Hand of Isis

by Jo Graham

  “And if I carry eight moons or better?”

  Amonis answered. “One child or two or none surviving. And a dangerous pregnancy for you, Gracious Queen. There are any number of possible complications that become more likely.”

  Cleopatra spread her hands. “Those things may happen in any normal pregnancy, Doctor. What would you tell me then?”

  “You are in all other ways healthy. You are twenty-eight years old, neither too young or too old, with one normal delivery behind you. I would tell you to eat and exercise in moderation,” he said. “To rest in the water in a pool to balance your humors. And to work far less than you do. I would order you to bed at the first sign of effacement.”

  “Then that is what I will do,” she said. “We will simply take it as it comes, gentlemen. And with the assistance of Isis and Bastet, we will enrich the realm, not impoverish it.”

  THAT NIGHT I could not sleep. I paced outside on the terrace, half in worry, half in prayer.

  I was not surprised to hear a voice behind me. “Charmian?”

  It was the Queen. “Yes,” I said.

  She came and stood by me, looking out to sea. The wind blew her robes tight against her body, her belly too swollen for four months. “You can’t sleep either?”

  “No,” I said.

  The great light on the lighthouse turned, beams sweeping over the sea as the massive mirrors moved on their gears, calling ships home.

  “What will happen to Egypt without you?” I said.

  Her mouth tightened. “Is that what you think will happen, Charmian? That I will die?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I care too much about this to be able to see anything besides my own fears. I simply don’t know.”

  “Then we will take the chances, you and I,” she said.

  “And Antonius?”

  My sister took a deep breath. “I’ve written to him of my pregnancy. But I won’t tell him about the twins. There’s too much chance of the letter being intercepted and read. And you know as well as I that if it gets out, the grain markets will crash.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Besides, there’s nothing he can do. And he will worry.” She smiled, a tiny tight smile. “He’d probably run straight back here. And that’s a thing he cannot afford to do.”

  “I wonder what Fulvia will say,” I said.

  Cleopatra laughed. “Probably congratulations! I think she and Marcus understand one another well.”

  “I see that,” I said.

  My sister put her arm around my waist. “We are all strange creatures, we Ptolemies. I think if Fulvia were here we might arrange everything as you have with Dion and Emrys. She asked me, you know. In Rome.”

  I must have looked utterly shocked, because Cleopatra laughed. “She had come up to my room to help me dress one day, a good opportunity for gossip, and to make it clear that she was closer to me than the other women. She asked me if I’d ever had a woman use her mouth on me, and volunteered to show me.”

  “Oh!” I said, and in my surprise blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I suppose she taught Antonius then.”

  “Very well, yes.” My sister laughed and embraced me. “She taught him very well.”

  THE NEXT THING WE HEARD of Antonius he had pushed the Parthians back over the Jordan River, and was marching through Asia toward the Hellespont, bound for Greece. Things had not gone smoothly in Judea, but he had little time to spare. His brother and Fulvia had gone to war with Octavian in Italy.

  By summer Antonius was in Athens. And I knew with a certainty that his letters came less often than Emrys’. But then, Emrys and the cavalry had been left behind in Macedonia.

  Hail Charmian,

  I write to you from Pella, in Macedonia. You will be amused, I think, to imagine me here where Alexander grew to manhood, but this place holds no echoes of that kind for me. It is truly not much to look at, though one can see how it was once a much larger town. They say here that there was an earthquake five years ago that destroyed much, and that many of the town’s citizens moved to Thessalonika, which is not far away. There are still men here, and good grass, and we have built a good camp near the river.

  I watch my horse eat where Bucephalos grazed, and wonder what it looked like then. This quiet seems more like it must have been before Alexander’s time, when the Persians came here asking for fire and earth and got it. Another summer, another time ago.

  You ask me what Antonius is doing, and more than that what he feels. I can’t know. He is in Athens and I in Pella, even if I had his confidence, in ways I do not. They say he is furious at his brother for rising against Octavian inopportunely and getting soundly defeated. Now there must be war between them.

  But at least you will have no cause to worry about me. I am doing nothing more strenuous than cavalry exercise in beautiful summer weather.

  Sigismund shakes his head at me and says, “Crazy Gauls!” He bids me to tell you that if you tire of sharing me that he is looking for a good wife when his enlistment is up!

  Farewell,

  Emrys Aurelianus, Praefectus

  The Queen made eight moons, all of the way to the week before the autumn equinox. The first part of the labor went quickly, too quickly for Amonis, who was in attendance. He kept feeling the upper part of her belly, though his face was calm. When he went out to call for more clean water to cool her face and limbs, I followed him.

  “What is it?” I asked. “You can tell me, you know. I have one of my own, and I was with her through Caesarion and the miscarriage both.”

  He hesitated, then dropped his voice. “The first baby is fine. Its head is down and well engaged. I can feel it right behind the cervix. It’s the second one that’s the problem.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Amonis took a breath. “It’s transverse. Its head is right under her ribs on the left side, and its feet low down on the right. It has no room to turn with the other baby in position.”

  “Transverse.” Transverse was worse than footling breech. Delivery feetfirst might be more dangerous for the child, but it could be done. There was simply no way a child could fit through sideways.

  “I will have to try to turn it once the first one is out of the way,” Amonis said. “So send a servant for purified olive oil. I’ll need the slip on my hands.”

  I nodded and started off, movement an antidote for terror.

  He caught my arm. “And say nothing to the Queen,” he said. “There is nothing she can do differently, and we must deliver the first one now.”

  I sent for the oil, and then stood a moment in the passage before I went back in. I must compose myself before I saw her. Caesarion was sleeping. He had kissed her good night in the earliest stages, gaily told that before morning he would have a new brother or sister to keep him company. He was seven. So very young to rule Egypt alone.

  I must not think that way, I thought angrily. I must not. This was not the awesome premonition of Caesar’s death, but more mundane worry for my sister and her children.

  I schooled my face and went in to sit with Iras at her side.

  The child was born in the eleventh hour of the night, the cold hour before dawn, slithering into the hands of Amonis’ assistant, who cleared its breath with his own. She choked and began to cry, a thin distressed wail.

  Cleopatra was trying to push herself up on her elbows to see.

  “A fine daughter, Gracious Queen,” I said, holding the clean linen that her thin little body might be received in, to wrap her warm against any chill.

  “The weight of a good measure of grain,” the assistant said, making light of it as he checked her once more, seeing whether there was any bluish cast to her hands or feet, and that her breath came strongly. Her arms and legs flailed.

  The larger twin, I thought. The strong one.

  She kicked, even swaddled in the fine cloth, and the assistant handed her to me.

  Amonis met Cleopatra’s eyes. “Gracious Queen,” he said. “Th
e other child is transverse. I need to try to turn it. It cannot be born the way it lies.”

  I saw the fear cross her face, followed almost immediately by the next wave of pain. The labor did not relent, her body trying to find a way.

  I held the girl to my shoulder, her soft little head cupped in my hand. “Shhh, sweet girl,” I whispered. “Your aunt has you, precious. You’re safe, little love.”

  “Just hang on tight,” Iras said, taking the Queen’s hand again. “Just hang on.” Their eyes locked together, and I remembered how she had held me up when Demetria was born, all through that long dream of pain. “Hang on,” she said.

  When the contraction eased Amonis slid his entire hand inside, slickened with oil and blood, full to the wrist.

  The Queen bit down on her lip, then screamed.

  I saw the next contraction coming, the ripples spreading across her strained belly, clamping down on his arm.

  He stilled. “Waiting,” he said. “I have its head. Now I have to turn it very carefully and keep the cord out of the way. Fraternal twins. I can feel its sac intact.”

  My sister’s voice shook. “Charmian . . .”

  “Yes, darling,” I said. I couldn’t get any closer, with Iras and Amonis and the assistants.

  “You’ll take care of her, won’t you? You’ll guard my daughter?”

  “I will guard her with all my strength,” I said. “With all my heart, to death and beyond.” I could not stop my voice from choking, though I tried. I held her to my heart instead, my tiny niece.

  He turned it on the next contraction, though there was blood, so much blood. I held my niece so she should not see, not that her eyes could focus that far or that she could understand.

  Amonis looked at his assistant. “Now,” he said, as another contraction came. “I’ve got a snarl in the cord. It has to be now.”

  Cleopatra screamed, and he pulled his hand free in a rush of blood, intact caul coming after, tight over the second baby’s face.

  I clutched the first and squeezed my eyes shut in a desperate prayer. Bastet, Mother of Cats, Isis, Mother of the World . . .

  There was a choking sound. I looked. The baby was free, limbs hanging limp, while Amonis tore the caul from its face and covered its mouth and nose together with his mouth.

  Breath of life I give you . . . , I thought, part of the Liturgy of Isis, heard a thousand times at Bubastis and at the Serapeum.

  “She’s fainted!” the assistant yelled, and I saw Amonis hesitate, torn for a moment in the physician’s oldest dilemma, between one patient and another.

  The blood, and the Queen, her head lolling back against Iras’ arm.

  “Come on, damn it,” Iras swore at her, Iras who never in her life raised her voice, who never lost her composure. “Come on, don’t do this!”

  Amonis blew, once, twice, three times, and then four. I saw a tiny fist clench, flushing pink, as the child drew a first ragged breath.

  The assistant was trying to get the afterbirth, while Iras swore still, laying a cold wet cloth against the Queen’s forehead. “Come on! Come back to me!”

  The other infant sputtered as Amonis took his mouth away.

  “Iras!” Amonis’ voice cut through all. “Take the infant. Let me see to the Queen.”

  Awkwardly, they traded places, a servant holding the cloth for the other child. A boy, I thought, a boy and a girl, before he was wrapped and held to Iras’ chest. Her tears fell on his small and bloody head.

  “Your mother loves you,” she whispered. “Oh, how she loves you, sweet boy.”

  The blood would stop or it would not.

  “I think it’s placental,” Amonis said to the assistant, and I did not want to interrupt him to ask anything. “I don’t think it’s a uterine tear.”

  I looked at Iras. The girl was quiet in my arms now, her breath soft and even against the warmth of my skin. Iras bent her head over the baby. “I will stay with you, sweet boy,” she whispered.

  I walked to the window, swaying gently. It was past dawn. The sun was coming up, the first bright rays touching the sea. The seabirds were crying, turning on the currents of dawn.

  Bright Helios, I thought, Ra of Egypt, Horus the Son of His Mother, oh please . . .

  “Helios,” she croaked.

  I spun about. Her hair lay matted around her and her skin was pale as silk, but her eyes were open.

  “His name is Helios,” she said. “Helios and Selene.”

  “Lie still, Gracious Queen,” Amonis said. “The bleeding is slowing, but it will stop better if you lie still.” He looked at me. “Is the girl strong enough to nurse?”

  “Maybe?” I said. Her little hands were kneading at me like a kitten, her rosebud mouth puckered.

  “Put her on one nipple and see if she will clamp,” Amonis said. “And you draw on the other. It makes the uterus contract more strongly. That will help stop the bleeding.” He held his hand flat against Cleopatra’s pubis, feeling each contraction.

  I held the little girl to her left breast, popped her mouth open with a practiced motion I had forgotten I knew, clamped her jaw shut. Selene’s eyes closed, long dark lashes fluttering, and she moved her jaw to suck.

  “That’s it, darling,” I said. “That’s how you do it.” I bent my head to my sister’s other breast and drew her nipple into my mouth, trying to find the rhythm. I suppose we forget these things when we are no longer babies, and no longer need it. Once, Iras and I had suckled from the same breasts, like twins ourselves.

  It seemed a long time, but must only have been a few minutes before I raised my head.

  “Let Helios try,” Iras said, and I moved and positioned the pointed brown nipple for him.

  He had more trouble than his sister. He was smaller and his hands and face were very thin. Selene was sucking away, more for comfort than anything as there was nothing there yet, not even the thin foremilk.

  There was color in the Queen’s face again, and the linens were not soaking through with blood in just a few minutes.

  “I think,” said Amonis, “we may have made it.”

  IT WAS THREE WEEKS before Cleopatra was strong enough to get out of bed. She nursed them around the clock this time, though there was a wet nurse too, to make sure they had enough. We did not announce the birth until a few days had passed, and the services could be ones of thanksgiving.

  Selene seemed strong enough, though small, but Helios had to be held constantly against someone’s chest, skin to skin. His breathing was irregular, and sometimes he stopped, as though he forgot to take a breath. Skin to skin, he would be jostled and startled, and then would draw another quickly, half-choking. It would be months yet before we were certain of him, but Selene gained weight quickly, rosy and warm.

  And yet there was thanksgiving. The trumpets sounded, and fire ran down the channels in the Serapeum in celebration of the miracle of twin children for the House of Ptolemy, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, Sun and Moon, one born by night, the other by day.

  ANTONIUS SENT HIS BLESSINGS and his wishes from Brundisium, where he besieged Octavian’s allies. Word came from Greece that Fulvia had died of a fever in Athens.

  “Antonius will be here soon,” Cleopatra said. “He will not be long now. He will want to see the children.”

  “Yes,” I said, but I wondered. I had a letter from Emrys too.

  Hail Charmian,

  Now we are in Epidauro, waiting, they say, for passage to Italy. I am not sure it will come. Antonius did not want to fight Octavian now, and since Fulvia is dead there is more chance he can come to terms. Better, of course, to end war rather than fight it.

  I miss you both. Four more years. If the gods will grant I live that long. . . .

  In the new year, word came that Antonius had married Octavian’s sister, Octavia.

  Her husband Marcellus was dead, which was not a surprise as he had been older than Caesar, but it was very convenient all the same. Octavia and Antonius celebrated a state wedding, centerpiece
of a new treaty between Octavian and Antonius. Octavian should rule in the West and Antonius in the East. The successors did not need Cleopatra.

  The Queen’s face was tight and grim. “He will need me,” she said, “to hold what he claims. Whatever he claims.”

  There was anger there, real anger. She had fought her battle while he avoided his, only to win unregarded.

  “He wasn’t good enough for you,” I said, enraged. “He was no Caesar.”

  “Charmian, be quiet,” she said, and stalked from the room.

  “The alliance is the wise thing to do,” Iras said. “It would be foolish to fight Octavian now. Especially if he can get what he wants through marriage, not war.”

  “That does not keep me from hating him,” I said.

  “It should.”

  “Caesar would have done it.”

  “What she has been through for him?—” I began heatedly.

  Iras shook her head. “Not for him. She bore Caesarion for Caesar, and for Egypt. Selene and Helios are for herself. Can’t you see that she does not need a consort? She is a goddess, complete in herself.”

  “She is also a woman,” I said, “and if Antonius cannot regard that as well as goddess and Queen, what kind of man is he?”

  “Mortal,” Iras said.

  THE PARTHIANS crossed the Jordan again and overran Judea. In Jerusalem, the king was killed and the royal family fled for their lives. One of the royal ladies, Alexandra, held out still against the Parthians in the desert fortress of Masada, while Prince Herod fled across the desert on a Bactrian racing dromedary to Pelousion.

  He came to Alexandria, of course. Three years younger than I, he cut a handsome figure in his borrowed clothes, making his bows to the throne respectfully. He was not a pretty man, though his face had a cultured coolness to it, close-trimmed black beard and flashing eyes. He was two inches taller than the Queen; I thought they would have made an impressive couple, if things had been different.