Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria

by Ki Longfellow

  I do not toss and I do not turn, but lie still as death in my bed. Miw no longer growls low in her throat. As still as my cat in the night, do I mistake a slight movement along the hall, one that passes my door? If so, who else but Minkah come to see that I breathe as I would know he breathes—and I think to call out, to assure him I live, to ask that he enter my bed, when my voice dies in my throat. It could not be Minkah for my beloved would not make such sounds. These are slight, quick, furtive.

  Does a thief pad by my half-open door? Or one who has come to ensure I shall never awaken again? As if this were not enough, scarcely breathing, I remember my work. Of all nights, on this night I neglected returning the codices to their wooden chest. I did not lock my armaria.

  Nildjat Miw does not lie still as I lie still nor does she wait. Up and streaking for the door before I can even think to stop her—by the eye of Bast, if she is hurt, if she is killed! Year after year, Father lay abed, hiding from a world grown dark. I am not my father. Before Miw is out my door, I am up and after Miw. And as I go, I take up the knife kept under my pillow.

  A murderer takes only my life, a thief only my goods, but an agent of Cyril might take my life’s work!

  Barefoot, my hair wild from the restless tossing of my head, I make no noise as I move swiftly down cold steps of black obsidian, following Miw who follows the faint light from below. If Parabalanoi, then he has come for Minkah. But Miw does not pause at Minkah’s door and the light is nowhere near. It shines out from my workroom where my work lies loose on my mother’s green table.

  Knife in hand, muscles tensed for whatever comes, I slip through the arched door, guarded by Thoth and by Seshat, only to stop as if I have walked into a wall. There stands my thief. An open satchel in one hand, in the other a scroll—one of the Magdalene’s, transcribed by her greatest friend, Seth of Damascus—and next to, shading the flame of a small candle, Ife the African, grown old in the service of the family of Theon.

  My thoughts burn to ash.

  Minkah is suddenly behind me, his own knife drawn, Nildjat Miw stands on the table, her tail violently twitching, but no matter that she faces us all, no matter that she is most horribly surprised and most shamefully caught, Jone leaps for me, crying out: “I do God’s work! Why does He stop me!”

  Should she mean me mortal harm or merely mortal sorrow, I drop my knife, hear it clatter on the stone of the floor, remain still as my sister beats at me until both she and I are exhausted, for I will not turn my body from her blows or from her hatred. And all the while Minkah holds ready his knife until Jone, without satchel or papers, but a face grown gaunt with torment, turns and runs from a house that is ever and always hers.

  No more would I punish Ife than I would Jone, for Ife has ever pitied my sister and given what she could give. But when I look she too is gone.

  ~

  Minkah and I sit in the window Lais once sat in, our faces lit by the stars and then by the rising of the sun. By the time it stands full above the rim of the earth, as round and as red as a pomegranate, it is decided between us. My work must rest with the Great Library. It must live in the caves, forever if that is its fate. Only now do I know its name: The Book of Impossible Truth.

  I have decided a further thing, a thing I must do alone.

  My world dies. Before it is gone forever, I must learn to Live.

  ~

  Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria

  As Bishop of Alexandria, its true Holy Father, first among many, I call for the bearers of my golden litter to halt, causing the bronze litter beside me also to halt, and the enameled litter behind the bronze. I sit up with the help of a slave, and stare at the house before me.

  Staring, the voice of my mother comes to my ear as the shriek of a chariot wheel, shrill with irritation. “Cyril! I could have fallen!”

  The play we’ve just seen was not Roman but Greek. Greek plays are nothing but talk. Roman plays are all action: limbs lost, women raped, men buggered, buttocks bared, cocks waggled, and blood everywhere, squirting like milk from teats. I should have told her it was Greek. That way, she would not have come.

  I ignore her. Two years firmly clamped to the Throne of Mark, sending out decrees and edicts to all of Egypt and to Libya, I now ignore Theophania, sister to the deceased Theophilus and mother to myself. If she is irritated, I am nearing exasperation. Could I send her away, a house in Canopus, order that she never return? But her voice would still reach me: letters, messengers, the gossip of others. Could something more permanent be arranged? Interesting question.

  Time enough for that. I turn to my friend, the skeletal Hierax, dwarfed in the litter beside me. I know I am huge. But is this not as God made me? “That house, the one lit like a palace. The courtyard seethes with noise and upset. I recognize faces. There and there! And there! See them? Christians of influence! Who lives in this house to have so many guests of import?”

  Hierax is surprised I do not know, but I cannot know everything. If I trust anyone, and I do not, I trust Hierax who bears scars from Orestes that will never fade. Answering, he keeps his high voice flat. Bothersome thing to know one is feared by all. But also exhilarating. “That is the House of Hypatia, Cyril. She is doted on and worshipped.”

  I show no surprise at Hierax’ answer, though I am surprised, and not only because I did not know the house. It is how the house affects me. Unless ordered to, none comes to the House of Cyril—lately the House of Theophilus, and before that the home of rich nameless Greeks. None come happily. No horses clatter in my courtyard. No litters are strewn about awaiting their occupants. No voices are raised in greeting. My halls are not filled with guests, my atrium not filled with discussion and praise, the room in which I dine each night is empty of all save myself. In short, I am not doted on nor am I loved.

  My heart shrinks in my chest until it feels the size of a pebble, some small thing rolling at the edge of the sea, back and forth, going nowhere, meaning nothing, a stone among stones. I think of Jone, whey-faced and cringing as she told me she’d failed to acquire her sister’s papers, but swore she would not fail twice. Physical violence is a crudity left to others, yet at the whispered news I’d flung out my arm and slapped her. The sound of the slap was meaty. Jone is no more than meat. And yet, could it be I am no more than Jone? Hypatia is loved. Jone is not loved. I glance at Theophania, bitch mother and witch. To think of myself as I think of Jone brings me to the point of madness. Staring at the brilliant house of the brilliant Hypatia, I feel myself a homeless cur in the streets. As a dog, I would howl.

  And there and then, as suddenly as if God were speaking directly into my ear, I know my enemy. Not Orestes. Not Timothy. Not Flavius Anthemius. These are mere mortals. It is Hypatia, goddess, pagan, loved beyond reason, a woman. Only a demon has the power to stand between God’s earthly emissary, Cyril of Alexandria, and the love of the people of Alexandria. Only a demon could have tempted me to listen to her, day after day. Only a demon could have entered my thoughts, night after night. If I am the emissary of God, and I am, Hypatia of Alexandria is the emissary of what is not God, in other words, Satan.

  “Walk on!”

  Startled, my bearers lurch forward, coming close to tipping my enormous bulk into the street. I see my mother think to laugh, but Theophania is not entirely insensitive. Laughter would be a mistake.

  ~

  Hypatia of Alexandria

  Because Orestes visits the City of the Dead on the very day Minkah and I inspect the work on my family’s tomb—Father’s artisans do what they ever do; take twice as long and cost twice as much—we find ourselves visiting with him, trailed by his guard, tripled now after the adventure of Ammonius the monk and his well-thrown rock. Behind these, follows a host of those paying court. Away we all go, leaving the riot of living as we pass under the Moon Gate. Guests from Canopus, from Carthage, from Memphis, lift their robes in vain hope of avoiding the dust. It is no easy thing to step around great openings in the earth that descend five or six levels down, no easy th
ing to breathe the incense, thick as smoke.

  Kastor, once neighbor to Orestes, and fresh from Constantinople, trips along speaking to us of Aelia Pulcheria.

  “No matter the hour,” he says, at the same time yipping in surprise as the gaunt head of a gravedigger appears at the top of a spindly ladder, “the Imperial Palace of Constantinople is nothing but fasting and praying. Men and woman are kept apart, even those married. Children are not allowed to be seen for fear of levity before God. Those who can flee, do flee. My family and I are one of the lucky ones. We had money. But those who do not, fast and pray to keep their heads.”

  “If not for Anthemius,” asks a nervous magistrate from Clysma, a city near the Red Sea, neither of which I have ever seen, “how far would she go?”

  Not Kastor but Orestes answers: “Pulcheria rules the Emperor Theodosius II completely. Only Flavius Anthemius stands between the pious madness of a ruthless Pulcheria and the impious ambition of a ruthless Cyril.”

  A pall has fallen over what is already somber. Minkah’s voice, meant to lighten, causes only further gloom. “Fanatics are not to be trusted, not even to act in their own best interests.” But before he is finished speaking, a messenger finds us, handing a note to Orestes.

  Whatever is written causes the face of our Augustal Prefect to turn white and his lips to thin. I place my hand over his. It is cold and still. “Orestes, what is it?”

  In answer, he thrusts the note into my hand. I quickly read: To Orestes, Prefect and Governor of Egypt. This day we learn that Flavius Anthemius is put to death by order of Pulcheria Augusta, for reasons of high treason. It is signed by a name I do not know, but is surely one of Orestes’ spies, for all men of power have spies. I read it twice more, and then I read it aloud.

  There is nothing but more silence in the City of Silence and Death.

  Now I take Minkah’s hand and hold it. I glance round at the graves. How great the darkness.

  The first month, 415

  Minkah the Egyptian

  I, Minkah the Egyptian fool, was born as most men and will die as most men, never seeing more of the world than I have already seen. I will never read all its books or drink all its wines or be father to those taking the place of myself. I have asked no woman to give over her life to me, not even my darling, though I have known the bodies of many women. I have done my share of killing. I have made certain those I love were not killed. Those I would kill from pique, I have not killed. All these things and more are part of the story of Minkah, but I am ready to leave this place. The dark world I knew is darker now. Man himself is darker, a thing I did not think possible. I grow sick of it all.

  But there is one thing I have which no other has. I have the love of Hypatia of Alexandria.

  Even so, I, who have never gone in fear, go now in fear—not for myself, but for her. With the death of Flavius Anthemius, the raging bladder that has squeezed itself through the door of the House of Theophilus and stuffed itself into his glittering robes of high office, is now free to act. The ambition of Cyril soars higher than hawks as he has ever had the ear of Pulcheria. Not only is the usurper mad but mad too is the sister of a feeble minded boy—and both are bad. Pulcheria is much the madder, and by virtue of her station, much the more dangerous.

  Men who have swallowed the moon creep and crawl through our deserts as scorpions creep and crawl. But where some cause only themselves to suffer, Pulcheria, once merely a wraith in rain, is now the rain itself…pouring down on all. By her unholy god’s unholy wrath, that I could get my hands on that brainless priest-ridden girl—the life she so hates would be over with one red slash. She would be with her god and he, poor sMpiM, with her.

  But to send Pulcheria to her “heaven,” I must leave Hypatia, and that I cannot do. There have been mumblings and grumblings. Felix Zoilus tells me she is called witch by those not fit to look even once on her face. They say she is devoted to magic and astrolabes and musical instruments. Like her father, does she not believe in the sorcery of stars and the witchery of dreams? Shouting at the top of his voice, a man stood in a crowded square near the Port of the Lake: “Blame the pagan woman! She stands between Cyril and Orestes! If not for her, there would be peace in our streets and our hearts!” Felix cut out his tongue. But that is Felix. What can be done?

  What fools, men—their foolishness drives them towards evil as fish are driven towards nets. Of all who dwell in this city, none is as dark as Cyril, and none so light as Hypatia. Who among those who shout and those who listen fathom even one portion of the beauty that is her mind or her spirit? Yet, by the wiles of Cyril, they would turn on her, a treasure rarer than rubies.

  Hypatia, in her way, is also a fool. Living in mind, she knows nothing of greed or of lust or of envy or the rage of ignorance aligned with the fever of ambition. Before these things, she is helpless. What she does not recognize she has no defense against. In all my life I have known only one who was not a fool. The first daughter of Theon knew what Hypatia does not know. The defense of Lais was to understand and by understanding, to forgive. Hypatia is not as Lais. Nor am I.

  Raising a mob is as easy as pissing. A few choice words, a few grievances blamed on some other, a mention of satanic rites. The demos fear everything now…omens they are forbidden to believe in, but believe in as strongly as ever: crows, weeping statues, eclipses of the sun. No one will sneeze to the left. All that is needed is a finger pointed, a call to the gods for “justice,” and away all gallop, baying for fresh hot blood.

  Year after year, Theophilus kept his dogs off Hypatia knowing she was more loved than he. Cyril is not Theophilus. Those called “great” are capable of great evil in pursuit of what they believe great good…by which they mean good for them. I suspect Cyril of great evil, done not by him, but for him.

  My beloved is not unaware of her danger, but she is innocent of the unthinking fools urged to consider her not with boundless civic pride, but as “the pagan woman.”

  ~

  The second month, 415

  Hypatia of Alexandria

  Her belly full of stars, black Nut arches over the earth. Fifteen years have come and gone since I last saw the dark ridge where Minkah has hidden the library and the words of Lais sleep.

  Bia is easy and quiet as I gaze up at the stars of Nut, worlds as our world, each lost in a dark as sleek as ink, and Mind throughout all.

  Beside me, my beloved sits astride Ia’eh. Between us stands Nuri, dim white by starlight, carrying on his back baskets filled with the books I have come to leave with all else waiting deep in the earth.

  What I do now I must do alone. Minkah and I have argued long and hard. He would leave Alexandria. To go where, I ask? Dark wings unfurl over all. And to be born again, I must hurry…for what comes now, comes fast. Minkah is stricken, but does as he has ever done: understands.

  For twelve years, I have read and reread the words of those who know. I have learned it is not something I can learn. No one can teach me it. If I knew, I could not teach it myself. How to give to others a direct, immediate, personal experience of Divine Consciousness? It cannot be done. It is not meant to be done. Such a thing is a gift given to the self by the self.

  Some find it in illness or in grief or through exalted joy. Some suddenly rise through the juice of the poppy. Some spend a lifetime of disciplined seeking. But none have found it through intellect. And did Lais not tell me this…and was I not deaf to her?

  A wind has risen so suddenly it causes the sands to circle and dance. The horses snort and toss their heads, dancing with the wind and the sand.

  “A storm!” shouts Minkah, “and before it a whirlwind!” The stars wink out, one by one by one, and in their place come fast moving clouds, clouds like ships of black pitch sailing over a sea of tossing sand. “Hypatia, turn away! We must beat the wind.”

  My beloved is right. I must beat the wind. I need not ask her: Bia runs as she has never run, though we seem miles from the ridge of dark stone and the caves in the ridge and the books i
n the caves, and the rain comes like the lashing of loose linen sails, rain enough to fill the gullies and depressions in an instant, rain enough to drown us for there is now more water than air. Nuri, attached by a short lead shank to my saddle, follows—if he screams in the wind or the rain, I cannot hear him, nor, glancing back, can I see him, though I know he is there by the tension on the lead. But of Minkah, I see and hear nothing.

  If he does as I ask of him, he does not follow.

  Leaning close over the neck of Bia, my face in her mane, I sit high on her back, riding with one hand wrapped in the black of her rain-wet mane, and one hand gripping Nuri’s slick lead.

  What was rain turns to ice and the ice falls as white stones and the cold white stones are as big as pomegranate seeds and then as large as a nail on the thumb of Felix Zoilus, and Bia leaps forward with such abrupt and sudden power my grip is torn from both her mane and from the lead of Nuri and I would fall from her back but, somehow, I do not. And then, as suddenly as insight, the wind stops and the falling stones cease and I find Bia has entered a vast and echoing cave. Behind us, Nuri’s welcome complaint sounds. Bats too have streamed home in tremendous numbers, seeking as we sought, relief from the raging tumult. Blessed be Bia who has run faster than the rain and the stones could fall for all remains well in Nuri’s baskets. I build a fire by the opening of Bia’s cave.

  For strength, I eat a thick paste of olives and dates, feed my horses from the sack Nuri has also carried, watch the great star of the evening fade as the sky lightens in the east.

  Lais lies in a cave facing west…as does this cave. All that I do I do with trust. All that occurs is meant to occur. Bia has chosen this cave, therefore it is the right cave. The thing I do will be done though I die in the doing. But I do not come unprepared. For three days I fasted and while fasting made of silver the transcendent aqua spiritus. On the third day I drank my Spiritual Water as the full-faced moon shone down upon my head, and I called out to Inanna: Let me be as you. Lead me out of darkness into silver and Light.