Written in the Ashes (14 page)

The next afternoon, Hannah wound through the labyrinth of stacks to the worn marble passage that had been walked by Erostosthanes, Euripedes, and Archimedes in centuries before. Her ankle was mending well, though it was still fragile, so she took the steps one at a time. When she emerged it was on a wide circular rooftop observatory with views that stretched to the horizon in all directions. There was a long pole erected in the center of the platform with a rope hanging down. The entire turret was surrounded by a waist-high balustrade that bore mysterious vertical markings, probably measurements, all along its inner edge. Hypatia, kneeling in the west and holding a brass instrument to her eye, looked toward the sun then jotted notes on a scroll in her lap.

“Hannah, how wonderful to see you. When I heard footsteps on the stairs I thought it was my assistant coming to summon me to the docks. It has been madness down there today with so many ships in the harbor arriving all at once.” Hypatia completed her observation and stood up, arching to stretch her back.

“I hope I am not disturbing you,” Hannah began.

Hypatia waved her hand, “Heavens no, if it were not for welcome interruptions I would be up here all hours of the day and night. My work is never finished. Please come have a look.”

Hannah approached. At a closer glance, she noticed that each of the notches in the top of the wall had a Greek name of some kind. “What are these?” she asked.

“The notches? They are named for each for the stars. The ancient Egyptians invented this clever system. You see, far over there is a notch on the east wall, made this morning when the sun rose,” Hypatia’s fingertip brushed a tiny notch no wider than an apple stem beside her in the wall. “And here is where it will set,” she indicated one notch a half meter to the south. “And here is where the sun will set on the solstice. We are nearly there. All the others are for the moon, the planets and the stars. This method of precise calculation is how the Egyptians knew when the Nile would flood, by tracking the movement of the stars with each season, especially the star Sirius, as its appearance usually indicates the flood.”

Hannah took in the thousands of notches along the wall made over the years, each monitoring the rise and fall of celestial bodies. What patience it had taken the Alexandrian scholars to observe them so carefully, year after year.

Hypatia strode over to a chart etched in a basin of plaster that was set on a worktable in the north. “Here is a graph of the movement of the tides with the phases of the moon, made by my student, Pos, over the last several years. He is attempting to calculate how the occurrence of the coming lunar eclipse will affect the sea. Clever dog, Pos. When you come to my lecture this coming day of Mercury, he will present his findings.”

Hannah smiled. “I look forward to it.” She still felt a sense of awe that there were calculations that could embrace the mysterious workings of nature.

Hypatia took a seat on a stone bench, moving as if her bones ached from kneeling for so long. Her eyes were puffy and her golden hair had sprung loose in ringlets all around her face as thought she might pose for a portrait of a tired goddess. Her grey philosopher’s
tribon
was wrinkled as though it had been slept in. Still, in spite of her overworked appearance, there was a fierce radiance and joy about her.

Hannah strode over to the edge of the roof and looked down on the Caesarion gardens, and the many men sauntering past the massive sphinxes set along the path overlooking the long rectangular reflecting pools speckled with lotus blossoms. “May I ask you a question, Hypatia?”

“Certainly. Anything you like.”

“Are there any other women in the Great Library?”

“None but the servants and slaves, I am afraid.”

“You must be very lonely.”

“The soul has no gender. But if I could design my life, I might enjoy more women on my staff, which brings me to the reason I invited you here. I was wondering if you might have any desire to become a scholar of music.”

“A scholar of music?”

“I think you would benefit from study in the tradition of Pythagoras. Our last music scholar has relocated to Rome, and I was thinking that you would make a marvelous fit here in the library. Synesius has spoken of your keen mind. He says you learn quickly, and upon hearing your gift of song I surmise we have the next Sappho on our hands.”

“I am afraid I am not sure what you mean.” Hannah’s hands began to sweat and she wiped them on her
khiton
.

Hypatia smiled, enchanted by the young woman before her who genuinely seemed to be unaffected by, and perhaps even unaware of, both her beauty and her talent. Hypatia cleared her throat. “What I am saying is that I would like you to play regularly at my lectures. Would you like that?”

“It would be an honor, of course, if Alizar consents.”

Hannah’s innocence about the prestige of the offer gave her all the more merit in Hypatia’s eyes. It meant she was not another myopic sycophant cloying to be near her in hopes of the attention that sometimes accompanied the lives of philosophers and scholars.

“May I speak openly with you?” asked Hannah.

“Certainly.”

“Several weeks ago I encountered the Parabolani in the street. I fear them and these public demonstrations.”

“Are the Christians so different where you come from?” Hypatia asked, incredulous.

“There are none where I am from, only Jews and gypsies.”

“Truly? How unusual. I admit the Alexandrian Christians are extreme, but they are not all this way. Think of Synesius.”

“I realize he is a Christian, but then how he can study Plotinus in your school?”

“A philosopher does not accept boundaries with beliefs. He is more gnostic than orthodox, besides.”

“You are not afraid, then? Of the consequences?”

“Of course I am, but Hannah, I learned some years ago it is a waste of one’s talent to live in fear. It is true this city is in a state of unrest. The library is in a state of unrest.
Life
is in a state of unrest. I cannot afford to let it interfere with my work, and neither can you. Courage, sister.”

“But different philosophies meet with bloodshed.”

Hypatia stood and went to the east wall, and Hannah followed her. Far below them a swarthy crew aboard a carrack entering the harbor drew down the ship’s red sails in haste. “There is one thing that elevates us here, you know, and it is not our buildings or our walls,” said Hypatia.

“What is it?” Hannah asked, her eyes full of gentleness.

“Intellect.” Hypatia turned and Hannah could see the swords gleaming in her eyes. “In the mind we are free. It is the body that leads us astray. The mind is the lotus of purity; the body and its demands are merely the mud to be transcended through yoga and concentration.”

“What is that there?” Hannah asked, suddenly catching sight of a tremendous island fortress across the eastern harbor.

“It is the Kiosk Palace of Antirrhodus.”

“Truly, a palace?” Hannah’s eyes danced like a child’s.

“Indeed, but the royal family no longer occupies it. The governor, Orestes, keeps his residence there, and the praetorian prefect of the East Emperor’s guard. The palaces Cleopatra once adored are now mere artifice badly in need of repair. Since the drought, grain production has dwindled so that there is no money for it.”

Another strip of land caught Hannah’s eye, in the northern edge of the harbor, at least seven furlongs from the shore and crowned with a magnificent building. “And that island there?”

“You have not seen Pharos? There is our lighthouse designed by Sostratus the Cnidian, the same architect who constructed the hanging gardens of Caria. It is of granite and limestone blocks, but faced with white marble, which is why it gleams so in the sun,” said Hypatia proudly. The base was a tremendous horizontal rectangle of limestone carved through the center by a line of three hundred steps, beneath which were housed all the laborers it took to keep the lighthouse functioning when it was in repair. The first tier was a vertical rectangle of limestone blocks that situated the lighthouse over a hundred meters above the sea. Above that, an octagonal cylinder of stone ornately carved and decorated with Egyptian statuary supported a circular temple at the top crowned by a golden statue of Poseidon, leaning on his trident. Hypatia explained that the impressive statues placed to either side of it facing away from the harbor were of Ptolemy and his queen. Their backs turned to Alexandria so they could be seen by arriving and departing ships from the royal harbor. “The hinges of the lighthouse mirror have become corroded from the salt air, so our parabolic reflector has not been functional for years, but between you and I, Orestes says it has been repaired. There will be a magnificent party soon to celebrate. It is a miracle the ships do not founder at the harbor’s entrance without it. And you see that smallish blue dome there? It is the Temple of Isis.”

“The Temple of Isis,” Hannah repeated thoughtfully. “And you have been there?”

Hypatia’s eyes flooded with memories, making her look almost gentle for a moment. “I was initiated there,” she said. “When my mother disappeared, my father sent me to the High Priestess to be educated. I still go visit the temple when I need a moment away from this—” she waved her arms, “—chaos.” Then Hypatia laughed the burdened laugh of those who can never escape their load. “It pains me that the powerful east-west tide of Alexandria is sweeping Pharos away. Beside the Temple of Poseidon the currents are so swift that anyone who swims there is quickly carried out to sea. Some of my staff calculated that in a thousand years, the island will have vanished into the sea.”

Hannah looked to the beautiful island that seemed so permanent and found she could not picture the scene without it.

Hypatia glanced at the sundial at the north end of the observatory and waved Hannah to follow her. “I must prepare for my lecture, come.”

They descended the stairs and turned off down a narrow passage to a short wooden door, which Hypatia opened with a key strung around her neck. As Hannah looked around the room, at the scrolls and papers that were stacked in neat piles on a fine wooden desk that overlooked the harbor, Hypatia began to narrate. “This room used to be a storage closet. It was my father’s dream to make it his private office, but he never got around to it. That is his desk, there. It supposedly once belonged to Cleopatra’s lover, Mark Antony. When my father died, I cleared the room and added the window overlooking the harbor. I apologize for the heat. Though late spring in Alexandria is usually quite pleasant, this year the drought has brought dust and swelter. But I have the window, which helps. I see every ship that comes in and goes out of Alexandria. I only hope to be aboard one of them someday.”

“Not I.” Hannah said. “I need the earth beneath my feet.”

Hypatia took a seat at her desk and began meticulously sorting through a pile of scrolls.

“Tell me something of your work,” Hannah said, taking a seat on the settee to rest her ankle. Between them a zebra skin was spread on the floor.

“My work. Well, I have had a marvelous commission this week from the bishop of Antioch, thanks to a recommendation from Synesius. The bishop would like me to build him a special hydrometer to measure the aging process of his wine. Bit of Dionysus in him, really, though he would never forgive me if he heard me say it.” Hypatia smiled, delighted to be able to speak freely.

“It must be exciting to know so many influential people,” Hannah mused.

“Yes and no. It is a burden to serve them at times. Influential people are extremely difficult when they do not get what they want. Look at Cyril.” Hypatia shook her head.

“The bishop of Alexandria?”

“Yes. He is demanding that we relinquish to him the Celestial Clock of Archimedes, which is to be destroyed.”

“Destroyed?”

“He believes the clock a sorcerer’s tool.” Hypatia tossed a pile of scrolls on the floor. “I imagine these harsh cosmopolitan ways must seem quite foreign to you. It is not a judgment. To me, the desert you come from, with its scorpions and shifting sands, is the more terrifying place. These walls mean safety to me, even if I must deal with Cyril and his men and their ludicrous requests.”

“The desert may shift, but it is always the same.”

“Like men. Like time. Like religion and like rulers. Perhaps even like God.”

“You risk your life speaking such words.” Hannah now recognized that bold speech was a dangerous characteristic in Alexandria.

Hypatia brushed the comment away with a smile. “Anyone who puts their life in the service of truth must.”

Hannah shifted her position on the settee and the floorboards creaked. “What does a library need a music scholar for? Musicians have no need for scrolls.”

“Hannah, you possess a unique talent. We have hundreds of scribes that can translate and document any language, but how will we preserve the music?”

Hannah considered it. “Songs are old as the wind, and passed down through ancestors. These things cannot be preserved any other way.”

“About that I think you are wrong. There must be a way to record the music, perhaps with some sort of Pythagorean notation. We have not much time. People are relinquishing their ancient traditions for the Christian faith. We stand to lose everything. I am sure you can see that.”

“But why oppose them? It will only bring their fury, as you have seen.” Hannah thought of the servant who was killed at the gates of the Great Library.

“You misunderstand me. I do not oppose the Christians, and neither does this library. I have many Christians on my staff. We have made more translations of the Gospels than the libraries of Athens, Ephesus, Rome, Tarsus, Antioch, Pergamon and Constantinople combined.” Hypatia paused. “Though many of those libraries have now been destroyed by the Christians.”

“Then why does Alexandria’s bishop oppose the library?”

Hypatia selected four scrolls and slid them into a leather carrier. “It is a very complicated matter. The Great Library, like the Serapeum before it, houses far more than just Christian texts. Our scribes have amassed a collection of literature from as far as India, and the content is debatable to some. To others like Bishop Cyril, it is inexcusable. Pornographic, they call it.”