Page 19 of Cleopatra

“So, where are you going?” Arsinoe pressed.

“I thought I would go to the library for a time.”

Her shoulders slumped.

“Would you like to come with me?” I added. The previous two years had seen us spend less and less time together than we had before.

She brightened. “I would appreciate some time away from Antirhodos.”

I understood the feeling; the island, though close enough to the mainland to see the people on it, could sometimes feel isolating.

“Let us go, then.”

—

If the lighthouse was where I went for solace, then the Library of Alexandria was my haven.

It was a place of wonder and magic. The bones of the goddess Seshat had been ground into the walls of the building, imbuing the library with her divinity.

Thick columns thrust up from the tiled ground on either side of the grand doorway. People bowed as I passed. My guards flanked me, and Arsinoe found herself pushed backwards by the tightening of the officers’ ranks.

“I need protection too,” I thought I heard her mutter.

We walked through the corridors towards the courtyard where the tree of knowledge grew up from the Egyptian soil.

The seven-branched tree was the most extraordinary feature of the library. Its leaves were a deep brown, almost black, like the ochre used in our inks. The bark was smooth and chalk white. But it was the blossoms that still filled me with awe.

The buds were large, bigger than my two hands cupped together. And when the flower burst forth, the petals would unfurl as scrolls, each one filled with new knowledge bestowed by the sanctity of Seshat.

No one knew how many of the library’s scrolls had come from the tree of knowledge, but the number was in the many thousands.

I pressed my hand to the bark as we passed, and murmured a prayer.

“Hail, all-knowing goddess of words and ink, patron of mathematics and astrology. Thank you for your inner sight. May your power live on.”

The sun shone down on the tree through the circular opening in the roof. At night the courtyard was filled with scholars mapping the stars across the sky. And then there was the rare moment when a bud would bloom under moonlight.

“Mother, where are you going?”

I was young, I do not remember the age exactly, as memories of my mother have dulled since her death. But I do recall the excitement in her eyes as she said, “The tree will flower beneath the moon.”

I did not truly know what she meant, as I had been to the library only a handful of times. Words didn’t interest me as much as the mewl of a lion cub or a nest at the top of a tree. But I so rarely saw such vibrancy in my mother’s expression and I begged to join her. She led an unhappy life, plucked from the priesthood as a young woman and thrust among the wild dogs of the Pharaoh’s court.

She led me to the library’s courtyard, where a small group had gathered. They made way for the Pharaoh’s wife and daughter.

“Sit, child. And look up.” I did as Mother bade. It didn’t take long.

The flower peeled open, and I found myself gasping along with the crowd. The moonlight turned the petals translucent, so I could see the words of the scroll as if etched in silver. When the paper unravelled—softer than a papyrus—it floated down, landing on the bridge of my nose.

Kissed by the tree of knowledge, Mother had said.

From that moment I was enamoured by the written word. If I had not been born a Ptolemy, I would have become a scholar. I carried that longing in me throughout my life, never fully satisfied by the fate the gods had bestowed on my shoulders.

Arsinoe sighed somewhere behind me. I had lingered in my memories for too long.

I patted the bark once more before continuing on.

The stacks hummed with the quiet murmurs of those at study. Few people looked up from their work as I passed, despite the guards that followed me.