“Thorion, Maia,” I said, “please. It’s what I want. You know that. I’d rather be a doctor than anything. You know I’ve wanted it for years. “
“I don’t know why you want it,” Thorion protested. “Digging about in people’s bodies, looking at shit and vomit and urine, analyzing pustules, doing dissections — it’s a filthy business, the sort of thing ordinarily left to slaves. It’s no job for any person of quality, let alone a girl.”
“The art of healing is the noblest of the arts,” I protested, quoting Hippocrates. Then I tried hard to explain what I had never before explained, even to myself. “There is nothing that causes more misery than disease. It kills more people, more painfully, than even Festinus does. Think of our mother, Thorion, or your husband and your own baby, Maia. Oh, I know that there’s little that even the best doctor can do — but a little is still something. In ten or fifteen or twenty years’ time, if I can look back and say, ‘That person, and that, and that, would have died but for me; that one would have been crippled for life; that baby would have been lost at birth’ — if I can say that, how can I be unhappy? And as for its being a slavish sort of job, I can’t see that at all. To understand the workings of our own bodies, and of nature, is the purest philosophy; and to heal is almost divine!”
“Oh, Charition!” said Thorion with a groan. “I don’t understand you. How could I possibly let you do a thing like that?”
“Would you prefer me to marry Festinus?”
Thorion said nothing. He stared out the window for a moment, looking toward the governor’s palace, then slammed his fist angrily into the window frame. He sucked his knuckles, glaring at the bright rooftops.
Maia had been watching me hard; at last she reached out and touched my hand. “You are right,” she said slowly. “You know yourself what is good and would make you happy, and you are right to seek it.”
I hugged her, deeply moved; Thorion turned his eyes from the palace and stared in surprise. After a moment he shrugged, came over, and hugged both of us. “I suppose anything would be better than marrying Festinus,” he said. “And I can’t think of any other way out. But I’ll make him pay for this. I’ll miss you, Charition.”
“It needn’t be forever,” I said again. “In a few years, if Father or Festinus dies, or if Festinus marries someone else in some other city, I can come back. You can tell everyone that you had me hidden in some private house in the country, and arrange for me to marry whomever you like — Kyrillos, if he’s still around.”
They both looked happier at this prospect.
“So you’ll help me?” I asked. This was crucial: I’d never get out of the city on my own, and I’d need letters of recommendation to get an apprenticeship in Alexandria.
“There was never any question of that, was there?” Thorion pulled on his lip. “Now, how on earth are we going to get you to Alexandria?”
The obvious, and indeed the only, way to get to Alexandria is by ship. But it was already nearing the end of September, and few ships will brave the treacherous winter seas between mid-October and the end of March. Thorion went down to the harbor and inquired of the shipmasters; he found one who was planning to sail the following week, and after that there was nothing until the spring. He didn’t much like the look of the one that was to sail, though. “Mixed cargo of wine and dyed cloth from Asia and slaves from the north,” he told me. “The master didn’t look above trying to add to his cargo during the voyage. He could sell a eunuch for more than a hundred solidi, and he might be tempted to take the risk of being found out.”
However, we didn’t have to risk the slave ship. Father negotiated a marriage contract with Festinus that put the date of the wedding back to May. Festinus had wanted a quick marriage, but Father had argued that I was still young, the proposal was sudden, and time was needed to prepare my trousseau. Before February, he said, was impossible, and after that it was Lent, an inappropriate and unlucky time for a wedding. Easter, fortunately, was late that year, so the beginning of May was settled on. That gave us plenty of time.
Everyone was very kind to me that winter, kind enough that I felt guilty about running off. Festinus visited occasionally, but not indecently often, and I was not obliged to do more than nod my head at him and sit in the background looking modest; he did not try to talk to me privately again, and I avoided speaking to him at all, successfully enough that the revulsion I felt for him grew somewhat blunted. Perhaps, I thought sometimes, lying awake in bed at night, perhaps I should go through with the marriage. If I did disappear before the wedding, Festinus would make trouble. I didn’t think he could actually accuse Father of anything, only a year after acquitting him, but he was still a powerful man. He could block Thorion’s career, and make legal trouble for Father. Moreover, Father was so much afraid of the governor that he might have Maia and the other slaves beaten or tortured to make them tell where I was.
On the other hand, Father meant to give me Maia and a few others as part of my dowry, and life wouldn’t be any easier for them in Festinus’ house than it would be for me; on the whole I thought they’d be better off with Father. He was a gentle man, and hated to hurt anyone. He was afraid of what he was doing now, and gave me various embarrassing presents, offering them with a clumsy jocularity that didn’t hide his nervousness. He also spent a great deal of money on clothes and carriages for me to use when I was married. Thorion spent the winter pressing for Father to make arrangements for his career — he wanted to have it all settled before we made Festinus our enemy. These arrangements proved expensive, and Father had to sell some land. I felt very sorry that all this preparation and worry was for nothing, but I didn’t say anything more about the wedding. I might have doubts sometimes, but already I was burning to be in Alexandria. Thorion did make a few more attempts to talk Father into canceling the wedding, but Father insisted that it was too late now, and anyway, Festinus had “settled down” a great deal, and wouldn’t hurt his own wife.
Everyone’s sudden kindness meant that I was able to read a few more medical texts. Ischyras agreed to abandon Euripides and read Nikandros’ poem on drugs. I felt rather ashamed whenever I looked at my tutor: I had now firmly decided to bring his name into my plans, but I had no intention of bringing in the man himself. I worried that my escape might one day cause him trouble, but I comforted myself with the assurance that if it ever came to that, I could always confess that he knew nothing about it.
I also finally read Galen that winter. Maia took her savings down to the marketplace and bought me a copy of his work on anatomy. It was the most beautiful book I had ever seen: a great heavy codex, not a scroll, and on parchment, not papyrus. It had beautiful illustrations in red and black ink, and was written out in a tiny but perfectly clear book hand, with explanatory glosses in the margins. It must have cost a fortune. I told Maia that I must pay her back, but she refused to let me.
Another of the slaves who was very kind to me was Philoxenos; he too had had experience of Festinus. He looked grieved whenever he saw me, and I almost told him not to worry, I wasn’t going to marry the governor. He promised me the first foal his brood mare produced, and told me to call him if I ever needed help, which was an astonishingly generous and courageous, if very rash, thing to say. And he gave me his own carefully written-out remedies for various equine diseases, clumsily printed over a parchment cookery book, but all of it good sense and of real value.
We knew that we had to exercise considerable care in making our preparations. Anyone whom we involved might be tortured and severely punished if they were found out. It was quite certain that Thorion would be suspected of concealing me somewhere, but the worst Thorion had to fear was having his allowance cut off, and Festinus’ enmity. Thorion resolved to leave Ephesus to avoid the latter. He wanted to get an office at court and a proper law degree, and he could get both in Constantinople. Father wrote letters to all his old friends who were at the capital, and eventually paid eighty solidi to get Thorion a junior position, with light d
uties (doing taxes), in the office of the praetorian prefect; the arrangements to study law were much cheaper and easier, since they involved only fees and not bribes.
We began making our serious preparations after Christmas, and finished by the middle of Lent. By that time the shipmasters were thinking of moving their vessels: it was clear spring weather, mild with a light breeze predominantly from the northeast — perfect winds for Alexandria. Thorion found a ship that would leave in the middle of April. It was called the Halcyon; it was a fairly large ship, and it was to take a cargo of timber and assorted luxury goods but had room for a few passengers as well. The master was well known in Ephesus, but not Ephesian; he was thought to be honest, but wouldn’t know enough about the city to guess who I was, and Thorion’s name meant little to him. Thorion booked me a passage and paid half the fare in advance; I would pay the rest when we docked in Alexandria.
Alexandria! The city of the old kings, the city of scholars, the city that was once the greatest in all the world and is still the greatest in the East, for all the glory of Constantinople. A doctor can produce no better recommendation than to declare “I studied in Alexandria.” And I would go there: I, Charis daughter of Theodoros, would read in the great library, and study in the famous Museum where Herophilos and Erasistratos and Nikandros and Galen himself had studied! I stopped worrying about what would happen to my family in Ephesus, and I dreamed of Alexandria. I pictured the Halcyon sailing into the great harbor, and saw the city rising, white and glowing, out of the sea, lit by the fires of its famous lighthouse, the Pharos which was one of the wonders of the world — but all of Alexandria was wonderful. I was ashamed of myself, particularly when I looked at Maia, but I couldn’t wait to go.
Maia wanted to come with me. “You’ll need someone to look after you,” she pointed out. “Everyone who’s anyone has at least one slave. And, my dear, you don’t know how to do anything for yourself. But you’ll need someone you can trust. Why, if you counted on buying someone when you reached Alexandria, what would happen? Whoever you bought would find out within a week that you were a girl, and then he could blackmail you into whatever he wanted! No, I’ll go with you.”
But I refused to take her. I told her that I was worried about her health on the sea voyage, and in fact her joints often pained her since she had been tortured, and I thought ships and cheap lodgings would do her no good. I told her that I didn’t want her classed as a runaway and myself called a thief: she was legally my father’s property. “I want to see you when I come back,” I told her. “I’d never forgive myself if you took sick and died while following me about.”
But there was more to it than that. Maia still hated the notion of my disguise. I didn’t want to pain her by enjoying it too much. She loved propriety, belonging to a great house, serving a fine lady. What would happen if I took her to a great city where I would live as a poor student, lodging in some tenement, working late, jostling the crowds? She would be miserable, thinking always of what we had been, hating the present. And I would be miserable if she was, I knew that. And could I trust her? I knew I could rely on her loyalty, but could I trust her not to hint to neighbors and shop owners that there was more to us than would appear and that she could, if she would, tell them . . . she would not tell them. But she would want them to guess. And if I was to make my disguise succeed, I needed to have no one guessing, no one even suspecting. I must change the way I walked, the way I sat — no more lowered eyes and folded hands — the way I spoke. That would be the hardest, I thought: to remember to use the masculine form of adjectives to describe myself; otherwise, every little phrase like “I’m hungry” would give me away. It would be better, I thought, to have no slave at all, and pay someone to do my cleaning and cooking for me. Maia could go to Constantinople with Thorion.
The day before the Halcyon was to sail, Thorion had my traveling chest sent down to the ship and stowed on board. He had hidden it in a cave on Mount Pion, outside the walls, and it was an easy matter to load it onto a donkey and bring it into the city, then get a porter to take it onto the ship. I’d already packed my books into it. That left only the change of clothing — and my mother’s jewels. These were my property, and I was counting on selling them to support myself while I studied, but I would have to do so in Alexandria, where the gems would not be recognized.
I was very much afraid that night that something would happen: that Festinus would appear and demand to marry me on the spot; that the ship would sink in a sudden storm; that Father would command that I be somewhere next day. I couldn’t sleep, and lay awake staring at the moonlight on the wall, realizing that I might never see this room again. When the moonlight fell on Maia’s bed I saw that she was awake and staring at me, so I got up and climbed into her bed. “I’ll miss you so much, Maia,” I whispered to her, and she hugged me. I think after a couple of hours we both slept a little.
I had a lesson with Ischyras that morning, and I suffered it grimly, so inattentive that my tutor asked me whether I was feeling well. I said I had a headache. The Halcyon was not to sail until the evening tide; if I left the house after lunch, I wouldn’t be missed until suppertime, when it would be too late. But when lunch came I could scarcely eat. Father was there for the meal, and he also asked if I was ill. I again spoke of a headache.
“You look quite pale, my dear,” said Father. “Do you want to lie down? Shall I call a doctor?”
“Oh no, no!” I said, stirring myself and trying to smile. “It’s not that bad. I think I’ll go for a walk in the garden: that ought to help it.
Finally able to leave the table, I went up to my room and fetched the case that held my mother’s jewels. I slipped it into my cosmetics pouch and then looked around. The last time, I thought. I took a deep breath and left the room.
Through the First Court, through the Blue Court, past the bathhouse, through the kitchen garden to the postern. Past the stables and into the fields. Philoxenos and the stableboys were grooming some horses in the yard; they waved to me, and I waved back. The fields were green with the wet spring grass, dotted with red poppies. I picked up my skirts and ran, not looking back. Nobody had asked where I was going, and nobody would wonder, until I didn’t come back.
Thorion had told me how to find the cave. It was on the northeast side of the hill, near the place where they say some martyrs were walled up during the reign of the emperor Decius. There was a cleft in the rock, and there Maia was sitting, waiting for me. When I ran up she stood and kissed me, then pulled me into the cave. It was not large — there was about room for the two of us to stand, with a crevice at the back where Thorion had hidden the traveling chest and where he had left a smaller clothes chest with the men’s clothing he’d bought for me. We’d thought at first I’d be able to wear some of his, but even the things he’d outgrown were too wide across the shoulders, and too richly made for a student doctor. So he’d bought some things secondhand in the marketplace: two linen tunics and one woolen one, all in heavy, hard-wearing weaves and cut respectably long, below the knee, though they were plain and undecorated. There were also a good woolen traveling cloak, a hat, a pair of sandals, and some boots. Most of these were already on the ship, but not the tunic, cloak, hat, and boots.
“First your hair,” said Maia when I went over to the clothes chest. So I sat down in the shadowy cleft and Maia got out the shears. From that cave on the hilltop I could see for miles. The river valley was all green with new corn, the roads raw red earth. I could see the Temple of Artemis shining white and gold a mile away, the white paving of the Sacred Way leading up to it. I wondered if Egypt was as beautiful as Asia. I supposed that it too was flat, mostly. It was river plain as well. Maia’s shears snipped steadily, hair fell down my back, and my head felt lighter. Goodbye, you artificial and unwanted curls. No more time wasted on hair styling. I knew that Maia had dreaded this — I suspected that she was crying over my long black curls — but I tried not to look at her.
Maia had brought a pitcher of water, an
d I washed my face and rubbed the last of the curls out of my hair. We’d stopped plucking my eyebrows a month before. My ears were pierced, of course, but it’s not unknown for boys to have pierced ears; it certainly wouldn’t be out of place in a eunuch redeemed from the Persians. Maia had also brought one of those corsets that women sometimes wear if they are going to be driven somewhere, or if they just don’t want to look fat, and she helped me put this on. My breasts were small anyway, thank Heaven; with the corset they wouldn’t show at all. I put on the tunic: it was the woolen one, and it was dyed a pale blue, faded almost gray. I started to tie it around my waist, but Maia stopped me, shaking her head, and fastened it around my hips, to disguise my shape. It felt very strange to wear a short tunic, to feel the air against my legs. The cloak was good quality, warm and solid, but plain blue: no pattern, and no purple stripe. Maia handed it to me, and I put it over my head. I eased it over and pulled it sideways like a shawl, trying to avoid disturbing the curls that were no longer there. Must remember not to do that. Maia shook her head again, took the cloak off, and pinned it at my right shoulder, draping it straight back and across, the way men wear it.
Thorion came in while Maia was tying the boots on for me. He stood outside the cave, staring at us; I waited for Maia to finish, then stood up and went out into the light so he could see properly. “Well?” I asked.
He gave me a very peculiar look, then flung his arms round me. “Oh, Charition,” he said breathlessly. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Don’t I look right?” I asked.
Thorion shook his head. I realized that he was crying. I felt awful.
“Maia,” I said. She was crying too. She handed me a mirror. A thin, long, narrow face, with a long nose and a wide, thin-lipped mouth; large, intelligent eyes, quizzical and detached; straight dark hair falling over the straight brows. For the first time in my life, I looked in the mirror and saw myself. Not a doll dressed by somebody else; myself. I smiled, and the face smiled back. Not a boy’s face, not properly a girl’s. Goodbye, Charis, I thought. Hello, Chariton of Amida and Ephesus, a eunuch and a student of the art of healing.
The Beacon at Alexandria Page 7
