Written in the Ashes (8 page)

“Hannah, Alizar is also an alchemist.”

“Sounds like a gypsy tale.” Hannah set her bowl down, leaned back on a thick square cushion, and began to finger the tassels sewn to the corners.

Jemir chuckled. “Do not say that to Alizar.”

“An alchemist knows how to make gold. I saw someone in the market do it once.” Tarek smiled his crooked, corn kernel grin, then rested his hand on Hannah’s shoulder.

Hannah’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and she shifted on the cushion so that he would move his arm.

“You will hear that rumor and many others about alchemists on the streets,” said Jemir. “Only the initiated know truth from tale. You see, Hannah, the techniques of alchemy are taught to the monks in the Temple of Poseidon on Pharos, where Alizar spent his boyhood. The seven secrets of alchemy are etched upon a legendary stone called The Emerald Tablet, which was discovered by Alexander the Great when he traveled to the Siwa Oasis.”

“Truly?” asked Hannah. “I would love to see such a tablet.”

“No one knows where it is. The Nuapar monks on the isle of Pharos guard the knowledge of its location.”

“Does Alizar practice these seven secrets of alchemy, then?”

“Indeed. Alizar is attempting to find a remedy for Naomi. He always returns with more herbs from his journeys to boil down into remedies,” said Jemir.

“Do you think she will live?” asked Hannah.

Jemir sighed. Leitah nodded. Tarek just stared at his wine.

There was a moment of complete silence in the kitchen until Leitah dished herself a bowl of steaming
fuul
, the bangle bracelets on her wrists clinking as she dipped flatbread in the thick broth.

Hannah looked to Jemir, her eyes full of questions about the mute maidservant.

Jemir understood. “Leitah was studying to be a priestess at the Temple of Serapis under Antoninus, but the temple was burned to the ground by the last bishop. After that she took a vow of silence.”

“How did the temple burn?”

Tarek puffed his chest like a pigeon, delighted to tell the story. “Emperor Theodosius the First made an edict forbidding pagan practices in 391, and Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria decided to enforce it without so much as a warning. He attacked the Serapeum temple, killed everyone defending it, and one of his soldiers chopped the statue of Serapis to bits. All the texts were burned, and the Christians erected a church in place of the temple.”

“The Christian bishop burned the temple?” Hannah shuddered, thinking of her introduction to the city, how the men in black robes had tortured and burned the man before the great wooden doors.

“Yes, but he is not the bishop any longer.” Tarek lowered his eyes. “His nephew holds the title now.” Cyril. The name was perched on Tarek’s tongue but he refused to speak it in Alizar’s house. Instead he spat on the stone floor.

Just then, the bell at the door sounded and Leitah rose to answer it. She reappeared a moment later and nodded to Tarek who went to see about it.

Hannah excused herself a moment later to relieve herself, but could not resist her curiosity when she saw the open window near the front door and heard the sound of a young girl crying.

She peaked through and saw Tarek, standing over the girl with his fist raised, and the girl kneeling in the street at his feet.

“I told you never to come here,” he said.

“But the child is yours,” she cried.

Tarek let his fist fall heavily on her cheek, bruising her other eye as she cried out. “You are nothing but a whore,” he said. “You service a hundred men and come to me because we have money. I am not so gullible as that. Go back and tell your bawd that if I see you here again the beating will be worse. Now go.” He kicked her to her feet, and she clutched her shawl around her body and fled.

Hannah heard the front door open and shut, and she pressed herself flat against the wall in the shadow, holding her breath as Tarek passed so he would not see her. The light illuminated her feet, and quickly she drew them back beneath her robe.

“Stupid woman,” he said, shaking the hand he had used to hit the girl. He passed by Hannah without seeing her. When he had gone, Hannah exhaled and looked back out the window to the empty street where the poor girl had been a moment before. She knew then that of all these strangers, it was only Alizar and Jemir she would trust.

5  

It was announced to the hall that the meeting of the clergy would be delayed an hour because the bishop was bathing, which was not uncommon, but this particular morning the announcement veered slightly from the truth, as he often suffered from acute constipation. When he finally arrived, red in the face from an hour of strain, the oblong stone table was surrounded by impatient faces stamped with scowls, which was for most of them a natural angle of repose.

“Heirax, your report.” Bishop Cyril took his seat at the head chair of the great table and cleared his throat. The room was deep within the bowels of the church of St. Alexander, and lacked, above all amenities, light. The stones in the wall drank in what little the candelabras provided and refused to spit out so much as a spark for the rest of the room. One of the clergy who had traveled all the way from Britannia loved this church that reminded him so much of home, but as for the rest they took no notice, for their duty involved attending to matters of law, not architecture.

Heirax cleared his throat. “The Parabolans have circulated over ten thousand treatises on Hypatia of Alexandria. It has been established further that this heretic remains a threat to our church establishment, as an order was sent to her home to disband her private meetings, and was ignored.”

“I expected as much,” said Cyril. “Continue.”

“I have held counsel with the Parabolani, Your Eminence, and they inform me that the pamphlets we have circulated mostly end up being used to wrap fish or diaper small children. The populace has simply never seen such an issue before, and perceives the documents as useful paper instead of information. You realize that most of them do not have access to parchment of their own and cannot read besides.”

Cyril spread his small, fat hands on the table, grunted, and then stood so that he could pace the length of the room to engage his mind. Forced to sit for extended periods he always became agitated, tending toward unnecessary fulminations that seldom reflected the gravity of the discussion at hand.

“Then perhaps we can supply a small paper merchant in the market who could distribute parchment to the populace so that it is not so rare a commodity when it comes time to spread ideas of importance.” The speaker was a young priest called Ammonius, who had a face the others agreed was too handsome for the work of God, though he was an effective preacher.

“No,” said Cyril wryly. “I will not have this church gifting the whole civilized world with parchment.”

Peter the Reader shifted in his seat. His legs were longer than the others and so his knees pressed uncomfortably against the staves below. “I have another idea, one I have considered thoroughly.”

“Speak it then,” said Cyril, his mouth a thin line where lips should be.

“The populace of Alexandria is well-acquainted with sorcery. Many of them are pagans with secret altars in their homes. Were we in Rome, the charge against a sorceress might be taken seriously, but here in Alexandria, it is far too ordinary.”

“You propose another charge?” asked Heirax.

“No,” said Peter. “I propose we punish the pagan women practicing sorcery. Denounce them publicly. We must educate the citizens of Alexandria that there will be no tolerance for heathens in our midst.”

Cyril smiled, and his whole face became lit with the deviousness of a small boy who has cornered a helpless dog with a stick. “Yes, very good. We shall try them publicly. Gather them in a great mass and imprison them.”

“With all due pardon, Your Eminence,” said Peter, his voice unusually high in pitch for a man of such height and angularity of frame, “imprisoning the women of Alexandria would be altered in an instant with a pardon from Governor Orestes. They would walk free and we would look the fools.”

Cyril returned to his chair, still standing. The mention of the governor unsettled him. “You have a better idea?”

“We must try them one at a time,” said Peter. “Some will renounce their sorcery and take a vow of Christ, and those will be freed. Those who do not take the vow, or who otherwise prove to be involved in witchcraft, must be made an example of.”

Heirax opened the codex before him and read aloud. “Exodus. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’.”

The clergy at the table immediately turned to discuss the matter with one another.

Heirax sat back in his chair and looked at bishop Cyril, who nodded, then raised his voice to speak. “Heirax, the High Counselor of this chamber, has spoken the righteous word of God, and reminded us of our true duty as the keepers of His law. I decree that witchcraft is a pagan abomination punishable by death in this city, and that any woman thought to be a witch will be brought to trial before the people. If she confesses to her sins and renounces her evil doing and takes up the path of the gospels of our lord Jesus Christ, she shall be forgiven. But if she does not confess, or refuses to renounce her sins, she shall be killed in a manner befitting a sorceress of black magic, by stoning or slitting of the throat.”

There was silence around the table then, until Ammonius stood and brought his hands before him. Some twenty-odd members of the clergy joined him, facing the bishop. “Praise Christ, our Lord.”

“Sit down, Ammonius,” barked Cyril. “This campaign will go on until the pagans are vanquished, and the witch Hypatia is dead. Alexandria is a Christian city, and we shall make it known to every pagan in that heathen library of theirs. Now go. Leave me to discuss the matter with my Parabolans. Heirax, summon the appointed leaders at once; I have a headache and I am tired of looking at you.” Cyril turned his head.

“As you wish, Your Eminence.” Heirax stood. “Peter, will you gather your men from the square?”

“Consider it done,” said Peter, who rose to his full height. The gesture always disturbed the bishop further, as his own height was enough of a concern for him that he had special lifts put in his shoes for when he delivered his sermons from the dais.

With Peter out of the room, Cyril’s eyes flicked to his High Counselor, Heirax, who was gathering his robes about him. “See that Peter sits on the other side of the table from me from this point forward. And I demand you leave me at once and return only when you have something interesting to report.”

Heirax nodded and stepped out of the room with the other clergy, all the while facing the bishop, never turning his back.

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