Her teeth began to chatter.
“You are soaking wet,” he said.
“So are you.”
He shrugged. “I am accustomed to harsh weather.” He went to the bedchamber once more and came back with another covering, but then changed his mind. “You should change your clothes.”
Her eyes widened.
“The cut has ceased its bleeding. With careful tending it should heal without a problem. But you need to get dry.”
“And you think to stand there and watch me?” A little of the old fire had come back into her voice.
He straightened. “Why should I want to do that?”
She pulled herself to sitting. “I have no further need of you. You may go.”
He scowled, staring her down. “I will stay out here while you dress in dry clothes.”
She stood. “You said yourself that the wound is nothing.”
“I didn’t say it was nothing. I said it should heal. I want to be certain you do not reopen it.”
“Tell Ares to send for the physician when you see him in the Base.”
“I have treated more wounds on the field than any physician has ever seen.” He met her stare for some moments, and then she shrugged.
“Do as you like.” She brushed past him, bumping his shoulder with her own. He didn’t turn, but the place where she had touched him seemed to spark with heat.
He quoted Homer to himself, uncaring if she heard. “ ‘Do thou restrain the haughty spirit in thy breast, for better far is gentle courtesy.’ ” He lowered himself to the bedcovering beside the fire and waited with his back to her bedchamber. She returned in a few moments. He could feel her standing behind him, as though deciding what to do. And then she circled and kneeled. He grabbed at the extra covering he had brought and wrapped it around her shoulders. She relaxed before the fire.
They stared into its flames for some minutes, wordless. And then he felt her shift and knew she would speak. He did not turn.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
He dared not look at her. “I was pleased to be of service to you. But Sophia . . .” He paused, then forged on. “That was no beggar looking to rob you. What did he want?”
She was silent, and for a moment he thought she might tell him the truth. “I suppose you do not believe he could have been preying on my womanhood.”
“I never said that! I only want to know if you are in danger.” His face felt hot, from the fire no doubt. “It is my duty to secure the lighthouse, and that means its inhabitants as well.”
“So we are your prisoners, now?” She turned to him. “Should I have asked your permission before going to the agora, centurion?”
He drew his shoulders back. “Perhaps if you had, you wouldn’t have come back wet and bleeding!”
“And perhaps if you savages hadn’t invaded our city, it wouldn’t have turned into a nest of violence!” She gripped the edges of the fabric wrapped around her in tight fists.
Bellus shook his head. “That was no Roman whose throat I cut today.”
“Ah, so only we Greeks are violent? Is that what you propose?”
He snorted and faced the fire. “You are impossible, woman. I do you a kind deed, and somehow you find a way to blame me for its necessity.”
She shrugged. “There is little these days that is not the fault of you and your legionaries.”
He bore holes into the smoldering wood with his eyes. “You should stop talking. You’ll reopen your wound.”
She laughed. “Is that the way you win an argument? I thought you were of a stronger intellect.”
Bellus stretched his legs in front of him until his sandals nearly touched the fire, then leaned on one elbow on his side and faced her. He said nothing. She looked down on him, swallowed, and turned her face away.
He hated conflict. In spite of all the battles, all the scrambling for position in the Roman army, he was not his father, and at his core he wanted only peace. Sometimes that meant walking away from a fight.
Today he was not walking away. But he would not be drawn in.
He plucked at the threads on the fabric beneath them, up close to her thigh. He felt her tension, like reins on a horse that strained at the bit to run free. The air seemed charged, as though the storm had not yet broken. He lifted a hand, meaning to trace a line down her thigh.
I have lost my mind.
He let his hand drop and closed his eyes.
In his mind, he saw again the Soma, the crystal sarcophagus of Alexander the Great, installed in the city far below them. The conqueror’s lifeless body, close enough to touch but shrouded in stone.
But no, she was not cold and lifeless. She was more like the fire that burned every night atop the lighthouse. Fiercely hot—and completely out of reach. A single flame, isolated, yet dutiful.
“You do not need to stay,” she finally said, her voice low.
He sighed. “You have no further need of me, I know.”
He pulled himself to his feet. She kept her eyes on the fire. Again, a desire to reach out to her washed over him, but he stayed his hand, and frustration replaced the desire. “Should you find that you do have need of another human being, you can always send for me.”
She was silent a moment, then turned her face to him. “Should I ever find I have need of someone, you would not be the one for whom I send.”
They locked eyes for one angry moment, and then he turned and left her sitting beside her fire. Alone.
Twenty-Two
Four days passed, and the cut on her throat was healing. Sophia sat on the edge of her bed and angled a small polished bronze beneath her chin to catch sight of the wound. The slice was neat and the edges had come together correctly, though there would certainly be a scar. She had a flash of the throat of her attacker, opened and gushing. She shuddered and laid the bronze on her bed.
It had been too long since a visit to the temple, and she felt the need this morning to pay respect to the gods.
It was still early when she slipped from the lighthouse. No soldiers nor servants impeded her, and she chose to walk. She tried to enjoy the sounds of the morning and the sunshine, still too hazy to build the heat. But thoughts of her attacker plagued her, and she kept her eyes up as she walked. “To him who is in fear, everything rustles.” Sophocles did not help her today.
The sun could not penetrate the heavy shroud she felt within. Since the attack and Bellus’s rescue, she had been restless, yet inactive. She had spent too many hours gazing out to sea from her chamber windows or sleeping on her couches.
The Temple of Serapis had been built by the Greeks, but unlike the palaces and public buildings, it was thoroughly Egyptian in architecture, with square-cut doorways and flat walls that leaned slightly inward. An attempt by Ptolemy Soter to convince the Egyptians that this new god was actually one of theirs.
She tried to shake off the doubts that were becoming pervasive of late. How could this manufactured Greek-Egyptian god claim her worship? How could he be a god, when he had not existed a few centuries earlier?
Sophia crossed through the sun-washed courtyard, passed the mighty statues of the Apis Bull, and entered the darkness of the temple.
Inside, the thickly columned hall, with its carved reliefs spread on every wall, was still dim, with only one fire burning in a low brazier on the side. She found herself the only worshipper, and the heaviness of the dark interior descended on her at once. She felt sealed up, as if she had been brought to one of the underground tombs of the ancient kings and left there to await the afterlife.
She moved slowly across the hall to the altar at the front.
A priest appeared, his white skirt gleaming in the darkness and his shaved head catching the firelight. She kneeled before him, and he touched her forehead with his finger. She felt the residue of oil that remained.
He began a chant over her, and she fumbled for the coins she had brought. They were smooth and heavy in her hand, and she pressed t
hem into his. He accepted the sacrifice without breaking the rhythm of his chant.
Sophia’s eyes grew heavy. She blinked several times and let them close. She waited for the peace that had often descended on her in the temple, but it did not come.
Too many questions now. Sosigenes had done that to her with his frequent talk of One God. Yes, One God. Oh, to put aside the ever-changing pantheon of Egyptian, Greek, and now Roman gods. To know only one to worship. She felt the pull of it on her soul, felt the truth of it whisper to her heart.
Her chest felt weighted; it grew difficult to breathe.
The priest paused in his singing over her, and she rose and fled. Past the red and gold painted columns with Isis and Horus presiding over the world, to the wide-open brightness of the courtyard. It had been foolish to come.
She crossed the city from the Serapeum again, moving north toward Pharos, through the commercial district. Vendors were beginning their day, opening shop doors, sweeping garbage into the street. Sophia was noted, though not hailed, by many. She made a few stops, arranging for purchases to be delivered.
Back in the lighthouse, she avoided contact with the few soldiers who were stirring. Bellus was not about. She crept to the North Wing, then down the cool stone corridor to the room she had set up for the scholars to do their work. Would they be awake yet? She pushed the heavy wooden door open slowly, and it squeaked on its hinge.
Twelve gray-haired men in pure white himations raised their heads to her.
“Sophia!”
Here it was different. Not like the street vendors. Here she was welcomed, appreciated. She belonged.
She had given the scholars each a desk of their own, and they hovered over scrolls, with more books tumbled in piles around them. The room smelled of lamp smoke, ink, and men confined.
Sosigenes pushed away from the table where he worked and crossed the room to her, his hands extended. “Finally,” he said, smiling, “a woman to break the tedium of a dozen old men!” He gripped her hands and pulled her to himself. She leaned into his embrace and felt her eyes water.
“How goes the work?” she said over his shoulder.
He patted her cheek. “Come and see.”
The Proginosko sat upon a low table along the wall. Unassuming, it might have been taken for a rich man’s toy. It was a bronze slab, less than a cubit long, with one large dial on the front and two on the back. It had more than thirty gears, with teeth formed by triangles, and the dials were marked by degrees in both Greek and Egyptian. Hands revealed the relative positions of the sun, the lunar phases, and all five planets.
“Look here.” Sosigenes turned the Proginosko to show her the back. “I’ve been able to reconstruct the spiral dial for the Metonic tropical cycle and the subsidiary dial for the Chaldean cycle, to calculate the eclipses.” The pride in his voice brought a smile to Sophia’s lips.
“And this?” She pointed to a lower dial, also a spiral.
His eyes twinkled. “You know how I love the games. It is for the Olympiad, to calculate the cycle of the games.”
“Then you are finished?”
Sosigenes drew her close. “Nearly. Only the testing, and the moon wanes. But there is more.”
She studied the creases in his thin face, like a map of ages.
“I am working on some calculations.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and she realized that even among the academic pursuits of the Museum, rivalry existed. She leaned in to hear better. “I believe I have found an even more accurate way to construct the calendar.”
“More accurate than the Romans?”
Sosigenes waved a hand, dismissing her joke.
“The Romans don’t know Ianuarius from Februarius. No, Sophia”—he gripped her arm with one hand and nodded toward the Proginosko—“more accurate than the Chaldean, than the Callippic. Based on Meton’s work, but my calendar would not see a drift of a day for over a hundred years, and even then would be adjusted!”
Sophia smiled. “The Sosigenes Cycle.”
The older man dropped his head. “It can be named for anyone, I suppose. The important thing is the accuracy of it.”
Sophia sighed, pleased with his progress, but a bit envious of his dedication to something. Anything. She gazed over the other scholars, who had returned to their cramped positions at their desks, reeds scratching over papyrus with lovely purpose, as though their minds had run ahead and their reeds struggled to keep pace.
Sosigenes wrapped an arm around her waist. “All this is because of you, Sophia. You are indeed wisdom, as your name. Without you I cannot imagine what would have come of us.” He squeezed her to himself. “Kallias, he would have been so proud of you, to see this.”
She nodded but did not trust herself to speak.
“Did you come so early for a reason, Sophia?”
She swallowed and pulled away. “I wanted to see your progress. I fear we may not have long to hide. I was out early to visit the Serapeum, praying for our cause.”
“Ah.” Sosigenes moved away, toward his desk.
“I know you do not approve.”
He sat heavily in the chair and looked up at her. “Do not seek my approval, Sophia. I am not the one who determines your destiny.”
“I just do not understand how you have come to embrace this Jewish God—”
“God is not Jewish, Sophia. He is God.”
Sophia sighed. Sosigenes had spoken often to her of the One True God of the Jews. It was difficult to accept that a primitive country such as Judea, or its thousands of captive peoples here in Alexandria, had discovered the only god, and that all other peoples were somehow mistaken. “I think perhaps we each worship in our own way, and whatever gods exist, they are pleased.”
Sosigenes smiled, a sad smile she knew well. “Ah, but I could tell you stories, my dear. So many people who have believed that to their peril.” He leaned heavily on the desk beside them. “The One God has existed from the beginning, before we toiled in the desert to build the Great Pyramid. He watched as we went our own way, ignored Him to set up idols of stone and wood. But He was not content to let us go. He reached down and chose one of us, Abraham, to set apart, one through whom He would reveal Himself. But still, He is God of all.”
Sophia drew close, unwilling for all the room to hear her questions. “And the Jews, they came from this Abraham?”
“A mighty nation once. They grew up and multiplied in Egypt, until the One God called them out of that land and into their own. He went before them all the way, showing Himself strong in the face of the false gods of the Egyptians and the Canaanites. He spoke through fire and wind, earthquakes and floods, and put His message in the mouths of many prophets. Throughout all these years, as cultures have risen and fallen, He has remained.”
Sophia watched the other white-haired men, busy about their work through the room. “You speak as though you were there for all of it.”
Beside her Sosigenes was silent for a moment, then smiled. “It is my calling, Sophia. To testify to the hand of the One God through the ages.”
“You would have me believe that all the Egyptian gods, all the Greek deities . . . they are all false?”
“There is only One God, Sophia. And only one way to be reconciled to Him. Only the way He makes for us.”
“This Messiah you await?”
He lifted his head to the air above them and closed his eyes. “I know that my Redeemer comes.”
Sophia plucked at her chitôn. “It is hard—”
“Yes, Sophia. It is always hard to turn away from what your culture deems to be truth.”
She traced a circle on the desk with her fingertip. “And what does this One God offer that is so much better than those I have worshipped all my life?”
“If He is the One God, Sophia, then He is the only one who offers anything.”
She made a face at the older man. “I don’t mean to argue philosophy with you, Sosigenes. I want to know what makes your One God different?”
“Love.�
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“Love? That is all?”
Sosigenes smiled. “ ‘One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.’ ”
It must be the day for Sophocles.
Sosigenes patted her hand. “Love is everything, my dear. As old as you are, you have yet to learn this.”
She drew her hand away. “Then this is the best reason to disbelieve you. Why would any god ever choose to love me?”
He was silent a moment, then whispered, “Or any of us?”
Sophia desired to escape. She sniffed and looked to the door. “I purchased some things for you. I will see if they have arrived yet.”
He smiled, and she knew she had only postponed the rest of the conversation.
In the South Wing, several servants sent by merchants delivered goods to the front entryway of the Base. Sophia had to weave through soldiers who milled about in their ever-present way. Still Bellus was not among them.
“Here”—she called to a boy with a small cart of crates— “bring them with me.” She led the boy back toward the North Wing. The wheels of his wooden cart clacked painfully along the stone corridor in a rhythm, and Sophia wondered if they would reach the back of the Base before the rickety thing fell to pieces.
She had the boy set the two crates on the floor at the door of the scholars’ makeshift Museum, gave him some money, and sent him back around the corner before opening the door. Three men closest to the door hurried forward to help her with her load.
“What is this, Sophia?” Hesiod asked. “We have need of nothing more than our books here.”
She pulled at the lid, then lifted it to reveal the contents. Nestled in a bed of straw were two dozen plump oranges.
The intake of breath from the men around her was reward enough.
“I have not had an orange since—I don’t know when!” Hesiod said.
They were surrounded by the others at once, and within a minute the fine spray of citrus perfumed the air. Sophia laughed to see the men pop bits of the juicy flesh into their mouths and chew greedily. She was embraced more than once.
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