Keeper of the Flame (12 page)

“You must give Ares instructions on how to find the Proginosko, Sosigenes. He can retrieve it and bring it here. Meanwhile, I will secure passage to Athens for you.”

The man nodded, and Ares showed up at the door. “Take Sosigenes to the others,” she told him. “Then do as he says. I will be back.”

Ares’s mouth dropped open slightly. “You are going out? Again?”

She scowled. “You make me sound like some kind of mad recluse, Ares.” He said nothing. Sophia kissed Sosigenes on the cheek, grabbed a pouch, and hurried to the ramp. On the way down, she tied the pouch under her tunic.

At the bottom of the lighthouse, she found one of the servants charged with keeping the light functioning and told him to fetch a horse and cart for her. His eyebrows lifted in the same manner as Ares’s.

Yes, I know. Twice in two days I have entered the city
.

“Go!” She thrust her arm toward the stable.

She waited, using the time to run through possibilities. It would need to be a larger ship, already bound for Athens, to avoid suspicion. A captain who was unsavory enough to ask no questions about his new cargo, but trustworthy enough to place twelve invaluable men and the Proginosko in his care.

A twinge of panic grabbed at her heart at the thought of placing the Proginosko on a ship. The last time she had done that . . .

But she would not think of that. Athens was the only place safe for their secret.

The servant brought the horse and cart and offered to drive her, but she took the whip from his hand and climbed onto the two-wheeled black and gold vehicle alone.

It took only minutes to cross the white heptastadion. Besides providing access to the island, the causeway also carried water to the Pharos through the aqueduct that ran from the Nile canal to the hundreds of vaulted underground cisterns through the city. Another marvelous feat of engineering. Sophia entered the colorful chaos of the city and kept her eyes trained straight ahead, refusing to be panicked again by the press of people so unlike her lonely perch in the lighthouse.

She wheeled along the edge of the quay, the smell of rotted fish and seaweed in her nostrils and the variable breeze, so particular to the sea, blowing against her. In the mighty harbor, ships docked and sailed away, their white masts snapping in the wind. The dock warehouses bustled with activity. She eyed one long building, a special facility for the Ptolemies’ questionable practice of seizing all the books that sailed into the city for mandatory copying. It was often the copies that were returned to the ships, with the originals bolstering the Library’s ever-increasing collection.

There were people everywhere, more numerous than the ships. Sophia pushed away that same oppressive feeling she had felt in the riot yesterday.

A double line of Roman soldiers marched along the quay, and their feet slammed a beat on the stones that sounded like the drumbeat of battle. Sophia’s hands tightened on the reins until her fingernails dug into her palms.

She circled half the harbor before she found what she sought. A mid-size ship, clearly preparing to set off, and flying the blue
flag of Athens. She pulled in the horse, found a young boy whom she paid an
obol
to watch the chariot, and hurried to the ship.

Two slaves carried crates of supplies aboard. She asked for the captain and received only a vague arm waving.

The ship’s heavy ropes still clung to the iron cleat on the dock, but she would have to jump to make it across. She measured the distance with her eye, looked both ways, then leaped across the water and landed with a jarring thump on the deck. Several pairs of slave eyes glanced her way.

A bulky man in a himation that had long ago gone from white to tan hailed her from the top of steps. “No more need of sailors, today, man.”

She drew herself up. His face reddened.

“Pardon me. We do not often have the female sex aboard. I am unaccustomed—”

“You are sailing for Athens soon?”

“Aye. Fully loaded with Alexandrian glass we are, and ready to share the wealth with the rich folks of Athens.”

“I have another bit of cargo for you. A delivery. And I will pay.”

His left eye twitched, as though it sensed a mystery, and a profitable one. “Something you would rather not hand over to Roman swine, I take it?”

She half-smiled. “They would not have the capacity to appreciate it, I am afraid.”

He extended a hand to the steps. “Come. Let us talk below.” Sophia gladly left the bright hustle of the harbor for the inviting darkness of the hull.

A short time later the deal was struck. Erebos, the ship’s captain, gripped her arm in farewell, and she disembarked,
confident that the scholars and their valuable secret would be safe with him.

The Roman presence in the harbor district seemed to have doubled while she had been below deck. Sophia worried that she would have trouble getting the men to the boat. She cracked the whip over the back of the horse and took to the streets with speed.

Back at the lighthouse, Ares had returned safely with the Proginosko, and Sosigenes had wrapped the piece in cotton, secured it with rope, and placed it into a wooden crate that Ares had given him. The twelve men were assembled in the front hall, speaking in low tones. A general mood of adventure pervaded the group, and Sophia hoped that nothing would happen to sour it.

She and Ares loaded the men back into the wagon, and this time Sophia climbed aboard the front, alongside Ares. He turned to her with a grin and opened his mouth to speak. She put up a hand. “Keep it to yourself. Just drive.”

Again, when they reached the harbor, Sophia had the sense that the Roman soldiers were spreading through the area like a plague. What was happening?

It took some time to navigate to the halfway point of the huge harbor. The heat was oppressive, and Sophia worried about the old men crammed under the canvas.

Finally they reached the boat, and Erebos’s sailors jumped from the deck to help.

In the press of the crowd, few seemed to notice that the canvas pulled back from the wagon revealed men and not crates of wares for trade. The men slipped out one by one and were helped across to the prow of the ship. Sophia and Ares kept
watch for Romans. Boats bobbed on the water up and down the quay, but the odd presence of the Roman legion hung over the harbor. Though the everyday shipping activity belied the violence of yesterday, Sophia felt the threat of war in the air, like an unfamiliar storm cloud building out at sea. She urged the scholars along.

And then there was only Sosigenes on the dock, the wooden crate in his arms. A sailor took it from him and jumped to the boat. Sosigenes wrapped his arms around Sophia. She returned his embrace stiffly.

“I don’t like to think of you alone in that lighthouse, in this city, Sophia.”

She smiled. “I have my books.”

“
‘It is not good for man to be alone,’
the Torah says. The Holy One gives us each what we long for—purpose and relationship. You will never be at peace until you accept both.”

Sophia pushed him gently toward the boat. “Your One God is a mystery to me, Sosigenes. But now is not the time to explain him. You must go.”

He hugged her again. “I will send word as soon as it is complete.”

“Two months. I will be watching the moon.” She pressed a bulging pouch into his hands. “The captain has been paid. Do not let him convince you that any more is owed. This is for the twelve of you, to keep you well in Athens.”

He kissed her cheek. “You are like one of the Muses, my Sophia. May the One God bless you for your contribution to the world.”

Sophia blinked away the tears of farewell and pushed Sosigenes toward the boat. “You must go.”

He smiled a last time, then let a sailor hold his arm as he crossed to the ship.

When he was safely below deck, Sophia turned back to the wagon—and slammed into the chest of a Roman soldier.

No, not a soldier. The Pilus Prior of the Sixth Cohort.

“Bellus!” she said, unthinking.

He lifted an eyebrow—and the corner of his mouth—at her mention of his name. “The reports I hear of your reclusive habits seem to be exaggerated. You are the most visible woman in Alexandria, I believe.”

Sophia bristled. “These are dangerous days, and I am simply a concerned citizen.” She nodded in the direction of his doubleline of soldiers. “We must do what we can to keep ignorance from overrunning our city.”

His face darkened. “It seems to me the city’s greatest ignorance lies in those who speak without knowledge of their subject.”

His eyes were steady on her, but she refused to look away. Sophia felt the muscles between her shoulders tighten. Something about this man truly infuriated her. “I can only assume that a legion unable to control a boy and his eunuch does not act out of sound strategy or informed thought.” She wondered if the boat behind her had cast off yet.
Stay below, Sosigenes
.

Bellus scratched at his stubbled chin. “It is you who are uninformed. We have the situation in hand.”

“Oh? And where is Pothinus?”

Bellus’s eyes strayed to Erebos’s ship.

Sophia shifted her position in front of him. “Was it your task to keep him from leaving the city?”

He scowled. “Who told you that?”

Sophia smiled. “I assumed. What was that title you said you carried? Pilus—something?”

“Pilus Prior.”

“Yes. Strange, I thought my Latin was quite good, but that does not seem to be the phrase for ‘incompetent failure.’ ”

Bellus inhaled deeply. She watched his chest expand under the chain mail, and it seemed to her that the fingers of his right hand twitched at his side.

“I do not need lessons in leadership skills from a woman who spends her days locked in a lighthouse.”

“Better alone in a lighthouse than leading men into disaster.”

“Do you have some task in the harbor, woman? Because you had best get to it. Before long the harbor will not be a place to wander aimlessly.”

Sophia glanced to the ship, its ropes still tied to the cleat. “Will you trample the harbor as you have already done to the Museum and the Library?”

“My men have orders to
secure
the harbor. We will see that no ships come or go without my knowledge and approval.”

Sophia’s stomach fluttered. “And when will this feat be accomplished?”

Bellus extended a hand across the harbor. Sophia followed his hand and could see now that the spreading stain of Roman military was an organized action throughout the harbor, and that Roman ships sailed toward the entrance, where the reefs narrowed the exit.

“Your men seem willing to follow you. That is at least a small credit to your leadership.” She turned to face him. “Perhaps, in time, you will develop into an able commander.”

Bellus clamped his generous lips together. Why did she
continue to anger him when she much preferred to see him smile?

She indicated the harbor entrance with her chin. “Your ships, what are they doing out there?”

“They will drop anchor at the narrowest point. Every ship that attempts to enter or exit will need to be inspected and approved.”

Sophia felt her breath rise and fall in her chest, which grew ever tighter. “I see.”

“What did you say was your business here?” Bellus took a step toward her, forcing her attention back to himself.

She straightened. “I didn’t say. I am procuring supplies for the lighthouse.”

He nodded slowly.

“I suppose you think that the lighthouse is nothing but a fire and a mirror. You could have no idea what is involved in maintaining the safety of the incoming ships.”

“I am certain you are most capable of handling the challenges you face.”

Sophia narrowed her eyes, trying to determine if there was sarcasm in his tone. “You think me a tyrant of a woman, then?”

Bellus lowered his head, but then raised his eyes to hers. He was silent a moment, as though reading her thoughts. When he spoke, his voice was low. “I think you are lonely and bitter and angry, and you prefer that the world around you also feel the pain of it.”

Sophia swallowed, but still she would not look away from his eyes. His words were an injury, to be sure. But not knife-sharp, not fatal. More like a large stone tied round her neck. A heavy sinking that made it hard to breathe. “I—I must go. As I said, I have critical business to attend.”

Bellus saluted her, a mock sort of salute intended, she knew, as ridicule. “I will leave you to it, then.”

With a glance at the Roman fleet now nearing the harbor entrance, Sophia left Bellus on the dock and jumped across to the ship. The ship carrying cargo that would never be allowed to pass.

On the deck she glanced back, but Bellus had moved on. “We must change our plans,” she said to Erebos. He nodded, as though expecting the news and folded his hands across his wide belly.

“Bring the ship through the heptastadion channel to the Eunostos Harbor. Dock on the west side of the lighthouse.”

Erebos snorted. “They have left the eastern harbor unguarded?”

Sophia looked across the water, sparkling in the afternoon sun. “I am afraid not. You will not reach Athens with this cargo.”

“I must get to Athens—”

“I know.” Sophia let her eyes travel to the lighthouse on the tip of the island ahead.

She depended upon her solitude there. Needed it. But her life was worth nothing if she did not preserve her husband’s legacy, especially now that the Proginosko again promised hope for the future.

“We will bring them to the lighthouse,” she said, as much to herself as to Erebos. “There is no other way.”

Thirteen

B
ellus shielded his eyes and calculated the time before the two ships had the Eunostos harbor. An army clerk neared at his right and saluted. “A message, centurion,” he said, extending his hand. Bellus took the rolled papyrus absently and nodded.

The mission had proceeded better than he had hoped. His centuria had spread through the harbor in their ten contubernia, to take the mainland docks on either side of the heptastadion that stretched out to the Pharos Island. They had blocked the entrance into the Great Harbor. The Eunostos Harbor in the west should be guarded within the hour.