Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  And yet, I fear that Juba will refuse this plea.

  To forestall this, I tell the emissary that I do not feel well, and that we would be honored to speak to him again in the morning. Then I call for servants to escort him to well-appointed chambers and command that he be treated as a most honored guest. He withdraws from our chambers, his shadow retreating between our marble pillars.

  When we are alone, Juba turns to me in concern. “What is the matter? Is it the child? Shall I call for the physician?”

  I do not feel at all well, but say, “I only wished to buy time to consider King Archelaus’s request.”

  “There is nothing to consider. It is a fool’s errand.”

  “Even so, there is no reason to give a hasty answer.”

  Juba broods and I know what has darkened his mood. It has darkened mine too. Herod is now favored in Rome again while my husband is in virtual exile. It is so unjust that it forces me to exclaim, “Let the two of them reconcile, then. Herod and Augustus. The two madmen. It is no wonder they are bosom friends. Why, they are just alike, the bloody tyrants.”

  Juba’s lips thin. “Are they truly alike, Selene? Can I have been so wrong, so blind, all my life?”

  I feel the weight of my husband’s stare. Oh, my poor Juba. He still loves Augustus. Even now. Once, his devotion infuriated me. Now it fills me with the most tender compassion. For my sake, Juba is estranged from the man he has lionized. Now, again, for my sake, he will condemn himself for loving such a man. He looks to me to tell him if his hero is all villain and I cannot do it.

  “No,” I say, cupping Juba’s cheek with my hand. “Herod and Augustus are not the same. Augustus has brought some peace to the world—good will come of his legacy. You were not blind. There is greatness in him. You were not wrong in that. It is only that we must have no part in it now or he will ruin us.”

  *

  WE make ready the birthing room. Stacks of linen tower over pots of ointments and bottles of oils. The new birthing chair boasts a fleece covering. Juba even commands that a small dais be fitted into the corner where musicians will play to soothe me during my birth pangs.

  This makes me laugh. “I’m more likely to hurl a chamber pot at the head of a hapless musician than to allow one to pluck at a harp while I am on a birthing chair.”

  Juba laughs too. “I’ll tell the musicians to wear battle helms.”

  Isidora does not share our merriment. In fact, she leaves the room in a sudden fit of melancholy. Later that day, when Juba goes to attend a Berber festival involving camel races, I make my way to the library, where I am told my daughter is attending Lady Lasthenia’s lecture on mathematics.

  Alas, I do not find her in the lecture hall. Nor do I find her in the pillared gallery surrounding the pool in the courtyard. Instead, I find her tucked away in a reading niche with a letter that she hastily sets aside in favor of a scholarly treatise, the vellum of which she pulls over her lap.

  She will have to do better than that if she means to hide something from me, but I pretend not to notice the missive behind her back. “What are you reading?” I ask, sliding onto the bench beside her.

  “Herophilos’s treatise on midwifery,” she replies.

  “Ah … is that what has you skulking about? You’re worried about the birth of the new baby?”

  Shamefaced, Isidora gives a miserable nod of her head. “I should have warned you of danger. But you and Papa were barely speaking to each other when we returned. I didn’t think the Rivers of Time could possibly be flowing this way …”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve seen?”

  She stares down at the sea of green and blue tiles that make up the mosaic beneath her sandaled feet. “The baby could die. I’ve seen the birth go very badly.”

  I hear myself swallow. “Have you seen it any other way?”

  “Yes,” she admits, but it does not cheer her.

  “I suppose you have little reason to rejoice at a new baby. When we left Rome, I told you that you were now sole heir to Mauretania. With this baby, that will change again and no one consulted you …”

  At this, she takes umbrage, stiffening her spine. “I’d be gladder than you know to have another brother. In truth, it would be a very great relief to me.”

  She knows it will be a boy, then. “A relief? Even though your future will be put in doubt again?”

  “I am not in any doubt. If your baby lives, the Romans will make him king and I will be content to let him rule.”

  “Oh, Dora, this baby is not yet even born and there is time to arrange for a throne for you yet …”

  She draws her knees up to her chest. “What if I don’t want to be a queen? Must I have a throne for you to love me?”

  The question forces me to gasp. “What a question! You need be nothing but yourself for me to love you. I’m your mother; nothing could destroy my love for you. Even when you speak nonsense. Of course you want to be queen.”

  With a tremor in her voice, she insists, “No. I never wanted to be queen. Not of Mauretania or any other place. I am not like you or Pythia. I cannot sit still in council. My mind wanders when claimants come before your throne for justice. I’ve studied the laws because it makes you and Papa smile when I do, but I’ve no gift for picking out the liars or the cheats. I’m made uncomfortable by the false flattery of ambassadors and I would much rather suck the venom from scorpion wounds than sit through a banquet wearing my hair in tight braids and combs, with jewels weighing down my earlobes and pearls choking me about the throat.”

  Listening to her, I am agape. And when she glances up at my horrified expression, she hurries to add, “I’ll always do my duty to my family and my kingdom as you’ve taught me to do. If I’m to be Queen of Mauretania, I’ll try to follow your example. But I would be happiest healing the sick and teaching others to do the same.”

  It is too much. “Isidora, you are a Ptolemy. You are meant to wear a crown, not serve as a court physician.” My poor daughter is confused. With the uncertainty about her future, perhaps it is a consolation to tell herself that she does not want to be queen. She deserves a mother’s kindness, not reproach, so I moderate my tone. “We need not discuss it now, Isidora, but I hope this baby can be good news for all of us.”

  She starts to smile, but it is only halfhearted. To tease a true smile out of her, I say, “And in the meantime, you have your letters. I am guessing that the one you hide behind your back is from your Berber boy, no?”

  Isidora shakes her head quickly. “No, it’s not from Tacfarinas.”

  Still, she crimsons, convincing me of her guilt. “There is fear written all over your face. You say you don’t want to be queen, but even as a royal princess you must learn how to hide what you’re feeling. You’re not a good liar, Dora.”

  “I’m not any kind of liar. It isn’t from Tacfarinas!”

  “Then why don’t you show me?” I ask, since she is now clutching the letter.

  When she makes no move to relinquish it, I try to pluck it from her hands and she tries to pluck it back. I laugh at our comic pantomime, but then I see the red seal that I know so well. A symbol of a sphinx, pressed into the wax with a signet ring. My laughter becomes a cry of alarm as I realize that the emperor is writing to my daughter.

  Tearing the letter from her hands, I demand, “What does he say?” I am furious to realize that my Isidora has more on her mind than boys and brothers and babies and thrones. Skimming the letter, I see nothing of import. Mindless little anecdotes and a complaint about his slave—a nomenclator whose job it is to remind Augustus of the names of important men to help him avoid political embarrassment. Apparently this slave did not do his job well and when he asked the emperor if there was anything he ought to bring to the forum, the emperor replied, Letters of introduction, I should think, since you know no one there.

  “What does he mean by this?” I ask my daughter.

  “I don’t know … I think it eases his mind to confide in me the things that vex
him in his day.”

  I crumple the letter. “He has written you before?”

  “A few times …”

  “When did this start?”

  “After Ptolemy died. He asked if I would write to him about my studies and about what happened here in our kingdom. I knew you wouldn’t like it, but I was afraid to say no. I was afraid of what Augustus would do to us after that day when Papa had him by the throat and you used fire against his praetorians.”

  Oh, why didn’t I kill Augustus that day?

  I know why. I know exactly why. He is still better for me and my family, better for the world, than those who might follow him were he dead. But at this moment, at the thought of him getting his fangs into my precious girl, I am again bent on murder.

  He could not have my mother, so he settled for me. Now he cannot have me, so he wants my daughter. The monster! “You don’t have to write to him.”

  “Of course I do. He is the emperor and if it appeases him, it may protect us here in Mauretania.”

  “It’s not your place to protect us, Isidora.”

  At this, she sits straighter. “I know what he is to me.”

  She can’t know. She can’t see into the past. She can’t see what he did.

  “He is nothing to you, Isidora.”

  “Now who is the bad liar?” she asks tartly. “In the Rivers of Time, I saw a future where Ptolemy didn’t die in those stables, and he grew into a young man, and the emperor claimed him as a son and made him Pharaoh of Egypt. In that vision, the emperor claimed me as his daughter too.”

  So there was some possibility that the emperor would do what he said he would do. Perhaps it was not all lies just to toy with me. Perhaps I was not a fool to believe him …

  None of it matters now. What matters is that I don’t know how to defend myself or comfort her. “I say again, you don’t need to protect us, Isidora. That’s not your place. It’s mine.”

  “What if you aren’t here to do it?” she asks softly.

  I’ve always assumed I would outlive my enemies as the emperor has outlived his. Still, even he has considered how to defend his family and his legacy after he’s gone. He has made all the wrong choices, but he has made an effort. Looking now into the eyes of my frightened daughter, I see that I must also prepare for a time when my magic fails me or my death leaves my kingdom and my family at risk. “You have seen me die in childbirth …”

  “Sometimes,” she replies, letting a curtain of her fair hair shield her face. “I have seen all of us die. We all do. Everyone does. I cannot be sure of when or how.”

  Tell me how I will die, I once commanded my mage.

  He refused, saying only, Yours will not be, cannot be, an ordinary death.

  Now I take my daughter’s cold fingers into mine. “What have you seen, Isidora? I’m not afraid.”

  “I am,” she whispers, her lower lip trembling. “Because I’ve seen that I am the one who kills you.”

  Forty-two

  AT her confession, she begins to cry, trembling so violently that her teeth chatter. What words she gets out are not all intelligible. “Why would you kill me?” I ask, trying to soothe her.

  She will not be soothed. “Sometimes … I don’t mean to do it. I try to help you with your birth, but it goes wrong. I’m studying midwifery, but you cannot have me at your side when you give birth.”

  I would not have her there. I would not have my daughter see me in the throes of agony. I am still too prideful a queen to allow it and tell her so. “So you need not fear an accident.”

  “But it’s not always an accident,” she cries, her voice near hysterical. “You should imprison me. Call Iacentus to put me in chains so I can do no harm!”

  I hold her tight against my pregnant belly to keep her from rushing to my guards and proclaiming herself a criminal. “Isidora, you see only possibilities. I’ve never met a mage in whom Isis has vested perfect knowledge. I don’t fear you.”

  In this, I am telling the truth. The emperor may have abused his family until it is nothing but a mass of festering wounds and Herod may have twisted his family into a knot of plotting, suspicion, and dread. But in spite of all we’ve suffered and all the ways we have found ourselves at odds, my family holds strong. At our worst, Juba and I have never schemed to ruin each other. We have never pitted our favorites against each other. Nor have we tolerated the sort of factional rivalry that leads to so many deadly power games in other royal courts.

  My family is not without its troubles, my court is not without its squabbles, and my kingdom is not without ambitious men and strife, but we have built a place like no other. Our court is diverse, scholarly, and civilized. Our king is both wise and just. Our family is bound by love. And I will not trade what we have for suspicion or fear no matter what Isidora sees in her visions.

  “Forget,” I whisper against her temple where I can still catch the scent of her as it was when she was a babe. “Forget what you’ve seen, my love. Forget … because we’re going to be happy here. That is what I want and I am the queen and I mean to have my way.”

  *

  AUGUSTUS does not want us to be happy.

  “Do not upset yourself so near to your time of birth,” Juba says, at my side, laying a gentling hand over my belly to feel the kick of his son in my womb.

  Letting Pythia’s letter fall to the side of the bed, I protest, “How can I not be upset when he is now preying on my niece?”

  My poor niece has been left a widow and now the emperor insists that she remarry immediately, giving her no time to indulge her sentiments—or respectful tradition—with a period of mourning. He is forcing her, as he forced Julia, as he forced me …

  “Selene, this new marriage will make your niece the Queen of Pontus, the Bosporus, Cilicia, and Cappadocia besides.”

  “Only through the husband Augustus is foisting upon her.”

  “Pythia will benefit from King Archelaus’s experience and protection. I thought you liked him.”

  “Friendship with Archelaus be damned. Pythia doesn’t need another old man to rule over her.”

  With wry amusement, Juba says, “I doubt any girl who looks to you for an example finds herself ruled by her king. This marriage mends any hard feelings Archelaus might have toward us. He wanted Isidora for a bride and now he will have your niece instead. Cappadocia becomes a powerful alliance for us. Not everything Augustus does is done just to vex you.”

  I think he is wrong. I think Augustus means to provoke me into a reply. Or perhaps to provoke me into returning to Rome. If he cannot provoke me through Isidora, he will do it with Pythia, who is so very far away and out of the reach of my protective arms. “Everything he does is to vex me.”

  Juba presses a soft kiss to my cheek. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps Pythia’s new marriage has nothing to do with the fact that the empire needs a strong power in the East to keep the Parthians and the Sarmatians at bay …”

  I sulk at his sarcasm. At least until the next day, when another letter comes from Julia.

  To My Friend, the Most Royal Queen of Mauretania,

  Never has anyone died with such impeccable good timing as Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus. Drusus will always be young and handsome and virtuous and perfect. He will forever be a golden hero. And I cannot even resent him for it because I am sad that he is dead and grateful too because he has deprived Livia of her best weapon.

  Now all she has left is Tiberius, who is so destroyed by grief that he shuns even his friends. By contrast, Livia is remarkably composed. Ovid mused that he would write a poem calling for her to reveal her sorrow, but Livia insists that she does not weep because her son wouldn’t want her to.

  Good Drusus, so considerate of his mother right to the end!

  Too bad he did not think more about his wife before riding out so recklessly. The emperor insists that your half sister must have a new husband. But in her bereavement, Minora fled into Livia’s bedroom and found shelter there. The poor girl does not seem to realize
that Livia is no true ally.

  Livia has already convinced your half sister that her youngest is some sort of drooling idiot, and must, therefore, be surrendered into his grandmother’s care. Livia has baby Claudius in her nursery now. Little Germanicus and Livilla are sure to be next.

  It is all quite a mess and my father seems at a loss as to how to put it right again. I think you had better come back to Rome, even if you must come without your husband …

  I will never return to Rome. Not with Juba, and certainly not without him. And it would have to be without him because Juba receives no invitation to return home for Drusus’s funeral. The client kings and queens in the empire will use the excuse of the funeral to descend upon Rome to settle debts and press their cases for grants of land and authority. Our absence will be noticed and remarked upon.

  I wonder if, even now, gleeful letters are floating across the sea, proclaiming to our rivals that we are ruined and if such news is received with the same rejoicing I once felt at learning of Herod’s troubles. There is little doubt that our courtiers are wondering the same thing. There was a time when disgruntled merchants and petitioners would not dare appeal our judgments to Rome, but there has been a subtle shift. An erosion of both our authority and our court. Our fall from favor portends abortive careers for our retainers, the more ambitious of whom will abandon us.

  I spread Julia’s letter upon my writing table. Though our citrus-wood tables must be polished with wax and wheat to maintain their delicate luster, they are prized for their fiery color and complex grain. The pattern is like a consuming inferno, with spirals and waves and spots of burning black coals. In the surface of this table, I see the fire that killed my son and struggle against an explosion of rage.

  I will not be persuaded to return out of love for Julia or fear of the emperor or even for the good of my kingdom. Never again will I be dragged back. Not in chains made of metal, ambition, or affinity. Yet I must acknowledge that it will not serve to remain estranged from the powers in Rome.