first obelisk—a tall, narrow structure that jutted toward the sky. I craned my head back and studied it.
“It’s a monument to a particular part of the male body,” Yaltha said, perfectly serious.
I looked at it again and heard Lavi laugh, then Yaltha. I didn’t say so, but I’d had no trouble believing her jest.
“They are more useful as timekeepers,” she said, inspecting the long, bright black shadow the obelisk cast. “It’s two hours past noon. We’ve tarried long enough.”
We’d set out at midday, leaving quietly through the servant quarters when no one was about. Lavi had insisted on accompanying us. Aware of our mission, he shouldered a pouch containing the last of our money in case it became necessary to bribe Apollonios. Lavi had constantly implored me to slow down, and once had steered us across the street when a legation of officious-looking Roman men approached. I looked at him now, thinking of him and Pamphile—they seemed no closer to realizing their plans to marry than when he had first told me about them.
At the entrance to the library complex, I halted and drew an awed breath, my palms coming together under my chin. Before me, two colonnades stretched along either side of a vast courtyard that led to a magnificent building of white marble.
Finding my voice, I said, “I cannot seek out Apollonios until I’ve seen inside the library.” I knew there to be ten halls containing the half million texts Yaltha had told me about. My heart was running rampant.
My aunt linked her arm in mine. “Nor I.”
We wound through the courtyard, which was dense with people whom I imagined to be philosophers, astronomers, historians, mathematicians, poets . . . every kind of scholar, though they were likely ordinary citizens. Reaching the steps, I read the Greek inscription carved over the doors—“A Healing Sanctum”—and scrambled up them two at a time.
Inside, dimness hit my eyes first, followed by lamplight. A moment later the walls came alive with brightly hued paintings of ibis-headed men and lion-headed women. We moved along a dazzling corridor covered with Gods, Goddesses, solar disks, and all-seeing eyes. There were boats, birds, chariots, harps, plows, and rainbow wings—thousands of glyphs. I had the sensation of floating through a storied world.
When we arrived in the first hall, I could barely take in the sprawling room with its cubicles reaching toward the ceiling, each one labeled and stuffed with scrolls and leather-bound codices. Enheduanna’s exaltation to Inanna was likely in here, as well as at least a few works by female Greek philosophers. It seemed absurd to think my own writings might be housed here one day, too, but I stood there and let myself imagine it.
As we moved from hall to hall, I became aware of young men in short white tunics dashing about, some carrying armloads of papyri, others on ladders arranging scrolls in cubicles or dusting them with tufts of feathers. I noticed that Lavi watched them intently.
“You are very quiet,” Yaltha said, sidling next to me. “Is the library all you hoped?”
“It’s a holy of holies,” I said. And it was, but I could feel the tiny lump of anger tucked beneath my awe. A half million scrolls and codices were within these walls, and all but a handful were by men. They had written the known world.
At Yaltha’s urging we turned back to search for Apollonios and the men who debated the distance to God and back. We found them seated beneath one of the colonnades, as Apion had predicted.
“He’s the ample one with purple on his tunic,” Yaltha said, pausing in a niche to observe him.
“How will we manage to draw him away from the others?” I asked. “Are you going to boldly interrupt him?” He was at that moment ardently debating some point.
“The three of us will proceed along the colonnade and when we draw near him, I’ll call out, ‘Apollonios, it is you! I’m shocked to come upon you.’ He will have no choice but to come apart and speak with us.”
I gave her an approving look. “What if he tells Haran of his encounter with us?”