Free The Gold of Thrace by Aileen G. Baron

Thracian horseman.”
    “You found it?”
    “It was here to be found. My forefathers were horsemen. I was conceived among the horses. I am the guardian of all this, the guardian of time.”
    He dismounted and gripped the fence. “Our minds are naked without the past, exposed to the cold winds of time. Everything we know is preserved but is warped by fire and hatred.”
    “How did you find this place?”
    “I told you, it’s my own land. Was. My heritage rests in the rocks, hides among the horses. As a boy, in the night, I walked among the shadows of dead ruins and heard the beat of horses’ hoofs in the distance. Each night I returned to that spot. Each night the horses came closer, until one night the horseman emerged from the darkness. And I followed.”
    “What happened?”
    “The horse was not shod, so I knew. I knew the horseman was an ancient one. ‘You know this place? You know what happened here?’ he asked me. And then he told me, ‘In the forest where no human voice had been heard, the ancient Getae came and built a sanctuary to the great God Zalmoxsis. Here they begged him for success in battle and sent a messenger, a brave warrior who had led in battle. He went over the cliff onto three sharp spears and they whispered their prayers while the spears still shone bright with his blood. They carried the warrior to the tomb, his drops of blood shining like rubies on the ground. From each drop grew a scarlet rose.’”
    “Where did you hear this? There are texts?”
    “I know. I just know. I heard it from the horseman.” He shrugged and held out his hands. “Eternity rests in the rock and hides among the horses.”
    He walked back to his horse and remounted, pulling its head sharply in the direction of the farm where they had borrowed the horses. They ate under the trees at the farmhouse, a light lunch of bread and soup thickened with yogurt.
    And then they drove back to Sofia, through the Valley of the Roses, through fields of roses burning scarlet in the sun.

Chapter Nine
    Basel, Switzerland, August 9, 1990
    Tamar took the airport bus from Mulhouse, the little airport in Alsace that serviced Basel, and checked into the Euler.
    The desk clerk eyed her Indian gauze blouse and her jeans, her thick sandals. He pasted on a smile of mild disapproval. He asked for her passport and a credit card and looked pointedly at her dusty duffel bag while she rummaged through her purse.
    Sedate ladies with pearls and portly businessmen in three-piece suits with gold watch-chains across their vests moved quietly through the staid lobby.
    The clerk asked, “You’ll be here how long?”
    Tamar wasn’t sure.
    “A week,” the desk clerk said when Tamar didn’t answer. “Business or pleasure?” He rang for a porter and handed him the key. “Room 238. Elevators are around the corner to the right,” he said without looking up from the registration form.
    A bellboy picked up her bag and led her to the elevator. Upstairs, Tamar followed him down a long hall to a room near the service elevator and across the way from the pantry that the floor concierge used for morning coffee. The bellboy opened the door, handed Tamar the key, placed her battered bag on the luggage rack in the closet, opened the drapes, smiled, held out his hand, palm up, and said, “You are pleased with the room?” He waited. “Everything is all right?” he asked.
    She scrambled through her purse and found a dollar bill. “Dollars okay? I haven’t had time to stop at a bank.”
    His hand was still out. She gave him another dollar.
    He looked over the bills and turned them in his hand as if they were counterfeit. “Bottled water is in the refrigerator bar.” He gestured vaguely past the dresser, put the money in his pocket and edged into the hallway. “Call if you need something.”
    He left, closing the door behind him.
    She examined the room: the wood-paneled walls; the antique armoire; the small refrigerator with a false wood front in the