Egypt's Sister: A Novel of Cleopatra

by Angela Hunt

  The report surprised me. I had imagined that Cleopatra would be warmly welcomed in Rome—after all, hadn’t she promised to feed the Romans from the abundance of Egypt’s grain? Hadn’t she done all she could to assist Pompey and Caesar?

  Although I heard the seamen laughing about Caesar’s lovers in foreign lands, not one of them spoke approvingly of his relationship with Cleopatra. The child, apparently, was the chief reason for their disapproval. They seemed to believe that her son was likely to be advanced as Rome’s next king—and the Romans would not tolerate a king.

  “But what if Caesar has no such plans?” one seaman asked. “He has no sons, so is it not natural that he would want to celebrate the boy?”

  “Not until we know what sort of magic the Egyptian woman used on him,” another countered. “And how can he be sure the child is his? She might have lain with a servant and attempted to pass the boy off as a Roman.”

  Another man scoffed. “Caesar is no fool. He would not be so easily duped.”

  “Are you certain? Then why did he not side with the young king who held the city when Caesar arrived? The wisest course would have been to secure the kingdom under Ptolemy, execute the troublesome queen, and keep Egypt under his thumb with the boy as king. But instead Caesar wages war, requires reinforcements, and spills rivers of Roman blood in order to put that woman on the throne. The man has been bewitched.”

  “By what power?”

  “Egyptian magic.” The first man’s voice softened to a hushed tone. “Have you not heard of their ancient gods? They have power far beyond that of Jupiter and Mars. Their priests are more powerful than ours, everyone knows it. This Egyptian woman calls herself Isis, a goddess. She has enchanted Caesar and enticed him with powers of her bed and body. That’s why the woman is in Rome. Caesar wants to declare himself king and install her at his side. He’s determined to destroy the republic.”

  Their arguments, which I found silly and ignorant, did touch upon some thoughts I had considered myself. Could Cleopatra have fallen in love with Caesar? When I last saw her, she certainly seemed enamored of him, but she was far too devoted to Egypt to lose her head and heart to a Roman. Urbi knew Egypt would never accept Caesar as a co-ruler unless they were married, so bedding him and producing a son was a natural first step. What did it matter that Cleopatra and Caesar had not been united in a Roman marriage? Cleopatra was the law in Egypt. If she wanted Caesar at her side, she would have him there.

  Besides . . . anyone who saw the look in Cleopatra’s eye when she spoke of Caesar would know that she cared for him enough to give him a son. She had also given her people what they craved most—a ruling couple, descended from royalty, a pair of divinities. Cleopatra and Caesar. And an heir to continue the dynasty into the future.

  I closed my eyes, painfully aware that even in my chains and misery, Cleopatra’s shadow followed me.

  After several days at sea, my throat grew parched and my skin tender. My bowels turned to liquid, and I could not eat. I whispered entreaties for water, but the sailor who came below with a ladle and bucket did not give me enough to cool the scorching fever that had begun to distort my thinking. My ears filled with a ringing sound, and the noises around me dulled, as though my head were stuffed with cotton.

  I refused the hard biscuit and salted fish. Sleep, when I found it at all, was fitful and imparted no rest. I drifted in and out of consciousness, imagining myself back in the prison, in the palace, and at home in my own soft bed.

  I dreamed I was home, working in Father’s library, writing out the names of HaShem. But the only name I could write was YHVH Rophecha, the healer.

  I am Adonai, your healer. The voice filled my ears until I could hear nothing else. I recognized it as the voice that had promised I would bless Urbi. But how? If Adonai had broken that promise, why was He talking to me again? After all the prayers in which I accused Him of deserting me, why would He speak to me at all? And why was He promising to heal me when I was about to die?

  “I am YHVH Rophecha, Adonai, your healer.”

  The God who heals body and soul. The God who could repair my body and keep the promise I thought He’d forgotten.

  “All right,” I told Him, resigned to my fate. “You do not forget. I understand.”

  I do not know how long I drifted in and out of consciousness, but one morning I woke and noticed that the air smelled different. “What is that?” I forced words over my thick tongue. “Where are we?”

  “There you are,” Effie answered, her voice heavy with relief. “I was afraid we had lost you. One of the deckhands came below, and he paused by our rack. Knowing he’d throw you overboard if he thought you were dead, I told him you were sleeping, but I do not think he believed me. A good thing I finally convinced him or you’d have awakened in the sea.”

  I blinked as the planks above my head slowly came into focus. “Thank you,” I murmured. “I feel . . . better. I . . . must have had a fever.”

  “Aye. I could tell that much. You were talking and making no sense.”

  “Talking? What did I say?”

  She chuckled. “You talked about someone called Urbi, and someone called Yosef. And once I thought you were crying.”

  Maybe I was. I could not think about Yosef without wanting to weep. Or Father. Or Asher.

  I closed my eyes. “What is that smell? Something’s different.”

  Effie snorted. “I do not know how you can smell anything but filth, but I am guessing you are smelling earth. I heard one of the hands call that they’d seen land. We’ll soon be anchoring, and not a moment too soon. Time to get off this ship of pain.”

  I drifted away again, but when I woke, a scruffy sailor was unlocking the manacle on my wrist. Too weak to respond, I said nothing as the iron bracelet fell away and a gruff voice told me to “roll out and stand.”

  I rolled over but crumpled like thin parchment when I attempted to put weight on my legs. Effie managed the drop better than I, and she supported me as I struggled to stand. For the first time in weeks, I glanced at my body—I was covered in grime, insect bites, and a violent rash. I suspected that the areas I couldn’t see looked far worse.

  We waited, clinging to the racks for support, until the man had unlocked all the captives. Then we were herded up a ramp and onto the upper deck. I had to lower my head and shield my eyes from the blinding sun, but with Effie’s help I shuffled forward and tried not to lose my balance. Behind me, I noticed several slaves were so emaciated that they had to be carried out on stretchers. If not for Effie’s help, I would have been among them.

  “I pity them,” Effie said, pulling me forward as if to put a great distance between us and the weaker ones. “They will be thrown into cages and left to die. Unless they can find the strength to stand for an auction, they will be tossed out like garbage.”

  I shuddered at the inhumanity of our situation. Had this sort of thing been going on forever? Hard to imagine that such squalor, filth, and cruelty could exist only a few feet from my home. If this sort of thing was common in Alexandria, why had I never seen it? Why had no one approached Cleopatra about the manhandling of slaves? Men were creations of HaShem, made in His image. No one, not even the poorest of the poor, deserved to be treated worse than animals.

  After disembarking, we were doused with buckets of water and given cursory examinations. One man tsked as he held up my arm, now bone-thin, but his pity did not prevent him from looping a rope around my waist and tying me to Effie. When all of the surviving slaves had been tied in a single line, we were led away from the docks to a slave market much like the one in Alexandria.

  This time I was in far worse condition: sick, barely able to stand, barefoot, and filthy. My long hair was matted, and my face felt like bone beneath my fingertips. Any trace of beauty I might have once possessed had been obliterated by illness and dirt.

  The observers at this slave auction were not well-dressed noblemen or scholars, but common men who wore short tunics and woven grass sandals. Witho
ut being told, I knew I was looking at the lowest of slave traders, those who could only afford to purchase the weakest slaves.

  Like me.

  In this place, only slaves in good health and muscle tone stood on the auction block. The rest of us were arranged in groups of three and four, the weakest of us dispersed so that every group had at least one slave with little life left.

  I barely listened as the slave master called out lot numbers and took bids. I kept my head down and lifted my gaze only long enough to see I’d been grouped with an old man, a fierce-looking woman, and a girl of about ten years. Her wide eyes met mine, seeking solace, but I had no smile to give her.

  When the bidding had concluded, the four of us were roped together and led to a wagon hitched to a team of oxen. We climbed in, urged to hurry by an overseer who kept flicking a switch over our backs.

  Effie, who was making her way to the auction block, called farewell as the overseer climbed onto the wagon bench and cracked his whip. “Farewell,” she called in Greek. “Looks like you are going to the country. Enjoy the fresh air!”

  Did she think I would ever enjoy anything again? She had more faith than I.

  I slumped against a bale of straw and closed my eyes. I knew nothing about the country, nothing about planting or harvesting, and I had never lived outside a modern city. Life as I had known it was finished.

  Wrapping my arms around myself, I curled into a ball and tried to sleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I woke in a hut built of rough mud bricks. Weathered branches formed the roof over my head, dried leaves still clinging to the limbs that rustled with every breath of the wind. The odor of manure flooded my nostrils, mixed with the acrid smell of smoke, but I found the combination strangely pleasant compared to the stink of the slave ship.

  I watched as a stout woman kneeled beside a cook fire in the center of the room. Smoke rose through a round opening in the ceiling, and what did not rise curled and crept down the back wall where I saw the girl who had been with me in the wagon.

  “Ah, there you are.” The beginning of a smile tipped the corners of the stout woman’s mouth. “Glad you woke up. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

  With an effort, I pushed myself up into a sitting position. I had been lying on a pile of rags and cast-off tunics, with a rough piece of burlap serving as a blanket. “Where am I?”

  The woman left the fire and sat on a low stool next to me. “You’re on the Octavii estate. We grow food for the market and provide them with a good living.”

  “And . . . who are you?”

  The woman grinned, exposing a mouthful of brown teeth. “The vilica, charged with seeing to the health of all the slaves kept on the farm. I had my doubts about you when the wagon pulled up.”

  The word was new to me. “Vilica . . . you are a healer?”

  She chuckled. “The vilica is the wife of the vilicus, the overseer. I oversee the women’s work, but mostly I oversee the overseer.”

  She turned back to the fire, where a fragrant stew or something bubbled in a cauldron. “I am stirring a pottage that will set you to rights and put a little flesh on your bones. I’ll have you on your feet in no time.”

  My stomach growled in anticipation. I tried to sit a little straighter but winced at the touch of the rough burlap against my skin.

  The woman gave me a sympathetic look. “You’ve got a case of sores on your backside—comes from rubbin’ against the ship’s planks. But I have already applied salve, and you’ll—”

  “Be on my feet in no time,” I murmured, finishing her thought. I looked at the child, who hadn’t said a word but watched me with large gray eyes. “And who are you?” I asked.

  The girl did not reply, but her eyes widened and something that might have been a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

  “We do not know what to call her,” the woman said. “She doesn’t speak.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Not a word in any language.” The older woman sucked at the inside of her cheek a moment. “I was afraid someone had cut out her tongue, but it is still there. So maybe she will talk, someday.”

  “You ought to call her something,” I said, staring at the child. Her golden hair had once been cut, perhaps even shaved off. But now a growth as long as my first two knuckles stood out from her head, reminding me of Isis with her sun-disk crown.

  “Moria?” I suggested, looking at the girl. Again, no answer, but the muscles in her cheeks flexed.

  “Triton thinks she was dropped on her head,” the woman said. “An imbecile.”

  I frowned. “And Triton is—?”

  “My man,” the woman said. “The one who brought you from the port, and overseer of this farm.”

  I nodded, remembering the deeply tanned face behind the whip. “And the others who came with me?”

  “They’re here. The old Egyptian probably won’t last through the winter, but the woman is strong. We call her Kepe. She’s been given o’r to the pigs.”

  A thrill of fear rippled up my spine. “You fed her to pigs?”

  The woman stared. “What do you think we are? I ordered her to feed the pigs. What’s in your head, girl?”

  I blew out a breath. “I am . . . not from the country.”

  “Aye. No worries. You’ll get used to things around here.”

  “Did Kepe say where she was from?”

  The stout woman waved her ladle at me. “That one has no tongue. She must have said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.”

  I swallowed to combat a rising wave of nausea. Given the horrible conditions at the slave yard, I should not have been surprised at the condition of my companions. I should no longer be surprised at anything.

  I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I could almost go to sleep, trusting myself to the care of this woman, who seemed the kindliest soul I had met since leaving Egypt. And she spoke Aramaic, a language in which I was competent.

  I opened one eye. “What can you tell me about this place?”

  “’Tis a farm.” The woman shrugged. “We grow grapes and olives mostly, for the fruit, wine, and oil. We grow the vines and trees, tend and harvest them. We women stomp on the grapes until they are juiced. The men handle everything else, along with the transport to market. The family’s not especially wealthy, but they’re counted among the nobility in Rome.”

  “Don’t they live here?”

  “Why would they?” The woman flashed her brown smile. “Sometimes they visit in the summer, but most of the time they live in Rome. More to do there, I suppose, than sit around watching grapes grow.”

  I closed my eyes again. “And you are the vilica. Do you have a name?”

  “Aren’t you full of questions?” She clucked her teeth, and when her stool creaked my eyes flew open. I found her standing beside me, the large wooden ladle in her hand. “Now open your mouth, dearie, and have a cupful of this. It’ll settle your stomach and ease you back into eatin’ regular. No more dirty water and stale biscuit for you.”

  When I had dutifully taken a few sips, she nodded her approval. “Name is Berdine,” she said, thumbing a dribble from my chin. “Do you have a name?”

  I drew a breath to answer, then hesitated. Should I reveal that I was Jewish? I had heard that Romans did not harass Jews, so perhaps my heritage would not matter. Effie had told me that her previous owners did not even inquire about her background. “Oh, they’re proud to say they have a Greek tutor or Greek physician,” she said, “but did anyone ever ask where I was born or who my parents were? No. They only care about things that make them look clever.”

  “My name is Chava,” I said, aware that I was hearing my name for the first time in weeks.

  The woman smiled again. “Not a very common name around here. All right, Chava. Now eat.” She offered the ladle again, and her gaze met mine as I sipped. “Where’d you come from, then? You’re not from Gaul—we get lots of slaves from Gaul and Judea, but you do not spea
k like a woman from one of those untamed regions.”

  “I came from Alexandria,” I said after I’d swallowed another mouthful. “My family . . . fell upon hard times, and my father and I were sold into slavery. A trader brought me to Rome.”

  “I know the type,” Berdine said. “Brutal men who care nothing for their cargo, only about earning a few denarii. But do not worry—I’ll get you back on your feet, and the vilicus will put you to work.” Her eyes narrowed. “From Alexandria, you say? Home to the great library?”

  “What remains of it. It was damaged in the recent war.”

  Berdine sighed. “I can only imagine such riches. Our mistress adores reading; she is always talking about the library and all the knowledge stored there. I have always wanted to read. In my younger days I was nurse to a young master and mistress who had a Greek tutor. I would listen as he taught them the alphabet and how to recognize letters.” Her expression grew wistful. “Whenever he caught me listening, though, he chased me away. Said it wasn’t right for a slave to bother with reading and writing. But he was a slave, same as me. And my dominus had a Greek slave for his physician, and he read long manuscripts all the time.”

  I leaned forward to better study her. Berdine looked to be in her late forties and did not appear slow-witted. “I could teach you,” I said. “My father was a tutor, so I know I could teach you to read and write.”

  “You could be a tutor? By all the gods.” Her eyes widened as her mouth rounded to the shape of an omicron. She lowered her ladle. “If you can read, you shouldn’t be in the fields. Domina will want you to work in the villa, or maybe even at the house in Rome.”

  Despite the disappointment on her face, my spirits lifted. “In Rome? Near the port?”

  “Of course, where else would it be?”

  My mind raced. I’d need a boat to carry me home. Any work I could get in Rome would be better than working out in the country.