Keeper of the Flame

by Tracy L. Higley

  “For you, I will find something.” He retreated to an iron pot suspended over a smoldering fire, dug out some brownish stew and ladled it onto a stone plate. He tossed some flat bread on the plate, then brought it to Bellus and glanced at Sophia. “For the lady, as well?”

  Sophia shook her head. She had never eaten in the agora, nor eaten standing on her feet.

  Bellus scooped a piece of pheasant with the bread and held it out to her. “Oh, but you must try Barakah’s stew, Sophia. He is a magician with meat.”

  Nor had she ever eaten food from someone’s hand. She hesitated only a moment, then let Bellus place the meat and bread into her mouth. The pheasant was tender, with a mild spice she did not expect.

  “You see?” Bellus nodded and winked at Barakah. “She will be down here next market day, I know it.”

  “Come early!” Barakah said, laughing. He wiped his hands on his apron and returned to packing up his stall.

  They wandered away, strolling through the stalls that were being broken down as they passed. The crowds had gone, and a quiet serenity spread through the agora, replacing the usual chaos.

  It is good to walk here this late in the day.

  They reached the edge of the open market, where an old Egyptian sat cross-legged. He struggled painfully to his feet at their appearance and hobbled forward to Sophia. He was dirty and unshaven, and reeked of too many days without a home.

  Bellus stepped in front of her and held out an arm.

  “All is well, Bellus,” she said. “He is here often.”

  Bellus lowered his arm, but still kept a scowl on his face for the beggar’s benefit.

  The old man bobbed his head. “Thank you, mistress. The gods bless you, mistress.” He grabbed her hand and pressed something into it. She glanced at the flash of turquoise, closed her fingers around it, then fished out a few obols from her pouch, and dropped them into his hungry palm. “May the gods bless you as well,” she said.

  He seemed surprised at her generosity, and a wide smile split his face.

  Do not expect as much the next time.

  They walked on, finding the horse and cart guarded by yet another Egyptian, this one much younger, like the boy at the Library. Bellus paid the lad, then helped Sophia onto the cart.

  “What did the beggar give you?” he asked, turning the horse toward the lighthouse.

  “Give me?” Sophia turned innocent eyes to Bellus and slipped her left hand between the folds of her himation.

  Bellus gave her a sly look. “Don’t try to fool me. He gave you something. Pressed it into your hand. What was it?”

  Sophia held up her right hand and wiggled the fingers. “I have nothing in my hand.”

  Bellus laughed. “The other hand!”

  She grinned and brought out the stone. It was no wider than an obol, though heavier, and the color of the sea.

  Bellus peered at it. “Turquoise?” he asked, surprise in his voice.

  “Look again.”

  “It is only painted!”

  Sophia used her finger to roll the stone in her palm. “Pretty though, don’t you agree?”

  “He gave you a bit of painted rock and you paid him for it?”

  The cart wheeled through the streets, now darkening where the setting sun could not penetrate. Ahead, the lighthouse stabbed at the sky, but Sophia did not look at it. “Ah, I see your Egyptian history is not as good as you think.”

  Bellus’s forehead creased, then cleared. “It represents a scarab beetle!”

  He reminded her in that instant of the young Ptolemies she had tutored years ago, when they discovered the answer to a sticky verb conjugation. She laughed. “Yes, it brings good fortune to its owner.”

  The cart sped on, and Sophia held the stone out to Bellus. “For you,” she said lightly. “You need it more than I.”

  Bellus switched the reins to one hand and plucked the stone from her palm with the other. His eyes lifted from her hand to her face, and he closed his fingers around the stone. “I will treasure it.”

  Sophia straightened and looked toward the lighthouse. “It is only a piece of stone.” She could feel his eyes still on her.

  “It is a gift. From a friend.”

  She turned back to find him smiling, the open, joyful smile that had been the first thing she noticed about him. For a moment she thought to touch his lips, to discover what made that smile possible. She gripped the front edge of their cart and turned her face toward home.

  The lighthouse swelled ahead, dark and foreboding as a tomb. Was it only a few hours ago she had feared to leave it?

  They rode in silence now, but Sophia was acutely conscious of the air between them, though something invisible pulled at both of them, drawing them together, wearing down her resistance.

  She felt some relief when they rolled to a stop outside the entryway. A servant hurried out to relieve Bellus of the reins.

  Inside the lighthouse Bellus took her hand with his own cool one and gripped it firmly. “Thank you, Sophia, for the most enjoyable afternoon I’ve had since arriving here.”

  She nodded, too quickly. “I thought it time that you understand our city better.”

  He smiled a little and released her hand. “Good evening, my friend.” With that, he turned and slipped into the first storage room she’d allowed the soldiers.

  Later, when darkness had fallen completely and her restlessness had abated, Sophia lay still on her bed and relived the afternoon in her thoughts. She came to several conclusions.

  I am a fool.

  I must stay away from the Roman.

  And I fear I cannot.

  Twenty-Six

  For Bellus the day in the city with Sophia marked a change. No longer could he see her as simply the angry, bitter Keeper of the lighthouse. She had shown him a human side, and in spite of himself, he was drawn to that humanity. A day or two later she invited him up the ramp to see a particular work of Aeschylus’s they had been discussing. He stayed the evening, poring over the book by lamplight, and then another and another of her collection, with Sophia at times watching, at times leaning over his shoulder where he sat at her desk, to point out some part of the text.

  Soon their evenings settled into this pattern. After the soldiers finished their last meal of the day and Bellus inspected the ranks, he would collect an amphorae of wine from the servants in the kitchen, ascend to Sophia’s luxurious private chambers, and spend the next few hours in exhilarating discussion about history, philosophy, anything their minds found to probe. They conversed in Greek, then wandered delightfully to Latin, to Egyptian, and back to Greek.

  This evening, a hint of the coming autumn chilled the air. Bellus had drawn a chair to the fire, a scroll of Arcesilaus on his lap. Sophia had burned some incense in the room before he came, and the spicy scent still lingered, making him think of Rome in late summer.

  Sophia looked up from where she reclined on the couch across the room. She, too, pored over a scroll—the Septuagint, she called it. The Greek translation of the Jew’s holy books, created here in Alexandria by seventy Jewish scholars two hundred years ago. “You know Arcesilaus?” She pointed at his work.

  Bellus yawned. “No. And I am struggling, I am afraid.”

  “Is that the Arcesilaus or the wine?”

  He laughed and looked to her. One of her rare smiles played about her lips. “Are you accusing me of having too much to drink?”

  She shrugged, still smiling. “I noticed you brought the wine from Kos tonight.”

  “Hmm.” Bellus lifted his cup from a table at his side. “I suppose I was feeling indulgent. But it is not the wine, I assure you. I find Arcesilaus’s arguments a bit—”

  “Circular?”

  “Exactly!”

  Sophia rose from the couch and crossed to him. “Show me.”

  He straightened and smoothed the crisp scroll, the papyrus unyielding. Sophia rested her hand on the back of his chair and looked over his shoulder.

  Outside the wind rose
and whistled a melancholy tune through the windows. Bellus looked up at Sophia and smiled. It felt as though they were alone in the world.

  “Here,” he pointed to the book.

  They spent some minutes arguing over Arcesilaus’s work. Finally, Sophia said, “ ‘It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.’ ”

  “Plato?”

  She smiled and returned to her Septuagint. “Aristotle.”

  Bellus went to the window.

  In the Eunostos Harbor below, a few ships burned small fires, creating pinpricks of light in the inky sea. But beyond, there was only darkness, and Bellus again had the notion that they were at the edge of the world, the last remnant of humanity. All that darkness out there, all that isolation.

  He turned back to the light and warmth of the room and found Sophia watching him, her expression relaxed. Perhaps even happy. She saw him differently now, too, he could sense. It was all quite surprising.

  Less than an hour later, a timid knock sounded at Sophia’s chamber door. Sophia frowned her puzzlement, then crossed to open it. A man stood at the door, and Bellus invited the young Egyptian to enter.

  “Who is this?” Sophia’s voice faded as she saw the lyre in his hands.

  “I found him in the agora,” Bellus said. “I asked him to play for you.”

  Sophia’s eyes found his own and remained there for a long moment until the musician began to play. She sank to her couch and closed her eyes.

  Bellus had only half-expected the emotion the music evoked in her. The mute lyre on the wall had testified to a lost musician, but the sweet sadness on her face, the tears left unchecked, caused him to fear he had made a mistake.

  When the Egyptian finished, Bellus paid him and sent him on his way. Bellus stood at the door, waiting for Sophia to meet his glance. When she did, still misty-eyed, there was nevertheless gratitude in her shy smile. He nodded, then returned to his musing over another work, leaving her to regain composure.

  Later, after fighting the heaviness of his eyes for some minutes, a furious pounding at the door of the chamber nearly knocked him from his chair.

  He jumped to his feet. Was it an attack?

  Sophia shook her head. “It is only Ares. Come!”

  Ares entered and bowed his head to Sophia. “It grows late and I plan to go to my bed.” He glanced at Bellus. “I came to see if there is anything else you need of me.”

  “No,” Sophia said. “No, I think we are fine here. Good night.”

  Another look was shot at Bellus, then back to Sophia. “You will also be retiring shortly, Abbas?”

  Bellus saw a twitch of amusement cross her face. “Yes. You can be assured of that, Ares. Thank you for your concern.”

  He bowed and backed from the room, and again his look was for Bellus, and not completely friendly.

  When the door closed, Bellus laughed. “What was that?”

  Sophia rubbed her neck as though her studies had tightened it. “He is protective.”

  “This is his first evening appearance, however.” Bellus set the scroll aside.

  Sophia leaned her head against the cushions. “I do not know what sparked his wariness tonight.”

  “Sophia . . .” Bellus was hesitant with the next words. “He is more than protective. He is insolent and sometimes almost authoritative with you. Why do you allow it?”

  She sighed and her eyes fluttered shut.

  The long silence worried Bellus. “You do not need—”

  “He was born here. The child of a maidservant who hid her pregnancy. I might have cast her out, but it was a . . . difficult time in my life, and somehow having the boy here softened it.”

  “And the father?”

  “I never knew him. He came the night of the birth, I believe. I was still ignorant of the situation at the time and didn’t know who he was. Later, when she presented the baby, I assumed it was the father I saw. Though what Eleni saw in him, I cannot imagine. He was a horribly disfigured man. He never appeared again.”

  Bellus leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “So he is the illegitimate son of a lying maidservant. This does not explain your tolerance.”

  Sophia smiled slightly and raised her head from the couch. “His mother died a few years later, when he was still a small thing, running through the lighthouse as though it were his private playroom, irritating the rest of the staff with his curiosity. I had grown fond of him by that time. He was the same—” She left off, again sealing up her past. “I let him stay. Perhaps my indulgence over the years has led to his familiar way with me, but it does not trouble me.”

  “Because you care for him, very much.”

  She lifted her chin. “I did not say that.”

  “You did not have to.”

  “He is a servant.”

  “And I am a Roman and those scholars down there are old men and the beggar in the agora was only a beggar.”

  She frowned. “You speak in riddles.”

  “Then I will be plain. Sophia, you play the part of a tyrant, but there is something inside you that wants to love and to be loved.”

  He sat back in his chair, his breathing a bit uneven, certain he had pushed too far. But Sophia dropped her head, and he could see she was not angry.

  “You speak like Sosigenes,” she said. “He is trying to convince me that there is only one true God, and that this God has a heart of love for me.”

  Bellus looked back to the emptiness of the window where he had stood some time before. “Would that it were true.” He smiled at Sophia. “When are you going to let me spend time with them?”

  “Why should you want to?”

  Bellus flexed his hands, knuckles popping. “Why should I want to? Are you jesting? The finest minds in the world reside beneath my feet. An hour in their presence would be an honor like none I’ve received in battle.”

  Sophia studied him and he raised his eyebrows.

  “Then you shall have your hour. Tomorrow morning.”

  He grinned and stood. “Then I should get my rest. I would not want my mind fuzzy and dull.”

  Sophia walked him to the door. He clasped her hand before leaving. “Thank you.” He leaned in to kiss her lightly on the cheek.

  She did not pull away or even look away. Instead her eyes found his, unblinking. Quietly she said, “You are welcome, my friend.”

  Bellus still pondered those words the next morning as he finished drilling the troops. His shouted commands echoed off the stone walls, but it was an inner monologue that occupied him. A debate with himself over the wisdom of continuing this friendship with Sophia.

  He marched past the lines, poking the hilt of his pilum at those whose posture showed the slightest bit of slouch, wondering what Caesar would say if he learned of the unusual way his orders to “take the lighthouse” were being carried out.

  And Caesar would learn of it, Bellus had no doubt. There were too many eyes about.

  “Dismissed!” he yelled, and the men had sense enough of his mood to slink away.

  Sophia knew his schedule and would be down before long to fulfill her promise. He leaned back against the front wall of the Base, crossed his arms, and prepared to wait, still lost in the turbulent thoughts that criss-crossed in his head.

  He heard footsteps approach and turned to greet Sophia, but found Ares. The boy carried a tray with the leftover bits of a breakfast of maza and olive paste. Presumably Sophia’s. He slowed when he saw Bellus.

  “She is well this morning?”

  Ares stopped before him, his face a slight scowl. “She has no need of a guardian.”

  Bellus grinned. “No, I learned that the first time I met her.”

  Ares seemed to relax a little, his shoulders dropping an inch. “She is not as strong as she appears, either.”

  Bellus eyed the boy seriously now. “And I am learning that as well.” He gripped the servant’s arm. “I only want to be her friend, Ares. I have no desire to bring her pain.”


  “But pain sometimes comes without intent.”

  Bellus dropped his hand. “You speak wisely. And I will confess that you echo my own thoughts this morning.”

  Ares swallowed, suddenly seeming much younger. “But if there is a chance—”

  “A chance?”

  “That you could break this curse . . .”

  Bellus tilted his head and studied the boy, but the scrape of sandal on stone interrupted them. They both turned to see Sophia walking toward them through the corridor, and Ares hurried off.

  Sophia drew alongside Bellus, and he forced himself not to stare at the string of red beads she wore uncharacteristically around her neck.

  “You were not chastising Ares for his behavior last night, I hope,” she said.

  “On the contrary, we were sharing our mutual respect for you.”

  Sophia actually blushed, and Bellus was struck again, as though by a physical blow to his chest, what a dangerous game he played. So many insurmountable barriers stood between them. Race, class, geography, occupation. Ares was right. Pain sometimes comes without intent. But a man can be wise and walk away before such a thing occurs.

  “You are ready to meet the scholars?”

  He smiled. “More than ready.”

  They reached the North Wing, with Sophia looking over her shoulder multiple times along the way. She pulled a key from under her chitôn and unlocked the door, then led the way into the room.

  They were all in there again, as they had been when he first discovered them more than a week ago. Bellus slid into the room, awed and silent. The buzz of the scholar’s quiet conversation faded, and a dozen pairs of eyes turned on him. He straightened his shoulders.

  Sophia locked the door. “A friend, men. One who values learning over subjugation.”

  The old men still held their positions, scattered around the crowded room, its tables overflowing with scrolls, charts, instruments, and inventions. Bellus swallowed. “Sophia has graciously allowed me to glimpse your work. It is a great honor.”

  Sophia crossed to the side of the room, where a small table at the wall held cups and a stone pitcher. She poured a cup of water and brought it to him. Her hospitality seemed to convince the men, and they nodded in his direction before returning to their studies. Bellus exhaled.