Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 31

CHAPTER TWO

COMPLEXITIES OF THE EMPIRE

Chronos and Calista disappeared together that weekend, quitting our house without a word and leaving my father alone with me and our maid Irene. They took my father’s business books with them, with all the names of his contacts overseas, the people to whom he sold incense.

My father found out more of what happened after the pair had left by asking his friends in the port. They said that they had seen the two run-aways speaking to a Rhodian sea captain in one of the wine shops and had gone aboard his ship the same afternoon. An hour or so later the gangs pulled on the ropes and the ship was warped out of the harbour and with sails raised it made off around the headland into the gathering dusk to travel towards the open sea. The heavily laden craft must have tacked along the mountainous coast of southern Lycia in the strong winds and effectively no-one from Patara ever saw her again.

It was perhaps six months later that we heard more about the fate of that ship and its passengers. It must have sailed through the night, because the following morning some villagers down the coast to the east of us said they saw it pass near Bird Island

DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS