‘What’s the matter?’ Pope asked.
Daring’s nose twitched as if he smelled something foul. ‘Cronus did something brutal when he was told of a prediction that his own son would turn against him.’
‘What was that?’ Knight asked.
The curator turned the iPad towards them. It showed a dark and disturbing painting of a dishevelled bearded and half-naked man chewing on the bloody arm of a small human body. The head and opposite arm were already gone.
‘This is a painting by the Spanish painter Goya,’ Daring said. ‘Its title is Saturn Devouring his Son. Saturn was the Romans’ name for Cronus.’
The painting repulsed Knight. Pope said, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘In the Roman and Greek myths,’ the curator replied testily, ‘Cronus ate his children one by one.’
Chapter 20
‘ATE THEM?’ POPE said, her lip curling.
Knight glanced at the painting and envisioned his own children in a playground near his home. He felt even more revolted.
‘It’s a myth – what can I say?’ Daring replied.
The curator went on to explain that Rhea hated her husband for devouring their children and she vowed that no more of her unborn children would suffer the same fate. So she snuck off to have the son she named Zeus, and hid him immediately after birth. Then she got Cronus drunk, and gave him a rock wrapped in a blanket to eat instead of her son.
‘Much later,’ Daring continued, ‘Zeus rose up, conquered Cronus, forced him to vomit up his children, and then hurled his father into the darkest abysmal pits of Tartarus, or something like that. Ask Farrell.’
‘Okay,’ Knight said, unsure if any of this helped or not, and wondering if this letter could possibly be a ruse designed to take them in a wrong direction. ‘You a fan of the modern Olympics, doctor?’
The television star frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Your exhibit strikes me as a bit slanted in favour of the ancient Games.’
Daring turned coolly indignant. ‘I think the work is quite even-handed. But I grant you that the ancient Games were about honour and excelling in celebration of the Greek religion, while the modern version, in my personal op
inion, has become too influenced by corporations and money. Ironic, I know, since this exhibit was built with the assistance of private benefactors.’
‘So, in a way, you agree with Cronus?’ Pope asked.
The curator’s voice went chilly. ‘I may agree that the original ideals of the Olympics could be getting lost in today’s Games, but I certainly do not agree with killing people to “cleanse” them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must finish up and change before the reception.’
Chapter 21
SEVERAL HOURS AFTER Marta killed the forger, the four of us were staying in a no-star hotel on the outskirts of western Sarajevo. I handed the sisters envelopes that contained their passports and enough money to travel.
‘Take separate taxis or buses to the train station. Then use completely separate routes to the address I put in your passports. In the alley behind that address, you’ll find a low brick wall. Under the third brick from the left you’ll find a key. Buy food. Go inside and wait there quietly until I arrive. Do not go out if you can avoid it. Do not be conspicuous. Wait.’
Marta translated and then asked, ‘When will you get there?’
‘In a few days,’ I said. ‘No more than a week, I should imagine.’
She nodded. ‘We wait for you.’
I believed her. After all, where else were she and her sisters to go? Their fates were mine now, and mine was theirs. Feeling more in control of my destiny than at any other time in my life, I left the Serbian girls and went out into the streets where I found dirt and grime to further soil my torn, bloody clothes. Then I wiped down the guns and threw them in a river.
An hour before dawn I wandered up to the security gate at the NATO garrison, acting in a daze. I had been missing for two and a half days.
I gave my superiors and doctors vague recollections of the bomb that tore apart the Land Cruiser. I said I’d wandered for hours, and then slept in the woods. In the morning, I’d set off again. It wasn’t until the previous evening that I’d remembered exactly who I was and where I was supposed to go; and I’d headed for the garrison with the fuzzy navigation of an alcoholic trying to find home.
The doctors examined me and determined that I had a fractured skull for the second time in my life. Two days later, I was on a medical transport: Cronus flying home to his Furies.