Written in the Ashes (58 page)

“The chest was there, with him.”

Hannah nodded. “Yes.”

Gideon shook his head. “Tarek hates Cyril as much as you or I. He is a foolish boy, but I do not think him capable of what you suggest.”

“Gideon, you described once what you found in place of the tablet.”

“Yes, when we opened the chest and unbound the cloth I pulled out a strange wooden doll with nails for eyes.”

“I dreamed of it last night. I saw this doll once in Naomi’s room. It was the night the Jews were attacked by Cyril’s men. I rummaged through a chest of things that once belonged to Naomi’s son in order to find some clothing to wear to join the men in the street. I found a doll there made of heavy black wood, like iron, with nails for eyes.”

“You think Tarek took the tablet and substituted the doll. But what would he do with the tablet if he did not use it for personal gain?”

“But that is just it. How do we know he did not use it for personal gain?”

“You are right. We cannot know.”

“We must search Tarek’s room, Gideon. If I am right, he has collaborated with the Christians and Cyril has the tablet and is just waiting for the moment to use it against us.”

“Go to Sofia. I will find Tarek and make him speak.”

Hannah rushed to Alizar’s. Alaya had begged to go with her, but she thought it best to let her daughter stay with Synesius, as Gideon had gone to find Tarek. She found Sofia in the upstairs bedroom, seated on the settee, sipping coffee.

“Hannah, so good to see you. What brings you here so early in the morning?”

“Sofia, do you have a key to Tarek’s room?” Hannah knelt beside the chest containing the few possessions that had belonged to Sofia’s brother, Theon. When she opened it, the chest was empty. No doll, no boyhood clothes. But it did not matter. Sofia could have cleaned it out when she took the room for herself and Synesius the month before when they returned to Alexandria from Cyrene so Sofia could birth the baby in her father’s house.

“Whatever for?”

Hannah took Sofia’s hands. “I believe he has betrayed Alizar.”

“Wherever did you get such a notion?”

“Do you trust me?”

Sofia nodded. “Tarek stayed at the brothels last night. He has a new girl there. Come with me.”

When they opened the door, they found Tarek’s room to be in complete disarray: clothes were strewn about, and dirty plates and cups were stacked on every available surface.

“What are we looking for?” asked Sofia.

“I am not sure, but I feel we will know when we find it.”

They searched for the better part of an hour before Sofia found the hollow in the bedpost beside the wall by knocking on the wood. When the sound changed, she shoved the bedclothes to the floor and called Hannah over. “Listen.” Sofia knocked to reveal the hollow sound in the wood.

Hannah’s hands searched the bedpost until they found the ornate carving of the falcon at the top of the post to be loose. She twisted it and it came away. Sofia reached inside the post and withdrew a roll of documents. They replaced the post and retreated to Sofia’s bedroom, where they locked the door.

They spread the documents out on the bed, and almost immediately, Sofia found the cause for Hannah’s intuitive notion. These were forged documents naming Tarek as Alizar’s adopted son, heir to the entire estate. They had been notarized by scribes at the Tabularium, and by bishop Cyril himself.

“This can mean only one thing,” said Hannah.

“Tarek has betrayed us all.” Sofia stood, her thoughts racing, the full expanse of the issue now realized. But as she crossed the room, a warm liquid trickled down her leg and pooled at her feet. “Praise Zeus,” she said. “The baby has chosen this moment to come. Send for the midwife, Hannah.”

Hypatia rode up in her chariot to the public lecture hall as evening settled in Alexandria like a dove on her roost. There had been no rain all month, and the air was cool and dusty, reminding her of the years of the long drought that had finally broken during the previous winter. Hypatia’s horse snorted and pawed the ground. She patted the mare’s silky white shoulder and turned to climb the steps. Orestes would have been infuriated with her to find out that she had ridden to the lecture hall unaccompanied, but Orestes would not be in the audience tonight; he had gone to the meeting of the Alexandrian government on the island of Antirrhodus in the middle of the harbor. The city’s politicians, bishop, magistrates, senators and prefects would be occupied for most of the evening, and they had required the presence of most of the Nuapar guards. Hypatia wondered if anyone would even attend her lecture. She had taken the liberty of distributing pamphlets the previous week, but doubted that they were even glanced at, as the people were awaiting several political decisions and appointments that would change the face of the city if they passed. Hannah had suggested she cancel the lecture, but Hypatia had made up her mind to deliver her speech. “The people need this message now more than ever,” she had insisted, forgetting that in five years she had not had a single discussion with a human being outside the Great Library. “People want bread, not philosophy,” Alizar had said to her once. She had dismissed his thought with a wave of her hand and a laugh, incapable of imagining how anyone could possibly live without intellectual and spiritual sustenance.

Once inside, Hypatia was delighted to discover that the lecture hall was already nearly full of faces. They turned to look at her as she entered, recognizing the city’s famed thinker by her elegant white robes and long, curling blonde hair pinned on top of her head. As she stepped up to the dais, several people whispered and hissed.

“Devil’s concubine,” someone said.

“Witch,” said another.

Hypatia coolly dismissed the words as though she did not hear them. Her thoughts burned bright as newborn suns in her mind, suffusing all else. Once she shared her vision, the people would forgo their judgments. Eager to sway the crowd, she quickly thanked everyone for coming and began her lecture.

She began by illustrating the ideals of purity and virginity as embodied by the Virgin Mary. Her words were infused with love. For the first half of her lecture, she held the audience’s attention easily. However, as her speech turned toward philosophy, things changed quickly.

What Hypatia did not realize was that most of the people in the audience had not come to hear her speak, but only to lay eyes on the elite lady whom their bishop had taught them was in allegiance with the devil. Most of them had lived in Alexandria all their lives and had never seen Hypatia. They supposed that her purity was a demon’s disguise of black magic.

“…For the truth is that Christ can be found within each one of us. His birth demonstrates a metaphorical birth into a spiritual life through the purified heart.” Hypatia’s voice became emphatic. “You see, Mary was not merely the mother of the man we call Jesus, but the mother of Emmanuel, God with us, Christ everlasting. She came to show us that Christ is not separate from us. He was sent to teach us by example. When the mind, through contemplation, fasting and focus upon eternal concepts, has been cleansed, then the Self is made pure, and Christ through each of our hearts can be born again on the Earth and we too can live close to God.” Hypatia paused. Although gnostic teachings had gone out of fashion in Alexandria the century before, the orthodox had taken root more deeply than she ever imagined.

“Heretic!” A man at the back of the lecture hall suddenly stood up and pointed angrily at Hypatia.

“Sorceress!” screamed another.

Hypatia tipped her head, confused. Had they not heard her words? She had just delivered the essence of the Christian faith. Could they not recognize the truth for what it was? Eager to make herself clear, Hypatia began again, her smile dimming slightly.

“You mistake me. What I mean to profess is how each of us can become purified in our own lives. Each of us can become Christ-like, not Christ himself. He was an example to us. We do not have to simply worship his teaching. Jesus himself told us ‘Greater works than these shall ye do’.” Hypatia opened her mouth to go on, but a stout, middle-aged man in the front row rose angrily to his feet and shouted at her.

“How dare you speak of Christ, you pagan whore!” Then he turned to the audience behind him. “This witch speaks the devil’s words! We should not be blinded by her clever tongue!”

The audience began to stir uneasily.

Then there was a loud bang in the foyer as the doors to the lecture hall were thrown open. The torches that stood in the back of the hall blew sideways in the sudden gust of wind as twenty priests in black robes swept into the room: the Parabolani, followed by priests of Nitria who had come from the southern desert at Cyril’s behest. As they walked down the isles, they unsheathed their swords and raised them like silver crosses to the night.

Hypatia watched as the men began to stream down the isles, led by Cyril’s interpreter, Peter the Reader.

“Seize her!” he yelled, and the crowd sprung to their feet.

Hypatia, having never known a moment of doubt in herself or her teaching in all the occasions she had stood before an audience, suddenly stopped. She backed away from the dais slowly, seized by newfound terror, her eyes growing wide as she recognized her mistake.

All thoughts except one vanished from Hypatia’s mind immediately.

Flee.

Sofia clung tightly to Hannah’s hand as she smoothed Sofia’s hair back from her damp forehead with the other. “Breathe deeply,” she said as Sofia clenched her teeth and groaned.

The midwife worked calmly. “We are very close now.”

Sofia’s labor had gone on throughout the entire day and into the evening. Hannah had not realized until now how easily Alaya’s birth had been by comparison. Sofia’s pelvis was so narrow, and the baby’s head so large, that her efforts to push the child from her womb were thus far ineffective.

The midwife sighed and wiped her forehead with the back of her sleeve. “Rest a moment, Sofia,” she said. “Take a breath.”

Sofia nodded, the pain so great that her lips quivered uncontrollably. She looked up at Hannah fearfully from where she was squatting on the floor beside the window in Alizar’s tower, where she had decided to birth the child. Hannah squeezed her hand. “Be brave. The baby is almost here.”

The midwife bent down and began to rummage through her bag. She carefully withdrew a short silver knife and concealed it inside her sleeve so that Sofia would not see. If necessary, she would cut the mother to free the baby, but not yet. These births where the child was turned with its spine against the mother’s spine never went as well as the others. She did not want anyone to be alarmed just yet.

Sofia closed her eyes and whispered a prayer of strength to the Goddess. “Be with me now, Mother. Be with me now, Isis and Artemis.”

“The child wants to be born, dear one. Push now,” said the midwife.

Sofia drew energy up from the earth and dug her fingernails into her kneecaps, and the baby’s head appeared between her legs, a mess of black hair on its head.

Two more pushes and the shoulders came one at a time, and then the babe was free. The midwife caught the child, covered in blood and fluid, and let out a cry of delight. “A boy. Good fortune for your family. Very good fortune indeed.” She cleaned the baby swiftly and presented the tiny child to his mother in a fleece blanket as his gentle cries filled the room.