The Women Kissed by Fire

By Montse Godrid

"The women kissed by fire" is a thriller that combines historical fiction and magical realism. The main characters of the novel are women so significant that they lead us to think History needs to be written under a more realistic prism: the feminine.

SYNOPSIS:

The story begins in the 7th century B.C. in the demo of Hēmeroskopeion. An unsettling discovery is made there which leads the newly settled Greek colonists to consider abandoning those lands. However, their geographical location brings great commercial value so they are forced to resort to their deities to protect themselves from the Evil that dwells there.

In 2016 an item is stolen from La Alcudia archaeological site. Marcus follows the tracks of the stolen piece to Mer, who is astonishingly like his ex-girlfriend. Together, they begin to investigate the origins of the carved stone tablet. Marcus asks Rupe, a psychiatrist friend who specialises in esoterical topics, for help and the three embark on an adventure that will cross twenty-eight centuries.

Like a tapestry woven before our eyes, we observe the combinations of cultures that interweave and give Alicante its incomparable historical heritage. The reader will discover the mystery surrounding the Triangular Tower at La Mola Castle and the Shrine of Mary Magdalene in Novelda. They will experience the battle fought at Santa Bárbara Castle when James II, King of Aragón, seized the keys to the fortress from the frozen hands of Sir Nicolás Peris, who remained loyal to the King of Castile. They will discover the reasons for the Greek inheritance in the Lady of Elche, and even a possible explanation of who the enigmatic stone bust could represent.

Book Reader review: Aspasia of Miletus (wife of Pericles of Athens), Mary Magdalene and Queen Blanca of Anjou (of the Crown of Aragón). What could they have had in common? What jewel could they have shared? Protective earrings? The same hair colour? A powerful magical elixir of love and wisdom? All of this will be revealed in the story, which begins with the theft of an ancient carved tablet found on an arcaheological dig in the province of Alicante, Spain.

The novel flickers between historical fiction and magical realism. Very well documented. It will lead you between the truthful and the improbable, with breathtaking plot twists, spirituality, intrigue, romance and action. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Aug 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071545485

Book preview

The women kissed by fire

Montse Godrid

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Translated by Eleanor Hawkins

The women kissed by fire

Written By Montse Godrid

Copyright © 2020 Montse Godrid

All rights reserved

Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

www.babelcube.com

Translated by Eleanor Hawkins

Babelcube Books and Babelcube are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

CHAPTER I

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Hēmeroskopeion, in what is now the province of Alicante, Spain, 7th century B.C.

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Things could have been different: others might have been the ones to arrive in that secluded place, be shocked upon uncovering the fateful discovery and, terrified of an imminent death, entrust themselves to their gods; however, that was what happened. It had been there forever, hidden many metres underground, waiting for them with infinite patience.

The adventure began with a tale born of rumours unloaded from a boat in a harbour. The story spread like wildfire, and the glow increased as the legend spread from one person to another, until somebody decided to ascertain its veracity. It was said that Coleo, a sailor from the nearby island of Samos who was unable to avoid being caught up by the Apeliotes winds, reached a distant land where gold and silver were as abundant as the fish in the sea. It was said that bronze lamps, obtained by melting copper and tin in huge coal furnaces, were distributed in the settlements and managed to stave off enemies and beasts by lighting up the dark nights. It was said that many superficial metal deposits were spread all over the kingdom of Tartessos.

There was an obstacle between them and the metals: that unexplored land was past the Pillars of Hercules, the edge of the known world. The men, however, wished for a better life, so they decided in an assembly that it was worth a try. They would embark on a voyage and, once there, trade with the inhabitants. If they managed to avoid being eaten by a marine beast or falling into the void that was past the end of the World, they would establish a commercial relationship that would be beneficial to all. The brave men who experienced the epic saga set out from the Greek city of Phocaea on the Ionian coast. To reach Tartessos, they set sail from their nearest colonies in Massalia. They embarked on penteconters, warships driven by 50 oarsmen, rather than merchant vessels. Although their intentions were not hostile, they took the precaution to defend themselves from any dangers and enemies they might encounter.

As soon as Cleon, the Phocaean advocate, considered the first expedition to be ready, he ordered a sacrifice be made with an aim to discovering signals from the gods. The throat of a rooster was slit and it was intended to be entirely consumed by fire, but upon cutting off its head the blood that flowed was black and pestilential. It was determined that the result of the sacrifice was unlucky and the decision was made to postpone the trip. That decision would be recalled later, as it brought him a couple more months of happiness in the company of his beloved wife and the conception of the son he would never meet; and he came to wonder whether the divine design had referred to the journey or to his person.

Cleon’s intentions did not change and he waited patiently for a good omen. It arrived in the form of a flock of birds which, as if in a dream, dyed the sky as they flew overhead, creating a sepulchral, rosy silence. They also consulted the Oracle and, upon obtaining a favourable response, the second expedition set out.

The navigation charts they had were incomplete, so Cleon ordered the ships to steer away from the coast until it was almost out of sight to avoid becoming grounded on islands not marked on the maps.

The gods were kind and granted them pleasant weather. Divine intentions are not, however, always what they seem and during the journey not a single puff of wind filled the sails to give the oarsmen a break. The wind didn’t want them to reach their destination. The exhausted men slept in the same places they had been rowing all day. After two gruelling weeks, to keep spirits up, Cleon announced that they would stopover to lay in fresh food and water, during which time they were able to stretch their legs and lie down for hours in a green field.

At the end of their third week at sea, they spotted the Pillars of Hercules in the distance. A thick fog of silence and solemnity enveloped the ships. The crew knew that what happened from then onwards would be the topic of epic songs sung by men as long as they had voices to sing with. Upon approaching the coast of southern Iberia, they were attacked from land by Phoenicians, a hostile people whom had been in conflict with the Greeks since time immemorial. They crossed the narrow sea passage following the coastline of Mauritania. They hadn’t expected the other colonisers to make their trading of the coveted metals so difficult. These other men, from Tyre, were also infected with the rumour of metal.

The holds were almost empty, which made manoeuvres easier, yet they began to realise that it would be hard to return via the same route, plagued with strong currents and with enemies, with a heavy load of metal in the ships’ stores, no matter how well they stowed the load and how proficiently they steered the ships.

They scanned the walls of Gadir from afar and, after losing sight of it, a flock of pink birds flew overhead. Cleon thought they were the same birds they had seen before setting off. He considered this to be a good omen. As he had no maps to follow, he decided to leave the place where they should disembark to chance. They found themselves at the mouth of a river, so they sailed up it.

Lady Luck led them to spot a city on a hill at sunset. They disembarked and waited patiently at a safe distance until a welcoming committee arrived to accompany them inside. They paid their respects to Arganthonios, king of Tartessos, presenting him with gifts from different places in the wide, unfamiliar (to the king) world. When they arrived, the Phoenicians were starting to colonise southern Iberia and were already negotiating with the Tartessians, who they stunned with their culture, teaching them the alphabet and new arts of gold work and craftmanship. During his first conversation with the king, Cleon found a way of convincing him to trade with them. He showed him a glimpse of what Greek culture could provide the Tartessian people with: he showed him his calligraphy, his navigation charts and instruments, his knowledge of philosophy, mathematics and astronomy. They talked all afternoon and into the night until, in the early hours of the morning, they shook hands and sealed their fates.

The newly arrived Greeks, traditional merchants, freely befriended the natives. The weather and the food were not all that different from their own, so the only thing they missed during their stay in that beautiful place was their families. In that distant land, they made wines that were possibly even better than their own, and the natives liked to share them and laugh with their foreign visitors. Wherever vines grow, the temperaments of the people are as warm as the sun that shines upon them.

They managed to launch their coveted commercial relations; however, they found it difficult to carry the metals back home due to the Phoenician occupation of the southern coast of the peninsula where the kingdom of Tartessos was located. It was impossible for them to retrace their route without their loaded boats coming under attack, so they planned an alternative route with an aim to returning to Greece with full holds.

Cleon decided that they should set themselves up in the east of Iberia. That was how they created the Heraklia route to transport goods to the eastern coast and, from there, carry them to the Aegean Sea. The journey east from the kingdom of Tartessos took just a few days. Once there, they headed for the headland that stood out the most to the north of Cartago Nova, which was as far as the Phoenician colonies reached. Cleon knew it was a favourable location when he saw some pink birds resting peacefully in the salty marshes in the Alebus river estuary. Before them was the small island of Planesia, which served to guide them. The surrounding islets kept out intruders, dotting the seabed with shipwrecks. The lands were as fertile as rosy-cheeked, broad-hipped maidens, as if Gea herself had laid in the valleys.

They founded a permanent colony on the eastern coast which they called Illikitanos Limen. They built the essential infrastructure they needed to carry out regular dispatches of metals. To supply themselves with necessary provisions, an expedition went up the Alebus river and sought an ideal place to cultivate the land. Not far from the coast they founded Hēmeroskopeion which, like the city of Athens, was built a few miles inland to avoid attacks from the sea. This villa became the neuralgic centre of metal, which was brought there from Tartessos and then dispatched to Greece on ships.

Cleon sent a missive to his wife, asking her to meet him in that peaceful settlement where they could suffer no harm, or so he thought. Despite being heavily pregnant, as she was a young, strong woman in love, she didn’t hesitate to respond to her husband’s summons as soon as she received the good news.

Commerce brought more prosperity to the area, which allowed the population to grow rapidly. Despite the fortunes they enjoyed and the benevolent weather they were blessed with, following the fateful discovery they considered abandoning the settlement.

They had decided to dig wells to cover the growing population’s water requirements. The gods were magnanimous during construction of the first two. While they were working on the third on a knoll, on the same morning that Cleon’s wife disembarked in Illikitanos Limen, a sudden storm brought a bad omen which nobody perceived.

The rain was falling hard and lightening cut the sky followed immediately by resounding metallic sounds. The two men who were at the bottom continued to dig and those outside busied themselves removing the buckets of mud that they were extracting from the well. The sky lit up and blinded them. A howl rang out from the hole, louder than the thunder. The men who were working on the surface, alarmed, looked down the shaft. They were horrified to see that one of their colleagues lay lifeless and the other, terrified, was desperately climbing the walls, losing nails and blood in his ascent. They helped him up, holding him tightly by his stiff, trembling arms. They had to be careful not to be scratched or pulled down into the well by his sharp, uncontrolled movements.

He lay curled on the floor, murmuring a litany that seemed to make no sense, in time with an inaudible rhythm he rocked to. Both men used all their strength to manage to pull his face away from his knees. His hair had changed colour: it had turned a snowy white. Half his face was paralysed in a rictus that revealed the horrors he had seen. His eyes could only be described as belonging to one who had seen Evil.

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. They carried the survivor between them to the Assembly, where he haltingly explained what had happened. Nobody who hadn’t seen his eyes would have believed his words, but terror was reflected in them like a storm at sea.

It didn’t take them long to link the occurrences that had happened simultaneously, though some of them were not discovered until days later. The pregnant women in the settlement, including Cleon’s wife, gave birth prematurely to dead babies wrapped in black, stinking placenta. The seeds and crops in the nearby fields rotted for no apparent reason, as if they’d been flooded with poison. The animals that were not caged, penned or tied up fled, leaving no trace.

They were all panic-stricken. Some shouted that they should flee, others that the gods had been offended. A number of groups huddled together and cried and some ran around in circles until they wore themselves out.

With the settlement of Hēmeroskopeion in chaos, Cleon’s voice rang out. We must make a catastrophe, he declared with no further reasoning.

Everyone observed him in silence. He made the most of the tense silence to walk among the expectant faces. He placed his right hand on the shoulders of those who were still crying or trembling.

The men began to regain control of their emotions and nodded in silence as they dried their tears. They could think of nothing more effective than to sacrifice a hundred cows to appease the fury of the gods.

With no time to lose, they carried out the cleansing ritual, donned their finest robes and formed the procession that would lead the animals to the altar with Cleon, the priest and the magistrates at its head. The others gathered on the stairs of the temple, immersed in a heavy, fearful silence, with the intention of accompanying the solemn religious offering with prayers.

The altar was in the agora, opposite the entrance to the temple. It was flanked by two youngsters who bore the holy water and a basket of crushed barley grains which would cover the ceremonial knife. Those present watched the sacrificer with bated breath.

The priest said the prayers and approached the first cow. The maiden in charge of the holy water followed him and, at his signal, poured the symbolic liquid over his hands. He sprinkled the animal’s head with the water to purify it while at the same time lowering its head to obtain its assent. He pulled some hairs from the sacrificial victim’s fringe. Then he took the knife from the basket and put the lock of hair inside before throwing the contents onto the fire that burned on the altar.

It was then that the person in charge of killing the cows took the axe and slayed the animal with a tremendous blow to the forehead. The steer fell to its knees and clung to its life. After a few moments it gave in. The creature was placed face up so that, when the priest slit its throat, the blood would rise towards the sky. They hoped that would calm the wrath of the gods which human insolence had unleashed.

The women moved their tongues inside their mouths while they issued rhythmic cries. The priest took the chalice, filled it with the warm blood that gushed from the animal and poured it over the altar. The one hundred beasts were sacrificed, bled and gutted. A thick blackish liquid reached a hand’s depth in the square. The sky, torn by incessant lightening that lit up the faces ravaged by fear, took on the same colour as the ground.

The wind howled. No rain fell.

None of those present were sure whether they would see the sun the following day.

CHAPTER II

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Alicante, Friday the 3rd of June, 2016.  

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Her memory still tormented him. It had stuck to his heart like chewing gum to a floor, like a remora to a shark, like a leech to the skin. He tried everything to stop thinking about her, without realising that his efforts had the opposite effect.

As he did every morning when he got to the office, Marcus switched on the computer, went out into the corridor to fill his mug with hot water and made himself a chai. He couldn’t help remembering her every time he drank that tea, but he refused to change his habits for a woman who was no longer part of his life. Mental hygiene, he recited to himself whenever something reminded him of her, which still happened every day. Winter and summer, she always warmed her hands with her mug when she drank her favourite tea. Those little details were the ones that were impossible to forget: the noisy puffs when she smoked, the thick slipper socks bunched around her slim ankles, the drumming of her fingers when she felt impatient and, of course, her blank stare while she smoked and warmed her perpetually cold hands with her mug of tea.

As he sat back down, he almost knocked his mug over when he put it on the desk as he looked at the msn.com home page on the screen. The news scrolled automatically to the next item. He quickly clicked to go back and read it: Important findings in the latest excavations in La Alcudia, the headline stated. The article reported on a series of objects of different chronologies found as the result of a project by the University of Alicante’s Archaeology and Historical Heritage Institute. The image showed a researcher beside a white table with various pieces arranged on it. Marcus read the story from start to finish without noticing that his mouth was still open. He downloaded the photo to enlarge it and have a closer look at the objects, but the resolution was low and was pixelated when he tried to zoom in. The text gave a brief description of the objects: a lantern or oil lamp that depicted an explicit sexual relation between a woman and a herma, which caused him great interest as he knew these pillars with a human head and phallus often represented the god Hermes, guide of the souls of the dead in the underworld; a small Roman Venus carved in bone; ceramics from sector 4F of La Alcudia; sacks full of snail and oyster shells which, in the 5th century B.C., had been rubbish bags; plaster details which had fallen off the walls of houses; coins from different periods and a mysterious stone tablet with an engraved text in classical Greek and a fist in high relief. The report explained that the archaeologists did not understand how the final piece on the list related to the place it had been found. After reading the article a second time, he searched Google for a phone number, picked up the telephone and dialled.

La Alcudia University Foundation of Archaeological Research, answered a woman with a high-pitched, nasal voice.

Good morning, my name is...

Good morning, the female voice at the other end of the line interrupted.

I’m Marcus Clever García, head of acquisitions at the MARQ. I would like to speak to Alejandro Ramos, the director.

Marcos, I understand what you’re saying, the stranger said, informally, but that won’t be possible because Alejandro is very busy... she lowered her voice almost to a whisper, there’s just been a great discovery.

Sorry, my name’s Marcus, not Marcos. Do we know each other?

I don’t know, I know a lot of people... do you live round here?

The strange woman was making him feel nervous. He found people who were too informal with strangers irritating. He stopped going to a cafeteria close to his home because the waitress called him darling. He started having breakfast in his office, foregoing the pleasure of reading the newspaper at the bar, because the manager kept interrupting his reading to start conversations on inconsequential topics. For a couple of years, he had hated people in general, and even more so if they invaded his personal space.

Could you leave a message asking him to ring me when he can? I’m Marcus, from the Alicante Provincial Archaeological Museum, he asked, hoping to end the conversation as soon as possible.

I will do Marcos, but it’s a dodgy day today, eh?

Thank you, good day.

He slammed the phone down too hard and searched the internet for more detailed information on the items found.

Dodgy, he muttered out loud, raising his right eyebrow.

This discovery was the most important archaeology-related occurrence in Alicante province in decades. His speciality had always been Iberian art and he had hopes that some of the pieces found could be from that period.

Marcus was a mild man, so it was unusual for him to lose his temper. The sensation of losing control made him feel uncomfortable within his skin. His heart rarely raced. Ana was the only person who had been found to have that effect on him. He was unable to concentrate on his reading. He tried to calm himself down to think more clearly. He stood up and slowly walked around the office a few times before carrying on reading. He picked up his mug of tea from the other side of the table and took small sips, warming his hands around it, until he felt calmer. Then he sat back down in front of the screen, eager for information. 

The item that intrigued him the most of those mentioned in the article was the stone tablet that had been found near the old walls of the city of Elche. It was engraved with text in ancient Greek and bore a symbol in high relief that appeared to be a red fist. The images were of poor quality and the details couldn’t be seen clearly enough, which annoyed him. Can’t a provincial newspaper post a decent photograph? he muttered to himself. The Diario Información newspaper explained that the material the tablet was made of was not from the area, unlike the Lady of Elche, which was carved in stone extracted from the El Perill site very close to where it was found.

He didn’t move from his seat for an hour after making the call. He was worried that if he left for a few minutes, even if he was only away from the telephone for a short time, it would ring and that horrible and immutable message of welcome to the museum’s answerphone would scare off anyone who intended to leave him a message. When he couldn’t wait any longer, he stood up to go to the bathroom.

Just as the peculiar woman on the telephone had predicted, he received no reply from the director of La Alcudia that day. He was tempted to go to Elche and ask to see the discovered items. However, he was worried that that would be interpreted as a demand rather than a request, as he had no authority to make such a request, and that that could jeopardise the good relations between the two cultural institutions. Marcus knew full well that in cases where the egos of those who think they know something about art are endangered, it’s better to tread carefully to avoid offending sensitivities in the delicate skins of the experts. He was worried that some fragments could go unnoticed but there was little he could do to avoid it. The financial crisis that had been plaguing Europe for too long had made people desperate and people were being employed and paid ridiculous salaries to guard treasures.

As usual, he had caught the tram to work that morning, so if he wanted to go to La Alcudia he would have to go home and collect his car to drive to the neighbouring city of Elche. He didn’t feel like spending so much time on a trip that would lead to a hand-kissing and a moral genuflection. There’s no excuse for laziness, he remembered that his ex-girlfriend used to reprimand him on Sundays when he lazed about all day. Mental hygiene, mental hygiene.

He didn’t consider himself a nonchalant person, the trouble was that losing time during working hours irritated him. He decided he wouldn’t go. He would wait until Monday and call again if the director hadn’t responded to his message by then.

Marcus didn’t have to go to work the following day, as he worked from Monday to Friday. He usually spent his weekends in Madrid, where he was originally from, unless someone came to visit him in Alicante or he had something planned worth staying for. When he went to Madrid, he only saw his family. He had stopped seeing his former group of friends not long before he moved to Alicante. He was sure that they must have noticed something, suspected something, seen something; yet none of them had warned him of what was going on between his girlfriend and one of his friends. He considered them traitors for not telling him while he was still in with a chance of doing something to get her back. Yet they didn’t care enough to do anything about it. On rare occasions he went out with some workmates for a beer and to watch the football. These outings very rarely involved conversations on anything not relating to some sort of sport, so he felt comfortable with them.

He had been in a bad mood all week and hadn’t felt like doing anything, so he didn’t travel to Madrid that Friday afternoon. On that sunny Saturday morning, as he had nothing better to do with his time and the museum was open, he decided to go to work and catch up with a few late reports.

He waited for the computer to turn on before making himself a cup of tea. I have a bad feeling, he thought to himself. The phrase sent him sliding down that hateful tunnel between his past and his present and carried him back to that weekend when he and Ana enjoyed a marathon of the three Star Wars films. She considered herself to be a big fan, although she detested episodes I, II and III. Every time one of the characters said anything, she clapped excitedly as if she’d just witnessed a memorable event on live TV. He still remembered the sweet smell of fabric conditioner that came from her thick slipper socks when she put her feet in his lap and sank back into the grey sofa that she was so sorry to lose when she left the flat which they had shared. The pungent, narcotic smell of Ana’s tobacco seemed to float in the office then. The scent of her naked skin in the gap between her socks and the huge T-shirts she slept in snaked up his nasal passages to nest in his brain like a parasite. Her legs... Mental hygiene, he muttered to himself like a mantra as he exorcised the memory of her perfume.

Holy chalice! I knew it he growled as he looked at the screen.

He re-dialled the telephone number he’d written down beside his keyboard the previous day.

La Alcudia University Foundation of Archaeological Research, answered the same annoying voice as the day before, which drilled into his head like a sizzling needle.

Good morning.

This time he left a short pause and waited for the woman to respond.

Good morning, she replied happily.

I’m Marcus Clever, I called yesterday, I don’t know if you remember me.

"Hey Marcos! Of course I remember you, you said we knew each other."

Not quite, he said, pulling his fingers through his hair and ruffling it mindlessly. I want to speak to the director if possible.

Oh dear, Marcos, that won’t be possible today either. I gave him your message yesterday, trust me, she whispered, "but something very hardcore has happened."

I think I know what you mean Marcus interrupted impatiently, I’ve just read on the internet that the stone tablet that was found recently in La Alcudia has been stolen.

Yeah, the woman lowered her voice further still before continuing, the police are here now interrogating the head of security. They’re sure it was him or one of his subordinates.

Would you be so kind as to give Alejandro a note asking him to call me when he can?

Of course, Marcos, I’ll tell him. Trust me.

Thank you, good day.

He was used to searching the Deep Web for illegal sales of historical and artistic heritage pieces, so he cleared his desk and got to work. He couldn’t stand the thought of an archaeological piece falling into the hands of a private collector rather than a museum. His sense of justice had led him to act in a quixotic manner more than once in the past. He couldn’t help it. It was so unfair that a person with enough money and lack of principals could deprive humanity of the chance to enjoy a valuable piece that, whenever he could, he helped trace missing objects. On various occasions he had lodged anonymous reports against important art collectors.

"Very hardcore," he said out loud before snorting and shaking his head.

He knew his IP would be traceable; yet he wasn’t bothered about using his office computer as he had nothing to hide. He opened the Tor browser that was installed on the laptop. He waited patiently as it connected to the different proxy servers to start browsing. He clicked on bookmarks and checked the usual buy and sell noticeboards for stolen historical objects. Many of the links had disappeared, so it wasn’t easy to find what he was looking for.

He spent a couple of hours delving about on the dot onion alternatives until he found a disconcerting advert, without the usual key words and, on top of that, in Spanish: Old carved stone for sale. Alicante. He clicked on the link, which took him to a brief description of the object and a Hotmail email address as the contact. He couldn’t believe the recklessness of posting a traditional email address in that place inhabited by the worst people the human panorama could offer.

What a dunce, he thought.

A Google search for the email address was sufficient to locate his Facebook profile photo and, as he hadn’t checked the privacy option on his personal information, his phone number too. He continued with the search and found on a dating site that the person in question was a security guard from Elche who tended to try and find young partners for occasional sexual encounters.

Pig, he muttered.

He copied the information and photos onto a Word document, then dialled the vendor’s phone number, which he had found on his Facebook profile. He drummed his fingers on the table as he waited for an answer.

Yes? answered a deep, bad-tempered voice on the other end of the line.

Arturo? Marcus asked.

Are you the person who’s been phoning me all morning?

No, this is the first time I’ve phoned you.

Who are you?

You don’t know me, I’m calling about the advert for the old carved stone.

Marcus’ words were followed by silence. The security guard was obviously bewildered by the unexpected phone call, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit that and find out how he had got hold of his personal mobile phone number.

It’s already been sold, he yelled, clearly intending to hang up.

Wait, Marcus said, I need you to tell me who you’ve sold it to.

I’m not telling you anything, you can go and...

I’d be more careful if I was you, he interrupted. "I don’t think your wife would like to receive an anonymous email with photos of the girls you contact on Badoo, and the police would probably like to know that you stole the stone tablet recently found in La Alcudia and then sold it."

Another tense silence fell between them, which Marcus was determined not to break in order to prove his power over