Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria

by Ki Longfellow

  ~

  Hypatia of Alexandria

  “Nildjat Miw, see! A star falls.”

  My body feels as it has ever felt: bruised knees and cut feet, an aching arm, a small pain that comes and goes in one eye, the familiar gnaw of hunger. Numbers are still an exquisite delight. They are Summum, the sum of all creation. Knowledge still absorbs, alchemy still beckons. Life is still an unfolding, the farther we travel the more truth we can comprehend, and to understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond. Yet all this is as nothing. I might, at will, know bliss.

  Miw heavy in my arms, we pace the atrium. The night is chill with the Christian’s Lent, but I am wrapped in warm white wool and Miw is wrapped in striped fur, her eyes limed in black as a cheetah’s eyes. We watch a star fall as water falls, flowing down like silver. Passing under the feet of Osiris, it washes over Isis, brightest star in the sky, lost for this moment in silver spray.

  I am ravished by sky and star and cat and wool and cold and pain. I know what Lais knew. Nildjat Miw struggles in my arms.

  “What is it, Miw? Would you catch a star?”

  And with this last thing I say to her, who says nothing to me, Nildjat Miw leaps from a window as Paniwi once leapt from a window, and though I look down to the street below, I do not see her.

  Miw does nothing but that which suits her. When it suits her, she will return.

  The star has left a smear of silver, as a snail on obsidian. I am as slender as the trail of silver light that has come and is gone across the open mouth of the sky.

  Tomorrow morning I give a public lecture on Archimedes. Tomorrow afternoon, I will continue discussing geometric optics with my Companions. All know mathematics a divine discipline. Into this discipline I have introduced light. Light, of which visible light is only an aspect, is the formative principle of the universe, both material and spiritual. Somehow, I shall prove it to them. But if I do not, it is of small matter. All do what they set themselves to do.

  Tomorrow night I dine with Orestes. This night I lie with Minkah. As all now ravishes me, my beloved ravishes me most.

  Where has Nildjat Miw got herself to? She should be back by now.

  ~

  The seventh day of Lent

  Minkah the Egyptian

  Felix Zoilus and I meet where Canopic Street passes under Mount Copron on top of which still stands the Temple to Pan—Theophilus had intended to do as he usually did: gut it, steal all worth stealing, then rename it. The Temple to Pan would become the Church of Theophilus.

  Cyril the Cunning has other plans. My interest in Cyril’s ambitions is as keen as my interest in food once it’s eaten. My interest in Cyril’s plans to achieve his ambitions interest me more than wine for word reaches me that his plans include Hypatia and those like Hypatia. What that plan might be, I have yet to learn, but I shall.

  I wait with Felix, as we do every morning she lectures, in sight of the door that opens onto her stables. As she speaks this morning, Hypatia will soon pass this way, and I, fresh from our honeyed bed, will follow with Felix, keeping watch as she speaks. Felix Zoilus surprises me. He not only watches, he listens. He too has resigned from the brotherhood. Not I, but Felix, as strong and as skilled as ten combined, is a great loss to them.

  These days, Hypatia does not speak as she once did. She does not look as she once did. The sound of her voice: gentle and low, reaches to the top of the circling seats. Light streams from her body when I know there is no light. As for her words, I have never heard the like. Those come to hear her talk of numbers or of philosophers, scratch their heads—but not all. Some forget to breathe. And more come, and more, even as Felix warns that the grumblings of the ignorant who do not hear her, grow louder. Because of Hypatia, they say, Alexandria is plagued by demons.

  As if he reads my mind, Felix opens his mouth. “Last night, did you see it?”

  “See what?”

  “The star, like a spear thrown by Osiris!”

  I turn to ask him to describe it further as such things portend events, good and bad. But I say nothing for walking towards us is Isidore and behind Isidore, twenty or more Parabalanoi. This much is immediately clear. They do not come to wish us well.

  “Felix,” I hiss. “Prepare!”

  Though Felix is huge, his brain is not. Yet this day it works wonderfully well. Before I have done so, he slips his sword from his scabbard, his knife from its sheath, and is waiting beside me, steady and true.

  “Isidore,” say I, “I thought we should never meet again.”

  Once the favorite of Theophilus, once almost a bishop, he looks as he ever did, as calculating as one of Hypatia’s counting boards, yet now there is an arrow of madness there, buried to its shaft in his eye. Where once this man could be spoken to, such a gift has left him; he listens only to a voice of rage, the one he mistakes for a god. “This, I assure you, Egyptian, will be the last we meet.”

  And I am suddenly suffused with fear. Not for myself. What do I fear from death? But these, come to kill me, to kill Felix Zoilus, what can it mean? Our deaths mean nothing, but one thing—Hypatia will be alone.

  I, who have never run, would run now. I would have Felix run. But before I can move or cause Felix to move, before another useless word is exchanged, Felix Zoilus has cut off Isidore’s head. Even marred by surprise, his is a handsome face. But there are many more behind him and I am not entirely sure we can behead them all.

  ~

  Hypatia of Alexandria

  As is done week after week, year after year, a stable lad prepares my chariot. Nuri is eased first behind the wooden yoke at the end of the center pole, to be secured by a leather band around his great chest and through which the leather reins pass over his muscled shoulders. Then Nomti is placed on the far side of the same pole. All is ready.

  From the house of Hypatia on the Street of Gardens to the Agora, there is a grid of small busy streets to traverse. Today they are empty of those who usually walk them or work them—and where is Minkah, where Felix, who think I am unaware of them; where is Nildjat Miw who comes each day for years? All this I ask until my chariot turns into the Street of the Pot Makers.

  I know immediately who the men are who face me. None are Imperial soldiers who dragged Zenobia through the streets of Rome clad only in chains of purest gold. None are the Emperor Aurelian who freed the warrior queen, though by her actions she had caused him to raze the splendid Bruchion of Alexandria, destroying even the translucent tomb of Alexander. These are Cyril’s private army, the monks from the Mountains of Nitria, each hidden in his robe of black. But here they show their faces: ignorant, brutal, half mad faces made hideous with noxious belief, thwarted ambition, repressed sexuality. How ironic these call themselves Christian, that they name themselves after one who would not recognize them. If the man they love stood here speaking of what truly was and truly is, they would no more hear him now than any who listened then. They would not hear the companion he loved whose worth is forgotten: Mariamne Magdal-eder, the Magdalene.

  And there is the one who swore I would one day meet the maker he claims for me. And I do, in the form of Peter the Reader.

  I have no illusions. There will be no golden chains. There will be no emperor to bestow upon me a villa where I might live out my days in peace and beauty. Peter and his men have come to do me great harm. Synesius is gone, as is Bishop Theophilus, as is Flavius Anthemius. There is only Minkah. And Felix Zoilus. But they are not here. Someone has prevented their being here.

  Waiting, I find even now though I have died so that I might Live, thoughts rule my mind. To possess understanding—how glamorous this is. How threatening. Men who do not know me, adore me for it. They fear me for it. The love and the fear is in them all, students and strangers, for there are few who do not know of the woman, Hypatia. Letters reach me addressed by no more than the words: To the Philosopher, Alexandria or To the Muse, Alexandria. Even more than the love, the fear in them isolates me—
for none know what they fear.

  Those who love me, do not understand what they love. Because they cannot understand, the love they feel does not touch me. I am alone. Even Father could not reach me. I have only Minkah who is not here and will not come in time.

  Those who hate, understand even less. They cannot touch me.

  Yet here they are now, the haters: the ignorant, the fanatic, those without questions, those who follow, those who believe the answers given by others. In these, a true thought is as alien as the stars. With pity, I watch them come, each trapped in the darkness of a shadowed mind. There is no way out for any, no way home. Even now, I could try to reach them, I have tried, but they hide in their secondhand faith, and they do not know they could know, do not hear their Christ who tried as I to reach them. In this, they are untouchable. Yet I see they mean to touch me. In this time and in this place, they mean to bring me down, to reduce what I am to what they are. Or so they believe. And as they do this thing, they will be filled for a long red moment with the fierce joy of understanding something. They will understand they are penetrating me. It will arouse them. It will heat their loins far beyond their secret longings in the deep of the night. It will make them show their teeth and they will howl like wolves under the moon. And they will know what lies beneath my skin, how my sinews glisten in the sunlight, how my heart beats in its red cave as any heart beats, how my blood flows like the Nile. I shudder, as human as they. There will be blood enough they might swim in it like fish.

  And when I am penetrated, laid open like the carcass of a sacrificed lamb, they will look inside and they will ask each of each: where is the soul this one spoke of? Where is the Glory? There is no glory here. Then, running through all like lightning forks in the sky, there will come sudden shame. They will look away from each other. They will grow pale, dropping the bloody shards of the pots they have used on me, dropping the lids of their eyes like someone caught stealing food. They will try to hide that they wipe my red life from their hands. And then, under cover of night, they will burn what they will think they have made of me. And when I am nothing but charred bone and ash, they might forget this day. But I doubt it.

  In my chariot, I stand motionless, wearing the white tribon of a philosopher, calming my heated horses by a steady hand on their reins, and I wait for them. I could, even now, attempt flight, but there is no room to go other than forward. My horses would suffer their fury. I could seize my skilled knife, leap among them as I leapt among the bandits of Galatia, taking with me at least Peter with his twisted mouth and twisted heart, and probably more. Is Isidore among them? Is Euoptius the brother of Synesius? He is, though he hides himself behind others.

  Even in bliss, I know fear. I am afraid I will die screaming. I am afraid I might betray myself with a piteous word.

  I have always understood my world. Almost alone of my kind, I understood it. But my body will betray me. My body is sorely afraid. It twists and it turns, seeking a way to escape what will happen here. And there is regret. I look down at my feet, innocent of sandals. Nildjat Miw is not here. Miw knew as Paniwi knew when her mistress was dead. I marvel at that.

  And all the while I know peace and I know beauty and I know love. I know I cannot be destroyed, that I am as much a part of this as they are part of this. This is our great act and we share it as all do who eat and are eaten. If these men could hear me, if they could hear their Christ, the Light that lived within Lais, and that now lives in Hypatia, would light their way out of the cave they call faith.

  But they cannot hear me.

  Cyril’s demons see me now and when they do, they growl and their hands tremble. They are also afraid. But their fear is nothing. Not compared to the excitement that runs like poison through their veins.

  Yes, with this death, I might scream. But it is my body that screams, not my spirit.

  I step down out of my chariot, quietly tell Nuri and Nomti to turn back for home. And then I will wait, as I have so often done to speak with those who would ask me questions, or wish to honor me with small gifts. As Nuri obeys, I lean over to whisper this last true thing in her anxious ear. “Do not tell Minkah what you see here. He could not bear it.”

  ~

  Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria

  God’s will be done.

  Come to witness this needful act, I, Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, protector of the Church, hide in a curtained litter hidden behind a stall that sells pots. How hard my heart beats at first sight of the chariot of Hypatia, at her horses. How splendid they are. When the time comes, I will claim these beasts. And then I raise my eyes to the face of Hypatia…could there be a thing more beautiful? How sad that all has come to this. It need never have happened. If she had visited me instead of Orestes!

  As arranged, Peter the Reader walks ahead of the monks of the Nitrian Mountains. As arranged, they will seize her. By week’s end she will live in the distant cave we have prepared for her. For all the years she lives, she will be under guard by day and by night. There will be no more lectures, no more secret teaching, no more error with an Egyptian.

  And yet she will have books and ink and paper. She will be allowed out on certain nights to study the stars. But she will never return to Alexandria.

  God and I have decreed it so.

  If any are looking, they might see my eye peeping out from my curtain. They might see it widen in alarm. If any could hear my thoughts, this is what they would hear: why does Peter smash a pot on the stones of the street? Why does he then stoop down to seize, as do others of his kind, the sharpest shards?

  There is a long cold moment of disbelief. It stops the questions I would ask, no, would shout. I cry out before Hypatia does. “No! This is not what we planned!” Who hears me? I would rush forward, would stop what is now become so feverish, so vicious, so perverse, so dreadful I can no longer lift my eyes to see, but I am too fat, too short of breath. I mean to leap from my litter, but fall instead, helpless and sprawled on stones, my tremendous body shaken with sobs, my face melting with tears that creep into the creases of multiple chins.

  ~

  Minkah the Egyptian

  Felix Zoilus is dead. If not for Felix, I, Minkah, would also be dead. In truth, if I do not find Olinda the physician, I shall bleed out here in the streets of Alexandria. But I have no time for myself.

  Where is Hypatia?

  The life of Felix was taken in order to take hers. As was mine.

  Where is Hypatia!

  Running, stumbling, leaving a thick trail of red any jackal could follow, I am horribly answered. That a god allows it banishes forever all gods from my heart.

  Those who will destroy beauty, who would trample on wisdom, hold the shards of pots in their hands and on their faces such lust as I have never seen, not even in the worst of my miserable times. My beloved has walked towards them, has reached them, and it is my fate to watch as Peter slashes at her, a deep and fearful cut across her breast, and then more and more take courage from his blind and twisted fervor, so they too might have their share of this sickness.

  My own madness makes a Felix Zoilus of me. Screaming, I cut my way through those who push forward so they too might join in this shame, this outrage, this ungodly thing. I kill five, ten, a dozen…and none can stop me. But I alone am not enough. Dozens more face me, as behind them their fellows drag what they have done into a church so they might finish in private what they have begun in public. I sink to my knees to weep at my loss, at my failure—and I find that I stare at Cyril, sprawled as well on the stones of the street, his face as bloodless as mine.

  I have not saved my beloved. She did not save herself. But I am Minkah, feared even by Parabalanoi, and I can cut down her killer. Cyril sees in my eyes what I saw in the eyes of Peter the Reader, and is thrashing to be away as his bearers heave him into his litter before I can lift myself from the street.

  No matter. It is fitting I die here, my blood mixed with her blood. In the morning they will wash us away. We shall flow together through th
e gutters of Alexandria until we reach the sea. And from there? Who knows? Perhaps a greater adventure than this.

  ~

  Hypatia of Alexandria

  Poor Cyril. His horror breaks my heart. I hear the words that pass through his head, words he himself heard when they came from the mouth of Theophilus: Who would kill such as you? You are a gift from God.

  Later, his black mantles will burn my shard-scraped bones in a place called Cynaron. Later still, Orestes will flee this city that descends into madness. And when word reaches Augustine, he too will know madness. Demons will appear to him. Jone will wander away to become crazed under the sun. There will come a day she will cry out to die. I cannot see farther, but may her god grant her wish. As for Cyril—who weeps now for the hell he believes awaits him—he will find a way to distance himself from all that has happened here by his doing, and when he does, he will remove my books from libraries everywhere and burn them all. But before the burning of books, he will burn Peter the Reader.

  Though he does not yet see me, I stand beside my Egyptian, and I wait.

  As I knew she would, Lais is come for us, and we three turn, and we go.

  In Grateful Acknowledgement

  Without the sweet patience and constant dedication of my publisher and partner Shane Roberts, without the wise guidance and encouragement of my agent Susan Lee Cohen, without the insight of my Random House editor Allison McCabe, without the savvy suggestions of my daughter Sydney Longfellow and my lifelong friends Nancy Scott Mandl and Worth and Nancy Howe, and… without being curled up on his couch as Ray Lynch spoke of mathematics all through the night, this book would be so much less than it is. That it is anything at all, I owe to these and to gnosis.

  Adair, Ginny, Biographies of Women Philosophers, http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/hypatia.htm