“Here at Brauron. But they were sold immediately after he was expelled.”
“Even so, this girl was hidden near his estates, which means Brauron, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Elektra was the sister of Iphigenia. Iphigenia founded the Sanctuary of Brauron. If Hippias was thinking of the sanctuary, it’s only reasonable this would put him in mind of Iphigenia, and thence her sister who wreaked revenge for murder, particularly since that’s his own fear.”
“It’s possible,” Aeschylus said. “People allude to the characters in Homer all the time. I’ve been known to do it myself.”
“Just so. And who here at Brauron today was also here that long ago? Who was raised here as an orphan?”
I put my hand on Thea’s shoulder. “I introduce you to the sister of Harmodius, whose expulsion from a public ceremony in Athens, when she was seven years old, commenced the series of assassinations that brought us to this pass.”
Thea sat mute. When it became clear that she had nothing to say, Callias asked, “Is this true? Are you the sister of Harmodius?”
Thea sighed. “It’s true, Callias. You knew me when I was a child.”
“I wish I could say you haven’t changed at all, but I didn’t recognize you,” Callias said sadly.
“Age does terrible things to us all, my friend.” Thea gripped Zeke’s hand even tighter.
“This is an enormous coincidence,” Aeschylus said.
I said, “Not so! In fact, when you look at the facts, it was almost inevitable. You said to me, Callias, that you didn’t know what had happened to the little sister of Harmodius.”
“She disappeared.”
“But you hoped someone had smuggled her out of the city.”
“A forlorn hope.”
“But that’s exactly what happened. Thea was hidden in the most obvious place possible. All they had to do was change her name, and Thea became one girl among many. Better yet, the sanctuary has a history of caring for orphans. Like Gaïs, for example.”
Aeschylus said, “I concede you’re right, Nicolaos. That does seem inevitable.”
Callias clasped Thea’s left hand. With tears in his eyes, he said, “I cannot tell you how much it pleases me that you survived. I only wish you’d come to me before. I could have helped you.”
Thea shrugged. “I’ve tried so hard to forget those times. To this day, I still have nightmares. I see myself ejected from the ceremony, and then I see my brother cut down. It’s kind of you, Callias, but I had everything I needed here. The sanctuary succored me, and I’ve served the Goddess.”
I said, “We now come to the next part of the sequence. Hippias was dropped at Brauron because he’d been wounded at Marathon. He needed a doctor, and quickly. The evidence of the doctor proves Hippias survived the battle. He probably even survived the doctor.
“Tell me,” I said, “what do most people do to get their strength back when they recover from a wound?”
“They go for walks,” Aeschylus said. “They start with short ones, then make them longer as they become stronger.”
“Yes, and if you were Hippias, in Attica, after the battle at Marathon, when would you go for a walk?”
“On the darkest nights possible,” said Aeschylus grimly. “The tyrant would hide for fear that I or someone like me would run into him.”
“Correct! And who did we just hear was walking about the countryside at night?”
Aeschylus frowned. “Zeke?”
“No, Zeke scouted the countryside before the battle. Afterward, he was in hiding, waiting for the Athenian army to disperse. There was one very important find that came with the skeleton, one that Sabina didn’t send along with the scrolls. If she had, everything might have turned out differently. Among the ribs, hidden amongst them and the dirt, was a knife. Scratched into one side were the names Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Scratched into the other side was the name Leana. It’s overwhelmingly likely that this was the murder weapon. Those names were the killer’s motive. Now that we have discovered the sister of Harmodius, the name of the killer is obvious.”
“Not Thea!” Callias exclaimed.
“Thea,” I said.
“Is this true?” Callias asked. “Are you, Thea, the true Tyrannicide?”
Thea said in a small voice, “It is as Nicolaos says. One evening I was walking back from visiting Zeke-I went to see him every spare moment-when I saw coming in the other direction an old man. He shuffled along. It was dark, I didn’t recognize Hippias until he was upon me, and he never recognized me at all.” She stopped and looked at us each in turn. “You must remember, I was thirty-one then, and in my prime. He hadn’t seen me since I was seven.”
Several heads nodded at her explanation.
“Hippias said, ‘Good evening, Priestess.’ I’d never thought to have such a chance. He shambled, like a sick, weak, old man. I boiled with anger that welled up until I couldn’t control it. I drew my knife and I stabbed him in the heart. I stabbed him over and over.” Thea shuddered. “Then, when he was dead and I’d come to my senses, I scratched into the blade the names of the people I’d avenged. I wanted his shade to know why he’d died. I pushed the knife back into him and then I went to tell Zeke what I’d done. Together we carried him to the cave where Zeke and his men had hidden. That’s the entire story. I only regret that I couldn’t kill him before he destroyed my family.”
Callias said, “With your permission, Zeke?”
Zeke nodded.
Callias wrapped Thea up in a massive hug.
“All of Athens owes you a debt, lady, and I look forward to paying it. I shall commission your statue and have it raised upon the Acropolis. You shall stand next to my Leana, whom you avenged.”
Thea pushed Callias back in horror. “Please, no, Callias! I’d prefer no one to ever know. I want my brother Harmodius and his friend Aristogeiton to be remembered as the Tyrannicides.”
“But it’s not true,” Callias said, puzzled. “You know it’s not. This makes no sense.”
“They died for it; I didn’t. Leana too. I remember her.” Thea stopped to wipe away a tear.
“What of my Allike?” Aposila said. “Did you kill her, too?”
Thea shook her head violently. “No! Of course not. I’d never harm a child. Not after what I went through.”
“Thea’s right,” I said. “It’s impossible for either her or Zeke to have hurt Allike. Neither has the strength to dismemb-” I realized Allike’s mother was in the room. “That is, to hurt someone. But luckily for us, the answer to the worst of crime of all-the murder of a child-becomes simple once we remove all the distractions of those other mysteries. There can be only one person who hurt your daughter, Aposila. It had to be a man. It had to be a man who knew of the discovery of the skeleton. That narrows the suspects. What’s more, it had to be a man who stood to lose from the discovery.
“I asked you before, Callias and Aeschylus, what would happen to the man who killed Hippias. You said he’d be a certain winner in the elections.”
“Yes.”
“But what if the man who protected Hippias was up for election? What if we could prove it?”
“He certainly wouldn’t win any election,” said Callias.
“Dead men can’t,” Aeschylus added grimly.
“I thought as much. Then tell me, who is the only man in this case who knew of the skeleton, who has property in Brauron, and who might have hidden Hippias?”
Thea got there first. “Glaucon?” she said.
“Glaucon. Glaucon must have harbored Hippias. It’s the only explanation consistent with everything we know. When Glaucon saw the message from Sabina, he must have opened the scrolls and seen his own name prominently displayed at the end of scroll five. The discovery would have destroyed his chances at the election. In fact, it would have killed him! Glaucon pulled the fifth scroll.”