Selene of Alexandria Read Free Page A

Theophilus' parabolans, his personal body guard. He recruits them from the hospital guild. Only the strong of back and light of purse will work lifting the sick and carrying the dead. The Patriarch offers them good money and the protection of the church if they become too zealous in their protection of him."
    Selene craned her neck to look back at the parabolans. "I don't see the Patriarch. Why would his bodyguard patrol the streets? That's the city guards' duty."
    She observed the two boys exchanging glances over her head. Her anger flared anew. She shook off her brother's hand and stamped her foot. "I'm not a child to be cosseted and protected. What do you know of this?"
    Nicaeus sighed. "Patriarch Theophilus is building a private army in the city. Father believes he wants to suppress the Novatian Christians. The council fears riots if he attempts to purge the city of rival Christian sects."
    Selene, at first irritated that she had been kept unaware of these developments, sobered. She was not yet born when the Patriarch had suppressed the last public vestige of the pagan cults. After murderous rioting on both sides, he closed the Great Temple of Serapis and reconsecrated it as the new Episcopal residence. Her father said smoke had fouled the air for days as the Christians burned the tens of thousands of books housed in the public library there. When she questioned the tears in his eyes, he explained they were irritated and would talk no more about it.
    She took him at his word. Her father was a good Christian. Why should he mourn the passing of the last pagan temple?
    "The parabolans are most diligent in their policing," Antonius added. "Some student friends of mine came home with cracked heads when the Patriarch's men caught them drunk outside a tavern. Their fathers protested the treatment, but the deacons quoted scripture and admonished the men to keep their sons under better control." He rubbed the back of his head as if in sympathy for his friends' pain.
    Selene, remembering him complain of a sore head just two days ago, asked, "How are your 'friends' doing now?"
    Antonius had the decency to blush. "They are on the mend." He looked ahead. "I see no meddling parabolans in our path. We should hurry." He grabbed Selene's elbow and the two boys hurried her toward home. Noting the angle of the sun, she did not protest their haste.
     
    Selene and Nicaeus entered their father's home bickering. "Please, Nicaeus, I need longer to prepare. Let me have the baths first?" She looked at her dusty feet, sniffed her armpit and wailed, "I stink as bad as the holy hermit!"
    He seemed to relish her minor tragedy. "I'm sorry, little sister, but I'm older and have precedence. You'll just have to wait your turn."
    "But there won't be enough time!"
    "Remember that the next time you beat me at a race," he teased.
    She flounced off to her room with his laughter echoing in the stone halls. Her room was tucked away on the second floor in a warren of small private bedrooms. She opened the door, threw herself on the bed and planned a number of petty revenges on her selfish brother. Perhaps a purgative in his soup? A knock at the bottom of her door interrupted her plotting.
    "Enter!" Rebecca, her personal servant, backed through with a basket of clothes balanced on her head and a pitcher of water in her arms. Although but two years older than Selene, Rebecca had the composure and easy confidence of a much older woman. She had been Selene's primary teacher in how to run the household. Selene jumped to help, taking the pitcher and placing it on a small table next to a wash bowl and sponge.
    "Rebecca, you are an angel in disguise. Whatever would I do without you?"
    Rebecca looked at her disheveled state and pursed her full lips in a moue of distaste. "We haven't much time to get you decent, Mistress. First we wash off that dust, next arrange your hair, and then fresh robes." She grabbed Selene's hands and clucked over the bitten nails. "I don't know