Free Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria by Ki Longfellow Page A

honesty.   “There is touching and there is touching.   The touch you speak of, sir, scalds me.”
    He does not smile nor does he scowl.   “I was once as you are now.   Please, I beg you, accept this gift.   It is only the beginnings of a book I might write, mere notes, but if you would read them?”
    I take his slender codex as I step into the sunlight.   Minkah, who has been impatiently looking, sees me do this.   He sees Augustine who follows.   My sweet irritant moves quickly, his hand on the hilt of a knife.
    Augustine, who has wit enough not to follow, calls after: “You allow me no time to persuade you?”
    “You must be in Hippo, Augustine.   Have you eternity to spare?”
    ~
    In no hurry, I guide my two grays away from the Royal Quarter.   By the sun and the sea and the peaceable streets, who would know the darkness that spreads its wings more widely each day?
    Wrapping the reins around my right arm as would a racing charioteer, I turn my head so that Minkah will hear me above the clatter of our iron shod wheels.   “Do you make a trip tonight?”   I mean more books to the caves.
    “Yes.   And you?”   He means will Father and I work on our maps.
    “All goes well indeed.”
    “This is good to know.   Although…”
    Nothing could prick my curiosity more deeply than hesitation.   “Although?”
    “Two nights back, I caught sight of one who watched us leave.”
    “But could they know what you do or where you go?”
    “Probably not.   But she puzzled me.”
    “She?”
    “Jone.”
    I laugh, knowing what I know about my little sister and her interest in Minkah.   “Jone!   Jone has done so little with her life, I am pleased she bothers to watch what others do.”
    My laughter dies in my mouth.   By this rising street and that, I have left behind the storefronts and workshops and come on the site of the Serapeum.   It is not there.   All that remains is the sphinx to its right and the sphinx to its left and the great pillar of Diocletian on its rock between.   Though there is yet the great flat stone of its foundation, this is as swept clean of dirt and debris as Alexandria has been swept clean of its magnificent temple.   Oh Seshat, sister of Thoth, what have they done?
    Minkah and I ride home in silence as dark as the cave of Plato.
    ~
    I find Father where I expect to find him—in bed.   I expect to tell him of my day and then to return to a book I now read, the Deipnosophistoe of Athenaeus, which speaks of women mathematicians that even I, who search for such names, have never heard of.   But I do not expect what follows.   So soon as he sees me, he sits straight up, shoving away the books and papers and tablets and pens and ink stands and cushions that litter his bedding.   He waves his arms.   He raises his voice.   Who in our house cannot hear him?   Who in the house next door cannot hear him?   “Daughter!   Where have you been?   Do you know who awaits you?   I could not deny him entrance, but I could, and I did , banish him to our shabbiest chamber.”
    Men are forever demanding to see me.   Did I not just meet another?   What should cause Father to shout of this one?   Content that he has said enough, he says nothing further, instead allowing his chin to sink to his chest, so I must finally ask, “Who is this man?”
    “Who?”
    “The man you banished to our shabbiest chamber.”
    “Ah!   Him , that’s who!   The destroyer!   ‘What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.’   Who said that?”
    “Marcus Tullius Cicero said that.”
    “And of all men, who should know better how beastly than Cicero, knowing well the beastly Caesar, Brutus, Pompey, Mark Anthony, Octavian.”   Father rolls his reddened eyes at me.   “And what shall I do without my Hypatia who is my greatest solace?   And what shall the beast do with her ?”
    “What on earth are you talking about?   Why do you say you must do without me?”
    “The thing who demands to see