Hearts of Stone by Simon Scarrow

an incoherent shout of triumph.
    Peter reached out to the rock beside him, gasping for breath. Andreas’s father joined them.
    ‘You swim like fish, both of you.’
    Andreas shook his head with a rueful expression. ‘You let me win . . . Like you always do.’
    ‘No, my son. Not any more . . . And where is Eleni?’
    All three turned to see her splashing steadily towards them. Katarides spoke quietly over their laboured breathing. ‘She’s got great heart, that one. She has the making of a fine woman.’
    With a final few strokes she joined them and clung to the rock as she caught her breath. ‘Who . . . won?’
    ‘Andreas,’ Peter replied. ‘Of course.’
    He gestured beyond the rock. ‘Why, this cave is huge!’
    The roof of the cave curved high above them and beyond the opening to the sea it stretched to the right, in a dog-leg. There was a small strip of sand at the far end, where the roof was at its lowest. Due to the gloom it was hard to judge the distance to the tiny beach.
    ‘Let’s swim over there.’ Peter suggested, then turned to Eleni who was still breathing heavily. ‘If you can manage it.’
    She splashed some water in his face and immediately began to swim into the dim recess of the cave. Peter set off after her. The others watched them briefly before Andreas turned to his father.
    ‘Are you coming?’
    ‘No . . .’
    There was something pained in his manner that caused Andreas to pause. ‘What’s the matter, Father?’
    ‘It’s nothing, really. I came here once before, with your mother. When I was only a few years older than you are.’
    ‘Oh.’
    Katarides reached out and squeezed his son’s shoulder affectionately. ‘You go. I’ll wait here a moment and return to the boat.’
    His son nodded and then eased himself away from the rock and swam after his friends. Katarides’s gaze followed him for a while and he felt the warm glow of paternal pride in his heart. There was an ache too. The very presence of Andreas always reminded him of the wife he had lost. He should not have agreed to return here, he decided. The memory was too painful. He took a deep breath and headed back towards the boat, rocking very gently on the calm sea. Behind him the echoes of the splashes made by the youngsters echoed off the rock face.
    As Peter neared the thin crescent of the beach he lowered his feet and found that he could easily touch the sandy bottom. He waded in until his chest rose from the surface and waited for Eleni to find her footing. Andreas was still some distance off.
    ‘I wonder how long this cave has been here,’ Peter mused. His thoughts flitted to the tales of ancient mythology he had been raised on. If the cave had existed in the age of Odysseus then maybe the king himself had known of it, or even come inside and stood in the same place where Peter was now. The thought thrilled him.
    Eleni cupped a hand to her mouth and called out, ‘Cooieee!’
    The cry came back to her, shrill and distorted, before it quickly died away. She grinned with pleasure. Peter smiled back and then attempted a yodel, laughing at the cacophony returned to him from the rocks. They experimented with some more noises while waiting for Andreas to join them and then all three waded through the shallows and slumped down on to the cool sand and gazed back down the length of the cave to where the sun shone in at a steep angle, turning the surface of the water into a glittering, shimmering spectacle whose reflections danced across the cave’s interior.
    ‘Quite beautiful,’ said Eleni.
    ‘Yes,’ Peter repeated, looking at her sidelong. ‘Very.’
    She was aware that she was being watched and turned to him, a slight frown on her brow. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Nothing. Just thinking about this place. The people who have been here before us, all the way back to antiquity. I don’t know, it’s almost like there’s something of them still in the air.’
    Andreas shrugged. ‘That’s the sort of thing