A Terrible Beauty

by Tasha Alexander

  A team of local men toiled in the theatre, and we watched for a while as they carefully and methodically moved dirt, rock, and bricks. Each object would be cataloged and labeled, and then set aside until the spot where it belonged could be discovered. It was not nearly so well preserved or so large as the theatre at Epidaurus, but already the semicircle of stones designating the stage was visible, along with the remains of the wall standing behind it, a structure of moderate height that would not block the view of the sea. What a spectacular backdrop for a play! One could clearly see the space that had been dug out of the mountainside in front of the stage to house the audience, but little remained of the long, stone benches on which they would have sat, row above row.

  “Can we help?” I asked, pushing my smoke-colored spectacles up on the bridge of my nose.

  “Not now,” Philip said. “Today is for picnicking and exploration, but going forward, we would welcome your assistance.”

  “Follow me,” Fritz said. “We have everything ready for you.”

  “Jeremy!” I scowled, seeing he had taken out his pocketknife. “You are forbidden from leaving graffiti at this site.”

  “Archaeologists do object to that sort of thing, old chap,” Philip said, slapping him congenially on the back.

  Fritz led us to the far end of the city, all the way to the south, where he and Philip had erected a canopy, stretching from the remains of a tall, thick wall to nearly the edge of the cliff. Beneath it, they had placed chairs and a folding table, spread with a white cloth and set with the coarse, bright local pottery found in every village. Pomegranates, oranges, grapes, and figs filled a large bowl in the center of the table, and oval platters displayed pâté, a chunk of fresh Greek cheese, and a neatly sliced loaf of bread. Another, smaller bowl held black and green olives, and its twin nearly overflowed with the sweet, tiny, round tomatoes famously grown on the island.

  “The pâté, I am afraid, comes from a tin, but I assure you it is the best we have,” Philip said. Fritz opened a bottle of wine and filled glasses for us all. We toasted to the excavations and to the island, then applied ourselves to the charming feast the archaeologists had provided. Once thoroughly sated, I stepped out from the canopy and into the sun, putting my pith helmet back on my head and holding it in place as I took in the view of the city. While I studied the top of the ridge, where the last row of ruins stood, I saw a flash of movement. A man with dark hair and dusty clothes climbed over a wall far in the distance.

  “Who is that?” I asked. Fritz, who stood nearest to me, turned and followed my gaze.

  “I do not recognize him,” he said, and shouted out a greeting, asking the individual to identify himself. No response came, but the stranger started to run. At once, Colin set off after him, followed by Fritz.

  Philip, his face pale, did not move. “How did he find me here?”

  Philip

  Athens, 1892

  As Philip’s second season with Carl Humann at Magnesia wound to a close, he considered his options. Reiner had already signed on to return the following year, but Philip had grown increasingly more dedicated to finding his way onto the staff of Wilhelm Dörpfeld, who, after spending years at Troy working under Schliemann, had taken over the excavations two years after the death of his mentor. Philip had read everything Dörpfeld had published and studied all of the excavation reports pertaining to Troy. Like him, Dörpfeld had a great desire to locate the sites mentioned in Homer’s epic poems, which made Philip consider him a kindred spirit. Now the time had come to win a position on the crew working at Troy.

  To start, he would winter in Athens, where Dörpfeld held the position of secretary of the German Archaeological Institute. He would beg an introduction, strike up a collegial—and professional—friendship with the man, and, when the time came, ask to join his work in Ilium.

  His plan came to fruition more easily than he could have hoped, prodded along by an unexpected source. Jane Harrison, a middle-aged Englishwoman with a passion for all things Hellenic and a close associate of Dörpfeld’s, took up his cause, and before more than a few months had passed, Philip was spending his time analyzing fragments of pottery and other objects Dörpfeld had collected with Schliemann in Troy. As soon as the weather allowed, they would go to the site, and Philip, who had visited there only once and had spent all of his time trying to determine where Achilles’ tent might have stood, would now be able to contribute to the growing body of evidence about a place the world had once thought existed only in mythology.

  Miss Harrison, whom he once might have dismissed as an eccentric spinster, proved herself knowledgeable and efficient. Dörpfeld had invited her to join them at Troy, and while this initially shocked Philip, he came to appreciate her even before they had left Athens. She had, apparently, lectured frequently in England, and proved wildly popular. She was working on a project about Ancient Greek religion, and had a grasp on classics superior to that of many of her male peers.

  Watching her work, Philip could not help but think of his Kallista. He had loved her so, but had chosen her as a wife without even the slightest thought as to whether she might appreciate his intellectual endeavors. He had learned—through gossip and observation during his brief time with Reiner in London—that she had started to study Greek and apparently had an aptitude for it. Did Hargreaves cherish this part of her?

  Hargreaves’s work, which Philip knew often required lengthy periods away from England, would give her the freedom to pursue her studies, but would she, as Philip now began to suspect she might, long for a spouse who shared her passions? He tried to push the thought from his head, but on occasion allowed himself the indulgence of imagining she might welcome his return, if it came at a time when she found herself, perhaps, less enamored of Hargreaves than before. The glow of infatuation could not last forever, particularly if his friend—former friend—found her intellectual pursuits less than desirable. Philip pictured standing with her on the field at Troy, rosy-fingered dawn lighting her face as they praised the mighty Achilles before he set off to continue his excavations.

  In his fantasy, he always had charge of the excavations.

  He could build her an expedition house near the site. Gertrude Bell might have contented herself to live in tents while mapping Persia, but he wanted better for Kallista. She might decide to tutor girls from nearby villages, teaching them to read so they might better appreciate their ancient heritage. When he came home, dusty and hot from the dig, she would have his bath ready for him, and … well, some things were best not considered.

  Instead, he focused on preparing for his departure to Troy. His time with Humann had given him good training in the basics of archaeology, and he felt confident he had gleaned everything possible from Schliemann’s excavation reports. He familiarized himself with the system Dörpfeld had developed for analyzing the strata of a site. Schliemann and Dörpfeld had not agreed on everything, and Philip learned Schliemann had proved much sloppier in technique than Dörpfeld, who had been forced to intervene when Schliemann was poised to destroy the crumbled remains of a marble wall he did not recognize to be Greek. Dörpfeld showed him they were not, as Schliemann believed, Roman mortar.

  Once he felt confident in both his knowledge and his technique, Philip learned how to reliably use a camera. Then, there was nothing left to do except pack his supplies, reread The Iliad, and wait for his departure.

  9

  Colin and Fritz raced along the ridge in pursuit of the fleeing man. I had run out from under the canopy to watch them. Philip followed, but hung back. I called to him, without looking away from the chase. “Who is that man?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t recognize him in particular, but he must have been sent by—” He stopped.

  “Who?” I turned and stood in front of him.

  “I worked at Troy for two seasons—”

  “Troy?” I could not help interrupting, and must confess that all thoughts of the man Colin and Fritz were chasing after vanished from my mind as I
spoke the word. “I adore Troy.”

  “You do?” he asked. “Have you been?”

  “No,” I said, turning to him. “Colin and I had planned to go as part of our wedding trip, but … Oh, Philip, I am sorry.” His face had reddened at my words, and I instantly regretted them.

  “It is of no consequence.”

  “Did they catch him?” Margaret asked, coming up beside us and jolting my focus back to the chase. I started up the cobbled path—Colin and Fritz had disappeared from view, over the far side of the hill—and could hear them shouting. Philip and Margaret followed close behind. By the time we reached the top, Colin and Fritz were standing silent and grim.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  Colin nodded down the hill, where a crumpled body lay amid a mass of stones. “He wouldn’t stop, and then he tripped and fell.”

  Fritz looked ill. “I never thought he would—all we wanted was to ask him what he was doing here.”

  “This is my fault,” Philip said. “If I had never come here—”

  “That is quite enough from all of you,” I said, gathering my skirts and starting to carefully pick my way down the steep slope. “Is anyone going to come with me to see if he’s still alive?”

  He was still alive, although so far as I could tell, just barely. His breath was shallow, his leg was bent at an unnatural angle, and there was a gash on the side of his head, bleeding copiously.

  “We shall have to move him,” I said, “but not before we do something with his leg. He needs a doctor. Philip, go to Oia. Take Pyrois—he’s my fastest horse. Find the doctor and bring him to the house. Fritz, Jeremy, and Margaret, go back to camp and collect anything we might be able to use as a stretcher. If you have got a medical kit, bring that as well.”

  “Ja,” Fritz said, slipping into his native tongue. “Ich werde ihn bringen.” The three of them headed toward the camp, Fritz keeping a firm hold on Margaret’s arm as they made their way back up the hill.

  Once they were gone, I turned to Colin. “We need something that can serve as a splint. Will you see what you can find?” He nodded. I removed my petticoat and began ripping it into long strips before turning my attention back to our patient. My stomach turned when I contemplated the sharp angle of the bone in his lower leg. Within minutes, Colin returned, brandishing Jeremy’s walking stick, now broken into two pieces, and the tablecloth.

  “Better than nothing,” he said, crouching next to me. “It would be best if we could get the bone realigned. I have done it before. It will be unpleasant, but not impossible. I may be able to manage on my own—”

  “I will help you,” I said. “Tell me what to do.

  Using his pocketknife, Colin cut the leg of the man’s trousers off mid-thigh. He then held the leg, just below the knee, and directed me to grip above the man’s ankle with both of my hands. I buried my teeth in my bottom lip, dreading what would come next. Colin pulled, while I held firm, and somehow he managed to straighten the limb. The sound of the bone slipping back into place sickened me. I turned away, just for a moment, to compose myself.

  “Would you cut the tablecloth in half, please?” I asked Colin. He did so in a swift motion.

  “Let me do the rest,” he said.

  “No. We need to keep him from moving. You are far stronger than I, and therefore in a better position to hold him still should he regain consciousness.” My nausea and dizziness having passed, I took a deep breath and threaded strips of cloth under his leg at even intervals. He was not a tall man, so the two halves of the walking stick reached from his ankle to above the knee. I then wrapped my makeshift splints in the two halves of the tablecloth to pad them, placed one on either side of the leg, and secured them by knotting the strips of petticoat, tightening them until I was content that his leg was as stable as possible. Through all of this, the man did not so much as move a muscle.

  “He must be in a great deal of pain,” I said.

  “It is a blessing he is not conscious,” Colin said, “but astonishing that our moving the bone did not wake him.”

  I could tell from his tone he did not expect the man to live. “He does not look Greek,” I said.

  “Turkish, if I had to guess,” Colin said. The man had a long, drooping mustache and his clothes and his build suggested he was of sturdy peasant stock.

  Fritz, Jeremy, and Margaret returned, carrying with them a cot, a blanket, four canteens of water, and a medical kit. The slope was too steep for the cot, so they left it on the hilltop. I rummaged through the supplies until I found iodine. “Be sure he stays still,” I said to Colin, and poured some of the disinfecting liquid over the injury on his head before covering it with gauze. The man did not move through any of this.

  With great care, the gentlemen lifted him, Fritz supporting his head and shoulders, Jeremy lifting his uninjured leg, and Colin, doing all he could not to disturb the splint, cradling the man’s broken limb. Slowly, they made their way back up the hill and placed him gently on the cot. Transporting him was much simpler now. It took only two of them to carry the cot, which meant they could take turns on the way down to the camp.

  Margaret and I went on horseback to the nearest village, where we found a farmer with a donkey cart who agreed to carry the injured man the rest of the way home. We lined the cart with blankets before transferring him to it and then slowly made our way down the terrifyingly steep road. The farmer drove with Fritz, whose Greek was the best of all of us, while I sat in the back with my patient. There was little I could do, but I did not want to take the chance he might wake up during the trip and find himself scared and alone. Colin, Jeremy, and Margaret rode the horses, slowing their pace to the barest walk so as not to pull ahead of the donkeys.

  Philip and the doctor, who must have ridden at a shocking speed, were waiting at the villa when we arrived, and before long the man was settled into a vacant servant’s bedroom in the back of the house, where Colin and I watched the physician conduct his examination. He complimented us on the care we had given him in the field.

  “I shall stitch the wound on his head and replace the splint, but beyond that there is little I can do for him.”

  “Will he wake up?” I asked.

  “He is in a deep coma, Lady Emily. I do not know if he will ever emerge.” He left us with some morphine to administer if he did awaken, and promised he would come back the following day to check on his progress. After he took his leave, Colin and I joined the others in the drawing room, where they were sitting in silence, a half-drunk pitcher of lemonade on the table.

  “What a terrible accident,” Margaret said. “I have no desire to make anyone feel worse than I know we all do, but I wish we had not chased after him.”

  “What was he doing or planning to do that he ran away when confronted?” Jeremy asked.

  “There is more to it than we know,” I said, looking at Philip. “Is that not right?”

  “There may be,” Philip said. “I only wish I knew more.”

  “You said—”

  He interrupted me. “Yes, I know what I said.” He cleared his throat. “I have been plagued over the past few years by a gentleman who is convinced I have something that belongs to him. His view is entirely in error, but nothing I say makes even the slightest impact. He has sent his henchmen to rough me up on more than one occasion—hence the current appearance of my nose and the scar on my chin—and I believe this man to be one of them.”

  “What does he think you have?” Colin asked.

  “I am certain you all recall the story of the Battle of Marathon,” Philip said. “After winning his spectacular victory against the Persians, the Greek general, Miltiades, took the helmet he had worn in the fight to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. It has since been discovered by archaeologists and identified as such by the carving along the base: ‘Miltiades dedicated to Zeus.’”

  “I have seen the piece in the museum at Olympia,” I said.

  “You have gone to Olympia?” Philip asked, surprise in his voice.
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  “I wanted to see the Praxiteles Hermes and the Infant Dionysus,” I replied. “I am a fervent fan of the sculptor’s.”

  “I have—had—a fine copy of his bust of Apollo in the house in Berkeley Square,” he said. “Is it still there?”

  Not knowing how much he knew about the events following his so-called death, I decided now was not the moment to reveal to him that, for a time, the original bust had resided at Berkeley Square, and that its discovery had led me, briefly, to think Philip was a thief of antiquities. “So far as I know it is. Please, though—Olympia.”

  “Yes, quite,” he said. “Or actually, we must now move to Troy. While digging there, in a location likely to have been part of the Greek encampment outside the city walls, I found a strip of metal—bronze—not far from the remains of a temple. It appears to be the bottom of a helmet, and carved on it—”

  “Is it Hector’s?” I leapt to my feet, unable to help myself, so excited was I at the prospect of something—anything—of the valiant man’s having survived more than a thousand years.

  “No, Kallista, it was not. It belonged to the superior warrior, Achilles.”

  This ridiculous description of Achilles raised my ire, but I did not correct Philip. That could wait until later. “How do you know it belonged to Achilles?”

  “As was Miltiades’ helmet, this, too was engraved: ΑΧΙΛΛΕΥΣ ΑΝΕΘΕΚΕΝ ΤΟΙ ΔΙ. Akhilleus dedicated to Zeus.”

  “How is it I have never heard of such a thing?” I asked. “Surely such a discovery would have garnered considerable publicity.”

  “It would have, yes, if it had been made known,” Philip said. “When I found it, I was far off from the rest of our group, working only with a single assistant, a native man who, until that moment, had proven competent enough. As I bent over the bronze, brushing the dirt from it, he struck me on the head with a rock. When I came to, both he and metal strip were gone.”