Song of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  Oh, irony. He thought it was the emperor that stood between us, but it was Helios. It had always been Helios. Still, I didn’t like to see Juba in pain and regretted being any part of its cause. “Juba . . . I’ve come to think of you as a king.”

  “But not your king.” For a moment, I thought Juba might ask me to delay the trip, but I couldn’t have stayed. I had a daughter to think of now. A daughter with a proud ancestry who had only me to champion her. I’d stop at nothing to claim our right to Egypt now. Not for Juba or anyone else.

  THE winds were against us. In the sleek-oared galley I’d hired to speed us on our way, it still took us much longer to return to Rome than it had taken to leave. Waiting to spot land, my future seemed as fathomless as the blue sea. I didn’t know what awaited me; I didn’t even know if the emperor would still be alive when we anchored at port. I only knew that if there were any opportunity of winning Egypt, I must seize it.

  Our captain spoke Greek, wore an Egyptian amulet at his throat, and introduced himself as Kabyle, which was a Berber name. Memnon assured me that the skipper was of good reputation, and a few days into the trip Captain Kabyle called upon me in my berth, which had been his. Tala kept near, clutching her babe and mine.

  “Captain Kabyle,” I said by way of greeting. “You wear an ankh. Are you an Isiac?”

  “Isn’t every sailor, Majesty?” I suppose he had a point. Once, the seas had belonged to Poseidon and Neptune, but those gods seemed to offer only a watery death to those they despised, whereas Isis offered the magic of good winds and salvation of souls. It was the sailors who spread her worship, and every sailing season was marked by a festival in her honor, the Navigium Isidis. But I quickly gathered that the captain hadn’t called upon me to discuss a fellowship of faith. His stance was tense, his tone firm. “You and your women need to get belowdecks with the rowers.”

  Over his shoulder, through the open curtain, he barked something to an officer, and I thought I heard the word pirates. I stood and Tala followed me, clutching both children. We’d scarcely taken a few steps onto the deck before I spotted three black ships in our wake. “Are you sure they’re pirates?” I asked, my pulse quickening. It hardly seemed possible. Hadn’t Augustus boasted that he’d smashed the forces of Sextus Pompey and rid the world of piracy? “There must be a thousand ships that use these shipping lanes.”

  “And some of them are pirates, Majesty,” the captain explained. “They travel together and it’s a lean year. There’ll be famine in Rome and they know it. If they can seize a ship filled with grain, they can demand a steep price.”

  “But this isn’t a grain ship,” I said as the sail snapped and the ship turned sharply at the captain’s orders.

  “They don’t know that, Majesty, and royal hostages are valuable for ransom. Please go belowdecks with the rowers.”

  Ransom. For the love of Isis, what would become of my daughter and me if we were seized for ransom? Would Juba pay? Would the emperor? My bodyguards tried to hurry me belowdecks as the captain had commanded, but I couldn’t make myself move, and Memnon looked ready to carry me off on his shoulder.

  “Row!” the captain shouted as the ship bucked over the waves. “Row harder!”

  The pirate ships gained on us, and as the ocean spray swept over the deck I wondered how long we could flee, how long before our oarsmen tired. It was Isidora’s cry that finally roused me to action. I pried her from Tala’s arms.

  “We aren’t going to outrun them,” the Berber woman cried, and I could see that she was right. Our panicked rowers had lost their rhythm, oars wild, the ocean frothing beneath us. As our pursuers closed in, I could see the pirates themselves, hard-looking men. A grappling hook landed on our deck, but it wasn’t encased in metal the way that Admiral Agrippa’s always were, and the sailors quickly cut the line.

  “Majesty, we’re going to be taken,” Memnon said, grimly drawing his blade. “But it will cost them dearly.”

  No. We weren’t going to be taken. I’d been taken from Egypt and taken by the emperor, but I would never be taken again. I cursed myself for being too proud to learn from Euphronius. Holding Isidora in one arm, it was instinct alone that made me raise my free hand, palm toward our outstretched sail. “In the name of Isis,” I chanted, drawing from the well of heka inside me, and the magic leapt to my command. In Egypt, my goddess is painted with colored wings. She’s Isis, she’s Hathor, she’s Ma’at. Now, like a bird in flight, I heard her flapping wings as a dry gust of air swirled over the birthmark on my arm, then blew clean from my fingertips. Up, up into the sky it went. I tasted sand on my tongue and the scents of the desert filled my nostrils. I’d swallowed the sirocco and now breathed some of it out again, careful not to let it ravage me or topple our craft.

  The winds coalesced above us, and I released the heka at their core, willing them to blow into our sail. The ship rocked forward with sudden force and I clutched Isidora, who wailed in fear. I wanted to hush her, to tell her that my winds would carry us to safety, but with my hair whipping round my face I could barely hear my own thoughts. Then a huzzah went up from everyone as we broke away from the pirate pack, our sail full.

  The distance between us and the pirates opened to a wide expanse of ocean. But I was in a fury that these men put us in danger. There was more wind inside me. There was a whole storm. If I could use it to speed our ship over these waters, surely I could use it to swamp the pirate ships and send them to the bottom of the sea. I summoned another breath, the smoky grit of wrath inside my mouth. “Majesty,” Tala said, her eyes narrowed. “We’re away now . . . we’re away.”

  She was right. I didn’t have to harm the pirates; I just wanted to. I trembled with the effort to restrain myself, but Isis had given me this power. I couldn’t dishonor her by using it in vengeance. There’ d be justice for these pirates, I told myself. In this life or the next.

  When I lowered my arm, one of the sailors said, “Sweet Isis, it was the queen that saved us!”

  “Sorceress,” someone else muttered in fear.

  The Alexandrians aboard rejoiced in it. “Yes. Sorceress! She’s the Sorceress of the Nile. Cleopatra Selene is the New Isis!”

  Seventeen

  ITALIAN PENINSULA

  SPRING 23 B.C.

  WE docked in Ostia in the morning and sent a rider ahead of us. No sooner did we come ashore than we heard the gossip of the citizenry as they muttered blackly about the emperor’s health. Mourners wailed at the foot of one of his statues, claiming that he’d perished. I saw in their faces a collective fear that the civil wars would begin again and Roman blood would flow. Memnon commandeered the first carriage for hire and we set off straight away down the Via Ostiensis. Unaware of the danger, my daughter was delighted by the jostling of the coach as we raced down the road under umbrella pines. She giggled while Tala hushed her son, Ziri, and worried at the blue creases of her hands. “I’ll look so strange to them.”

  “You won’t shock the Romans,” I said absently. “The more exotic you are, the more prestigious you’ll make me seem.”

  Meanwhile, my thoughts raced ahead of our carriage. What if the emperor really was dead? Would I grieve? Should I grieve? I pushed these thoughts away and tried to guess where the power would go. I’d be fortunate if Marcellus became the next great man in Rome with his wife, Julia, at his side. I might be restored to Egypt yet.

  It was dark by the time we reached the gates of Rome, and as we made our way up the Palatine Hill, I felt my chest tighten. I’d never wanted to return, but here I was. The guards at the gate knew me, and the imperial family came flying out into the torch-lit night. I scarcely recognized Philadelphus. He was almost thirteen now, no longer the baby brother I’d left behind, but he threw his arms around me, crying, “Selene!”

  I was so happy to see him, so eager to hold him against me, that I went weak in the knees. Julia was next to greet me, dressed in a fashionable gown and dripping with jewels. She was attended by a group of ladies, including Chryssa’s si
ster, Phoebe, who scurried after her mistress to no avail. The emperor’s daughter embraced me with such wild abandon that several curls escaped her complicated hairstyle and her bright yellow palla slipped from her slender shoulders to the ground.

  “Oh, Julia,” I said, reaching for her. “Is your father . . . is he . . . ?”

  “He lives,” she said, her eyes filled with tears. “But for how long? They say I’ll be First Woman in Rome, and yet . . .” She suddenly laughed through her tears. “Just look at us. You still found a way to outshine me as a glamorous queen all covered in pearls. Let’s see this daughter you’ve already managed to have for Juba.”

  Little Isidora emerged from the carriage to a chorus of gasps and sighs. “Oh, just look at your beautiful baby girl,” Lady Octavia gushed, taking my child from Tala. I thought it might pain me to see my child in Octavia’s fleshy arms, those same arms that had claimed my mother’s children as her own. But my daughter would never know her true grandmother. Octavia was the closest thing. “Selene, she’s as precious a child as anyone could ask for. Let’s get her inside and out of the night air!”

  In spite of the strange warmth of this homecoming, this wasn’t a happy time in the imperial household. When we went inside, the slaves were huddled in corners, fear and uncertainty in their eyes. Livia was pale and distraught, her hair unkempt, and if I believed she was capable of shedding tears, I’d have sworn she’d been crying. “He’s waiting for you, Selene.”

  It almost gratified me to see her like this, but even a humbled Livia unnerved me. “I’ll call upon him in the morning.”

  “He may not have that long!” Livia snapped, and I was immediately brought back to the night she’d taken me to him. But there was no look of triumph on her face now. She’d been wrong about everything. She’d delivered me to her husband’s bed, all to no advantage. If Augustus died now, she’d lose everything and it would serve her right.

  “Please, Selene,” Octavia said, her own expression grave. “My brother is so very ill. He’s asking for you. You should go to him while the slaves unpack your belongings.”

  “We can’t stay here,” I said, regretting the way Octavia’s face fell at my words. She’d missed me, that was plain, but I couldn’t lodge in my old childhood room. “I have retainers and no king or queen may properly reside within the sacred boundaries of Rome. I’ll take a house outside the pomerium.”

  This appeal to old Roman values softened the blow. Octavia nodded. “Of course. It’s good of you to remember our laws.”

  “You taught me well,” I replied, giving her hand a squeeze and hoping she understood that I was entrusting the safety of my daughter to her. I kissed Isidora’s forehead, then, leaving my guards behind, I made my way to the emperor’s rooms at the top of the stairs.

  In the outer chamber, Admiral Agrippa sat with his big arms folded over his chest, jaw clenched, eyes focused somewhere far away. Marcellus was there too, and he brightened to see me, as if I’d alleviated some tension in the room.

  Agrippa stood with stiff formality. “You had good speed on the seas, Selene. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it . . .”

  “Is he really that sick?” I asked, for it wasn’t beyond Augustus to feign illness.

  “Musa says he’s suffering,” Agrippa said mournfully. Antonius Musa was the emperor’s physician, one of my father’s freedmen, and the finest doctor in Rome. His word carried much weight and I heard myself sigh with pity. After all the emperor had done, didn’t he deserve to suffer? And yet maybe calling me to his bedside was evidence of remorse. Of regret. Why else would he say that he wanted to make peace with me?

  I found that I was trembling. Marcellus took this for a chill, and gallantly removed his cloak, spreading it on my shoulders. “Selene, Musa says the time may be short. That’s why Augustus called for us. You, me, Agrippa, and Piso.”

  “Piso?” I asked, confused. “His fellow consul this year?” That the emperor had a colleague under Roman law was only a fiction to protect him from the accusation that he was a tyrannical monarch in deed if not name. It surprised me that he made this pretense even now, on his deathbed.

  Marcellus straightened. “I think Augustus is going to name me heir. He wants Piso to witness it.”

  Agrippa bristled. “You’d better hope not, boy! The emperor’s enemies call themselves Republicans and spread word that he’s setting up a dynasty for you to inherit. Isn’t the memory of Julius Caesar’s fate enough to frighten you?” I winced to hear Agrippa speak to Marcellus this way. Marcellus was only a young aedile, it was true, but the emperor’s nephew had served in the legions already in Spain. He was no boy and he might well be the next ruler of Rome.

  Musa stepped out of the emperor’s chamber and gave a small bow. “Majesty, Augustus is ready to see you. Please go in.”

  THAT I floated through the doorway with an aura of calm was more of a testament to my skills of deception than my steady nerves. I’d practiced the way I’d walk into his room, the exact expression, bracing for anything.

  “Cleopatra,” the emperor wheezed, lifting his head. The features of his face had hollowed, but his gray eyes were manic. Was he seeing me now, or my mother? How was I to know? “I told them you’d come.”

  With difficulty, I hid my distaste for the putrid smell of the room and smiled. “How should I not come, when summoned by Caesar?”

  “I’m dying, you know.”

  “We’re all dying,” I replied. “Or so the philosophers say.”

  A fit of coughing shook his frame. “It’s the curse you put on me . . . it’s killing me.”

  My hands began to sweat. “Isis cursed you, not I, and she didn’t condemn you to an early death.”

  “Come closer,” he whispered, crooking a finger at me. Oh, the strength it took to make my feet move toward that bed. I managed it, one foot after the other, reassuring myself that my body was filled with heka, and if I could fight pirates, I could fight him too. “By Apollo,” he said when I was fully illuminated by his bedside lamp. “You are a veritable Cyrene. How fair you’ve become.”

  I kept my chin high. If he wanted to play at myths, I wouldn’t stop him. Apollo had raped Cyrene, but he’d also made her a queen, and that’s why I’d come. I’d come for Egypt. My mother’s grandest passion and my daughter’s birthright. He reached out a hand for mine. His palm felt like paper, and it was everything I could do not to flinch away. To feel his touch again, to be alone with him again, was a trial nearly beyond endurance.

  “I wronged you,” he rasped. “I want your forgiveness.”

  There were so many crimes the emperor had committed that I couldn’t begin to list them all, much less find any forgiveness for him in my heart, so I asked, “Why should you want my forgiveness?”

  He captured my gaze, his mouth working slowly. “I wasn’t myself the night I forced you . . .”

  He admitted it. Just like that. I hadn’t ever expected to hear such a confession from him. It didn’t change what had transpired between us, but my throat closed and my eyes dropped to the floor as I fought back tears. He’d told me to cry when he rutted above me, but he’d have no more tears from me unless they were artifice. If I must drive nails into my hands to teach myself to hold in my pain, then I’d do it. And if a glimmer of pity for him should rise up inside me at the memory of how Livia had dosed him, I’d shove it back again, knowing that I wasn’t the first girl he forced in his bed.

  “You’ve had your revenge now, haven’t you, Selene?” He reached up with shaky fingers to brush my cheek. “You bore me a child, and yet how do I hear about your daughter? Not from you, no. From Juba.” A surge of nausea rose in my throat at the thought that Juba committed such things to paper. Did he have no care for discretion ? If his letters had been read by others, all the Roman world could be whispering that I was the emperor’s lover! “Why do you keep her from me when I’ve always kept my promises to you?” I don’t even think he knew he was lying. “I’ve treated Philadelphus kindly and I made you a q
ueen.”

  “You also promised to spare Helios,” I said bitterly. “Egypt too. Now Thebes is gone.”

  He groaned, a sound of disgust in his throat. “I punished Cornelius Gallus for that. You should be grateful to me instead of keeping a dying man from his own daughter.”

  “Isidora isn’t your daughter,” I hissed, wondering how I hadn’t considered before that he might take her from me. The emperor had taken Julia away from her mother the day she was born. Was it possible he’d summoned me to rip my child from my arms? I’d die before I let that happen. Or kill. My eyes drifted to one of the many cushions on his bed. Sick as he was, weak with fever, how hard would it be to smother him?

  He didn’t seem to sense his peril. “Stop scheming, Selene. She is my daughter. Juba swears he hasn’t touched you and you think too highly of yourself to surrender to an adulterous affair with some low-bred man. Admit it. I’m not long for this world, so you needn’t fear me now.”

  I’d fear him until the last breath rattled from his chest. “You cannot have Isidora. You cannot even claim her.”

  “Of course not.” He coughed again. “It would reflect poorly on my reputation, and as I see the end of my life near, I’m concerned with how I’ll be remembered.”

  “Then be remembered for doing the decent thing! Restore Egypt as an independent nation.”

  Though he seemed too weak to do it, he managed to pull a hairpin from my coiffure. A dark curl fell over my shoulder. “You’re the same ambitious girl you always were.” I wanted to wrench away from him, but I’d just asked him to free Egypt and he hadn’t refused. “You’re fertile, just like your mother. You gave me a child. They tell me you even named a city after me.”

  “Iol-Caesaria,” I confirmed, glancing up to meet his eyes.

  He chuckled. “Clever girl. You’ve driven Herod mad. He’s promised to name two cities after me, and now every petty king in the East thinks to do the same. Ah, think what we could’ve done together, my Cleopatra, but now my tomb is nearly finished and I won’t live long.”