"You have come all the way from Alexandria," Glaphyra said. "We have heard so much of Alexandria, and have longed to see it."
"The great palace of the Ptolemys," Roxana said, "the Museum and Library, the Paneum and the Sarapeion and the tomb of Alexander! It must be a place of wonders."
"Jerusalem is such a backwater," Glaphyra said, pouring wine for all of them. "Yet to hear the priests sing of it, it is the wonder of the world."
"Is it not the holiest of your cities, and the residing place of your god?" Zeno asked.
The women shrugged in unison. "Our god is a god of the mountain and desert," Roxana said. "Cities do not seem to be of great concern to him. The prophets of old railed against the wickedness of cities."
"Our faith has a long and unfortunate tradition of unwashed holy men from the wilderness," Glaphyra added. "Thus the values of ragged desert dwellers are exalted as the shining ideal of the cosmos. Anything sophisticated or beautiful, anything pleasurable or artistic—all are condemned as ungodly."
"I quite agree," Izates told them. "I, too, was born in your faith, in the Jewish Quarter of Alexandria. In our quarter there were many reactionary rabbis who condemned the Gentile world as you describe. Fortunately for me, there were also many enlightened, Hellenized Jews, open to the wonders of learning and philosophy. They understood that clinging to the ancient world of our ancestors is futile. At an early age I took up lectures and studies in the Museum and understood the narrowness of our old ways."
"How fortunate you were," said Roxana. "Our mother was Babylonian, and she taught us much of the wisdom of her homeland, but women, even royal women, have never been permitted a true education in Judea."
"Many women study and even teach at the Museum and the other schools in Alexandria," Izates said. "Our city does not share the prejudice of the rest of the Greek world. I have known women of Alexandria who are distinguished mathematicians, philosophers and astronomers."
"Really?" said both sisters, seeming truly astonished for the first time.
"Very much so. And with the Princess Selene as de facto queen, the position of women in Alexandrian society has seldom been higher."
"It sounds like a vision of Paradise." Glaphyra sighed. "But I fear that our lord, the great General Norbanus, would never permit us to travel there."
"He desires to keep us close always," Roxana concurred.
"You are favored far beyond the lot of common women," Zeno said. "You must be the envy of the princesses of the earth. And yet—"
" 'And yet?" said both women in their disconcerting way.
"Nothing," Zeno said, with a dismissive gesture.
"No, tell us," Glaphyra insisted. "You were about to say that our happiness is not without flaw, weren't you?"
"He was," Roxana said.
"My ladies are most acute," Izates said. "I believe that what my friend was too delicate to say—I am a Cynic, and not nearly so delicate—was that all favors of men are untrustworthy and easily withdrawn. Men are changeable, and rulers the most fickle of all. Their unreliability is literally Proverbial, for does not our own holy book advise: 'Put not thy trust in princes'?"
"And how might such a fortune befall us?" Glaphyra asked. She said it coolly, as if it were an idle remark, but Izates could tell that she had given the matter much thought.
"In many ways, Olympus forbid that any of them befall. I would never suggest that you would give him a prediction that might prove to be wrong, but a ruler may easily be displeased with one that proves to be all too accurate."
"Such things have happened to other seers," Roxana murmured.
"And, forgive me, ladies, but the philosophy of Cynics is very hard on the vanity of the world, as hard as the prophets, but even such radiant beauty as yours must fade with time. A new mistress or wife can bring about a catastrophic downfall." He said it with great sadness.
"On the other hand," Zeno said, "wisdom and learning such as your own will last a lifetime, in the right setting."
Both women nodded. "The court of Alexandria being such a setting?" Glaphyra said.
"Nowhere else are women such as you held in so much honor," Zeno assured them. "And the learned ladies of Alexandria are free to come and go as they will, to have their own houses and schools, to found their own salons and control all their own properties. Even husbands cannot forbid this, and no woman of learning and property needs the protection of husband or master. So long as they attend at court upon the queen's pleasure, the rest of their time is entirely their own."