Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria (32 page)

Gundisalv, hacking at a ragged creature that had hold of his horse’s long mane, yelled at one of ours to take care…but too late.
 
Our man was pulled backwards from his horse only to disappear under a dozen of them, each slashing and stabbing at the poor thing.
 
Up on her haunches, Desher whirled in place just as one, bolder than any and naked save for his loincloth, vaulted with admirable grace at Gundisalv, landing on his horse’s rump where he balanced on bare feet, and with one hand gripped Gundisalv’s hair, pulling his head back so he might with the other cut Gundisalv’s throat.
 
But as he raised his sword, I hacked off the hand that held the hair, and both hand and brigand dropped away.

It was this which finally took their heart.
 
Though we had lost half our number, they had lost more than half.
 
It was enough.
 
They were gone as silently as they came.

By those still living, I was lifted high in the air, and they laughed and they whistled…joyous to find life again theirs, especially valorous life.
 
Gundisalv swore with a great clanking of sword against breast-piece that his life was now mine.

Then and there I returned to gloom.
 
Minkah had sworn this.

~

Constantinople was as a hive of newly swarmed bees.
 
Enormous walls, doubling its size, went up from the Sea of Marmara to the Golden Horn, ordered by Flavius Anthemius…not against Barbarians, but against the hordes of starving brigands plaguing the Empire, east and west.
 
I had met his
bagaudae
and understood his walls.

The promised villa proved pleasant, its stables suitable for noble Desher, and Miw made no complaint, not even when meeting our host, Orestes.
 
Orestes was as handsome as Helios.
 
And so?
 
I had no stomach for love.
 
In one way or another, all I loved was dead.
 
But it was hell to work in the racket of wall building.

No matter which city, letters from my Companions awaited me, letters from Augustine, household letters from Ife, but no one outdid Synesius.
 
In the house of Orestes were not only nine separate letters devoted to the horrors of Constantinople, a city he loathed having been forced to sit in it for three years to gain the ear of Emperor Arcadius, but also his latest book:
Dion, or about His Life.
 
Reading of his hero Dion’s adventures, all in defense of a riotous life as opposed to one of self-denial, I found myself painted into its pages.
 
By the wrath of the father of Galla Placidia, was I that imperious, a disdainer of “lesser men”?
 
And yet,
Dion
amused me.
 
In it the ignorant desert monks were “black mantles” while those who opposed them were “white mantles.”

In the din that was Constantinople, I seldom went out, but should I, I was dogged by slavish Gundisalv who slept in the stables near Desher.

Came the day I must meet Flavius Anthemius in the Forum Tauri.
 
By meet, I mean speak before.
 
What occurred then, I did not know.
 
Nor care.

For fear of her loss in strange streets, Nildjat Miw was locked away in our borrowed villa, Desher in her stall.
 
The Forum Tauri was a straight drop down from Orestes’ hilltop villa to the Sea of Marmora.
 
I walked it, but not alone.
 
Gundisalv walked behind me until we found ourselves on the colonnaded Mese, as wide and busy with lives as the Canopic Way.
 
The Mese, and all streets leading off, was littered with stolen statues, all the quicker to grow this New Rome with its seven hills.
 
The doors, the stone columns, the marble for walls and the tiles on the floors, these were gathered from places not happy to lose them.

I walked content.
 
Even dogged by Gundisalv, an Ostrogoth broad as a wagon, it was good to be known by no one.

I had hoped to be early, but the Forum was already crammed with craning heads.
 
Shown to my seat as if I was tardy, as if I was rude, I took my place, Gundisalv standing behind me, and listened to Atticus, the Bishop of Constantinople.
 
By this I knew immediately I was not there to lecture; I was there to be harangued.
 
On the spot, I knew I would not speak but would leave both Forum and city by nightfall.
 
There was no comfort in this and no discomfort.
 
If I was tested, I would pass it in my way, not theirs.

“By Paul,” shouted Atticus, a small-boned man with large lungs, “we are
not
told that Eve suffered
alone
from deception, but that ‘Woman’ was deceived, meaning
all
women!”
 
Here the man stared directly at me.
 
“What else does the blessed Paul say?
 
‘Let a woman learn in silence.’
 
‘Let no woman raise her voice in church.’
 
The law has placed woman in subjugation to man.
 
‘If women want to learn anything, let them learn from their husbands at home.’”

Ungreeted, made to appear late, seated alone, this was the creature chosen to berate me?
 
His tone was unvaried, his form sloppy, his vocabulary limited, and as for his content…heard once in a class taught by Father, this one would fly out the door on his ear.
 
Synesius called me high-handed?
 
He did not miss his mark.
 
My heart may have slowed, but my pride lived on.

I rose.
 
I turned my head just so, only enough to catch sight of the child Theodosius II, cross-eyed with boredom.
 
But the eyes of Flavius Anthemius were like sums I must solve.
 
“And if the husband knows nothing?”

“What?”
 
Atticus could not believe I would dare speak while he was speaking.

I strode forward, Gundisalv on my heels.
 
“And if the husband knows nothing, how then shall he teach his wife?
 
If he has nothing to teach, both will live in ignorance.”

His small face a knot of smug assumption, Atticus answered, “A husband will know enough.”

“Enough what?
 
Who alive knows anything at all?”

Atticus was confused.
 
“In Paul’s time—”

“…he did not say what you claim he said, nor did he write the letters you say he wrote.
 
All these were penned by others long after his death.
 
At Paul’s side preached his wife, Thecla, more learned than the man I see before me now.”

Behind me, I heard a huge intake of breath.
 
Three of Theodosius’ four sisters were there: Arcadia, Marina, and Pulcheria.
 
The breather could only be Pulcheria, barely ten, but a Jone, though made of fire, not earth.
 
Atticus proclaimed a woman not divine.
 
He proclaimed her less than human.
 
As a woman, did I endanger myself?
 
Would his god strike me down?
 
I had arrived not caring.
 
I spoke not caring.

His neck stretched from its collar like Honorius’ prized rooster, Atticus crowed, “Blasphemy!
 
Lies!”

“It is you who lie, and your lies are intolerant and cruel—even unto evil.
 
Socrates taught the only evil was ignorance.”

“You call me evil!”

“I call you ignorant—and to hear the ignorant speak out with authority is a great evil.
 
You touch people’s hearts.
 
You reach for their souls.
 
You repeat what you have heard.
 
You question nothing.
 
You expect no one to question you.
 
Called to speak, yet I listen to insult and calumny.
 
You tell me, Hypatia of Alexandria, that because you possess an organ that even a dog possesses I am nothing in the eyes of your god?”

Came a voice from behind, a child’s voice.
 
“Woman, be still!”

I turned, slowly.
 
Years before, the eunuch Eutropius lost his head by order of Eudoxia, Pulcheria’s mother.
 
As sole master over the slow mind of Arcadius, Pulcheria’s father and Emperor of the East, Eutropius had outwitted and thus ruled the court, yet made the fatal blunder of voicing his contempt for Eudoxia, Empress of the East, a woman far from slow.
 
“I who brought you here,” he was said to have said to her, “can throw you out.”
 
And there went his head.
 
I risked mine with the spawn of Arcadius and Eudoxia.
 
“Dare not silence me, child, for in silencing me, you silence learning.
 
You silence questioning.
 
You silence even divinity, for all are divine, and all partake of what you call god.
 
You have not one idea of the Christ you so love, for if you did, it would be you and your bishop who would fall silent on the instant.”

Their bishop had decided to placate this foreign guest.
 
“I forgive you, daughter.
 
Ten times ten I would forgive you as our savior would have me do.”

“That is generous of both of you.
 
And I forgive you.”

“Forgive me!”

“For so maligning my sex.
 
If I were to say such things of men, and all women believed and applauded me, would you be pained?”

“But I, but you…what foolishness.
 
How could I be pained by what is not true?”

“Is it not?
 
And how do you know?”

“Because all men know.”

“And how do they know?”

“Is it not obvious?
 
A man is stronger in every way.”

“Are you stronger than me?”

Greatly amused, Atticus glanced at Pulcheria, but answered me.
 
“As I am a man and not a woman, of course.”

“If you can prove this to me in body and mind, my soul is yours.”

His look proclaimed me mad.
 
Yet I did no more than Socrates would have done.
 
Ask a man enough questions, and his belief in his understanding fades before him as does a dream upon waking—unless it is a true understanding.
 
“Read the book, daughter.
 
That is proof.”

“I have read books all my life.
 
I have read your book.
 
Not one has told me the truth because no man knows the truth…and all books are written by the hand of man.”

He sucked in his gut with horror.
 
“God wrote this book.”

“And how was that accomplished?”

“He dictated it to certain prophets.”

“Who said so?”

“Why, they did.”

“I see.
 
And were these prophets gods?”

“Dear me, no.
 
They were men.”

“Ah.
 
Would you say then your belief in the word of your god is based on the claims of other men?”

Then and there, though I was breathless with insult as well as quickened with catastrophe, I stopped.
 
Atticus was not Theophilus.
 
His faith was no game he played.
 
It was not a mantle to put on or be taken off as the need arose.
 
The stories he took so literally he held dearer than his own life and he could not doubt them.
 
Doubt would have destroyed him.
 
I had no desire to destroy a foolish old man who suffered a fatal ignorance.

Long before this, those who had listened were gasping or coughing or fleeing their seats.
 
But not Gundisalv, who fondled his sword.
 
Or Orestes, observing all with interest.

Flavius Anthemius alone walked forward and I trembled, afraid to live, afraid to die.
 
“Live in the palace, Hypatia.
 
Whatever you want, whatever you need, I will provide you it.”

“Thank you, but my cat would go home now.”

~

Sixty-three days at sea, each wintry and cold, I no longer pretend I cannot see the white in the red of Desher’s muzzle or note the falter in her balance.
 
Below decks, we sleep, her head cradled in my lap, as Nildjat Miw curls in the curve of Desher’s lovely red neck.

This night Desher softly nickered, breathed one last time in my mouth, and “fell asleep.”
 
My beloved mare leaves this place, still warm, still sweet with the smell of the truest friend, other than Miw, who is left me.

Epona!
 
Goddess!
 
Accept the soul of this one.
 
Let her race on the cold sands of her cold desert.
 
Let her eat sweet spring grass and nibble white winter snow.
 
Let her remember me as I shall ever remember her.

Cats are far wiser than we; their language is silence.