Their chauffeur slapped on the brakes to avoid hitting a pedestrian, causing his passengers to lurch forward.
Unfazed, Elle continued, “They carry a set of Rules of the Road in their heads, but sometimes their intuition is off the mark. Do you know there’s no such thing as vehicular manslaughter here?”
Griffin squinted at her in disbelief. “Really?”
“I swear. If somebody gets killed accidentally in a car accident, the person responsible just pays compensation to the victim’s family, and they all walk away. In fact, the person driving the biggest car usually gets stuck with the bill because everybody assumes he can afford it.”
“You’re kidding!” Cassie gasped.
“I wish I was,” Elle countered. “Driving here would scare the hell out of my mother—the New York cabbie.” She shook her head in wonder. “Indonesians. They’re the nicest people on the planet, but they drive like maniacs.”
As if to punctuate her comment, the driver slapped on the brakes again, almost sending the sentinel through the windshield. This time, a motorcycle had cut directly in front of their car to make an unsignaled right turn.
“Need I say more?” Elle turned to face forward and cinched her seatbelt.
They traveled in silence for nearly half an hour. Once out of the city traffic, they passed coffee and rubber plantations on a flat plain which separated the sea from the mountains to the east. The driver took a road leading upward toward the hills. After days spent in the cool mountain air of Lugu Lake, the humid tropical climate took some getting used to.
Fortunately, the higher the car climbed, the cooler the air became. The road grew narrower, and the vegetation became so dense that it qualified as a jungle. The car followed one bend after another in a series of disorienting curves until it brought them into a clearing. A jumble of houses of varying sizes sprouted from the undergrowth. They were constructed of wood and bamboo on pilings raised about ten feet off the ground. Some houses had horn-shaped gables of woven palm fronds which were so sharply pitched they resembled steeples. Elle informed them that this design was meant to mimic the horns of a water buffalo. The driver stopped in front of the biggest house in the village. Its proportions suggested it might be the town hall rather than a dwelling.
They all got out.
“We’re here,” Elle announced. “I sent word ahead, and she’s expecting us.”
A woman less than five-feet tall emerged at the top of the front stairs to greet them. She was dressed in a floral batik mumu dress. In her sixties, the matriarch was portly with short gray hair and a good-humored face.
Elle rushed up the stairs ahead of the rest. The sentinel and the matriarch exchanged greetings in the local language. Then Elle gestured for Griffin and Cassie to join them.
“I’d like you to meet...” Elle rattled off a name several syllables long.
Griffin and Cassie eyed one another, silently trying to decide whether they should be rude enough to ask the sentinel to repeat the name.
Cassie whispered, “I don’t think we’d be able to catch that even if you repeated it a dozen times.” She stepped forward and took the woman’s hand. “Very nice to meet you.” She gave a little bow.
Griffin did the same.
The matriarch gestured them inside. The interior of the huge house offered what appeared to be a long, covered verandah at the front where guests were received. The floors, walls, and support beams were made of varnished wood. Pendant lamps hung at intervals from the ceiling. Every five feet, window openings had been cut into the walls though they contained no glass. Given the tropical climate, this seemed a practical design. Moveable shutters could be lowered to keep out the rain. The matriarch motioned for them to take seats. There were four bentwood chairs with cloth seat covers and backrests arranged around a small tea table. This furniture grouping was repeated all along the length of the fifty-foot parlor. Despite the immense size of the building, nobody else appeared to be in residence.
“These ancestral houses are built on a big scale,” Elle explained. “Some of them go back centuries. Think of this more like the rec center of a housing development. Aside from this being the home of the women of the family, various functions and ceremonies are held here too.”
The guests nodded and took chairs around the table.
Elle directed her next question to their hostess. Griffin and Cassie inferred she was asking about the whereabouts of the artifact.
The matriarch’s face lit up with a smile, and she raised her hand in a gesture which obviously meant they should wait while she retrieved it.
Scanning the interior, Cassie said to Elle, “You picked a good hiding place. This house is so huge there must be dozens of nooks and crannies where nobody would think to look.”
“Just between you and me, I think our hostess is relieved that I came to claim it so soon. She probably felt it was a big responsibility, but she was too polite to tell me so.”
A few moments later, the tiny woman shuffled back to the parlor bearing a bundle wrapped in brightly colored cloth. She laid it on the table and Elle did the honors of unwrapping it.
Cassie and Griffin rose to stand behind her as she completed the operation. When they saw what the bundle contained, they traded looks of triumphant recognition.
Elle gazed upward at them “Is this what you came to find?”
Griffin traced the Minoan glyphs carved into the object with his index finger. “Without a doubt. These symbols look quite familiar.”
The sentinel gave a nod of confirmation and rewrapped the object. Smiling at the matriarch,
