Marianne and the Rebels

cousin of his, a man called Athanasius, who acted in the ill-defined capacity of gardener, steward and man-of-all- work to the last descendant of one of the old ruling families of the island, a Count Sommaripa. He, naturally, could not do otherwise than offer the hospitality of his house to an Italian princess who found herself in difficulties, until such time as a vessel should put in at Naxos that could carry her to Constantinople. If the pigeon from Ayios Ilias had done its job properly, that ship should not be long in coming.

This business of the ship that was to come for her made Marianne uneasy. In her view, any vessel would have done as well, even a Turkish xebec. All she wanted was to get to the Ottoman capital as soon as possible, since that was the only place from which to begin her search for the Sea Witch. She did not see at all why it was necessary for her to arrive in a Greek vessel, unless her mysterious new friends had some ulterior motive. In which case, what was it?

Melina had told her that there was a Greek merchant fleet, based on the island of Hydra, which even the Turks would hesitate to attack. The men who manned it were trustworthy, and strangers to fear. They covered the islands and were able to drop anchor with impunity off the quays of Phanar, and they carried, as well as grain, oil and wine, many of the conspirators' hopes. Hydra had been the pigeon's goal.

In other words, Marianne told herself, they are almost certainly pirates got up as merchants. She was beginning to wonder if her name was going to be used to cover not just one rebel with a price on his head, but a whole ship's crew of them. By this time she was seeing rebels everywhere.

There was, in fact, another passenger who had embarked at the same time as herself and the alarming Theodoras, and Marianne was not unduly surprised to see beneath the fisherman's cap the face of the tall dark girl who had steadied her on the way back from the rock where Sappho sang her hymn to the setting sun.

Released from his classical draperies, the young guest revealed himself as nature intended: a slim, energetic boy with a keen face, who had smiled at her with cheerful complicity as he handed her into the boat. She now knew that he was a young Cretan called Demetrios whose father had been beheaded a year earlier for refusing to pay a tax, and that he was going now to take up a prearranged position in one of the mysterious places where the rebellion, which no Greek ever doubted would soon come, was slowly ripening to fruition.

The voyage passed off without incident. The sea subsided towards morning and, although as a result the wind abated somewhat, there remained enough of a steady breeze to bring the scaphos, by about midday, into line with the opening of the bay of Naxos. Directly ahead, beyond the dunes covered with long rippling grasses and a species of tall greenish lily, a little town lay glaring white and dozing in the sun, clinging to the sides of a conical hill on whose summit the inevitable Venetian fortress crumbled slowly beneath the disillusioned folds of the Sultan's green flag with its triple crescent.

On a tiny island just outside the harbour the white columns of a small abandoned temple also seemed to droop dispiritedly.

For the first time since they had set sail, Marianne approached Theodoros.

'Are we landing now? I thought we should have waited until nightfall?'

'What for? At this time of day, everyone's asleep – and sleeping much more deeply than at night. It's too hot for anyone to put their nose out of doors. Even the Turks are having a siesta.'

The heat was certainly intense. It was reflected back from the white walls with a ferocity that was almost unbearable and all other colours were bleached into the general all-prevailing whiteness. The air vibrated as though with the humming of invisible bees, and there was not a living soul to be seen on the baking quay. Every house was closely shuttered against the glare, and whenever they did catch sight of a human being it was of someone fast asleep on the ground, back against a wall and cap or turban pulled well down over his eyes, in the shade of a rose trellis or a dark doorway. It was the Sleeping Beauty's island. The entire harbour lay under a spell of sleep and every single creature in it was firmly resting.

The scaphos eased up to her moorings, melting into the multicoloured mass of masts and hulls: Turkish chektirmes and caiques mingling with the Greek scaphai and sacolevi. The whole port stank indescribably from the quantities of refuse putrefying in the sun on the surface of the water, and, as they drew nearer to the white town which had looked so glorious in the sunlight from afar, Marianne saw that dirt and neglect reigned everywhere. The splendid white walls were cracked and the grand houses clustered round the citadel at the top of the hill were falling into ruin, almost as certainly as the fortress itself and the white temple collapsing slowly out in the bay.

'Hard to believe that this is the richest island in the Cyclades, isn't it?' Theodoros muttered. 'There are oranges and olives in plenty inland, but they are allowed to grow wild. We will not work for the Turks.'

They went ashore quietly, without attracting any attention. Only a cat, disturbed from its sleep, squawked, spat and then fled to find a more peaceful spot. Marianne, in her black cloak, and Theodoros, in his blanket, were both sweating profusely, scarcely able to breathe for the heat. But they did not have to endure it long. A few steps over the scorching hot stones brought them to a white house in fair condition with an arched doorway overshadowed by a dusty vine. This was the house of Yorgo's cousin Athanasius.

He was not at home. The newcomers found only an old woman muffled in black draperies, who poked a wrinkled face cautiously through the minute crack which she let appear in the door before starting to shut it in their faces. Yorgo began to argue with her in a rapid, breathless dialect but the old woman behind the door only shook her head and stood her ground. It was obvious that she wanted nothing to do with them. Thereupon, Theodoros pushed past Yorgo and advanced on the door. It yielded to a thrust of his hand and the old woman fled to the end of the passage, squeaking like a frightened mouse.

'I don't know whether or not we were expected,' Marianne said quietly, 'but I don't think we are very welcome.'

'We shall be,' the giant assured her.

He strode down the passage and spoke a very few words in rough, commanding tones. The effect was magical.

The old woman came back, looking as delighted as a condemned sinner reprieved from hell to heaven, and before Marianne's astonished gaze she knelt and kissed Theodoros' great hand with fanatical respect. He pulled her, none too gently, to her feet, whereupon she launched into a spate of voluble explanations and, opening a door, ushered her visitors into a low, cool room smelling strongly of sour milk and aniseed. Then she vanished in a swirl of black cotton petticoats, having first set on the rough wooden table a bottle, some wine cups and a dewy water-jar, as fresh as if it had that moment come from the well.

'She is Athanasius' mother,' Theodoros remarked. 'She's gone to fetch her son to take us to the Venetian.'

He poured water neatly into one of the cups and offered it to Marianne. Then, throwing back his head, he let the water flow in a cool stream from the jar straight down his throat.

Yorgo had prudently returned to his boat. Thieves might not be deterred even by the sacred siesta hour and he had his cargo of wine to think of.

Young Demetrios had gone with him and, for the moment, Marianne and her supposed servant were alone, he leaning up against the small barred window, she seated on a stone bench, whose hardness was not greatly lessened by a thin cushion stuffed with dry grass. She was fighting off sleep. She had slept little on the boat, kept uneasily wakeful by the heavy seas running the night before. Nor were her spirits particularly high. It might have been because she was tired and lonely, but she came to fancy that she was doomed to wander, like Ulysses on his way home from the Trojan Wars, from island to island amid people who were strangers to her and events that were foreign to her way of life. The east, which she had pictured to herself in the glowing colours of a honeymoon, now seemed arid and inhospitable. She longed again for her garden, where the roses must just now be at the height of their beauty. Where now was the scent that used to mingle so gloriously with the honeysuckle on summer evenings?

The old woman's return broke into this melancholy train of thought just as she was beginning to reflect miserably that as things stood she could not even ask to be taken to Athens and put on the first ship back to France. Quite apart from the trouble she might expect from Napoleon if she returned with her mission unfulfilled, she was now saddled with this great fellow to drag about with her, and he was watching her as closely as a good housewife watched, a pan of milk over the fire!

The man now accompanying the old woman did a good deal to reconcile her to existence. Athanasius was a tubby, smooth-skinned little man with the face of a cherub under a cluster of grey curls, and the pleasantly rounded figure of the verger of a Norman cathedral. He welcomed the enormous, ragged Theodoros like a long lost brother, and the dirty, dishevelled gipsy that was Marianne like the Queen of Sheba in person.