Written in the Ashes (25 page)

Walking home after the performance, Hannah could still hear the music echoing in her mind. His melodies had raised her vision of what was possible. The night was young yet, and she had inspiration to pick up Hypatia’s lyre and compose a new song. Tarek staggered along beside her, besotted.

As she and Tarek approached the familiar green door, Tarek caught her arm and pulled her body into his, trying to kiss her. She pushed him away, but he caught her by the hair. “I have waited long enough for you,” he snarled.

She looked him squarely in the eye. “Tarek, let me go.”

He laughed and grabbed her by the collar, the metal cutting into her neck. She shrieked as he kissed her greedily, forcing his tongue into her mouth, his cock rising as he held her, his breath a vile mixture of alcohol and smoke.

Hannah struggled to break free, but he did not relinquish his grip. “Stop it, you little cunny,” he demanded. “Tonight I get what is mine.”

Hannah cried out, pushing at his arms, his chest, wielding her hands like claws. “You get nothing from me,” she said, wishing for her knife tucked in the stable straw. She knew she had been wrong to trust Tarek.

Tarek pulled her toward the darkest nook in the alley, turned her around and hoisted up her
khiton
from behind. “You will give me what I want,” he said. “And you will beg for it.”

She pleaded. “Tarek, stop this! You are drunk, now let me go.” She struggled to break his grasp, but his fingers held her collar firm.

“Beg, slave,” he said, and he spit in his hand and slid it to his groin.

Hannah cried out.

Tarek smacked the back of her head. “Beg!”

“No.”

He hit her again, and her hair came undone, the hairpin her father had given her falling to her feet. “I said beg, slave.”

Hannah began to cry. “Never.”

Tarek’s face reddened, and his pride smarted. “I will teach you to beg,” he said, and he pressed himself against her bare buttocks but lost his seed in his hand with a groan before he could deliver his full intention.

And in that instant his grip fell slack giving Hannah reach, her fingers searching desperately for the silver hairpin at her feet. There. Her eyes closed to slits, full of fury. Never. Never again. She turned and plunged the prongs deep into Tarek’s upper thigh, splitting muscle from bone.

Tarek screamed and released her as he fell to the ground, pulling the hairpin out of his groin and angrily hurling it into the street. “Look what you have done!” he said, indicating the wound pouring blood.

But Hannah did not look. “Do not ever touch me again,” she snarled, and then she spit on him, leaving him curled up in a ball on the street like the dog he was.

“I own you!” Tarek yelled at her. “And you owe me your life.”

Hannah turned back to him, her eyes dark and hollow. “My debt to you is paid.”

But as she reached Alizar’s door, a new menace presented itself.

Peter and the Parabolani came around the corner, sweeping up the alley toward Alizar’s house.

“There she is!” called Peter, and the five Parabolans broke into a run.

Tarek whimpered, unseen by the priests; his hands clutched his leg as his blood poured into the street.

Hannah pivoted and fled, running around the back of the house to the stable entrance, but the door was locked. “Aziz! Jemir! Leitah!” Hannah screamed to be let in, but no one heard, as they were all in the house for the party.

Then she knew where to go. The Library. She sped down one alley after the next, turning carts over behind her as she passed, angering the merchants. She could feel that Peter and his men meant to draw blood. Tonight would be their revenge.

Hannah dashed through the
agora
, trying to lose the Parabolani in the crowd. They easily closed on her, and more priests joined in the chase. Hannah was not as fast as they were, and she realized she was losing ground. The Christians meant to make an example of the pagans on this night of debauchery. She would be their victim.

As she ran, she could feel the same fear as the antelope running from the lion, knowing that this was the last chase, the last distance that her legs would ever carry her, and she prayed as she fled them, praying to God for her life.

When she reached the Great Library, the gates were locked. She pulled at the enormous iron handle and screamed for help, but there was no response. Behind her, the Parabolani grabbed torches from the walls and closed in.

If the doe is hunted, she must lose the dogs in the water.

Of course, the water! Hannah ran out onto the wharf that led to the harbor. The
Vesta
was moored somewhere in the royal harbor, a ship in a sea of ships. She had to find it somehow, but there were so many ships in the darkness, which was it?

The Parabolani saw they had her cornered on the wharf. Peter, the tallest among them, caught her in her moment of hesitation. He grabbed her
khiton
and pulled her backwards on the wooden boards, skinning her knees. But she found her footing, and spit in his face, which momentarily blinded him though he did not relinquish his hold on her.

And then, suddenly, she was gone.

Peter was left holding her pink
khiton
, and the girl was nowhere.

The Parabolans turned circles on the wharf, calling out and scanning the sea. They would have heard her plunge in, but there had been no sound.

They did not consider the angel, who smiled in triumph.

Beneath them, Hannah hung from one of the beams in the structural support of the wharf, holding her breath. And she waited until her fingers began to slip, and it was just long enough. Peter called out, “There is nowhere to run, slave! We will spill your pagan blood tonight or another.” And he gathered his men and they walked back down the docks as Hannah slipped into the sea, a large wave crashing on the beach muffling her splash.

The cold ocean enveloped her. She sank lower and fought for the surface. A wave washed over her and she sputtered for breath, the bronze collar heavy and cold about her neck. Where, oh where, was the ship?

Hannah swam toward Pharos, toward the royal harbor, but she could not make out which ship was Alizar’s from all the many moored that night.

She swam across the harbor, circling each ship, growing fatigued as the heavy collar at her throat threatened to pull her under. Finally she paused to rest, treading water. But her limbs lost strength and she began to cry out.

Then a black shape surfaced beside her in the water letting out a puff of steam and she shrieked in terror. Something brushed her foot. She struggled to remain at the surface with renewed vigor. But the creature circled her. Hannah began to cry, pleading for her life. She struggled mightily for breath, and the panic of drowning overcame her. And she sank below the water, the sleek animal dove beneath her and lifted her to the surface, then it pushed her toward the ship anchored beyond the island of Antirrhodus.

Gideon was on the deck of the Vesta, checking the lines when he leaned his head over the aft rail, torch in hand, and saw the dolphin pushing the limp naked girl in the water.

“Praise Zeus, Hannah!” Gideon unrolled the ladder so that it dangled from the stern to the sea. Then he descended and reached his hand out to grasp her wrist. The dolphin in the water looked on. Gideon nodded to him in thanks and lifted the sputtering girl over his shoulder.

Gideon knelt gently on the deck, Hannah cradled in his arms. “The Parabolani,” she coughed as she spoke. “They chased me onto the wharf.”

Gideon smiled his astonishment at her arrival, more beautiful than any siren. “Let me fetch you a blanket.”

He took her to the captain’s berth and made her some strong cinnamon tea to warm her up, though the night was plenty warm. As he wrapped another blanket across her shoulders, the story come rushing out of her about Tarek and the Parabolani, and she sputtered her tears and gradually began to calm down, and then even to laugh a little at how absurd it all must seem.

“I knew I admired you,” he said.

And she smiled, daring to feel a little proud of herself. “I thought the leviathan would eat me.”

“No, Apollo is only the dolphin that tends this harbor. He would not let you drown. I will take you to Alizar’s in the morning,” he said. “And we will discuss this with him. For now, I will ready a sailor’s bunk for you and see to it you get some clothes.”

As Gideon turned to go, Hannah stood up and touched his face with her hand, tracing the scar that ran down from his eye. Then she kissed him.

He needed no more encouragement than that. Curse modesty.

He picked her up in his arms and carried her to his bed as the blankets fell from her shoulders.

Their night together was the first time she had ever known a man by choice, and what beauty there could be in that. And he did not disappoint, but gave her the depth of his presence; his calloused hands squeezed her buttocks, her breasts, his lips spilling gentle kisses as he ravished her, making her cry out in ecstasy again and again.

After he was spent, they slept, and at last, Hannah knew contentment in Alexandria.

When the sun rose, Hannah opened her eyes to see that Gideon was already awake beside her. A single sunbeam played in the folds of his
tunica
, illuminating a gold medallion, pressed with the image of a rearing lion, a Greek inscription encircling it. She lifted it in her fingertips to admire.

“I found it in a shipwreck. Dove for the gold myself off the island of Icarius.”

“What does the inscription say?” asked Hannah, her eyes lit with curiosity.

“Ah, a girl with an inquisitive mind, eh? You know what we do to women such as thee,” Gideon teased. “We feed you to the lions!” And he grabbed her, pretending to eat her arm until she kicked and squealed and howled with laughter.

“Please tell me,” she insisted.

Gideon pinned her. “You must promise not to laugh.”

“I promise.”

“It says that the lion shall piss wherever it pleases
.”

“It does not!”

“All right, then.” He tucked the medallion in his
tunica
. “I presented it as a gift to my father, originally, as the lion is the symbol of our family crest. But when he was called to the grave, it was left again to me. If I have a son one day, I will give it to him.”

Hannah smiled, and kissed him. “Tell me what it really says.”

Gideon laughed. He wondered how any one woman could be so beautiful, so nearly perfect. He thought of the hundreds of women in his past, and as they made love again he imagined never having another but Hannah. But the thought pricked him to his senses, and he knew it would be better their love did not make two slaves of one. He shut his eyes and let himself go until their bodies were still again.

“Come, dress yourself. Alizar will be wondering where you are. We best head back,” he said, standing abruptly and throwing her some clothes. Hannah smiled, aware that she had unsteadied him. So, the fierce captain could not resist her. Beauty was his weakness.

They took a small oar boat to the docks, then slunk through the polished alleyways of the Brucheon. Gideon tethered her to him, pulling her near whenever a Parabolan passed them. But the priests were not looking for a girl clad in a sailor’s kilt and shawl, and so they found their way to Alizar’s door without incident.

“What do you plan to say to Alizar?” Hannah whispered.

“Leave that to me.”

Gideon pushed open the little green door. But when Hannah passed the threshold she caught her breath. A voice in the atrium. Could it be? She paused and waited, clutching Gideon’s arm, but there was nothing.

Then she heard it again. The voice she knew the way she knew the fields and the sky. The voice that had been calling inside her heart these many moons apart. She flew through the atrium and out into the courtyard.

And there he was.

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