Hannah took in the thousands of notches along the wall made over the years, each monitoring the rise and fall of celestial bodies. What patience it had taken the Alexandrian scholars to observe them so carefully, year after year.
Hypatia strode over to a chart etched in a basin of plaster that was set on a worktable in the north. “Here is a graph of the movement of the tides with the phases of the moon, made by my student, Pos, over the last several years. He is attempting to calculate how the occurrence of the coming lunar eclipse will affect the sea. Clever dog, Pos. When you come to my lecture this coming day of Mercury, he will present his findings.”
Hannah smiled. “I look forward to it.” She still felt a sense of awe that there were calculations that could embrace the mysterious workings of nature.
Hypatia took a seat on a stone bench, moving as if her bones ached from kneeling for so long. Her eyes were puffy and her golden hair had sprung loose in ringlets all around her face as thought she might pose for a portrait of a tired goddess. Her grey philosopher’s tribon was wrinkled as though it had been slept in. Still, in spite of her overworked appearance, there was a fierce radiance and joy about her.
Hannah strode over to the edge of the roof and looked down on the Caesarion gardens, and the many men sauntering past the massive sphinxes set along the path overlooking the long rectangular reflecting pools speckled with lotus blossoms. “May I ask you a question, Hypatia?”
“Certainly. Anything you like.”
“Are there any other women in the Great Library?”
“None but the servants and slaves, I am afraid.”
“You must be very lonely.”
“The soul has no gender. But if I could design my life, I might enjoy more women on my staff, which brings me to the reason I invited you here. I was wondering if you might have any desire to become a scholar of music.”
“A scholar of music?”
“I think you would benefit from study in the tradition of Pythagoras. Our last music scholar has relocated to Rome, and I was thinking that you would make a marvelous fit here in the library. Synesius has spoken of your keen mind. He says you learn quickly, and upon hearing your gift of song I surmise we have the next Sappho on our hands.”
“I am afraid I am not sure what you mean.” Hannah’s hands began to sweat and she wiped them on her khiton.
Hypatia smiled, enchanted by the young woman before her who genuinely seemed to be unaffected by, and perhaps even unaware of, both her beauty and her talent. Hypatia cleared her throat. “What I am saying is that I would like you to play regularly at my lectures. Would you like that?”
“It would be an honor, of course, if Alizar consents.”
Hannah’s innocence about the prestige of the offer gave her all the more merit in Hypatia’s eyes. It meant she was not another myopic sycophant cloying to be near her in hopes of the attention that sometimes accompanied the lives of philosophers and scholars.
“May I speak openly with you?” asked Hannah.
“Certainly.”
“Several weeks ago I encountered the Parabolani in the street. I fear them and these public demonstrations.”
“Are the Christians so different where you come from?” Hypatia asked, incredulous.
“There are none where I am from, only Jews and gypsies.”
“Truly? How unusual. I admit the Alexandrian Christians are extreme, but they are not all this way. Think of Synesius.”
“I realize he is a Christian, but then how he can study Plotinus in your school?”
“A philosopher does not accept boundaries with beliefs. He is more gnostic than orthodox, besides.”
“You are not afraid, then? Of the consequences?”
“Of course I am, but Hannah, I learned some years ago it is a waste of one’s talent to live in fear. It is true this city is in a state of unrest. The library is in a state of unrest. Life is in a state of unrest. I cannot afford to let it interfere with my work, and neither can you. Courage, sister.”
“But different philosophies meet with bloodshed.”
Hypatia stood and went to the east wall, and Hannah followed her. Far below them a swarthy crew aboard a carrack entering the harbor drew down the ship’s red sails in haste. “There is one thing that elevates us here, you know, and it is not our buildings or our walls,” said Hypatia.
“What is it?” Hannah asked, her eyes full of gentleness.
“Intellect.” Hypatia turned and Hannah could see the swords gleaming in her eyes. “In the mind we are free. It is the body that leads us astray. The mind is the lotus of purity; the body and its demands are merely the mud to be transcended through yoga and concentration.”
“What is that there?” Hannah asked, suddenly catching sight of a tremendous island fortress across the eastern harbor.
“It is the Kiosk Palace of Antirrhodus.”
“Truly, a palace?” Hannah’s eyes danced like a child’s.
“Indeed, but the royal family no longer occupies it. The governor, Orestes, keeps his residence there, and the praetorian prefect of the East Emperor’s guard. The palaces Cleopatra once adored are now mere artifice badly in need of repair. Since the drought, grain production has dwindled so that there is no money for it.”
Another strip of land caught Hannah’s eye, in the northern edge of the harbor, at least seven furlongs from the shore and crowned with a magnificent building. “And that island there?”
“You have not seen Pharos? There is our lighthouse designed by Sostratus the Cnidian, the same architect who constructed the hanging gardens of Caria. It is of granite and limestone blocks, but faced with white marble, which is why it gleams so in the sun,” said Hypatia proudly. The base was a tremendous horizontal rectangle of limestone carved through the center by a line of three hundred steps, beneath which were housed all the laborers it took to keep the lighthouse functioning when it was in repair. The first tier was a vertical rectangle of limestone blocks that situated the lighthouse over a hundred meters above the sea. Above that, an octagonal cylinder of stone ornately carved and decorated with Egyptian statuary supported a circular temple at the top crowned by a golden statue of Poseidon, leaning on his trident. Hypatia explained that the impressive statues placed to either side of it facing away from the harbor were of Ptolemy and his queen. Their backs turned to Alexandria so they could be seen by arriving and departing ships from the royal harbor. “The hinges of the lighthouse mirror have become corroded from the salt air, so our parabolic reflector has not been functional for years, but between you and I, Orestes says it has been repaired. There will be a magnificent party soon to celebrate. It is a miracle the ships do not founder at the harbor’s entrance without it. And you see that smallish blue dome there? It is the Temple of Isis.”
“The Temple of Isis,” Hannah repeated thoughtfully. “And you have been there?”
Hypatia’s eyes flooded with memories, making her look almost gentle for a moment. “I was initiated there,” she said. “When my mother disappeared, my father sent me to the High Priestess to be educated. I still go visit the temple when I need a moment away from this—” she waved her arms, “—chaos.” Then Hypatia laughed the burdened laugh of those who can never escape their load. “It pains me that the powerful east-west tide of Alexandria is sweeping Pharos away. Beside the Temple of Poseidon the currents are so swift that anyone who swims there is quickly carried out to sea. Some of my staff calculated that in a thousand years, the island will have vanished into the sea.”
Hannah looked to the beautiful island that seemed so permanent and found she could not picture the scene without it.
Hypatia glanced at the sundial at the north end of the observatory and waved Hannah to follow her. “I must prepare for my lecture, come.”
They descended the stairs and turned off down a narrow passage to a short wooden door, which Hypatia opened with
a key strung around her neck. As Hannah looked around the room, at the scrolls and papers that were stacked in neat piles on a fine wooden desk that overlooked the harbor, Hypatia began to narrate. “This room used to be a storage closet. It was my father’s dream to make it his private office, but he never got around to it. That is his desk, there. It supposedly once belonged to Cleopatra’s lover, Mark Antony. When my father died, I cleared the room and added the window overlooking the harbor. I apologize for the heat. Though late spring in Alexandria is usually quite pleasant, this year the drought has brought dust and swelter. But I have the window, which helps. I see every ship that comes in and goes out of Alexandria. I only hope to be aboard one of them someday.”
“Not I.” Hannah said. “I need the earth beneath my feet.”
Hypatia took a seat at her desk and began meticulously sorting through a pile of scrolls.
“Tell me something of your work,” Hannah said, taking a seat on the settee to rest her ankle. Between them a zebra skin was spread on the floor.
“My work. Well, I have had a marvelous commission this week from the bishop of Antioch, thanks to a recommendation from Synesius. The bishop would like me to build him a special hydrometer to measure the aging process of his wine. Bit of Dionysus in him, really, though he would never forgive me if he heard me say it.” Hypatia smiled, delighted to be able to speak freely.
“It must be exciting to know so many influential people,” Hannah mused.
“Yes and no. It is a burden to serve them at times. Influential people are extremely difficult when they do not get what they want. Look at Cyril.” Hypatia shook her head.
“The bishop of Alexandria?”
“Yes. He is demanding that we relinquish to him the Celestial Clock of Archimedes, which is to be destroyed.”
“Destroyed?”
“He believes the clock a sorcerer’s tool.” Hypatia tossed a pile of scrolls on the floor. “I imagine these harsh cosmopolitan ways must seem quite foreign to you. It is not a judgment. To me, the desert you come from, with its scorpions and shifting sands, is the more terrifying place. These walls mean safety to me, even if I must deal with Cyril and his men and their ludicrous requests.”
“The desert may shift, but it is always the same.”
“Like men. Like time. Like religion and like rulers. Perhaps even like God.”
“You risk your life speaking such words.” Hannah now recognized that bold speech was a dangerous characteristic in Alexandria.
Hypatia brushed the comment away with a smile. “Anyone who puts their life in the service of truth must.”
Hannah shifted her position on the settee and the floorboards creaked. “What does a library need a music scholar for? Musicians have no need for scrolls.”
“Hannah, you possess a unique talent. We have hundreds of scribes that can translate and document any language, but how will we preserve the music?”
Hannah considered it. “Songs are old as the wind, and passed down through ancestors. These things cannot be preserved any other way.”
“About that I think you are wrong. There must be a way to record the music, perhaps with some sort of Pythagorean notation. We have not much time. People are relinquishing their ancient traditions for the Christian faith. We stand to lose everything. I am sure you can see that.”
“But why oppose them? It will only bring their fury, as you have seen.” Hannah thought of the servant who was killed at the gates of the Great Library.
“You misunderstand me. I do not oppose the Christians, and neither does this library. I have many Christians on my staff. We have made more translations of the Gospels than the libraries of Athens, Ephesus, Rome, Tarsus, Antioch, Pergamon and Constantinople combined.” Hypatia paused. “Though many of those libraries have now been destroyed by the Christians.”
“Then why does Alexandria’s bishop oppose the library?”
Hypatia selected four scrolls and slid them into a leather carrier. “It is a very complicated matter. The Great Library, like the Serapeum before it, houses far more than just Christian texts. Our scribes have amassed a collection of literature from as far as India, and the content is debatable to some. To others like Bishop Cyril, it is inexcusable. Pornographic, they call it.”
There was a light rap at the door.
Hypatia looked up. “Come.”
The door opened and in strode a magnificently clad gentleman wearing a black silk tunica and wide black pants, the ensemble tied together with a wide sash of crimson that bound his slender waist.
The angel brightened. Here at last. The warrior. The door would open and waiting would end. The light had promised it.
The gentleman stepped lightly to Hypatia’s desk and bowed before her on one knee and then stood. She returned his gesture with a nod. “Good day, Julian of Pharos, to what do we owe the honor of this visit?”
“Greetings, Hypatia. The Nuapar have heard of the recent threats on your life. I have come to extend to you from Master Savitur and Master Junkar of Pharos an offer to post our finest Nuapar warriors as sentries at your gates.”
Hannah’s breath came short. Who was this elegant warrior? His was an animal beauty. She admired the finery of his dress, the way his black hair had been bound into one long braid that hung like a rope down his back. She felt as though she were looking at an Egyptian god brought to life.
“This is most kind of you, Julian. I believe your offer comes at an apropos moment, and I shall discuss it with the other staff. I believe I can speak for us all when I say the library would be most grateful to be under the protection of the Nuapar.”
Hannah shifted her legs on the settee and Julian spun to see who was behind him.
Hypatia cleared her throat. “Julian of Cyrene, this is Hannah of Sinai. I hope she will be our new music scholar. Hannah, Julian is the younger brother of your tutor, Synesius.”
Julian’s full lips spread into a gleaming white smile, as the Nuapar had a ritual of cleaning their teeth daily. He then bowed to Hannah respectfully. “An honor, lady.”
Hannah immediately saw in Julian the resemblance to Synesius. They had the same elegant bone structure and the same nose, but Julian’s face was more chiseled through the jaw, and his eyes were a little wider set, lacking the squint of hours spent before scrolls in dim light. And of course, Julian had a full head of hair, which lent him youth.
When Julian stood from his bow, his eyes, glowing like ocean agate, locked with Hannah’s, and a current of energy shot through her bones. She suddenly felt so faint she thought she might melt into the floor. “A pleasure, Julian of Cyrene.”
Julian saw her slave collar then, and broke their gaze. “Please give my brother my warmest regards.”
“I shall,” Hannah said, her fingers gliding up to the bronze collar at her throat. She had almost forgotten it, and now suddenly she felt she was being choked by a cold and deadly serpent.
“Hypatia, the Nuapar masters await your reply,” Julian purred.
“It is most generous, please thank them for me,” said Hypatia. Then she turned to Hannah and added. “You can see what kind of an age we live in when warriors must be employed to protect scholars.”
Julian nodded and stepped to the door. “Do give my regards to Alizar, Galinus and Gideon. Oh, and you may tell Synesius I have passed the final rites.”
Hypatia’s eyebrows lifted, clearly impressed. “I shall.”
Julian nodded to Hannah and smiled curtly, then swept out of the room as quiet as a cat.
Hannah felt the hammering in her chest begin to slow once he was gone.
Hypatia saw the questions in Hannah’s eyes. “Only the finest, most committed monks ever reach the rank of Nuapar,” she explained. “You know them because they alone wear the black robes with the red sash. The Nuapar have two masters called the Kolossofia. They are known as Masters Savitur and Junkar. T
he Kolossofia always have the same names throughout the ages. Each chooses his successor, and the successor inherits his master’s name.”
“Why do the Nuapar need two masters? One would not suffice?”
Hypatia shook her head in disapproval. “The tradition is ancient. They refuse to write down their teachings no matter how much I prod. With two masters, if anything happens to the first, the teachings are still with the second. But I have never heard of anything happening to a Kolossofia master. There are countless stories of their magical abilities. It is said that they can fly through the air, read minds, make objects levitate, see into the future, and manifest second bodies for themselves. It is all quite superstitious if you ask me. I am still too much of a scientist to believe that kind of talk.”
Hypatia collected one last scroll from the table behind her and added it to the leather satchel. “It is nearly time for my class. But there is something I would like to share with you before I go.”
Hannah nodded, intrigued.
“Hearing you sing, I was so deeply soothed. The night you played I was able to forget my burdens for an entire hour and just be swept away. It was a such a luxury; you have no idea.”
“Singing at your lecture brought me great joy.”
“Hannah, you could play for audiences like that one every night. And not just the staff, but visiting magistrates, kings, emperors. You would be everyone’s favorite, I am quite certain. We already have requests that you play for my lecture next week.”
“You do?”
Hypatia smiled and nodded, bringing a large object bound in linen up from beneath her desk. “For you,” she said, holding the bundle out to Hannah.
Hannah took and unwrapped the heavy gift. Beneath the cloth her fingers found the hard surface of polished wood and several taut strings.
Written in the Ashes Page 10