He relaxed back into his mattress, his pillow, looked up at his window, that parallelogram of perfect blue. A gull swooped into view, lit silver-white by the sun, hovering like the holy ghost upon a thermal before drifting slowly out of sight. For the first time in days, he began to feel a little better, a little stronger.
What was it Nico had said that night at the restaurant? Having a purpose, that's the key.
Yes. Having a purpose. Acknowledgments The Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean, which provides the historical backdrop to this novel, is both intensely complex and endlessly fascinating. My immense gratitude, therefore, to my good friend Clive Pearson and to Dr Don Evely of the British School of Athens, Minoan experts both, for being so generous with their time and knowledge in helping me get a better grasp of it. Even more importantly, I'd like to thank them each for reading the first draft of the manuscript and making so many valuable suggestions and corrections. I have followed most, but not all, of their recommendations; so it's even truer than usual that any mistakes that remain are mine and mine alone.
Many other people helped me with my research too, both in the UK and on my travels in Greece and in Georgia. Kat Christopher, in particular, took immense trouble on my behalf in Athens, but I'd also like to thank Thanos and Angela for a delicious lunch, as well as Martin, Ioannis, Sandro, Thomas and the many others who helped out in one way or another.
Finally, and most importantly, I'd like to thank my agent Luigi Bonomi and my editor Wayne Brookes for their unfailing enthusiasm, advice and support. I owe them both a tremendous debt. The Eleusinian Mysteries are one of the great enigmas of the ancient world. Celebrated for some two thousand years at the port of Eleusis, they were the high point of Greek religious life, until finally they were supplanted by Christianity in the early centuries A.D. Sophocles considered thrice happy anyone initiated into the rites. Cicero called them Athens' greatest gift to man. Plato praised them as the perfect intellectual pleasure. But the Mysteries were protected by an extraordinary cult of secrecy. People were put to death for merely hinting at their true nature. So, despite a few tantalising hints, no one today is quite sure what happened within the sanctuary's high walls; or, more to the point, what the secret was that needed such extreme measures to preserve. About the Author