"What did you tell them about Theo?" Brandon Burton asked the head of the archaeological dig, Colin Doukas, as they stood on the excavation's edge on the plateau near Gortyn, Crete, and looked down at the housing encampment below. Three local police officers had descended from where they stood and were now talking to the head of the local Greek crew, Stephanos Andino. Standing in a tight group at the edge of the dig with Doukas and Burton were Doukas's wife, Natalie, the sketcher and cataloger of the expedition's finds near what had been the labyrinth of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization's capital of Knossos on the southern coast of Crete, and Doukas's young Greek-American assistant, Dorian Mikos.
"Only that Theo was a bit flighty," Doukas answered. Theo Kazan, a twenty-year-old, dark, sultry Athens University student, was a member of the excavation crew that Doukas, a leading Oxford University archaeology professor and explorer, had brought to Crete three weeks earlier. The young student hadn't been seen on the dig for a couple of days, but the work had been fevered and the local crew large. No one had acknowledged knowing he was missing until one of the young local crew men his age had been reported missing by his family the previous day.
"Theo was a bit . . . you know . . . two beautiful and available to men for his own good," Natalie Doukas said in a dismissive voice. "The two have probably run off together and had to do it in secret because of the attitudes in the local youth's village." She moved off a bit, delivering a pottery shard to the table under a tree where she was collecting the day's smaller finds.
Brandon pulled closer into Doukas. "You didn't tell them . . . you know, about you and Theo, did you?"
"Keep your voice down," Doukas muttered. He looked around to see who might have heard, but only his twenty-year-old Columbia University assistant, Dorian Mikos, was within hearing. Mikos was a young man with Greek heritage who was every bit as beautiful and sultry as Theo Kazan was, although he was educated and sophisticated on an international scale far above Theo's experience and light years beyond that of the local rural worker who also had gone missing. In terms of youth and physical beauty, though, all three young men of disparate situations were equals—as, it was generally understood, was their interest in other men.
"No, of course not. It has nothing to do with Theo being missing—or, rather, having gone on a walk—unless he was just too innocent to cope with his preferences in the repressive atmosphere on Crete. The local police have no need to hear a whisper of anything more than they can glean from Stephanos and the local workers. Natalie is probably right. The two are probably now on a ferry to Athens to try to begin a new life without the local worker's family knowing what that entails."
"How long do you think the police will be here?" Dorian Mikos asked, sidling up to Doukas and his archaeology associate, who was a professor of archaeology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "I need to coordinate with Stephanos on tomorrow's dig—the worker's roster. Will we have to cancel the party tonight?" Today was October 31st, American Halloween, and a contingent of the American university students included in the dig as part of a course Burton was teaching had wanted to do a costume party to introduce the holiday to the local workers.
"I don't see why we would need to cancel," Doukas said. "And the police won't be here long, I don't think. If Natalie is bright enough to figure out why both of the young men are missing, the local police should be able to handle it." He looked over at his wife, who turned and gave him a smile. He smiled back. Their relationship was complicating, much of it hanging on working together as an archeological team, but he really did love her in his own way.
"Ouch," Burton said. But then he laughed. Natalie wasn't Doukas's wife just for her brains. She was a striking blonde, twenty years younger than Doukas's well-preserved fifty-one. She was just the sort of wife who gave the famous archaeologist camouflage—not to mention that had brought his no-cost associate, Burton, and the Arizona professor's contingent of students into this expedition cost free. Doukas also occasionally fucked her with satisfaction when he was really keyed up. She took what came her way.
"There, the police have moved on," Dorian said. "I'll just go down and have a word with Stephanos and tell the American students the party is on and they can start setting it up."
Burton moved over to talk with Natalie about the finds of the day and to help her catalog them, while Doukas remained standing at the edge of the plateau, looking down into the housing compound, consisting most of tents around what had been a farm complex—a small villa where the principals were housed, another structure with the kitchen and dining facilities—where the party would be held that night—and a barn, where the equipment and the archaeological finds could be stored before they were sent off the museum in the capital city of Heraklion, forty-five kilometers away, on the northern coast of the island.
His attention was arrested by the view of Dorian Mikos speaking with the Greek local crew supervisor, Stephanos Andino, and his eyes narrowed. Andino was touching Dorian in a familiar manner that Doukas didn't particularly like. There was something about that man. Andino was in in his early thirties, devilishly handsome and cocky, knowing how arresting his muscular physique was and taking every opportunity to show it off. He looked over at Natalie to see whether she also was looking down at the strutting Greek as he occasionally caught her doing, but she wasn't. She and Brandon Burton were in close conversation. But Natalie and the hunky Greek exchanging looks and flirting didn't disturb Doukas a tenth as much as Andino touching Dorian Miko did.
* * * *
"And this is what made the Minotaur a monster," Stephanos was saying. He was standing in front of the gathered American students and local workers, holding a huge papier-mâché mask of the Minotaur's head in his arms, and relating the tale to the Americans of the legend of the Minotaur, the Minoan civilization monster, who lived in the nearby labyrinth at Knossos demanding a sacrifice of seven young women and seven young men from the Greek mainland every seven years to guarantee that he left the people of the island in peace.
"It's this head of a bull that distinguished the Minotaur," Stephanos said. "He was monstrous in other dimensions as well, but those were human features. He descended from the gods—Zeus's capturing of Europa and bringing her here to Crete to mate with him disguised as a bull and the offspring of that union, Minos, mating his wife, Pasiphere, with the white bull to produce the half man, half bull Minotaur"
Standing off to the side with Colin and Natalie Doukas and Dorian Mikos, Brandon Burton said, "That's quite an elaborate bull headpiece Stephanos came in. Quite convincing. He's quite the magnificent Minotaur, isn't he?"
Both Natalie and Dorian said "Quite" in unison, bringing a scowl to Colin's face and both looking a bit embarrassed. "Wherever did he get such a magnificent headpiece?" Natalie asked to rush the conversation forward, away from rocky shoals.
"He's an excellent artist," Colin said, "as you know, Natalie, since he helps you with the sketching. When the Halloween party was laid on, he asked if he could make the Minotaur headpiece to entertain the American students with the local legend, and I acceded and gave him the time and money to make it. It is rather elaborate, isn't it? And it's just what you'd imagine the Minotaur's head would look like."
Stephanos, costume wise, was the winner of the evening. His muscular body was oiled to a bronze sheen and the headpiece was both horrific and mesmerizing. The rest had come in various drapings of sheeting to evoke Greek and Roman togas. Dorian had come as a Greek serving boy, though, with a simple tunic and sandals with lacings criss-crossing up to his knees, and looked very fetching. Natalie, of course, was dazzling in her silken robe. Although in nearly the same toga as all of the other men, Colin and Brandon, both tall, well-muscled, distinguished looking, and commanding, came across well as Roman senators.
The local crew had provided an abundance of Greek food and wine, and the partying went on for a couple of hours. The expedition principals retired early, though, with Colin winning a round of cheers by saying that the dig would not commence the next day until after the noon meal.
It wasn't long before the lights went out in the small villa, separated from the dining hall by a stone terrace. Luckily, although the bedrooms of the villa opened out onto terracing, that was on the opposite side of the structure from the other buildings and expedition tents.
