Jewel of the Nile

by Tessa Afshar

  I nodded, crossing my arms and trying to hide how badly my fingers shook.

  Grandfather sauntered in, my mother in tow. “What is all this yelling? Can’t a man sleep in peace?” He wiped his bristly jaw.

  “Draco hurt Alcmena,” I said.

  My mother had the grace to gasp when she saw the slave girl, though she said nothing.

  “He asked my permission to take the girl, and I gave it.” Grandfather tightened his mouth when Alcmena doubled over and retched painfully. “You must have drunk too much, boy. Go back to your father.”

  Draco bowed his head and left without offering an explanation.

  “He is crazed,” I said. “He claims he will marry me. That you made an agreement with him earlier this evening.”

  “What of it?” Grandfather said, his voice hardening.

  I expelled a wheezing breath. “You can’t be serious! Look at what he did to the girl.”

  “The boy is a little hotheaded. Too much wine. Things got out of hand. Nothing to do with you. I have made the arrangement with my friend Evandos. It is done.”

  “Grandfather!” Dionysius cleared his throat. “I think we should ask Draco to leave the house.”

  “We shall do no such thing. If an honored guest wants to abuse your furniture, you must allow him,” Grandfather said. “She is my slave, and the damage is to my property. I say it is of no consequence.”

  “She’s hardly a woman. Younger than I am,” I cried. “What do you think Draco will do to me if he gets his hands on me? You should be ashamed of yourself for even entertaining the notion of my marriage to such a man.”

  Calmly, my mother raised her arm and slapped me with the flat of her hand, putting the strength of her shoulder into that strike. I tottered backward and would have fallen if Theo had not caught me.

  “Don’t be rude to your grandfather. Now go to bed.”

  Furniture. That’s what the poor girl amounted to in the old man’s estimation. And I was not far above her in his classification of the world. In the morning, Grandfather insisted that my betrothal to Draco would stand. He expected me to honor his precious word by marrying Evandos’s brutal son. My mother watched this tirade, eyes flat, as her father bullied me. She expected me to obey without demur as any good Athenian girl would.

  With effort, I pushed away the memories and returned my attention to my brother. “Mother informed me yesterday afternoon that she had started to work on my wedding garments.”

  Dionysius blinked. In the flickering light of the lamp his eyes began to shimmer as they welled with tears. I knew, then, that he would not hinder us. Knew he would cover our departure for as long as he could, regardless of the pain it caused him.

  I encircled my arms around him. Grief shivered out of us as we tried to make the moment last, make it count for endless days when we wouldn’t have each other to hold. I stepped away, mindful of time slipping, mindful that we were far from safe. Theo and Dionysius bid a hurried farewell, locking forearms and slamming chests in manly embraces that could not hide their trembling lips.

  Grabbing my bundle, I threw one last agonized glance over my shoulder at my brother. He stood alone, blanketed by shadows save for a luminous halo of lamplight that brought his face into high relief. I swallowed something that tasted bitter and salty and entirely too large for my throat, and stumbled forward.

  Theo and I started to run downhill through the winding streets of Athens, our initial excitement dampened by the grief of leaving Dionysius behind. Before the sun began to rise over the hilltops, Theo came to an abrupt halt. “You should cut your hair now, Ariadne, while it’s still dark.”

  We had decided that a young girl traveling with a boy, even a boy as large as Theo, would attract too much attention. Instead, we had concluded that we would travel as two boys. Dressed in Dionysius’s bulkiest tunic and cloak, with my chest bound tightly beneath its loose folds, I looked enough a boy to pass casual inspection. Except that my hair remained long and uncut, a fat braid hanging to my hip.

  I pulled out a knife from my bundle and handed it to Theo. “You do it,” I said, trying to sound indifferent. I was vain about my hair, which was thick and soft, like a river of chestnuts.

  Theo took a step back. “Do it yourself. Your father would skin me alive.”

  I threw him a disgruntled look but had to concede his point. Theodotus was courting untold trouble for agreeing to accompany me on this desperate escapade. Grandfather’s outrageous threats aside, my mother would have him whipped for encouraging me, if she could get her hands on him. My father, I hoped, knew me better. If ever Theo and I were embroiled in trouble together, he would realize who had led that charge.

  I held out my braid with my left hand and started hacking at it with the knife, wincing with pain as the strokes pulled on my scalp, until the long rope of my hair sat in my palm like a dead pet. With a grunt, I threw my feminine treasure into a ditch and we resumed our journey toward the Dipylon Gate, Athens’ double gate on the west. I remembered to make my steps wide and swaggering, imitating Theo’s athletic gait.

  There were two ways of getting to Piraeus, the seaport for the city of Athens. One was through an ancient, walled corridor, which led from the Pnyx hill straight into the seaport, and the other, by means of an open road, which led southwest. We chose the open road, reasoning that if our absence were discovered earlier than expected and Grandfather sent men to find us, we would be able to hide better in the surrounding fields than the confines of a walled avenue.

  To our relief, no one followed us. Save for a few inebriated men weaving through the winding streets, Athens seemed deserted, and we made our way into Piraeus unmolested.

  The Aegean Sea greeted us with deceptive decorum, its aquamarine beauty muted in the predawn light. The air tasted of salt and fish. My mouth turned dry. The outlandish plan that I had hatched in the wake of the furious exchange with my grandfather never accounted for all of the obstacles we were bound to encounter in Piraeus. How could we find an honest captain who would not try to cheat us or, worse, conscript us into forced labor? We had no sealed letter from a recognized official to lend us legitimacy and were too young to travel abroad on our own.

  I looked about, trying to find my bearings in the large seaport. There were three different harbors built into the port, two of them strictly for military use, and the third for commercial business. That is where we headed. The sprawling harbor was dense with ship sheds, where vessels could take shelter from bad weather. We found the port stirring with activity in spite of the early hour. Ships were getting ready to sail, bustling with sun-browned sailors stocking their ships and getting their cargo ready for transport.

  “Let me do the talking,” I said.

  “How would that be different from any other day?”

  I asked a sleepy man in respectable clothing which ships were sailing to Corinth that day. He named three and pointed them out in the harbor.

  “What do you think, Theo?” We studied the ships in silence for some time. One was a narrow Roman trireme, sleek and fast, transporting soldiers. The second, a massive Greek merchant ship, bulged with amphorae of imported wine and vast earthenware vessels of grain. Hired mercenaries as well as passengers crawled all over its deck. Our eyes lingered on the third ship, which stood out in the harbor for her dark-colored wood and an elegant design that contrasted with her huge, odd-shaped sails. Her sailors had skin the color of a moonless night and laughed good-naturedly as they worked.

  “That one.” Theo pointed his chin at the odd ship. “They are small enough to be happy for a bit of extra income. No soldiers or passengers to ask awkward questions, either.”

  I nodded and surreptitiously wiped my damp palms on my clothing. We approached the captain. “We want to buy passage on your ship, Captain,” I said, my voice an octave lower than its normal pitch.

  “Do you, now?” He looked me up and down, his hand playing with the hilt of the dagger that hung from his waist. “What brings two fine fellows into the
sea so early in the day?” His accent lilted like music.

  “We are looking to make our fortune,” Theo said.

  The captain laughed. The sound came from deep in his belly and flowed out like a drumbeat. He loosened his hold on the dagger’s hilt. “Fortunes cost money. How much do you have?”

  For my sixteenth birthday, my father had sent me a gold ring domed with a red carnelian, along with a modest purse of silver. If he had sent them in the usual way, my mother would have apprehended both ring and silver before I ever caught sight of them. But he had dispatched his gifts by means of a friend who had delivered them to my brother in person.

  I wore the ring hung on a strip of leather under my tunic. The purse would pay for our passage.

  I haggled until the captain and I settled on the price of our passage, which left us with a few pieces of silver for food and emergencies should we run into trouble before finding my father in Corinth.

  “How long does the passage take?” I asked.

  “Five hours if the wind blows right.”

  “Is it blowing right today?”

  The captain lifted his face and sniffed the air. “Right enough.” He told us to sit in the bow of the ship while the crew readied for departure, out of the way of the sails. We sat quietly, hoping the sailors would forget our existence. Hoping the captain wouldn’t change his mind.

  We discovered that the Kushites called their ship Whirring Wings. They told us that the ships in their land were all called by that name.

  We found out why when we set sail an hour later. As those tall sails, so awkward-looking at rest, unfurled fully, they looked like wings, stretching out from our hull. For a moment, I wondered if we would take off into the air like an osprey. Once we left the shelter of the harbor and found our way into the Saronic Gulf, the other part of the ship’s name began to make sense. Something about the fabric of the sails caused them to flutter and shiver in the wind, sounding like a thousand birds in flight. The noise was deafening, making our attempts at conversation futile.

  The vibrations wormed their way into your ears, into your head, into your heart, and it became impossible to hear anything but their noise. I found the experience strangely familiar. In a way, this was how life had felt at Grandfather’s house for the past eight years. The whirring wings of everyone’s demands, the noise of their expectations swallowing my voice, drowning out life and desire and dreams, so that only they could be heard. Once in Corinth, there would be blessed silence and I would live again.

  We had sailed for two hours when dark clouds whipped across the sun with sudden ferociousness. A fierce squall shook the hull of our ship. Lulled into sleepy stupor by the calm of our passage, I snapped awake as a huge wave rolled over us, followed by another. Wind gusts snapped at the sails viciously, and before the sailors could pull them down, the largest tore in half.

  Another wave broke over us, raising the ship as high as a two-story building, and flinging it back down into the restless sea with such force that Theo, who was sitting near the stern, flew bodily into the air, and to my horror, was thrown overboard.

  I lunged after him, and at the last moment was able to grab at his ankle. By then, half of my own body had sailed overboard and I dangled into the stormy sea, salty water spurting into my eyes and nose. Both my hands held on to Theo’s ankle with a strength I did not know I possessed. To let go of him meant losing him to the storm. But with my hands thus occupied, I had no way of securing myself. The force of Theo’s weight pulled on me, and I slipped over the edge.

  There is a thin line between courage and stupidity, and I crossed it with a frequency that pointed to a lack of wit rather than a surfeit of bravery. I did not know how to swim, not even in calm waters. I certainly would not survive a dunking in this tempest. I tried to anchor my feet into the edge of the ship’s railing and found it a losing battle. One deep breath, and my head sank into the waves.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  You might be scratching your head, wondering why I have described Natemahar as a Cushite rather than an Ethiopian. After all, he is based on the eunuch in the book of Acts, who is described as an Ethiopian court official working for Candace, queen of the Ethiopians (Acts 8:26-27). It turns out that Candace is not a proper name. Rather, it is the Greek word for Kandake, which is what the Cushites called their queen.

  Are you baffled yet? I was, when I started my research. Was the eunuch a Cushite or an Ethiopian? Or was he an Ethiopian working for a Cushite queen?

  Most scholars now agree that he was a Cushite (or Kushite, if you want to use the scholarly spelling). Greeks and Romans referred to the lands south of Elephantine as Ethiopia and called the natives of those lands Ethiopian. Technically, the word means “burnt face.” In biblical times, Ethiopia seems to have been a catch-all term for a large geographical area whose people had dark skin, not the nation we now know by that name. And since the book of Acts was written in Koine Greek, its author, Luke, uses the common Greek term for Kush, which is—you guessed it—Ethiopia.

  It seems likely, then, that our eunuch hails from the Kingdom of Cush, located in modern-day Sudan. He would have called himself a Cushite, not an Ethiopian. Respecting his heritage, that is what I chose to call him as well.

  The language of the people of Cush, Meroitic, which has been preserved in various documents, has never been deciphered, leaving us with a regrettable dearth of knowledge regarding this significant civilization. We know they flourished on the shores of the middle Nile for over a thousand years, leaving behind over 250 extraordinary pyramids, temple ruins, and rumors of enormous silver and gold mines. Their kings served as pharaohs in Egypt for a season. In time, their queens rose to power alongside their kings. We know the names of many of these monarchs, but except in the case of a handful, the exact period of their rule remains a mystery. Hence, I never named my Kandake, though some sources seem to believe her name might have been Nawidemak.

  When I first began to outline this novel, I wanted to have one of the daughters of Philip the Evangelist as my main character. A short email from a fan upended my plans. A young lady wrote to tell me that she loved my books. But, as an African American, she wondered if I ever planned to have a character who looked like her. Because, she explained, it was important for her to see heroines who reflected her.

  I realized that as a writer of biblical fiction, I had a responsibility to this young woman and others like her. But where was I going to find a heroine that fit the bill in the New Testament? The only character I could think of was the eunuch. How was a eunuch supposed to have a child? Well. Now I had a book, didn’t I? I ripped up my outline and never looked back. I did keep the name Chariline, which according to some church records was the name of one of Philip’s daughters. And I kept two of his daughters for Chariline’s friends.

  According to some early church documents, the eunuch was called Bachos, or Simeon Bachos. People of that time period often had two or three names: the one they were given at birth and another Greek or Latin name in deference to the international world that was the Roman Empire. And the Ethiopian eunuch might have also had a third, Jewish name, since he was a God fearer before being baptized into Christ. I felt that Natemahar, born in Cush, would have a Cushite name, and that is what I gave him. Whether in his lifetime or afterward he came to be known as Simeon Bachos is a puzzle beyond my scope as a novelist.

  Marcus Vitruvius was a real person, and what I’ve written about him is mostly accurate. Except for the fact that he had a granddaughter called Vitruvia who followed in his architectural footsteps. That didn’t happen. But wouldn’t it have been fun if it had?

  Both Chariline and Theo are fictional characters. To read more of Theo’s story, check out Thief of Corinth and Daughter of Rome.

  To read more of Natemahar’s real story, please refer to Acts 8:26-39. I am a novelist, which is to say, I make up stuff. My words cannot begin to replace the glory and power of the Scriptures. If you have never read this story, or the book of Acts, or if
it’s been a while, do yourself a favor and read it. You may encounter the vastness of God’s grace and mercy just where you need it most.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book was written under challenging circumstances. We had some health concerns in the family already when the pandemic hit. My brain turned to mush. I found it hard to write. I would spend a dazed hour with Jesus and another in the garden and manage to eke out a couple of pages of words. My dear editors, Stephanie Broene and Kathy Olson, were grace personified, giving me two extensions without complaint. I can’t thank them enough for their kindness and support. God, in his grace, made up for all those delays. This book required the fewest edits I have ever needed with any story, so it ended up being released on time. A special thanks to Kathy Olson, who accepted the extra edits I threw her way, absorbed the expanded work, and never protested. People like that, both kind and talented, don’t come around often.

  My brilliant husband is the one who introduced me to Vitruvius. He bought me a couple of books on ancient Roman architecture and came up with the idea of having Chariline meet Vitruvius’s granddaughter. As if that wasn’t enough, he helped me with the research for the Fanum basilica, cooked for me a few times, baked unbelievable cookies, and gave me a lot of hugs. He even managed to create the maps that you find in the front of this book. Yes, I am blessed. Grateful to have this man in my life.

  A very special thanks is due to Dr. Barry J. Beitzel, author of the award-winning book The New Moody Atlas of the Bible, who wrote me long emails in answer to my pesky questions about sea voyages in ancient Rome. The travel scenes in this book are so much better thanks to Dr. Beitzel’s guidance. Any mistakes you find are mine.

  I am grateful to my capable agent, Wendy Lawton, for her help and encouragement; the gifted fiction team at Tyndale; and the wonderful sales team who manage to place these books in the hands of readers.