Athena's Son (8 page)

Between the two floors was a circular frieze that contained carvings of Athena, to whom the library was dedicated. It was similar to the frieze that surrounded the Parthenon in Athens. Ironically, one of the scenes depicted Athena punishing the boastful Arachne, the young girl Athena turned into a spider.

Evenly spaced along the walls on the first floor were eight doorways leading to the eight wings of the library. Next to each doorway was a niche with a life-size statue of one of the nine Muses of Greek mythology.

The Muses were the daughters of Zeus who represented the arts and sciences. In the library, each Muse corresponded to the eight subjects of books: medicine, mathematics, astronomy, physics, alchemy, history, literature, and music. The ninth Muse, Terpsichore, goddess of dance, stood next to entrance to the dormitories.

The school on the second floor followed the same layout, except the Muses marked the classrooms where each academic discipline was taught.

Archimedes strolled the lecture hall examining the sculptures of the Muses. He stopped in front of the statue of Clio, Muse of history. She was a beautiful young woman with a laurel wreath on her head and holding a scroll, her two symbols.

Tucked behind the statue, Archimedes noticed a pair of small, expensive sandals. He reached back and brought them out, expecting them to smell like a wet dog, but surprisingly had the fragrance of lemongrass. The soles of the sandals had elaborate hieroglyphs tooled into the leather. He was about to show them to Callimachus when he saw a man walking quickly toward his teacher.

“
Excuse me, Callimachus,” the man said. “A messenger from Pharaoh Ptolemy is asking for you. He said it is very important.”

“
Very well, I will go to meet with him. Archimedes, feel free to browse the books. I will be back shortly.” Callimachus glided away so Archimedes tentatively entered the history wing.

It was a large room with rows and rows of bookshelves. The smell of musty papyrus mingled with the fresh cut wood of the shelves. Each shelf had hundreds of pigeon holes and in each hole was anywhere from one to five scrolls, depending on how large each scroll was.

Between each set of shelves was a large wooden table for reading and unrolling the continuous sheet of papyrus onto another rod. There were several boys whose job it was to go around and reroll the scrolls to the beginning for the next reader.

Archimedes estimated there were 50,000 scrolls in this hall alone, giving the library a collection of nearly half a million books. He pulled out one of the scrolls and tried unrolling it, balancing the petite sandals in one hand and the scroll in the other.

While he struggled, Archimedes saw a small, quick man scurrying around the library. He reminded Archimedes of a plover, the small shore birds in Syracuse. The compact birds with their long legs would dash back and forth between waves. As a wave crashed forward the birds would dash back toward shore. When the sprawling wave retreated, the plover would quickly follow its wake, pecking into the sand for an opportune meal. The process was repeated as the wave inevitably crashed forward again. The small man would stop, check some scrolls, and then move on. Stop, straighten, dash, stop. The man saw Archimedes, looked at the scroll, and dashed after the wave.

“
What are you doing young man? Hmm? What are you doing?” He talked almost as swiftly as he moved. “Shouldn’t you be dusting? Cleaning? Who let you touch these scrolls?” The man’s voice rose with agitation.

It dawned on Archimedes that because he was so young, this plover must have thought Archimedes was one of the servants, like the water-spiller in his room. Archimedes began to put the scroll back, but that disturbed the plover even more. “Don’t put it back there. Not now. Is it rolled correctly?”

Archimedes did not know if he should drop the scroll, hand it to him, or hit him over the head with it. He was measuring the scroll’s heft against the weight of the petite sandals when a soft voice from behind said, “If you’re going to hit him, please use the scroll instead of my sandals.”

Archimedes turned around and there stood beautiful Clio.

In bare feet.

Chapter 13

A girl about his age faced him with her arms folded. She was a mesmerizing fusion of Egyptian and Greek goddesses. Dark kohl outlined bright green eyes and her black wavy hair was held up in thick braids in the way rich Greek women preferred. However, instead of Clio’s laurel wreath, she wore a wide band around her head in the style of Egyptian women. Turquoise and malachite beads played off her emerald eyes. A gold leaf brooch pinned at her shoulder held a white tunic that reached down to her toes.

“
Princess Berenike,” plover quivered, bowing low. “I was just getting this servant boy back to work. I utterly regret that he disturbed you!”

“
Savas,” the honey voice intoned, “This young man is no brainless servant. Remember, ‘
The educated differ from the uneducated… “

“
as much as the living from the dead,” Archimedes finished the quote.
Not only was this statue beautiful, it was alive.

The green eyes curled into teasing smiles. “See, he knows the writings of Aristotle. You may go Savas; I will make sure your scrolls are rolled properly.”

Savas bowed deep again
and left. The plover dashed to the next shelf and commenced straightening more scrolls.

Archimedes was wondering if he heard correctly. Was the lovely Clio really a princess? Daughter of the pharaoh? Archimedes regained his senses and bowed. It was then he saw her petite bare feet again.

“
Are these yours?” He held out the sandals.

Berenike smiled. “Thank you.” She took them and gripped his arm for balance with one hand as she bent to the side to put each sandal back on. “I like the feel of the cool marble on my feet, so I take my sandals off.” She straightened up, shook out her tunic, and looked at Archimedes. “I am Princess Berenike, only daughter of Pharaoh Ptolemy II, future queen of Upper and Lower Egypt.”

Archimedes couldn’t have been more astonished if Athena walked in.

“
You
are
a student, aren’t you?” Berenike’s eyes narrowed in reservation. She began pacing around him, as one who is used to inspecting humans.

“
Yes, princess. My name is Archimedes, from Syracuse.” He twisted to watch her as she strode around him. “This is my first day at the School of Alexandria. Callimachus was giving me an introduction to the school and library when he had to take care of some business with your father.”

“
You are very young to be attending my father’s school.” She stopped the physical inspection and began a character check. “What qualifies such a young man to attend the great School of Alexandria?” Her chin nodded up toward him.

Archimedes rotated the opposite direction to face the inspection. “My teachers wrote to the school, believing I was bestowed with gifts from Athena.”

“
What talents are those, gifted one?” She added a teasing melody to the nickname.

“
Mechanics, alchemy, science.” Archimedes decided that was enough.

“
Any background in medicine?” she asked.

“
Well, sure. I studied anatomy and…”

“
Perfect!” Her exam complete, she grabbed his hand and pulled him down the aisle, immersing him in a pleasant tang of lemongrass as he followed behind. After passing several crammed shelves, she turned left and then right, stopping at a table with several open scrolls covering the top. She took the scroll Archimedes still had in his hand and stuffed it in a nearby pigeon hole.

“
Won’t Savas be mad if that scroll is not put in its proper slot?” Archimedes asked.

Berenike waved her hand, causing several silver bracelets to chime. “Bah, leaving the scrolls mixed up is like birdseed to Savas. It gives him something to peck at.” She leaned on the edge of the table. “All right, gift of Athena, you know my family’s connection to Alexander the Great, right?”

“
Yes, princess. Your grandfather…”

“
Berenike.” She gave Archimedes a level gaze.

“
Excuse me, princess?”

“
Please,” Berenike said, “call me Berenike. I have so few friends my age, much less educated ones, that I would like someone to just call me Berenike.”

“
Very well, Berenike. Your grandfather was Ptolemy, one of Alexander the Great’s trusted generals. After Alexander died and his kingdom divided, your grandfather took control of Egypt. Since then your family has ruled as pharaohs of Upper and Lower Egypt.” Archimedes pushed open one of the scrolls as he spoke, scanning over the Greek writing. One of the scrolls, he noticed, was in a language he did not recognize.

“
Well done, scholar,” Berenike said. “So Athena did grant you more than the ability to retrieve sandals. You said Alexander died. How did he die?”

This Muse had a sharp tongue to go with her sharp mind. “Alexander died in Babylon from a fever,” Archimedes said. “After 10 years of fighting the Persians, he died from too much war and too little rest.”

“
I suppose that’s what you learned in Syracuse,” she said.

“
That’s what everyone learns everywhere. His death is recorded in all documents, from Persia to Greece,” Archimedes said.

“
Not all documents.” Berenike slowly walked to the other side of the table and unrolled the incomprehensible scroll as wide as her arms could go. Archimedes noticed several expensive rings on her fingers.

On her right hand was a silver ring with an image of Alexander the Great wearing a lion’s head. On her left was a gold ankh, the Egyptian symbol for life. Another ring was a deep blue sapphire in the shape of a scarab beetle. The papyrus crackled in protest as she opened it. “Can you read this?”

Archimedes bent close and the smell of old papyrus betrayed its age. It was longer than a normal scroll, spanning nearly the length of his arm. In addition, it was rolled on a bronze tube instead of a wooden rod. Valuable books were rolled on bronze because the metal did not rot papyrus like wood did. Several languages translated through his mind as he scanned the scroll. He followed the writing with his finger to where it ended in a frayed, torn edge.

“
I’m sure it is not hieroglyphs,” Archimedes said. “It is certainly not Greek, although it is close to Coptic.” The Coptic alphabet he studied in Syracuse was similar to the Greek alphabet. “And it is not Phoenician.”

“
You know your languages, Archimedes, I’ll give you that. The reason you didn’t recognize it is because it is demotic.” To keep the scroll from rolling up, Berenike held one end down with her hand and laid a
piece of smooth glass
on the other. It was a clear flattened globe and about the size of her palm. “Tourists think all Egyptian writing is in hieroglyphs, pretty pictures of snakes and birds. But writing in hieroglyphs is time consuming and used exclusively for public and religious displays.”

Archimedes picked up the elliptical glass and held it up to the light. “This has almost no color. Where did you get this?” Blue or green glass was common, like his chemical bottles, but he never saw glass that was clear. “Did you know a piece of glass like this has
the ability to reproduce and focus the heat of the sun?” It would make a great addition to his alchemy kit.

Berenike grabbed the globule away from him and set it back down because the scroll was rolling up. “A small gift to father from some rich merchant,” she replied impatiently. “Can you concentrate on this?” She traced a line of the demotic script. Archimedes watched her slender hand and the silver ring flow across the papyrus. “Demotic is the script used for official Egyptian writing, such as legal and scientific documents.”

“
So you’re learning different languages?” he asked.

“
Like a fish needs swimming lessons,” she said. “I already read and write five different languages. My problem, Archimedes, is that my father or anyone else I talk to about this scroll thinks I’m wasting my time. I need you for your medical background.”

“
OK. What does it say?” Archimedes asked.

“
Ah, that’s just it. The first question is not what does it say, but how it is written,” Berenike said.

“
It’s written in demotic,” Archimedes stated the obvious.

“
Exactly!” Berenike said. “This scroll is from one of the doctors attending to Alexander as he lay dying. The doctor, named Meti, wrote this scroll in demotic so none of the Greeks could read it.”