The Lost Labyrinth

III

The lights plunged out in the Island, and in the surrounding streets and buildings too, throwing the restaurant into an almost complete darkness, save for the blue flames of gas in the kitchen, and the headlights of passing traffic. A few diners laughed; others sighed. A woman struck and held up her lighter, making like she was the Statue of Liberty. The staff went smoothly into their practised drill, a waiter lighting oil lamps then hoisting them up with a bamboo pole to hang from ceiling hooks, while a waitress distributed candles among the tables, creating a cosy and romantic atmosphere. 'Ah, Greece!' smiled Nico, raising his glass in an impromptu toast. 'May she never work efficiently.'

'You said something in the car earlier,' said Knox, seizing the moment to divert him from his childhood reminiscences. 'That Augustin might have known about the golden fleece. How come?'

'I sent photographs of Petitier's seals to everyone on my speakers list, including your friend. It was a courtesy to explain the change of schedule. So plenty of people might have known about it, particularly if they knew their Linear B. And I'm not suggesting he did know about the fleece, anyway, only that the police might be able to make a case for it.' He sat back to allow the waitress to clear their plates. 'I should have just called them in at once,' he said ruefully. 'All my colleagues advised me to.'

'Really?' asked Gaille.

Nico nodded. 'Petitier had no right to those seals. He was legally obliged to notify the authorities rather than jaunting around the world giving talks on them. So, yes, technically I should have informed the police and left it to them. But no one knew where Petitier was or where he'd been living, so it wouldn't have been easy for them to track him down. And if he'd learned that the police were after him, maybe he'd have gone to ground again, and we'd never have learned what he'd found. And what was the point, after all? He was coming to us anyway, evidently intending to show us his finds and tell us all about them. It seemed unnecessarily vindictive to turn the police on him first.'

The waitress appeared again with three glasses, into which she poured generous shots of Metaxa. 'There's something I don't get,' said Gaille, once they'd clinked their glasses in a toast. 'If Petitier really had found the fleece, and wanted to announce it, why not just go to the press? Why choose an archaeological conference?'

Nico nodded, as though he'd wondered this himself. 'He must have been aware he'd acted illegally. Perhaps he wanted to legitimise himself as far as he could by dressing his announcement up in academic clothes.'

The lights flickered and came back on. Knox blinked and sat back in the sudden brightness, rather regretting the loss of intimacy. 'But why this conference? What has the fleece to do with Eleusis?'

'More than you might think.' He looked quizzically at them both. 'How much do you know about the fleece legend?'

'Just what you'd expect,' said Knox.

'Then let me give you a little background. For one thing, it's among the oldest of our heroic legends. It's mentioned in Homer, so it dates back at least to seven or eight hundred B.C., but almost certainly to the late bronze age or even earlier. Essentially, Phrixus and Helle, the twin children of King Athamas, were plotted against by their wicked stepmother Ino, who bribed an oracle to say they had to be sacrificed to end a famine. At the last moment, however, Poseidon sent a golden flying ram to secure their escape. The ram flew them over the sea, but Helle tragically fell off and drowned at the place we now know as the Hellespont. Phrixus made it all the way to Colchis, which is in modern-day Georgia, where he sacrificed the ram in gratitude to Poseidon and hung its fleece in a sacred grove.'

Gaille wrinkled her nose. 'I've always thought that a bit hard on the ram.'

'Never be an animal in a Greek myth,' agreed Nico. He covered his mouth with his hand, then produced a deep, long and contented belch. 'Anyway, the fleece stayed in Georgia until the time of Jason. Jason was the rightful king of Thessaly, of course, but his uncle had taken the throne, which he refused to give up unless Jason first proved himself by bringing back the fleece. Jason built himself a ship, the Argo, then gathered together the cream of Greek heroes, the Argonauts, with whom he set sail for Colchis. They endured the usual misadventures-fire-breathing oxen and dragons and metal giants and so on-but eventually Jason brought the fleece back in triumph to Thessaly, and claimed his throne. And that's pretty much it, for that fleece, at least.'

'For that fleece?' asked Gaille.

'Yes,' smiled Nico. 'You see, the thing is, Greek tradition mentions another golden fleece. It's much less well-known, but much more likely to have existed. And the fascinating thing is that it was reputedly kept at Eleusis. Did you know that, so long as they could afford it, anyone who spoke Greek could be initiated at Eleusis, even slaves. But there was one exception. People with blood on their hands. That is to say, murderers. Before they could participate, they had to go through a purification ceremony. The Italians very kindly lent us a vase for the conference depicting Hercules being cleansed. You may have seen it. He's sitting on a throne, and guess what's draped over it?'

'A golden fleece?' suggested Knox.

'A golden fleece,' nodded Nico. 'And of course the whole thing about Eleusis is that we know so little about what went on during the ceremony. But we do know for sure that several unknown sacred objects were shown to the congregation. Isn't it possible that the fleece was among them?'

'But I thought that Petitier made his finds in Crete,' said Knox. 'What would this fleece be doing there?'

'Again, it's more plausible than you might think. For one thing, Crete figures prominently in the Argonaut legend; it's where Jason encountered the bronze giant Talos. And more than a few scholars believe that at least parts of the fleece legend came originally from Crete. And Eleusis had its own very strong connections with Crete too. The legend of Demeter and Persephone is undoubtedly Cretan: apart from anything else, the Homeric Hymn, our best source on the Mysteries, states flatly that Demeter came from Crete. The earliest mention of Dionysus is also from Crete. His name is "Dio-Nysa" or "God of Nysa", and Nysa was most likely in Crete. Of course, he was a multifaceted god, as so many were. That is to say, he wasn't just Dionysus, he was Zeus and Poseidon too. As god of the sea, Poseidon was vitally important to the Minoans: and remember that it was Poseidon who sent the golden ram to pick up Phrixus and Helle in the first place.'

'That's a little thin, isn't it?'

'Then how about this: the families of the high priest at Eleusis were known as the Eumolpidai, from their ancestor Eumolpos, the first high priest, who came here from Crete. The high priestesses were also descended from Cretan families. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, as you might imagine. The Mysteries were celebrated all around the Mediterranean from the early Mycenaean era on; that is to say, from the end of the Minoan. The Minoan collapse seems overwhelmingly likely to have been precipitated by the eruption of Mount Thera, the greatest cataclysm in human history. It's not too far-fetched, is it, to imagine a kind of diaspora from Crete to the Mediterranean fringes, in which Minoan priests had to flee in such a hurry that they left their sacred treasures behind. Or, if you won't grant me that, we have good reason to believe that the sacred families kept up their links with Crete; so when Eleusis finally came under threat from Christianity, wouldn't it have made sense for them to seek sanctuary there?'

'Taking all their artefacts back with them. Including the golden fleece.'

'Exactly.'

'And now Petitier has found it.'

'Or so he wanted us to believe.'

'And tomorrow was to have been his great unveiling,' nodded Knox. 'But someone got to him first.'