The Estruscan Chimera
by Lyn Hamilton
PROLOGUE
THE MAN WIPED THE SWEAT FROM HIS brow and sighed. By all the gods, it was hot here by the kilns. He could only dream of a place in the hills where the air sighed in the cypress trees, or of the sea, almost near enough to see here in Velc, from the highest treetop, but not so close that its breezes cooled his face.
He had chosen the vessel with care. He'd tested several, feeling their weight and their balance as he made a pouring motion and running his fingers across the surface to feel for imperfections in the clay that would destroy his work in the final firing. This one was perfect.
He'd thought long and hard about the subject, too, how best to capture the heroic struggle, the fight to the death between two bold antagonists, how to place the black figures against the red background to best effect on the softly rounded surface.
The choice of subject had been easy, the one he 'd heard first from some Greeks who toiled in his workshop, his son's favorite tale, the story the boy had asked to hear every night before sleep. He could recite it, almost without thinking, these many years later. About how Proteus, king of Argos, plotted against the brave and beautiful Bellerophon because Proteus's wife, the lovely but deceitful Antea, her advances spurned by the noble Bellerophon, had told the king terrible lies. How Proteus, enraged, had sent Bellerophon with sealed orders to Lycia, where the Lycian king, upon opening the tablet, had learned that Bellerophon was to die. How he had sent the young hero on an impossible mission to kill the dreaded chimera, a monstrous creature with the head of a lion, the hissing tail of a serpent, and a goat in between, who with every fiery breath scorched the Lycian soil.
How Bellerophon, guided by the gods and aided by winged Pegasus, had triumphed. Flying over the monster, he 'd shot a bolt of lead down the throat of the terrible beast. Melted by the creature's own fiery breath, the molten metal seared her entrails. How in agony, the monster died.
The man picked up his tools, and after a moment's hesitation, touched the surface. This one he was not doing for the workshop, not for the wealthy families who snapped up his work for their loved ones' tombs. It would not be for sale. This would be his masterpiece.
PART I. THE GOAT
ONE. ROME
IT STRUCK ME, AS THE CELL DOOR clanged shut, that the road to hell is paved, not so much with good intentions, nor even a single violent, murderous act, although that, too, occurred. No, the road is a series of small choices, almost imperceptible rents in the moral fabric, that, taken together, over time, like drops of water on stone, erode our sense of right and wrong.
In my case, the journey began with a beast that could not possibly have lived, much less taken human form, and a man some still say didn't exist. The creature was a chimera, the kind of monster that lurks in your subconscious, rising up to haunt your sleep. The man was Crawford Lake.
Lake was one of those people who, like former presidents and Hollywood legends, are saddled with a two-word descriptor permanently attached to their names. In Lake's case, those words were reclusive billionaire.
I will leave the explanation of the latter word to the financial analysts, who have of late enjoyed something of a feeding frenzy over the carcass of Lake's once-powerful empire, a rather hydralike conglomerate with tentacles insinuating themselves throughout the so-called global economy. I can, however, speak with some authority on the first word, and I can assure anyone who wants to know that reclusive doesn't half cut it when it comes to describing the man.
Indeed, when I first met him in his apartment in Rome, Crawford Lake had not been seen in public in at least fifteen years. The media was reduced to using photos taken, I swear, by the same people who purport to have spotted Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, grainy snaps of a shadowy figure disappearing in the distance, or, if not prepared to pay the price the paparazzi demanded for these pictures, suspect though they might be, to reproducing Lake's school yearbook portrait. Even in those youthful days, Lake exhibited a tendency to secrecy, but perhaps, being the sixties, the scraggly hair that pretty much hid his eyes was merely a fashion statement. Why he would want to live that way I didn't know at the time, but I suppose I assumed that anyone as rich as he was could be as antisocial as they pleased.
Still, from my perspective, he took it too far.
"Surely this isn't necessary," I told my escort, as he beckoned me to turn around so that he could tie a dark scarf across my eyes.
"No, I suppose not," he said, smiling not at me but at his own reflection in the car mirror. He was an attractive young man, and he knew it, with perfect teeth, dark skin and eyes, dressed in a rumpled linen suit and shirt, with a flash of gold chain at his chest, one of those young Italian men who find themselves rather fetching and think the women of the world should, too. "But then," he added, placing the cloth over my eyes, "if you knew where my employer lives, I'd have to kill you."
I wasn't entirely sure he was kidding. The scarf securely in place, he tapped the glass between us, and the limousine pulled away. My hotel was on a side street off the top of the Spanish Steps, and I tried to figure out—what else was there for me to do, sitting there blindfolded?—where we were going. I gave up, however, after several turns and stops and starts in the traffic. After about ten minutes or so by my estimation, the car stopped, and I felt myself being led up a couple of steps, then into an elevator that rumbled slowly upward, then just a few more steps and, as a door closed behind me, the blindfold was removed.
I was standing in a room that almost defied description, filled as it was with so much to look at. Heavy, dark green curtains were drawn across the large windows and securely fastened in a way that prevented me from seeing outside and thereby gaining some clue as to where I was but still allowed a bright shaft of sunshine into the room near the top of the window. There was a jumble of furniture, most of it ornate but rather worn, and almost every inch of the place, walls, tables, even the floor, was covered with objets d'art. The most striking feature was two large frescoes, faded in spots, probably nineteenth-century, depicting bucolic Italian scenes. There were gold cupids, dozens of them, all over the place, and piles of old books on the floor and on every table, lovely old ones with leather covers and gold titles embossed on the spines. On top of some of these piles rested small sculptures, most of them bronze. A coffee table was awash in vases—urns in black and red, possibly Greek, but also perhaps Etruscan, and several in a burnished black material called bucchero—and a couple of very nice marble busts of eminent Roman citizens.
It was almost as good as a museum. In just one glance I could see Greek, Roman, and Etruscan objects, Meissen porcelain figures, what looked to be a stone head from Cambodia, several oil paintings on the few inches of wall not covered with frescoes, baroque mirrors, a wooden horse, probably late eighteenth-century, and not one, not two, but three chandeliers, not in Murano glass, as one might expect in this part of the world, but rather crystal, probably eighteenth-century Bohemian.
Two things surprised me about the room. First was that there was just way too much of it. And I'm not a neatness freak. As anyone who has seen either my antique shop or my house can tell you, less is more is hardly my decorating credo. I like a certain amount of clutter, different objects and styles playing off each other. This, however, was just over the top, the marriage of a compulsive collector with a bottomless pot of cash.