Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  That he clings to this dangerous fantasy that my children are his, that I am his and there is some future for us together, hardens me against his attempts to play upon my sympathies. That he dares speak it aloud here, in my home, where servants might hear, hardens me even more. “My kingdom needs me, Caesar. You do not. You’re wealthy and powerful beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. You’re worshipped throughout the empire as a living god. Everything is as you would have it.”

  “Nothing is as I would have it, and you know that.”

  Remembering all that Octavia sacrificed, and all that I have sacrificed, and all that Helios has sacrificed, I say, “We chose our path.”

  He must hear my bitterness, because he turns on me and bellows, “If you leave me, you leave without my son!”

  The room goes cold, or perhaps it is only that my blood drains away from my limbs to pool inside a heart swollen with rage. I’ve always known that I would kill to protect my children. A metallic tang coats my tongue as dark magic bubbles up inside. I taste iron. I taste blood. I swallow them back long enough to say, “Ptolemy is only six years old. He needs his mother. He needs to learn the kingdom he’ll inherit. He’s been too long from Mauretania.”

  “I’d give him more than a frontier kingdom. I’d give him much more.”

  Juba warned me I would be tempted. I’ve given up my own ambitions for Egypt, but I cannot help but hope my children will return one day. That they will rule all North Africa as their ancestors did. Yet seeing Helios again has reminded me that I know better than to make bargains. “When my son comes of age, give him what you will, Caesar. Until then, he must stay with me.”

  *

  I am appalled when my husband does not agree. Later that night, amidst piles of scrolls and trinkets he has collected for the journey home, he says, “Let Ptolemy stay in Rome to befriend Gaius and Lucius; let him become their indispensable companion. This way, when those boys are old enough to wield true power, they’ll look upon our son with favor.”

  From a couch near a cage filled with songbirds, I shoot to my feet to confront him. “Foster our son under Livia’s care? Never even think it!”

  Juba tries to persuade me with cool reason. “Do you want the Romans to think of our son as a barbarian? They need to think of him as a kinsman. You’re quick to point out he’s the grandson of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Should we give him less of an advantage than Herod has given his own sons?”

  But in this matter, I cannot be reasoned with. “Herod’s sons were nearly killed for their father’s jealousy.”

  “They were saved because Augustus knew them. Because the Romans knew them. That’s what saved their lives. That is all that saved their lives, Selene. It’s an important lesson for us.”

  Grinding my teeth, I stubbornly argue, “We are not the Herods and I will not give up my son.”

  Juba becomes just as stubborn. “Ptolemy needs a Roman education. I thought it could wait, but now I have changed my mind.”

  If my husband thinks this will settle the argument, he is much mistaken. Just the thought of leaving my baby boy tears my heart to shreds; I cannot bear it, and I will make my husband’s life a torture until he changes his mind back again. “You would abandon Ptolemy?”

  “Of course not. Your sisters would watch over him. Julia too. Ptolemy would never be without friends and allies here in Rome …”

  Seeing that his words are of no comfort, Juba reaches to embrace me, but I shrink away from him. “No. Don’t you dare. Don’t even think to touch me if you mean to leave our son here as a hostage. For that’s what he’d be. I could not live a day in peace knowing Livia had her claws to my son’s throat.”

  “You fear Livia overmuch.”

  “Do I? I think you are naive. She meant to poison Julia’s boys when Agrippa died. I know she did.”

  “Oh, for the love of the gods!” Juba shouts, raising a fist into the air. “It has been nearly a year since Agrippa died and no harm has come to those boys.”

  “Because Livia’s moment of opportunity passed, but there will be another and she’s waiting for it.”

  “Stop making up stories like a terrified child. Think like a grown woman. Think like the queen you are. This is an opportunity that other kings vie for, Selene. The chance to have their children grow up at the emperor’s knee. We both know how fond Caesar is of the boy—”

  “He is more than fond. I’ve told you that he believes Ptolemy is his son. He wants Ptolemy for himself. And he will ruin him. He will blacken his soul. He will leave a stain on our son just as he left one on you and me. Would that Augustus had never heard our son’s name! That our son could live in a world untouched by the emperor.”

  Juba’s hand comes crashing down on the table. “Then call your magic winds and scour the world of Caesar. Do it if it’s in your power. Go on.” When I stand there blinded by impotent rage, he continues, “No? Then we deal with the world as it is. We live in an empire. If our children are to rule after us, they must know Rome. They must know the imperial court. They must understand politics and intrigue.”

  His certainty batters against my resolve and fear makes my voice shaky. “Ptolemy is still a baby, Juba. He plays with wooden boats in the fishpond and kicks a ball in the courtyard. He’s still sometimes afraid of the dark, especially when there is thunder. And you would plunge him into a sea of danger?”

  “The other royal boys his age have already begun preparing for kingship. Other princes already jockey for position in Rome, sharpening their swords for whatever may come. They will all know one another when they come of age. They will know one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Would you leave our son unprepared and unarmed?”

  “I would arm him with our beliefs, with our hopes for him—”

  “Stop.” Juba pinches at the bridge of his nose, his head bowed. “There’s no point to this argument. In the end, we both know that Ptolemy must stay in Rome.”

  “I only know that the emperor commands it, and as always, you’re eager to obey. Is there nothing you will ever deny him?”

  Juba’s head snaps up. “And how often have you refused him?”

  My nostrils flare at this reproach, but I am silent. It is beneath me to list all the ways in which I have frustrated the emperor, and I refuse to be brought to account on the matter of fidelity to our marriage bed. Especially after turning Helios away.

  At my silence, Juba storms over to his scroll rack, flinging rolls of papyri as he searches for something. “You think I can’t say no to him? You think I would bleed our child like a sacrifice so long as it did not displease the emperor? Is that what you think?”

  He is shouting now, but I am just as angry. “What else can I think when you ask me to leave my son at his mercy?”

  In answer Juba hurls a scroll at me, the wooden rollers at each end giving it a dangerous momentum. Before it hits me, I catch it. Then I realize that it isn’t a weapon; he means for me to read it.

  Snapping it open without a care, I begin to puzzle its contents. What I see sends me fumbling for a chair. It is a marriage contract that names my daughter, Isidora. In this contract, Herod agrees to pass his kingdom into the hands of any prince my daughter should bear for him, and in exchange, Augustus cedes parts of Egypt and Cyrene, over which Isidora would be queen.

  I clamp one hand over my mouth. No. I cannot believe it. She would be queen in name only; Herod would rule in her name. Augustus means to give portions of my ancestral kingdoms over to the girl he believes is his daughter, but at the same time deliver her into the hands of that monster. “She would never survive as Herod’s bride!”

  Juba gives a shake of his head. “Herod wouldn’t dare harm her, but every wife in the harem and every prince who stands to inherit would resent her as a rival and an outsider. Which is why I refused. Augustus believes he can mend a rift by marrying Dora to Herod or one of his sons. But I have refused. Three offers now I have refused, though Augustus grows ever more impatient.”

  From the scra
wled note on the far margin of the paper, I can see that for myself. In the note—which I recognize as Augustus’s own writing—he takes my husband to task for sentimentality, insisting that my daughter is of marriageable age and must be wed where it will serve the most advantage. “Why didn’t you tell me of this?”

  “Because I knew you would be frenzied with worry. You’ve already been brought low by Octavia’s death. Ever since the day of her funeral, you have been in a daze, as if you would be somewhere else, anywhere else, but here. Moreover, if Augustus should become enraged, I wish for the blame to fall on me.”

  I am astounded to realize that Juba thinks he is protecting me. That he is willing to risk the emperor’s wrath not only for me, but for the daughter he knows is not his own. It is a humbling realization. “This is the emperor’s command and you refused?”

  Still fuming, Juba shouts, “I refused him absolutely! Would Caesar take my kingdom and nail me to a cross like a common criminal, still I would not consent to give Isidora over to Herod. Never would I leave either of our children defenseless, Selene, but you cannot hold them forever. There comes a time when you must cut the cord that ties them to your womb.”

  These are the last words he says before slamming out of the room. It is our first violent quarrel in so many years that it leaves me gasping and raw. I nearly sob in its aftermath. I would hold my children forever. Both of them. I would hold them and never let them go until the last breath left me. But this is not the way of the world. I cannot pretend that difficult decisions will not need to be made. Moreover, our quarrel convinces me that if I do not make plans for the inevitable, someone else will make the plans for me …

  Once I have composed myself, I look for the king. I find Juba alone on the terrace, wondering over the little piles of pebbles he finds there. It is past the dinner hour and the moon hangs over a city both dark and cold. Wordlessly, Juba picks up a pebble and flings it. Neither of us looks to see where it lands.

  “Two years,” I whisper, my breath puffing steam into the night air. “Please give me two more years.”

  Two years will be enough, I tell myself. Time enough to teach Ptolemy to be less trusting of the world. Time enough for Dora to become a woman. At fourteen, maybe she will want a husband as much as Pythia did. By all accounts my niece is happy, and a mother should want happiness for her children, even if she cannot be a part of it. “I beg of you, Juba, just two years more …”

  He agrees and together we go to the emperor. We promise Augustus that in two years’ time, we’ll arrange an appropriate marriage for Dora and send Ptolemy to be fostered in Rome. Augustus doesn’t like our answer, but when he sees that we are united, he relents.

  Or at least, that is what he wants Juba to believe.

  Before we leave for Mauretania, the emperor makes me understand the price for this indulgence. “In two years, you will bring my son to me, Selene. He will take his rightful place at my side and so will you. In two years, you will both come to Rome to stay.”

  PART THREE

  THE

  HARVEST

  Twenty-nine

  THE KINGDOM OF MAURETANIA

  SPRING 11 B.C.

  TWO years can pass in the blink of an eye. In the flutter of a bird’s wing. In the space between two breaths. Two summers, two autumns, two winters, and two springs. Not long. Not nearly long enough. Yet, for me, these two years must last a lifetime. All the memories I wish to make with my family, I must make now. Everything I mean to accomplish, I must do now. Everything I want for my kingdom, I must have now.

  Perhaps that is why I am so mortified when our advisers report just how much has gone wrong in our absence. More squabbles between our settlers and natives. More discontent in Volubilis. The harvest is not as bountiful as it has been in past years. Our treasury is not nearly as full as when we left. And our subjects resent that we have been gone so long in Rome.

  Chryssa is distraught to deliver this bad news. She’s grown plump, having recently given birth to another little boy. Her hair is neither curled nor oiled, as if she has not given servants time to attend it. The fact that she is not even wearing jewelry tells me that my absence has driven her near to the breaking point. “You said you’d be gone a few months in Rome! I am only a Greek freedwoman and the wife of a barbarian. I am not the Queen of Mauretania.”

  I should have been here, ruling my kingdom. I should have gone to the river, offering myself as Isis. I should have done all the things a queen ought to do. But I would have had to abandon Julia when she most needed me. I would have had to abandon Octavia as she lay dying, and I will never regret being with her in the end. It was as important as anything else I have ever done, and it is what Isis wanted me to do. This I am sure of.

  I am less sure of my other decisions. Was I right to let Helios go? Was he even there at all? And what of sending Crinagoras into danger? No, that was prescient, because in two years, the emperor may press Herod’s case as a marriage prospect for my daughter again. And he may not care if we approve of the marriage or not.

  That must never happen. Herod must be brought down.

  Unfortunately, the first report I receive from Crinagoras is from a dancing girl who travels with a troupe of performers. It is during a banquet that she drapes herself scandalously over my husband’s knees and passes to him a note from my poet that he, in turn, passes to me. Crinagoras reports in salacious detail that Princess Glaphyra has made enemies in the Judean court. They dislike her for her royal bloodline and for her beauty, and there are rumors that Herod would like to bed her himself. But none of this tells me how I might destroy the King of Judea.

  And so I am irritated with everything, my plans frustrated at every turn. Why, it doesn’t even look as if any progress has been made on the Iseum, so I call Amphio to account, forcing him to come before my throne in his formal toga. “I hoped to see more done,” I complain. “I was gone in Rome nearly two years. Perhaps if you spent less time with women of questionable virtue—”

  “Patience, Majesty,” Amphio says, with an infuriating smirk. “The amphitheater took twelve years to complete and that was done with an army of slaves. Since you’ve been gone your tribesmen have not once, but twice stopped work, demanding higher wages. Even still, in that time, we have built the base, fashioned the drainage for your pools, and framed—”

  “You must work faster.”

  “I cannot, Majesty. We have only a thousand workers. I would like it better if we had three thousand. That is to say nothing of the stonecutters, carpenters, masons, and artists—we will need more money to lure the best. If I’m to build faster, I’ll need more men, more wagons, more everything. With the resources you have given me, no temple builder in the world could do better. It may be ten years more before it is done.”

  A decade more! I’ve already reigned as queen over Mauretania for thirteen years. In ten more years, my daughter will be twenty-two years old; she will be married with children of her own by then. And my son? Why, he will be old enough to ride with the legions. Where will I be in ten years? Where will I be in two … ?

  *

  THE king calls me to join him in the royal library adjacent to the palace. Once I have gone up the stairs between the watchful gold lions, he meets me in the central court, then leads me into one of the storage rooms where thousands of scrolls crowd the little cubbies on the wall. On a wide table of fragrant citrus wood, he spreads open a manuscript, his hands weighing down the ends. “I need you to verify the authenticity of this scroll, Selene. We can’t have our librarians filling this place with forgeries.”

  He is right. To pass off a forgery as an original manuscript is a serious crime and we cannot have our reputation tarnished with a library full of ignorance and fakery. Still, there are librarians better equipped than me to detect such fraud …

  Nevertheless, I glance down and the familiar writing makes me gasp. “Oh, Juba. These are my mother’s words, written in her own hand.”

  He smiles with great satisfactio
n, edging from the table so I may take a closer look. “You recognize this manuscript?”

  Here my mother turned her scholarship to medicine. Cures for fox mange. Treatments for scalp and skin diseases. A complicated list of weights and measurements. How Isidora will love this book, written by her own grandmother …

  “This is the original, Juba. How did you get it?”

  My husband looks abashed, clearing his throat nervously. “At rather great expense and with devious skullduggery engineered by your Lady Lasthenia. I suppose you will not approve of my raiding the Great Library of Alexandria, but who has a better right to the works of Cleopatra than you? I meant it as a gift, and I hoped it would please you.”

  The blush upon his cheek banishes all my reservations about raiding the Great Library. “You can hardly have pleased me more …”

  I want to tell Juba the truth. Sweet Isis, I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him that the emperor intends to steal us away from him. I want to tell him that if Ptolemy goes to Rome, I must go too. I even want to tell him about Helios, though I know he will never understand …

  No, I cannot. If I tell him these things, it will ruin what time we have left together. There is nothing my husband can do to change any of it. Telling him may ease my burdens, but it will only add to his. Perhaps I will tell him later, when I have a plan. When I have thought of a way out. Until then, I have two years. Two years to be the best mother, the best queen, and even the best wife I can be. And so I kiss my husband and keep my secrets.

  *

  “HOW can he afford it?” I demand of my advisers. “Tell me how Herod can sponsor the Olympic Games, give spectacles for his people, fund cities and expeditions, and still afford to build his temple in Jerusalem?”