Written in the Ashes (34 page)

“But how can that be?”

“It is the tradition. I must cut all ties from my former life in order to best serve the Temple of Poseidon and the monks of the Nuapar as Kolossofia Master. My new name will be Junkar, same as the master who preceded me. It has been this way for centuries.”

Hannah’s eyes filled with sorrow for Julian then, and for Synesius, who had on more than one occasion confessed to her how much he missed his brother. “How unfortunate for you, for you both,” she said.

Julian poured some red wine from the amphora into a golden
rython
and handed it to Hannah. “My brother and I came to Alexandria together, did Synesius tell you? From Ptolemais. When our parents died, my noble brother became a philosopher, and even went so far as the court of Constantinople to sway Emperor Arcadius to his ideas, though his favor was short lived. I became a fighter.”

“A fighter?”

Julian smiled at Hannah, a tender smile of gratitude that she was interested in knowing the story of his life. He realized that this might be the last time he told it. “I was sponsored by a wealthy Greek patron who found opponents for me to fight. I was very successful, so he saw to it I had shoes and bread, and a dry loft to sleep in.”

Hannah handed Julian the
rython
, so they might share the wine.

Julian set the
rython
on his thigh as his chest rose with a thoughtful breath. The facts were so ugly he did not know how to share them in a way that would not offend a lady, but he would try. “He was an angry man, my father. He used to take out his rage on us, especially my mother. He was a general of the Imperial Army, a drunkard, though he claimed lineage of Spartan kings. My mother, Alaya was her name, was a beautiful woman. She could not stand up to him. I was only a boy when he killed her by bringing down the blunt end of his sword on the side of her head. He suspected she was in love with another man. I wish for her she had just run away. Oddly, my father died the following year when he drunkenly tripped and pitched forward, his head striking the corner of a table. It was in precisely the spot he hit my mother. Sy and I felt her spirit had vindicated itself, and we both knew peace for the first time in many years.”

Hannah felt the welling up within her of all the injustices she had witnessed and experienced, all of them cruel and unfair. “Alaya was your mother’s name?”

“Yes.”

“What a beautiful name,” Hannah said, the lavenous words spilling from her lips for the undoing of loss, a longing they shared.

Julian took a sip of wine and smiled. “And you, Hannah? How did you come to this island? Your accent is of the desert.”

They were sitting cross-legged, facing one another on the tiger skin, relaxing into the space little by little as the awkwardness between them slowly dissolved with each sip of wine.

Hannah’s fingers traced the bronze slave collar at her throat. “I came to Alexandria from Sinai.”

“From Sinai? Is that where you learned to sing so beautifully?” Julian asked in Aramaic.

Hannah inhaled sharply, her heart warming. She had not heard the syllables of her language in many months, and he spoke eloquently and with a perfect accent. She answered him happily, and their conversation went on in her native tongue.

Hannah told him about her father and their goats and sheep, and the olive tree on the hill. She told him about the funny things she overheard in the shepherd’s tents when they thought she was asleep. She told him things that she had never told anyone before and it was liberating, somehow, to let those secrets breathe in the tower where no one else could hear. But she did not tell him about the men, and the road to Alexandria. He would come to that part without her telling him.

Julian listened intently as she spoke about her first impressions of Alexandria. As they spoke, the conversation wove between them like an invisible golden thread that slowly drew them closer.

Eventually the storm that had been squatting on the horizon descended, and a slow, soaking rain began to wet the lighthouse. So many answered prayers. It might as well have been raining gold for the merchants in the city. Occasionally, a rumble of thunder overhead punctuated one of their sentences with a timing that indicated the gods might be eavesdropping.

Inside the tower, listening to the rain, Hannah traced the rim of the
rython
with one finger. There was something she had to know.

Julian could almost hear the whir of her thoughts. “What is it?” he asked.

Her eyes darted up to him, and then back to the
rython
as she nibbled her lower lip. She did not want to ask, but she had to know. “How did you choose?”

“How did I choose you, you mean?” Julian smiled, reclining back on one elbow. “It was your voice,” he said. “I chose the priestess with the voice of a goddess.”

Hannah felt a warm rush of blood flow into her cheeks as she smiled.

Julian, realizing the opportunity, reached forward and touched his fingers to her knee. “Hannah, would you sing for me? Here. Just us.”

“Here?” Hannah looked around.

“Why not?”

“Now?”

Julian smiled and lay back. “Yes.”

She could not refuse. Smiling, he closed his eyes and listened to the way her voice lilted along, the way the rain blended into the melody. He never wanted to forget the sound of her voice. He tried to remember it in his bones so that he would always hear her singing inside of him, no matter how far apart the years would take them.

When she finished and opened her eyes, Julian leaned forward, cupped her cheeks in his hand and kissed her lips with a gentleness that Hannah had never imagined a man could possess. Her eyes widened in surprise, and then closed as she relaxed into the softness of his mouth.

The angel watched as the door unhinged, and the light vanished through it to the beyond.

Julian had never found such pleasure in a woman before. He kissed her bare shoulder, brushed his thumb along her cheek, suckled the sweet flesh beneath her ears.

Hannah felt herself melting beneath his touch, ripples of fire beneath her skin. Kisses became caresses. Caresses became questions. They explored each other like two nomads discovering a hidden landscape, savoring every curve, every canyon, every secret cavern. Julian rested his head on her belly. He loved how different her face looked from every angle. When she was smiling, when she was not. Eyes closed, eyes open. In profile her features looked almost fierce, but then from beneath they became delicate as a child’s. He traced a finger across her full lips.

They lay prone on the tiger skin and Julian removed Hannah’s ceremonial costume one piece at a time, encircling her navel with his tongue, drinking in the scent of her, his body quivering with desire.

Not yet.

He delicately kissed her eyelids, her lips, the center of her palm, her soft round breasts with their nipples stiffening under his tongue. She trembled beneath his hands like a wild forest creature.

So alive.

So beautiful.

The torchlight played on the curves of their bodies.

Their hair entangled, their legs entwined.

Even the moon could not tell them apart.

He raised her wrist and kissed it, and then drew her on top of him so he could see her in the torchlight.

The two lovers drank of each other many times that night. The smoke of the torches carried their cries out into the rainstorm, offering their union to the gods. The scent of the sea filled their nostrils; luminous strands of moonlight and kelp became entangled in their bones. The surf drummed against the staves of their ribs, swirled inside their navels. Gulls circled in the bright sky of their desire. Together, they washed up on the languid shores of love, tousled by wave after wave.

Neither slept.

Neither wanted to.

Dawn approached and the sky through the tower window became pale. Hannah, naked beneath the sheet, fell silent and turned on her side.

Julian brushed her hair away and kissed the back of her neck tenderly, wishing he could remove the terrible bronze collar from her throat. “What is it?” he whispered.

“In an hour they will come for us,” she said sadly, realizing that their precious night, which had seemed so eternal, was waning into day.

“Hannah,” he whispered, turning her to him, taking her chin tenderly between his fingertips. “I may be Master Junkar to all the world, but I will always be Julian to you. Never forget this. Promise me.”

Hannah smiled as two tears slid down her cheeks. “I promise,” she whispered.

Then he kissed her again, burying his hands in her hair, his nostrils flaring as he drank in the scent of her sweet skin. He wanted to remember the feel of her, the taste of her, the thrust of how much he wanted her. He turned her towards him and they made love one final time, in the ecstasy of what was soon to end, her tears anointing his body, his hands cradling her own until her back arched in ecstasy and she held her breath, trembling above him, and he lost himself inside her. Then she collapsed on top of him, her heart pressed against his heart as he kissed her cheek, her hair, her hands.

She pushed the thoughts of the coming day from her mind, wanting the moment between them never to end.
Kairos
, he whispered,
the eternal
. She wanted to memorize the shape of his eyes, his shoulders, his sex. She wanted her body to remember the weight of his body, her nose to remember the scent of his breath, her tongue to remember the shape of his name.

He turned her over and took a sip of wine in his mouth and let her drink it from his parted lips.

They had only one more hour.

It passed as though time did not even exist.

She got up and picked up a bowl of figs, and brought it back to him and then nestled her thighs against his. He pulled her naked body to lean on his and they enjoyed the sweet fruit.

When the figs were gone, Julian spoke. “Hannah, there is something I must give you now, and you must accept it without question.”

Hannah tucked her chin and kissed his fingers. “Whatever it is, I accept.”

Julian smiled and held out his hand to reveal a gleaming emerald shard, inscribed with mysterious letters. “I had a vision while you slept. You are the one who will return the Emerald Tablet to us.” He slipped the black cord over her head, and she touched the emerald shard that hung from it between her breasts. “Is it part of the tablet? What does it say?”

“It says ‘
Soul immortal, no fire can burn thee, no fate can change thy eternal truth’.
The shard will protect you as you travel to see the Pythia in Delfi.”

“Delfi? I thought the Nuapar kept the tablet here in Pharos.”

“No, not for centuries. But we need it now, for the tablet alone can save the pagans, especially now that Rome has fallen. But I tell you that you must make haste. Promise me, Hannah, for I must go on my quest to India.”

“I cannot,” she said, her voice trembling. “Surely there must be some Nuapar monk who can do what you ask.”

“Why do you say this?”

“I am a slave in Alizar’s house. I was sent to this island to be educated as a priestess. I have no right to go on any quest. Not unless he wills it.”

Julian thought about this. “I will speak to Alizar; he is an old friend.”

Hannah opened her mouth, but he placed his finger gently on her lips. “Shhh,” he said. “It is done.”

So.

No more could the angel feel the sky. The light had dimmed inside the door. Heavy as a stone, the angel plummeted into darkness.

When the first rays of sunlight streamed though the tiny window at the top of the temple, the sound of the stone door grated against their hearts.

They heard voices outside, calling.

Hannah dressed into her costume quickly and Julian threw his robe over her shoulders. Beyond the white square of daylight behind the door, Mother Hathora was there waiting. Master Savitur stood beside her. Hannah could see their sandaled feet inside the patch of light.

The sacred union was complete.

Hannah looked back at Julian one final time, the last time she would ever look on him. He was reclining on the bed, the rumpled sheet around his legs, propped up on his elbows. The smooth skin of his chest shone in the diffuse light and a strand of black hair was caught in the corner of his mouth. His eyes glinted, the same luminous green as the emerald shard around her neck. As she watched him, he sat up and leaned forward to catch her hand, pressing her fingertips to his lips. “I will never forget you, Hannah of Sinai,” he whispered in a voice only she could hear. “Know this.”

She pressed a smile to her lips. Then she brought his hand to her mouth, kissed each of his fingers, and slowly released it. There were words of love locked in her throat, but she dared not speak them; the look they shared said everything that words could not.

She had to go.

Hannah took a deep breath and somehow forced herself to crouch beneath the door, crawl through the threshold, and face the blinding light of day that lay beyond. From the top of the lighthouse, she could see the entire city, the harbor where Alizar’s ship rested, Lake Mareotis and the desert far beyond. And in the north, the Mediterranean Sea, stretching into a blue sky. Somewhere far beyond the horizon lay Greece.