Her question seemed to snap Xenia to attention. The Greek woman consulted her own watch. “Yes, the time is slipping away from us. We must leave now, or the day will be gone.” She immediately bustled them back into the Citroen.
Before going straight to their destination, Cassie asked for a quick detour. The weather had proven to be hotter than she expected, and she wanted to change into some lighter clothing. They drove back into Heraklion and stopped at the hotel. Cassie left the other two in the lobby and ran up to her room to don a T-shirt and Capri pants. When she came back downstairs, she noticed that Griffin had taken the opportunity to get another cup of coffee.
He held out a paper cup to her. “One for the road?” he suggested.
She gulped it down gratefully even though it scalded her throat. Trying to shake off her tiredness as best she could, she climbed back into the tiny car, and they headed out of town in the opposite direction from which they had come.
After driving for about half an hour through hilly countryside, Xenia made a sharp right turn onto a narrow road that cut through a field of grape vines. She kept driving through an open iron gate. A wooden sign lettered in Greek and English identified this as the Katsouras Winery. Xenia steered the Citroen toward a collection of buildings nestled up against a steep hillside. Some of the structures were modern metal storage sheds, others much older and constructed of whitewashed stone. The trove keeper found a parking space among several other cars ringing the dusty courtyard.
The trio got out and walked toward a cottage that seemed to grow out of the rock face behind it. The structure must have been very old judging by the size of the bougainvillea vine covering its walls. The small open windows and wooden door were painted an azure shade of blue.
“You own a winery?” Cassie asked.
Xenia smiled briefly. “This property has belonged to my family for centuries. It is a small operation. Nothing like your California vineyards. We don’t advertise, but wine connoisseurs always know how to find us.”
She led them through the blue door into what appeared to be a tasting room. It wasn’t large—a few tiny tables with wicker-bottom chairs. There was a bar off to one side. She nodded to the man standing behind it but made no effort to introduce her guests to him.
“This way,” she instructed. There was another wooden door at the back of the tasting room. Xenia ushered them through and shut the door behind them. She flipped a light switch on the wall. They were standing on a platform in front of a wide wooden stairway leading down into darkness.
“You want us to go down there?” Cassie studied the underground space dubiously. It seemed a bit too much like a tomb.
“Come, there is nothing to fear,” Xenia urged. She flipped a second light switch.
To the pythia’s surprise, the passageway was wired for electricity, and bulbs were strung at even intervals all the way down the stairs. The trove keeper led the way with Cassie in the middle and Griffin bringing up the rear.
Cassie took stock of her surroundings. The walls on either side were solid rock. “This reminds me of pictures of the Roman catacombs.”
“It is very much like them,” Xenia commented. “This space was hollowed out of the hillside centuries ago.”
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Cassie realized they were standing in a high vaulted chamber—about twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high. It was cool and dark and, from Cassie’s perspective, more than a little creepy.
“What is this place?” she asked uncertainly.
“I would hazard a guess and say that we’re in a wine cave,” Griffin offered. “You see the casks against the walls.”
Straining to focus her eyes in the dim light, Cassie noticed the enormous casks stacked on either side of them. “But why would anybody put wine in a cave, and why is the cave inside a cottage?”
Xenia laughed. “It is very common to use caves to store wine. This has been done since the time of the Minoans.”
“It isn’t a phenomenon peculiar to Greece either,” the scrivener added. “Caves all over Europe are used this way. The high humidity and cool temperatures are considered ideal for wine storage.”
“My family discovered this cave when they first came here. They built the vineyard around it, and my ancestors widened the cave as more space was needed to house our wine.”
Xenia walked to the opposite end of the chamber which terminated abruptly at a solid wall of rock. She turned to regard Cassie with a slight smile. “But you did not come here to see a winery. You came to see the Minoan trove.” She tapped a spot on the rock face, and the entire back wall slid noiselessly to one side to reveal a room beyond.
Cassie stood gaping open-mouthed in amazement.
Griffin seemed equally surprised. “Oh, I say. That was brilliant!”
They walked under the archway into the trove. Xenia slid the wall panel shut behind them. The dank gloom of the wine cave disappeared. In contrast, the trove was bright and warm. The walls were no longer bare rock but framed, insulated, and covered with beige wallpaper. There were modern fluorescent light panels in the ceiling which counteracted much of the oppressive feeling of being underground.
“This area is strictly climate-controlled,” Xenia explained. “While high humidity and cool temperatures are very good for wine, they are very bad for artifacts.”
Cassie noticed several people working at long tables in the center of the room. They appeared to be polishing objects of various sizes and shapes. A few of them looked up and nodded to the newcomers.
“This is where we restore our finds.”
“Are all the troves like this one?”
“They’re all different,” Griffin offered. “It depends on what space is available. Some troves are very new and modern. Some are a bit more rustic. The Minoan trove has been
