Jewel of the Nile

by Tessa Afshar

  “You are worried that I will get tangled in something dangerous. But Natemahar, how perilous can it be to find one man? Whatever scandal my parents created by their marriage, it all happened twenty-five years ago. No one will care anymore.”

  “Chariline, listen to Vitruvia’s counsel even if you choose to refuse mine. Your father riled the Kandake by his decision to pursue your mother. And I will tell you this about our queen: She is not a woman who forgets a grudge, no matter how ancient. Don’t suppose she desires a warm reunion between you and the man who sired you.”

  Chariline bit her lip. Whatever had driven her parents apart at the start of their marriage, sending her mother pregnant and alone to Caesarea and swallowing every trace of her father, had as much to do with the Kandake as it had with her grandfather. Natemahar was right. Grandfather did not have enough influence at the court to silence every bit of gossip relating to the old scandal. Only the queen could have arranged for so much secrecy.

  Her throat turned dry. “We will simply have to avoid her.”

  “On that, we agree. Which is why I proceed with care. Give me time. I will search for him discreetly.”

  Chariline dropped her head in her hands. A new thought pierced her with the sting of a knife edge. What if by pressing Natemahar to find her father, she put him in the path of harm? What if her entreaties were placing Natemahar on a collision course with his queen?

  She snapped her head up and reached for his hand. “Forgive me, dear Natemahar! Of course you must be discreet! Please take care. Go as slow as you must.”

  Natemahar gave her a quizzical look. “Nothing to forgive. I understand your urgency.”

  Chariline shook her head. “You must ignore my prodding. Sometimes I speak before I consider. Do what you think best. With all my heart, I trust you.”

  Above all things, she must keep her friend safe. He must not risk his own well-being for her sake. Nor did she want him to jeopardize his position as chief treasurer and one of Cush’s most senior officials.

  Chariline, on the other hand, did not have such constraints. The Kandake was not her queen. In spite the color of her skin, Chariline was a Roman. And no Cushite queen was going to stand in her way.

  “Not good,” Arkamani said, followed by a long volley of Meroitic. Chariline picked up the words important officials and visiting. “Can’t go to the palace now,” he said. “Not safe.”

  She had asked Arkamani to sneak her into the palace. Clearly, he knew his way into the place since he carried secret messages to and from Natemahar without trouble. But he shook his head at her again. “Not safe, honey lady. Extra guards at the palace now. Understand?”

  Chariline ground her teeth until her jaw ached. “When? When will it be safe?”

  The boy shrugged. “Four days. Maybe five. Officials like to talk.”

  Chariline’s shoulders sagged. She had already been in Cush for six days. Another five put her at eleven. That would only give her three days to find her father. Would she be able to locate him in so short a time?

  “Send for me as soon as you can,” she said to Arkamani. “You know where to find me.”

  Chariline rubbed her aching temples when the boy left. With every step she hit a wall. Came up against another insurmountable hurdle.

  Squeezed between the rock of her grandfather’s will and the boulder of the Kandake’s power, she had ground to a halt. In spite of everything she knew about her father, in spite of the fact that he was, at this very moment, working somewhere in the court, she could not approach him. It was enough to make her want to scream.

  When Arkamani’s message finally arrived, Chariline was ready. She had purchased a native tunic in the market, a simple rectangular piece of tan linen with a slit for the head, decorated with sparse orange embroidery and a short fringe at the edge of the long skirt. Many women in Cush went about bare-breasted, with only a long skirt and jewelry for covering. Peasants wore even less.

  Chariline had decided that her new tunic and cheap Cushite jewelry made of ostrich eggshells was enough to help her blend in when she arrived at the court. She could not imagine her first meeting with her father, or any meeting with her father, taking place while she wore nothing but a skirt.

  Scraping her oiled hair back until her scalp ached, Chariline pulled the curls into a tight knot at the top of her head, doing her best to look like a native Cushite. The women of Meroë often wore their hair closely cropped, though some adorned it in a topknot similar to the one she had fashioned.

  She applied kohl to her eyes, using the thin iron wand and wooden tube that she had purchased along with her tunic. Sliding her feet into blue leather sandals secured at the front by a colorful beaded toe strap, Chariline made one last adjustment to her armband before slipping out of the house.

  As prearranged, she found Arkamani waiting for her at the end of the rutted lane leading to her grandfather’s house. She dropped a couple of Aunt Blandina’s honey cakes into the boy’s palm. They found their way to his mouth before she finished greeting him.

  “How will we get in?” she asked.

  The flow of Meroitic proved too complicated for her, and she squinted at him.

  He grinned. “Like servants, honey lady.”

  She nodded and followed him down a long track. Cushites saw no point in paving their roads and thought Romans out of their minds for spending so much time on the ground they walked on. Other than one short stone road with high curbs, the city of Meroë was served by tracks. By the time she arrived at the palace, her feet were a dusty mess.

  Two major palaces dominated the landscape of Meroë: one occupied by the king and the other by the queen. The kings of Cush, believed by their people to be sons of the god Amun, had dominion over the complex religious life of their nation. Priests worked closely with the king to secure the protection of their many gods and ensure a good crop and health for the people of Cush. The day-to-day running of the kingdom was considered beneath the king. Instead, it was the queen mother who managed the mundane facets of rule. Politics, diplomacy, trade, and economy were all part of the Kandake’s dominion.

  Chariline knew her grandfather’s business with Cush concerned the interests of Rome. Taxes and trade. Nothing sacred about that. He would have no business with the king. The palace to which he had alluded in his secret conversation with Grandmother no doubt belonged to the Kandake.

  A perfect square of yellow sandstone that under the potent sunlight of Meroë turned a golden hue, the queen’s main residence and political hub was modest in size but beautiful in its proportions. A touch of wildness in its elaborate decorations warned the visitor that the one who reigned from within its walls was not quite tame: elephant heads at the tops of columns and carvings of crocodiles and entwined snakes added a savage air to the otherwise decorous building.

  Chariline swallowed past a parched throat. She must enter the lioness’s den. And then what? She had waited eleven days for this moment. Eleven days merely to walk inside these forbidden walls. But once inside, she could not very well approach every man of a certain age and ask him if he might be her father. She pushed the thought aside. Hadn’t Natemahar asked God to guide her? She would improvise as the need arose.

  The main entrance to the Kandake’s palace was from the south. Arkamani led them to the north face of the building where a small gate was guarded by two of the Kandake’s personal guards. The gate assigned to the servants.

  Instead of trying to avoid the soldiers, Arkamani brazenly headed for one of them. Chariline stopped breathing and kept her gaze glued to the ground as Arkamani spoke rapidly. To her amazement, after a cursory glance, the guard waved them inside.

  Chariline gawped at Arkamani. “One of your uncles?”

  He laughed. “No. Only a cousin.” They had entered a narrow corridor. “Come. This way.”

  Through a series of long hallways, he drew her toward a central courtyard, which served as a light well to the interiors of the palace. They washed their feet with water from
a turquoise pool that sat against one wall and redonned their sandals. In Rome, they would be expected to enter the palace in bare feet. Here, in Meroë, bare feet were a sign of poverty. Everyone in the palace was expected to wear shoes.

  On a stone bench in one corner someone had left a number of shell-thin earthenware platters and bronze vessels filled with dates, almonds, dried fruit, and roasted grain.

  A harried-looking young woman stopped at the bench and picked up a large metal vessel. “Why are you two dawdling? Take a tray. I’m off my feet from running around.”

  “Yes, mistress.” Arkamani grabbed a metal vessel piled high with figs and handed it to Chariline. “Serve!”

  The young woman stared at Chariline. “Haven’t seen her before.”

  “New as a baby,” Arkamani said. “Her first day.”

  “Move, or it will be her last day. Take that corridor there.”

  Chariline bowed her head and scurried behind Arkamani. “What do I do with this?”

  “Offer it to anyone who looks important.”

  The corridor opened to long, narrow rooms. The first few chambers seemed full of people. Chariline tried to pretend that she belonged in this place and offered figs to bored-looking men who were waiting for an audience with the queen. She kept her chin tucked into her chest and her eyes lowered.

  Other servants mingled in the reception rooms, carrying large trays. Chariline noticed the plain quality of their clothing and shoes, which in contrast to her own, lacked all decoration. She hoped her own garments would not stand out so much that she would be singled out or questioned.

  But nothing unusual happened. No one raised the alarm, declaring her an imposter. Then again, no one embraced her like a long-lost daughter either. She waved her tray under the noses of more men in another narrow chamber, beginning to feel foolish. What had she expected to accomplish by coming to the palace?

  She shoved the figs toward a stout man’s chest. Instead of taking a fig, he began shrieking at her in rapid Meroitic, shaking a finger in her face. Chariline took a hasty step back. In her agitation, she could not understand a single word. Arkamani came to her rescue and, with a bow, apologized to the irate official. Chariline caught on enough to bow and back away at the same time.

  “What did I do wrong?” she squeaked when they made it safely to the hallway.

  “You stood too close,” Arkamani whispered. “It’s disrespectful to come too close. Don’t you know anything, honey lady?”

  Chariline wiped the sheen of sweat from her brow with the back of a hand and tried to calm her galloping heartbeat. “Any other rules I should know?”

  “Don’t spill anything on anyone’s toes.”

  “I had figured that one out. Thank you.” Trying to stop the shaking in her fingers, she grabbed her vessel tighter.

  The next door opened to a storage area filled with elephant tusks. The one beyond that was also a storehouse, containing jars of grain and olives. They came upon another long room crowded with courtiers, and she circled the chamber, careful to keep a deferential distance this time. She studied the faces, looking for something familiar. Something that reminded her of what she saw when she looked in the mirror. But nothing unusual captured her attention.

  They came to the end of the corridor, beyond which lay the columned hall that served as the Kandake’s throne room. Chariline knew she had to avoid the epicenter of the queen’s rule at all cost. She was not foolish enough to risk coming to the Kandake’s notice. She looked at Arkamani in despair. Nothing. She had slithered her way into the palace for nothing.

  She saw the shallow steps, then, leading to an upper story, and signaled Arkamani to follow her. He shook his head. “Private,” he said.

  Something about those stairs pulled at her. Chariline bit her lip. She couldn’t leave empty-handed. Taking a deep breath, she marched ahead.

  “No, honey lady!”

  “You stay,” she told the boy. “I will return soon.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Do not reveal another’s secret.

  PROVERBS 25:9

  At the top of the stairs, she found a short corridor that led to a diminutive chamber, this one more luxuriously appointed than the ones belowstairs. Cush’s famous silver embellished the ornate furniture, and bright, woven tapestries hung from the walls. Thick curtains had been drawn across the window, blocking the sunlight as well as the noise of a busy palace. Multiple lamps burned on iron stands, brightening the otherwise darkened room.

  Two officials seemed in deep conversation. Chariline noticed that one of them had an eye patch, thick, ropy scars marring the skin around the patch. Beneath the scar, the man’s face was handsome, with striking, angular features that gave the impression of confidence.

  He turned when she came in. “What are you doing here?” he said, his voice irritated.

  Chariline lifted up the platter. “Figs, Master?”

  “No. Now get below where you belong.”

  With a bow, she turned to leave.

  “Wait!”

  Chariline stopped. The man walked to her, his steps slow, gold armbands and necklaces twinkling in the lamplight. To her shock, he placed a hand under her chin and lifted her face. “Who are you?” he asked slowly, searching her features.

  The tray wobbled in Chariline’s hand. “Nobody,” she said, her voice a croak.

  “What is your name? Who do you belong to?”

  Here it was, the question she had yearned to hear. The question that might open a door. Lead to some scrap of recognition. She lifted her head and stared into the man’s eye, trying to avoid that terrible scar. “I am Chariline, the granddaughter of Quintus Blandinus Geminus.”

  The single eye widened. The man took a swift breath, his nostrils flaring. “I did not know Blandinus had a granddaughter.”

  “He does.”

  “What are you doing here, Blandinus’s granddaughter?”

  “S-s-serving. Figs?” She lifted the platter a fraction.

  The man pushed it away, almost overturning the fruit. He peered down into her face. “How old are you?”

  “Sesen!” the other man in the room cried in a nasal voice. “I must quit this place shortly. Leave the wench. Let us settle our business.”

  “In a moment,” the man called Sesen replied. He returned his attention to Chariline. “Your age?”

  “I am twenty-four.”

  Air leaked out of Sesen’s chest. “It fits. The timing . . .”

  Chariline took a half step forward, forgetting to keep a polite distance. “What fits?”

  “Who is your father?”

  A seething throb pounded in Chariline’s temples. She felt dizzy, as if the room had run out of air. Mutely, she stared at the man.

  “Your father,” he said again, his brow drenched in sweat. “Who is he?”

  “Sesen!” the other man howled. “Shall I leave you to your diversion?”

  Sesen ground his teeth. “Find me this afternoon,” he commanded Chariline. “Understand?”

  She nodded, an abrupt jerk of her head. On wooden legs, she forced herself to move toward the door and out into the hallway. She began to creep down the stairs and knew Sesen watched as she descended. When she reached the landing, she risked a quick look above, catching a glimpse of the man’s retreating back as he returned to the ornate chamber.

  She handed her tray to a waiting Arkamani and scampered back up the stairs. No force on earth was going to prevent her from returning to Sesen.

  The door to the chamber was now firmly shut. She slipped past it on quiet feet and entered a tiny alcove filled with linens and pillows, situated to the left of the chamber. A curtain hung limp to one side. Soundlessly, Chariline drew it closed.

  Collapsing on a fringed pillow, her thoughts ran in a jumble of questions. Why had Sesen said it fits when she told him her age? Fit what?

  Who is your father? he had asked, his tone unrelenting. Urgent.

  Could the answer be . . . Sesen? Was that what he was trying
to determine? Establishing her time of birth to see if she could be his daughter?

  Speaking of Cushites, the Greek historian Herodotus had once described them as the tallest, most handsome of all men. In Sesen, she could see Herodotus’s ancient description come to life. Uncommonly statuesque even for a Cushite, with a chest the size of a barrel, arms that could hold up a column, and an arresting face, he was not a man to be overlooked. She could see a young Roman girl falling under his spell.

  She was grasping at straws. Reaching mighty conclusions based on too paltry an evidence. Then again, why had Sesen reacted so strongly upon discovering her grandfather’s identity? Was he adding up the color of her skin to the time of her conception and reaching some unspoken conclusion? What did Sesen know?

  She had no way of finding answers to her questions unless she asked him. As soon as he concluded his meeting, Chariline intended to seek him out. She could not wait hours until the afternoon, as he had bid her.

  Faint murmurs from next door traveled through the thin wall in the alcove, interrupting her thoughts. Chariline realized that she could make out some of the words. At first, she assumed the men were speaking of business matters. Then she heard the word kill followed by the name of the queen.

  Chariline gasped. She must have misunderstood. In the silence, the words from next door drifted into her hideaway, hushed but discernible.

  “We cannot kill her now. She has postponed her trip until summer.” Sesen’s voice.

  “That witch! She will ruin me by then.”

  “She will cut your throat if you . . .” Words she could not catch. Then, “Our plan is good. It will look like an accident when her royal barge goes down and she with it. We must wait four months. Until the Kandake boards that boat in July, we must bide our time.”

  Chariline’s head throbbed. They were plotting against the Kandake. Plotting to murder the queen.

  She rubbed the pulse at the base of her throat. Had she finally found her father, only to discover that he planned to assassinate a queen?