The Beacon at Alexandria

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “Would he?” I asked bitterly. “He might have had to accept less dowry, but he can take what he wants from Father, and he knows it. Father is still afraid of him.”

  “Couldn’t you have said something to him?”

  “I told him that I wanted nothing to do with him. But he liked that. Thorion, he wants me to hate him. He wants to . . . to triumph over me. Over Ephesus and its rulers.”

  “He enjoys inflicting pain,” Maia said quietly. “Yes.” Her arm tightened around my waist. “Who did you think we could say she was promised to?” she asked Thorion.

  He shrugged helplessly. “I thought maybe Palladios, Demetrios’ son. Or my friend Kyrillos.”

  Maia thought them over. “Palladios is young and a gentleman,” she said after a moment. “I don’t think it’s been arranged for him to marry anyone else yet, either. And his father would be pleased to spite Festinus. Yes, he’d do. But Kyrillos?”

  Kyrillos was a young man Thorion had met at his Latin teacher’s; he was the son of a small landowner, a man more or less like our own great-grandfather, neither powerful nor wealthy.

  “He’s very clever,” Thorion said defensively. “And he thinks the world of you, Charition. I think he’d be willing to run off with you, if all else fails.”

  I was a bit surprised at this. I’d met Kyrillos a few times, when Thorion had asked him to dinner, but we hadn’t spoken much. But I knew that Thorion had told him that I helped with the study of Latin law, and perhaps this had impressed Kyrillos. He was impressed by anyone who could conjugate properly. Not that he was bad at it himself; he was considerably better than Thorion, and enjoyed the law. I wouldn’t mind marrying him, particularly if I could take Maia with me. I didn’t know Palladios at all, but at least he wasn’t a torturer — and he was young and fairly good-looking. “Very well,” I said. “It might work. Festinus might not believe it if we suddenly say that I’ve been engaged to someone else all along, but he won’t be able to do anything about it. And I’m not going to marry him, not under any circumstances. All we need to do is convince Father to help.”

  We waited for the dinner party to end and the guests to go home. You could hear people in the First Court from my room, and we listened to Father saying goodbye. “Until tomorrow!” Festinus said in his loud voice with its now familiar nasal slurring. We couldn’t hear Father’s reply.

  When the guests were gone, we went, all three of us, to see Father. We found him sitting in the Charioteer Room, where the slaves were clearing up the remains of the dinner; he looked exhausted and unhappy.

  “Father,” said Thorion, “we need to talk to you.”

  “Oh, my dears,” said Father, “not now, please: it’s late.”

  “Now,” said Thorion. “If we’re to get ourselves out of this marriage, we have to arrange something at once.”

  Father made a noise between a snort and a sigh. “Get out of it? What makes you think we could or even should get out of it?”

  I realized, as I looked at my father reclining there on his couch, that I knew him no better than did the household slaves, and he knew me not at all. I could just remember him coming into my room when I was tiny and playing with me, but since I had begun to become myself, never. I had seen him at meals sometimes; he had occasionally asked me about my lessons, and praised me for reciting this or that, but we had never touched on what interested me. In serious conversations no one asked me anything, and I behaved myself and said nothing. To him as much as to Festinus I was simply the young lady, the daughter of the house, quiet, pretty, obedient. And easily disposed of. I began to feel very cold.

  “You can’t mean to let that brute marry Charis!” said Thorion.

  “Sst!” Father glanced at the slaves, who had stopped clearing up and were standing by the wall, trying to keep out of the way.

  “No! Festinus is a brute, and an enemy of our house, and I don’t care who knows that I think so!”

  “My dear son!” said Father. “You must speak of powerful men with respect! It is true that His Excellency the governor is of low birth, but so are many men who today hold the highest ranks; so indeed was our own grandfather. The most esteemed Lord Festinus has acquired wealth and power through his own merit, and he is well thought of by our most religious Lord Valens the Augustus. Moreover, he is now our neighbor. I see no reason why our houses should not be united by a marriage. True, I had other plans for my daughter before — but this marriage will be an advantage to both of us. He will gain in respectability, and we will benefit from his protection and his influence.”

  “So a man can come marching in here with a troop of soldiers,” Thorion said, “he can threaten your life; he can drag off your slaves and torture them; he can assault your daughter in your own house: that’s all fine by you! You’ll give him your daughter in marriage just to make everything all right. Christ the Eternally Begotten!”

  “He didn’t assault Charis,” said Father testily.

  “Yes he did,” I said. I turned my face so that he could see the bruise.

  Father looked uncomfortable for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, he’s a passionate man. He’ll settle down; he’s already settled down a great deal since he first came here. And he was much struck by you, my dear; he spoke of your eyes and quoted some Latin poetry. I didn’t know the Latins wrote poetry.”

  “Father,” I said, “he didn’t assault me out of lust. He likes to hurt and humiliate people; he likes the power of it. He’s done nothing else since he came to Ephesus. I will not marry him.”

  Father looked still more uncomfortable. Maia went over to him and prostrated herself, face down on the shining mosaic. She was wearing her work clothes, a plain blue linen tunic and blue cloak, and Father was in his white-and-gold brocade, but they didn’t look like king and suppliant. Father looked too unsure of himself, too ashamed of himself, for that. Maia rose onto her knees, and clasped his knees with her hands. “Please, master,” she said. “It’s true, what my Charition says. That man . . .” She stopped; to my horror I realized that she was crying. Crying for me, from fear of what Festinus would do. “That man is one of those who enjoy cruelty. When . . . when I was put to the question, he came down to the torture chamber himself and took the rod in his own hand. He was the one who did this.” She touched the mark on her face, now a fine white line. “And he hit me . . . elsewhere, too. It gave him pleasure, sir. Please, my lord. Next to the Divine, sir, I have always reverenced you, but I have loved Charition as though she were my own. You must not give her to that devil, sir. No, send to the most noble Demetrios: tell him what has happened, and ask his help in arranging a marriage between Charis and his son Palladios. We can pass it off as a long-standing agreement. Even Festinus couldn’t take exception to that.”

  “But I’ve already told him that Charis isn’t promised to anyone!” said Father, now looking really distressed.

  Thorion groaned.

  “Well, he asked me,” Father protested.

  “Tell him you lied,” said Thorion. “Tell him that you meant to call off the marriage to Palladios, but that Demetrios is unwilling to do so. Or tell him that she was secretly engaged to someone — to my friend Kyrillos. Tell him anything, but get out of it! Nothing’s been arranged yet, there’s still time!”

  “I will not lie,” said Father, annoyed. “It is not fitting to a gentleman.” He looked at Maia, who was still clutching his knees. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m very sorry to hear what you say. But after all, he won’t dare to mistreat his own wife, a woman of noble birth. He’s very rich, and likely to get richer; he’ll be able to afford a separate household for Charis. She won’t need to see him too often, I hope, if she dislikes him. And I’ll include you and a few others from our house in her dowry, so she’ll have her friends about her. And the match will be an advantage to our house.” Maia stared at him in anguish.

  “You’re sacrificing Charis so that you can benefit!” shouted Thorion, now going quite white with anger. “You . . . Agamemnon! It
’s all to get influence and have enough money to spend on your damn horse races! You spineless —”

  “You must not speak to me like that!” shouted Father. “Have you no respect for your own father?”

  “How can I?”

  “Barbarian! Pagan!” Father threw Maia’s hands off his knees, and she fell back onto her heels, staring at him miserably. “Don’t the Scriptures say —”

  “Father,” I interrupted. If Thorion went on, he would make it impossible for Father to back down. “Father, I will not marry Festinus.”

  He stopped shouting. “What do you mean by that?”

  “What I said,” I told him, again surprised that my voice stayed level. “I will not consent. You’ll have to tie me up and gag me to get me to go through with it.”

  “My dear!” said Father. “Don’t let all this talk frighten you. Leave decisions like this to responsible men. A young girl doesn’t know enough to be able to judge what’s good for her.”

  I shook my head. “It’s my life at stake. I ought to be able to judge what would ruin it.”

  “My dear!” Father still looked exasperated rather than seriously angry. “Of course it’s natural that you should be afraid. He is a frightening man, and all girls are afraid to marry and, um, part from their families. But it will be for the best. You will be mistress of a house, have your own slaves to order about and your own money to dispose of in whatever way you fancy. Lots of lovely dresses, and your own carriage, eh? And the wife of an important man has a lot of power; other women will come running to you, asking you to help their husbands and giving you presents. You can go anywhere you like — dinner parties, the theater. Don’t let Theodoros frighten you.”

  He was speaking as though to a stupid child. But I’d never shown him that I was anything else. I had always gone along with his and the world’s expectations of how a young lady should behave, thinking that if I did what others wanted, they would be more likely to let me do what I wanted. But instead they had concluded that I had no wants but theirs.

  “Festinus is cruel,” I said to him, still sounding calm, though my heart felt shriveled up inside. “He has injured my friends, and he will hurt me as much as he can. I know that. I would be a fool to go into such a marriage with my eyes wide open. I will not marry him. If you can’t think of anything else to tell him, you can tell him that.”

  “I am not going to tell him any such thing!” said Father. “Who is master in this house, eh? Me, or a pack of slaves and children? Go to bed, all of you, immediately! And let me hear better sense, more respectfully expressed, when I see you tomorrow.”

  Thorion opened his mouth and Father shouted, “Silence! I’m tired of you telling me how I should spend my money and how I should dispose of my own daughter! Who pays your allowance, eh? Who pays for your clothes and your tutors and your drinking parties? Behave, or I’ll stop the lot!”

  Thorion looked ready to start shouting again, so I took his arm. It was plain that we’d get nowhere, certainly not as long as Father was in his present mood. Perhaps we’d have done better to wait until morning, when he was less tired and when the wine fumes had left his head. Perhaps we might yet do better then. But I doubted it.

  “Goodnight, Father,” I said, and I pulled Thorion out after me. Maia followed, covering her face with a corner of her cloak to hide her grief.

  Father did not change his mind in the morning. Instead he set off to make the arrangements with Festinus, and refused to talk to any of us. We watched from the guest room window as his litter proceeded down the street, a gilded canopy heading toward the marketplace and the governor’s palace. It was a beautiful day, and the gilt on the litter glittered cheerfully against the red roof tiles below; the harbor was a deep, rich blue, checked with orange and yellow sails. Everything seemed to smile on Father’s errand. Maia turned away from the window and sat down on the empty clothes chest, folding her hands. For the first time I could remember, she actually looked like a slave.

  “He doesn’t care what that brute does to you,” said Thorion.

  I shook my head. “He’s frightened of Festinus.” I’d thought it over carefully during the night. “He wants to make himself secure, and the best way to do that is to make an alliance. And he’s probably talked himself into believing that we’re exaggerating, and that it will all be all right really.”

  “We’ll have to go on with the secret engagement plan,” Thorion said after a moment. “It will be harder if Father genuinely forbids it. But I can promise to make it up to Kyrillos after Father dies.”

  “It’s a bit hard on Kyrillos, don’t you think?” I said. “Seduction is a crime, you know. He’d have to flee Ephesus with me, and he’d have to give up his career and all his prospects. He’d be abandoning his family, and it would hurt them.” Thorion scowled. “And I don’t like the idea of you sitting there waiting for Father to die,” I added. “He’s not really a bad father. He isn’t happy about this, either. But he’s just . . . just a coward. He can’t help it.”

  And, I added privately, Kyrillos was unlikely even to agree to such a mad scheme. He might think the world of me, but I knew that he was ambitious. It was much more likely that he’d tell Thorion that he didn’t want me, which would be the end of their friendship, and get us nowhere.

  Thorion bit his lip, then jerked his head back. “What do you think we should do, then? Charition, we don’t have anyone to smuggle you to; anywhere you went, Festinus could find you in no time. It’s all very well to say that you don’t consent, but you don’t have any rights in the matter; you’re supposed to do as Father says.”

  “I have another idea,” I said, and stopped. I’d lain awake all night, thinking of the other idea. It had seemed to me that I’d spent enough time pretending that I was the girl in the mirror, waiting for my own life to begin. Perhaps, I thought, it was fortunate that Festinus had proposed to marry me. If it had been almost anyone else, I would have meekly obeyed my father. And once married, would my life have started, as I planned? Or would my husband have discouraged me or forbidden me to play doctor, and made me play virtuous wife instead? He wouldn’t have had to use force. I was used to pretending, I saw that now — used to taking the easy way and letting people think I was what they wanted me to be. And if I was busy enough pretending, I might have no time for being. So perhaps I would have waited out my life, marrying, bearing children, growing old, never again speaking in my own voice or thinking my own thoughts, and in the end, perhaps, becoming indeed the thing I pretended to be.

  As it was, I had been forced to be bold.

  Thorion and Maia looked at me, both with the same mixture of puzzlement and hope. Maia’s eyes were red; she had cried herself to sleep beside me in bed, stroking my hair and calling me her baby.

  “I want to go to Alexandria,” I said. “And study to be a doctor.”

  “You can’t do that,” said Thorion in disgust, the hope replaced by irritation. “Women can’t study medicine.”

  “I’ll pretend to be a man.”

  “You don’t look it. And what would you do in the public lavatories, piss in a corner with your tunic down? Nobody does that. And you couldn’t go to the public baths, or exercise in the gymnasiums, or . . . anything. No one would ever believe you!”

  “I’ll pretend to be a eunuch. Eunuchs have to be modest: I bet they do piss in the corner, with their tunics down, and don’t show themselves naked anywhere. And everyone says they look girlish when they’re young.” All the eunuchs I’d seen in Ephesus were middle-aged, and didn’t look particularly girlish. But they didn’t look like properly mannish men either.

  “What would a eunuch be doing studying medicine in Alexandria? He could be at the court, earning money. A retired chamberlain gets a thousand solidi a year! To say nothing of what he makes in taking bribes!”

  “Maybe I might not like being an emperor’s chamberlains and taking bribes. And anyway, all the chamberlains are slaves. A freeborn eunuch might want to study medicine, if only becau
se everyone hates the chamberlains so much.”

  “Eunuchs aren’t freeborn. Who’d do that of their own free will?” Thorion put a hand protectively over his genitals. “And it’s illegal, too. The eunuchs are all Persians or Abasgi from Colchis, slaves imported into the empire to be things like chamberlains and private secretaries.”

  “Oh stop that!” I said. “You know perfectly well that some eunuchs are freeborn, the ones who are captured by the Persians. Well, say I’m a eunuch from somewhere in the east . . . from Amida. The Persians captured it, remember? Ischyras told us all about it; it was his home. So I’m from a respectable Amidan family; I was captured by the Persians and castrated when I was little, and then redeemed by you and, say, Ischyras. Now I want to learn a useful trade, so you and Ischyras are sending me to Alexandria to study medicine because I have no inclination toward administration. That all makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  Maia began to cry again. I went over and put my arms round her. “Please don’t,” I said.

  “But I wanted to see you married!” said Maia miserably. “Married to some fine young gentleman who’d treat you kindly. I thought I could go with you to his house and help you run the household and nurse your children. To see you forced into such an unnatural pretense, calling yourself a eunuch, living in a foreign city — you might die there, you might be discovered and punished, you might be raped.” She tried to dry her eyes. “Anything might happen to you. And I built my life on you; what will happen to me?”

  “Don’t,” I said. “You built your life out of yourself. It’s no good building it on other people; anything can happen to them. That’s as true here in Ephesus as it is in Alexandria. And you don’t need to think I’d go away forever. If I wait a few years, Festinus may be out of the way, and I can come back.”

  Thorion shook his head. “Maia’s right. The life you’re proposing is unnatural. Always pretending to be a man, living in a foreign city under another name, without any money to speak of — you couldn’t stand it.”