I don’t suppose you heard about the man on Fourni who was found at the bottom of the cave? Tassos Gianakos?” Sam asked.
The professor’s brows rose. “These are small islands. News like that travels fast. This morning’s headlines announced they’d made an arrest.”
“Well, this is about him.” Sam dipped his knife into the olive tapenade, spreading it onto the bread. “His granddaughter, Zoe Gianakos, said that he’d spent his life looking for a treasure called Poseidon’s Trident. Have you heard of it?”
“No, but I have to imagine there’s some connection to this children’s story, The Pirates of Poseidon, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Zoe believes it has something to do with the treasure mentioned in the story. He had the book in his pocket when he died.”
Professor Alexandris reached for the serving fork on the dish of Halloumi. “I have to admit,” she said, placing a slice of the cheese and cherry compote on her plate, “this is nothing close to what I imagined when I received the email.”
“By any chance,” Remi asked, “are you familiar with the story?”
“Very. It was a favorite of my brother’s when we were children. The history of it is uncertain. While I didn’t have much time to research before our meeting, I managed to find one scholarly article that suggested the tale was derived from one of Aesop’s fables.”
“Aesop,” Remi said. “That would put it around the same time period that Cyrus conquered Lydia.”
“Depending on which historian you want to believe, Aesop probably died a good fifteen or twenty years before. Even so, he suggested that it was meant to be a cautionary tale about looking too far afield.”
Sam helped himself to the cheese and cherry appetizer. “I take it you don’t agree?”
“I don’t. The story’s far too long, and most of Aesop’s fables are represented by animals.”
He bit into the thick, firm goat cheese, the mild flavor accentuated by the tart cherries and sweetened sauce. He slid his plate toward Remi. “You need to try this.” Then, to the professor, he asked, “Could The Pirates of Poseidon be based on any truth?”
“It could. As you can imagine, though, there’s no way to know what was changed, or simply left out, over the centuries. One has only to look at Herodotus as proof.”
“Why is that?” Sam asked.
“Herodotus,” Remi said, “was known for embellishing tales, and making assumptions.”
“Exactly,” the professor continued. “Unfortunately, many of these old tales were never written down. The idea of books meant for the masses was still centuries upon centuries away.” She gave a pointed nod to the portfolio on the table, no doubt containing her photocopied pages. “There’s no way to know how close the modern-day children’s book might be to the original story.”
Remi sank back in her chair. “Then it could be completely made up?”
“Absolutely. That being said, what makes me think that the tale is based on some kernel of truth is the fact it’s so well known in these parts. I doubt there’s a child in the Aegean who hasn’t heard the story. So, why so popular?”
“Pirates?” Remi suggested.
“And treasure,” Sam added.
“Undoubtedly,” the professor replied. “And, if the story is based on truth, then someone lived to tell the tale.”
“So why not the boys?” Remi said. “That would make sense since the story is from their point of view.”
“What about Pactyes?” Sam asked.
“Again, assuming this story has some real connection to history, there’s every reason to assume that the Pactyes mentioned in the book is undoubtedly the same Pactyes who made off with King Cyrus’s treasury. According to Herodotus, that Pactyes was eventually captured on Chios.”
“The only problem with Chios,” Sam said, “is that doesn’t line up with our theory that the treasure is on one of the islands in the Fourni archipelago.”
“I wouldn’t discount it,” she replied. “As Remi mentioned, Herodotus sometimes took liberties with what he didn’t know firsthand. But he also left out large swaths of history. So it’s anyone’s guess as to what happened in between the theft of the gold and Pactyes’s arrest. It could even be that someone made up this tale of Poseidon’s Trident to fill in that gap, and the story carried on through the centuries.”
“So we have nothing,” Remi said.
“Not necessarily. Herodotus being Herodotus, any scholar would wisely try to confirm the man’s narrative with other sources. We know that Pactyes hired mercenaries to move the Sardis treasury from Lydia to the coast. With that sort of wealth to protect, Pactyes had the means to hire the best. And that brings us to the Samian pirates.”
“Why the Samians?” Sam asked.