Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  My husband’s furious stallion paws at the ground, anxious to ride after the rude cavalrymen, and my husband seems much of the same temperament. When his eyes fall upon our mud-spattered children and the wreck of my carriage, he shouts, “I will have that officer’s name and the skin off his back!”

  I don’t have the slightest urge to dissuade him from his wrath when the sour-faced coachman explains that the carriage cannot be fixed without a new wheel and axle. As he and the other men in our retinue try to haul it out of the ditch, another cadre of grim-faced soldiers ride past us the other way. They do not even stop when Juba hails them, as if a royal banner gave them not the slightest pause.

  It’s curious, because my husband has long served in the military; he has some semblance of rank and status. Whatever the business of these men, it is more urgent than their fear of reprimand.

  Anything that causes soldiers to fly down the road arouses my instinct to flee. But Juba says, “Something is amiss, Selene. Let’s turn back.”

  “Our place is in Mauretania,” I say, trying to remind Juba that our business in Rome is done. He has grown too accustomed to being at the emperor’s right hand. I must break him of this. He must remember that he is a king. “Our kingdom awaits us …”

  My husband stares back over his shoulder at Rome. “I am going up the Palatine for answers.”

  “Our ship is waiting for us in Ostia. Whatever the news, it will reach us eventually!”

  Juba’s voice takes on a firm tone of command. “Selene, you can’t really mean to leave without knowing what we might face … What happens in Rome matters everywhere.”

  It is a winning argument. He is right. Mauretania is our kingdom, but part of the Roman Empire too. So I let Tala see the children back to our house on the Tiber and I go with the king.

  We find a great throng of people at the gates to the imperial compound, all of whom are being denied admission by the praetorians, but we are allowed to pass inside, where we find the imperial slaves fearful, some of them crying.

  “What is happening?” Juba asks. “Where is the emperor?”

  “Gone,” someone replies. “He went to Agrippa in Campagna.”

  Confused, I say, “But Agrippa is in Pannonia with Julia …”

  Juba sets off up the stairs, two at a time, in search of Tiberius or Iullus. Meanwhile, I search out Octavia and find her standing in the middle of her corridor staring at nothing, as if she does not hear the wailing slaves. She is holding a scrap of paper in one hand, crumpling it in her fist. Like the statues that adorn each alcove, she is perfectly still. Her expression is beyond bleak—all light in her eyes extinguished.

  “Octavia, what has happened?” She does not answer me. She doesn’t move at all, as if she’d turned into one of the pillars that must bear up under the weight of the roof. And I want to shake her. “Tell me!”

  Finally, she says, “Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa is dead.”

  With those words, the whole world shifts beneath my feet. I’m sure I’ve misheard. After all, what could fell such a colossus? “Do you mean that he’s been wounded in battle?”

  “He never made it to battle,” she replies, her voice stony and remote. “Agrippa started for Pannonia but immediately fell ill. Julia convinced him to withdraw to Campagna to get well, but there he died.”

  Octavia is looking at me but I don’t think she sees me. She’s seeing beyond me into a world without Agrippa. Into a world where all our planning, all our sacrifices might be for naught. My hands go to my face. “No, not Agrippa. Except for his sore feet, he’s never been ill a day in his life …”

  “It must have been the plague,” she hisses, the first sign of any emotion. “We should’ve known when we learned about the death of Lepidus, but we celebrated. Now the gods have their justice for our hubris. Plague is racing up the coast and it’s taken Agrippa.”

  The suddenness of it leaves me confused. That and the fact that Agrippa was not on the coast when he took ill. He and Julia were on their way to Pannonia, in the other direction. I saw them go! “How can you be sure?”

  “The emperor received word that Agrippa was ill—so ill that he might not survive. So he hurried to Agrippa’s deathbed to be by his old friend’s side, to inhale his last breath, as the paterfamilias. But he was too late. Too late. He writes to say that Agrippa is dead.”

  Agrippa was the ruin of my family and my nemesis, but he was also a bulwark against utter political calamity. Now I know why military dispatches were sent with such haste that we were forced from the road. The emperor may have resented him, but Agrippa was the empire’s most able general. Without him, the legions are likely in chaos.

  “Agrippa is dead,” Octavia says again, her lips trembling on his name. I hurt for her. She loved Agrippa so much that she gave him up. She gave him her own daughter Marcella in marriage and when that was not enough, she saw to it that he married Julia. Then she did everything in her power to ensure that Agrippa’s children would rule the empire.

  My hand goes to my throat, thinking of Julia now. That my dear friend should be widowed again is a travesty; I cannot even imagine the horror of her position, holding vigil over a dead husband in the midst of a plague. Perhaps Julia has her little daughters with her, but what of her sons? “Gaius and Lucius … where are they?”

  Octavia closes her eyes. “They must be with Livia.”

  Cold seeps into my body from the floor. I’ve always had a preternatural ability to sense the likely political ramifications of an event. It is what has allowed me to survive and to spar on the political stage with the emperor himself. Even in my state of shock it takes me just a moment to work out that with Agrippa dead, only two small boys stand between Livia and everything she’s ever wanted.

  I run. I don’t stop for my ladies; they are forced to chase after me. Breathless, I burst into Livia’s house and search for her. With a sense of dread, I find her in the kitchen hovering over four-year-old Lucius with a silver spoon in hand. Instinctively, I lunge forward, knocking the spoon away and sending it to the floor with a clatter.

  Livia barks in outrage. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What are you doing?” I demand, grasping Lucius by the shoulders with one arm and catching Gaius with my other. In my protective embrace, Gaius squirms and Lucius begins to wail.

  The emperor’s wife glowers at me. “Let them go. Look how you’ve upset my sons!”

  “They’re not your sons. They’re Julia’s.”

  Now seven-year-old Gaius begins to cry too, struggling to get away from me. And I realize that though these two boys have been at the center of my hopes, I’m frightening them. They aren’t frightened of Livia; they’re frightened of me. Fortunately, Livia is also frightened of me and keeps her distance. “They haven’t been Julia’s sons since the day the emperor adopted them. They are my husband’s sons, which makes them mine.”

  “Am I to believe that you’re such a loving mother that you regularly take time from your day to feed them from your own hand?” I remember two other boys who were once in her care. Marcellus and Philadelphus, who both died of a mysterious fever. Did she feed them too? “Why don’t you take a taste from that bowl?”

  Livia sniffs. “I don’t care for porridge. Why don’t you?”

  Wrestling Gaius into submission, I grind out, “Eat the porridge, you poisonous bitch.”

  Livia gives a tight smile, but she isn’t one of my subjects. Unless I assault her here and now, she can defy me with relative impunity. So she toys with the bowl, lifting it halfway to her lips. “I cannot decide if it would satisfy me more to prove you wrong or to leave you always wondering … the latter, I suppose.” She dumps the porridge into the slop pot, where rotting remains of previous meals make a noxious stew. “I’m afraid I’m not very hungry.”

  I should force her down onto her hands and knees and make her gulp from that bucket. Failing that, I should take it to test on some creature … but what proof would it be from a slop pot? Not knowin
g whether or not Julia’s sons have been told about Agrippa’s death—I give her a warning look, holding the boys tight. “I’m taking them with me.”

  “Do you think the praetorians would allow you to take a step out of the gate?”

  “I’m not afraid of the praetorians.”

  This is not entirely true, but it convinces her, which is the important thing. “Maybe not, but you fear Augustus, and he will not thank you for kidnapping his sons. Some might even see it as a move to eliminate your own bastard’s rivals.”

  These words are cold water flung into my face. That she would accuse me of doing harm to Julia’s children and call my son a bastard—that she should dare to even mention it in the presence of servants and my breathless ladies who hover in the doorway—is a testament to her own guilt. Still, she is not wrong that there are rumors about me and mine …

  “Selene?” Juba pushes past the servants, making his way into the kitchen. His bewildered glance darts to the howling boys, their faces streaked with tears. “You’ve told them?”

  “No,” I say. “Not yet. Where is the emperor?”

  “He is on his way back to Rome,” my husband replies. “We’ll wait for him.”

  I do not argue. We cannot possibly leave Rome now. Especially not now, not with Livia poised to murder Julia’s sons. My voice trembles with fury. “As it happens, Lady Livia is most concerned after the health of these children. Should they catch a fever in the next few days, for example, or take a tumble down the stairs … should they so much as sniffle … she knows it would grieve the emperor and how great a risk such a circumstance might pose to her own health.”

  Livia sneers, half-amused at my threat.

  Juba is not amused. Through clenched teeth, he asks, “Selene, what are you going on about?” Each word of his question is edged with a bite that tells me he does not see Livia as a danger. That he thinks I am mad to suspect her of anything.

  Meanwhile, I can hardly accuse her more plainly in front of crying children who want nothing more than to escape my clutches. Yet as I relinquish my hold on Julia’s sons, I lean to whisper in Livia’s ear. “I swear by Isis, so long as there is breath in me, you will not benefit from harming these boys.”

  *

  AGRIPPA’S funeral train rolls into the city with the greatest solemnity and it seems as if all the citizens in Rome come out to see him. Beyond the professional mourners, there are Agrippa’s clients and the soldiers who served him, whose grief seems so genuine that it is difficult not to join them in wailing lamentations. The admiral makes a shocking sight where they prop him on the rostrum, a wreath on his head, two coins over his sunken eyes and one in his mouth. I suspect that Agrippa—a strong, proud bull of a man—wouldn’t have wanted people to look upon his wasted body. He is finally spared the indignity when the emperor has a curtain drawn in front of the body before giving the funeral oration.

  The emperor is generous with his praise, which now he can well afford to be. He promises that his son-in-law’s ashes will be buried in the tomb of Augustus, so that he might never be parted from his good friend in death.

  At this, Julia flinches. It is her first reaction visible to the rest of us, since her pregnant belly is swathed in mourning clothes and her face is concealed behind the mask of one of Agrippa’s ancestresses. After the funeral pyre has been assembled, she pours perfumed oils onto the wood and lays fragrant spices beneath her husband’s body so we will not choke on the fumes of the dead. Agrippa is burned in a fire so high that no one can stand close to the flames without being seared.

  That night and into the next morning, Julia performs every duty expected of her with grace and composure; she stumbles only once when pouring wine onto the embers to turn them to ash so that she may collect the remains. And when she stumbles, it is Iullus Antonius who steadies her.

  *

  AFTER the funeral, Julia returns to her father’s home on the Palatine Hill and says to her slave girl, “Phoebe, find my mother. Bring my mother to me. Until then, I will see no one but the Queen of Mauretania.”

  Then Julia slams the door, pressing her forehead against the wooden frame, taking deep gulps of air. I watch her battle to stave off sobs, but it is a battle she loses. Everything I know of friendship I’ve learned from Julia’s example, so I wrap my arms around her shaking shoulders. “Oh, Julia. I’m so sorry. To lose your husband, so suddenly …”

  At this, her head jerks up, her sobs hiccuping to a halt. “It wasn’t sudden. Do you think Agrippa would meet anything without a fight? It was a horrible struggle. It went on and on for weeks.”

  “Weeks? But—”

  “My husband took ill before we even got to the mountains! I sent word to my father at the start of the month that I was taking Agrippa to Campagna and that he must meet us at once, for I feared my husband would not live long.”

  I can make no sense of this. “The messenger must have been delayed. Such things are common. Messengers are waylaid. Ships are sunk. Horses go lame. News reaches us in Mauretania sometimes swiftly, sometimes not at all.”

  “Oh, no, Selene,” she says, fury glinting in her tear-filled eyes. “My father received the message. He sent word back that I must be exaggerating Agrippa’s illness. He said that I must not spread panic in the legions, for it would embolden our enemies in the Senate and endanger my children. So my dying husband and I were silent while we waited. We were silent while my father dallied in Rome to be made Pontifex Maximus.”

  Every hair lifts on my nape as I remember the night the emperor told us that Lepidus was dead. Did he know, even then, that his greater rival was so very ill? I can scarcely believe it. Were we all there, standing in the forum, cheering while Agrippa lay on his deathbed? I don’t want to believe it. “There must be some mistake.”

  “There is no mistake,” she hisses. “Agrippa knew he was dying. All that remained was to pass on his last breath to his paterfamilias, an honor he wanted to bestow upon my father. He kept his heart beating in his chest long after the battle was lost. I sent message after message, but my father did not start out to meet us until he knew he would arrive too late to help Agrippa die. He made sure of it.”

  That is not the impression here in Rome. All anyone will remember is the emperor’s mad scramble to reach Agrippa’s bedside. All anyone will remember is the great tragedy that he did not get there in time. But that is not what Julia remembers.

  Smearing her tears with the backs of her hands, she says, “My father must have been afraid to come because of the plague. Musa tells him that plague leaps from person to person, like a mad lemur. What a coward. More fearful of his health than of betraying the man who was once his truest and most loyal friend.”

  Maybe that is the explanation. Augustus has always hidden from danger even at the expense of his honor; and he has seldom passed up an opportunity to spite a rival, which is what Agrippa had become, in the end. But can it be only chance that Lepidus and Agrippa should die at once? “You are sure it was plague, Julia?”

  “I am sure of nothing but that I have never seen any man fight so hard against his death. Agrippa strained and gritted his teeth. He endured the humiliation of being washed and fed by me until he was too weak to protest. Those strong hands withered in mine. One night, I saw he could bear it no more. I told him that there was no shame in this defeat; that there is one war every commander must lose. He couldn’t speak, but put his hand on my swollen belly. Then he sighed and I knew it would be the last sound he ever made. So I kissed him. I put my mouth on his dry, cracked lips and I breathed him in. I took Agrippa’s last breath. I took it.”

  She is not crying anymore. That is done. She squares her shoulders with something of the strength of her dead husband. “He’s inside me now. Not just in my child, but in our breath and bones. We have him, Selene. We have Agrippa. Me and his unborn child. I’ve never been so happy to be pregnant before. I’ve never been so glad of anything in my life.”

  *

  I stay with Julia well into the n
ight.

  I am filled with sorrow for her and her poor children. But it is more than sorrow. Her suspicions have unleashed the dark and angry shadow in my soul. I thought I had defeated my khaibit, but some part of me still hates this city and would see it all turned to ash. Here atop this hill, the emperor has built a palace virtually on top of the fabled house of Romulus, a thatch-roofed hut that has been carefully preserved to honor Rome’s founder. Like me, Romulus was a twin. He killed his brother for Rome, and I have been left to wonder if I somehow did the same.

  Two crows land at my feet, their raven wings flapping as they fight over a charred piece of meat that is still smoking from the flames. It is from the funeral, I realize, from the sacrifice made at the funeral of Agrippa. Now the birds are squawking and squabbling over the scraps like two Roman generals …

  Juba nudges me gently. “The litter is waiting.”

  Still, my eyes are on the crows as they take to the sky. The events of the past few days have filled me with white-hot anger. A vengeful heka rises in my blood, setting it to boil, and I release it into the wind lest it consume me. I want to punish Livia and the emperor and everyone who has helped bring about such heartache, but there is nothing I can do but smolder. Or is there more magic inside me than even I know?

  I wonder because the next morning we learn that the hut of Romulus has burned to the ground. Two crows, they say it was. Two fighting crows, they say, dropped charred meat onto the roof and it somehow caught fire …

  … and now Rome’s oldest monument is ash.

  It is an omen the emperor takes seriously. He commands the entire imperial family to make ready to travel to the outpost of Aquileia. The official reason is that suppressing the insurrection in Pannonia now falls to Augustus with the greatest urgency. In truth, I think it is the emperor’s intention to flee the plague. Or perhaps he fears that his legacy—like the hut of Romulus—will go up in smoke.