They say that when the Knights of St. John raised their flags over Rhodes, they did not forget Cyprus. Their vineyards flourished on the island’s sun-drenched slopes, and sweet Commanderie wine was aged in its cool cellars. It was then that the people of Laona began to call their village Rhodes - in memory of that distant island and those whose capes were black and decorated with scarlet crosses. But the passing years have a way of changing letters: Rodes became Arodes. Centuries passed. Others came, and the Turks named the village Kalkanli, the Land of the Shield. Perhaps this was because of the battles fought there against the Crusaders. Or perhaps no one remembered whose shield it had been: a knight’s shield, a shepherd’s shield or the shield with which memory itself protects us from oblivion. Later, the British built a school on the edge of the village. Its stone arches rose one after another, like overturned shields facing the winds of Akamas. At dusk, they resemble a silent line of guards who now stand not for war, but for something far more fragile: enlightenment. Perhaps all of this is merely a collection of coincidences: the neo-Gothic style of British architects and the accidental resemblance of ancient names. But in Cyprus, even stones enjoy telling stories, especially when people continue to believe in them.