Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Contents

  Also By Ki Longfellow

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map of Alexandria

  BOOK ONE Paper Ships

  Island in the Stormy Sea

  Air, Water, Earth, Fire

  Silence

  Black Wings

  The First Gate

  White Wings

  BOOK TWO The Croaking of the Ravens

  Lais

  The Second Gate

  Dark Light Dark

  Blood Brothers

  The Third Gate

  BOOK THREE Nildjat Miw

  Minkah

  By Her Words They Shall Know Her

  Labryinth

  The Fourth Gate

  Theon

  The Fifth Gate

  BOOK FOUR Io

  The First and the Last

  Jone

  The Sixth Gate

  The Dying of the Light

  The Seventh Gate

  Ether

  Acknowledgement

  Bibliography & Sources

  Books by Ki Longfellow

  China Blues*

  Chasing Women*

  Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera (with Vivian Stanshall)

  The Secret Magdalene

  *as Pamela Longfellow

  This is a work of fiction. Though based on the known facts of the life of Hypatia of Alexandria, the events and characters inscribed herein spring from the author’s imagination.

  Copyright © Ki Longfellow, 2009

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by

  Eio Books

  1550 Tiburon Boulevard

  Suite B-9

  Belvedere, California, 94920 U.S.A.

  www.eiobooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Longfellow, Ki.

  Flow Down Like Silver : Hypatia of Alexandria, a novel / Ki Longfellow.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-0-9759255-6-0

  1. Hypatia, d. 415—Fiction. 2. Women mathematicians—Egypt—Fiction. 3.

  Women philosophers—Egypt—Fiction. 4. Alexandria (Egypt)—Fiction. I.

  Title. II. Title: Hypatia of Alexandria.

  PS3562.O499F56 2009

  813’.54—dc22 2009032330

  Cover designed by Sydney Longfellow

  Book designed by Shane Roberts

  Cover image: Roman Egypt panel painting

  Map by Ki Longfellow

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Electronic Book Edition

  Without limiting the right under copyright reserves above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  TO HYPATIA

  She alone survives, immutable, eternal;

  Death can scatter the trembling universes

  But Beauty still dazzles with her fire

  And all is reborn in her,

  And the worlds are still prostrate beneath her white feet!

  —Leconte de Lisle

  BOOK ONE

  “A time will come when it will seem that the Egyptians in the piety of their hearts have honored their gods in vain. The gods, on leaving the earth, will return to heaven; they will abandon Egypt. That holy earth, land of sanctuaries and temples, will be completely covered with coffins and corpses. O Egypt, Egypt! Nothing will remain of your religion but fables, and later, your children will not even believe them!”—Hermes Trismegistus

  The City of Alexandria, Egypt

  Summer, 391

  Hypatia

  The books will burn!

  I, Hypatia of Alexandria, to whom the Library is as life’s blood, urge my horses faster. Avenger of Wrongs, Sekhmet, warrior goddess, defend us!

  Jaws sore with shouting, hearts as dark as smoke, hands bright with blood, Christians rage through my city—pushed by their bishop beyond tolerance, beyond reason, beyond even madness. From the mouth of the serpent of chaos, tongues of flame lick through the Temple of Serapis seeking the last books of the once and still Great Library of Alexandria.

  This day I sailed the Irisi far out onto the dragon green back of the sea. This day I drove past the Roman camp on the road to Canopus. If on this day I had chosen instead to study in the Serapeum, I should be there now rather than tearing along the Canopic Way, my horses scattering guilty and innocent alike. At the top of the hill, I leap from my chariot, leaving the lathered grays that have pulled it to stay or to go, it matters not. Fighting my way up one hundred and eight steps to the vast platform on which stands the Serapeum—a thing as wondrous as Pharos, beacon to the Savior Gods—my hair is tangled with salted wind, my tunic stained with ink. This too matters not. What matters are the books.

  Every man who reads, who studies, who cares for learning, weeps as they gather armfuls of books, as many as each can carry. There are a hundred men, two hundred. Women are here, priestesses with heaps of scrolls tucked in their mantles. And there amid pandemonium is Father, the greatest mathematician in all of Egypt, whose life of sweet reason knows only this soaring dome of painted clouds, these vast golden halls and silvered porticoes. All sweetness fled, Theon of Alexandria carries the work of the school of Pythagoras piled high in a household basket, clutching as well a few volumes of the Arithmatica of Diophantus. And there stands Lais on a floor of pale green alabaster, my sister, more precious than the beating of my own heart. She, too, has a basket. Hers is filled with poems for Lais is a poet. And there is my younger sister, Jone, small and fierce as she pushes her way through a melee of book savers and book burners. I quickly kiss Lais, just as quickly say, “Jone is too young, there is too much danger here.”

  Lais smiles to calm me. “As a lover of books, is she not old enough to save them?”

  “But not old enough to die for them.”

  “She will not leave if we do not leave.”

  “Then you must leave. I would not have my sisters hurt.”

  “And you, younger than me?”

  I laugh though I do not feel like laughing. “And what could hurt me?”

  Father pulls at my arm, his eyes reddened with smoke and with tears. “Daughter! I cannot carry them all. Find the rest.”

  He means the rest of Diophantus, the mathematician.

  I turn and there is Didymus the Blind led by a student, both Christians and both laden with the work of the Christian philosopher Origen, a task far greater than that of Father’s for Origen was a prolific man. And there is the poet Palladas. All seventy of his bitter years pull at his mouth, his eyes, even his ears. Palladas has brought not only baskets but a donkey to bear them. At sight of me, he sinks to his creaking knees. “Dearest! I don’t understand. Why do they do this?”

  I touch his uplifted brow. “Who understands the needs of a tyrant but a tyrant?”

  “But he leaves us nothing!” By “he,” Palladas means Emperor Theodosius, Christian and tyrant. “He forbids us our temples. Our celebrations are now his. Isis is named Mary, Holy Virgin. His church steals the ancient dei
ties of Egypt, of Persia, of Greece, of Sumer! It silences the search for meaning, claiming all questions are answered. They’re all mad!”

  The astronomer Pappas, rushing by with an armful of celestial charts, stops. “By the moon, get up you old fool! Bishop Theophilus is said to be outside. Would you have the wretched man see you on your knees? Greetings, Hypatia. Some day, eh?”

  Pappas is off before I can answer. This would be my answer. From Rome to Constantinople to Alexandria, men of the new faith ask: what use literature, mathematics, science, philosophy, music…when He is coming again? I am Hypatia and I teach philosophy, mathematics, science, music. I teach as well poetry and alchemy. Of what use am I?

  In the largest hall near to the statue of Serapis, stands the philosopher Olympius. Under the god’s blue arms stretching themselves from wall to wall, the floating blue body glittering with silver and sapphire, topaz, hematite and emerald and on the huge blue head a basket of golden grain, Olympius wraps himself in his philosopher’s mantle. Gripping the silver shod feet of the gentle Serapis, blue feet that do not touch the green floor, Olympius shouts out for the sacrifice of self in defense of the sacred knowledge of Alexandria.

  Olympius is tall and beautiful and so passionate in his love of the mysteries, others think him pleres tou theou: filled with the bliss of God. Those who hear him, obey. Philosophers barricade the temple halls, grammarians hasten to gather and pile up whatever might block the temple doors. At the arched main entrance to the domed main hall stands father’s fat friend Ammonius, a priest of Thoth. Ammonius holds a pike in one plump hand, a curved knife in the other. At a second arched entrance stands another of father’s friends, Helladius, a priest of Ammon, the god who begat the great Alexander himself. Built as the stump of a tree, Helladius carries a Roman sword, its blade already dripping with blood.

  As I pass, he salutes me.

  Not all heeding the call of Olympius are scholars and not all are “pagans,” a word Christians call us intending insult. Some who save books are themselves Christians of the intellectual order of Novatians, crying out against what is done in the name of their savior Jesus Christ. Some, aligned with no god, no sect, no belief, possessing nothing more than the love of Alexandria, stand beside Christian and scholar to defend learning with their lives.

  At the barricades, those like my family and myself, come to save books, are allowed in and out. Those who have come to destroy books, to topple statues, or to steal whatever of worth they can find, are also allowed in. Once in, they are either quickly killed or pushed into one or another of the large round “chambers of meditation.” I have no idea what will happen to these, but it cannot be good.

  Charged by Father with finding the rest of the works of the mathematician Diophantus, I hesitate. Books are like ships carrying worlds within their holds. These are my paper ships. And all need saving. Like any “pagan,” I know the smell of burning books. But what of the philosopher Plotinus and his Enneads? The mathematics of Diophantus can be reconstructed—already much of his work is stored beneath my skull—but the sublimity of Plotinus? Who could think such thoughts again?

  Dodging past gilded pillars, I race down wide stone steps that take me deep under the clamorous temple. There, one passageway leads to others, a confusion of ornamented tunnel after tunnel cut through the limestone on which the temple mound stands—though neither I nor the fire are fooled. It too has found its way here, and more quickly, for here are the books, the parchment and papyrus, the precious flammable paper.

  Turning into a sloping corridor, I am brought to a sudden stop by three monks, each hidden deep in the black of their robes. One stands in my way. His skin is the color of bone, the hair of his beard as thin as one aged, yet he is not old. Nor is he young. There is something eternal about him, as anger and fear and hatred are eternal. By a flaw of birth his mouth twists, pulled down hard at one corner so that he seems to leer, though I know he does not leer.

  I know him not, but I find he knows me. Hissing my name as he would a demon’s, he reaches out as I pull back. “Peter!” calls one of his own, “come away!” There is worry here, for they are only three and the Serapeum is full of those to whom these three are the demons.

  Peter does not come away. He has gripped my wrist. “Satan, not God, made the female Hypatia.”

  “Satan is no more than the fear in your heart.”

  Peter twists now, hard enough to cause pain. “As I live, you will know that Satan lives and is your maker.”

  “As I live, your life is nothing but envy and ignorance.”

  Though his friends are made anxious, glancing about, sure that at any moment if not demons, then pagans, will appear to avenge the daughter of Satan, Peter pulls me closer. “All you teach is sin. In Hell, you will know fear itself, pure as fire.”

  Groping for release from this twisted man, my hand finds a pot in a niche. No more than unglazed clay, it is all I have and I smash it against the wall so that I hold one shard, shaped as a knife, sharp as a knife.

  Men approach—Christians or pagans? Whichever, Peter and his monks flee down another passage, and I run on, passing scribes grappling with butchers, unlettered priests knifing scholars, toothless women digging ancient Egyptian cartouches from walls with their bare blooded hands even as those I know as Father’s own students beat them to death with clubs. And here is Claudian, another poet, bent double from the books he has piled in a makeshift sheet over his back. Turning into a passageway filled with fallen statuary and the Christians who hammer them into rubble, I turn again along another where two who have rescued a bronze vase use it to smash out the brains of the man who would steal it.

  Here is the place I seek. By the quill of Seshat! To reach it I need risk a mass of burning books. In the hall of playwrights: among them Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, the flames burn brightest and hottest, and from here they will continue, only growing stronger and hotter, until all is lost. And there stands an Egyptian youth, filling a large leather satchel with scrolls. He is unknown to me, but the books he saves I know and love well: the Oracle of the Potter, the Dream of Nectaneb, Virgil’s Aeneid, the Argonauts of Apollonius of Rhodes.

  The young lover of romance is too near the flames. Like imps, cinders glow in the black curls of his hair. He pays them no mind, but makes his selections, carefully placing each in his satchel. Beyond him are the nine books of Plotinus. Therefore, it is beyond him I need to reach. If I wait much longer, the fire will block my way in. If the youth goes no faster, they will block his way out. As it is, the smoke makes it hard to breathe. It pains my throat. Soon, it will sear my lungs.

  But I must reach Plotinus, and so I run, passing the Egyptian who seems hardly to notice. I pass also a section of assorted fragments rescued from other fires in other times. And there, in a large niche of dry white limestone, is the work of my philosopher. But how to carry it? Like Father and his carrying away of Diophantus, no basket could contain all. I have no basket. Judging from the look of the youth, older and larger and stronger, I won’t be snatching away his satchel. As a Greek, called “sage” by the city of her birth, as well, it seems, Daughter of Satan, I might demand it, but at such a moment even an Egyptian could dispatch me to the Underworld.

  Others came prepared: Father and Lais with baskets, the priests and priestesses use mantles, Claudian found a sheet, Palladas brought an entire donkey. The youth wears only a breech cloth, but owns a satchel. All I have is my linen tunic, and under that, nothing at all. The youth is a handsome fellow, tall and straight and finely made, a few small scars on his hands, a larger longer scar on his upper arm. And so? I tear my dress from my body, quickly rip it in half, and of the halves make a sling. I tumble Plotinus into the sling, heft it over my shoulder, then turn to run back through the flames.

  For the love of Thoth—what now? The youth is on fire; his hair a small torch, his clothing smokes. Yet all it does is make him move faster.

  Is the life’s work of Plotinus more important than the short brutal lif
e of a reviled Egyptian who saves romances? Of course it is. Plotinus is vastly more important. Even so—Lais would not forgive me my choice. Already I face Father with Plotinus rather than Diophantus.

  Dumping the precious books from my sling, I run back to beat at the youth, and when his flames are extinguished, I push him away from the passage and out into a tunnel still dark and still cool. He never lets go of his satchel. Foolish man-boy. And yet, who is the more foolish? Lying where I have thrown them are the Enneads, just beginning to curl in the heat. To reach them now, I must run again through the flames when both the flames and I grow hotter. I run again, scooping Plotinus into my sling, its edges singed from beating at the youth, and I run back.

  Is it Serapis who saves me? Or Isis? Or Plotinus himself who wishes to live, even if only as Word? Whoever or whatever, I come out as I went in, the tracks of my tears running like the branching Nile through the soot on my face, my hair standing up here, lying down there, my fingers inked from long labor over mathematical formulas, but no more and no worse than this—save I wear only ash.

  The youth has not moved. He remains where I left him, his fair face, clean of beard, is untouched, but the hair on the right side of his head is crisped to the scalp. I do not gasp. Not at the sight of what must pain him beyond my knowledge of pain, and not at his sight of my naked body. I do no more than gaze at him as he gazes at me.

  “My name is Minkah,” he says, his Egyptian that of the streets. “I owe you my life.”

  “And I am sure I will find a good use for it, but now we must leave here. We must save our books.”

  Helladius, priest of Ammon, guides me out through a side entrance under one of the temple’s many arches, this one not yet besieged by those who heed the priests of their gentle Christ.

  My gray horses have gone.