Page 38 of Villa of Secrets

‘Stay still. I’ll get it off you,’ he said.

The pain increased, throbbing knives that slashed right up to the backs of my eyes. Every movement made it worse. I lay almost face down in the scrub. He moved around to my feet and his hand slid up my leg. ‘Touch anything you’re not supposed to and I’ll scream my head off.’

‘Full of gratitude, aren’t you, Jew Girl?’ He tugged at my petticoat.

‘Can’t you just tear a strip off the bottom?’ I squeezed back tears and bit my lip.

He did, then he pulled the rubber sling off his catapult and pocketed it. I suspected he’d cut it from an inner tube.

While he strapped my wrist to the catapult, his great mop of dark hair hung over my face. It had a strong herby smell that I was trying to place when he said, ‘What you sniffin’ me like a dog for?’

My cheeks burned. ‘Sorry. Your hair’s very shiny, but it smells . . . unusual.’

He put his arms around me and helped me to sit, answering my question as he did so. His mouth was next to my ear and, as he spoke, strange tingling sensations passed through me and my heart raced. For a moment, I felt safe in his embrace, and then oddly excited. I put my shivery feelings down to delayed shock, from the fall.

‘It’s rosemary. Stops me gettin’ nits off the sheep, see?’

‘Nits!’ That brought me back to reality. My head itched at the mention and I pulled away from him.

‘You’re brave, Jew Girl,’ he said breathily. I saw a glimmer of admiration in his eyes, but there again, perhaps it was annoyance. ‘We must get away from here, this place is too close to the Axis camp.’

He frowned and squinted into the sun, towards Filerimos, where I hoped Irini and Evangelisa were still waiting for me. But what if they had been captured? What if the Germans had put Irini and Evangelisa straight onto a boat – a different boat from Mama and Papa? Were they safer on a ship than here? Was the shepherd boy telling the truth? He looked like a liar and a thief, and how could I know he wasn’t?

All kinds of horrors raced through my mind.

‘I have to get to our sheep hut, I’ve been away three days. My sister—’ I stopped myself. What if the business with the bike was all an act? The shepherd boy might be a traitor.

‘You’ve got a sister?’

Could I trust him? I peered into his eyes and decided I had no choice. ‘My sister and friend are alone, waiting for me. They’ve no notion of what’s happened in town.’

He made a sling from another strip of material and knotted it behind my neck. I got to my feet and crouched in the undergrowth while he hid his bicycle in the bushes.

We both listened for army traffic, deciding when it was safe to follow the sheep track to the monastery.

‘Now!’ the shepherd boy exclaimed. ‘Stay low, and when I say, “down!” drop into the scrub, right?’

‘Right.’

We ran uphill, towards the monastery. My arm seemed to explode with every step and, in less than a hundred metres, I had to walk.

‘What’s your name, Shepherd Boy?’

‘Giovanni Pastore, shepherd. My family have been shepherds since Byzantium. What’s yours, Jew Girl?’ he said sarcastically.

‘Pandora Cohen. Why did you kiss me like that?!’

‘’Cause I wanted to. My father says you should do what you want with women, so I did. You’re the first woman I got a chance to kiss. You objectin’ or somethin’?’

A weird little spark of pride went off inside me at being referred to as a woman. ‘Yes, I’m objecting! You so much as smile at my sister or my friend and I’ll make you sorry you ever did.’ I stammered.

‘You talk a lot, Jew Girl.’

‘And stop calling me that. It’s not polite!’

‘Why? You ashamed, or what?’

‘No. What have I got to be ashamed about?’