‘Thank you.’ She turned her attention to the stage, intrigued to see that the musicians had exchanged their modern instruments for harps and flutes which looked like museum exhibits. Along with some kind of snare drums, they began to make music so eerily unlike anything she’d ever heard before the hairs rose on the back of her neck and her blood began to pulse in time with the hypnotic beat.
With sudden drama, the great Kastro doors were flung open and a roar of applause greeted the dancers who came out two by two, moving in a slow rhythm dictated by the drum beat as they descended to the terrace. At first sight Eleanor thought they were all men after all, but when they moved into the dramatic ring of torchlight the girls among them were obvious by the bandeaux covering their breasts. Otherwise all the dancers wore loin guards under brief, gauzy kilts, glinting gold jewellery, black wigs with ringlets and soft leather sandals laced high up the leg.
Eleanor forgot Alexei Drakos’ hostility and sat entranced. The entire scene was straight off a painting on some ancient vase, except that these figures were alive and moving. The procession circled the torch-lit stage twice in hypnotic, slow-stepping rhythm before the dancers lined up in a double row to look up at the table where Alexei Drakos sat with his guests. The leader, a muscular figure with eyes painted as heavily as the girls, stepped forward to salute Alexei and Eleanor shook herself out of her trance to capture the scene on film in the instant before the lithe figures began to dance. They swayed in perfect unison, dipping and weaving in sinuous, labyrinthine patterns which gradually grew more and more complex as the beat of the music quickened. It rose faster and faster to a final crescendo as a bull bellowed off-stage, the doors burst open again and a figure out of myth and nightmare gave a great leap down into the torchlight. The crowd went wild at the sight of a black bull’s head with crystal eyes and vicious horns topping a muscular, human male body.
CHAPTER TWO
ELEANOR’S relief was so intense she had to wait until her hands were steady enough to do the job she’d come for as she focused her lens on the fantastic figure. She smiled in recognition as a new player leapt into the torchlight to face the beast, the testosterone in every line of the bronzed muscular body in sharp contrast to his painted face and golden love-locks; Theseus, the blond Hellene, come to slay the Minotaur.
Eleanor took several shots then sat, mesmerised, as Theseus and the dancers swooped around the central half-man half-beast figure, taunting him like a flock of mockingbirds as they somersaulted away from his lunging horns. She gasped with the audience as Theseus vaulted from the bent back of one of the male dancers to somersault through the air over the Minotaur’s horns. He landed on his feet with the grace and skill of an Olympic gymnast, an imperious hand raised to hush the applause as the troupe launched into a series of athletic, balance-defying somersaults, spinning around the central figure while the Minotaur lunged at them in graphically conveyed fury. In perfect rhythm the dancers taunted him with their dizzying kaleidoscope of movement as again and again Theseus danced away from the menacing horns. The music grew more and more frenzied until the dance culminated in another breath-taking somersault by Theseus over the great bull’s head, but this time he snatched up a golden double-headed axe of the type Eleanor had seen in photographs of Cretan artefacts.
The Minotaur lunged with such ferocity the audience gave a great, concerted gasp again as Theseus leapt aside to avoid the horns and held the axe aloft for an instant of pure drama, before bringing it down on the Minotaur’s neck. There was an anguished bellow as the man-beast sank slowly to his knees and then fell, sprawled, the great horned head at Theseus’s feet.
To say the crowd went wild again was an understatement. But, even as Eleanor applauded with the rest, her inner cynic warned that the sheer drama of the moment would end when the beast was obliged to get to his all-too-human feet as the performers took their bow. But, though the applause was prolonged, there was no bow. Still blank-faced as figures on a fresco, the dancers formed a line on either side of the fallen figure. With Theseus and the lead dancer at the impressive shoulders, the male members of the troupe bent as one man to pick up the Minotaur and heaved him up in a practised movement to shoulder height. The women went ahead, hands clasped and heads bowed as, still in rhythm with the wailing flutes and now slow, solemn, hypnotic drumbeat, the vanquished man-beast was slowly borne around the torch-lit arena, horned head hanging, then up the steep steps and through the double doors into the Kastro, to tumultuous applause and cheers from the crowd.
‘So what did you think of our famous taurokathapsia, Ms Markham?’ asked Alexei Drakos as the musicians took up their modern instruments again. ‘You seemed nervous before it started. Were you expecting something different?’
‘Yes.’ She exchanged a rueful smile with Talia. ‘I was afraid a real live bull was involved.’
‘I rather fancied you were, but I couldn’t spoil the drama by reassuring you!’ Talia smiled indulgently and exchanged a glance with her son. ‘Was the dance originally done with an actual animal?’
‘According to myth and legend, yes, and the wall paintings on Knossos in Crete seem to bear that out. But not here.’ He looked very deliberately at Eleanor. ‘I assure you that no bulls have danced on Kyrkiros since I acquired the island. Though I can’t answer for what happened back in prehistory, Ms Markham.’ He beckoned to Yannis, who came hurrying to ask what the ‘kyrie’ desired, and Alexei turned to Stefan.
‘Join your friends now, if you like. I shan’t need you anymore tonight,’ he said in English.
‘Thank you, kyrie,’ the young man replied. ‘Kalinychta, ladies. This has been a great pleasure.’
‘Thank you for your company, Stefan.’ Talia gave him her hand. He kissed it formally, bowed to Eleanor and hurried off to the far end of the terrace, where he was absorbed into an exuberant crowd at one of the tables.
‘So, what would you like?’ asked Alexei.
Talia asked for coffee. ‘After all the emotion expended on that performance, I am not hungry. How about you, Eleanor?’
‘Coffee would be wonderful, thank you.’ Eleanor glanced at her watch as Yannis hurried off with the order. ‘I’ll be leaving soon.’
‘How are you getting back?’ asked Talia.
‘The boatman who brought me is coming to pick me up.’ Eleanor smiled at her gratefully. ‘Thank you so much for inviting me to join you.’
‘We were very pleased to have your company.’ Talia fixed her son with an imperious blue gaze. ‘Were we not, Alex?’
‘Delighted.’ He looked directly at Eleanor. ‘Do you have all you require for your article?’
She nodded. ‘Your festival will make a wonderful finale to my series. Of course, I’ll make it clear that this is an annual event, and stress that Kyrkiros is a private island, not a holiday destination. Was the original bull dance performed as a mid-summer celebration?’
‘According to historians it was probably a regular attraction on Crete.’
‘It is performed here at this time to commemorate the feast of St John, which also happens to be Alex’s birthday,’ said Talia, with a smile for her son.
‘Then I wish you many happy returns, Mr Drakos,’ Eleanor said with formality. ‘As I said earlier, nothing will appear in my article that you could object to.’
‘Earlier?’ said Talia sharply.
Her son shrugged. ‘I had a conversation with Ms Markham on the subject of reprisals. I told her what would happen if she mentioned your name.’
His mother stared at him, appalled. ‘You threatened her?’
‘Yes,’ he said, unmoved. ‘She may write all she wants about the festival and the island. But if there’s a single reference to you personally, I’ll sue the paper she works for.’
Crimson to the roots of her hair, Eleanor stared at her watch, willing the hands to