Read Online YANNIS (Cretan Saga Book 1) by Beryl Darby - Free Book Online Page A

grounded. They passed through safely into the bay and Yannis’s heart skipped a beat as Spinalonga came into sight. He hoped Yiorgo would not sail too close.
    Annita and Andreas began to look for lepers, but saw no one until they rounded the island and were nearing Plaka. At the quay was a boat and a quantity of barrels had been off-loaded. As the boat began to row away lepers appeared through the archway and began to manhandle the barrels away from the quay.Yannis watched, horrified and fascinated. The men who were collecting the barrels looked like any other villager.
    ‘I feel so sorry for them,’ said Annita quietly. ‘They’ve done no harm, and yet they’re treated like criminals.’
    ‘No harm! They infect people with their terrible disease. An island is a good place for them.’ Yannis shivered despite the warmth of the sun.
    ‘They don’t infect people deliberately, and they couldn’t help getting the disease. It’s like having measles,’ reasoned Annita.
    ‘Don’t they frighten you?’ asked Yannis
    Annita shook her head. ‘No, I just feel sorry for them and sort of helpless.’
    Yannis looked at her with disbelief written all over his face. ‘We’re here,’ he said, announcing the obvious to change the subject.
    His family were waiting at the tiny jetty to welcome him. The children jumped ashore and Yannis found himself in his mother’s arms. To his surprise he found he was considerably taller than she was. He knew he had grown by the way his arms had been poking out from his shirts and the gap there was between his trouser legs and his shoes, but he had not realised by how much.
    His brothers and sisters hung back; shy of their cousins and also of their older brother whom they had not seen since Christmas. Yannis threw his arms round all of them in turn, and then introduced them to Annita and Andreas.
    As soon as they arrived at the farmhouse Yannis wanted to see the new donkey his father had purchased. Aga seemed to know him and looked at him with sad, old eyes that wrenched at Yannis’s heart. The younger donkey eyed him uneasily and shifted away. Yannis ignored her; there would be time to get to know her later. He talked softly to old Aga and she responded to his voice by twitching her ears and nuzzling close to him. Eventually Maria came to find him.
    ‘Are you coming? Mamma has lunch ready.’
    Yannis nodded. ‘Poor old Aga.’
    Maria took his arm. ‘She has a good life. Pappa still takes her with him and lets her graze. She never works now, the young one does it all.’
    ‘It will be nice to be in the fields again, to smell the earth instead of fish.’
    They laughed together. ‘It’s good to have you back, Yannis. I wish you were going to stay.’
    ‘I couldn’t do that.’
    ‘Do you prefer to live in a town – and smell of fish?’
    ‘No,’ Yannis smiled. ‘Do I still smell?’ He sniffed at his shirt.
    ‘Will you ever come back?’
    ‘I don’t think I will ever live here again, but I’ll always come back to visit.’
    The fields fascinated Annita and Andreas. The vines, planted in such straight rows and the earth around them turned regularly to keep the weeds at bay, the olive trees which were planted irregularly with the grass for the donkeys being allowed to grow as it wished between them.
    Annita lay on her back in the shade of a carob tree. ‘This is lovely. So peaceful. It can be peaceful at sea, but you always have to be ready for trouble there. Here you can just lay and relax.’
    Yannis poked her with his toe. ‘I thought you were supposed to be working. You might marry a farmer and you’d look silly not knowing what to do.’
    ‘He could teach me,’ answered Annita nonchalantly, ‘besides, your mother doesn’t work in the fields.’
    ‘She used to,’ Yannis assured her. ‘Now she plants herbs and vegetables and looks after the chickens.’
    Annita sighed. She would have to get up. Yannis showed her how to dig around the roots of the vines to aerate