Lily of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  “Mother, are you all right?” Drusus asked, instantly sobered.

  He climbed out of the pool to go toward her, but she slapped him away. “Don’t drip on me. You and your brother are of no use to me now.”

  None of us knew what had caused Livia’s sudden outburst and she disappeared into the house before we could ask. Behind her, slaves and messengers filed in, nervous as cats. Then one of them whispered the news, eyes low, “Augustus is dying.”

  WAS the emperor wounded? Had he been hurt in the campaign in Spain? Or was it a fever, as the slaves suggested? We had a thousand questions, but no one to answer them. As Livia fled to her chambers, Lady Octavia took command of the household and ordered us to our rooms. I’d just started into the house when we heard one of the hens make a ghastly sound in the poultry yard.

  Octavia snapped, “Selene, go fetch that wretched cat of yours. It’s not bad enough the lot of you are sopping wet. If Bast kills one of Livia’s hens, she’ll flay you.” Given Octavia’s mood, I didn’t stop to argue, but instead obediently started down the lane toward the coop. I tried to keep my wet clothes from dragging in the dirt as I rounded the barn and saw Bast, crouched in hunting position.

  “Bad kitty!” I cried, clapping my hands together. Chastened, Bast slunk under the fence and began to lick her spotted fur as if this had been her plan all along. I stooped to take her into my arms, but she slipped away from me, running a few steps toward the road, her tail twitching violently. Frustrated, I called to Bast again. I knew she heard me because one ear rotated in my direction, but infuriatingly, she trotted away from the villa.

  “You’ll never catch her,” one of the guards said, all but dozing in the heat of his lazy country post. If he was alarmed at the news of the emperor’s ill health, he didn’t show it and simply waved me after the cat. Gathering my wet skirts in my hand, I chased Bast down the hillside. There wasn’t usually much traffic in these parts, but owing to the news about the emperor, there were messengers and wagons aplenty, and our cat ran right between the wagon wheels.

  My heart jumped to my throat. “Bast!”

  But when she leapt to safety in the tall grasses, my worry was replaced with irritation. It would be hard to find her and the adults in the house were already upset; if I tarried too long, Octavia would be wroth. With the sun beating down on me, I pushed through weeds and brambles, some of them snagging my clothes. Then I saw Bast stop, her whiskers stiff, her mouth open to the air, scenting the breeze. Unthinking, I did the same, and caught the unmistakable metallic notes of dark magic in the air.

  That’s when both of us saw the vagabond hidden beneath the canopy of an acacia tree, asleep in the summer sun. I was wary of the stranger, whose face was obscured beneath the folds of a surprisingly white cowl, but Bast approached him with increasing confidence and nuzzled his hand. The stranger came awake at Bast’s affection, and invited her into his lap. “Could you hold her for me, please?” I said, catching up. “I’ve come to fetch her home.”

  “As I’ve come to fetch you,” the man said to me in Egyptian, turning to face me with a smile. “Child of Isis.”

  I had to stifle my cry when I recognized him. “Euphronius!”

  I didn’t wait for him to rise but went to my knees in a most undignified fashion and threw my arms around him. He smelled of sand and magic, of salt and the sea, of swords and the forge. He smelled of home. “We’ve missed you,” I said, my eyes brimming with tears. “We’ve missed you so much.”

  “And I you,” Euphronius said. “It’s been difficult to get word to you.”

  “Have you been sending the bloody messages to me, the ones on my arms?”

  He shook his head. “That’s the doing of Isis. It’s a miraculous thing, and not your only power.”

  “It isn’t a power. It comes to me unbidden. I can’t work heka and the Romans would forbid it even if I could.”

  “Oh, you can work heka, you just haven’t learned how,” the wizard said, turning my arms over to inspect the pale undersides.

  “There aren’t any scars,” I explained. “The hieroglyphics vanish. The marks are gone.”

  “Except for this one,” he said, tracing a birthmark just below the inside of my elbow. “You were born with this. Don’t you recognize the symbol?”

  I didn’t. It looked like a darkened patch of skin, a cluster of freckles perhaps, but as he continued to trace lines between them, I saw his meaning. “The hieroglyphic of a sail? The sign for wind?”

  Before Euphronius could explain, we both heard rustling in the grasses and I trembled at the thought of Roman guards finding us. Then I realized it was just the breeze. “They’ll be looking for me soon. What should we do?”

  I felt like a little girl again at my lessons.

  Euphronius whispered, “Before dawn, you and your brothers must escape the house and find your way back to this tree.”

  My mouth ran dry in contemplation. I’d come to this tree by happenstance and had already been gone long enough to tempt Octavia to beat me. I couldn’t imagine how we might sneak out of the villa, past the guards, and somehow find this tree again in the dark. I just wanted Euphronius to wave his divination staff and use his magic to make everything better. “Can’t you just use your magic to bring my brothers here now?”

  Euphronius smiled softly. “I’m not as great a magician as that, and even if I were, I used most of my heka to make your guards sleepy and to lure you to me. I can perhaps guide you with a bright moon this night, but you must find the courage to escape.”

  “Then what?” I asked, tucking tendrils of damp hair behind my ears.

  “We’ll run,” Euphronius said. “It’s only six miles to Rome, and with the emperor dying, the city will be in chaos. From Rome, we’ll make our way to Ostia. If Marcellus is Octavian’s heir, the boy will have more to contend with than a search for missing Ptolemies.”

  My stomach churned. “What if the emperor doesn’t die?”

  Given the furrow of Euphronius’s brow, it was perhaps a question he wasn’t expecting. “If we’re in a River of Time where the emperor does not die in Spain … things will be more dangerous.”

  “Where would we go? Back to Egypt?” I asked.

  “If we can raise an army in Egypt to fight for you,” Euphronius said. “Otherwise we must make our way East and beg the help of your mother’s old allies.”

  I could hear my own breath slow. “Like Caesarion was to do?”

  The old wizard narrowed his eyes, seeing that I’d learned much since we’d parted, then nodded his head sadly. “I’m so sorry about your brother, Selene. Caesarion was to seek refuge in India—he didn’t make it there.”

  He didn’t make it to India because the emperor had him hunted down and killed. Even if Caesarion had made it, he would have been a wealthy king in exile, but Helios and I were penniless and had not even been crowned. We’d be fugitives, tempting prizes for an Eastern ruler like King Herod to offer to Rome in exchange for favor. Euphronius sensed my discontent. “You must be brave, Selene, and trust in Isis.”

  I wet my lips nervously. “Does Isis protect us?”

  “Of course,” he said. “You’re sacred to her.”

  “Wasn’t my mother also sacred to her?” Euphronius sputtered at my question, his hands knotting at his side, so I told him, “Virgil gave me her snake bracelet. I know my mother saw her own end …”

  He didn’t seem surprised. “Still, your mother tried to steer our River of Time to its best course, as you must do.”

  “Euphronius,” I said, very seriously. “When you look into your Rivers of Time, does Isis save my brothers and me from every harm?”

  “No, child.” Our old wizard stroked my wet hair with a liberty he would never have taken in Egypt, and I saw the lines of his face had grown deeper since my mother’s death. “But many times, you save Isis.”

  What could he mean? Bast’s ears perked up and this time I knew it was not just the wind. Someone was coming. “I have to go,” I whisp
ered.

  “I’ll be here,” Euphronius said, “Waiting for you until dawn. You and your brothers must come to me, Selene. There won’t be another chance such as this one.”

  I kissed him—my pink lips against the weathered skin of his cheek. Then I scooped up Bast and rushed back toward the road where a sullen guard was cutting a path through the grasses with his sword. “Damned cat,” the guard said when he saw me. “And look at you, all full of nettles.”

  Not daring to look over my shoulder at our wizard hidden in the grass, I followed the man back to the villa, clutching Bast against my chest. She gave her nervous purr and her heart beat only a little faster than my own.

  It was a testament to Octavia’s upset over the news of her brother that she didn’t have me beaten when I appeared before her, bedraggled and clutching the cat. Instead, the emperor’s sister sniffled into her kerchief, and it was clear she’d been crying. “I should never have let you keep that creature for a pet. Go to your room without supper and I don’t want to see you until morning.”

  IT was just as well that I’d been forbidden supper, because I was too nervous to eat. Once I changed into dry clothes, I paced beside the window of the room I shared with Julia, staring out at the sun as it lowered in the horizon. Each dip brought me closer to the predawn escape that I must somehow engineer.

  “Will you sit still?” Julia asked. “And what’s wrong with your arm? Why do you keep worrying at it?”

  Without realizing it, I’d been touching the birthmark on my inner arm, the one Euphronius had traced. “It’s just stinging nettle or something,” I said, wishing fervently that the emperor’s daughter would absent herself so I could plot and plan. Had we been in Rome, I’d have been alone in my room. I could’ve removed the loose brick from the wall and told my brothers everything in whispers. But with Julia as a roommate, how could I tell them Euphronius’s scheme?

  “I don’t see why you’re so nervous,” Julia said, flopping dramatically upon my bed. “It’s my father they say is dying.”

  “Perhaps you should visit the household shrine,” I said, but regretted it instantly. I could see from her expression that Julia was genuinely grieved by the possibility of losing her father. I felt selfish and small for trying only to be rid of her.

  Julia sighed. “What good would that do? I don’t think gods listen to girls … but I have heard the slaves. They think Isis listens even to them. Is that true? If your father were ill, what would you do?”

  “I’d pray to Isis,” I said, remembering how my mother had asked us to do just that when my father contemplated his suicide.

  “In her temple?” Julia asked, trying to draw me to sit beside her. “What kind of ritual offering would you have her priests make for you?”

  “You can pray to Isis anywhere and she doesn’t require offerings.” This wasn’t the Roman way, I knew. More often, they treated gods like faraway rulers, sending ambassadors and gifts. Worship, for them, was a matter of proper ritual and behavior. It had nothing to do with personal faith—a concept that sounded to them more like philosophy than religion. So it surprised me when Julia looked at me very earnestly and asked, “Will you pray with me for my father’s life?”

  Oh, Isis, how you tested me that day! I sat down on the bed near Julia, drawing my bare feet up under the linen and trying desperately not to meet her eyes. Isis taught us to show mercy and have goodwill in our hearts, but how could I pray for the emperor when his death was the only possible thing that could free me? I could neither ignore nor rejoice in the pain I saw in Julia’s eyes. I’d lost both a mother and a father—I knew how lonely it was, and I couldn’t find it within myself to wish such pain upon the only girl who had ever been my friend.

  “I want to learn about your faith in Isis,” Julia said, her fingers twined with mine. “Teach me to pray.”

  Outside the sun dropped below the horizon, and I felt the blackness of night enter my soul. A lump rose in my throat. What would Isis have me do? Why didn’t I know? If Isis dwelt in me, if I carried her words, why was I denied communion with my goddess? “I-I can’t,” I stammered.

  Julia sucked her rosebud lips inward, then let out a little cry. “Because you hate my father! You want him to die.”

  I’d read the words of Isis upon my own skin, and they’d only told me to live, love, and learn. They hadn’t commanded me to hate or even to wish for the emperor’s death. They hadn’t commanded me to run away in the night with our wizard. Moreover, they hadn’t commanded me to raise an army to fight the Romans.

  “No,” I said, despair forcing the breath out of me. “I can’t pray with you because Isis can’t help your father!”

  The bitter pain of it burst like a boil in my heart. Isis hadn’t protected my parents. She hadn’t protected my brothers Caesarion and Antyllus. She hadn’t even been able to protect Egypt. Her priest Euphronius was hidden beyond this villa in the grasses, waiting for me, and he’d said that Isis couldn’t protect us from all harm. Perhaps Isis could save no one at all. No different from those little stone statues of household gods who never really listened to little girls, or anyone else.

  “Then no one can help me,” Julia finally said. “If my father dies, what will become of me?”

  I had no answer for her.

  “I shouldn’t care,” she said. “My father wouldn’t care, if I were the one dying.”

  “That’s not true. He does care for you,” I said, though I’d never seen any warmth between the two.

  “No, he doesn’t. He divorced my mother the day I was born. He waited just long enough to snatch me away from her. Then he rushed off to marry Livia and all her noble Claudian connections. I’m only a tool for him.”

  “Your father is just a distant man,” I told her.

  “But if he dies …” Then she put both hands over her face. “What if there’s been some battle and the boys are hurt too?” Tiberius was her stepbrother and Marcellus was her good-tempered cousin, so it seemed natural to me that she’d be afraid for them. But it surprised me when she said, “Iullus. What if Iullus is dying too?”

  My Roman half brother was still a stranger to me, a brooding teenager with a sardonic wit. I’d noticed how he’d pampered and flattered Julia and always assumed it was just one of the many things he did to please the emperor. But Julia’s fondness for him wasn’t feigned. “I’m sure the messengers would’ve said something.” That’s all the comfort I could offer.

  When darkness finally fell, I lay on my bed listening to Julia’s breathing. As the crickets chirped outside the window and the moon rose in the sky, I thought that Euphronius might as well have asked me to simply swim my way back to Egypt—and I wondered if such an ocean crossing wouldn’t have been less dangerous.

  Tossing and turning in my bed, I wondered if I was made of the stuff of the Ptolemies. My own mother had smuggled herself to Caesar through enemy lines wrapped in bed linens, or a carpet, some said. She’d gambled with her life. It was foolhardy, it was reckless, and it was marvelous. That was my legacy, but I couldn’t live up to it. I could scheme and manipulate, but I couldn’t seem to throw the dice and let them fly high.

  My mother had relied on magic and defiance, even knowing how it would end. I refused to share her fate. I wanted to live a long life with what remained of my family. I thought about Juba’s words to me and how, through the emperor, perhaps I could regain some of what had been lost to us. Thriving under a Roman banner seemed a surer path back to Egypt than the one Euphronius promised. Helios would consider such thoughts treason and perhaps he was right. Perhaps I was already becoming one of them, becoming Roman. Lost to Egypt. Lost to Isis.

  I didn’t care.

  I wouldn’t go to Euphronius. I couldn’t save Isis; I could only save myself. And if that was true, then I wasn’t the Resurrection, after all.

  Realizing it was the death of some part of my soul—though I couldn’t name which one—I took the frog amulet from my neck and rolled the delicate jade carving between my fing
ers. In the dark, I let the inscription scratch along my fingertips one last time, then slipped it under the mattress with my mother’s coiled bracelet and the soiled dress, all these things that must now be in my past.

  Seventeen

  IN my River of Time, Augustus did not die in Spain. While his armies fought in the cold mountains without him, he retreated to the fortified city of Tarraco. Livia took the first opportunity to join him there and cared for him during his convalescence. Meanwhile, the boys returned, riding up the road toward the villa with Juba at the head of their procession. The Numidian princeling rode as if he’d been born on horseback, and seeing him in Roman armor was a startling sight. I knew it would be hard to envision him as only a tutor or even a scholar from now on. I understood as I hadn’t before that Juba was as much a trusted lieutenant as Agrippa.

  The servants clamored to make ready and we all came rushing out, eager for news. Marcellus, Tiberius, and Iullus were young men now, tempered from war, and prideful in their armor as they dismounted their horses. In an instant, Julia pulled up her skirts and ran toward them, flying past Marcellus and Tiberius to throw herself into Iullus’s arms. I watched Iullus as he hugged Julia; he’d grown as tall and handsome as Juba now, but he had a thick neck like our father’s and had the makings of a warrior. He wasn’t yet broad-shouldered, but he made Tiberius and Marcellus seem like gangly youths beside him.

  “Oh, Marcellus, I’ve been so worried,” Octavia gushed at her son. “Were you wounded?”

  “Just a scrape,” Marcellus said with a sunny grin. “The Cantabri are savages who jump out at you from the forest!”

  Octavia looked as if she might faint just imagining it. “I’m so glad you’re home. You’re my life. You’re all my hopes. You’re everything to me, don’t you know that?”

  “Don’t embarrass him,” Tiberius said glumly, though I wondered if it was because Drusus seemed to be the only one glad to see him.