Orestes lay on a cot in the center of the floor, the last remaining staves of sunlight falling across his bare, bruised shoulders. Phoebe knelt beside him, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek. When she saw Alizar, she stood up and hugged him wordlessly, and then knelt back down beside her husband. Orestes lay motionless, eyes closed, his forehead and left eye bandaged with strips of linen. His chest and shoulders were cut and scratched; another bandage encircled his ribcage. The sheets were pulled down low over his hips to let the wounds breathe.
As Alizar took in this tragic vision of his beloved friend, Philemon, the doctor, appeared from another room. He was a shrewd little man with a round, bald head and short stubby arms with elbows that never straightened completely. When he saw Alizar he gave a disinterested nod of greeting.
“Philemon,” Alizar nodded in return.
“This is a medical ward, Alizar,” Philemon chided him. “You come here, you need to wash.”
Alizar ignored the doctor’s strange obsession with cleanliness. “How bad is he?”
“If you wash,” said Philemon, regarding Alizar’s grimy appearance in disgust, “you can help me change the patient’s bandages.”
Alizar inhaled sharply. “How long will it take?”
Philemon frowned. “You have a dinner to attend?”
Alizar shook his head. “My slave. Like a daughter to me. Hannah. She is not well from our trek in the desert. She needs you at once. As soon as we are done here.”
Philemon nodded, and they went to work.
Later in the night, Alizar emerged from the ward where the praetorian prefect of Egypt lay, his head from the temple to the crown, split to the white skull where the stones had struck him, his left eye crushed and useless. Philemon, who tended to cluck his tongue as he examined his patients, thought it unlikely that he would survive the night. He packed his bag and set out to Alizar’s home to see about Hannah.
“Alizar?”
The alchemist turned his head.
“Please walk with me,” Hypatia said.
The doctor nodded, and Alizar let him go on ahead.
The Great Lady had composed herself a little since their meeting in the hall several hours earlier, having changed into a tribon of pure white and bound her hair high up on her head in a topknot, but her eyes were still wet and pained. “I am thankful you have returned from the desert safely,” she said.
He nodded, thinking it best not to tell her about the Emerald Tablet just yet. “The Parabolani were at my home. I can stay only a moment,” he said.
Hypatia bowed her head. “Understood.”
They walked arm in arm to the top of the garden and sat on the stairs of the amphitheatre that overlooked the harbor, the lighthouse glowing like a beacon of promise against the night.
“I fear our precious city is cursed,” Hypatia said.
“All the more reason for our continued diligence,” said Alizar. A long pause followed his words, bringing with it the sound of the waves lapping the seawall.
Hypatia lifted her eyes. “The council has ruled unanimously. Ammonius will be executed tomorrow morning.”
Alizar folded his hands. It was good news, but it did not seem to matter. Nothing seemed to matter. Leitah’s death, the third of his prophesy, was a terrible blow, now this.
“Cyril has grown in his audacity,” said Hypatia quietly. “We must appease him somehow before he destroys all of us.”
“I know. Perhaps we should just give him what he wants,” said Alizar, his words tumbled together in a heap. All he could see behind his eyes was Leitah, slumped in Jemir’s arms; the flies that circled his precious hound, Orestes’s cracked skull and the light disappearing from the room.
“The Celestial Clock of Archimedes? Has the desert stripped you of your senses? If we give it to him he will not stop there and you know it. The entire library may fall in the name of his God. Think of the scrolls that would perish. You are even more aware than I of how much the world would lose.”
“He has written you as well?”
“Of course,” said Hypatia, a glimmer in her eyes.
Alizar took notice and sat up. “You have an idea,” he said. “Speak.”
“I have taken a new interest in Christianity,” she announced with a smile. “I am working on a treatise about the Virgin Mary that I believe will have immense influence.”
Alizar laughed heartily. “You mean you expect Cyril to read it? Nonsense. Put it out of your mind.”
Hypatia let her eyes drift across the harbor to Pharos. “They began constructing the Heptastadion bridge, Alizar, in the weeks since you have been away. We could not stop them. Pharos will fall next.”
“They found an architect?” Alizar had thought it impossible.
“Empress Pulcheria has personally commissioned it in the name of the emperor. Imperial spies told her that Pharos concealed the last of the pagans, and she wants them brought into the Christian faith by any means. They have plans to erect a church on the southern shore. Beside the Temple of Poseidon,” said Hypatia, her disbelief still outweighing her disappointment.
Alizar inhaled sharply. “How many texts are there in the library remaining to be copied?”
Hypatia laughed. “We will never save them all,” she said.
Hypatia slid her hand under the crook of Alizar’s elbow.
“You are right,” said Alizar, his heart aventine at her touch.
Hypatia squeezed his arm. “Tell me, in how many locations have you hidden the manuscripts?”
Alizar counted on his fingers. Malta, Nag Hammadi, Antioch, Crete, Ephesus, Cyprus, Cappodocia, Epidavros, and in the forbidden caves of Macedonia. “Nine,” he said.
“Have you finished the maps?”
Alizar shook his head. “No, not yet.”
“How will you conceal them?”
Alizar sighed. “I am working on it. Hypatia, I must go.”
“Of course. Certainly.”
They bade each other a swift goodnight.
Alizar rushed toward the entrance to the catacombs, his mind a flurry of thoughts. With Orestes indisposed, Hypatia was now Cyril’s final threat to power. Alizar knew he must make a plan to protect her at once.
30
From beside the bed in the upstairs room of Alizar’s house, Gideon watched the moon float up over the wall behind the stable, then become tangled in the lower branches of the fig tree as Hannah slept in the same bed in which Naomi had died. Gideon held her hand, cursing whatever it was that was taking Alizar so long with the doctor. Jemir and Tarek paced the hall outside. Leitah’s body not even cold in the ground, they feared another corpse. In the middle of the night Gideon looked up to see the moon had lifted free of the tangled tree branches and drifted upwards toward the zenith of the sky.
Later the doctor arrived. He examined Hannah, then met Gideon in the hall. By then, Alizar had joined them. Philemon explained what his examination revealed. Gideon’s face fell, then went flush, and he made fists and stormed down the hall. Alizar set his hand on Philemon’s shoulder and thanked him for coming.
When Hannah slowly opened her eyes, it was to the sound of goat bells, and for a moment, she thought she was in her father’s pasture. She could hear him cooking over the fire, clinking spoons and pots, rummaging in his leather sacks. And then she could hear his voice calling to her, telling her it was time to awaken. But as she roused, she found she was in Naomi’s bedroom, Alizar asleep in the chair beside her.
“Alizar?”
Alizar’s eyes flew open. “Praise Zeus, Hannah. Are you really awake?” He stood at once and went to her, lifting a cup of water to her lips.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked.
“Days.”
“Days?” Hannah looked around the room, her eyes finding focus. “Where is Gideon?”
Alizar looked do
wn. “He has gone out.”
“Out? But where?”
Alizar took her hand. “Do not worry. He will return shortly.”
“Where is he? Tell me, Alizar.”
“I do not know.”
“Where is Leitah?”
Alizar took her hand. “She is with the Goddess.”
Hannah saw the despair in Alizar’s eyes. “No. No!”
Alizar nodded.
Hannah exhaled and tears slipped down her cheeks. She wiped them with her fingers and leaned back in bed. Alizar cleared his throat. “The doctor says you still have the child. Miraculously. But then, I am not surprised.”
Hannah looked up, her eyes wet with sorrow. “I have it?”
Alizar nodded.
At twilight, Gideon returned in a drunken stupor. He stormed up the hall and flung open the bedroom door where Hannah slept, his sword drawn. Alizar immediately sprang to his feet. “Gideon, put down your sword.”
Gideon ignored Alizar and addressed Hannah, “There she is, treacherous woman.”
Hannah sat up, startled.
“Gideon, calm yourself.” Alizar went to his friend. “The girl is sick. She did not mean to deceive you. Let her be.”
“I have been deceived indeed!” Gideon raged, shoving Alizar out of his way. “Deceived. Hannah, I am glad to see you are well, but it seems there is something pertinent to our match that you have neglected to tell me.” Little drops of his spittle struck her in the face. “Or perhaps you believe me to be so stupid that I would never have guessed it of my own accord.”
Hannah drew a pillow up over her belly and clutched it to her body.
Alizar lunged for Gideon’s shoulder, but he evaded his reach. “Gideon, stop it at once.”
“Answer me, woman!” Gideon lifted his sword in the air for emphasis just as Alizar locked his arm over Gideon’s shoulder to wrestle him from the room.
“Stop it. Both of you,” said Hannah. “Gideon, I did not intend to deceive you.” Her voice trickled out of her throat as little more than a whisper.
“That is not how it seems to me,” he ranted, turning to the windows. “As a woman carrying a bastard child with no other suitors, I am sure I make a fitting end to your otherwise miserable prospects.” He paced furiously. “Well, you have lied to the wrong man.”
“Gideon, your words are hurtful. Let me explain.”
“Curse your feeble explanation, whatever it may be.”
Hannah closed her eyes against the barrage of words that pierced her like so many small knives. “It is not what you think,” she said. “Please sit down.”
“I prefer to stand,” said Gideon, arms crossed, still facing his body to the window. He turned his head to look at her, if he saw her at all through the asperity of his rage. “If you feel you can make a statement out of all this that does not merely mock my manhood I should like to hear it. It is well within my civil rights to dispose of you outright.”
Hannah lifted the pillow off her belly and set it beside her. There would be no hiding now. If anything, the truth would be a gift, a lifted burden, and a way of somehow putting the past behind her. “This babe—still in my womb by some miracle—may be yours, Gideon. But it may be the child of the Sacred Marriage rite of the Nuapar. I do not know. I was wrong in not telling you. I am sorry.”
Gideon would not look at her. His eyes examined the courtyard below, flitting over the stones as she spoke. Gradually his breathing slowed and his eyebrows settled over his eyes, and he returned to himself. Alizar saw that any danger had passed and swept out of the room, leaving them.
“Gideon?” said Hannah.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“I do not expect you to accept this news. It would be too much for any man, I understand. We will call off the betrothal and I will return to the Temple of Isis on Pharos.” Hannah swallowed the words, knowing that she would do exactly that, regardless of how much she did not wish to return to the island and the cold judging eyes of the women there.
Gideon looked at her then, his glassy eyes moist with some new feeling. “Is that what you wish?”
Hannah looked down at her belly, to where the warrior child still clung to life in her womb. She looked up. “No.”
Gideon stepped toward the bed, sheathed his sword, and stood over her. “Do you love me?”
Hannah closed her eyes.
“Tell me the truth, woman. I must hear it.”
Hannah looked up with as much courage as she could muster and met his dark eyes. “I have known one great love in my life, with a man who sacrificed his entire world for me. When we were separated, I knew a grief deeper than I ever imagined possible. When we were reunited, my heart soared to a height in the sky higher than any hawk or eagle has ever seen. That man was my father.
“It is true I think of Julian. Do I love him? Yes. But that night fades in my mind even as I long for it. What kind of fate would I know to selfishly pine for a man who is already wed to an entire order of men who require his guidance? The man I lay with in the tower is dead to all who knew him. And I would be well off to mourn him as such, and I know this. I cannot make a life of that. I feel my father’s staff in my path if I try to go a direction that I should not consider, and I feel he would want me to be with you, Gideon.” She shifted in the bed, bending one knee beneath the sheet. Hearing her own words she learned how she truly felt. “I can only be honest with you, and say that I will love you. If you will let me.”
Gideon sat on the bed, placed his hand on her calf, and met her eyes. “If what you say is true, I will accept this child.”
Hannah’s lower lip trembled, and she squinted her eyes to remain free of the tears that wanted to come. “You are a generous man.”
“Beauty is common, Hannah. Any woman can be beautiful. But you. You have the heart of a lioness. I fear you. And I would worship you.” He lifted her fingers and kissed them.
Hannah lifted her other hand and stroked Gideon’s cheek. “Thank you for bringing me here out of the desert.”
He laughed. “I love you, Hannah of Sinai.”
Within her womb, the angel smiled.
Gideon cleared his throat. “These words I say to you I have never said to anyone else. And if I had a friend who confessed to me he said such things to a woman, I would laugh at him and tell him to come to his senses. How wrong I would be. For these are my senses, and I have lived an entire life without them.”
Outside, a peacock screamed, and a cat in heat responded with a yowl as if the two species might somehow alleviate their mutual desire.
“I feel you must tell Mother Hathora,” said Gideon. “At least that.”
Hannah wanted to protest, but she knew he was right. “All right then. I shall.”
He thought a moment. “I can understand why you do not wish to go back. As a boy on Pharos I longed for the sea spray in my face, and adventure, and a life of my own with the touch of a beautiful woman in it.”
“Women.” Hannah corrected him.
“Women,” he smiled.
Hannah’s lips spread into a smirk, her dark blue eyes shining like lotus flowers in the twilight. The smile faded abruptly, though, for there in the door was Alizar, looking haggard and grave.
“Gideon, it is dawn. Ammonius, the priest who stoned Orestes, will be dead within the hour. Cyril is clearly on a warpath, and I must protect Hypatia. We must take the tablet and act now.”
Hannah protested. “No, you must not go. It is too soon.”
“I am sorry, Hannah,” said Alizar, resolute. “Pray to Hecate that our crossroads know her favor.” And in exhaustion, Alizar slipped from the doorway, an open space where all his hope had been.
Hannah and Gideon shared a glance, and then Gideon rose and followed Alizar as Hannah clung to the sheets in terror, knowing in her heart she might never see them alive again.
31
“I said I was not to be disturbed,” barked Cyril, jolted from his desk where he was furiously composing a letter. Ink spilled across the wood in a thin dribble that bled to the floor, where half a dozen crumpled balls of parchment lay scattered like dead mice.
The priest at the door, his face speckled with pockmarks, nodded curtly and stepped out.
Cyril set his stylus against the page as the door burst open and Alizar and Gideon stepped into the room.
Cyril did not even look up. “There is a war on, Alizar, and I suggest before you speak you strongly consider your position, for I have within my possession the evidence of your treason.”
Alizar swept to the desk. “I am on the side of men and peace,” he growled. “You, clearly, are on the side of your own ambition.”
Cyril pushed his chair back and met Alizar’s eyes with his own fierce gaze, and for a moment, there was a flicker of fear deep within them, and then it was gone. “I am on the side of God, and I suggest you explain why you have burst into my church before I have you arrested, and on this grave morning where a boy I loved like a son has just been executed.”
“You know why we are here,” said Gideon, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
Cyril smiled. “Ah yes, perhaps for these.” He gestured across the room to the pythos filled with documents stolen from Alizar’s tower. “But they are mine now.”
Alizar looked to Gideon sharply, and Gideon lowered his hand to his side, but without shifting his ready stance. Alizar chose his words carefully, trying to suppress his rage. “I come here in the name of peace in Alexandria to speak to you about this massacring crusade you are on. Your Eminence, I have lived in Alexandria since before your father was born. We are a city of tolerance, founded by Ptolemy, for all religions, views and people to prosper. If it is your popularity you are so concerned for, then you should consider the shoulders of the past you are standing on, and the people who built Alexandria to be what she is. If you cut this city from her roots she will whither and die and you will rule a necropolis. Orestes is no threat to you now. Hypatia is a figurehead in the library with no real power. I want an accord of peace in the city.”
Written in the Ashes Page 35