court, life lived against the stimulating beat of archaeological derring-do. Letty ached with longing to have been a part of it.
Here a changing cast of young and active scholars had helped to
reveal
to a fascinated world a society only hinted at in legend. Ancient writers had been confident that the empire of Minos had existed, had even pointed clearly to the slope near Herakleion as the centre of the culture, but no one had quite liked to believe in any of this until, in the first three years of the century, Arthur Evans in a series of swift and frenzied digs had laid it bare to the light once more. And here, to the villa he'd built on the hill commanding the excavations, one team had retired at the end of each day's work to cool off in the ground-floor rooms, to write up their accounts, draw profiles, argue and speculate and joke.
Constructed of sand-coloured stone slabs, large and flat-roofed, the Villa Ariadne occupied a perfect position overlooking the Palace of Knossos and the olive and cypress-covered slopes of the valley of the Kairatos. A garden had been contrived in the shallow soil, Edwardian in its formality but enlivened with pots of bright flowers and shy statuary placed amongst the shrubs by a discreet hand.
“Leave the car in the shade over there,” instructed Phoebe, “and I'll go and see if anyone's at home. Back in a tick.”
Phoebe returned after a few minutes, accompanied by two middle-aged Cretans, obviously man and wife. “No luck, I'm afraid. No royalty, no heads of state, no operatic tenors—not even an archaeologist, for goodness' sake! The curator's gone off to Rethymnon. But here are Kostis and Maria to greet you, Letty. They look after Arthur when he's here and they're going to provide us with tea when we've finished at the palace. I said four o'clock…I think that will be late enough.”
Letty was introduced to Evans's butler and his wife and, instantly catching on to their plans, Kostis whistled up two boys who seized the hamper from the car and set off down the hill. Phoebe and Letty followed after, Phoebe chattering nineteen to the dozen about the palace. She talked confidently about the excavations and about preclassical history, Letty noticed, intrigued. But Phoebe's information was not ponderously displayed: It skittered and bounced along the surface of what Letty guessed to be a depth of knowledge. And the deserted state of the Villa Ariadne had in no way dampened her mood, as one might have expected. Showing off and socialising were not, evidently, the reason for this outing.
They followed the boys down the road for about a hundred yards, crossed over and, passing the deserted guardian's house, entered the site from what Phoebe called the West Court. She gave directions for leaving the hamper in the shade, dismissed the boys, and stood scanning the terrain like a general. “Deserted! Good! I hate to arrive at the same time as a charabanc-load of tourists, leaving piles of orange peel all over the place and yammering like monkeys.”
Letty looked about her at the vast slope, covered with a jumble of grey limestone walls and hummocks of stones stretching onwards down the headland towards the river, and her heart sank.
Reading her expression, Phoebe laughed. “I know! How does anyone ever make sense of this maze? It's a palace surrounded by a town; it's a site two hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide. Buckingham Palace and its gardens would fit into it twice over with room to spare, I'm told. Every inch packed with detail. And don't forget the third dimension—depth and height. Theo says some parts of the palace could have been as high as five storeys, most two or three. After your tenth exposure to all this, you may begin to have a glimmer of understanding, but today you're not even to try! Quite shamelessly, I'm going to show you the most dramatic bits—the Violet and Rose Creams of the Charbonnel et Walker assortment. Come on! Follow me—and keep your eyes
Here a changing cast of young and active scholars had helped to
reveal
to a fascinated world a society only hinted at in legend. Ancient writers had been confident that the empire of Minos had existed, had even pointed clearly to the slope near Herakleion as the centre of the culture, but no one had quite liked to believe in any of this until, in the first three years of the century, Arthur Evans in a series of swift and frenzied digs had laid it bare to the light once more. And here, to the villa he'd built on the hill commanding the excavations, one team had retired at the end of each day's work to cool off in the ground-floor rooms, to write up their accounts, draw profiles, argue and speculate and joke.
Constructed of sand-coloured stone slabs, large and flat-roofed, the Villa Ariadne occupied a perfect position overlooking the Palace of Knossos and the olive and cypress-covered slopes of the valley of the Kairatos. A garden had been contrived in the shallow soil, Edwardian in its formality but enlivened with pots of bright flowers and shy statuary placed amongst the shrubs by a discreet hand.
“Leave the car in the shade over there,” instructed Phoebe, “and I'll go and see if anyone's at home. Back in a tick.”
Phoebe returned after a few minutes, accompanied by two middle-aged Cretans, obviously man and wife. “No luck, I'm afraid. No royalty, no heads of state, no operatic tenors—not even an archaeologist, for goodness' sake! The curator's gone off to Rethymnon. But here are Kostis and Maria to greet you, Letty. They look after Arthur when he's here and they're going to provide us with tea when we've finished at the palace. I said four o'clock…I think that will be late enough.”
Letty was introduced to Evans's butler and his wife and, instantly catching on to their plans, Kostis whistled up two boys who seized the hamper from the car and set off down the hill. Phoebe and Letty followed after, Phoebe chattering nineteen to the dozen about the palace. She talked confidently about the excavations and about preclassical history, Letty noticed, intrigued. But Phoebe's information was not ponderously displayed: It skittered and bounced along the surface of what Letty guessed to be a depth of knowledge. And the deserted state of the Villa Ariadne had in no way dampened her mood, as one might have expected. Showing off and socialising were not, evidently, the reason for this outing.
They followed the boys down the road for about a hundred yards, crossed over and, passing the deserted guardian's house, entered the site from what Phoebe called the West Court. She gave directions for leaving the hamper in the shade, dismissed the boys, and stood scanning the terrain like a general. “Deserted! Good! I hate to arrive at the same time as a charabanc-load of tourists, leaving piles of orange peel all over the place and yammering like monkeys.”
Letty looked about her at the vast slope, covered with a jumble of grey limestone walls and hummocks of stones stretching onwards down the headland towards the river, and her heart sank.
Reading her expression, Phoebe laughed. “I know! How does anyone ever make sense of this maze? It's a palace surrounded by a town; it's a site two hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide. Buckingham Palace and its gardens would fit into it twice over with room to spare, I'm told. Every inch packed with detail. And don't forget the third dimension—depth and height. Theo says some parts of the palace could have been as high as five storeys, most two or three. After your tenth exposure to all this, you may begin to have a glimmer of understanding, but today you're not even to try! Quite shamelessly, I'm going to show you the most dramatic bits—the Violet and Rose Creams of the Charbonnel et Walker assortment. Come on! Follow me—and keep your eyes
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