Song of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  Several ducks flew overhead and the blinding sun turned them to dark dots against the blue sky. I blinked my eyes shut, feeling the tingle of heka at my fingertips. The scent of grass was in my nostrils. The salt of the sea upon my tongue. I heard the gulls call to one another, and the rustle of stub-tailed monkeys playing on the far side of the hill. The soil beneath my fingers wasn’t like the silken desert sand. Not like the black earth of Egypt either. It was something else entirely. I thought about all my wishes for Mauretania, my hopes for its people, and made a narrow channel through which my heka could flow.

  “Yes,” Euphronius said, and when my heka touched the hill it met no resistance. No hostility. No evil spirits or curses or enchantments. If anything, the soil welcomed me and drew me closer. “No, not so much, Majesty. Not so much!”

  I pulled up, breaking the connection to the earth, clutching at my amulet to take the excess of magic. Then my eyes flew wide. All around me the grass had grown taller, greener, with red flowers woven into its verdant fabric. Caper blossoms opened in all their showy glory. From the tree above, olives burst forth, having ripened from purple to black. The surveyors dropped their tools and Chryssa ran to us, sighing with wonder at the grass that grew taller with her every step. It was the cusp of winter, but the hill had responded to me as if I were the incarnation of springtime. “Was that supposed to happen?” I murmured.

  Stunned, Euphronius drew his white cowl over his head. “Not unless . . . Majesty, I believe that you must be with child.”

  Thirteen

  RETURNING to my rooms, I called for the midwife. She put her hands on my belly and sniffed at my breath and asked me about my last moon’s blood. I could tell her nothing with certainty. My last menses came before my wedding. Before the emperor violated me. Before I’d found my lover in the sirocco. Months ago, I told her. Maybe two. No more than three. I couldn’t remember!

  She departed, saying it was too early to tell. But I knew. I knew! And it was a calamity. I wanted to believe that what quickened inside me was a gift from Helios . . . that, like Isis revived Osiris, I’d brought Helios back from death in the guise of a babe. But it might well have been the emperor who fathered a child upon me and I shuddered at the very idea that something grew inside, unwanted, a threat to my life. How I regretted taunting Juba about the possibility of carrying the emperor’s child. Had I tempted cruel fate by speaking the words aloud? Remembering Tala’s ordeal, I wished it away a thousand times! Even if I survived the birth of this child, it would be a living reminder of all that the emperor had done to me and mine. I told myself that I’d never hold against a child the sins of its father, but what if I looked upon an innocent little face and felt nothing but loathing?

  With reluctance, I sent for Euphronius and said, “I don’t want a child. As a priest of Isis you know the herbs I must take.”

  “Princess, tread carefully,” the old man warned. “What would happen to you if it were discovered you tried to rid yourself of... a royal heir?”

  His slight hesitation made me gasp. He was still a mage. Did he know that the child wasn’t Juba’s? Did he guess at what the emperor had done to me? What if, in the Rivers of Time, he’d seen Helios and me upon a flower-bedecked altar? No, if he’d seen that, surely he wouldn’t persist in telling me that my twin was only a ghost. “Royal heir or no, I don’t want it!”

  “Princess,” Euphronius cooed. “There’s risk in the herbs that would rid you of the child. Are there so many Ptolemies left in the world that we can do without one more? With the death of our beloved Helios—”

  “Get out!” I couldn’t bear that he should speak his name and tell me he was dead. Again. “Get out, get out, get out!”

  WINTER rains flooded the streets with mud and sometimes forced construction to a standstill. No messages or dispatches arrived from Rome. We were effectively trapped here in this new land—as trapped as I was inside a body that was changing every day. Tenderness swelled in my breasts and the nipples darkened. My skin burned hot even when others complained of a light chill. My frog amulet, which had so often lain at the base of my throat, lifeless and inert, now gleamed green with expectation. “When will you tell the king that you’re with child?” Chryssa asked.

  Since the night I’d threatened him with a table knife, matters between Juba and me had been frosty, so I waited until February, when the Romans would be celebrating the Lupercalia, to tell him. I went to the stables, where the king had just returned from a ride on one of his favorite Barbary steeds, and let the words tumble out in a rush. I thought he’d quip something dark and bitter. That he might comment on how pleased Augustus would be. Juba only nodded and, for a moment, I wondered if he’d even heard me. “Are you angry?” I asked, wary of the king’s equanimity.

  Brushing his horse, a task he should have entrusted to a groom, Juba shrugged his shoulders. “What purpose would my anger serve? I’d prepared myself for it.” It was the reaction that I’d hoped for, but now I wished he’d throw a fit of rage and fling ugly words and accusations. His quiet acceptance of my condition made me feel strangely objectified, as if I were merely a horse who had been ill bred this season but might foal offspring of a more desirable pedigree next time. “Allow that Alexandrian physician, what is his name? Euphorbus? Let him tend to you.”

  “I don’t care for him,” I said, not wanting to argue about the old mage. “A midwife will suffice.”

  Juba went on, my opinion of no consequence. “Euphorbus is a learned fellow of excellent temperament. He’s been helping to identify plants for me. He’ll deliver you of a healthy child.”

  “The child will need a proper nursery,” I said. “We’ll have to displace some of the servants.”

  “I have a better idea.” Juba rubbed the horse’s muzzle. “This place is falling apart. We need a new palace. We might as well start building one now. I don’t suppose you have any suggestions for it . . .”

  I was surprised at how this eased my despair. “Can we build it on the shoreline overlooking the harbor? It should have a view of an enormous lighthouse on that island, like the Pharos in Egypt!”

  “I don’t see why not, but remember that this city is to be like Ostia—a trade port for shippers and grain merchants.”

  “That doesn’t mean it can’t be a cultural center too. How much grain comes through Alexandria? Yet she’s the finest royal city in the world. Besides, Iol is beautiful. At least, we can make it beautiful.” I wanted to make a fine royal city but not simply because of my Ptolemaic ambition. Iol. Return of the Sun. I wanted this city to be a monument to that.

  SERVANTS placed brass pots underneath holes in our leaky roof to catch the rainwater, while Juba and I sat cloistered with our architects, planning a new palace. I’d sketched what I remembered of my mother’s royal enclosure and what I didn’t remember, my Alexandrian courtiers described in detail. Juba did nothing to curtail my desire to replicate the palace in Alexandria. In fact, the time we spent together with our architects was unexpectedly pleasant. Juba could be good company and had an eye for expensive things. Hours passed in excited discussion of our plans without my remembering to be angry with him.

  Augustus had made us rich, so we spared no expense. We wanted green diorite columns polished to a high sheen and agreed that some columns should be carved like women, caryatids like in Delphi and Athens. It was Juba’s idea to order pale Luna marble from Italy, white and silvery, but my innovation to accent it with a yellow marble from quarries in Numidia. Moonlight and Sunshine, I mused, my twin brother never far from my thoughts.

  Between rainstorms, I shopped in the market, where Berbers haggled over baskets overflowing with nuts and olives and the fleece of shorn sheep. I purchased new tapestries to hang on the walls, lamps and couches too. My ladies pointed to my enthusiasm for a more comfortable home as evidence of my readiness for motherhood. Only Chryssa seemed to know how much I dreaded the coming of this child. If I knew Helios to be the father, perhaps I’d have taken some comfort in it, but fo
rtunate happenstances were rare in my life. Swelling so fat and miserable could only be the result of the emperor’s doings.

  Everyone whispered about the good fortune of the young king to have already sired a child. Juba took in due course the ribald jests about his virility, and when we were seen in public, I always behaved as if we were happy. In truth, I was only fifteen years old and the prospect of a child clinging to me for its every need struck me near dumb with terror. Tala assured me that motherhood would come naturally, but what if I was one of those unnatural women who couldn’t care for her own child?

  The Berbers gossiped that I’d give birth in summer, in the month named after Julius Caesar, a prospect I found detestable, and my resentment seemed to swallow me whole. A time came when only Crinagoras could cheer me. The Greeks loved his cutting wit. The Romans enjoyed his verse. The Berbers admired his spirit and applauded wildly when he told the story of how their young queen defeated the sirocco. The incorrigible jester flattered, fawned, and amused even me on my darkest days.

  One afternoon, Crinagoras announced, “Majesty, I’ve decided to compose a poem comparing you to Kore, the maiden daughter of Demeter. The Romans call her Proserpina.”

  Unwilling to let him think me ignorant, I said, “I’ve also heard her called Persephone.” I reached for a fig. Since my mother’s death, I had a loathing for figs, but now, big with child, I couldn’t eat enough of them. Something satisfied me about the texture of the sweet fruit, the seeds against my teeth. I craved them night and day. “If you’re going to make a goddess of me, why not Isis?”

  He sliced open a pomegranate with relish. “Because I write whatever inspires me and no person of civilized tastes questions my genius.”

  Though he had a boyish nature, Crinagoras had lived a very full life. He’d served as an ambassador in Rome when Julius Caesar wooed my mother. He was acquainted with every king from Mauretania to Parthia, not to mention most of the Roman generals since Pompey. He wasn’t as afraid of powerful people as he should have been, and I was still too young to appreciate how valuable that made him. “I’m quite civilized,” I said, reclining against an embroidered pillow. “I’m a Ptolemy.”

  Crinagoras grinned. “But have you been initiated into the Mysteries at Eleusis?”

  He knew how to prick at my pride. Every two years, pilgrims from all over the world set sail for Athens to honor Demeter and Kore. Even Isiacs honored the festival, for it was said to have originated from an Egyptian rite. “Some day, perhaps I shall become an initiate, but none of this explains why you’re inspired to compare me to Kore.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Crinagoras asked, popping a handful of pomegranate seeds into his mouth and sucking at their red juice. “Kore was the maiden goddess who was kidnapped by Hades and dragged down into the underworld, bringing such grief to her mother that the earth plunged into winter. She’s the youthful incarnation of your Isis. Like Kore, isn’t Isis wed to the lord of the dead? Doesn’t Isis possess the magic to bring forth our souls into salvation and to rise from the underworld to make all the crops grow?”

  He was a cynic, so I couldn’t tell if he was mocking my faith, but this syncretism, the merging of goddesses, was nothing new. Isis had a thousand names and I’d just found her in the guise of Carthaginian Tanit. Still, I found myself arguing, “Isn’t Isis more like Demeter, the mother goddess who searches the world for her lost loved one?”

  “They’re aspects of the same,” Crinagoras said, as if he were a great authority. “You’re not yet known for being more than Cleopatra’s daughter, a child stolen from Egypt. So I’ll compare you to Kore, kidnapped and held prisoner in the underworld of Rome while famine looms—”

  “You don’t dare!” I cried, knowing full well how it might offend the Romans to hear Augustus compared to Hades. It was also far too close to the truth. Kore had been raped by Hades, who offered her seeds of pomegranate, the fruit of fertility, so he’d always have a hold on her ever after. Though Kore returned in springtime to her mother’s realm, she was never free of the lord of the underworld. Just as I would never be free of Augustus. As this child grew inside me, our lives entwined, and nothing would change that now. Like Kore, I had eaten the pomegranate seeds.

  THE baby wasn’t the only thing moving inside me. In my blood, the sirocco still swirled restlessly. I knew that I should learn how to use my magic, but I was too mistrustful of Euphronius. Though workers erected a tomb to Helios, I wouldn’t accept that he was dead, and I refused to have the old wizard near enough to tell me otherwise. To take my mind off my woes, I busied myself overseeing the work of the stonemasons and tile layers in the new palace. The architects liked my aesthetic sensibilities, though I’d become aware that people would flatter me because I was queen. I approved plans for a columned entrance and an enormous fountain in the main hall. A large garden too, with grape arbors and a sea of lavender.

  When springtime came it was safe for travel again and every manner of fortune seeker flocked to Mauretania. With them came an infusion of gold and gossip. We learned that King Herod vowed to build a new city in the East simply to keep us from attracting the finest engineers to Mauretania. We also learned that under the most mysterious circumstances, Cornelius Gallus, the Prefect of Egypt, had been recalled to Rome and forced to commit suicide.

  I didn’t smile at this news, though it had been exactly what I’d hoped for. Had the emperor ordered his death because of my letter? If so, it had been appallingly easy to convince Augustus to kill on my behalf. Gallus deserved to pay with his life for what he’d done to Thebes, but I was shaken by my own capacity for vengeance, and my realization that Augustus was still my own deadliest weapon.

  I only regretted that it changed nothing; the emperor simply sent another Gallus to rule over Egypt—this time, Gaius Aelius Gallus. I learned this from Julia, who wrote, I weep for your loss, Selene. We hear rumor that Helios was killed in Thebes, but my father denies it, saying only that your twin must have perished in a sea crossing. I think he’s content to let your brother’s name pass unmarred so that no taint of treason touches you.

  I doubted that. Augustus didn’t want Helios to be a rallying cry and so wouldn’t acknowledge him as a foe.

  Julia also wrote that her husband had been elected aedile for the coming year—a public administrator responsible for games and public works. It was a position Marcellus was too young to occupy, so I assumed that Augustus had rigged the election in favor of his heir or that Lady Octavia had convinced him to do so. Julia also told me that while the youngest of the Antonias wished to remain unwed until she was older, my eldest Roman half sister Antonia had been married off to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. I saw Lady Octavia’s hand in that marriage arrangement too. As First Woman in Rome, she could arrange the finest marriages for the children in her household. It must have vexed the emperor’s wife and I worried that Livia would find some new way of taking revenge.

  Julia ended her letter by saying, My father hasn’t been himself since you left; everyone has noticed it. He complains of every manner of ailment. It was too much to hope that the emperor suffered from an attack of conscience, and heavy with child, I couldn’t find it within myself to feel sorry for him.

  At last, a letter came from Philadelphus, the papyrus stained as if by tears. When I read how he grieved for Helios, I was deeply troubled. Philadelphus saw clearly into the Rivers of Time, didn’t he? He must know that Helios was alive. Was this tearful letter for the benefit of the Romans? Yes, that must be it. No letter from Philadelphus would reach my hands without being seen by a dozen of the emperor’s toadies. I could almost imagine the wily Maecenas reading it forward and back, looking for a cipher . . . but what if Philadelphus truly grieved? I called for Euphronius. “Do you know some spell to send a secret message to Philadelphus?”

  “If I did, I’d have used it by now,” the old mage said.

  I sighed, flinging the letter down. “I keep making the same mistake of thinking you’ll be of some use to me.”


  “WHY can’t you forgive him?” Chryssa asked once Euphronius had gone.

  I turned to her, my palms outstretched. “How can you wonder? I once thought him wise, but now I know he’s a charlatan. Look at what his false visions have wrought. You know what he’s done to Helios. What happened in Thebes is his fault. I won’t let him fill my head with false hope and foolish plans.”

  “I’m the one who made it possible for Helios to escape the emperor,” Chryssa reminded me. “I showed him the tunnels underneath the Palatine. If you blame Euphronius, you ought to blame me too. You did blame me. So why forgive me and not a holy man?”

  “Because you’re a slave. You weren’t free to do anything other than what Helios told you to.”

  “Is that what you think?” Chryssa was good at disguising her emotions, but a flick of her eyes showed me that I’d deeply offended her. I’d trivialized her love, loyalty, and the risks she’d taken for my brothers and me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She turned away to fold my linens. “You’re a queen and sacred to Isis. You’ve no need to apologize to a mere slave.”

  “You’re no mere slave.” We’d suffered much together. Our bond was deeper than I’d been willing to admit to myself before now. “I know that Helios would probably have run away from Rome without anyone else’s help . . .”

  “Then why can’t you forgive the mage?”