Unburning Alexandria (11 page)

"I would have taken it, in any case," Synesius said.

"I know." Jonah looked appraisingly at Synesius. "I know." A waiter approached. Jonah waived him away.

"And why this time and place?" Synesius asked.

"It is crucial in the journey of Sierra Waters – known to you as Hypatia – first known to me as Ampharete," Jonah said.

"Hypatia was born in Alexandria."

"Yes, the original Hypatia," Jonah said. "Not the woman you love, and now know as Hypatia. She took Hypatia's place, after she died."

"I understand." Augustine had told him the same. He had not completely believed him, but it seemed less incredible from this vantage point. "I am afraid someone may have died back there . . . in the chamber in 413, when my chair came to life."

"Likely he did," Jonah said. "A cult has arisen regarding that chamber in 413. . . . Its members believe it holds passage to a blissful afterlife. A similar cult arose in 150 AD."

"Why is that year special?"

"It also is crucial to Sierra Waters – even more so than this year. Part of my task is to guard it–"

"Protect her?"

"Yes, and to protect what happened back then, from Sierra. . . . "

"What does Hypatia – Sierra Waters – wish to . . . undo?"

Jonah smiled, slowly. "You are a rapid learner. Someone that Sierra loved – or cared deeply about – was killed back then, right in front of her eyes. She has every reason to want to go back to that instant to prevent that from happening. She knows, of course, that if she stops the killing, then everything that happened afterwards could well be changed – including this very conversation we now are having. But – she has human frailty, as do we all. Do you understand?"

"I . . . I think so. You are here to make certain that does not happen – or to insure that the person she loved will die back then."

"Yes, although–" Another waiter approached their table.

"If he is a bearer of drink, I would be grateful for a flask of wine," Synesius said.

"Certainly," Jonah said. "Are you hungry?"

"No," Synesius replied.

Jonah spoke to the waiter, who nodded and left.

"You were explaining to me about the person Sierra loved, who died back then – a member of her family?" Synesius asked.

"No," Jonah said, "and–" Another man, broadly smiling, approached their table.

Synesius returned the smile. "The providers of food are very attentive in this future. Perhaps I will have something to eat – a small amount."

"He is not a bearer of drink or food," Jonah said, and stood to greet the man.

Synesius got to his feet, as well.

"This is Max," Jonah made the introduction to Synesius. "He is the one whose death Sierra wants to undo."

* * *

Jonah spoke to Max, quickly, in the language Synesius was hearing all around him. Synesius now realized the language was a type of Germanic, or close to it – not Celtic.

Jonah and Max sat. Synesius followed.

"Salve," Max said slowly to Synesius, in a dialect of Latin he had not encountered before.

Jonah spoke in the Alexandrian dialect of Latin he and Synesius had been speaking before. "I will try to explain his significance," he said to Synesius about Max, and nodded in Max's direction. "He and Sierra – Hypatia – were young lovers, in the land across the great sea, before they or I knew about the chairs."

Synesius looked at Max, who caught the quick glint of admiration and envy in Synesius's eyes. "I am Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais," Synesius said to Max, very slowly.

"Max," Max replied, smiled, and extended his hand in friendship.

Synesius briefly grasped it.

"The two traveled across the sea in a swift airship – the trip took just a few hours," Jonah continued.

Synesius looked incredulous.

"I know," Jonah said, "I often wonder which is the more miraculous. But travel across time is far more disruptive of the nature of things – of God's law."

A waiter appeared. Jonah spoke to him in the Germanic tongue. The waiter nodded and left. "I ordered something simple, which you should find to your liking," Jonah said to Synesius.

"Thank you," Synesius said.

Jonah continued. "Hypatia and Max found this place – were guided to it – and sat in the chairs, in the very chamber from which we just emerged. The two went back to 150 AD – where Max was killed, before Hypatia's eyes. His is the death she wishes with all of her soul to undo."

Synesius closed his eyes. "It is my impression that Hypatia desires more than one thing with all of her soul."

"Yes," Jonah said.

"And more than one man," Synesius said.

"Yes," Jonah said.

"This account of what happened in Londinium was given to you by Hypatia?" Synesius asked Jonah, and looked at Max, whose face was now unsmiling, impassive.

"No," Jonah replied. "But I know it to be true."

Synesius regarded Max. He obviously was very much alive, and, as far as Synesius could tell, in fit condition. "How–" Synesius began.

"It was exceedingly difficult," Jonah responded. "Max was apparently slain in Sierra's unmistakable sight. There was no manner in which we might have interceded at any time prior to this, without her seeing – and knowing – and that would have changed history. Again, with likely disastrous consequences."

Synesius struggled to understand.

Jonah spoke more slowly. "Fortunately, Sierra was rendered senseless – briefly – by a blow she received in the fighting. This gave us our opportunity. We gave her a potion which kept her deeply asleep for nearly a day. We took Max's body – gravely wounded, but still alive, by the standards of the future – to this time and place, and the physicians of this future worked their miracles upon him."

"I can accept that physicians of the future would seem miraculous in their results," Synesius said, "just as physicians in our Alexandria would no doubt seem miraculous to people in the time of Plato and Socrates."

Jonah nodded. "Yes, physicians of your time do seem wondrous in their ways, even to me."

"But if Max is evidently saved," Synesius said, and looked, again, at Max, "what then is the purpose of my visit, and indeed this very meeting?" Augustine of course had explained this to him, but Synesius wanted to hear Jonah's answer.

But Max was the one who spoke. "To save the Library of Alexandria," he said very slowly, in his peculiar Latin. "Neither of you can fully grasp the loss to humanity that the loss of those texts engendered. You are both of that time. But Sierra understands this – if what Jonah says is true. And I understand this. And we all must help her."

* * *

The food arrived. Synesius found it edible. He would have liked to spend more time in this future, see more of it, beyond this feasting room. But he was beginning to realize that was not likely. "Who else knows about Hypatia's goal?" he asked after consuming a cup of soft, creamy substance, of some unknown but not unpleasant flavor and consistency.

"Presumably not very many, other than the three of us at this table, and Augustine," Jonah began, "and this is very important. Changes we make in history must be discreet. We want as few people out of their times as possible. We want people in their times to know as little about people out of their times as possible–"

"Heron," Max said.

"Yes," Jonah said.

"Heron knows about all of this," Max said.

Jonah had talked to Max about Heron. "I am not sure what Heron knows," Jonah said.

"Heron?" Synesius asked.

"–of Alexandria," Max said. "Surely, you know of him."

"The great inventor?" Synesius asked.

Jonah and Max nodded.

"Heron is part of this – our – cohort?" Synesius asked. Augustine had set Synesius looking for Heron's scrolls in Alexandria, and Hypatia had also found Heron of great interest.

"Heron was my mentor in Alexandria many years ago – both many years ago in time, 150 AD, and many years ago, for me, personally," Jonah spoke, and Max nodded. "I came to know that the chair in which you sat in the chamber below, the chairs in which all of us have now traveled, were invented by the man known as Heron."

"Heron is not his true name?" Synesius asked.

"Probably not. This man – the creator of the chairs – was born in a future, far in the future, from where we are now," Jonah said. "At some point, he traveled back to Alexandria, and either became part of that world – my original world – as Heron, or replaced a Heron who already lived and worked there. If the latter, it is not clear to me how many of the inventions attributed to Heron were the product of the man from the future, or of the original Heron – though the man from the future obviously would be the more likely master inventor."

Synesius nodded slowly. "I think I understand. So . . . this Heron is not devoted to our cause – to saving Hypatia, to rescuing the texts in the Library – I can see in your expressions that something troubles you about Heron."

"It is unclear to me exactly to what or whom Heron is devoted," Jonah said.

"From what you told me," Max spoke very slowly, "Heron is not only not our friend. He may be our enemy."

"The last time I saw him," Jonah added, "he had Sierra as his prisoner in this era, in the land across the great ocean."

"You did nothing to free her?" Synesius asked, with a bit of anger.

"Heron freed her–" Jonah said.

"Then–" Synesius interrupted.

"Otherwise I would have indeed released her from Heron," Jonah said, reciprocating with a little anger of his own.

Synesius nodded, graciously. "Of course. I did not mean to imply–"

"You need not explain," Jonah said. "We face a daunting task, the three of us. Ire is our inevitable companion."

Synesius nodded, then touched his stomach. "The food was very agreeable, but I fear this has been a long journey, and my constitution . . . are there facilities–"

"Of course," Jonah said, and summoned a waiter. He instructed the waiter to show Synesius to the lavatory for men. Synesius got the essence of the conversation, stood, and followed the waiter.

"Still," Max spoke to Jonah, after Synesius was beyond hearing, "he bears much anger – this does not concern you?" Max spoke in stilted English, which he for some reason assumed would be the most easily comprehended by Jonah.

"No," Jonah replied. "It does not. A good dose of anger may even be necessary for our survival."

Max smiled, crookedly.

"You brought up the matter of Heron very well," Jonah said.

"And your assessment of Synesius's response?"

"I watched his face very carefully," Jonah replied. "Synesius certainly knew something about Heron's connection to this – it is not clear to me how much."

"And Augustine? What do you think he knows?"

Jonah considered. "Augustine knows about time travel – I told him about it and proved it to him, more than once. Augustine had me prove it to Synesius, as you know. I never mentioned Heron to Augustine, but if Synesius knows about Heron, the only way he could have received such information was from Augustine or Hypatia–"

"Or directly from Heron," Max said.

Jonah nodded. "At this point, impossible to say."

* * *

Synesius sat on his bed and looked up at the ceiling of his room. He felt sure that, if Jonah had thought it at all feasible, he would have sent Synesius back in the chair to the hovel in 413 AD. But even Jonah had to recognize Synesius's exhaustion. He had traveled nearly 2000 years in an instant. But it was the preceding voyage across water that had drained his strength. He had awoken this morning on a boat, a half-day's distance from Londinium.

Could he be sure that he actually had traveled into the future, and this far? He could be sure of nothing. But if this dwelling and its people and its smells, its sounds and its colors, were something from his own time, far away in distance but not in time, his world had been very good at keeping it a deeply sealed secret. And, short of his being in some trance now, the depth of which he had never heard of, the initiation of which he could not recall at all, he could not fathom what else other than this time travel could have had him in a crumbling, single-story stone dwelling one instant, and in this . . . opulent many-tiered structure the very next.

There was a rapping at the door. That would be the slave that Jonah had offered to have sent to him, and Synesius, upon reflection, had with gratitude accepted. It had been a very long day, indeed. At the end of which a man required not only the comforts of good food but the solace of flesh.

He rose and opened the door. She had dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, just as Synesius liked and had requested. In some ways she looked like Hypatia.

"May I enter?" she asked in Latin not as good as his and Jonah's, but far better than Max's. Jonah had tried to explain this to Synesius. "She has been programmed as they say, here – which means, intrinsically instructed – and though she will seem fully human to you, she will not be–"

"Yes, yes, I understand," Synesius had replied. "I have been party to numerous debates in learned councils about the humanity of slaves–"

"Yes . . . no," Jonah replied. "She is not human in a different way. She was constructed–"

But Synesius had been too fatigued to follow this conversation, and, truthfully, had not cared. He understood that slaves in some cases might be less than human, and that was sufficient–

He returned his attention to the slave at hand, at his door, and smiled. "Yes, please enter."

She entered and closed his door behind her. "Shall I disrobe?" She was wearing a soft, thin, mutely colored transparent fabric, wrapped around her breasts just under her nipples, and around her hips. Her areoles were rich brown. They made his mouth dry with anticipation.

"Yes."

She unfastened the fabric. Her nipples were already hard, her pudenda cleanly shaven.

"Lay on the bed, close your eyes," he ordered, quietly, trying to make his words not sound too much like a command. Slaves, he believed, performed best in these circumstances when they were permitted the illusion that they were desirous of everything the man requested.