The Gold of Thrace Read Online Free PDF Page B

the wild people of the north, Herodotus had said. They came from the land where the Boreal winds blew, and they had gold.
    She moved her head in assent. “The bracelet is very rare.” She lifted her right hand to stroke the horse’s head on her arm and he envied her fingers.
    When he reached over to examine one of the earrings, he brushed against her knee. He held the gold between his fingers and traced the magnificent workmanship.
    “Beautiful, beautiful,” he said. “Where did you get these pieces?”
    “Are they worth a great deal?”
    “A museum or a collector would pay a lot of money for this at auction, but—” He hesitated. “I’m an archaeologist, I can’t help you sell it.”
    He put down the earring and picked up the delicate laurel wreath and looked over at her. Thracian women, according to Herodotus, were promiscuous and dripped with gold. The thought sent a tingle of desire through him. This time, he brushed against her thigh.
    “Where did you get these?” he asked again.
    She seemed distraught, concentrating on what she had to say, as her lashes brushed her cheeks again. “It’s all we have left,” she began in a low voice.
    He had to lean forward to listen, one hand reaching across the space between them to rest on her thigh. Carefully, she took his hand in hers, uncrossed her legs and crossed them again while he watched.
    She told him how her brother found a tomb on the grounds of their country house, and Chatham watched the seductive movement of her lips as she carefully pronounced each word.
    She told him how she and her brother had gone out each night to dig in the tomb, bringing back the treasure piece by piece to hide in her room, and Chatham wondered how it would feel to stroke her silken skin.
    She talked about the mansion where she was raised, about the dark wood paneling, about the broad staircase, the seat below the stained glass window at the landing where she would sit and read, and Chatham savored the motion of her crossed legs and watched her thighs, tight against her flimsy dress, swaying with the movement of the train.
    Thracian gold, he thought, and only I know about it. I can publish the find, make a name for myself, became a star of Near Eastern archaeology. With that, and my other project, I can be free of Emma, out of bondage at last.
    “When the Communists took over,” she was saying, “they took everything.” And he watched her uncross her legs and let her gently pry the laurel wreath from his hand before she wrapped the newspaper around it again.
    She told him how her father had died, drunk with grief, stumbling on the ice in front of a speeding car. She described her mother’s last days, hungry and gasping for breath, during that same cold relentless winter.
    “Irena,” he said, enchanted with the sound of her name. “Irena,” he repeated and longed to console her, to brush the tears from her cheeks, to enfold her in comforting arms.
    She kept talking and he was overwhelmed by the thrum of her anguished voice, the music of it slithering through his soul, the rocking of the train mesmerizing him until he was lost in a cloud of desire.
    The screech of brakes jolted him out of his haze, and for a moment he thought of Lilith, the Screech Owl Goddess with the feathered legs, and remembered Emma.
    “Where are we?” he asked.
    “Plovdiv,” she said.
    The train stumbled to a stop. Passengers waiting at the edge of the platform seemed to waver in the currents of air that eddied around the slowing train and backed away as the conductor lowered the steps. A milling crowd, waving leva and shouting for attention, surrounded an old woman selling sandwiches and bottled drinks in the far corner of the platform.
    “I haven’t eaten for two days,” Irena told him.
    “There’s a sandwich vendor out there,” Chatham said. He knew that she had seen the old woman, but he said it anyway. “I’ll get you something.” That was the least he could do for her. “Be right