Hand of Isis

by Jo Graham

  “How do you tell the difference if you’re blinded by Eros?” she asked. “Doesn’t every man look a genius or a hero to the eyes of love?”

  “Not to me,” I said. “I never mistook Lucan for any kind of genius or hero. And Agrippa . . .” How should I say that I was certain he was every bit as good as he thought he was, that he was better even than he knew?

  “You weren’t in love with Lucan,” Iras said. “Nor with Agrippa.”

  “No,” I said, “not enough. Not enough to go mad for them or to destroy everything.” I looked sideways at her. “Perhaps I never will be. Perhaps the passion just isn’t in me, to be willing to live and die for someone.”

  “And why wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Iras asked in her best rhetorical tone. “If you are not sent mad by Eros to the detriment of your child and your own best interests, is that not something to thank Aphrodite for?”

  “Agrippa wanted to marry me,” I said. “He had some convoluted scheme about getting an old man to pretend I was his Roman niece. It would all hold together nicely, as long as I never made any attempt to see you or Cleopatra or Caesarion ever again.”

  “Did you tell him about Demetria?”

  I shook my head. “I hadn’t gotten so far yet. And now I won’t. He could claim her completely under Roman law. He could take her away from me.”

  “The Queen wouldn’t allow that,” Iras said.

  “We are in Rome,” I said. “And I won’t take the gamble. Not with Demetria.”

  EMRYS CAME THAT AFTERNOON, grim faced, without Caesar. “Charmian,” he said, “I would like to speak to the Queen.”

  “Is it about Caesar?” I asked, my hand to my throat. He was not young. Illness could come on unexpectedly . . .

  “No,” he said. “It’s nothing like that. It’s about Princess Arsinoe.”

  It took me a moment to remember. Arsinoe had been brought to Rome for Caesar’s Triumph, nearly two years ago. I supposed she must be in prison somewhere, but actually I had not thought of her.

  Emrys’ face was white and grim.

  “What has happened?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Except that I am risking my career in doing this. Now will you take me to see the Queen or not?”

  “I will,” I said. In the end, I trusted him.

  I HARDLY KNEW HER. She might have been a stranger hunched in the corner of the reeking cell, an overturned slop bucket beside her. Her dark hair tangled around her face and her hands were covered with filth.

  The Queen stopped in the doorway, her himation drawn about her.

  Behind us and Iras, Emrys and the jailer stood in the hall. “She’s been here since the Triumph,” Emrys said. “When she was paraded in chains through Rome and her lover Ganymede was killed before her eyes.”

  “Arsinoe?” Cleopatra said, waiting for some flash of recognition.

  The woman said nothing, only huddled farther back in the corner, her ragged dress drawn up so far that her privates were visible, caked with dried menstrual blood.

  “She had a baby last spring that the jailers took and exposed,” Emrys said in his grim, cold tone. “Anyone could pay them for the privilege. Anyone who wanted to say they’d had a Ptolemaic princess. Of course now nobody really wants to. Not with her like that.”

  “Arsinoe?” The Queen knelt.

  Through the matted veil of her hair I saw one eye I recognized, the proud profile of the Ptolemies. She did not spit or cry, just gave one animal keen.

  I stepped back into the corridor, my stomach lurching. The jailer shuffled his feet, but Emrys stood between us.

  “I thought you should know, Gracious Queen,” he said in Koine.

  I closed my eyes. I was not here. This was not real. I stood in some other place. My stomach heaved again. Control. Pride. Iras did not do this. The Queen did not. Not in front of that jailer.

  Cleopatra’s voice cut like a blade. “Iras, Praefectus, attend on me. I am going to speak with Caesar.” I heard the door scraping shut, and then her voice at my elbow. “Charmian, you may go home.”

  “Thank you, Gracious Queen,” I gasped, escaping into the bright morning.

  I WENT HOME and threw up my breakfast, and then took a long bath to wash the prison stench out of my hair, leaning back in the water and staring up at the ceiling, utterly ashamed of myself.

  Mother Isis, I thought, I did not like her. She was not my friend, and in Egypt she would have killed us all if she could. But I would not wish this upon my worst enemy. Mother Isis, she is my sister too. Mother Isis, preserve us. Sweet Mother, save us.

  I got up from the bath and dressed. Iras and the Queen were still not back. I joined Caesarion and Demetria in some childish game, fetching the balls they had thrown away and clutching them too tightly when they ran to me, their little limbs clean and strong and their arms confidently around my neck. Nothing would ever hurt them. Nothing, while I had breath in my body.

  Mother Isis, I prayed, let me die before I come to that. Let me die.

  Caesarion put his face against mine. “Why you sad?”

  “I’m not, precious,” I said, pulling Demetria in against my other side. “I just had some difficult business this morning. That’s all. Let’s go into the garden, and I’ll tell you a story.”

  “Dog!” shouted Demetria, who was six months younger and had fewer words.

  “Dog,” agreed Caesarion. “And prince.”

  “All right,” I said, and we went out and I settled both on my lap, a trick that wouldn’t last much longer. “Once there was a prince named Horus, and His uncle Set wanted to kill Him. So Set sent Death to Him in the form of a snake, a cobra that would sneak into the little prince’s bedroom and bite Him. But the prince had a loyal dog who slept every night in His room . . .”

  We stayed there until Iras came. I heard her steps on the path and looked up at her in shame.

  “Princess Arsinoe will go to sanctuary at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos,” Iras said, and her voice was almost even.

  “I see,” I said quietly, so as not to upset the children. “Did Caesar know?”

  “Caesar professed surprise, and said he had not thought of the Princess Arsinoe since the Triumph. He said that the Queen might do as she liked in the matter.”

  “I see,” I said. An answer that might mean anything. Or might mean just as he said, that once she was no longer important he had forgotten about her entirely. “And Emrys?”

  “Decurion Aurelianus will not be punished, if that’s what you mean. At least not directly.”

  “His career,” I said. Caesarion was wiggling, and I let him go. Demetria toddled after him like his shadow. I leaned back into the shade of a palm. “Why did he do it, Iras?”

  “Because he is a good man,” Iras said, and went back in the house.

  IT WAS A MONTH before Emrys came to the villa again. Autumn had turned into winter, and the Roman Saturnalia was fast approaching. Even with the hypocaust working, we still found it cold at night, and the endless rain that came down day in and day out was depressing. Iras wandered around bundled in shawls, and the rest of the servants we’d brought from Egypt complained constantly. I did not take it as badly as most, and for once blessed my thick northern blood, although I suppose it was really not so very cold.

  Emrys laughed at me when I complained of the cold, though he brought me a heavy cloak of the thread-dyed wool I had liked earlier in the fall, and I wore it everywhere. It was blue-and-cream-checked, with squares of cream alternating with lighter and darker blue, exotic and very pretty. Also warm.

  I was coming to appreciate his company more and more, his ironic sense of humor and his good heart. After the disaster that had been Marcus Agrippa, Emrys’ company was balm to me. More than once I wished that something might come of it, but I knew too well from Dion that there was no point in wishing for that.

  At least the impending holiday seemed to put the Roman Senate in an expansive mood. Treaties were signed with Egypt, guaranteeing a good pr
ice on grain and renewing “the bonds of friendship with a faithful ally of Rome.” Egypt agreed to supply auxiliary troops for Caesar’s next campaign in the east, which should probably begin in the spring when the sailing season opened, and the troops that Caesar had left behind in Egypt would form the core of a new army that should protect Rome and Egypt alike against the Parthians.

  “Do they think the Parthians are such a threat?” I asked, when the Queen told me all of this.

  Cleopatra put down her pen and smiled. “I’m less concerned about the Parthians than Parthian territory. As long as we have Judea as a buffer between us, it’s moot. But Egypt has ancient claims as far north as Damascus, and I mean to see them carried out. Antipater and I can work out Judea between us. The Jews have more interest in the Egyptian sphere than the Roman, and more than anything they want a prince of their own rather than being swallowed up as a Roman province. Antipater’s even sent that son of his, Herod, to Rome so that he can make friends. I think they’d rather deal with the House of Ptolemy so that they know where they stand than with the Roman Senate. They haven’t forgotten Pompeius.”

  “Are we going home now that we’ve got the treaty?” I asked.

  The Queen sighed. “Not yet. We’ll leave in the spring, when the sailing season opens. When Caesar leaves for his next campaign. There are some things that must be done first.”

  “Such as?”

  “Caesar will be appointed Dictator for life,” she said. “That should not take much longer. And he must make a new will.”

  “I thought Caesarion could not inherit under Roman law,” I said.

  “Cannot inherit his citizenship or his titles,” Cleopatra said. The color stood high in her face. “He may inherit personal property, just as any man may leave remembrances upon his death to freedmen, or to business contacts who are not Roman. That which Caesar wins in the east will be his personal property, and he will take the lands for himself, rather than ceding them to the Senate.”

  I nodded slowly. “Which gives him a power base the Senate can’t control, and Egypt’s ancient properties left to Caesarion. That’s clever.”

  “Thank you,” Cleopatra said.

  I laughed. “Your idea, not Caesar’s?”

  “Let’s say it was a joint idea.”

  THE DAYS GREW LONGER, the Lupercalia approached. All through the winter we had entertained regularly, usually Caesar and a party of his friends, notably Senators with votes on the important trade treaties who wanted to meet the Queen of Egypt in person, or businessmen who did enormous volumes of trade with Egypt. Sometimes there were women at the parties as well. Unlike Greek women, Roman women did not live sequestered, and while they took no role in public life, there were many who wielded a great deal of power through men.

  One woman who was invited from time to time was the wife of Caesar’s right hand, Marcus Antonius. Fulvia was a handsome woman in her mid-thirties, with a proud chin and long black hair that she wore in the absolute latest fashions and the air of someone who knows she is a great beauty. Perhaps she had been, fifteen years before, but she had the kind of looks that did not last once youthful prettiness was done. Fulvia, more than any other, set out to make herself charming to the Queen. And it was she who suggested a garden party.

  Cleopatra protested that surely it was too cold, but Fulvia laughed. “Just a small party! After all, the weather has turned and we shall have flowers soon. The almonds are budding already. If you bring some braziers out for the fainthearted to gather around, it will be quite warm.”

  And who’s to have the charge of that, I thought. And who will be fretting and worrying over the temperature and trying to make sure the guests don’t freeze. Me, of course. It’s worrying enough to have a party outside somewhere it rains frequently.

  “We always have garden parties in the winter,” Fulvia said. “It’s too warm in the summer. Besides, your garden is charming.”

  Caesar leaned back on his couch, smiling. “It sounds as though you must have a party, my dear. If only because Fulvia will not remove her teeth otherwise.”

  Marcus Antonius, who shared his couch with Fulvia, colored. “She doesn’t mean to be pushy, do you, Fulvia?”

  Caesar laughed and blew a kiss in Fulvia’s direction. “Of course she does. But there’s no harm in it, and possibly some good. Your wife has a head for politics, Marcus.”

  Fulvia reached up as though catching the kiss and pointedly clasped it to her bosom, leaning back against Antonius. “I think it would do the Queen good to be seen by more people, that’s all.” She looked at Cleopatra. “You could come and watch the Lupercalia procession from our house.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is,” Cleopatra said gracefully, looking for a cue from Caesar. Of course she did know perfectly well. It was in her briefing scrolls.

  “It’s a fertility festival,” Antonius said, shifting on his couch. “There’s a sacrifice and a rite. It’s special this year because Caesar has created a third college of priests for it.”

  “Of which you are the first magister,” Caesar said, holding out his cup. I refilled it without him even looking around. “Thus guaranteeing a good turnout for the procession. Who among the ladies of Rome will not want to watch Marcus Antonius run nude through the city striking people with thongs?”

  Antonius held his empty cup out too. “It’s for fertility,” he said again to the Queen. “It’s a blessing on women to be touched by the whips, so women who are pregnant or who want to be crowd the ropes so that they can be blessed.”

  “I see,” Cleopatra said. “And are you suggesting I need such a blessing?”

  Caesar laughed. “I think she does well enough with her own old goat not to need the goats of the Lupercal!”

  Antonius roared, his cup shaking back and forth while I tried to refill it.

  The Queen arched an eyebrow. “I had not taken you for a priest, Antonius.”

  “Antonius has been an Initiate of Dionysos for many years,” Fulvia said.

  Marcus Antonius stilled the cup and shot her a glance. “Not so many years, I hope,” he said. “After all, Caesar only legalized the worship of Dionysos in Rome four years ago.”

  “Of course she means in the last four years,” Caesar said, his eyes dancing. “I am certain you had nothing to do with Dionysos before, law-abiding and temperate as you are.”

  The Queen lifted her cup for me to refill. There was still half the wine left, but then she never liked to drink the dregs. “The worship of Dionysos was illegal?” I imagine she was as shocked as I, though it did not sound in her voice. Of course we had heard of such things, in the past or in barbarous lands, but the idea of rendering any religion illegal in a place so close as Rome, so recently as four years ago, was frightening.

  “Oh yes,” Caesar said, lounging back on his cushions. “Most of the Eastern religions have been illegal at one time or another. Isis and Serapis were, for a while. The worship of Dionysos was thought to lead women to infidelity, and therefore be incompatible with Roman values. It’s foolish, of course, to think that ideas can be banned and kept out, like a man with a leaking boat bailing furiously while the water flows in between the planks.” He took a sip. “Better to bring things into the light than to hide them. Darkness is where the rumors of human sacrifice and rape breed.”

  Antonius nodded gravely. “The worship of Dionysos isn’t like that. People don’t understand.”

  “But perhaps you will teach them, Marcus,” Caesar said.

  “And you are not an initiate yourself?” Cleopatra asked.

  Caesar shook his head. “My heart is given to Venus. She is a jealous mistress.”

  “And surely Mars,” Fulvia proclaimed, “powerful in war as you are.”

  “I hope that I have enjoyed His favor,” Caesar said carefully, “if only as His gift for His beloved’s son.”

  Cleopatra said what I would have, as though we shared one thought. “It is dangerous to be the son of the Lady of the Sea,” she said.
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  He reached across from his couch, clasping her hand. “You worry too much, my dear,” he said.

  He Lives And Reigns

  And so we were stuck with having a garden party.

  Or rather, I was stuck with it. Of course the day of the party, two days before the first day of March, was cold, rainy, and unpleasant. I was up before dawn, getting slaves to rig awnings over the paved terrace that looked toward the Tiber and the city, and putting up a big striped tent in the garden so that there would be room for six more couches there. I could do nothing about the wet grass, and while there would have to be a brazier in the tent to keep the chill off, its legs and its heat would probably scar the grass. I cursed Fulvia under my breath as we moved the brazier around in the cold rain.

  By midmorning the rain had stopped and it had started to clear, though the brisk wind off the river was chilly. The slaves took the couch cushions out and arranged them, six under the tent and six on the terrace, four groups of three. I thought that the damp would damage the good wood, but they were Caesar’s, not ours.

  By now the scent of roasting meat was excruciatingly lovely. Caesar’s cook knew his business, I thought. Since this was an intimate little “family party” Caesarion would have to make an appearance, so I went inside to make sure his nurse had bathed him, and to pick out a tunic for him that would send precisely the right message. I chose one in sky blue, with embroidered borders, but not too fancy or Greek. As I laid it out, I glanced out the window. Yes, it was definitely clearing, and by noon it might be beautiful. I wondered if Emrys would be in the escort today. If he were, I’d have no more time than to smile at him. But in two days I would have a full day off, and Emrys was not on the duty schedule. We could go about the city if the weather wasn’t too bad.

  There was some little problem in the kitchen just short of noon, so I wasn’t there when the first guests began to arrive. By the time I came out again there were eight or so people, standing around the way people always do when they’re first to a party and wish they weren’t. Caesar wasn’t there yet, so there was no point in trying to corner him.