Aries Fire (3 page)

“Extispicy?”  He interrupted.  “I’ll not have you base your life on the entrails of a dead creature.  What are you thinking?” He was visibly annoyed.  “I know your sight is far reaching, but even so, it’s untrained.  Don’t waste your time on these things. You are not a competent seer. This is the time to use reason.” 

“Don’t tell me who I am or what I need,” she said. Her wild eyes glared at him.

“Listen to me.”  He leaned over the table. She glanced at his huge hands aged with deep creases.  A rage being fanned within her was all but smothered by her fatigue. 

“You will go to Athens to the Platonic Academy to continue your studies.  Proclus held your mother in great esteem.  He has agreed to oversee your tutelage. This is the way of it.” 

His words used up all of his breath.  His shoulders straightened after he gave his decree.

Seira’s senses suddenly dulled. She was numb.  Her fire died and her eyes burned and watered from the scent of incense thick from the servant’s prayers for her mother. 

“Crying is done. It’s been eight days since your mother’s tragedy. If all words in any dialect were linked together, they would still do no justice to the meaning of our beloved and virtuous Hypatia.”  His voice softened as he soliloquized. He made no motion toward her but kept speaking. “We’ve lost neither her wisdom nor her essence.  She lives in our minds, Seira.  She whispers her existence to our very impulses.”

His voice faded.  It couldn’t compete with the rushing thoughts through Seira’s mind.

Did he think I was crying?  Perhaps I should. Let him lecture, she thought.  It’s his way of grief.

She didn’t really want to fight him.  That would have been cruel. 

Athens?  No, my dear grandfather, that is not the way of it. That won’t do at all.

“If you must, weep now for the students who’ll not have a mentor. We shall thwart the Christian devils and their doctrines by keeping the knowledge of truth alive for the freedom of future generations.”  He stared at the back of his hand then suddenly looked at her.  “There’s no time for girlish foolery.  Instruct Marina to pack for your journey and make haste.  You leave before the cock crows,” he finally finished. 

Philosophers talk too much and I’ve had no intention of becoming one.  The stars hold my course, she thought.

Seira was determined to seek out the wisest of astrologers and study for her own reasons.  She held her tongue.  There was no use pleading her case with a logistician.  Seira’s facts and reason were born in her heart and not in her head and she wasn’t about to argue that point.

She stood.  He looked about the room awkwardly, saw that there would be no more resistance from her, and came around the table. Theon crushed his granddaughter in a hug.  For the first time in years, she felt the warmth of his broad chest.  She gazed over his shoulder through the terrace window. A curious star glimmered in the East and she intuitively knew it would be their last embrace.

“Theon,” she mumbled into his sleeve, but left her sentence unsaid.

•  •  •

M
ARINA, SEIRA’S MAID,
was a silly and delicate little thing; always tiptoed about as if she feared the ground would eat her heels.

“Why do you walk like that?  It’s unnerving,” Seira blurted.

“I’m sorry, Mistress.  I don’t wish to disturb,” she said in a fragile voice, bowing her head.

“Please don’t call me mistress.  It makes me feel, oh, I don’t know, old and dried up. Call me Seira. Or better, call me, Oh Exalted One,” she said.

Seira puffed up her chest and squinted her eyes. Marina burst into laughter and suddenly contained herself.

“I will be sad to see you go,” she said and lowered her head again.

“Rina,” Seira said.  It was hard enough to be comfortable with her own frailty let alone have to speak to another’s. “Come here and sit by me…and stamp your feet into the floor,” she teased.

“You have always been like a little sister to me, Mistr..um, Seira,” she said.

Her disclosure was peculiar to Seira since Marina was only two years her senior and Seira already stood a head taller than her maid. 

“I’m saddened by your mother’s passing. With her murdered, what’s to become of us?”  Marina sniffled and the tears began to flow. 

Oh, by the stars, thought Seira.

“Marina.  It’ll be grand.  Just think of it,” she said with one arm stretched toward the sky, the other around Marina’s bony shoulders.  “I’ll be out in the world and I’ll send you gifts from all the big cities. You’ll be here in the arms of a fine, rich man and have lots of runts, um, babes.  What do you think?” 

 “Is that one of your visions?” she asked. Her tears abruptly ended.

“Yes.  Yes it is,” she lied.  “I saw it just last night in my dream.  Now, that’s better.” Seira urged her in the direction of her clothes.

“Oh, that’s a wonderful vision,” she said.  “Did you see his face?”

“Whose face?  Oh, your handsome lover?  No, but…” she paused to fabricate a story.

“Will he think I’m beautiful?”  Marina appeared uneasy.

Large brown eyes fringed with long lashes blinked at Seira.

“I’m sure you’ll do well with that body,” laughed Seira.

Marina blushed.

“Now if I had those huge breasts,” Seira said, cradling her own and sizing them up, “I’d use them for wiser purposes.  You’ve got to use what you have to make life work for you, Marina.”

“Oh, your grandfather would beat you if he heard you talk like this,” she said, peeking nervously toward the door.

“Who do you think gave me the idea?”  she asked.

Marina appeared dumbfounded. Seira believed her servant’s head was filled with feathers.

“You, too, will marry a handsome, rich nobleman and have lots of children,” said Marina, dreamily. “We’re both past the age of marriage, you know.”

Marina nodded her head repeatedly, like a teacher giving a lesson to a bored class.

“Marina, it’s not my duty to wed and populate the earth. I’ll make no man my benefactor while the planets revolve in the universe.  I’ve got greater things in mind.”

“But you’ll need a man to keep you fertile and to give you purpose,” she implored.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t have a man to warm my sheets. I said I didn’t plan to marry.”  Before the look of shock could disappear from the maid’s face, Seira continued. “Hurry up now, you’ve got to get my bags ready for Lem.”

She obeyed diligently. Seira surveyed the room, her memories, and her journal.  All were in order.

Marina dawdled with Seira’s things for a moment. She looked at Seira and opened her mouth to speak but no words came forth so she closed it. Then she opened it again.

“I can’t hold it any longer, Mistress.”  She fumbled with her pockets and revealed a small, crumpled papyrus.  “Your grandfather would have me flogged if he found out.”

“What is it?  Give it here.” Seira snatched the scrap from Marina’s hands.

“The thought of keeping it from you…” she said, letting her voice trail off.

“It’s a letter from my grandfather addressed to the Bishops of Palestine.  Where did you come by this?”  The maid’s mouth fell open to reply.  “Wait. Guard the door while I read it,” Seira commanded.  Marina scurried to the door. Seira perused the letter.

“It’s written in Greek. Come here and tell me where you got this. You can’t read, can you?”  Marina flew on tiptoes and slid across the room toward Seira’s imperious voice.

“Will you stop that,” she blurted, losing her temper.  “You don’t work at the circus. Answer me, Marina.  Where did you get this?”

A light rap on the door startled them and Marina yelped.

“I told you to guard the door,” Seira hissed.  Marina looked from side to side not knowing what to do.

“Well, answer it,” she pleaded. “Please,” added Seira calmly before resting her hand on Marina’s shoulder.  The poor thing had the look of a worried midwife. “It’s all right.  Take a moment and compose yourself.  It’s probably Lem.  Tell him I’ll be down momentarily.”

Once at the door, Marina poked her head into the hallway and whispered to Lem. 

I shouldn’t have been so corporal with her, she thought.

Seira felt badly but after tonight, she knew it wouldn’t matter anymore. She quickly hid the letter in her shoulder sack and waited for her maid’s return. She became impatient.  Seira had to know what was in the letter.

Marina giggled before closing the door. Seira frowned that Marina lost the importance of the moment to a silly, girlish flirtation. 

Marina’s dress caught the breeze as she slid past the terrace window.  She also caught Seira’s cold stare. Marina became so self-conscious that she tripped over her airborne tunic and careened into the pillar. A vase filled with flowers crashed onto the tile floor.

“Ssorry,” she said.

She bent over and picked up the pottery shards, afraid to look at her mistress.

Seira swiftly pulled the letter out of her sack and tore into it.

“Leave that, Rina. Tell me how you came by this.”  She wildly scanned the letter for familiar names.

“I overheard your grandfather speaking in haste, and quite angrily too, with his courier.  I thought nothing of it until I heard him say that it was of utmost importance, the importance of your mistress’ life that is, that this letter be copied in Latin and dispatched immediately. To where, I know not.  This crumpled page fell unnoticed onto the floor.” 

Marina stopped suddenly, either to catch her breath or to wait for further instruction.

Seira remained fixed on the words.

“But who sent this to my grandfather? Or is it his unsent letter?” she uttered then read it aloud.

“‘To the well-beloved lords, brothers, and fellow-bishops, Cyril, Demetrius, Theodosius, Saturninus, Alan, Paul, Helianus, gathered together at the dedication festival of Lid, Timethaus sends greetings in the Lord…’”

“I don’t think Grandfather wrote this,” she murmured aloud and continued to read. “I don’t understand it.  It says here that the Origenests are to be shunned along with the Jews, Pelagiasts, Neo-Platonists, and heretics of the like. What does this have to do with me or Theon?”

“Don’t you follow the teachings of Plato?” asked Marina.

“Well, yes, but,” Seira was suddenly stunned by this simple woman’s coherence. 

Perhaps this letter was the reason she was being rushed off to Athens. So far the letter made no direct threat toward Seira or her grandfather.

“Who are the Origeners?”  Marina asked.

“Not Origeners, Origenists,” she sighed.  “They’re a religious faction. They believe that Jesus was just a man. They believe that God, not man, is the way to the truth.  But why clump Neo-Platonist and Jews together with the Pelagiasts and Origenists?”  Then she looked at her maid. Seira realized that Marina could not answer that question.

“Origenists believe that the stars are conscious of their own movements and demons predict the future by them.” Seira began to pace.  “I plan to put that lie to rest. My knowledge of the stars will make me respected by every politician,” she postulated.

Marina sat quietly and appeared engaged in Seira’s commentary. “The Origenists,” Seira continued, “also believe that magic is not evil and that nothing in heaven or on earth is perfect.  Well, on some points we do agree,” she said as she fanned the letter to her face. “And my mother was murdered for her beliefs.  At least her beliefs were worth dying for.” 

Seira suddenly felt an enormous pain crush her heart.  She quickly buried her feelings by talking. “I can’t be bothered by religious, political debris.  Yet, my life might very well depend upon the right answer to escape treachery.”

Her attention turned to the letter again and she read aloud. “’Three persons are accused of grave crimes, one being treason, against the most Holy, Pope Innocent. One of these is the woman—who was wrongly placed on the list of traitors by Isidorus.’” 

Seira’s look shot to Marina, who sat fixed on the bed blankets.  The maid’s eyes widened, not with understanding of the words, but solely for her reactionary nature.

“Isidorus?  Could they mean my mother’s husband?  What does he have to do with this?”  She crept to the terrace and glanced below and saw only Lem by the chariot. She almost expected Isidorus to be hiding in the shadows. Seira ran over to Marina and gripped her by the shoulders.  “Could this unknown woman referred to in this letter be my mother?” She composed herself. The implications were beyond comprehension. “Marina, take my bags down and wait with Lem.  I’ll be down in a cobra’s strike.”

Marina hurried toward the door, stopped, turned, and looked solemnly at her mistress with reverence.  Seira immediately felt that she shouldn’t talk her thoughts aloud should Marina be interrogated by monks in the future.

“Go on.  It’s all right. Shoo.”  She waved her hands at Marina and the letter crinkled. The maid was off, but not before bumping into the walls and dropping a bag on her tippie, tippie toes. 

Seira pulled her sack over her shoulder and paused to finish the letter.  “‘…the woman—who was wrongly placed on the list by Isidorus. We interpret this as a bargaining attempt, on his part, without doubt, in securing his freedom.  This action can only confirm our suspicion of his guilt as traitor.  He is the present known-bearer of the heretical faction. His nobility afforded them with unlimited resources for their violent enterprises. They have lain sights on Jerusalem to continue their campaign against the church.  However unfortun…’” 

The letter ended, the paper had been torn. 

Isidorus? It must be he; else why would my grandfather fear for my safety?  

Her mother’s husband was now on her list of murder suspects.  But just whom had Isidorus betrayed?  Nevertheless, his mere presence was questionable. She could see why Theon would have her leave at once.  Theon was in no danger from Isidorus.  He needed her grandfather’s money and recommendations. Isidorus wouldn’t dare harm Theon.  How else could he pay his way in the world?

Yes, yes.  I will go to Ashkelon, then on to Jerusalem. I’ll find those names on this letter. They, who would have Isidorus.  I’ll use his name as leverage and bargain for my passage to… to… well, somewhere, but it will not be Athens!