Page 9 of Vows of Revenge

Kassia glanced at him. ‘Oneof your vineyards?’

‘Yes—wine is one of the sectors that I can invest in with pleasure as well as profit in mind. And I have a particular interest in developing domestic wines. Greek wine should be better known internationally.’

‘The blight of retsina?’ Kassia rejoined dryly.

‘Indeed—though retsina has its place. As do, of course, wines produced locally, entirely for local, low-cost consumption.’

Kassia gave a wry smile. Faint, but definitely a smile—her first of the evening, she realised with a little start.

‘On excavations we don’t run to more than the local table wines and beer of an evening.’

He looked at her, and she could see curiosity in his expression.

‘How do you manage the adaptation?’ he asked. ‘You are Yorgos Andrakis’s daughter—and yet you work digging up broken pots from the dirt.’

She paused a moment, then answered, choosing her words carefully.

‘I don’t spend much time in Athens—or in being Yorgos Andrakis’s daughter. Besides,’ she went on, ‘I’m not always on excavations. Out of season I’m based at a provincial museum. I spend time studying our findings, cataloguing them, writing them up, contributing to papers, going to conferences—that sort of thing.’

‘Not exactly a jet-set lifestyle,’ Damos Kallinikos said mordantly.

She shook her head. ‘Not my scene,’ she agreed. She looked across at him. ‘And, since I have no head for business, the only thing for me to do as Yorgos Andrakis’s daughter would be to go to parties and spend his money and be “ornamental”. But...’ she took a breath ‘...I am not “ornamental”, so I’d rather do something useful and dig for broken pots in the dirt and catalogue them.’

He was looking at her now, and there was something in the way he was looking across the lamplit table that she found unnerving. She didn’t know why. But it was unnerving, all the same. To stop it, she took a quick mouthful of her wine, and another mouthful of her tender and delicious chicken, and then quite deliberately moved the conversation on.

‘Speaking of digging up broken pots—what was it that you wanted to know about our excavation?’ she asked. ‘Fire away with the questions—after all, it’s what I’m here for.’

‘So you are...’ Damos Kallinikos murmured.

For just a moment that unnerving look was in his eye again—then it vanished. As if it had been cleared away decisively.

‘OK, well, let me pick up on something you mentioned to me this afternoon,’ he said. ‘You said something about the collapse of Bronze Age Civilisation. I didn’t know it had. Why did it—and when?’

Kassia felt herself relaxing—and engaging. This was familiar territory to her.

‘The “when” is pretty well attested by the archaeological evidence—around 1200 BC or thereabouts. The “why” is more controversial and contentious.’

She reached for her wine again—it really was a very good wine after the table wines she was used to on digs.

‘We can see that sites were being abandoned—the great palace complexes, like the most famous at Mycenae—and the population crashed. Linear B, the script of the Mycenaeans, all but disappears, and written Greek doesn’t reappear until the adoption of the alphabet from the Phoenicians, in about the tenth century or so BC. The powerful Hittite empire in modern-day Turkey disappears too, and trade plummets in this post-Bronze Age period—though there is evidence of huge demographic changes, either from new arrivals, or from those economically displaced. It’s the era of the still mysterious Sea Peoples, raiding and invading, and it’s also the most likely time for the legendary Trojan War—’

She drew breath and plunged on, warming to her theme, running through the various possible causes of the collapse—from old theories about newly arriving Dorians from the north to current theories about climate change and the development of iron technology changing the balance of power and warfare. She was in full train, explaining the differences in smelting copper and tin to bronze, and the higher temperatures needed for smelting iron, when she stopped dead.

Damos Kallinikos had finished eating and was sitting back, wine glass in one hand, his other hand resting on the table. His eyes were half lidded, and she had the sudden acute feeling that she was boring him stupid.

She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s fascinating to me, but—’

He held up his hand. ‘Don’t apologise. I asked the question and you answered. I’m spellbound.’

For a moment she had the hideous feeling that he was being sarcastic. But then he leant forward.

‘Your face comes alight when you talk with such passion,’ he said.

His eyes met hers. Held hers.

Kassia couldn’t move. Not a muscle.

Damos wanted to punch the air.

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