Penthesilea's Wish [Vol.2]

Chapter Twenty-one

As Daniela approached the refreshments table with Theo, she had still not seen Nicasio and Stacie anywhere in the room. She surmised they had moved out of the reception hall into the cool air of the gardens like many of the guests had. Fighting back the visualization of such a move, she ordered an orange juice while Theofilos had a whisky poured on the rocks.

The two of them soon left the service bar and moved over to a large group cueing up at a table for h'orderves. Theofilos once again lightly rested his hand on her shoulder. His touch was careful and not altogether unpleasant as she perceived, but she did not know how long she could be tolerant of his subtle advances before they were soon to become predictably more obvious.

"So what was this big mystery?" Daniela asked, slowly sipping her drink and trying to look beyond Theo's physical overtures.

"Mystery?" He seemed lost for the moment, obviously trying to read any signals Daniela might be giving him in response to his light touches.

"You said there was some curios thing about these researchers . . . and their leader. Dr. . . ." She gently removed his hand from her shoulder.

"Vasiliou. Yes. Exactly."

He reluctantly seemed to come back into focus. "Well they worked here very hard for weeks at a time. Then they would silently go their way. None of them published anything they had done that first year or even the second. And that included some archaeological work in Turkey conducted over both summers."

"Wow. And Professor Vasiliou?"

Theo smoothly rested a hand again on Daniela's opposite shoulder, which she immediately took away without comment. He wisely complied and stepped back, taking a healthy sip of his whiskey.

"Well, yeah. That's also very strange. See . . . she retired from her post as a professor of Archaeology and lecturer in Ancient History just after that second summer."

"Retired?"

"Retired."

"But she must have been . . . still quite young."

"She was."

Daniela now viewed her questioning as a sort of challenge. She could feel it was a way of pushing the limits of her own courage. She began to realize that she had the power to control this interaction with Theofilos.

They continued strolling across the banquet hall to a table with two empty chairs. There they sat facing each other, placing their drinks in front of them.

"And so why had these women gone to Turkey, Theo?"

He altered his approach once again, appearing now to be more patient and attentive as he sipped his whiskey and looked into her eyes.

"Yes . . . well you see . . . several of those ancient historians I told you about hinted at the location of where the Amazons roamed. It was in Anatolia . . . the peninsula which is Turkey today."

"OK."

"These writers gave their whereabouts as the southern peripheries of the Black Sea. The northern region of Turkey is on that coastal plain." Theo smiled congenially while delivering this more detailed information.

"I see. And so the women researchers were digging there?"

"Well not exactly. I have reason to believe they were more focused on the western coastal area . . . around the site of ancient Troy, near the Bosporus. They were apparently involved in a series of quiet extensive excavations there. Though their work was never written up. . . and we don't know exactly what they were looking for."