Selene of Alexandria (3 page)

Selene fussed with the swaths of material belted with a silk cord just under her budding breasts.

"Stop trying to improve on perfection, Mistress. The stripes are aligned." Rebecca settled the silk wrap in wispy folds over Selene's hair and shoulders.

"With all this cloth, I feel like I'm wearing a merchant's tent," Selene complained.

Rebecca smiled, showing small, irregular teeth. "Would you wear less and be taken for an actress or acrobat, men vying for your favors?"

Selene blushed at the thought, mumbling, "At least they're comfortable."

"The tent looks quite elegant with your height."

Selene took a second look in the mirror. "Now for the jewelry and I'll be ready to greet the new Prefect…as if he will even see me in the crowd." She put on the heavy silver bracelets and faience earrings that had been her mother's, bringing back bittersweet memories.

Rebecca opened a carved cedar chest sitting under a narrow window and pulled out a pair of clean sandals. The blue leather enclosed the toe and heel, leaving the arch free. "We can't have you padding about the city barefoot like a beggar."

"Of course not." Selene giggled and sat on the bed so Rebecca could lace the sandals. There was another knock at the door. "Yes?"

"It's Nicaeus. Father waits. Are you ready?"

Selene's heart quickened. She glanced at Rebecca, who nodded. "I'll be right out."

Selene strode across the room then moderated her gait to the feminine glide her friend Honoria had worked so hard to teach her. The astonished look on her brother's face was worth all the fussing. She kept a serene mask as she took his proffered arm and they descended the stairs.

Their father waited in the vestibule. Calistus was of unremarkable height, with the stooped shoulders and small rounded belly of a man who spent more time at his books than in the gymnasium. Today the full regalia of a city councilor disguised his physical imperfections: full length white tunic, topped with a voluminous toga bordered with the thin purple stripe denoting his class. He wore rings and medals denoting his various civic offices and honors, and carried a mahogany staff capped with gold.

Selene's heart swelled as he smiled at her, his eyes lighting with joy and his face creasing with laugh lines.

"I see you both will do me proud today. Let's be on our way."

They exited onto a broad residential street and proceeded toward the agora. The streets in their quarter filled with families of distinction – councilors, lawyers, rich merchants – making their way east. As they approached the agora, the crowds became more varied – churchmen, sailors, shop owners, apprentices, teachers, beggars and pilgrims – all heading in the same general direction. Wine shops and fruit merchants did a brisk business. Other enterprising men and women hawked baskets of dark brown rolls, flat bread, and grilled meat and onions on a skewer.

The smell of cooked onions and garlic vied with that of unwashed bodies and urine. The workers who cleaned and stocked the public privies seemed unable to keep up with the crowd. Or, possibly many people, unwilling or unable to pay the small coin for use of the privies, relieved themselves where they willed. Selene wished she had brought a perfumed cloth to hold to her nose as they passed one particularly noisome alley.

She stopped to look over some vases showing the profile of the boy-emperor Theodosius II on one side and, purportedly, the new Augustal Prefect on the other. Other merchants sold bronze coins, plates, glass beads, goblets and all manner of wares adorned with the stylized face of the emperor and/or the prefect. Her father called to her and Selene hurried along, not wanting to lose him in the crowd.

The street emptied into the spacious open square where Canopic Street met the equally wide north-south street of Sema. Porticoes and public buildings surrounded the vast agora. Wooden stands, erected at one end, held city officials and offered a platform for the speeches. A freestanding monumental arch stood opposite the podium through which the procession would arrive. Selene could feel the crowd's excitement heighten, and her own pulse raced.

Her father took her arm and pointed toward the wooden stands. "We'll be over there." The three picked their way through the crowd towards their designated spot. Calistus sat with the other city councilors in a place of honor on the platform. Selene and Nicaeus stood with the councilors' families on the steps of the law courts, above and a little to the right of their father.

From that height, Selene could make some order of the crowd below. She spied Lady Hypatia, made conspicuous by her gender, sitting among the city nobles. The Patriarch Theophilus and his immediate staff occupied a dozen of the seats. The tall man in full army uniform must be the Egyptian dux Abundantius. The Jewish council of elders completed the platform contingent. Behind this first rank, families and staff ranged up the steps, each in the place designated for them by religion, birth, age and profession.

"Can you see anything yet?" Selene asked her brother.

The sun was just past its zenith. Nicaeus shaded his eyes with one hand while looking eastward along the boulevard. "Nothing yet. We'll probably hear it before we see anything."

"I suspect it will be an hour or more before the procession makes it to the agora," a deep voice said behind Selene. She turned and looked into the bearded face of a man with brown eyes and black hair, very much like her own. His lips turned up into a smile. Selene put a hand to her mouth then gasped, "Phillip!" She greeted her oldest brother with a leap into his arms. Phillip grabbed Selene in a bear hug then put her down with a grunt. "My baby sister isn't such a baby anymore." He looked her up and down with a wistful smile. "In fact, you've grown into quite a lady."

"Phillip! It's been three years! You've grown a beard. Why did no one tell me you were coming? When did you get home? What was the court like? You must tell me all about Constantinople! Does Father know you're home?"

At the mention of Calistus, a shadow passed over Phillip's face. "Father doesn't know I'm back. I decided not to finish my law studies and had the good fortune to travel home with Orestes and his escort. We took the overland route and became great friends on the journey."

"Orestes?" Nicaeus blurted. "Our new Augustal Prefect? You're friends?"

"Close your mouth, brother, or you'll catch flies. Yes, the new Prefect and I are quite good friends." The next hour passed quickly as Phillip regaled his small but attentive audience with the exploits of his fellow law students, the wonders of the royal court, and his adventures traveling with Orestes.

Selene's breath came quick as Phillip described a narrow escape on the trip. "We chased the bandits into a blind canyon where they fought for their lives. Just as I thought they were finished, the leader…" Phillip's words were drowned by the blare of a hundred trumpets playing a fanfare. They all looked up in surprise. "I'll finish the story later."

Selene's deep disappointment at the interruption of the story must have shown, because Phillip chucked her under the chin and said, "Don't worry, little sister. I lived." She punched him in the ribs and turned to watch the procession.

It took the better part of another hour for the whole parade to wend its way into the agora. First units of soldiers from the garrison at Nicopolis, followed by all manner of conveyances fantastically decorated by the city's guilds and youth groups. Most were wagons decorated with flowers and streamers and containing people acting scenes from the Bible that in someway related to their professions. The shipbuilders provided Noah and the Ark with several real animals. The bakers chose the Sermon on the Mount and tossed free bread to the crowd, much to the disgust of the food vendors.

Selene gasped when a lovely painted plaster statue of what seemed to be the Virgin Mary was revealed to be the goddess Athena. Several pagan students from the association that provided it accompanied the statue. They marched in silent defiance when they entered the agora, then broke into a hymn of praise to the goddess in front of the platform. The Patriarch rose and pointed a staff at the students, as if to strike them down. "The laws are clear forbidding public worship of idols. Stop this abomination at once!"

Immediately a pack of parabolans attacked the students with clubs. The students fought fiercely in defense of their goddess, kicking and punching their attackers, but they were no match against beefy men with cudgels. Selene heard the sickening crack of wood on bone and shrieks of pain that turned to shouts of anger as the parabolans broke through to topple the statue. It shattered into a thousand pieces and a cloud of dust. The troops from Nicopolis drove a wedge-shaped formation through the melee and started to separate the combatants by hauling them to opposite sides of the agora.

The soldiers' quick action forestalled others from joining the fray, but the mood of the moment turned sour. The crowd milled and muttered on the edge of violence. Suspicious glances, and not a few provocative remarks, flew from group to group. Selene's heart fluttered in fear. Phillip pulled her close and looked around, as if scouting for an escape route. Nicaeus blocked her view as he moved in front to protect her, but she heard a commanding female voice cut through the mutters of the crowd.

"Peace, my friends and fellow citizens. Let us not spoil this celebration by committing bloodshed over the foolishness of a few youths. We are here in fellowship to welcome our new governor. It would be a poor welcome indeed, if he met with riot and disorder on his first day. My friend Patriarch Theophilus will join me in this plea for peace; will you not, Good Father?"

Selene peeked around Nicaeus to see Hypatia holding out a hand to the angry Patriarch. A few ragged cheers started on the edge of the crowd. "Heed Hypatia. Peace for the Prefect."

Theophilus spread his arms to address the crowd.

Chapter 3

Orestes, Augustal Prefect and governor of all Egypt, chafed at the slow pace of the procession. He made a striking figure, his military bearing belying his civilian purple and white ceremonial robes. Orestes had toiled for years in provincial towns to reach this appointment. This would be the culmination of his career. If successful, the rewards would be substantial, both in terms of power and esteem. The Praetorian Prefect and Regent Anthemius, his patron at the court, had warned him this appointment would be a difficult one. The city had been quiet for several years, but had a reputation for riot and disputation with imperial authority, particularly as the Patriarch grew in power.

Orestes nodded and waved from his burnished chariot, handling the four white mares himself. An aide stood at the back tossing coins to the tightly packed crowd; more coins in this poorer section of the city close to the walls, fewer as they neared the agora where the more privileged awaited him. Orestes would have dispensed with the whole celebration, if he had a choice, but the fractious people of Alexandria did not give him one.

His good friend Abundantius, posted here for several years as the Egyptian military commander, made it clear what the people of the city expected. "One of my predecessors had to accompany a new Patriarch into the city to protect him after he had been tossed out," he had told Orestes. "The good father was humble and most holy, but he was the Emperor's man, not theirs. The new Patriarch came into the city with little fanfare and compounded his error by shortening the investiture ceremony. The good citizens of Alexandria drove him out of the city until he did it right. 'Right' meant a full procession with troops, clergy, and – most important of all – a feast day for the city."

Orestes laughed at the story, but took Abundantius' point. Alexandria was the third largest city in the Empire and the major supplier of grain for Constantinople as well as the army. Peace in the Empire depended on bread from Egypt. Peace in Alexandria depended on a shrewd mind, an adept hand at the helm, and a lavish welcome complete with free food and drink.

Orestes watched closely the faces of the people he had been sent to govern. Those faces changed dramatically as he approached the agora, from the dark pinched countenances of the Egyptian peasants flooding the city, looking for work, to the olive-toned descendents of Greek and Roman conquerors. The crowd had a fair sprinkling of black Nubians and an occasional startling blond barbarian, both usually towering over the short people of this region. Alexandria was a crossroads for trade and pilgrims. People from all over the Empire and beyond, traveled its streets and did business in its shops and offices.

Orestes sensed a change in the crowd's mood as he approached the agora. They looked uncertain, muttering and straining to hear voices that trickled from the open space in front of the triumphal arch. He motioned to the decurion of the mounted escort Abundantius had provided. The grizzled man approached, horse skittering from the chariot wheels.

Battle senses alert, Orestes rode into the vast square. He saw several people cleaning a pile of rubble from in front of the viewing stand. A diminutive woman in scholar's white and a frail man in full Bishop's regalia harangued the crowd. He immediately recognized the famous Lady Philosopher Hypatia and Patriarch Theophilus. Whatever the problem, they had it under control.