We are now in Alexandria – about 380 CE. the port is busy, and three young girls are passing the time ...
Knuckle Bones
The sheep bones pattered onto the top of the cask.
“Ha, only one,” said Devorah.
Resting on the back of Nysa’s hand lay the single polished
bone; the other four had bounced off.
“Best of three then. I’ve not played for a long time.”
Nysa gathered up the bones, enjoying their smoothness
against the palm of her hand. Cradling them with her curled
fingers, she leant close and blew. With a flick of her wrist she
tossed the five knuckles in the air and flipped her hand over,
moving it in an arc.
“There. Four. I think Hephaestus was with me that time.” She
dropped the bones back onto the barrel beside her.
Devorah stuck out her tongue, and then laughed. She scooped
the sheep’s knuckles from the cask and adjusted her position on
the pile of sacks where she sat. She shook the bones between her
hands. Behind her, dust swirled and sparkled in the beam of
sunlight from a high window near the eaves of the storage
building; sacks were piled up far higher than the height of the
girls, amidst row upon row of heavy clay jars. The bones soared
in the air, one flashing as it passed into the sunlight. Devorah
swept her hand around, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Best I could manage was three!” Devorah dropped the bones
back on the top of the cask and pointed towards the harbour.
“Look, Nysa, the men have dropped one of the jars.”
The girls stood up from the sacks of wool and moved to the
edge of the shade near the entrance of the huge storage hall and
surveyed the spreading pool of oil on the quay, near the
gangplank of one of the boats.
Nysa glanced to her left, to where her father sat outside at a
table under an awning, his papyrus ledgers in front of him. His
face remained impassive but she knew he would be seething
underneath. She’d no idea what an amphora of olive oil was
worth, but it had been brought all the way across the sea from
Crete and now the handsome profit drained into the sticky
harbour dust. The two slaves that had been carrying the large
flask, strapped between two wooden poles, hovered, unsure
what to do. The foreman raised his flail.
“No!” shouted Nysa’s father, standing up and moving into
the bright sunshine. His reddish-brown robe kept the winter
chill at bay but he had to shade his eyes from the sunlight. He
walked over to where the foreman tapped his switch against the
palm of his brawny hand. The merchant inspected the twine
holding the amphora to the staves and said something to the
foreman who promptly shouted to the slaves, who’d all stopped
working, to get on with unloading.
The girls drifted over to the table, with its pens and inkpots.
Devorah joined her father who stood near the wall of the storage
hall, squinting at the quayside. Nysa’s father walked back and
rested his hands on the table, watching the gangs of men
continue with the unloading. He sighed, sat down, picked up
one of his pens and dipped it in a small jar of ink.
“Will you whip them, Father?”
“No, Nysa, I won’t. I only use the whip when a slave deliberately
does something wrong. They didn’t tie the amphora to the
poles. That was done on board ship and those sailors are not my
men. What I will do is reduce the captain’s commission by the
price of all that oil and he will ensure better work in the future.
See, he’s already shouting orders to his men.”
“A wise decision,” said the other man. He had a long, straight
grey beard and a small black skullcap clipped to the silvery hair
that fell as far as his shoulders. His woollen robes had vertical
stripes of grey, black and off-white. He remained in the shade
standing by the table. Although Nysa had been to Devorah’s
house several times now, she’d only seen her Jewish friend’s
father from a distance as he moved from his library to his work
room. His face had many tiny creases and wrinkles, whereas her
father’s face remained smooth.
“Ah, that is what I’ve been waiting to see,” said Maimonides,
turning to his daughter. He crouched down slightly and pointed
to a ship entering the harbour and approaching its great lighthouse.
The front sail with vertical red and white stripes strained
in the wind. The second, larger sail had already been furled and
the rows of oars, like the legs of a mighty centipede, beat rhythmically
into the water. The large eye, painted on the prow, stared
unblinking at the Palace of Cleopatra passing by on the left of the
craft.
“More wool from the north?” asked Nysa’s father.
“In part, my friend, in part. But the most valuable cargo is
slaves from the Rome market.” He narrowed his eyes. “Including
someone exceptional, someone important.”
Maimonides leaned back on his heels and clasped his hands
together close to his belt. He rocked back and forth for a few
moments. “Yes. Someone I’ve waited for, for a long time.”
Nysa hoped he would say more. She loved mysteries and
important slaves would certainly be mysterious. She dared not
ask him a question and Devorah was entirely absorbed watching
the men, soaked in sweat, begin to carry casks into the storage
hall where they’d just been playing knucklebones.
On the far side of the harbour, on the Isle of Pharos, whiterobed
figures moved near the Temple of Isis. A single horseman
waved to the priestesses and passed through the gate onto the
causeway, his blue cloak billowing out behind him. Halfway
across he halted and looked into the harbour, where the slave
ship had slowed, perhaps awaiting a place to dock safely. The
clack of the horse’s hooves carried for a moment on the wind as
the great black horse trotted the rest of the distance across to the
western harbour. Devorah leaned at the door of the hall,
watching the men pile up the casks. Maimonides and Nysa’s
father studied one of the ledgers together. The rider had stopped
his horse near the quayside and looked directly at Nysa. Now he
had approached she knew she’d seen him before, when she’d
returned from Devorah’s house with Myrna and they had also
seen the enormous man. She remembered the giant had spoken
with this horseman, with his dark hair and – even at this distance
– arresting eyes. For a moment, a moment that extended on and
on, Nysa and the horseman held each other’s gaze. Something
seemed to open in the centre of her chest. Vistas filled her mind,
of deserts and temples half buried in the sand. An Ibis flew past
and turned inland towards the Great Library.
“Do you want to play another round?” said Devorah, rattling
the knucklebones in her hands once more.
The Ibis glided overhead.
“Sorry? What did you say?”
“Do you want to play again or are you too chicken?”
The quayside was deserted. Not true. The quayside had files
of men carrying sacks towards the great storage hall, but the
rider had vanished. Nysa looked along the city walls towards the
Caesarium with its huge granite needles and then the other way,
to the fort that dominated this part of the harbour. No rider. No
black horse.
“Are you listening, Nysa?”
“All right. Let’s play another round,” said Nysa, with both
confusion and excitement swirling inside her.
“That won’t be possible,” said Maimonides. “Our ship has
docked and I have important cargo to check.”
The long ship had anchored some stadia out from the quay.
Smaller craft were rowing towards it. Light flashed where spears
and buckles of the armed men on the ship caught the sunlight.
Water dripped down from the oars, raised with precision all at
once from the sea, and partially withdrawn into the ship.
Nysa knew, she didn’t know how, but she knew that the
person Maimonides awaited hadn’t yet arrived. He remained far
away. But not for long.
That evening Myrna sat in her sanctuary room at the northeast
corner of the Maimonides household. She had prepared her
writing tablets earlier, smoothing the wax held within the
wooden surrounds, so that she could write with her pointed
stylus. A neat pile of tablets rested on a low table by her knee, as
she sat cross-legged on a large cushion. Two oil lamps,
suspended from the ceiling and hanging just behind her,
provided a quiet, warm light that combined with the candle on
the table, enabled her to write.
She’d learned to write at her mother’s knee and could form
words in both Greek and Latin. Being mute, people often thought
she must be both deaf and stupid as well, but Myrna understood
many of the tongues spoken in Alexandria, even the Egyptian
language, although that she couldn’t write. Maimonides had
asked her once if she could read minds.
“No,” she wrote, “I cannot just enter another’s mind and look
around. But if they form their ideas clearly with precision, and do
not seek to hide their intentions, I can hear the meaning behind
their words when they speak, even if I don’t understand each
separate word.”
The Jewish scholar waited patiently while she wrote and took
the tablet from her, tracing her letters with his fingers.
He looked at her for a while, his eyes wandering over her face.
He took a breath and sighed.
“So you couldn’t read my thoughts just then?”
Myrna shook her head and picked up a fresh tablet to write.
“No. I have to wish to do so. It takes an effort and is tiring.”
Maimonides read her words and nodded.
“That is good … that is good. I trust you, Myrna, but I also
need my privacy. I prefer to choose what you share of my mind.
But on occasion a silent communication between us may be
advantageous. I think we will both know when.”
This had been how they’d communicated since, with
Maimonides speaking and waiting patiently as Myrna wrote her
answers. Myrna knew her master could not Hear, not in the way
she and her mother could Hear. But she had found he could
share his thoughts in clear word pictures when the situation
demanded it. He’d done this on returning from the harbour as he
stopped near her on his way to evening prayers.
‘Where is the boy? The boy we seek? Is he on the ship that docked
today?’
All this had arisen in her mind as they stood in the colonnade
looking at the fountain sparkling in the evening light, as other
slaves bustled by.
Now, in the privacy of the room where she had permission to
do her work, the work other slaves must not know about and the
work never to be mentioned to other Jewish scholars, she looked
for the boy they both knew would arrive soon. She took a few
deep breaths and allowed her eyes to wander, softly, over the
diagram drawn with such care on the papyrus in front of her
cushion. Made of multiple overlapping circles of equal size, the
patterns, still at first, gradually began their dance. Maimonides
had told her this image contained all wisdom in terms of
number. “In it, Life itself flowers and Wisdom has her abode.”
Myrna had not known quite what he meant but knew that the
circles could form patterns that her master suggested explained
the whole of creation and the very key to Time itself. But you had
to learn to see it aright.
“Ha, only one,” said Devorah.
Resting on the back of Nysa’s hand lay the single polished
bone; the other four had bounced off.
“Best of three then. I’ve not played for a long time.”
Nysa gathered up the bones, enjoying their smoothness
against the palm of her hand. Cradling them with her curled
fingers, she leant close and blew. With a flick of her wrist she
tossed the five knuckles in the air and flipped her hand over,
moving it in an arc.
“There. Four. I think Hephaestus was with me that time.” She
dropped the bones back onto the barrel beside her.
Devorah stuck out her tongue, and then laughed. She scooped
the sheep’s knuckles from the cask and adjusted her position on
the pile of sacks where she sat. She shook the bones between her
hands. Behind her, dust swirled and sparkled in the beam of
sunlight from a high window near the eaves of the storage
building; sacks were piled up far higher than the height of the
girls, amidst row upon row of heavy clay jars. The bones soared
in the air, one flashing as it passed into the sunlight. Devorah
swept her hand around, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Best I could manage was three!” Devorah dropped the bones
back on the top of the cask and pointed towards the harbour.
“Look, Nysa, the men have dropped one of the jars.”
The girls stood up from the sacks of wool and moved to the
edge of the shade near the entrance of the huge storage hall and
surveyed the spreading pool of oil on the quay, near the
gangplank of one of the boats.
Nysa glanced to her left, to where her father sat outside at a
table under an awning, his papyrus ledgers in front of him. His
face remained impassive but she knew he would be seething
underneath. She’d no idea what an amphora of olive oil was
worth, but it had been brought all the way across the sea from
Crete and now the handsome profit drained into the sticky
harbour dust. The two slaves that had been carrying the large
flask, strapped between two wooden poles, hovered, unsure
what to do. The foreman raised his flail.
“No!” shouted Nysa’s father, standing up and moving into
the bright sunshine. His reddish-brown robe kept the winter
chill at bay but he had to shade his eyes from the sunlight. He
walked over to where the foreman tapped his switch against the
palm of his brawny hand. The merchant inspected the twine
holding the amphora to the staves and said something to the
foreman who promptly shouted to the slaves, who’d all stopped
working, to get on with unloading.
The girls drifted over to the table, with its pens and inkpots.
Devorah joined her father who stood near the wall of the storage
hall, squinting at the quayside. Nysa’s father walked back and
rested his hands on the table, watching the gangs of men
continue with the unloading. He sighed, sat down, picked up
one of his pens and dipped it in a small jar of ink.
“Will you whip them, Father?”
“No, Nysa, I won’t. I only use the whip when a slave deliberately
does something wrong. They didn’t tie the amphora to the
poles. That was done on board ship and those sailors are not my
men. What I will do is reduce the captain’s commission by the
price of all that oil and he will ensure better work in the future.
See, he’s already shouting orders to his men.”
“A wise decision,” said the other man. He had a long, straight
grey beard and a small black skullcap clipped to the silvery hair
that fell as far as his shoulders. His woollen robes had vertical
stripes of grey, black and off-white. He remained in the shade
standing by the table. Although Nysa had been to Devorah’s
house several times now, she’d only seen her Jewish friend’s
father from a distance as he moved from his library to his work
room. His face had many tiny creases and wrinkles, whereas her
father’s face remained smooth.
“Ah, that is what I’ve been waiting to see,” said Maimonides,
turning to his daughter. He crouched down slightly and pointed
to a ship entering the harbour and approaching its great lighthouse.
The front sail with vertical red and white stripes strained
in the wind. The second, larger sail had already been furled and
the rows of oars, like the legs of a mighty centipede, beat rhythmically
into the water. The large eye, painted on the prow, stared
unblinking at the Palace of Cleopatra passing by on the left of the
craft.
“More wool from the north?” asked Nysa’s father.
“In part, my friend, in part. But the most valuable cargo is
slaves from the Rome market.” He narrowed his eyes. “Including
someone exceptional, someone important.”
Maimonides leaned back on his heels and clasped his hands
together close to his belt. He rocked back and forth for a few
moments. “Yes. Someone I’ve waited for, for a long time.”
Nysa hoped he would say more. She loved mysteries and
important slaves would certainly be mysterious. She dared not
ask him a question and Devorah was entirely absorbed watching
the men, soaked in sweat, begin to carry casks into the storage
hall where they’d just been playing knucklebones.
On the far side of the harbour, on the Isle of Pharos, whiterobed
figures moved near the Temple of Isis. A single horseman
waved to the priestesses and passed through the gate onto the
causeway, his blue cloak billowing out behind him. Halfway
across he halted and looked into the harbour, where the slave
ship had slowed, perhaps awaiting a place to dock safely. The
clack of the horse’s hooves carried for a moment on the wind as
the great black horse trotted the rest of the distance across to the
western harbour. Devorah leaned at the door of the hall,
watching the men pile up the casks. Maimonides and Nysa’s
father studied one of the ledgers together. The rider had stopped
his horse near the quayside and looked directly at Nysa. Now he
had approached she knew she’d seen him before, when she’d
returned from Devorah’s house with Myrna and they had also
seen the enormous man. She remembered the giant had spoken
with this horseman, with his dark hair and – even at this distance
– arresting eyes. For a moment, a moment that extended on and
on, Nysa and the horseman held each other’s gaze. Something
seemed to open in the centre of her chest. Vistas filled her mind,
of deserts and temples half buried in the sand. An Ibis flew past
and turned inland towards the Great Library.
“Do you want to play another round?” said Devorah, rattling
the knucklebones in her hands once more.
The Ibis glided overhead.
“Sorry? What did you say?”
“Do you want to play again or are you too chicken?”
The quayside was deserted. Not true. The quayside had files
of men carrying sacks towards the great storage hall, but the
rider had vanished. Nysa looked along the city walls towards the
Caesarium with its huge granite needles and then the other way,
to the fort that dominated this part of the harbour. No rider. No
black horse.
“Are you listening, Nysa?”
“All right. Let’s play another round,” said Nysa, with both
confusion and excitement swirling inside her.
“That won’t be possible,” said Maimonides. “Our ship has
docked and I have important cargo to check.”
The long ship had anchored some stadia out from the quay.
Smaller craft were rowing towards it. Light flashed where spears
and buckles of the armed men on the ship caught the sunlight.
Water dripped down from the oars, raised with precision all at
once from the sea, and partially withdrawn into the ship.
Nysa knew, she didn’t know how, but she knew that the
person Maimonides awaited hadn’t yet arrived. He remained far
away. But not for long.
That evening Myrna sat in her sanctuary room at the northeast
corner of the Maimonides household. She had prepared her
writing tablets earlier, smoothing the wax held within the
wooden surrounds, so that she could write with her pointed
stylus. A neat pile of tablets rested on a low table by her knee, as
she sat cross-legged on a large cushion. Two oil lamps,
suspended from the ceiling and hanging just behind her,
provided a quiet, warm light that combined with the candle on
the table, enabled her to write.
She’d learned to write at her mother’s knee and could form
words in both Greek and Latin. Being mute, people often thought
she must be both deaf and stupid as well, but Myrna understood
many of the tongues spoken in Alexandria, even the Egyptian
language, although that she couldn’t write. Maimonides had
asked her once if she could read minds.
“No,” she wrote, “I cannot just enter another’s mind and look
around. But if they form their ideas clearly with precision, and do
not seek to hide their intentions, I can hear the meaning behind
their words when they speak, even if I don’t understand each
separate word.”
The Jewish scholar waited patiently while she wrote and took
the tablet from her, tracing her letters with his fingers.
He looked at her for a while, his eyes wandering over her face.
He took a breath and sighed.
“So you couldn’t read my thoughts just then?”
Myrna shook her head and picked up a fresh tablet to write.
“No. I have to wish to do so. It takes an effort and is tiring.”
Maimonides read her words and nodded.
“That is good … that is good. I trust you, Myrna, but I also
need my privacy. I prefer to choose what you share of my mind.
But on occasion a silent communication between us may be
advantageous. I think we will both know when.”
This had been how they’d communicated since, with
Maimonides speaking and waiting patiently as Myrna wrote her
answers. Myrna knew her master could not Hear, not in the way
she and her mother could Hear. But she had found he could
share his thoughts in clear word pictures when the situation
demanded it. He’d done this on returning from the harbour as he
stopped near her on his way to evening prayers.
‘Where is the boy? The boy we seek? Is he on the ship that docked
today?’
All this had arisen in her mind as they stood in the colonnade
looking at the fountain sparkling in the evening light, as other
slaves bustled by.
Now, in the privacy of the room where she had permission to
do her work, the work other slaves must not know about and the
work never to be mentioned to other Jewish scholars, she looked
for the boy they both knew would arrive soon. She took a few
deep breaths and allowed her eyes to wander, softly, over the
diagram drawn with such care on the papyrus in front of her
cushion. Made of multiple overlapping circles of equal size, the
patterns, still at first, gradually began their dance. Maimonides
had told her this image contained all wisdom in terms of
number. “In it, Life itself flowers and Wisdom has her abode.”
Myrna had not known quite what he meant but knew that the
circles could form patterns that her master suggested explained
the whole of creation and the very key to Time itself. But you had
to learn to see it aright.
