Written in the Ashes

by K. Hollan Van Zandt

  Even the kind, young, dark-haired girl she had rescued in the market the week before found her and came to sit beside her, stroking her hair. Hannah did not even know she was there. She called out for her child. How would she survive this night? How could she think of living without Alaya? How could the gods be so heartless and cruel as this?

  Then, from somewhere in the back of her mind Hannah thought she heard Alaya’s voice. Her eyes flew open, thinking she was imagining it. She looked at Gideon. His eyes were wide. He had heard it, too.

  “Alaya?” Hannah called out, cupping her hands around her mouth as she flew to her feet.

  “Alaya!” Gideon yelled.

  Alizar joined them then, and Tarek. They stood on the beach in a solemn line, calling out.

  Hannah looked around desperately in all directions.

  Then the crowd parted, and in a stranger’s arms, her child appeared.

  “Alaya!” Hannah screamed, running toward her daughter, her aching feet slipping in the sand.

  Those ten steps toward her child were the longest strides of her entire life. A city that had erupted in chaos as the pillars of Alexandria crumbled, and an impossible night of loss all fell into the background.

  Her baby was safe.

  Alaya was alive.

  Hannah swept her child into her arms and clutched her so tightly that neither could breathe.

  Hannah rocked from side to side, whispering words of gratitude and love to Alaya through lips wet with tears, kissing her hair, her fingers, her cheeks. A long time passed before her eyes slowly opened to see a man standing before her, the man who had rescued her child from the flames.

  Julian.

  38

  Hannah lifted her heavy eyelids to look at the morning star, her body exhausted from lack of sleep, her mind as empty as a bowl. She stared at the sky, mostly in disbelief that the heavens had not vanished overnight. It seemed wrong, somehow, that Venus showed her lovely white face while the embers of death still smoldered in the pit of what had been the Great Library.

  Synesius died that morning on the beach. His last words were for Sofia, who, by some miracle herbs of the midwife had lived even after she lost so much blood. The babe would have his mother, but not his father. Hannah felt grateful Synesius was conscious long enough to learn he had a son. Then in an instant he was gone, along with so many other friends.

  “Stars winkle, planets glow, Mama,” announced Alaya, who awakened in her mother’s arms. “Papo told me.”

  Hannah kissed her daughter’s forehead and whispered, “Go back to sleep, Alaya.”

  In years to come, that moment was the only thing Hannah remembered of the days that followed the burning of the Great Library. Sometimes sparse fragments would float into her mind, the charred stone rubble that had fallen on the beach, the way the chartaceous ash dusted the rooftops like grey snow, the empty eyes of the people, the cows and goats wandering aimlessly through the streets. An eerie silence spread itself across the city like a blanket, unifying everyone beneath.

  Stars winkle, planets glow.

  Bells all over the city were ringing with the news.

  Hypatia of Alexandria, the Virgin of Serapis, was dead.

  On the day of the Great Lady’s funeral, Hannah sat wedged between Sofia and Gideon in front of a tremendous marble sarcophagus covered with bunches of flowers piled so high that they spilled in colorful waterfalls down the platform. The library was now an empty tomb of knowledge, a skeleton of bones without a heart, for that heart had been savagely torn to shreds by the hateful hands of the Parabolani and the mob.

  As Orestes took the dais and attempted bravely to deliver the eulogy, Alizar bowed his head to hide the tears that burned in his eyes. How could this have happened?

  Beloved Hypatia. Hers had been a life of devotion. He tried not to think how much she would have accomplished in the years stolen from her.

  Alizar went over the events of that night a thousand times in his mind, imagining what he could have done differently and how if they had just gotten there earlier he could have stopped it. When Gideon had rescued him, they searched the church for the Emerald Tablet and found it hidden below the altar bound in a simple linen cloth just as their spy had said. They thought it best to take the Emerald Tablet to the Great Library, but when they arrived they found the door from the catacombs mysteriously unlocked, and the barges that had carried the Parabolani scattered about the landing.

  How had Cyril’s men found the secret entrance? The number of people who knew the labyrinth of the catacombs Alizar could count on one hand. His only thought was perfidy, but who would betray Hypatia?

  Try as he might, nothing could erase the horrific scene from his mind. The mob, the mounted priests of Nitria and the Parabolani, like voracious wolves, had not left even one recognizable scrap of Hypatia’s body. They had flayed her alive. And then the fire had taken the rest. Before them now, her sarcophagus stood empty, save for a handful of ashes.

  But it was the secret of the fire that Alizar would carry to his grave, and his part in it. The moment replayed in his mind a thousand times as the sickening guilt spread through his veins like poison. Attacked from the rear by three priests of Nitria, Alizar had spun and unsheathed his sword in defense. The first man he ran through. The second priest, armed with a Roman sword, nearly took off Alizar’s head, but Alizar had stepped aside and grabbed a nearby torch, thrusting it into the priest’s bloodthirsty eyes. But the reeling priest had dropped to the floor in a pool of oil and blood, his body instantly ablaze. A pile of nearby scrolls caught fire. The third horseman of Nitria spun and fled as Alizar removed his cloak, desperate to put out the flames. But the fire had engulfed it, too.

  In the end, over three hundred librarians, five hundred staff, and a thousand others lay dead in the Great Library, their bodies consumed by the flames. Elsewhere in the city, thousands more had lost their homes as the fire spread. The Nuapar guards that remained in the library had been completely outnumbered, though they fought with valor. Even Cleopatra’s crypt had fallen in the flames, taking the Emerald Tablet with it. Now Hypatia was dead and Alizar did not know how he would live with what he had done. Cyril had gotten the library and its heart, both.

  The morning after the library had burned, the Christians had poured into the streets to celebrate their victory; after all, the pagan whore was dead, and the stain of the devil had been erased from history. Sadly, those who grieved were far outnumbered by those who cheered. Alizar knew the Christian scribes of the Tabularium would conceal the destruction all the same, for there were no other scribes left in the city. The Christians would write the story however they pleased. Hypatia’s name would be lost in whispers within a generation. Alizar vowed that he would do everything in his power to keep it alive.

  What had been lost in the fire was totally irreplaceable, Alizar knew better than anyone, and every lost scroll impaled him on the axis of his own compunction: all of Synesius’s work on the unsung gospels, the history of the Egyptian dynasties and how the pyramids had been constructed, the origin of alchemy and the writings of Hermes Trismagistus, innumerable medical codices and diagrams, mathematical and astronomical calculations from the most brilliant minds of the last five centuries, philosophical writings, plays, lists of herbal remedies, star charts, zoological and medical findings, the complete works, journals and private collections of Aeschylus, Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Theon, Erostosthanes, Apuleius, Plotinus and Hypatia. In the future, the world would never know the scope of what had been lost, irreplaceably lost. There was so much more that Alizar had yet to copy, yet he knew he could never have saved it all. Although he had known that the Great Library’s destruction was imminent given what had happened to the other libraries around the Mediterranean over the last fifty years, nothing could have ever convinced Alizar he would play a part in the scope of the tragedy: Hypatia’s murder, the loss of libraria
ns and friends he had worked beside for over thirty years, the ashes, the endless ashes. Alizar wished he had died with them now that he was left in the fabric of a world torn to shreds, gaping holes where friends once stood. There was no word Alizar knew that could even begin to encompass or express that kind of pain.

  No, he must never tell a soul.

  Alizar looked back to the dais where Orestes was stuttering, his speech the worse for his grief. As the governor began to list Hypatia’s accomplishments, tears welled up in his throat and he had to pause. In between the silences he apologized repeatedly, attempting to collect himself.

  “Beloved Hypatia, how the halls of our hearts will always remember your beauty and wisdom. Muse, inspiration, teacher, philosopher, you instructed your pupils through your example, showing us the way to freedom. Now we will always remember you as united with that divine truth you so loved and served. Your death has been your wedding day to God.” Orestes clutched the podium with both hands, his knuckles turning white as he looked to Phoebe for strength. As governor, the burden fell on him to deliver the eulogy for his most beloved friend and teacher, and to recite the names of all her staff that had died with her. Noble Orestes, once praetorian prefect of Egypt, the most powerful man in all of North Africa, felt as helpless as a child. He lifted the scroll before him, but the tears in his one eye blurred his vision so he had to go on without his notes.

  Alaya reached up and wiped her mother’s tears with her fingers and hugged her. It hardly seemed real that Hypatia was gone. Hannah somehow expected her to turn up at her own funeral, laughing at the extravagance she had spent an entire lifetime avoiding.

  Orestes looked down to collect himself, and when he looked up again, the startled expression on his face betrayed him. The mourners turned their heads to see what had caught his attention, and witnessed the bishop’s chariot approaching in a cloud of dust.

  Bishop Cyril.

  Seeing the chariot, Alizar clenched his jaw, stood to his full height, and walked swiftly toward it with only one thought in his mind.

  How dare he.

  As Cyril stepped out of the box, Alizar greeted him with his sword raised. “Leave this gathering at once,” he growled. “Let the people mourn in peace.”

  Cyril narrowed his eyes and puffed up his chest. “Stand aside, old man. I have come to pay my respects to the Great Lady of Alexandria. The mourners here expect to hear words of divine consolation from their bishop.”

  The light of truth burned in Alizar’s eyes like a white fire. He spoke quietly, but forcefully, his words meant only for Cyril’s ears. “I know precisely why you are here, and it has nothing to do with paying respects. Be well warned that the eyes of heaven have witnessed what you have done, Cyril. Every man, woman and child seated here knows your part in this lie and you should be ashamed in the face of your Christ.” Alizar spat in Cyril’s face.

  Cyril’s cheeks flushed red, and he quivered with rage as he clenched his fists beneath his robes, but he said nothing.

  Alizar stepped forward, the point of his sword now pressed to Cyril’s throat. “Curse you and be gone from here. Let these people grieve in peace.”

  Cyril stepped backwards, tripping on the heel of his boot.

  Alizar let his eyes speak of death, and stepped forward again.

  Without a word, Cyril climbed into his chariot box and rode away.

  Alizar sheathed his sword and returned to the mourners, still angry, but satisfied that he had defended Hypatia’s name and her memory, even if he had not been able to defend her life.

  One by one, Hypatia’s students, friends and followers walked up the steps to kiss the cold marble sarcophagus that bore her name. Hannah stepped forward after Gideon. “Bless you, Great Lady, my beloved friend,” Hannah whispered as her lips brushed the stone. “God keep you now.”

  39

  Three days after Hypatia’s funeral, Alizar, who had been cloistered in the walls of his tower requesting no interruptions, was jolted from his grieving by yet more upsetting news.

  “I am sorry to be the one to tell you,” said Gideon, setting the small iron key on the table. “I would not have come unless I knew for certain it was true.”

  “How are you so certain?” asked Alizar, a new pain in his eyes. The hound at his feet groaned in sleep.

  Gideon bowed his head. “A whore called Mira confessed it all when she learned that Hypatia had been killed. Apparently she was once a priestess in the Temple of Isis. She insisted that she was following Tarek’s instructions. And then there are these.” Gideon reached beneath his klamys and produced the forged documents bearing the bishop’s seal that declared Tarek the sole heir of Alizar’s estate.

  Alizar looked over the scrolls and nodded somberly. “You are simply doing what a true friend would do,” he said. “I thank you.”

  Gideon paused at the tower door. “My loyalty is always to you, Alizar. You must let me know if there is anything else I can do.”

  Alizar propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. “No, there is nothing,” he said. But then, as Gideon turned to leave, Alizar called to him, realizing that the sooner he dealt with this mess, the better. “No, wait,” he said. “Send for Tarek.”

  Gideon nodded and left the room.

  Tarek appeared in the doorway several minutes later and stepped inside cautiously. “Gideon said you wanted to see me?”

  Alizar lifted his head and Tarek saw the disappointment in his eyes.

  “Tell me the truth, Tarek,” said Alizar, holding up the iron key, his voice exhausted with grief.

  Tarek’s eyes opened wide. Alizar was holding the key to the Great Library entrance in the catacombs, the secret route only they shared. He stammered as a few weak words escaped his lips.

  “The truth!” Alizar demanded as his fist came down on the table, shaking the stone.

  Tarek recoiled. “I gave the key to a girl I favor. It was only for a tryst, just for a night, and—”

  “Enough!” said Alizar. Then he shoved the bench back from the table and walked over to the east window to look out, his eyes falling upon the blackened gash in the ground where the Great Library had been. It might as well have been his heart. “So you gave her the key and the map of the catacombs. She then sold them to the Parabolani at a very good price I understand. When questioned, she insisted that she got that idea from you. Did you benefit from this transaction?” Alizar pumped his fists.

  Tarek’s head fell forward. “You have always hated me!”

  Alizar spun around. “Hated you? Hated you, Tarek? How far does your blindness reach, boy? Even after my son’s death I took you in, I fed you, and gave you a position in my house that is the envy of every orphan in this city. When my own family insisted that you played a part in my son’s death, I pardoned you. Was I wrong to do that, Tarek? Tell me the truth. The truth! Or is the truth so malleable to you that it changes every time you think on it?”

  Tarek did not look up.

  “I ask you again, did you benefit from this transaction?”

  “I gave them to her,” Tarek whimpered. “That much is true. But she is the one who sold them. I arranged a tryst, just for us, for one night. I, I wanted to meet her in the gardens, and, and—” Tarek stumbled over his words. “I never thought she would sell them to the Parabolani, Alizar.”

  “You never thought…” repeated Alizar, his voice aseptic and cold, the words hovering in the room like icicles. “But it does not matter now, does it? Even if you are lying to me, what is done is done.” Alizar took a deep breath and let his gaze drift back out to the empty harbor.

  “That is not fair,” said Tarek. “Hypatia herself risked her own life by giving a public lecture against the advice of everyone who knew her, including Orestes. And you want to make me responsible for what happened.”

  Alizar stood over the boy. “Not fair?”


  “You are just looking for someone to blame. I am so convenient.”

  Alizar took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Sit down, Tarek, before I kill you myself.”

  Tarek sat.

  “Let me explain the true function of an apology. It is not to admit guilt, or to accept blame. An apology is to connect yourself to the pain of others, and in feeling their pain, experience remorse for the part you played in creating it. Yes, I am very angry to learn what you have done, but I am even more infuriated to see that you seem to have no conscience about it.”

  “That is not true,” said Tarek.

  Alizar waited.

  “It is just that I did not kill her. I did not burn the library. And I know you are angry, but I feel it is not justified against me. Why not save your fury for Cyril, for the Parabolani? For those who truly deserve it?”

  Alizar sighed. “Do these belong to you?” He shoved the scrolls across the table. Tarek recognized them immediately, and he looked up to the ceiling without compunction, his eyes unable to meet Alizar’s. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “I am not interested in punishing you. In fact, I am not even interested in you. I will do now what I should have done years ago. All the while I have been in prison you have lived here without working, without practicing any skill except spending my money and waiting for me to die so you could steal my entire estate from my daughter. I know you traded Cyril the Emerald Tablet for these forged documents.”

  “The tablet was a useless pagan stone.”

  Alizar held out his hand. “Give me your keys, Tarek.”

  “My keys?” Tarek asked as his hand brushed the keys that hung at his chest beneath his tunica.

  “Give them to me or may Kronos devour your soul.”

  Tarek removed the string of keys from around his neck and coiled it in Alizar’s open palm.

  “Now get out,” said Alizar.

  Tarek looked around himself helplessly. “Get out? But, but where will I go? What will happen to me?”