Page 17 of Two Wars and a Wedding

“A sanitary and sane pursuit.” Something about the way he said it, however gravely, made Betsy feel like they were in a conspiracy together, the ones who didn’t bow to the sanitary and the sane.

“Have you dug?” Betsy demanded.

“What she means,” said Ethel, giving Betsy a look, “is have you participated in excavations.”

“From here to the Valley of the Kings. I dabbled in Egyptology before following my heart to Greece.”

Betsy burned to know just whose heart it was he had followed, but she couldn’t ask, so she demanded instead, “You never did say what you’re doing here. On this boat, I mean.”

“Going on a trek to the Peloponnese, of course,” Monsieur de Robecourt said lightly.

“With us?” That had sounded a little too eager. Betsy made an attempt at sangfroid. “Isn’t this old hat for you?”

“Greece?” He held her gaze just a moment too long. “Greece never grows old. He who is bored with Greece is bored with life.”

“You stole that from Dr. Johnson,” said Betsy severely. She had to work very hard at being severe. His presence gave the cool morning air a fizz like champagne. Betsy could feel it going straight to her head.

“Did I?” He moved closer to avoid a pack of goats on the move. Betsy could smell his cologne and feel the warmth of his skin through the fine wool of his sleeve as his arm brushed against hers.

“Pure thievery.”

Monsieur de Robecourt bent his dark head to speak to her above the din. “But he’s dead; he’ll never notice the loss of it. Besides, isn’t that what archaeologists do? We rob the dead to delight the living.”

Betsy thrilled to that we. “I think of it more as safeguarding their remains for them, making sure they’re studied properly. It’s for their own good, really.”

Monsieur de Robecourt raised a brow. “Theirs? Or yours?”

“Does it matter?” asked Ethel, sounding rather exasperated about being left out again. “They aren’t here to complain.”

“An intriguing point.” Something Betsy couldn’t read passed across Monsieur de Robecourt’s face. He took a step back, nodding to Betsy and Ethel. “I should pay my respects to my host before he thinks me impossibly rude.”

And with a tilt of his hat, he was off to Professor Sterrett, leaving Betsy with Ethel, feeling bemused and slightly giddy.

“He does flirt,” said Ethel calmly, and Betsy came back down to earth with a thump.

“Well . . . the French,” said Betsy, as though she’d never thought anything of it, and went off with Ethel to join the Harvard men, although their company felt distinctly flat after the intoxicating worldliness of Monsieur de Robecourt.

They docked that night off Nauplion, and went the next morning to Tiryns, trekking up to the ancient city in the clear, pure light of dawn.

“Famed for its walls,” murmured Betsy, staring up at the massive fortifications, kissed with the light of the rising sun. Every now and then, Homer did get something right.

“It doesn’t actually say famed,” pointed out Ethel. “A more accurate translation would be well-walled.”

There went romance. Betsy frowned at Ethel. “That’s like saying Versailles was well-gilded. It doesn’t convey the awe of it at all.”

There were only the bare remnants of rooms remaining, the outlines of walls and scraps of frescoes, but Betsy could see them growing, becoming whole again. They ran around like schoolchildren, shouting and pointing, speculating and guessing. There, that had been the circular hearth in the megaron, or great hall. There, those were the remains of the temple of Hera, built onto the megaron—but later, so therefore less interesting. And there, that was what Professor Dörpfeld, who had excavated after Herr Schliemann (and was very careful not to be critical, although one could tell he wanted to), said was a bathing chamber. And, goodness, was that a sort of public latrine over there?

“Look,” said one of the Harvard boys, forgetting to be superior in his excitement. “This is what old Dörpfeld was talking about. See that stone slab? They tilted it like that so the water from the bath would drain down there.”

Ethel had her copy of A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities open to the section on Tiryns. “This says the bath itself would have been made of red clay decorated in a spiral pattern.”

They wandered off together toward the women’s quarters, bickering over Ethel’s guidebook and fighting over how many pillars would have held up the main room. But Betsy lagged behind, looking at that perfectly tilted, smooth sanded stone floor, marveling at the wonder of prehistoric engineering that had been expended, not on the defenses of the fortress, not on stone carvings for the glorification of the ruler, but so that they could have a nice bath, with scented oils in stone jars, and not worry about the floor being all sloppy afterward.

Someone, three thousand years ago, had soaked here in a red clay bathtub, toes sticking up out of the tub, scrubbing off the sweat of a summer day.

Someone touched her shoulder.

“What?” Betsy turned, looking for Ethel and the boys, but found Monsieur de Robecourt instead. Flustered, Betsy scrabbled for her self-possession. “Did you say something?”