A Terrible Beauty

by Tasha Alexander

  “Do please sit down,” I said. “May I offer you refreshment of any kind? We have fresh pomegranate juice and mint tea, or Mrs. Katevatis can rustle up anything else you desire.”

  “No, I thank you, Lady Emily. I cannot stay and have come only to collect the Achilles bronze.”

  “The bronze?” I could feel the color draining from my face as Colin rose to his feet and Margaret let out a little squeak. “I already gave it to one of your colleagues, Mr. Dimitriou.”

  “There is no one by that name in my department,” Mr. Marinos said. “Are you quite certain—”

  Colin did not wait to hear the rest of the sentence. He grabbed Fritz and Jeremy and ran downstairs. Not wanting to be excluded from the chase, I turned to Margaret. “Margaret, would you be so good as to describe for Mr. Marinos precisely what happened while I join the gentlemen in pursuit?”

  “I want to come, too,” she said.

  “There is only one more horse,” I said. She acquiesced, as I knew she would, and I rushed to the courtyard, where the gentlemen were already mounting their steeds. “Which direction?” I shouted to my husband.

  “Bainbridge to Oia, Reiner to Perissa. I shall go toward Akrotiri and the southwestern tip of the island. We must try anywhere a boat could be put in water.”

  “Then I shall cover Fira,” I said. They were gone before I had saddled Pyrois. Mine was the shortest ride, and I reached town in barely a quarter of an hour. Once there, I paid a donkey boy to hold my horse while I mounted his beast and rode it down to the port, where quick consultations with the motley assortment of sailors and fishermen loitering on the dock, confirmed my fears. Five men, one well dressed and the other four clearly his servants—although one had appeared to be injured—had boarded a large sailing yacht and left port more than an hour earlier. Several members of the contingent from the Antiquities Department, who had stood waiting on the deck of their own ship for Mr. Marinos’ return, came ashore when they saw me and groaned when I told them about Mr. Dimitriou.

  “I saw them from the railing,” one of them said. “The well-dressed one with the large mustaches had the audacity to wave at me.”

  “I cannot apologize enough for my mistake,” I said. “I thought I recognized him from the taverna. I thought everyone there to be part of our scheme.”

  “As did we all,” he replied. “I met two of the men from Santorini who accompanied the mayor, but the third…”

  “The third came in late, when you and your husband had already started your meeting with Demir,” one of his colleagues said. “I only noticed because he made a show of greeting the mayor.”

  Without delay, I returned up the steep path to Fira and found the mayor, who was still at the taverna. When I asked him about the identity of the latecomer, he told me he did not know the man.

  “I assumed he came from Athens,” he said.

  “But he hailed you directly and with great enthusiasm,” I said.

  “Yes, which made me think I ought to know him, and I did not want to insult him by admitting to not remember his name.”

  When I explained the situation, he blanched, but I told him not to blame himself. It was I, after all, who handed the priceless artifact over to the reprobate. I marched straight onto the ship and demanded to speak with Demir.

  “Not bad for a brig,” I said, surveying the comfortable cabin which served as his cell.

  “This vessel not having one is my last stroke of good fortune,” Demir said.

  “Who did you send to my house for the bronze?” I asked.

  “I sent no one to your house. You told me in your telegram you would bring it to our meeting.”

  “So I am to believe you came to Santorini alone?”

  “I came with the man your husband shot at Ancient Thera.”

  “And no one else?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “A man, accompanied by two guards, came to the villa identifying himself as a member of the Antiquities Department, come to collect the bronze. Later, another man arrived with the same purpose. The first was a fraud. Your cronies have the bronze, and I have come to tell you I will find it and take it to a museum.”

  He laughed. “What did this first man look like?” I described him and he laughed again. “The irony of this does not escape me. You handed the piece over to my most serious rival, who no doubt has already taken steps to acquire the people in my employ. I can tell you or the police or anyone you like everything I know about him, but it will make no difference. We dealers are like the Hydra, Lady Emily. You cut off my head and two more grow in its place. You will never find the bronze again.”

  “You cannot be sure of that,” I said.

  “I can,” he said. “Why do think I spent so many years tracking it down? I do not care about Achilles or The Iliad. I heard the story of the execution of the worker who attacked Chapman—a simple example of tribal justice—and along with it the tale of the bronze fragment. When word of the piece spread, a buyer contacted me, a man who is convinced possessing any piece of the Greek hero’s armor will make him, and his armies, should he ever manage to raise them, invincible. He is obsessed with the bronze, and I knew if I did not get it for him, someone else would. Logic told me the archaeologist was either lying or had kept the thing for himself, as it never turned up on the black market. Observation of Chapman led me to believe the latter theory. I knew eventually I could get it from him and sell it to my client.”

  “Who is your client?”

  Demir laughed again. “I will not be tricked into telling you anything else. I may go to prison now, but I will be out eventually, and I would like to keep him as a client. The Hydra, remember. No one will eradicate us.”

  With a heavy heart, I returned to the villa and informed Mr. Marinos the bronze would likely not be recovered.

  “It is a blow,” he said. “My colleagues in Constantinople will be exceedingly disappointed. But remember, Lady Emily, no true scholar has verified the object. It may be that nothing of value was lost. Achilles would not have been able to dedicate his helmet to Zeus—he was killed in battle, and his armor was eventually given to his son, Neoptolemus, who would have taken it with him back to Greece. He would not have left the helmet behind.”

  “Do you really believe that?” I asked. “Doesn’t history tell us Alexander the Great saw the armor in Turkey?”

  He shrugged. “It is impossible to know what happened so many thousands of years ago. I must focus on preserving what we can, and having Demir and information about his network will go a long way in preventing many more thefts in the future.”

  He was taking the news far better than I. After he departed, Margaret and I sat in despair. Her horror at what we had done—for she insisted on sharing the burden of culpability—equaled mine, and when Colin, Jeremy, and Fritz had each straggled back to the villa over the course of the next few hours, they’d found us mired in melancholy. My husband understood my distress and did his best to console me, but with little result.

  Two days later, after Mr. Jones’s funeral, I rose early, feeling considerably better. I had decided I would convince Colin to find a way to persuade the palace that he and his colleagues should be assigned to do whatever necessary to bring down the illegal antiquities trade. He did not react to the suggestion as I had hoped.

  “I admire your convictions,” he said, “but this problem plagues all corners of the globe. Only look at what goes on in Egypt—those sites are constantly in danger of being looted. Unfortunately, the world is content to let it happen, because collectors have nearly unlimited resources to buy whatever they want. So long as there is demand, there will be a market for these illegal sales. Buckingham Palace is unlikely to take up the banner and lead the charge to stop it.”

  “Is not the British Empire supposed to be a force for good in the world?” I asked. “Should we not guard the cultural heritage of Western civilization?”

  “Of course, but one must be realistic, my dear. You object to the museum’s having t
he Elgin Marbles, and they were acquired legally. I have heard scores of scandalous stories about Wallis Budge, assistant keeper at your beloved British Museum, himself removing things from Egypt under dubious circumstances. These issues are more complicated than they appear at first glance. That said, I shall make the suggestion to my superiors and volunteer for the service myself.”

  “Nothing will come of it, though?”

  “I am afraid not, but I promise to do all I can.” He took my hands in his. “You have uncovered the identity of an impostor who was interfering in our lives. You have removed the head of one of the most notorious antiquities gangs in the world. You have delivered into the hands of justice not only him, but also the man who murdered two innocent people. I think, Emily, you must content yourself with that.”

  “It does not satisfy,” I said.

  “Are you ever satisfied, Em?” Jeremy asked, strolling onto the terrace. “I do hope you are pleased with how well you have distracted me. Margaret tells me I ought to marry an island girl, renounce my title, and live out the rest of my days here, but I find myself beginning to miss home.”

  “He knows he can’t go back to London,” Margaret said, flopping into a chair. “Not until the season is over.”

  “By Jove, Hargreaves, I believe they mean to kidnap me,” Jeremy said.

  “By Zeus, you ought to say,” Colin replied. “If, that is, you are to have any hope of Emily listening to you.”

  “We are not returning to England,” Margaret said.

  “Absolutely not.” I said, shaking my head to agree. “What about Olympia?”

  “And onward from there to Sicily,” Margaret said.

  “A brilliant suggestion,” I said. “The perfect compromise between the Greeks and the Romans. We will start at the Valle dei Templi—”

  “And then make our way north, where we will commence our study of the Romans. I shall give you all volumes of Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius to read on the boat so you are prepared. I shall not conduct formal examinations, of course, but shall expect you all to make an effort…”

  She kept speaking, but had long since lost her audience.

  “She can’t be serious, can she?” Jeremy asked, a look of horror on his face. “I am not reading Latin. I can’t read Latin.”

  “And you thought I was bad,” I said, rising from my seat and grabbing my husband by the hand. “I am certain she would be willing to let you use an English translation. Perhaps you should ask her about it.”

  “Em, do not leave me here alone with her. Hargreaves! My good man! You cannot walk away from me. I—”

  We did walk away, far along the cliff path to our favorite spot, where we stood, the sapphire seas of the Aegean churning below us. “Next year,” Colin said, “we are coming here alone. No distractions. Just the two of us.”

  “Not even the boys?” I asked.

  “They can come when they have turned five,” he said. “Not a moment sooner.”

  “As disastrous as most of this trip has been, I would not trade it for the world,” I said. “Mr. Jones somehow managed to purge from me any remaining shreds of guilt I felt about Philip.”

  “Tell me, though, did you ever wish he really were Philip?” Colin asked, not looking at me as he posed the question.

  “No, not for a second,” I said.

  “So you didn’t secretly long to be dragged back to Berkeley Square?”

  “Never. Although I would not object to you dragging me back to our room.”

  “Dragging?” he said. “It is terribly uncomfortable and has a deleterious effect on one’s clothing. Might I throw you over my shoulder instead?”

  “One must do it without asking permission. It rather dilutes the excitement.”

  “Is that so?” he asked, his dark eyes lingering deliciously on mine.

  “Quite,” I said, all but trembling with anticipation. He took my hand and started to walk, continuing in the direction away from the villa. I will confess to being somewhat disappointed.

  That is, until half an hour later, when he interrupted my finest discourse yet on the subject of the Elgin Marbles. He picked me up and, yes, threw me across his shoulder, refusing to put me down until he lowered me onto our bed in the villa. I am certain Margaret and Jeremy were scandalized when we passed them on the terrace. I am also certain I did not care in the least.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  One of the most well-known stories of stolen identity is that of the sixteenth-century French peasant, Martin Guerre. Plagued by a disappointing marriage and an accusation of theft by his father, he fled from his home in Artigat, abandoning his wife and small child. Eight years later, he returned, as unexpectedly as he had departed.

  Guerre’s absence appeared to have changed him. He looked a bit different—as we all do after nearly a decade—but his friends and family recognized him, and they were delighted to find him a kinder, more affectionate man. His travels had improved his character.

  What no one knew was that this man was not Guerre but an impostor who had carefully planned his subterfuge. After being mistaken for Guerre in a tavern, Arnaud du Tilh (known as Pansette) decided he would take on Guerre’s identity. He spent three years learning everything he could about Guerre, and his studying paid off. The villagers, including his wife, accepted him. Eventually, Bertrande uncovered the truth, but by then she had decided she preferred Pansette to her actual husband, and did not reveal his scheme.

  Trouble came when he pressed Guerre’s brother, Pierre, for part of his inheritance. The case went to court and was settled in Pansette’s favor; this made Pierre furious, and he began to say—no doubt because it was to his financial advantage—that this supposed Martin Guerre was an impostor. Eventually, Pansette was charged and had to try to prove his identity in court. And he might have been able to do so, had the actual Martin Guerre not suddenly appeared out of the blue, twelve years after he had left his village.

  Guerre’s story served as the initial inspiration for this book.

  Greece—its history, art, and culture—have been critical to this series from the beginning. When I visited Greece for the first time in the summer of 1998, I stayed in a small hotel in Imerovigli on Santorini and fell in love with the village. The first image I had of Emily came to me on the cliff path, where I pictured her standing and taking in the view of the caldera below. When I walked the path then, there were still sections of it that were undeveloped. Going back in 2015 to do research for this book, I discovered those to be all but gone. Now there are more crowds and less open space, but the spectacular views over the caldera have not changed. Given the immense popularity of the island and its famous sunsets today, it is difficult to imagine that in the nineteenth century it had almost no tourism. Emily’s island retreat would feel very different to Santorini today.

  They might not have traveled to Greece in search of island beach resorts, but nineteenth-century Britons, ladies included, found the ancient world fascinating. Despite the differences in the education given to men and women, the latter could and did study Ancient Greek, although they were taught “lady’s Greek” (the astute reader will recognize the phrase from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “Aurora Leigh”), a version which left out the diacritical marks—which in and of itself proves the inequalities of the system. Byron popularized Greece in his poetry, giving legions of readers a set of expectations for what they would see when they visited. Although he and his compatriots were passionate supporters of Greek independence, subsequent English tourists were less interested in peasants and present-day Greek politics than they were in romantic ancient ruins, and for the rest of the century, Hellenistic ideals set the standards for English views of culture and beauty.

  Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen, Carl Humann, Wilhelm Dörpfeld, and Heinrich Schliemann were all archaeologists working at the sites I have described in the book. Jane Harrison, born in 1850, was one of the first female classicists (she studied at Newnham College, Cambridge), giving many popular lectures, and
Dörpfeld included her on many of his trips to Greece and Ephesus. She wrote extensively about her experiences, as well as about Ancient Greek religion.

  The maps of the archaelogical sites found in the front of this book are in keeping with those Emily would have found in her trusty Baedekers. It was assumed educated travelers could decipher them in French or German as necessary.

  I took my epigraph from Robert Fagles, whose translations of Homer are my personal favorites. Emily is limited to what was available in her century, but I (fortunately!) am not. She would adore his gorgeous command of language.

  Miltiades’ helmet, inscribed to Zeus, is on display at the museum in Olympia. Nothing belonging to Achilles has ever been discovered. Like Emily, I would prefer archaeologists uncover something of Hector’s.

  ALSO BY TASHA ALEXANDER

  And Only to Deceive

  A Poisoned Season

  A Fatal Waltz

  Tears of Pearl

  Dangerous to Know

  A Crimson Warning

  Death in the Floating City

  Behind the Shattered Glass

  The Counterfeit Heiress

  The Adventuress

  Elizabeth: The Golden Age

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tasha Alexander attended the University of Notre Dame, where she signed on as an English major in order to have a legitimate excuse for spending all her time reading. She and her husband, novelist Andrew Grant, divide their time between Chicago and the UK.

  www.tashaalexander.com. Or sign up for email updates here.

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