Hand of Isis

by Jo Graham

  “Gracious Queen, I beg the honor of a private audience with you,” he said. “You know of my house’s long friendship with the House of Ptolemy, and of my closeness to the Imperator Antonius.” He did not mention, of course, how he had come with his father to rescue Caesar, when he had been besieged in Alexandria, but they both knew that.

  “I do indeed consider you a friend, Prince Herod,” Cleopatra said, her face unreadable beneath the heavy makeup of a court day, the double crown, and the uraeus. “And you are welcome to Alexandria and to Egypt. I am certain that you have many friends in the city. I will speak with you privately later in the week, and I will look forward to our conversation.”

  It became clear in the following weeks that Herod had more on his mind than troops. He was in constant attendance on the Queen, witty and charming, always at her disposal with a literary reference or a choice word. Then he moved to observing this and that small thing about her bodyguard, and how her horsemen could be better drilled.

  I watched him with her, convincing her that she should learn to ride a horse, helping her astride, coaxing and laughing while he held the bridle for her. The sun glinted off his gold earrings, his beautiful white teeth. “He looks like a candidate for office,” I said to Iras.

  Iras smirked. “A candidate for consort. After all, if Antonius is away, what claim has he? A prince of Judea is a perfectly reasonable consort for the Queen of Egypt. Why win a throne by force when you can charm your way into a wealthier one?”

  “He has a wife already,” I said.

  “So did Antonius.”

  “Who will certainly hear about it,” I said.

  “Perhaps that’s the plan,” Iras said. The Queen was laughing now, leaning on Herod’s shoulder, in front of half the court. “Cleopatra certainly knows he will hear of it. If I were Antonius, I would have a whole bundle of reasons to come East, away from Rome and Octavia.”

  AND SO HE DID COME East, but not without Octavia and not to Alexandria.

  Hail Charmian,

  I am in Athens again, with Antonius, where we are planning to go against the Parthians next spring. They say that Rome must recover Judea and Syria, and that Antonius has promised Prince Herod all his support. So I suppose we will be sailing for Antioch in a few months. I do no wrong in telling you this, as all must know by now that the legions are coming in from as far as Gaul, and that Octavian has promised Antonius four of his legions to help fight the Parthians. It will be a major campaign, I am certain.

  Antonius’ new wife Octavia is here in Athens with us, and every night there is a play or a declamation of some kind. She is something of a scholar, it seems, and she wants to see everything Euripides ever wrote performed at Athens. Though that may be curtailed soon, as she is obviously great with child.

  I miss you and Dion very much. Give Demetria my love. . . .

  She’s going to kill him, I thought. When the Queen gets her hands on Antonius, there will be blood.

  Shades of Love

  To Emrys’ surprise, Antonius did not march east that year. Instead he sent a general called Ventidius, a veteran of Caesar’s army, to Syria in his stead. He remained in Athens where he presided over the Panathenaic Games and made a sacred marriage to the Goddess Athena.

  Emrys, of course, did march east. While Antonius and Octavia celebrated in Athens, Emrys was in the field. I was beginning to find it hard to even be rational on the subject of Antonius.

  The Queen said little about him at all. Herod went north to join Ventidius in the liberation of his kingdom, richer for a few nice presents from the Queen, but without having gotten either troops or a lover in the bargain. Instead, when the dry season came and the land was parched, we made the sacred pilgrimage again to Philae, the Queen conducting business along the way. Helios and Selene were nine months old, and deemed sturdy enough for the trip. When we returned there was both bad news and good.

  Antonius was still in Athens, while his troops fought back and forth in Syria under another man. In Athens, Octavia had borne him a daughter, named Antonia, and was pregnant again four months later.

  The Queen said nothing, only handed the dispatch to Iras and left the room.

  Iras and I looked at each other.

  “I will never forgive him for causing her this pain,” I said, my hands twisting together as though I could get them about Antonius’ neck.

  “I don’t think he much cares about your forgiveness,” Iras said, frowning down at the scroll as though it were a snake in her hands.

  “Probably not,” I fumed.

  Iras looked up at me, a rueful expression on her face. “And you ask me why I would rather have no man?”

  “Not all men are as faithless as Antonius,” I said. “And not all women are as wounded by it as Cleopatra.” I had never begrudged Emrys Dion or anyone else, but then Emrys had not left me for another.

  “But I would be,” Iras said, putting the scroll in its place on the table. “And show me a man of high temper, mettle, and spirit who is not? Where should I find a faithful Dionysos?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Truly, it seemed to me impossible that anyone worth having would be so tame. On the other hand, I thought Antonius an exceptional ass.

  WE WERE SETTLING BACK into our routines at the palace when a note came from Dion, carried by a message boy I did not know.

  Charmian,

  Come as soon as you can to my apartment.

  Dion

  “What in the world?” I said to Iras.

  Iras’ eyebrows rose. “Maybe he’s ill?”

  “I shouldn’t take Demetria then,” I said. “Will you see her and Caesarion to bed while I see what’s wrong with Dion?”

  “Of course,” she said, and kissed my brow. “It’s probably not bad. He’ll be fine.”

  I hurried. It wasn’t like Dion to ask for things. Well, not for things that didn’t involve money from the Queen for bizarre scientific experiments.

  Emrys opened the door.

  I drew a breath that was almost a sob, and fell into his arm. Arm, singular. The other was strapped tight against his chest in a sling, heavy wrappings beneath it.

  “Where in the world did you come from? What happened?”

  Dion stepped out from behind him, grinning. “He was sent by the general to buy supplies. He needed someone who spoke good Koine and had the Queen’s ear.”

  Emrys held me about the waist with his good hand. “And who wasn’t very useful right now. I broke my left arm in two places against the Parthians. My horse went down with me under her, and I can’t ride or fight for months. So since I can’t be any use there, and I can buy supplies without being cheated by every merchant in Alexandria, I was sent to empty the purse for grain and foodstuffs.”

  I leaned up and kissed him. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “And I you,” he said, kissing me hard and sensually, right in front of Dion. “It’s been two years, and I’ve missed you both so much.”

  “We’ve missed you,” Dion said, drawing us in and closing the door. “And with any luck your general will forget he sent you for months and months.”

  “Not so long as that, I expect,” Emrys said, but he did not let go of me. The lines around his mouth were more deeply graven, and his fair skin scourged by sun.

  “Was it bad?” I asked.

  He twitched an eyebrow. “Oh yes,” he said. “Yes.”

  IN THE NEXT WEEKS he said little, but I pieced together what I could from the official dispatches, and from the little he would say, about a long campaign in the desert against the Parthians, the people of Syria unexpectedly hostile to the Roman forces. Herod was no help. After a year of fighting, he only held part of Galilee while Antigonus held Jerusalem and most of the rest of Judea. He had no help to give.

  Emrys’ body bore the marks of the struggle, flesh worn close to the bone, and the way he started up in the night, calling out to men who were dead, or shuddering in some dream. We were less lovers than family, sitting together late in
to the night, the three of us, talking of anything but war. Dion bore the brunt of it, as he had more hours with Emrys than I did, and I saw the shadows in his eyes when the night before had been sleepless.

  We did not like to leave him alone at night, after one morning when Dion came home from the Observatory to find Emrys gone. He turned up late in the afternoon, having wandered the city looking for something, not entirely certain where he was or what he sought. That was the first time I had ever seen Dion really alarmed.

  I was disturbed myself, disturbed enough to talk with the Queen’s physician, who sent me to another doctor at the Temple of Asclepius. “It takes men that way, sometimes,” he said. “Too much war. It’s the strongest ones who bend that way, the ones who will not break. The ones who break go mad and hurt themselves or others, or sit down one day and cannot get up. The ones who bend . . .” He steepled his hands together, his eyes bright as though he studied something that interested him. “They bend in interesting patterns.”

  “That is all very well,” I said. “But what may we do?”

  “Time and rest,” he said. “Those are the only cures. But old soldiers will tell you that many never lose the ill dreams, not after twenty years have passed. But time and rest will effect some aid if his heart is strong enough.”

  I came away no less disturbed. I could have told myself that without the fee and trouble.

  And so we did not leave him alone at night again. I stayed with him when Dion had to be at the Observatory. Once, Emrys started up from a dream, and I was surprised to find Dion there too, curled on the other side, his body curved around Emrys who was curved around me.

  “It’s only us,” I said, smoothing Emrys’ hair back from his sweated brow.

  “Oh,” he said, and still half-asleep, put his arms around me while Dion slid his arms around him from behind. I saw Dion’s face, and he gave me a little shrug.

  “Sleep, my darling,” I said, and he did, safe between us.

  IN THE MORNING, the gray light slipped in through Dion’s white curtains moving in the dawn breeze, cooling and soft. I dressed quietly.

  Emrys and Dion were still sleeping, the sheet drawn up around them against the morning air. Dion lay on his side, the sleeve of his oldest and softest chiton half-covering his face where he had ducked it against the back of Emrys’ neck. Emrys wore no shirt, and his shoulders were pale against Dion’s skin.

  Seeing them curled together there, I knew we were all growing older. Emrys’ fair skin showed the worst of it, pitted and scarred, his bad arm outstretched on the pillows in sleep, seamed with red lines still. They would fade to white in time, but his arm would always be stiff. He was thirty-five.

  Dion, the same age, was not the swift, precocious boy he had been. There were threads of silver among his dark curls.

  I raised my arms in the light. I was thirty-two, and while my skin was still good there was no denying that there was more of it. The curves of my breasts were more generous, my hips wider. Rich food had its price.

  But, I thought, looking at Emrys and Dion lying side-by-side in sleep, Dion curled around Emrys’ back, there was nothing in the world that I would trade for this—certainly not youth, when I had wondered if I was beautiful or if Lucan wanted me, wondered if the price of love should be everything else. This was love.

  And so I dressed and went back to the palace to wake the children and begin the day.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, a sunny afternoon, the Queen, the younger children, and I were playing on the broad terrace overlooking the sea. A quinquereme was putting out, her five banks of oars moving together, and the whitecaps were breaking against the harbor mole. Gulls cried on the breeze, circling where a fishing boat had just put in. Above, the vault of heaven was a clear and breathless blue.

  It was not often that the Queen had a full afternoon to spend with the children, and Helios and Selene were making the most of it, tussling and falling and tugging at her with all of the enthusiasm of children who were not quite two. I rescued her from Helios’ tiny hands in her hair.

  Our eyes met, laughing.

  “This is beautiful,” I said.

  “And fragile,” she said.

  I knew that, and none knew as well as she how all of this could be so easily shattered, the peace of the nursery, the peace of the city, half a million people sleeping in peace tonight in Alexandria. And throughout the Black Land, how many more? A hundred thousand in Memphis, seventy-five in Faynum, fifty in Thebes. And how many more? At best guess, six million people knew peace because of what we did, woke each morning to laws as fair as we could make them, to enough food and clean water, to the best medicine in the world.

  “So fragile,” I said.

  She spread her hand against Helios’ chest, where he leaned giggling against her, his brown curling hair like Antonius’. “Do the gods feel the weight of it?” she asked, her son’s cheek against her own.

  “They must,” I said, “or They would not need us.”

  IT WAS SOON AFTER that Dion decided to give a dinner party. There were just six of us really, old friends of ours, and Emrys, who looked better by the day. He had put some flesh back on his bones, and no longer startled at every loud noise. We ate on the balcony in the cool of the evening, two couches of us. There was fish in an olive sauce, and everything as good as one might find anywhere in the city.

  Dion arranged our couches as though Emrys were the guest of honor, reclining on his left elbow with me reclining in front of him, while Dion sat on the end at our knees, the host taking the least comfortable spot. There was laughter and good conversation, though the other guests left early, moving on to some other party with more drinking.

  “They left the good wine for us,” Emrys said, leaning over me to refill our cup.

  “No,” said Dion, “I saved the good wine for us!” He poured into his own cup and touched it to ours. “Good friends and good wine.”

  “Oh yes,” I said, and drank, handing the cup to Emrys.

  He took it, and a sudden shadow washed across his face. “Absent friends,” he said.

  “Absent friends, my love,” Dion said, and touched cups as though they pledged. Their eyes met, though just their fingers touched, and I felt it leap like a spark between them.

  “I should go, dears,” I said, starting to push up on my elbow. “It’s getting late.”

  “Don’t go just yet,” Emrys said.

  “Besides,” Dion said, “it’s your turn.”

  “It is?”

  “It’s the fourth night after the new moon except on a state dinner or the Roman kalends of the month. How can you mix up the schedule like that?”

  Emrys burst out laughing. “How in the world can anyone keep a schedule like that straight?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, smiling. “I lost track a long time ago. I just come and go when Dion tells me to.”

  “Dion says stay,” Dion said.

  I laughed. “If you mean that, I’ll go down and tell the litter bearers to go and come for me in the morning.”

  “They’re probably drinking across the street,” Dion said, “I’ll go down.”

  He hurried off, and I leaned back against Emrys’ shoulder. “He’s very good to you,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “He’s very good to me too,” I said.

  “And you are good to both of us,” Emrys said, his arm tightening around my waist. “Do you know Dion’s never been with a woman?”

  “I didn’t know it for certain, but I’m not surprised,” I said. “He used to run like a startled hare whenever one got too interested. And they did, of course, when he was younger and his tastes less obvious.”

  “You’ve known him forever, haven’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Long enough. Let’s see. Twenty-one years? And you and Dion have been on and off for ten years, almost eleven.”

  He laid his cheek against my hair. “It’s a long time, isn’t it? I only have two years left to go until my discharge.”

&nb
sp; “And then will you come home to Alexandria?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, and there was a smile in his voice. “I’ll come home.”

  “You could raise cats like Ptolemy Soter,” I said. “Or sell brass cooking pots. Or buy a share in some business belonging to some friend of Dion’s who’s going to make a fortune selling automatic wine coolers.”

  “I’ll try to stay clear of the wine cooler business,” he said. “And I know what happens with most of Dion’s inventions.” It was certainly true that some of Dion’s inventions had turned out to be disastrous.

  “He’s a good astronomer,” I said.

  “He’d be one of the greatest if he weren’t so easily distracted,” Emrys said.

  “There are so many interesting things in the world,” I said. “How can he ignore any of them? Even if that means running about like an unschooled hound, barking at every scent?”

  “While you are all practical concentration,” Emrys said.

  “I need to be,” I said, my fingers closing around his wrist at my waist, feeling the pulse there. “I was fourteen when I knew what I would be—the Hand of Isis, and the Queen’s hands. That’s what I am.”

  “You are more than that,” he said, and kissed me slowly and lingeringly, his hand cupping my chin sensually. I leaned back into him, reveling in the sweetness of it, the rightness, sinking into Emrys.

  Dion cleared his throat. He had come back in, and sat down on the end of the couch. “Don’t mind me,” he said airily. “Just watching.”

  “Do you like that?” I said, propping up on one elbow on the yellow and blue pillows. “Do you like watching Emrys kiss someone else?”

  I saw the answer quite clearly in his face, the leap of pulse at his throat.

  “You do,” I said, leaning forward and running my hand up Emrys’ thigh, lifting his red tunic to caress corded muscle. “It’s pretty, isn’t it, Dion?” I lifted the tunic higher, parting his thighs and showing his manhood, which rose at my touch, smooth beneath his foreskin. “I imagine you like this very much.”