Selene of Alexandria (31 page)

A jolt of fear seared through Selene. One of the oldest and most beloved Christian churches in Alexandria, St. Alexander's destruction would cause much sorrow and anger in the Christian community.

A young monk ran toward them with a torch, knocking on all the doors as he passed. "Help! Fire at St. Alexander's!"

People poured out carrying buckets, pots, anything that could hold water. Men and even a few women joined the stream of people heading to save their beloved church.

Antonius grabbed Selene's hand. "Keep close." She in turn grabbed Rebecca's hand as they followed the crowd.

The mob picked up speed as they neared the square in front of the church. Some people shouted angrily. Antonius tried to keep on the edges, but a torrent of bodies pushed them directly into the center of the throng.

Selene lost Antonius' hand as the crowd eddied in different directions. She held tightly to Rebecca's, struggling against the press to keep up with Antonius.

"Selene!" he shouted, trying to push back. He reached his hand over several heads. She reached toward him, fingers straining.

"Antonius! Wait for us!" she screamed as the mob whirled him away.

Rebecca pressed tight to her side and shouted in her ear. "There's no smoke!"

Selene sniffed the air. Rebecca was right. There was no smell of smoke or sign of flame. She and Rebecca were caught in the trap they had come to warn Phillip about and Antonius was lost to them.

Chapter 24

Selene pulled Rebecca tight and tried worming her way out of the mob. Her heart raced; time seemed to slow. Torchlight flickered across faces contorted with rage and fear. Selene shrank back, but there was no space – only bodies pressing closer and closer. She tried taking a deep breath to calm herself, but the very air seemed to be sucked from the square.

With a shout, the crowd stampeded right, forcing Selene and Rebecca to run. Several people fell. The mob poured over them. Selene tried to avoid the twitching bodies, but it was impossible.

Rebecca stumbled. Selene jerked her to her feet, fear adding strength to the pull. Her friend grimaced in pain, but Selene had no time to ask why.

They ran for an eternity down a long straight street, until the mob slowed. Selene maneuvered toward a thinning area. Rebecca's arm hung limp, her face drawn with pain.

They had barely reached the wall of a private residence when Selene felt a rhythmic thump through the soles of her sandals. She looked up. A mounted troop pressed down the street. In front of the horses, a line of guards with shields linked, pushed everyone before them.

The crowd reversed toward the church square.

Selene shouted, "On my shoulders. Jump for the top!"

"I can't!" Tears coursed down Rebecca's face. "My arm won't hold me. You go." Selene grabbed Rebecca, rotated her arm and pushed on her shoulder. It popped back into the socket with an audible snap. Rebecca screamed then sobbed.

"Get on my shoulders, before we get swept back up into that mob!" Selene squatted, forming a stirrup with her hands. Rebecca stepped into it and up to Selene's shoulders. Selene straightened, leaning against the wall.

Rebecca grabbed the top with her good arm, using her toes and injured arm to boost herself the final distance. She unwound her cloak and let it down. Selene grabbed the end. Rebecca leaned back, pulling with one arm. Before Selene could start climbing, the edge of the mob swept her away in a crush of bodies.

"Selene!" The cloak torn from her hands, Rebecca tottered on the wall.

"Stay there!" Selene's shout disappeared in the roar.

Gauging the movement of the mob, Selene worked her way slowly but steadily forward. Others, who had not lost their heads in panic, also sought a way out. Ahead, she spied an alley she had missed the first time they ran past. It led behind the private residences fronting on the main road.

Selene angled across the front of the mob, trying to reach the opening before the crush carried her past. She reached the alley at the head of a splinter group also escaping. With an open path ahead, she hitched her robes and ran as fast as she could, leaving all but a few to stagger behind.

After several blocks and hearing nothing but her own ragged gasps, Selene stopped. She leaned against a wall to catch her breath, then sat, head and arms cradled on her knees. Her heart slowed. The sweat dried on her grimy face.

She tried to make sense of what happened, but failed. She had never seen people act that mindlessly. The relief she felt at having escaped, quickly soured with fear.

Selene heard footsteps. Two men, one propping up the other, headed toward her. She was alone – again – in a dangerous situation, but nearly too emotionally spent to care. She peered down the dim alley. More people headed her way.

With her last bit of will, Selene rose and walked on nerveless legs, to the next street. She circled back toward St. Alexander's, knowing only that she must find Rebecca, Antonius, and perhaps – if she were very lucky – Phillip.

Selene knew she was in the guard's wake when she narrowly avoided stepping in a pungent pile of horse droppings. She continued down the street, searching for the wall where she had left Rebecca. All along the route, people descended from walls and trees, hurrying off as fast as they could.

She finally found Rebecca, slumped, legs dangling, hair unraveling in ragged clumps. Selene, limping with exhaustion, shouted hoarsely. "Rebecca! Come down. It's safe now."

Relief lit Rebecca's tired eyes. Selene placed herself against the wall. Rebecca dropped to her friend's shoulders then jumped to the ground.

Rebecca turned and hugged Selene with one arm. "I thought I would never see you again!" She pulled away. "Are you hurt?"

They hugged again then Rebecca pointed toward the church square with her uninjured arm. "We must find Antonius and Phillip."

They headed toward St. Alexander's. Guards blocked the street opening to the square, allowing a few people out at a time, but none in.

Selene approached a guard writing on a slate. "May we go in?"

He looked up in annoyance. "No, Lady. It's dangerous. Go home."

"We're looking for a friend, Antonius, son of Lysis, a City Councilor. We were separated in the rush. How might we get word of him?"

"Unarmed citizens are passed through; armed persons detained. The wounded are being cared for in the church; the dead laid out in the square."

Selene looked at Rebecca. She nodded, clutching her arm, pain etched on her face.

"Sir, I'm Selene, daughter of Councilor Calistus. My servant is injured. I'm a healer. If we could go to the church, I will tend her and any others who need such service."

The guard examined the fine cut of Selene's torn cloak, the quality of the embroidery on her dirty dalmatica. He peered closely at Rebecca's pale face and bruised eyes, then called to a young recruit. "Escort this healer and her servant to the church."

The recruit gathered two comrades and herded Selene and Rebecca past the roadblock. Torches and lamps lit the scene almost as bright as day. People huddled, propping each other up. Some sat on the ground, heads in their hands. Those faces Selene could see reflected exhaustion and shock. No one had escaped without some bruise or rent clothing. Occasionally someone wandered by crying a name, peering into slack faces.

Selene pulled on the recruit's sleeve. "Please, might we view the dead on our way to the church? We are looking for a friend."

He scratched his head, under his helmet. "I guess it'll do no harm," he answered in heavily accented Greek.

Two dozen bodies lay in front of the church. Holding her breath, Selene looked closely. A few, badly trampled, would not be taken for human except for their clothing. Others lay with limbs in grotesque angles to their bodies. Two looked as if they slept with no visible wound or injury.

Selene slowly let out her breath and turned to the recruit. "Thank you. He is not among the dead."

"I'm glad, Lady. This was a bad night. Shouldn't no one been dead. This way." Inside the church, he handed them over to a harried looking middle-aged woman in penitent's robes, her gray-shot hair cut even shorter than Selene had dared.

The woman looked up from bandaging a ragged cut on a young man's face. "I'm Sister Martha. Have you come to give or receive aid?"

"Both." Selene saw over fifty moaning injured lying on pallets hastily manufactured of blankets and straw. "I'm Selene. My servant needs attention. Then I can set bones, dress wounds and do minor surgeries. What equipment do we have?"

"The guard surgeon has the usual kit. There are a few needles and flax thread. We're working mostly with hot water, cloths and our hands. Over there." She pointed her chin to a young woman ripping fabric into strips and stirring a pot over a brazier. "Take care of your servant then do what you can."

"Where's the surgeon?"

A piercing scream echoed from the next room. Sister Martha nodded in that direction.

Selene and Rebecca appropriated bandages, which Selene used to fashion a sling for Rebecca's arm. That done, Selene surveyed the still and moaning bodies. "We were lucky. I pray to God, we never get caught in such again." She looked at Rebecca. "Rest. I'll see if the surgeon needs assistance."

"I can help a little," Rebecca protested.

"Maybe later. Rest now." Selene helped her friend find a free corner and headed for the surgeon's room. Long before reaching the door, she smelled fresh blood and spilled intestines. The surgeon, a short man with the arms and chest of a blacksmith, worked with two assistants. Wearing gore-spattered leather aprons, they operated on an unconscious man with a belly wound. Scalpels lay in their open wooden carry case on a nearby bench. Selene watched the trio quickly pull the guts from the body cavity and examine them.

"Lucky man." The surgeon pointed to a spot. "The cut is in the large intestine. I could do nothing with a wound in the small bowel." He took needle and thread and sewed the cut. The assistants washed the intestines in wine and packed them back into the body. The surgeon then sewed up the wound. The whole operation took only a few minutes. The assistants applied a linen bandage and tightly bound the sutures.

Selene approached the surgeon. "Sir, I have some small skill in surgery. Perhaps I can be of assistance?"

The surgeon looked her over, washing blood from his hands in a copper bowl. "I'll handle the most serious cases. You don't look strong enough to set bones. Can you sew? Clean and dress a wound without fainting?"

"Yes, sir." Selene nodded, only mildly prickled at the surgeon's off-hand appraisal. "I've had much practice lately."

"Then you may attend those." He indicated a row of people sitting and, sometimes, lying along a bench.

Selene worked steadily. Most wounds she washed with water. The shallow ones she bandaged with linen, the deeper ones she stitched muscles and skin. There was nothing for the pain except wine.

Selene came to a frail old man lying down with a purpling bump on his temple. He moaned and panted, his shallow breath barely raising his frail chest. She pulled up an eyelid, noted the dilated pupil and called the surgeon over. "Could you trephine the skull to relieve the pressure?"

"Such an old one would never survive the surgery." He felt the patient's pulse and smelled his breath. "Make him as comfortable as possible. There's nothing I can do for him."

"Thank the Good Lord. He gave us the strength to save His house." The old man's eyes rolled up and he lapsed into unconsciousness. Selene sat silently as his breathing slowed and finally stopped. She wanted to cry, but felt only a bone-deep weariness.

Rebecca touched her shoulder. "You've done all you can. Let's go home."

Selene looked around. The surgeon packed his instruments. Assistants gathered bloody bandages. Sister Martha and the young woman wandered among the moaning wounded, providing water or prayer, as the patient needed.

"Yes, it's time to go." Selene released the old man's still-warm hand.

At the church door, Selene looked up at the star-studded sky in shock. She had thought it well past dawn. They faced a long trek home in the dark without benefit of male escort.

The number of bodies stretched out before the church had grown but the number of survivors had shrunk considerably. Two groups, a few dozen each, sat on the ground as guards questioned individuals closely about their whereabouts during the riots and their purposes in being there. Weapons – mostly swords, some knives and cudgels – lay tumbled in a wagon.

Selene's sluggish brain stirred. Weapons. Swords. Of course. "Rebecca, we must speak to those guards. Antonius was armed. Maybe he is being detained."

They approached the guards, quickly scanning the prisoners' faces. One man in familiar clothes sat with his face resting in cupped hands. "Antonius!" she cried. The man did not look up, but a guard approached, looking weary from a lost night's sleep.