Selene of Alexandria (50 page)

"Frankly, I don't know. Tonight I'm too tired to figure it out." He laughed slightly hysterical. "At least Father regularly paid the funeral association. We won't have to sell anything to bury him."

"Good God, I forgot." Phillip looked shocked. "That poor girl's body is still at the mortuary. I promised someone to fetch it when the arrangements had been made." He sat and gulped more wine. "I guess we can have a double funeral. Given our family's disgrace and lack of financial resources, we can be forgiven if it's a small gathering."

Selene yawned. "It's nearly dawn. I should leave before the servants wake." She kissed her brother on the cheek. "I'll be there."

He opened his mouth to protest then closed it without comment.

Chapter 40

"Demetrius, you must read minds!" She repaired to the cosmetics table to rub her face with lotion. Little of the dye came off. "I'll have to soak for a week to get this off my face and hands."

Lounging in the cooling water, Selene started when Orestes arrived with a tray. A mottling of blue, yellow and green still showed where his bruises healed.

"Demetrius told me about your father." Orestes set the tray down on a table. "Calistus was a good man. He will be sorely missed in the council. I trust you journeyed home and back without incident?"

She hesitated. "A young man seemed inordinately interested in me, but I eluded him." She told him about her shadow and how she lost it.

"So that's what happened." Orestes smiled. "Phoebus was most upset. I upbraided him heartily for letting an 'old woman' outsmart him."

"You had me followed?" She looked at him accusingly. "Didn't you know it would frighten me?"

"I care for you and want you safe." He scratched his jaw. "And I underestimated your ability to take care of yourself – again. I never thought you would spot him."

She harrumphed and stood to retrieve a drying sheet.

Observing her two-toned body, he broke into strangled guffaws. She snatched the sheet, wrapping it around her. "Go away. I don't want you to see me like this."

"I've seen you naked, or have you forgotten so quickly?"

"No." She blushed. "I mean, I don't want you to see me looking like some piebald animal."

"My dear, if you wore the spots of a leopard or the stripes of a zebra, you would still be beautiful." He looked her over critically. "That golden mahogany suits you. With some red henna in your hair, your own brother might not recognize you."

"I'll try that. It's difficult being an old woman." She squeezed water from her hair and sat at the dresser to comb it.

"Besides, no one would believe I keep an old woman as my lover. It's time you got some servants to care for you. Poor Demetrius is running himself ragged, waiting on you and functioning as my secretary." Orestes picked over the fruits on the tray, choosing a ripe fig. "Where would you like to be from? Cyrene? Or maybe Thebes?"

Selene stared into the silver mirror. "I'm not sure how long I'll stay here, Orestes."

His eager smile retreated and his voice grew guarded. "Demetrius told me..."

"...that I won't be going out again until Monday," she interrupted. "That doesn't mean I want to live here permanently. There is little for me here..."

"I see." His mouth tightened. "I promised to help you in any way necessary. Please let Demetrius know and I will authorize it." He turned on his heel, arms stiff at his sides.

"Orestes, wait!" Selene grabbed at her slipping sheet. "Curse it! I didn't mean it like that. Please sit and eat. I'll dress and we can talk. I feel at a disadvantage, nearly naked while you're fully dressed."

He nodded and sat. In a cedar chest, Selene found a sky-blue gown of thin linen, less revealing than most, and pulled it on, thinking. She had misjudged the depth of Orestes' passion and the prickliness of his pride. Selene had reckoned his concern for her to be more political than personal; his reluctance the night they made love that of an honorable man with a friend's sister. Now she thought his reticence masked a more personal pain.

The breakfast tray remained untouched. Selene sat at Orestes' side, close enough to feel the heat radiating through his linen tunic. She twined a strand of damp hair around her finger. "Who do I remind you of, Orestes, that I trouble you so?"

His shoulders stiffened then he slumped forward, hands dangling between his knees. "Selene, you are so very young. You will have many loves in your lifetime. I am over twice your age, and know the pain love brings. I would spare you that if I could."

For the first time she noticed the flesh sagging slightly around his jowls, the generous silver threading his hair. She hesitantly touched his shoulder.

"No. Where I grew up, people say sudden chills come from someone walking on your grave. The tribes of Britannia have many superstitions."

"The wild people of the Misty Isles. You told me of them the first night you came to my father's house."

"I grew up in the south of Britain in a Christian home, but fell in love with the daughter of a druid. She was fair; with hair the color of burnished copper and eyes like the sky on a bright summer's day. She ran the fields like a wild mare and smelled of honeysuckle." He gazed into the distance.

"What became of her?" Selene asked, reading the answer in his face.

"We were very young and very foolish. We felt our love pure and timeless, that all would bow down before it. Our fathers felt differently. Mine enlisted me in the army to serve in Gaul. Her father arranged a marriage. When I returned to Britain, many years later, I found she had drowned herself and our unborn babe just months after I left."

He clenched his hands till the knuckles turned white. Selene caught her breath at the anger in his emerald eyes.

"I loved no one but Rhianon. If I had fought harder to stay with her…but she was lost to me. I poured my heart into service, forsaking all thoughts of love and happiness." Orestes unclenched his fists and, sliding his hands down Selene's bare arms, gently traced the play of muscles under skin. "Then I saw you dancing. Your youth and passion and hope for the future inflamed me."

"I was too weak to save Rhianon, but thought I might right the wrongs done you." He took both her hands in his and gazed into her eyes. "For one night, I thought I could. You made me feel young and strong. The next day, that cursed monk struck me down and I realized I grow older, my power wanes. I cannot restore you to your family, and you will not let me keep you safe, so there is no joy in my feeling for you, only pain."

Better with action than words, Selene pulled his head to her breast. He circled her waist and relaxed into the comfort of her embrace. She tried to rekindle the reckless freedom of the night they made love. It eluded her. His loss and hers mingled to create a different bond, based on human compassion; the ability of a woman to ease a man's sore heart.

Orestes did not try to prevent her from attending the funeral, having Demetrius go so far as to arrange for her "apprenticeship" with a troop of professional mourners he hired for the occasion. She dyed her hair dark red and stained her body honey-brown. With kohl ringing her eyes, Selene hardly recognized herself. Taking no chances, she stayed in the background, observing through her mandatory black veil.

"Not much of a crowd, eh, dearie?" One of the women near her dug an elbow in her ribs. "And for a councilor and all!" Selene mutely nodded.

Only Lysis and three others represented the councilors. Hypatia and the imposing Haroun attended from the Museum. Selene missed old Auxentius but, if someone told him of her death, he probably forgot it within minutes. Phillip had insisted Orestes stay away; it would be unseemly for the Prefect to attend the funeral of a declared witch. Antonius, pale and haunted, stood in a corner drinking far too much wine.

"Well, don't judge by this." The woman sniffed. "We usually get fed at the agape. Sometimes there's enough to take home. But I heard tell there'd be no feast today. Lucky the patron that hired us paid triple."

The tiny gathering, mostly servants, settled as Phillip called them to order. He spoke at length of his father and his accomplishments, stopping twice when tears choked off his words. The professional mourners lamented softly. Selene, released by her role, freely wailed.

Phillip spoke more briefly about Selene. It chilled her flesh to hear her brother's confession of love and admiration, and to know he knew she heard him.

Antonius shook with suppressed sobs.

It gradually dawned on Selene, that this truly was farewell. The initial boldness of her action had carried her through the days, but now she faced the irrevocability of her decision.

Her life was gone; smashed like a fragile vase, never to be repaired. She would never return to this house, read to her father, tease her brothers, gossip with Rebecca.

Selene moaned, trembling in her black veil.

"Don't moan, dearie," the woman beside her admonished. "Wail like this." She gave a soft ululation rising and falling like music.

The breath caught in Selene's chest, so all that came out was a squeak. The mourner shook her head and continued her accompaniment.

Hypatia stood next and gave a ringing oration, expressing her sorrow at the passing of, "two such fine citizens and friends, a father and daughter of warm heart and pure spirit, loving, kind, and always giving."

Selene barely heard the words.

The bodies occupied plain limestone coffins, lids firmly in place. When Hypatia finished her remarks, Phillip signaled servants at each corner to raise the coffins and start the procession.

Selene and the professional mourners took up their tambourines and chanted in a descant, following the minuscule crowd. They traversed the city under a threatening sky to the southwest gate, and the necropolis just beyond the walls. At the tomb entrance, she drifted to the side in a mock show of concern for a perfectly good sandal lace. Calistus and his false daughter were to be laid to rest in an ancient tomb with several generations of ancestors. If God were just, his soul would be reunited with that of his beloved wife and lost children.

Regret sliced through Selene. Some stranger's bones, a girl whose life ended too soon, took her place beside her father and mother.

With a flash of bitter insight, Selene realized she couldn't stay in Alexandria. Life would be too cruel, seeing everyday what she couldn't have, living in the shadows. Orestes had been right. She should start her life over. But where?

She tried to pray to the wise merciful God of her childhood, but the words wouldn't come. She didn't know what to pray for. Her father's soul? Her prayers would not sway God's justice. Good fortune for her and her brothers? God had paid scant attention so far.

At last she prayed simply for the strength to carry on.

She raised her head and pushed back the veil. A single ray of sunshine bathed the tomb in golden light. Selene closed her eyes and let the sun kiss her face, feeling the warmth penetrate to her bones and the light lift her spirit.

Voices echoed up the stairs from the tomb. She pulled her veil back over her head. The interment service had been brief; there was no elaborate banquet to keep the mourners at the gravesite. Selene fell in with the professionals as they collected their fee from Phillip. She squeezed his hand to let him know it was she, tears coursed down her cheeks. He held her hand just a moment longer than necessary to pass the coin.

She stood wailing with the women in black until the other mourners straggled out of sight. The woman who instructed her took Selene's elbow and escorted her to the side. "That was unprofessional, dearie, not to go into the tomb. It made us look bad."

"I'm sorry. I think my uncle was wrong in recommending me for this apprenticeship. I'll tell him I'm not suitable."

"Not everyone can do this." The woman patted Selene's hand sympathetically.

The small party wound its way back to the city walls where they dispersed. Selene repaired to a public fountain where she washed her tear-stained face with her veil.

Two boys played nearby, but avoided the solemn woman dressed all in black. Selene overheard the older boy teasing the other, daring him to approach "the scary lady." She heard the scuff of small bare feet sneaking behind her. At a light touch, she whirled around crying, "Aiee!" The boy's eyes widened in delighted terror and he scampered away with squeals of triumph.

Selene laughed. The boys reminded her of Phillip and Nicaeus as children.