Written in the Ashes (41 page)

“Gaia,” said Stella. “I bring you Hannah of Alexandria.”

Hannah stepped forward, her head bowed.

The Pythia laughed chimerically. “The Goddess will never die, dear girl. The Christians are not so powerful as that.” The voice of a child spilled from the veiled figure seated upon the dais, a sapphire gown of silk flowing all around her like the tide. She was merely a girl.

Hannah looked up, surprised.

“Do not be afraid, Hannah,” said the child, her voice so pure and kind. “You are the last. The last seeker who will ever come to Gaia, the oracle of Apollo, the oldest vestige of the ancient wisdom. I have many things to tell you, and you must listen with your heart and promise to remember.”

Hannah nodded and knelt upon the floor at the base of the dais. “I promise,” she said.

“Good,” said the oracle firmly. “Do not despair over Delfi. Anything that dies is reborn a thousand times. In this way, there is nothing that does not live forever.

“In human ignorance of transformation we seek to preserve forever what thrives today, but the great secret is that our world is always changing forms. What blossoms must also wilt. What dies will be reborn. It is the way of life eternal, and the greatest secret the Earth possesses.”

The oracle laughed, amused. “All tides must flow in two directions; their source is what remains the same. But no matter how they ebb and flow, all seasons, all tides, all contraries are connected. Forever. It has always been this way: one extreme becoming the other in a never-ending spiral of birth, decay, rebirth.”

“But everything will be lost,” said Hannah.

“It is true that the teachings of the Goddess are disappearing. Her sons reject her. They do what every child must, or all would remain with the parents forever.” The oracle shifted her position slightly, an aura of blue light appearing around her veil. Her voice lilted happily. “But you, fair daughter of the desert, you have been chosen to bring a child into the world who will learn the sacred ways and carry them in its blood through the coming times of darkness. All will not be lost.”

Hannah shifted on her heels. “When shall this child come to me?”

The Pythia smiled beneath her veil. “When? Why, it grows within your womb even now.”

Could this be? Hannah brought her hands to her belly. Her moonblood had not arrived, but this was not unusual; she assumed the seasickness had delayed it. But what if the Pythia was correct? Could this child before her truly see what Hannah herself had not even known? As she traced the weeks in her mind back to the time of her last moonblood she grew anxious. She could not even remember now when she had bled last but it had to be before leaving for Pharos. If this was so, then she had only one question: would the child be Gideon’s or Julian’s? Perhaps the oracle knew. “If this child grows within me, Gaia, then who is the father?”

“God is the father, Hannah. Your child is of heaven and earth.” The Pythia paused. Universes unfolded in her breath. “As are all children.”

Hannah listened intently and her heart felt lifted with this strange news, news she dared not ponder any more deeply, for there was something she needed first to say. She stepped forward, “Beloved Pythia, I have come from Alexandria, sent on a quest by Master Junkar of the Nuapar.”

“Yes, I know,” said the Pythia child, pointing. “Look there.”

Hannah turned and took several paces toward a small wooden chest, simple, its lid painted with the image of the winged sun disk of Isis. It was probably the most unadorned item in the room.

“Open it,” said the oracle.

Hannah knelt and unlatched the chest, lifting the lid. Inside was a bundle of burgundy cloth. She withdrew it and held it to her breast, then closed the chest.

“Unwrap it,” said the Pythia.

Hannah set the bundle down on a kilim and slowly unbound it until she saw the green glass of the Emerald Tablet, so beautiful it seemed alive, pulsing with energy and light, a curious script embossed on its surface. But when the last of the cloth fell away, it revealed a jagged edge where the tablet had been broken.

Hannah held it aloft in her naked hands. “This is only the lower half of it?” she said, realizing as she stroked her hands across the jagged edge what it meant. It seemed so utterly wrong, the fluted edge jagged and sharp. Hannah trembled with fear. Was this what Julian had intended?

The Pythia shifted on her tripod chair. “Hannah. Listen to me now. The other half you must retrieve from the Oracle of Amun-Ra, deep in the Egyptian desert in the Siwa Oasis.”

Hannah looked up. What? Surely the Pythia did not mean this. “No. It cannot be. And even if it is, I must refuse.”

The Pythia laughed. “So you thought this was the end of your quest. No. It is the center. You are already bound, by oath and by fate. You have no choice.”

Hannah touched her belly with one hand. “But—”

“The child will be safe. Your lineage of children, Hannah, all through the generations, must guard the secret of the Emerald Tablet. The world will be entirely different one day, perhaps open to its wisdom. People will soar through the sky in metal birds and communicate though tiny boxes. You cannot imagine what I have seen.”

“I will do as you ask,” said Hannah, troubled but fervent.

The Pythia dropped her head forward. Sadness seeped from her bones into the room, as if what she had to say came from such finality she knew nothing could undo it. Even for such a young child, her burden seemed so heavy. When the girl on the throne lifted her head again, it was to speak the very last words of the Oracle of Delfi.

“Tell your people that the carven halls of Delfi have fallen in decay. Apollo will not come again to this prophesying bay. The talking stream is dry that hath so much to say.”

Hannah drew her breath in sharply. The only sound in the room came from the fire in the basin.

The oracle froze like a statue, and Hannah knew at once she was expected to leave. She rebound the upper half of the Emerald Tablet in the linen cloth and clutched it to her breast.

Her audience with the Pythia had ended.

So.

The travelers returned to Athens by nightfall on a rickety cart given them by Stella, driven by Gideon and pulled by the bay horse, its shiny black eyes the size of bumblebees. Above them the dark sky rumbled, and two fat drops struck the backs of Hannah’s hands. Gideon clucked to the horse and smacked it on, eager to miss the rain, though they had to stop several times for sheep in the roads, the shepherds and their golden dogs never in a hurry to push the animals along.

The women gathered the blankets tightly around themselves and huddled together for warmth, taciturn and solemn, but none more so than Hannah, who felt at the bottom of the world with a whole new quest before her, and one that may be even more dangerous than the last; and she was with child. She had not been able to bring herself to tell them. She could scarcely even admit it to herself, lest her heart come undone.

Each traveler felt a deep, silent sorrow in the oracle’s pronouncement. They did not speak as they neared that place in the road where the body of the ox driver, or what might be left of it, lay hidden in the river. How could they?

Hannah could not keep Julian from her mind. She could be carrying his child, if what the oracle had said was true.
His child
. How could it possibly be Gideon’s? With Julian, there had been so much. She wanted nothing more than to see him, to press her ear to his chest and hold him, to tell him how their child was growing inside of her. Hannah watched the clouds in the sky, scrying for an answer. How she wanted to return to Pharos to find him. But Julian was dead, and Master Junkar was on his way to India. She was alone, entirely alone, and with a secret that would tarnish her reputation and leave her without a home, for even Alizar would surely reject her now and cast her into the street.

Hypatia also struggled within herself as with the finest adversary imaginable. She had murdered a man.
Murdered
. His blood had stained her hands. Every time she shut her eyes she saw it all again. How could she ever reconcile herself to what she had done? She felt ill a thousand times over. How could she face her students with such a treacherous secret to hide? She would have to cleanse herself somehow, perform twice as many austerities to atone for what she had done.

As the cart waggled along, a wheel would strike a stone and jostle them, and the women in the rear would look at one another, their eyes filled with concern. And so it was that the women became bonded to one another beyond what any of them had known or defined as family. They were bound by the experiences they had shared, by death, the journey, the words of the oracle, the unfamiliar wilderness, as people are always more bonded to one another that have shared a bag of salt than a bag of sugar.

“I am going to speak to Alizar. I think you should live in the Great Library when we return,” affirmed Hypatia, squeezing Hannah’s hand as a white vein of lightning struck the distant mountains. “Synesius will continue to tutor you. I will see to it that you have a room with a view of the gardens.” How she longed for the precious, safe walls of the Great Library, the only home she had ever known. Once they retuned to Athens, Hypatia decided, they would collect their things and the
Vesta
would sail straight away, provided the weather would allow it.

Hannah nodded, unable to speak the words that were turning in her mind.

The damp stone streets of Athens lay shrouded in heavy-bellied clouds that hung low to the ground, suggesting that rain had come and would return again soon. They slept only one night in the Inn of the White Raven, and then packed their belongings. At dawn, the full force of the storm struck, turning the sparkling cerulean sea to a dismal slate grey. The
Vesta
rocked and swayed gently in her slip as Alexandria’s dolphin circled slowly in the dimpled water, rising for breath just beyond the stern of the ship.

Gideon felt eager to get underway to avoid further inclement weather in the crossing, and suggested they stay the night in Harmonia before taking on the Mediterranean. As they carried their things up the dock, Hypatia looked over at Hannah and noticed how her cheeks began to pale. “Oh, Mother of Zeus, I forgot.” Hypatia dropped her bags. “We must get some herbs for your seasickness. Gideon!” Hypatia yelled for the captain. “We must go to the herbalist. Do not sail without us.”

Hypatia and Hannah took off down the docks, asking where they might find the apothecary. An old woman with a tattered scarf drawn over her head lifted a gnarled finger and pointed down an alleyway.

In between the winding narrow passageways, on every doorstep stood or sat several rough-looking women, once objects of beauty, their hair tangled and matted, their elegant clothing torn and soiled, their eyes hollow as holes in the ground. Some smoked. Others spat. Most just hunkered, keeping out of the rain. Seeing Hypatia and Hannah in fine clean clothes, a few of them called out rudely. Hypatia dropped her head and quickened her steps while Hannah allowed herself to glance at the broken women, the unwanted ones who had to leave the brothels because they had grown too old, too unkempt, or been injured by some rough sailor. Synesius had taught her that long ago the prostitutes had held a respected place in the temples of Greece, in a time before the brothels. They were needed to soften the soldiers of war, re-integrating them into society. They served the Goddess called by many names, She who was the Mistress of Heaven, Earth and Sea. The women of the temples were worshipped then. What would happen to them now?

Around the last corner, Hypatia looked up to find herself standing eye to eye with a shrunken woman who was about her own age, once a celebrated courtesan, though she looked infinitely older. Her scarred fingers curled around an
amphora
of wine; her eyes were encircled by dark blue rings of impoverished sleep. When she saw Hypatia, she stared remorselessly.

Hypatia froze.

The two women locked eyes and neither looked away.

In the gaze of the whore, Hypatia could not move. She felt the hardened eyes staring straight through her soul as if to say,
I know what you have done.

Hypatia tried to swallow, to look away, but she could not.

“Come, Hypatia.” Hannah took Hypatia’s arm. “Come.”

Slowly, Hypatia turned, though she kept glancing back to see the steely eyes of the whore still fixed upon her as if condemning her to death. Hypatia shuddered and quickly turned the corner with Hannah, who stopped and took her friend by the shoulders. “You must let it go,” she said firmly. “Had you not killed him, he might have robbed and killed us all. What you did was entirely just.”

Hypatia met Hannah’s eyes with her own. “It has stained my soul,” she whispered.

Hannah shook her head. “Your soul could never be tainted by justice.”

Hypatia nodded, her eyes far away. No words could dispel what she already knew, the dark fate she had sealed for herself.

They found the front gate of the apothecary on the next street, which opened into a pristine courtyard where a statue was surrounded by moss and vines. “I will go in and talk to him,” said Hannah, touching Hypatia’s shoulder. “Wait here.”