Hand of Isis

by Jo Graham

  “Well, if I were a man,” I said, taking the cup from him, “then you could be in my harem.”

  “We could be Emrys’ harem,” Dion said. “That’s a thought. He’d laugh so much at the idea.”

  “He would,” I said. “But, my dear, I don’t want to take him from you. I should never want to hurt you.”

  “He loves you,” Dion said.

  “He loves you,” I said.

  “He loves us both, and that’s the problem.”

  “Is it?” I opened my eyes and looked at him. “We love each other. Perhaps more like brother and sister than anything else, but it’s love. Why can’t we share him?”

  “We can,” Dion said. “I said I was fine with that a long time ago. But it doesn’t seem fair. You and Emrys could have some kind of life.”

  “I don’t want to get married,” I said. “And Emrys still has years before his discharge. He can’t live with either one of us, and he’s going to have to leave the minute he gets orders. Why don’t we all just make the most of this? We all know it can’t last.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair to you,” Dion said. “What if you get pregnant?”

  “What if I do? I don’t mean to, but accidents happen. If I do, the Queen will sigh and smile and I’ll be right where I was with Demetria. Dion, I’m not worried about providing for a child. Cleopatra would never let my children want for anything.”

  “I could marry you,” Dion said.

  I laughed. “Your mother must be desperate! She’s given up on a nice Jewish girl and she’ll settle for any girl!”

  “She is. But if you needed it, I would. I mean, we both understand I sleep with men. . . .”

  I put my arm around him. “Dion, darling. I love you dearly. But I am not going to marry you. Or Emrys. Or anyone else. I like my life just like it is.”

  Dion looked relieved. “So now all we need to work out is Emrys’ schedule.”

  “As though he were the Apis bull,” I said.

  _______

  BY THE TIME Emrys returned, Dion and I had spread papyrus on the table and had drawn out the next two months, all of the banquets and other events that I knew I had to take care of, Emrys’ rotating duty schedule, and Dion’s classes, lectures, and private students.

  “That night’s a tough one,” Dion was saying. “I’ve got a session at the Observatory, and it’s six miles out of town. And you’ve got a dinner until the fifth hour of the night. I need to leave before dark, ideally.”

  “We could let him have a night to himself,” I suggested as Emrys came in.

  Perhaps he had been expecting to find us quarreling, or perhaps he hadn’t expected me to be there at all, but the last thing he’d been expecting was to find us, wine cups in hand, with more than half the jar gone, gesturing wildly over ink and paper. “What are you doing?”

  “Scheduling you,” I said.

  “It’s very complicated,” Dion said, enunciating carefully. “We all have such complicated work schedules. And we’re trying to make sure that we have approximately the same number of evenings per week. Which is a bitch in a week with an astronomical conjunction or a state dinner.”

  Emrys burst out laughing. “You’re what?”

  “Scheduling you,” I said, waving the wine cup at him. “See? This day and this day you’re Dion’s, but you’re mine the day after.”

  Emrys looked at the paper, his mouth twitching. “Heaven forbid we have any spontaneity.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair,” Dion said, and kissed him.

  They were both tall, though Emrys was a bit taller, and I liked the way they moved together, the way Dion kissed him greedily, his head turning into the kiss, his eyes closing. Emrys had kissed me, but I’d never seen what it looked like, that expression of intense concentration, the way his lashes swept against his cheeks. It was incredibly beautiful.

  I twisted with desire, hot and strong as anything I had ever felt. What could be more erotic than two beautiful men I adored, kissing one another?

  The stab of desire was almost painful.

  It was Emrys who stopped, of course. He looked at me from beneath his forelock, a sheepish expression on his face.

  I can’t imagine what I looked like. Not angry.

  “So whose am I tonight?” he asked with some of the lightness of before, though I heard the raw tone in his voice, beneath the banter.

  “Charmian’s,” Dion said promptly. “I’ve had you since you landed. So it’s more than her turn. I just wanted to send you off properly.”

  “I see,” Emrys said. He was still in his leathers, which hung loosely enough over his front not to betray anything.

  “Then we’d better be going,” I said.

  I’m not entirely certain how we got back to the palace, or to my rooms, only that we were there and tearing at each other’s clothes the moment the door closed. I sank onto my knees, taking him in my mouth as he groaned and clutched at the doorframe.

  “Let me,” I said. “Show me how Dion does it.”

  He gasped something that might have been a god’s name, hard and ready in my hands.

  “I’m going to have you like that,” I said. “I’m going to have you as though I were a man. Mine to choose. Mine to take.” One hand on him, the other caressing his buttocks, feeling him sway against me.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “After all,” I said, “I did promise to tie you up and keep you prisoner.”

  “You did,” Emrys said breathlessly.

  “I always keep my promises,” I said, dragging him toward the couch instead of the bed and pushing him back on it.

  “I should hate to spoil your record,” Emrys said as I shoved him back. “But don’t you think the bed . . .”

  “Too wide for what I have in mind,” I said, unfastening his sandals and dropping them on the floor. “And take those leathers off.”

  “I thought you liked them,” he said, unfastening the first buckle.

  “I do,” I said, “but am I the master here, or you?”

  He had a look of hunger on his face, as though this were something he had barely anticipated. “Definitely you, darling.”

  “Well, then.”

  In the end I was quite satisfied with my work. I thought he looked pretty, nude on his back with his hands bound to the head of the couch. I had put a firm pillow beneath his hips, raising his stiff phallus engagingly, his legs held apart by another tie that ran from one ankle to the other beneath the couch, holding them open the width of the couch.

  “Very pretty,” I said, running a finger down his chest from the tanned bit at the neckline across his pale belly.

  Emrys moaned, arching his hips.

  “Not yet, dear,” I said, moistening my fingers and taking him in hand. “Not until I say.”

  “Sweet Aphrodite,” Emrys groaned. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  “Something very, very nice,” I said, working my hand up and down his length, then stopping to run my fingers down the white insides of his thigh. “And if you’re exceptionally good, I may even let you finish.” I lifted my skirts and showed him my pubis, one finger dipping into my wetness.

  “You are a goddess,” he whispered.

  “I’m glad you noticed,” I said, and straddling him, lowered myself onto him.

  AFTERWARD, we lay together panting, my head on his shoulder as he lay on his back.

  “I can’t believe I let you do that,” he said, rubbing one wrist with the other hand.

  I reached for the couch blanket with one foot, kicking it up where I could reach it and pull it over us. “You seemed to like it,” I said. “You certainly begged enough. . . .”

  “I did like it,” Emrys said. His green eyes fluttered shut, a look of utter satiation on his face. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “Not with Dion?” I settled against him, wondering if we should move to the bed, or if it were too much trouble.

  “Dion’s tastes aren’t so . . . inventive,” Emrys said.
“He’s more of a cuddler.”

  I pushed one damp piece of hair back from his shoulder. “Do you like that better?”

  “I like sweet and spice both,” he said, his arm tightening around me. “Men and women both. A little of everything, I suppose. And you.” He opened his eyes, smiling at me. “What have I let myself in for?”

  “The best of both worlds,” I said.

  THUS BEGAN one of the happiest times of my life. I had my lover and my friend both, my daughter and my nephew, my work that I loved and my city. If ever there was a recipe for happiness it was this, to rise in the morning cool and get Demetria and Caesarion ready for their lessons, six years old and studying in earnest now. I would walk with them to the schoolroom, listening to them singing and scampering about like young birds, then leave them there smiling and go to breakfast with the Queen.

  Iras, Apollodorus, and I breakfasted with her every day, going over the day’s events and the briefings as we did so. Sometimes breakfast stretched on two hours when there was a great deal to do. Some days she would then retire with Apollodorus over the foreign correspondence, or with Iras over the treasury, and to such other meetings as were necessary with the exchequer, ports, or agriculture. Other days she would spend the rest of the morning in court, with those justices and advocates who sought pardon or perdition from the crown.

  I would go to my office then, on an upper story facing the sea, and meet with the household staff, go over the budgets and stocking of cellars, foodstuffs, granaries, and all else required for a household of some four hundred. At other times I would meet with the Friend of Pharaoh who commanded the Queen’s Bodyguard, the Master of Horse, and all of the rest. In the afternoon it was more of the same, with the end of the day given to planning whatever events were in the offing.

  And then there were the building projects. All of those had to come through me as well on their way to the Queen: the progress reports, changes of plan, and bids for construction. I had initially thought this rather over my head, but as time passed I learned a great deal about different qualities of sandstone. It was an apprenticeship of a different kind, but one I enjoyed.

  On a good day, I could end my work then, but at least three or four times a week I had to manage one of the dinners, banquets, or processions to which everyone was devoted. Antonius wanted to dine each night as though it were his last. This was, after all, his fabulous idyll in Egypt, and he expected the bounty of the Pharaohs. Cleopatra had never especially cared for banquets, but when at last they stepped down to smaller parties of nobles and his officers, it was less trouble. Dinner for thirty was simple. Three hundred was taxing.

  Sometimes, in the evening, Demetria and I escaped the palace to Dion’s apartment, eating on the balcony in the gathering night, while resined lamps gave off smoke to keep the bugs away. Sometimes Emrys was there and sometimes he wasn’t, depending on his own duties, and Demetria kept up a stream of talk of her day and asked Dion to teach her about the stars.

  One night, as we were coming home in the litter afterward, Demetria leaned on me, folding her arms across my belly. “Ma,” she said. “Is Dion my father?”

  “No, baby,” I said, stroking her hair.

  “That’s too bad,” she said, snuggling half-draped over me. “I wish he were.”

  “It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” I said. I could not even imagine what Agrippa should make of this life.

  And then there were the nights with Emrys, when he came to my room in the palace and we tumbled into scented sheets, laughing and playing like children, or thralled in passion like chains. He could give and take both, and familiarity only let us push further, trusting one another.

  The only thing that marred these days was Antonius. Oh, I liked him well enough. He was pleasant and well spoken, kind to Caesarion in a grave manner, as a man who has boys of his own may be. He was not Gnaeus Pompeius in any way, except that he did not like to work.

  I know Emrys grew irritated sometimes that Antonius spent so little time with the dispatches, or had so little concern for his troops encamped in Syria and Asia. A few hours, now and again, a few meetings that could be gotten through in half an afternoon—that was all there was. And he distracted the Queen.

  When, for the third time, I had put off a meeting with barge owners because Antonius wanted the Queen to go with him, I complained to Iras. “Does he think Egypt governs itself? It’s important she speak with barge owners. No, they’re not hugely wealthy, but once a year or two she needs to see every important constituency in the kingdom. And there are only so many days in the year.”

  “He has had years of war,” Iras said. “Let him now have a little rest. There will be enough war ahead of him.”

  “That is true enough, I expect,” I said. The Parthians now threatened Judea, and if they began a war there, Antonius would have to go. Herod was his ally, and had stood by him when Octavian pushed. Besides, Antonius had troops in Syria. “Do you think he will go if the Parthians cross the Jordan?”

  “He has to, doesn’t he?” Iras said, and her eyes were level. “That is our far frontier too.”

  THE PARTHIANS DID, of course. They had feared Caesar. They did not fear Herod, or Antonius’ men left leaderless in Antioch.

  The year had turned and the harvest was upon us when Cleopatra made her best galleys ready for Antonius for him to go to Syria with all speed. I thought that we would go with him, perhaps, as they seemed happy together, but that was not to be. At the beginning of Roman February she missed her courses.

  “I will take no chances,” she said, as we worked out the provisioning of the ships that would go with Antonius. “Not this time.” Her voice caught just a little.

  “I know,” I said. “It is better if you stay here. Not even a sea voyage to Antioch.”

  Emrys, of course, must go. We had known he would, Dion and I, but we’d had a year.

  “They will come back soon,” the Queen said.

  “They will,” I said, putting my hand over hers on the table. “They will be back before the child comes in the fall, most likely. The Parthians will not fight through the heat of summer.”

  The Queen raised an eyebrow at me, but did not dispute it. As once she would have, I thought. She wanted to believe me.

  Antonius and Emrys sailed in March, with fair winds and the blessings of Isis Pelagia following after.

  It was perhaps a month later that I sat beside the Queen while her doctor held his rolled paper to her slightly rounded belly, frowning. “You missed in February but not January?”

  “Yes,” she said, lying as he had told her to, her arms raised behind her head. “I’m sure I conceived in late January. I was entirely regular before that. Is something the matter?”

  “You are too large,” he said brusquely, and began poking and prodding again, moving the tube about with his ear to it, his brow furrowed.

  I squeezed her hand, and felt her fingers shake in mine.

  “What is the matter?” she asked.

  He shushed her, listening.

  Oh sweet Mother Isis, I prayed, please, nothing wrong. Please, nothing wrong.

  At last he laid the paper down, looking grave. “There are two heartbeats,” he said.

  Moon and Sun

  It was the fifth physician who said what no one else would. “Carrying twins isn’t necessarily a death sentence.” He was a young doctor from Philae, handsome in a sharp way, with high Nubian cheekbones and long fingers, new to the faculty at the Temple of Asclepius, where he had been teaching on the charity ward. His name was Amonis.

  A collective breath ran around the room. Five specialists had been called in since that morning, each with their separate examination of my sister. Six times we’d done it over and over, the prodding and the listening, the fingers examining her closed cervix. For the Queen of Egypt to be carrying twins was nothing less than a national crisis.

  “It is true,” Amonis said, “that some women carrying twins die in the delivery. But the odds are not significa
ntly worse than for a single delivery. However, the outlook for the children is graver. In my experience, twins are generally smaller and often have trouble breathing. The delivery itself is more complicated, with a higher incidence of breech births.” He did not seek to evade the Queen’s eyes.

  I stood behind her chair. She had dressed again, and her face was calm if white. She must be Queen as well as mother.

  “I will not deceive you, Gracious Queen. The prognosis for the children is not good. Often one twin is larger than the other, and that one lives while the other dies. But it is not uncommon that both babies are too small and weak, and we lose them both,” Amonis said.

  Cleopatra nodded gravely, as though they spoke of someone else.

  The senior physician cleared his throat. “The safest course, Gracious Queen, would be to induce labor now. This early, in the fourth month, there is no chance of the fetuses surviving, but your health would be safe. Both would be small enough to pass easily. And many of the drugs I would administer have been used under medical supervision for years.”

  “Safely?” She raised an eyebrow.

  One of the other doctors shifted in his chair, and his movement told her what she wanted to know. “Yes?” she said, turning to him.

  He was the senior physician of gynecology at the Ascalepium, with thirty years’ service. “No drug is entirely safe,” he said sharply. “If you give a dose small enough to be safe, it may be ineffective. A larger dose of one of the stronger compounds will induce abortion, but is not recommended as late as the fourth month. There is no guarantee that we will be able to stop the hemorrhage if we begin it. I think that course is too dangerous, Gracious Queen.”

  “And if I carry the pregnancy?” Cleopatra’s voice was level. I had never admired her more, nor envied that detachment more, that she could step back from something that so intimately concerned her.

  Her own doctor’s voice was gruff. “It’s hard to carry twins to term. Usually a bit better than seven of the ten moons is the best that can be done. And often, most usually, the babies don’t survive. You need nine moons to have a good chance, and eight is risky. When the combined weight of the twins is equal to the weight of a single infant at term, labor usually results.”