An Aegean Prophecy - Jeffrey Siger [9]
He shook his head. ‘Do I have to tell you what that sort of life can lead to? Especially the no women part. Why, even here—’
‘Time to go.’ Andreas pushed back his chair and stood up. No reason to let him get into that subject. ‘You’ve been great, and I really like your place. Thanks.’ Andreas reached into his pocket to pay.
Dimitri put up his hand and gestured stop. ‘Please, all you had was coffee. It’s on me.’
Andreas knew it was a waste of time to argue. ‘I owe you.’
‘Great, you can tell that abbot when you see him to stop holding up my building permit.’
Andreas smiled. ‘If he raises the subject I’ve got you covered.’
As soon as they were out of Dimitri’s sight Kouros started to laugh. ‘I think he was serious about us raising his building permit with the abbot.’
‘I’m sure he was. But I get the impression that’s not a subject likely to endear us to the abbot.’
They were on the far side of the piazza on steps leading up to a set of brown metal doors. ‘Yeah, like telling him we think one of his monks was assassinated will make us best buddies.’
Andreas laughed and smacked Kouros lightly on the back of his head as they passed through the brown doors. A few paces later they stopped between two rectangular guard towers framing the entrance to the monastery, looked up, and stared.
Brown-gray and medieval, the monastery’s soaring stone walls embraced a multi-level complex of courtyards, chapels, formal rooms, warrens of smaller rooms, and corridors, all arranged around the main church and built upon a once nearly inaccessible height. Its irregular exterior flowed with the land. At its greatest, the complex stood at 230 feet east-to-west, and 175 feet north-to-south.
In an arch above the doorway an icon of the ever vigilant Saint John stood as spiritual protector of the monastery. Toward the top of the wall sat an opening once used to rain hot oil and molten metal down upon invaders threatening harm of the secular sort. Andreas wondered what kind of reception the abbot had in mind for them.
He gave another quick glance toward the top of the wall, nodded to Kouros, and stepped inside.
3
A gray-bearded monk met Andreas and Kouros just beyond the entrance and gestured for them to follow him, never bothering to ask who they were. He led them into the courtyard and with a quick turn to the left, into the main church. An elaborately carved, wooden iconostasis covered in icons separated the main part of the nine-hundred-year-old church from the altar area, and a large mural of the Second Coming seemed to grow up and out of the east wall. They passed through the main sanctuary into a small chapel lined with Byzantine paintings, then outside and down some steps to arrive at what seemed just around the corner from where they’d first entered the main church.
Andreas wasn’t sure if the monk was taking them the quickest way, or one intended to impress them with the majesty of the place. As they followed the man up a flight of stone steps to a second floor, Kouros whispered, ‘Do you think we should drop some bread crumbs?’
Andreas stifled a laugh.
The monk turned right, stopped by a heavy wooden door, opened it, and gestured for them to enter. It was a large room with two windows. At the far end there looked to be more than enough chairs to seat every monk in the monastery. The monk pointed to two unadorned wooden chairs in front of a massive wooden desk, then left, leaving Andreas and Kouros alone. They sat and waited.
Andreas was a cop, his father was a cop. He was not into art and never had been, but Lila was. They’d met when he called upon her knowledge of ancient Greek art for help in an investigation. It almost cost Lila her life, and Andreas