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

told, but as I run I look back to see Minkah standing before the three as well as before the bear of a man and none seem inclined to harm him.   He has taken Augustine’s arm, is pulling him away, and Augustine allows this.
    Great Ammut!   How brave our Egyptian.   Where once I saved Minkah, now he saves me.
    Knowing Minkah will guide my friend to his lodging, I race home on bare and flying feet.
    But he has called me “beloved.”   In such times, any can make a mistake.   He must have been thinking of Lais.
    ~
    I do not tell Lais of my day on the causeway.   I do not tell Father.   Augustine, packing to return by ship to Hippo, does not mention it.   As for Minkah, we say not a word to each other.   It is as if it never happened…even the stable lad I sent to see if the man lived, and to help him if so, found no one there.
    ~
    Accepting water from the jug held by a servant, Lais turns her face to me, a face I judge all beauty by.   “From this place, Miw, I see all that gives my heart its greatest joy.   To have you with me completes the world.”
    “Sister!   I love none better than you.   If it would please you, we shall sit here forever.”
    Lais laughs.   Her laughter never stings or shrinks my heart but is as the music of the lute lifting my spirit.
    We recline, my sister and I, on divans in a garden we grow on our roof and from this garden the blue harbors deepen before us and beyond Pharos glimmers the green and shifting sea.   Behind us the gold of the city shivers in the sun.
    We have done exactly nothing for an hour save speak now and again of horses and books.   Because of this, what Lais says next unsettles me.
    “What do you make of Minkah?”
    “Our Egyptian?”
    “The very one.”
    “What should I make of him?   He is Father’s man.   That he serves Father is all I require.”
    “Is it?”
    “Indeed!   What else?”
    “Nothing else.   I suppose.”
    “Lais!   What do you mean by this?   Minkah is a servant.”
    “Is he?”
    “Do I discourse with Socrates?   A question for every question?”
    “Socrates was, of all men, wisest.”
    “And you are, of all women, wise as well.   Was he also cunning?”
    “Who?”
    “Socrates!”
    “I am not cunning.”
    “Exactly what I would have said a moment ago.”
    Lais shifts on her divan, reaching for a fig.   Full of grace, yet I note her hesitate, though it is gone in an instant.   Even so, I wait to see it again for anything that troubles Lais, troubles me.   But it is gone.   It was nothing.   Lais pops her fig in her mouth.   “Do you not think Minkah an interesting man?”
    “That he can fashion what I design, this I find interesting.   That he follows me wherever I go, this I find interesting.   I have asked him why and he answers: to protect me.   I tell him I need no protection.   I say I have walked these streets alone as a child.   I drive them now alone as an adult.   I have never needed a watchdog before.   I need none now.   Lais!   Why on earth do you speak of Minkah?”
    “I find him an interesting man.”
    “You find all of interest.”
    “Yes, to a degree.   But some I find more interesting than others.”   And here her sloe-eyes are so full of impish humor I can do nothing but flush and turn away.
    We are silent again.   Lais has sunk her barb.   I think of Minkah.   An interesting man?   An Egyptian, a servant, a creature of the streets, a lover of tall tales and epic adventure.   One who called me beloved…but could not have meant me.   Could I speak to Minkah as I speak to Augustine?   To Father?   Even to Synesius?   Of course not.   I now reach for my own fig but miss my aim, knocking Lais’ cup to the tiles.   Before I can retrieve it, she has already bent over to do so.   Comes a hiss of pain through her teeth.
    “Lais!   What ails you?”
    The one I love most in all the world retrieves her spilled cup, sets it back on the table.   “Nothing that will not pass,