“And what was that?”
“Whether Hippias the Tyrant had ever come here.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” he said. “I can tell you all about that.”
Now that he had a story to tell, Ascetos called for wine and settled us on dining couches, as if we were honored guests.
“You should know my father was doctor here before me. Doctors’ sons almost always take up the profession.”
“The same thing happens with sculptors’ sons,” I said. It was my strong desire to avoid sculpture that had first moved me to take up investigation.
Ascetos said, “I was five years old, I think, but I already knew I was destined to become a doctor, so when the stranger bashed at the door in the dead of night, I took particular interest. Only the most interesting-that is to say, urgent-cases come at night.”
“It was Hippias?”
“It was he. Though I didn’t know that until my father told me later, and I didn’t realize the fame of our patient, or the import of what had happened, until many years had passed. All I knew back then was, when Father opened the door, a stranger staggered in.”
“How was he?”
“Except for the gaping wound in his throat, perfectly fine.
Father placed him on the examination couch. That’s the one you’re lying on at the moment, young lady-I’ve lost count of how many people have died on that couch … Where was I? Oh yes, the strange patient. He lay down, and there was a wound in the lower throat. Father peered in. So did I. I’m afraid I made rather a nuisance of myself.
“Hippias was unbelievably lucky. The slash that had opened the skin had missed everything vital. I could actually see the blood vessel pulsing. Sometimes when someone’s been torn open by a ship’s grappling hook, the blood pulses out in great spurts and then the man dies-sometimes the man lives long enough to reach me, but there’s nothing anyone can do. Somehow, Hippias had managed to survive. The gods must have favored him like no other man. He could speak; he could eat. Amazing.”
“Did he say how he came to be in Brauron?”
“If he did, it wasn’t in my presence.”
“What did your father do?”
“Closed the wound as best he could, and told his patient to lie still. Very, very still. For a very, very long time. Hippias asked if he was going to die-they always ask that-Father said it lay with the gods-the usual reply.”
“How long was a very, very long time?”
“Until the flesh had healed and Hippias could stand up without the risk of bits of his throat falling out. Months, I should think, given what I know now.”
“Surely Hippias didn’t lie here all that time!”
“A few days later, men came and carried him away to recuperate.”
“Where?”
“To a local estate.”
A long pause, from both Diotima and me. This was the discovery we’d been looking for. I said, slowly, “You wouldn’t happen to remember which estate he was taken to, would you, Doctor?”
“I was only five. Nobody tells a five-year-old anything. Father went to visit his patient from time to time, to check his recovery. I never accompanied him.”
“Your father went to the estate where Hippias was hidden?” Diotima repeated. “How long was he away on each visit?”
Ascetos saw her point. “You want to find this place, don’t you? Well, Father always left first thing in the morning and returned in time for his afternoon practice. I presume he ate lunch before he returned. A typical consultation would last the amount of time required to pray to the gods, perform a small sacrifice, and perhaps even inspect the patient. The place you’re looking for is within half a morning’s walk of this surgery.”
“You said men came to carry Hippias. That’s a long way to carry a man,” I said.
“They used a board. It’s a standard technique: the patient lies on a wide plank of wood; we strap him down so he doesn’t roll off. With such an arrangement, men fore and aft could carry him forever.”
“A board,” Diotima said in an even tone. I knew what she was thinking. The bones of Hippias had been found laid out on a board. That board was now back at the sanctuary.
“I know this is a lot to ask,” I said, “but is it possible you might recognize that board if you saw it again?”
“Surely it’s rotted away by now, or been used for firewood.”
“Just supposing.”
Ascetos cocked his head to one side and puzzled. “It’s possible. Father always used a particular size, and I never varied from his practice.”
“So the boards you use now are the same?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Is there one here we could look at?”
“Look behind you.”
Diotima and I both swiveled in our seats. Propped up against the wall was a wide plank. I decided not to inquire about the deep-red and brown stains that I observed in certain depressing locations. Instead I noted that the doctor’s plank was close enough to the panel back at the sanctuary. I asked, “Why didn’t your father tell anyone about this?”
“Talk about a patient? Good doctors don’t do that, and my father was one of the best. Besides, what’s it matter?”
Diotima and I traded a look. Ascetos didn’t know about the skeleton found in the cave. Obviously word had not spread to Brauron, despite being common knowledge in Athens.
“Do you know where Hippias went?” Diotima asked.
Ascetos shrugged. “I presume a boat picked him up and took him back to Persia.”
“How would a boat pick up Hippias?”
“If you look out the window, you’ll observe a wharf. They’re very convenient for that sort of thing.”
“Let me rephrase that. How would a Persian boat retrieve him?”
Ascetos shrugged. “You’d have to ask the Persians. I’ll tell you one thing: both before and after Marathon, this town was pro-Hippias. Maybe the only place in Attica that was for him. If a Persian boat did dock, the townspeople might have looked the other way.”
“Is it possible Hippias died of his wounds while still here at Brauron?”
“No.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.”
Diotima and I awaited an explanation. Ascetos eventually relented.
“Look, my father always got upset when a patient died. He was funny like that. Well, Father never got upset about Hippias.”
“Any idea how Hippias died?”
“All I can tell you is, when Hippias left my father’s care, he was still alive.”
“If what the doctor tells us is true, then Hippias might have died quite legitimately of war wounds,” I said as we walked away.
“If Hippias wasn’t murdered, after everything we’ve gone through, I’m going to scream,” Diotima said.
“It doesn’t explain the death of Allike, though,” I said. “Nor find Ophelia.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
We passed by the warehouse, toward the tiny agora that served Brauron. The smell of fish was strong in the air, and someone, somewhere, was making garos sauce. The pungent aroma of garos spread far in a light breeze, due to the sauce being made from fermented fish intestines. No meal was complete without garos.
“Do they sell eel here?” I wondered aloud. Eel in garos was my favorite meal. I’d never pass up a chance to have some. The only problem was, eel was expensive.
Just then my eye caught something, and I stopped abruptly. Then I backed up. Diotima carried on for five steps before she realized I wasn’t with her. She turned to see me staring at the wall.
“Nico, what is it?”
I read a notice that someone had painted in bright white upon the dull wooden wall. It was a notice for a show in the local agora. For last month.
And the show’s main attraction, written in larger letters than all the rest: a giant brown bear.
CHAPTER NINE
We rushed about the agora at Brauron in search of a giant bear, or at least, someone who could tell us where to find a giant bear. What we discovered was that the act had moved on.