Written in the Ashes (36 page)

They held the funeral for Suhaila the next morning in the garden. Hannah had not needed to move out of her room with Mira, as Mira had been taken to a chamber beneath the temple that was usually used as storage. She was put there because the door locked from the outside, a prison. Mother Hathora had turned the lock herself. There had been no need for inquiry. Mira herself had openly confessed to everything when Suhaila died.

Hannah cried and cried, the tears streaming down her face and stuck hot in her throat, where they threatened to choke her with sorrow. Here this sweet little girl had died in her place. It seemed no matter where she went, this curse of death followed her. Mother Hathora put her arm around Hannah’s shoulder to console her. Hannah’s entire body was wracked with deepening sobs that gurgled in her throat and made it feel as if she were drowning. “It is all my fault,” she said.

“No,” said Mother Hathora. “It is Mira’s fault, and she will be sent to the brothels to become a whore. It is her fate.”

Hannah nodded. Such a fate was shame to any priestess. It was a mark of dishonor, as well as a miserable existence. Mira would never step foot on the island again, but live her life as a servant to a bawd on the wharf, seeing as many men a night as her body could manage. Hannah did not hate her. There was no need. She knew that kind of pain intimately, and knew it would be hard for a woman as proud as Mira to stomach.

So.

Before the sun came to Pharos the next day, Hannah dressed warmly, picked up her satchel and her lyre, and snuck away silently. She had decided to go back to Alizar’s. She would face the Parabolani if need be. Anything would be better than living with the pain of remembering the feeling of the little girl’s warm heart growing cold in Hannah’s arms as she shuddered and died. Perhaps she could explain to Alizar about the quest Julian had given her. She could fulfill it, and then return to study in the library. Perhaps she could even take up her studies of music in the library with Synesius. But then there would be Tarek. She would keep her knife sharp, and her mind sharper still to deal with him. She could only hope he would not attempt to punish her after what she had done. No matter. Even that would be better than living always in the presence of the dead child’s grave. So.

Hannah slipped out of the Garden House before the ringing of the first bell with the Emerald Tablet bundled over her shoulder. A thin perspiration of mist clung to the ground in little wisps. The cold was damp and pierced to the bone.

As soon as she felt the little skiff shove off, Hannah’s eyes swelled with tears. She watched regretfully as the blue dome of the Temple of Isis shrunk from view. Was it not just yesterday that she had taken the skiff in the other direction, to the shores of Pharos?

Now she had an enormous quest before her, leading her ever deeper into the pagan world. It was overwhelming.

As the spire from the Temple of Poseidon came into view, Hannah’s tears flowed freely and unwelcome sobs escaped her throat, for Suhaila and for Julian. She thought of Julian’s eyes, the way they had filled with love for her. Julian. Not dead, but just as lost.

I may be Junkar to all the world, but I will always be Julian to you.

Promises of love, like ashes scattered to the wind. And now in the library she would forever have Synesius to remind her of him, his face shaped by the same womb.

Oh, Julian. Hannah cried softly to herself at the front of the skiff, her eyes squeezed shut. The mist settled closely to the water, blocking the sun and the horizon from view. When she opened her eyes, Hannah could see Alexandria, the many buildings on the wharf drifting in and out of view.

She trailed her fingers in the cold sea, recalling the feeling of Julian’s silky hair between her fingers. Her destiny suddenly felt like an empty shell washed up on the sand. Beautiful and hollow.

Her tears flowed into the sea, the source of all tears. As Hannah looked down into the cold grey water, she wished she had the courage to pitch herself overboard and end her life. At least then her pain would find an end.

Just then, beneath the dark water, a dark shape darted under the skiff. It reappeared beside Hannah, breaking the surface. A spray of mist, and the dolphin’s blowhole opened and closed. Hannah smiled. Greek stories said that dolphins rescued drowning sailors by carrying them back to shore. Apollo rolled on his side and looked up at Hannah with one of his ancient eyes, smiling as if to reassure her. She smiled back at him, and he disappeared in the sea.

When the skiff slid next to the wharf, Hannah leapt onto the beach where the harbor was already bustling with activity in the shadows of the towering palms. She hoped Alizar would not be angry at her return.

She made her way from the wharf down the narrow alley to Alizar’s familiar green door with its peeling paint and shiny brass latch.

It was the door that led to the only home she knew.

22  

Alizar himself opened the door. “I had a dream you would come,” he said. He kissed Hannah’s cheeks and opened the door wider so that she could step through. He seemed entirely unconcerned to see her.

“I am sorry to have returned without writing you,” said Hannah.

Alizar nodded. “You did the right thing. Tell me, have you brought it with you?”

Hannah thought a moment, and then realized he must be speaking about the emerald shard around her neck. So Julian had told him. She slipped it out from her
himation
to show him.

“Excellent,” said Alizar. “Orestes is beside himself with glee that we might obtain the Emerald Tablet. Hypatia sails for Greece as soon as the weather clears. She has an invitation from Zophocles of Athens to speak at the Odeum and the Library of Hadrian. I have convinced her to take you along.”

Hannah followed Alizar through the atrium into the courtyard, where Aziz was lunging the grey stallion on a long rope, running him in a circle.

“The tablet is so significant?”

“Hannah, with the Emerald Tablet, anything is possible. The tablet promises immortality to those who can reveal its script. Its power is legendary. The populace would unite beneath it, we are all certain. It would be the returned symbol of Alexander the Great, of Thoth Hermes, and with it would come all the power of the gods. It may even be enough to exile the Christians from our city and leave us in peace, ushering in a new age of knowledge and scientific exploration. Master Junkar has told me of his vision, and I am eager to see you triumph.”

“You are not coming with us?”

“No. I have business here.”

Hannah nodded, as if in a dream. “When do we sail?”

Alizar placed his hands squarely upon her shoulders. “Five days. Come, Jemir has just baked a fresh loaf of sweet bread. You must be famished and you will need your strength about you for the journey.”

Hannah’s trip across the Mediterranean faced the deep winter, a time when even rugged ships seldom sailed. Alizar had lent his ship for the journey, but Gideon required considerable convincing to sail. Even though summer voyages were considerably more dangerous because they meant confrontation with innumerable pirates—the Greeks took to pirating the way the Alexandrians took to the beaches—Gideon knew that midwinter sailing would ensure a gamble with the weather gods. Poseidon willing, they must brave a straight shot across the Mediterranean against the fierce Etesian winds. To reach Athens they might be at sea for a month or more, whereas the return trip with the winds would take only ten to twelve days. And there may be storms, and great waves. It was a risk Hannah was determined to take. If Alizar thought that obtaining the Emerald Tablet would quell the Christian thirst for blood and protect the pagans of the city, she would do anything possible to see the quest to its end.

Gideon watched intently as the gulls left the beaches and soared out over the sea toward Malta and Sicily, an indication that they would have good weather for at least a week. He sent word to Hypatia and to Hannah. They would sail at dawn.

After a goat had been sacrificed and offerings for a safe voyage had been blessed and set upon an altar in the adytum of the Caesarium, the women gathered on the docks. With her lyre tucked beneath her arm, Hannah strode out onto the wharf to meet Hypatia who was waiting beside Alizar’s massive ship where it was tethered to an immense stone ring on the quay. The
Vesta
was the largest ship in the harbor that day, at a length of forty-six and a half meters, a width of seventeen meters, and a bilge thirteen meters deep that could hold up to seven hundred barrels of wine, or as it happened, nearly a thousand children. Captain Gideon explained that Alizar had purchased the ship from a Roman grain merchant who had taken immaculate care of it, re-sealed the hull with tar twice a year, then lined the bilge with lead. The ship’s ribs and hull planks were expertly carved and fitted edge to edge so that the swelling of the wood would make the ship watertight. Her three iron anchors took a crew of twelve men to drop and hoist.

“She is almost sixty years old, and in finer condition than all these lateen-rigged pieces of rubbish.” Gideon patted the
Vesta
lovingly before walking the dock to check that the crew had scraped the hull clean of any barnacles. He smiled at Hannah, but offered her no more warmth than that before returning to his work.

It was just as well to Hannah. The yearning in her heart was not for Gideon.

Fixed in fertile darkness, the angel slept.

So.

The
Vesta
was a story enacted on the sea. Hannah drank in the immense beauty of the ship, the way the shirtless sailors scurried up and down the skinny rat lines to ready the sails and check the yards, how the ornamental gilded goose at the stern curved like the tip of her lyre, the way the twin figures of Isis perched beneath the bowsprit gleamed in the sun. The
Vesta
was a mythical dream brought to life, hardly a vessel of wear and tear, but like her captain, she also bore her battle scars. A repair made to the port hull thirteen years earlier sealed a rupture that a Roman galley called the
Agamemnon
had made with its sharpened metal prow in an attempt to loot her and drown her crew. The entire deck had been rebuilt twice, the sails torn and shredded by so many storms that Gideon kept five spares down in the bilge. The
Vesta
was a ship that had learned from her mistakes and lived to cross the Mediterranean forty-nine times, a ship with the earth in her ballast, the sky in her sails.

Hypatia discussed the trip itinerary and port fees with Gideon. It seemed that for a man to leave Alexandria, the port fee would be two silver
siliqaue
, but since the city thought not to send its women abroad, Hypatia and Hannah were faced with fees of twenty
siliquae
each. Hypatia paid the fees for both of them, and Hannah watched the precious bag of silver coins exchange hands in awe, wishing it could be used for her freedom instead.

Soon Gideon announced that the rigging had been secured and the
Vesta
was ready to leave her slip. “If you are sailing with this ship, ladies,” he yelled down to the dock, “you had best be aboard it.”