could not be a child anymore. He had made his decision.
They all went closer to Andrew’s body. Elli bent down and lowered his eyelids. Andrew’s last-minute intervention and change of heart absolved him in Elli’s eyes. Leaning over him she whispered ‘I forgive you, my love. Goodbye.’
She stood up to her full height and looked at Aristo and Vasilis.
‘Aristo and Vasilis, Andrew was your father.’ Aristo and Vasilis stared in disbelief at their mother, at Andrew’s body and back at their mother. They were trying to process this information, but the shock had not been properly digested and was not allowing them to do so.
CHAPTER 65
Limassol, Cyprus
Present day
On their way out Aristo and Katerina decided to explore where the stairs they saw earlier halfway through the Castle-side tunnel led. Climbing the flight of stairs they found themselves in the courtyard of the Church of Ayia Napa.
Then they went back down and tried the other staircase. That led to the Holiest of Holies, the Ieron or sanctuary, behind the ikonostasis or templon, the marble screen that held icons and that separated the Ieron from the rest of the church. But enough games for one day. It was time to get out into the fresh air and a healthy dose of reality.
Aristo and Katerina left the Church of Ayia Napa behind. They stopped when around a corner they saw the most idyllic spectacle being enacted before them. It was a little park, next to a rock, with the sea calmly spreading away from them, comfortably flowing from land to a newly- painted landscape.
The park was not deserted. There was a mother there with a child. The child was trying to climb the ancient olive tree and the father was indulging him, giving him a slight push and a shove, encouraging his child to entertain the idea that he was a monkey or an adventurer like the ones the child had seen on television.
Aristo and Katerina entered the park and sat on a bench looking out to sea. Aristo had the vague sense of deja vu at the scene before his eyes. And then he remembered. It seemed so long ago now. The deformed freak of a dream entangled with a night-mare that he had a few months ago.
A sudden fear gripped him. The memory of the dark dream that ended that magical moment came back to him. Little did he know that this had been a recurring dream for a number of his ancestors going back to the time of Michael Symitzis in the 15 ^th century A.D.
Suddenly the child came to Katerina and wanted her to pick him up and sit him on her lap. She obliged at the same time that the child’s mother was calling him to her and apologising to Katerina.
The child seemed very content in Katerina’s arms and started to fall asleep sucking his thumb. Katerina smiled. The mother came close and she and Katerina shared a rare moment of the magic that is motherhood.
However much Aristo tried to conjure up that dream he had long ago, before he had met Katerina, he found, though, that he could only manage to remember the good part of it; he failed to do the same with its dark counterpart that thankfully eluded him. And then he understood: the foreboding he felt back then of a possible dark future for him and the woman in his life had now left him for good, because it now meant nothing.
Aristo with the help of his select group of good people had removed the threat and changed things, changed his life. He and Katerina would no doubt have lots of challenges ahead to test them, but at least they would face them together.
The foreboding was replaced by a sense of peace and tranquillity. For a brief precious moment it was just the two of them, in each other’s both comfortable and, at the same time, electrifying company, a one but dual-strand presence with its own distinct character, speaking with one voice. The outside world was left out in the cold, small and forgotten. Time had stopped for them.
A week later it was Andrew Le Charos’ funeral in Sydney. It was a grand affair as befitted one of the most prominent and wealthiest businessmen in Australia. After the funeral there was the traditional commiseration gathering back at Andrew’s house at Point Piper.
The following day Andrew’s lawyer arrived at the house for the reading of Andrew’s will. Elli was surprised by the will’s contents, but was not as surprised as her two sons.
Except for a few sizeable bequests to charitable organisations and a very large one to the Symitzis Foundation, Andrew had left his entire estate worth around ten billion Australian dollars to be split equally between his only children, his two sons, Aristo and Vasilis.
Iraklios’ funeral took place two days later. Elli was there to bury him, because Iraklios was her brother, even though she was still reeling from finding out the truth, still unable to accept that Iraklios who had been for her whole life until then her most trusted friend and business associate, betrayed her, the family and the company and joined forces with the Marcquesa, their mortal enemy, their dangerous mortal enemy.
Elli partly understood Iraklios’ betrayal, the weakness in his character that had brought it on. He could be a bit too emotional at times. But it could not have been only that. He, at long last, had his little sister back. And that clouded his judgement.
He threw caution to the wind and could only see in the Marcquesa’s eyes, in the person before him, his little sister at the time that she was taken. And he gave the Marcquesa the undeserved benefit of the doubt, in view of the way she was taken and the nightmares he must have had about what he imagined she must have suffered.
Perhaps his innards had been eaten away by the guilt at his failure as her big brother to protect her, to keep her safe, to save her, to find and rescue her after she was taken. For Iraklios to give in to the Marcquesa so easily, his life must have been scarred by her abduction.
He hid it well, though. He must have been tormented by the thought: “How, God, she must have waited for me to come for her and where was I? Did I look for her? No. Did I move heaven and earth to find her? No, again.”
How long, Elli wondered, would the Marcquesa have waited for him, held hope of salvation, of a rescue, before she gave up and succumbed to the inevitability of her situation, of never seeing her loved ones again? And for Iraklios there was probably also guilt that he was spared. Why her and not him?
His emotional need to reconnect with his long lost little sister must have been intense and irresistible, the crack in his heart needing only to catch a glimpse of her to open up to her completely and unconditionally, and with apparently no space for anybody else anymore.
Perhaps he decided that he had given enough love to the rest of the family for so long, and the Marcquesa had been deprived of it for so long that Iraklios had to make up for it; from then on there was no space, no time for anyone else; his little sister deserved his undivided attention, dedication, loyalty and love.
That’s why he must have secretly distanced and excluded himself from the fold of the rest of his family and entered the Marcquesa’s fold, in spite of all he knew about her.
In his will Iraklios left his entire estate including his now 25 % holding in the Valchern Corporation to Aristo and Vasilis to be divided between them in equal shares. A letter arrived two days after the funeral explaining that his actions were driven by blackmail by the Marcquesa, but did not reveal why. He had given Elli the parchment in that cafe in Constantinople as his last act as guardian of the secret of the events in Cappadocia in 1453 A.D. to help her, at great risk to his life, if he was seen by the Marcquesa’s spies. He asked for Elli’s forgiveness.
Elli and the family left for Mount Ellothon on Elli’s yacht, the “Vanger”, to spend two weeks of much-needed rest to clear the mind and relieve the body after the excitement of their adventure.
But they could not rest for long, could they? They were soon bored and missing the crazy moments they
