Hannah carried a cup of peppermint tea to Alizar in his tower late one night to find him pacing the available floor, weaving between stacks of dusty leather-bound codices, instruments, unraveling scrolls and bunches of dried herbs and flowers. “You really think something is going to happen,” she said, shoving aside several enormous books to clear a tiny spot of table for the teacup.
Alizar grunted. “When you place a kettle on the fire, the water boils.” He faced her. “If you press a lid to that kettle, the water boils all the faster.”
Hannah nodded. “I feel in my bones there will be riots,” she said. “Everywhere there is talk only of Rome. The people are mad with grief.”
“Hannah,” said Alizar. “You have nothing to fear. This house has stood five hundred years, and it will stand five hundred more. Trust me. These events will pass. Keep your faith.”
So.
Their suspicions were confirmed five nights later. It was a warm evening, and most everyone in the city was outside tending their gardens or socializing with family. Alizar was polishing his library shelves with Jemir when he heard the shouting from beyond the walls of the courtyard.
“The church! The church of St. Alexander is aflame!” the cries rang out.
Alizar locked eyes with Jemir. St. Alexander was Cyril’s church.
Jemir stood. “Should I call Aziz to ready a horse for you?”
Alizar did not move. He was thinking. “No, not yet.”
Jemir looked confused.
“I am not going to ride into the lion’s mouth. It might be a trick. We must wait until we know for certain. Call Tarek. We will send him to spy.”
“He is out already, I am afraid.” Jemir said. Alizar nodded. So Tarek was at the brothel again. No matter. They still had time. Another crier would come by the courtyard and more news would spill over the wall before the night ended.
Time crawled on. Church bells all over the city clanged to announce the fire, so there was nothing to measure the hours. The sound of pounding on the green door in the atrium brought everyone in Alizar’s house running. Hannah was peering through the keyhole as Alizar strode through the atrium. “Who is there?” His voice reverberated through the marble anteroom.
“Gideon.”
Alizar threw open the door. “Gideon, tell us the news.”
“You have not heard, then?” The captain stepped inside, his black klamys twirling a circle. Hannah watched him from behind the statue of Hermes, eager to hear what was happening.
“A crier came by hours ago saying St. Alexander was on fire.”
“A hoax.”
“A hoax? You mean it did not burn? I had thought this might be the case. Speak.”
“Far worse. A group of Jewish fathers hid all around the entrance. When the Christians came to save their church they were ambushed. The men were angry the Christians had been killing their daughters. It had to come to this.”
“How many killed?”
“Hard to say. Seventy, maybe more. But that is not all. Cyril organized his Parabolans and they are riding into the Jewish quarter at this very instant, tossing torches into all the synagogues. He is determined to have every Jew in this city dead by morning or else exiled into the desert.” Gideon was speaking as rapidly as he could get the words out. “It is mayhem and death. The Jews are fleeing as the Christian mobs ransack their homes. Some are fighting off the mob. There must be hundreds dead already. Hypatia is hiding as many as she can in the library. I thought you could hide more here.”
“I can do far better than that.” Alizar said. “My ship will sail at dawn. Ready your crew at once, Gideon. I must get to the Gate of the Sun.”
Gideon nodded. Alizar buckled his sword and rushed out the door. Around the corner they collided with Tarek, who had been at a full sprint. He careened into Gideon and toppled backward in the dust.
Alizar helped him up. “Tarek, come with us. No, better yet, fetch any men you can round up and meet us at the Gate of the Sun. And shut the women in the house. Tell them to keep the door locked until I return.” Tarek nodded and disappeared.
Alizar and Gideon quickened their steps, rounding the knoll that marked the edge of the Brucheon from the Jewish quarter as smoke flooded their nostrils. The scattered pockets of orange flames rose from several synagogues and spread to nearby homes. Everywhere, the chaos of bodies churned in all directions as people fled the fires. Braying animals stampeded into the crowds of frightened men and women, crushing whatever they touched; horses, camels, donkeys, goats and chickens were all set loose in pandemonium. At the end of the street, Gideon split off to the harbor, and Alizar pulled his petasos over his head and continued toward the flames.
At the end of a dark alley, Alizar found the Queen’s Theatre still untouched. Several actors quietly ushered Jewish families inside to hide. One little girl held in a boy’s arms screamed and struggled, her hands waving in the air, grasping for some unseen person. The boy, his eyes white as a wild horse’s, clamped a hand over the little girl’s mouth and rushed through the door.
Alizar promptly forgot the exhaustion from his voyage. There were over two hundred thousand Jews in the city. Close friends he had known for over fifty years were somewhere in the chaos, fighting for their lives, their children endangered, their homes being destroyed. Damn Orestes’ pride.
Alizar wound his way deeper into the residential district of the Jewish Quarter, which was falling into shambles. Two women in the street were fighting over a cooking pot, crashing sounds came from behind every door, and there in the midst of the flames were the Parabolani led by Peter, who stood a full head above all the others. The priests in black robes pounded their fists on the doors of the homes, grabbing Jewish families and throwing them out into the street by force. Alizar averted his eyes as one of the priests broke an old man’s arm, jerking the man away from his door to let a Christian family plunder his home.
“By the will of God all Jewish property now belongs to the Christians of Alexandria,” Peter called out. “Be banished into the desert or face death.”
The Jews were realizing they were outnumbered. Some of them had gathered their possessions, herded by the Parabolani like livestock toward the Gate of the Sun and the bleak desert beyond.
“All Jews are now exiled from this city by ordinance of the Bishop,” Ammonius shouted, standing beside Peter, his black hood concealing his face.
“Ordinance,” Alizar hissed. “Cyril cannot make ordinances.”
Families were running in the dark. A woman with a white scarf pulled over her head rushed into the arms of a man who pressed her tightly against his chest. Beside them, a toddler with a dirty face was sitting in the street, screaming. Everywhere came the sound of crying and fighting, the smashing of walls. The impoverished Christians were moving in like hungry rats on an abandoned feast. Apparently, thought Alizar, they would claim the kingdom of heaven for themselves even if it meant evicting the current residents. Alizar pinched the ridge of skin between his eyebrows as the smoke made his eyes water. He had to get to the Gate of the Sun before the Parabolani.
Back at the house, Tarek locked Hannah and Leitah in Naomi’s upstairs bedroom. Hannah dashed to the balcony to see what was happening. Then she stepped back into the bedroom and began rummaging through a chest. “I have to help,” she explained to Leitah. “Stay here and keep watch over Naomi.” She pulled several items from the chest: the strangest being a large wooden doll, black as soot, with nails for eyes. Hannah shuddered and went on rummaging until she came upon what she was hoping for: some forgotten boyhood clothes belonging to Naomi’s son. Leitah helped her bind her breasts with a length of cloth, then Hannah cinched a tunica around her waist and piled her hair up under a cap, deciding that as a boy she would not be recognized. A leather cord bound around her neck like jewelry concealed the slave collar. She did not consider her ankle, or even of the incident in the market with the
Parabolani weeks before. She climbed down the trellis from the balcony and jumped to the street, running as fast as her feet could carry her to the Gate of the Sun.
Alizar floated like a phantom through the streets. He blended invisibly into the shadows with practiced ease. No one saw him but the angel.
Behind an overflowing fountain, his foot fell upon a soft object. He paused and bent down and picked up a dirty cloth doll with black stitches for eyes and frilly yarn hair. He stared at it for a moment, and the little doll stared back. Suddenly, he had an idea. He tucked the doll into his cloak and turned toward the east end of Canopic Way.
“Alizar.” An old, familiar voice called from a dark doorway where the door hung from its hinges like a loose tooth.
“Master Savitur.” Alizar turned and immediately bowed reverently to the elder Kolossofia of the Nuapar, who was dressed in the traditional black robe bound by the crimson and white sash indicating his status. His long white hair lay across it like streaks of chalk on a slate.
“Come here, my son.” His ancient voice still resonated with the power of youth.
Alizar approached the doorway.
“All actions have consequences, Alizar, you know this.” Savitur stood serene, luminous. He was both of the world and beyond it. His eyes glistened magically. Even the angel found him marvelous.
“Do you mean for me to do nothing?” Alizar said, his frustration spilling over. The Kolossofia masters themselves were under vows to never interfere with human affairs, but the Nuapar were free to do as they chose. Alizar fell under the last bit, but Savitur could still forbid him as even Nuapar who retired their robes were bound by life to the order.
“I mean only to tell you your actions will not go unnoticed.”
“Cyril.”
Savitur walked casually into the empty room behind the door where a single candle illuminated the pale earthen walls. Alizar followed.
“What are the consequences of my actions then?”
Savitur smiled and chuckled quietly to himself as though he had a secret. And it was so. Freed from the wheel of time he could see the future, and laugh to himself the way Alizar imagined the gods laughed at even the severest of human predicaments. “You have worked hard to remain inconspicuous, Alizar. I support your efforts. Be cautious.”
Alizar took a deep breath and held it in. “I will do what I must.”
“Yes, I know you will. So do it well, Alizar.”
Alizar almost responded, but Savitur’s shimmering form began to dance, the molecules of his manifested body dispersing into the room in a thin, vaporous smoke.
Alizar let out his breath when the figure had faded completely, then struck out on his way.
Two dozen men and Hannah in her disguise as a boy were already gathered at the Gate of the Sun when Alizar arrived just minutes before the Parabolans. These men knew the Parabolani would execute anyone who stood against them, and still they came.
“Alizar, we cannot stay here,” someone cried out. “Cyril’s men are chasing the Jews out this gate. They will soon be upon us.”
Alizar stepped up onto a guard platform so he could see all the men and address them. He took a deep breath and began. “You must not let one child pass though this gate, men. Hide outside the walls and take every child not on its mother’s breast to my ship in the harbor. My captain is preparing to sail the Vesta to Antioch tonight. I know a woman who tends an orphanage there who will keep the children safe so that their parents may claim them once they make it through the desert.” He dared not say if. Alizar turned his head toward the darkness that lay beyond the wall toward Kemi, the black land of the desert, as the Egyptians called it. “Go in turns and follow the east wall around the outside of the city to the harbor. I do not want Cyril’s suspicions aroused. You must not be seen. Now go.”
Alizar’s men separated, but moved with one mind. One by one, they found the children and made swift promises to parents who kissed the cheeks of their little ones again and again and again before they fled, praying they would not be killed.
At the docks in the harbor, Gideon lifted little wriggling bodies up the steps, down the steps. The children clung to each other in fright like startled bats in a sudden light. Librarians who heard of the exile of the Jews from the city ran to the harbor with bundles of clothes, sheets, bread, wine and cheese. Antioch was ages away. There were thirty children when Gideon counted in the beginning of the night. By dawn his count had reached nine hundred and three.
Smoke billowed out of the city, swirling in dark edged spirals that filled the air with the unmistakable scent of loss. No one could speak about what was happening. The only task was to do what must be done.
But near dawn on her third trip to the harbor, in a dark alley behind the fish market, Hannah was spotted with three small Jewish children, running to Alizar’s ship. Peter secretly followed her, urging two other Parabolans to join him. When the priests saw the ship, and the men working urgently on the docks, they exchanged words and departed in haste.
The angel, too near the earth, could not prevent them.
What struck Alizar deepest as he confronted the scene in the streets was that Cyril’s power was far greater than he had suspected. In the years that had passed since the destruction of the Temple of Serapis, Alizar had seen the Christians grow in number, but it had not occurred to him how completely outnumbered they would be in the event of a crisis such as the one that occurred the night Cyril exiled the Jews from Alexandria. This meant the end of free worship in Alexandria, a thought that seemed unfathomable to Alizar in a city that stood for freedom of worship. If only the Christians had adopted the Nuapar value of ah’msa, do no harm, along with the plethora of creeds they had borrowed from various ancient Mediterranean religions when constructing their own ethics. Things might have been different.
At dawn, thoroughly exhausted, Alizar stood on the docks trying to secure the last of the children and supplies in the bilge of his ship. His heart pounded furiously every second the ship was still docked.
Gideon called down that they had reached the maximum capacity in the bilge just as Hannah rushed to the ship with the three children. “You must take these, captain,” she called out.
“Not possible,” a sailor on board called back. “There is no more room.”
Gideon leaned over the edge and hurled a wine-filled pythos into the sea. “Let them up, hurry. We have the room.”
Hannah tugged the children up the gangplank into the ship and passed their hands to Gideon’s. Then he locked eyes with hers. She had lost her hat in the hour before, and her hair was coming loose. “Lady, you should not be here,” he said, recognizing her. “Get back to Alizar’s at once.”
“You have done what you felt was just,” said Hannah. “And so have I.”
Gideon just looked at her, his eyes full of admiration.
But then Hannah heard the heavy footsteps on the dock behind Alizar and she cried out. The Parabolani had come. Alizar shoved the gangplank into the water and cut the ropes with his sword. “Go!”
Gideon rushed to the helm, and Hannah clung to the edge of the ship, not knowing what to do as the sailors clamored all around her to raise the sails and the Vesta turned slowly toward the open sea.
On the docks, at least a dozen of Cyril’s Parabolans swept toward Alizar, led by Peter, their black robes snapping behind them. “His Eminence, Cyril of Alexandria, commands you to halt your ship,” declared Peter.
Then he thrust a letter marked with the wax seal of the bishop into Alizar’s hand. Behind Peter, the Parabolans lifted their swords and loaded their bows. Each was on the ready for Alizar’s response.
Alizar took the letter and slit it open. It was an order to halt his ship. Alizar nodded to the men before him in defeat. Then he turned, and plunged into the sea. The Parabolani were caught off guard for a moment, but then they opened fire. Alizar swam holding his
breath, unseen in the dark water.
The Parabolans held torches to their arrows and the wicks caught fire. Then they released their flaming arrows. Hannah screamed as an arrow struck a post beside her head. All around her the crew worked frantically to put out the flames as they slowly inched out of the harbor. The arrows fell like rain. Aboard the ship the children screamed for their lives. Several were struck dead and fell into the water like limp dolls.
The archers loaded their arrows again and let them fly. Some fell in the sea as the ship slipped further away, but others landed in the ropes on the Vesta where the sailors doused them with water to prevent the damage from spreading. Praise Zeus the sails had not yet been raised.
Alizar came up for air at the ship’s stern. But as he raised his hand to catch the rope thrown to him by Hannah, Peter spotted him and grabbed a bow from the Parabolan beside him. Then he lifted it, aimed, and let the arrow fly.
Alizar was speared through the right shoulder, and he let go of the rope. Hannah cried out and dove into the sea after him. Alizar came up for a breath, and suddenly Hannah was there beside him. He recognized her as the Vesta glided away on the silver sea beyond the breakers. The Parabolans had ceased fire as the ship unfurled her sails in the wind; she was untouchable, the last of the fires extinguished on her deck.
12
“Alizar, how good of you to come.” Cyril stood up from behind the desk to his full height of five feet six inches, his dark eyes shining with the confidence of a gambler who has won a bet. His thin black hair was clipped shorter than usual, and he had shaved his beard since Alizar had last seen him. Alizar wondered how anyone capable of such malice could put on such pleasant airs, but then he reminded himself that Cyril had probably not left that very room all night. He had the Parabolani to do his unpleasantries for him. Cyril himself had probably spent the evening sipping wine and watching the fires in the Jewish Quarter as if it were all a theatre show.
Written in the Ashes Page 13
