will be my honor to do so. I have already made inquiries for a dressmaker. She will have a number of suitable articles ready upon our arrival, which will require, I hope, only a minimum of alteration.”

“You are a miracle, Miss Truelove.” He rose from the sofa, wincing very slightly, and walked across the room to the coffee service on the side table. I started to rise, but he waved me down and asked if I would like coffee.

We were only twelve hours out to sea, and my stomach was not quite at peace. “No, thank you,” I said.

He lifted the silver pot—a little awkwardly, for he was forced to use his left arm—and apologized that there was no tea. He would order it tomorrow, if I preferred.

I thanked him.

He set down the pot and reached for the sugar. “You have not troubled me with a great many questions.”

“It is not my place, sir.”

“Isn't it? You risked your life, after all.”

“I have only done my duty.”

“You have done far more than that.” He added a few drops of cream and stirred briskly. “I have the impression that you don't fully credit Desma's tale.”

I hesitated. “I have the greatest regard for the lady. She has a noble heart, and she will do you honor as your duchess.”

“But you don't believe she is whom she claims to be.”

“Do you?”

He walked—or rather stalked, for his limbs moved at an animal-like rhythm in spite of his injuries—to one of the portholes, which overlooked an eastern sea turned gold by the new-risen sun. “The story itself is impossible either to prove or disprove. I will say this. When I first met her in Knossos, she was reluctant in the extreme to tell me anything at all. And I have never in my life encountered a dialect so strange as hers. It was scarcely even recognizable as Greek. I had to transcribe every word in the beginning, until I could understand her at the most basic level. Even then, I don't believe I properly gained her trust for many weeks. We were in Naxos before she revealed anything of import.”

“But you didn't arrive in Naxos until December,” I said.

“Yes, the end of December.”

“But—” I wet my lips and looked down at the smooth wooden desk before me. “You will excuse my indelicacy, but your child will be born in June.”

“Miss Truelove, the child is not mine.”

“Oh!”

“Good Lord, did you really think—?”

“I—well, I merely presumed, since you—your obvious devotion—”

“My devotion to her is absolute,” he said softly, “but her heart was never mine to win.”

The sea was calm, and the sun was warm, and the ship made not a wobble as we slid across the water. The engines ground comfortably beneath our feet. The ducal suite sprawled across the width of the upper deck, separated from the wheelhouse by the same corridor in which I had taken shelter with Lord Silverton on the morning before our tempestuous landing at Naxos a fortnight ago, and the view stretched from east to west almost without interruption, if one happened to be standing near the portholes, as the duke did, sipping his coffee. His attention was fixed on some point outside, and the sun struck his skin like a whitewash.

“I am sorry, sir,” I whispered.

“She has done me the honor of agreeing to become my wife, however, and the child will never know that he is not mine by blood as well as affection. I can do no less for the man who fathered him.”

I could think of no answer to this.

The duke turned to me. “Well, Miss Truelove? Are you not curious?”

“It is not—”

“Your place to ask,” he finished for me. “And in any case, it's too much to believe, I suppose.”

I stared at my hand, which still held the pen, poised and ready for service. My hands were my mother's, smooth-skinned and long-fingered. A valuable inheritance indeed, for which I was vain enough to be grateful. “Does it matter, though? Whoever he is, he's lost to her now.”

“So it seems. We spent weeks waiting at the caves, looking for some sign of his appearance, and hoping that the men who had tracked us down in Knossos would not discover our trail to Naxos. By then I had discovered that it was my own personal secretary who had painted those frescoes in order to lure me to Crete, who
had searched my belongings and betrayed me to his friends—that was why we left the villa so precipitately, you see, while I told Anserrat we were bound for Athens instead of Naxos, in order to buy us at least a little more time. But I still cannot understand his purpose, and the ferocity of his pursuit. What can they possibly have had to gain? Even if Desma
is
the lady of myth, what use is that? There is no tangible treasure, except perhaps to display her like a circus curiosity, and that was not what they wanted.”

I thought of the hundred and fifty drachmae left behind in the flat in Athens. “No, it was not. But how did they know who Desma really was? What she might be, I mean?”

“I have no idea whatsoever, except that they believed most profoundly that she
was
the true Ariadne, to use the mythical name.”

Was Ariadne,
I thought. And the child in her belly sired by an ancient Theseus.

But the notion was too absurd. A fevered fantasy, the most impossible thing in the world. People did not close their eyes and wake up three thousand years in the future. Science and religion both rose up and forbade the very idea; such a brazen act had no place in a logical universe.

On the other hand, there were many things that ought not to exist in a logical universe.

When I was perhaps eleven or twelve, my father took me on a visit to the Tower of London. It was late autumn, and the trees were bare, and the air smelled of soot and damp earth. I remember examining the Crown Jewels and the messages inscribed by prisoners into the stone walls of the Beauchamp Tower, and the warmth of my father's hand as we climbed the endless winding staircases, each step worn down at the middle by the passage of infinite feet.

At last we arrived on the Tower Green, and my father led me to the exact spot where, according to tradition, the infamous scaffold had once stood: the one on which Anne Boleyn had been beheaded. The sky was cold and blue, and I thought that this was the very same sky under which that unfortunate lady had met her end. That my eyes, running over the gray walls and the turrets and the million blades of grass, viewed much the same scene as had pressed a final earthly image upon the eyes of the queen. That she had existed in this precise spot, had stood and breathed, had spoken a few words and had bared her brave neck and had died.

That the only thing separating us was time. The long, unstoppable beat of centuries: a thing, a mystery you could not hold in your hand and examine, a power that existed inside the memory of inanimate objects.

These stone walls knew Anne. And as I stood where she had stood, I knew her, too. I would have sworn that she was there.

According to legend, it's where Theseus landed with Ariadne, when bad weather forced them into Naxos. Then Dionysus happened along, fell in love with her, and brought her up to heaven to marry her.

I lifted my head. “What does Mr. Higganbotham say?”

The duke turned away from the porthole and walked back to the side table to pour himself another awkward cup of coffee. “I am afraid Mr. Higganbotham is ready to believe any word that falls from her mouth.”

“And Lord Silverton?”

His Grace's eyebrows rose above the rim of his cup. He set the vessel back in its saucer, shook his head, and said, “Miss Truelove, I have the impression that, upon this earth, there lives only a single person who has the power to discover his lordship's true thoughts on any subject.”

“And who is that?”

“You.”

I found Lord Silverton in the main saloon, quite in opposition to the strict instructions of the Naxos doctor who had, in the manner of Humpty-Dumpty, put him back together again.

He sat in his favored armchair, leg propped on a cushioned footstool, and tossed a cricket ball in the air with one hand while he smoked his pipe with the other. The air of the saloon was fragrant with warm tobacco. Across from him, the next Duchess of Olympia perched on the edge of the sofa, and I am sorry to report—for I fear it does neither of them any credit—that the lady was actually smiling.

“I beg your pardon. Am I interrupting?”

Silverton craned his head to the doorway. “Why, Truelove! There you are. Secretarial duties all finished?”

“For the moment. Is that Caruso?”

“Indeed it is. I was just attempting to explain to Desma what he's going on about in this little ditty, and I'm afraid the essential bits may have been lost in translation.”

I flinched at the words
little ditty
. “So it seems. How lovely, nonetheless, that you were able to amuse the poor lady, so early in her bereavement.”