Song of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  It wasn’t until Juba pushed his knee between mine that I became a frightened girl again and the shuttered doors rattled open with a gust of wind. “Let me go.”

  Juba whispered, “Selene, I’ll be gentle with you . . .”

  “Let me go before the servants see us together this way.”

  He withdrew, blinking in bewilderment. “You’re my wife. There’s no shame in this.”

  “To the contrary. I’ve never done anything so shameful in my life.”

  IN my chambers, I threw myself down on the bed, burying my face in the pillows, smothered with self-loathing. What had I done? What had I allowed to be done to me. Always before, desire was the goddess in me. Not my needs, but hers. Desire had always been something holy. Something sacred—no, that wasn’t true. My body had responded to Juba on our wedding night. Of course, that was before he’d given me over to the emperor’s bed. Before he’d betrayed me and accused me and threatened me . . . what excuse did I have now? Juba had kissed me and I’d kissed back. I’d kissed a man I knew I couldn’t trust. Agrippa, Livia, and Augustus had all accused me of being a wanton. I’d always denied it. Now I wondered if I knew myself at all. Perhaps I was a faithless whore. All my family was dead, or presumed to be. My twin brother was fighting a war. Egypt was suffering. And I? I’d survived all so that I could kiss a man I didn’t love. If I’d known I was capable of prostituting myself, perhaps I wouldn’t have run from the emperor. What difference did the man make if the shame was all alike? In Rome, I’d had the emperor in my hand and the double crown of Egypt poised above my head. But I’d fled, all so that I could offer myself to a man who had no higher ambition than writing his next treatise on geography !

  “Majesty?” Chryssa entered the room. “The king told me that you were upset . . .”

  “Of course he did. The king has no sense of discretion whatsoever.”

  She sat on the edge of my bed, unbidden. “I think that he cares for you.”

  I turned to glare. “Chryssa, you have little idea the myriad ways in which he’s betrayed me.”

  She knew more than anyone not to argue in Juba’s defense, but she asked, “Doesn’t Isis ask us to forgive?”

  I didn’t want to listen. Her eyes were bright with love for her widowed Berber chieftain and I knew that love made women foolish. She probably envisioned that Juba and I could find the same companionship she’d found with Maysar. She simply didn’t understand. “There are some things that are unforgivable. And I was born with my mother’s hard, unforgiving heart.”

  Chryssa had the temerity to laugh at me. “You couldn’t even make your heart hard enough to throw your husband’s whore out into the street! And when you finally banished that odious Balbus, you sent him off with a ransom.”

  “Those were matters of political expedience. The king . . . my husband . . . Juba is another matter.”

  Chryssa rose to extinguish the candles in the sconces on the wall, plunging our talk into darker, deeper intimacy. “You think your mother wouldn’t have forgiven him.”

  “She wouldn’t have.”

  “Didn’t your father break with your mother to marry Octavia?” Chryssa asked, snuffing out another candle. “Yet Cleopatra forgave Antony, didn’t she? She took him back.”

  I’d been only a little child when that happened. Isidora’s age. Even so, I’d known of my mother’s distress. Her tears. Her passionate vows that she’d have nothing to do with my father again. How had I forgotten that? Shaking the memory away, I said, “My mother must’ve forgiven him because it was in the interests of Egypt to do so.”

  I smoothed my hair back, returning myself to composure. From now on, I’d learn more control. I already knew how to mask my face; I could master the rest of me too. No one would see my cheeks flush with humiliation unless I allowed it. And no one would kiss me and feel my body quicken with desire unless it was for political gain.

  EUPHRONIUS hunched over his table, sniffing something that looked like a cactus. “Your cat nibbled upon this plant and vomited it up with no ill effects. The local tribesmen say that it has a purgative effect and the king has promised to name it after me if I discover it’s useful as an herbal remedy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is Juba afraid he’ll need it as an antidote to poison?”

  “You don’t seem pleased that he’s returned.”

  “Why should I be?” I asked, watching him work. Trying to learn. “Juba is ruining everything!”

  “How so?” the mage asked. “Lady Lasthenia tells me that the king has acquired an interest in Pythagorean philosophy.”

  “What of it? Juba has an interest in everything and a commitment to nothing.”

  Euphronius cut the plant with a sharp knife, exposing a milky substance. “Our little princess seems quite taken with him.”

  “My daughter is a small child and she’s excited about the monkey Juba gave her for the Saturnalia. She doesn’t know better. Now that the holiday season is past, Juba’s ordered that work start again on that horrid gladiatorial arena. What’s more, he’s countermanded my orders that Maysar invite ambassadors from the Garamantes for a hearing of their grievances. Worse, he recommended to the Roman Senate that Lucius Cornelius Balbus be made proconsul of Africa Nova. Just as I thought I was rid of that man!”

  “Majesty,” Euphronius interrupted. “You summoned the rains; it’s going to be a very good harvest. You’ll provide Augustus with a veritable mountain of grain. He’ll see, he must see, that you’re meant to rule Egypt, so why concern yourself with a husband that you may not have for long?”

  His question startled me. “You think I’ll be able to divorce Juba . . . or . . .” I eyed the plant.

  Euphronius scowled at my implication. “If Augustus sets you on the throne of Egypt, I think you’ll be forced to divorce and compelled to give up all claim to Mauretania. It’s one thing to restore Cleopatra’s daughter to power. Quite another to expand her territory beyond the farthest reaches of the Ptolemaic Empire.”

  The vapors from the plant stung my eyes and I was suddenly eager to be done with this conversation. “It’s useless to speculate,” I finally said. “Augustus hasn’t had a word for me since last winter.”

  Euphronius was uncharacteristically frank. “Your paths to rule Egypt do narrow, Majesty.”

  “WHY must we visit Master Gnaios?” Isidora asked, swinging like her monkey at the end of my arm. She didn’t even notice the palace guards who followed us down the corridor; she took them as her due. “I want you to take me to see the lambs.”

  Now that it was lambing season, I had promised to take her to watch the ewes giving birth, but it would have to wait. “First, we’re going to see Master Gnaios because he’s made some statues for us.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked him to.”

  “Why?” she asked again. This had apparently become her favorite question.

  Fortunately, Gnaios relieved me of an exasperated reply when he cried, “Majesty!” Hurriedly grabbing up his tools when we were announced, he warned, “This is no place for a child. There are bits of stone and dust and sharp instruments—”

  “She likes to be with me.” I’d never deny her that, and whenever Isidora’s tantrums strained my nerves, I reminded myself of all the dark nights I’d longed for my own mother, never to find her there.

  Without fanfare, Gnaios pulled a curtain aside to reveal the first statue, and my hands went to my mouth. “It—it hasn’t been painted yet,” Gnaios said quickly, to fend off criticism. “It’s only pale marble.”

  It was a ghost of Caesarion, features waxy, like they must have been after he was strangled. “I think you’ve captured his ka. This is what my brother looked like.”

  “It’s what my brother looks like,” my daughter said, spouting nonsense just to vex me.

  “Isidora, behave!” I recovered from the surprise of seeing Caesarion, only to be saddened by the likeness of Philadelphus, with its cherubic cheeks and pudgy fingers. “Oh no. But you’v
e made him look so young . . .”

  Gnaios hung his head. “He was only six years old when last I saw him, Majesty.” And when I nodded my understanding, he went on to say, “For Petubastes, I adopted the Egyptian style, in basalt. Only proper for an Egyptian priest.”

  “Selene?” I turned to see Juba in the doorway with an official dispatch in his hand. A purple cape trailed from his shoulders, and he looked kingly and resplendant. Yet his face was grim as death. “We’ve received word from the emperor. You’ve been summoned to the Isle of Samos.”

  IN Juba’s study I read the missive twice; then, as I dizzied, the lettering ran together like spilled ink. It wasn’t the emperor’s handwriting. Nor was it an expression of imperial fury. It was a formal and official document penned by Maecenas that summoned me to Greece. A broken water clock perched precariously at the edge of Juba’s writing table and he tinkered with its decorated parts, intent upon repairing it. “Why do you seem so stunned, Selene?”

  Because the reckoning is finally at hand, I thought. More than a year had passed since I’d fled Rome. Plenty of time for the emperor’s cool anger to rise to a roiling boil. I’d used the time to make myself a capable queen; the reports he’d receive from legionaries and plantation owners should convince him I was a useful, if not essential, part of his plans. I’d gambled that his ambition was stronger than his vindictiveness. How anxious I was not to lose that gamble. “Why am I stunned, Juba? Why aren’t you? What have you heard? What does the emperor intend?”

  Juba carefully removed the little chime from the water clock, inspecting it for rust. “I’m not surprised that you’ve been summoned because all the Eastern royalty are being called to Samos. Archelaus of Cappadocia and Iamblichus of Emesa are both seeking to be reaffirmed to their kingdoms. I’m told that Augustus will restore Tarcondimotus to his ancestral lands. He might do the same for Mithridates III of Commagene.” In short, there wasn’t a petty prince in the Mediterranean world who wouldn’t be there, currying the emperor’s favor in the hopes of retaining or regaining his patrimony. I was only different because I was a woman and because I was Cleopatra’s daughter. Augustus had gone to the East to play kingmaker, and he was summoning me.

  Juba leaned back, jingling the bell in his hand, avoiding my eyes, but his concentration on the water clock couldn’t disguise the bitterness in his voice. “If I had to guess, Selene, I would say that at long last the emperor plans to give you your heart’s desire.”

  At the word desire, an arrow of shame pinned me to my seat as I remembered my lust-soaked lips pressed against Juba’s mouth. In Rome, I’d given no consideration to the emperor’s proposal to bear him a son, though it may have granted me everything. Then I’d kissed Juba for no advantage whatsoever. Regrettably, he had plainly read something into that kiss. Taken some sign from it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered with genuine sorrow, for it seemed as if I were destined always to disappoint him.

  “Augustus will expect tribute,” Juba said, stoutly. He was right. From the other princes, the emperor would demand monuments and oaths of loyalty. From me, the emperor would demand grain, but I couldn’t lie to myself. Augustus might demand much more. You want Egypt, he’d said. Well, I want you to give me a son. Inwardly, I flailed like a bird in a net. Could I actually let Augustus put his defiling hands on me? Even for the throne of Egypt, could I open my legs for the same man who had forced them apart?

  Augustus had wanted me to be his Cleopatra, his lover, the mother of his son. Perhaps that was what he still wanted. Or perhaps his single objective was now to punish me. If that was the case, my only defense would be to enchant him, drawing his fascination tight as a bowstring until he’d risk anything to have me and do anything to please me. Digging my fingernails into my palms as if to raise blood, I reminded myself that I’d endured worse than a rutting man inside me. What right did I have to hold my body somehow sacred while others suffered? Hadn’t Isis herself written that I was more than flesh?

  Juba interrupted my thoughts, a look of melancholy settling on his features. “Are you going to go?”

  I let the summons fall from my lax grip. “What choice do I have?”

  Twenty-seven

  DESPITE the king’s distress, the mood in the palace was festive. Crinagoras lifted his wine cup in yet another toast to himself. “Such good fortune for Alexandria! Not only will Egypt be blessed with her rightful queen, but that fair city will soon be the home of the greatest court poet ever known.”

  Lady Lasthenia sighed with sentiment. “Oh, I have missed the Museum. All that we’ve learned here will generate much interest as a series of lectures.”

  Even Memnon, usually so professionally distant, quietly observed, “We’ll be exiles no more.”

  I was struck by the red-rimmed emotion in his eyes. Had none of my courtiers come to love Mauretania as I had? Or was it simply that none of them knew the price I might have to pay? Unutterably selfish ideas crowded my thoughts. I flirted with the idea of refusing the summons. Of staying here in Mauretania, where I might live in defiance. I fantasized about building something new, something untouched by the emperor . . . but I was a Ptolemy and these people, these Alexandrians, had been my mother’s subjects. Now they were mine. I must fight for them. I must fight for my heritage. I must fight for Egypt.

  At the start of their romance, my father had famously summoned my mother. At Tarsus, she’d come to him as Aphrodite. She’d come to seduce him, and no one who saw her gilded barge with its perfumed grottoes could’ve mistaken her intentions. Was that part of the grand drama that the emperor felt compelled to re-create? I wasn’t the only one to wonder. “He expects you to make a spectacle of yourself, doesn’t he?” Chryssa asked, as if calculating how this journey might drain the treasury.

  “Why wouldn’t she make a spectacle?” Lady Lasthenia asked. “She’s good at it. Our queen has theatrical sensibilities. If she’s to be the Queen of Egypt, isn’t it appropriate to show that she’s wealthy, powerful, and beloved of the gods? How else will people understand the import?”

  She wasn’t wrong. Before the other royalty of the world, it must never seem that I was just a minor queen of an unimportant Western kingdom. I’d have to bring lavish gifts that wouldn’t laden down our ship—smaller things of value, made of pearls and ivory. I’d need extravagant royal costumes and even the sails of my ship ought to be dyed in Gaetulian purple. Every prince in the world must see me as a worthy heir to my mother’s legacy.

  It would all play out on the world stage, so I must consider the symbolism behind every choice. With the emperor, everything was a game, a test. This one might well be the most important of my life. So how was I to make my entrance? Was I to dock the ship and invite Augustus and his men to join me for a feast? To flaunt my wealth, should I, like my mother before me, dissolve my pearl earrings in a glass of strong wine vinegar and drink it down? No, I thought. Augustus might have claimed my father’s place, but he didn’t see himself as Antony. He was Caesar. If I went to him, better to be rolled out at his feet in secret than come to him in open invitation.

  If I went to him . . . How was there any other choice?

  I might finally be going home to Egypt, so why did I feel so melancholy? Perhaps it was my maudlin tendencies or perhaps it was because I might never see Mauretania again. The cream and yellow marble of our palace, the green columns, the blue Berber carpets, the tapestries and statuary, the aloe plants beneath the almond and olive trees, and the glittering fountains in which my daughter loved to play. Without remembering how I got there, I found myself standing in the gardens, amidst the ocean of lavender that swayed in the breeze. When Euphronius came upon me, the sun was setting into the glow of dusk; I hadn’t noticed the lateness of the hour. “Majesty, you’ll send for me, won’t you?”

  It was understood that he couldn’t come with me to Greece, where he might be recognized as a mischief maker. “I’ll send for you the moment I step foot in Egypt . . . if I do.”

  “This may be your last o
pportunity, Majesty.”

  One didn’t need to see into the Rivers of Time to know that. Lifting my arms, I hoped to catch sight of symbols carved there, red and vivid, serpents and sails, ropes and staves, papyrus reeds and boats. There was nothing. No hieroglyphs to guide me. “Isis used to speak to me. She used to etch her words in my skin. If she’d only show me the way . . .”

  “I’ll find a blade,” Euphronius said. “If she’s called by the blood of her followers, I’ll spill my blood for you.”

  His offer, so earnestly made, so faithful, touched me. Once, Philadelphus had given his blood for just such a purpose, but now it seemed wrong to call upon my goddess by making someone else suffer. “No, Euphronius. I suspect Isis isn’t to be summoned to account like some client queen.” When the old man’s face fell, I took his hands. “There’s a story about Isis in Tyre. To protect her child and all of Egypt from the dark god, she lay down as a prostitute, did she not?”

  “So some stories say,” the old man admitted.

  I fingered the jade amulet at my throat. “And I am the Resurrection . . .”

  IN the days leading to my departure the Alexandrians weren’t just festive but jubilant. By contrast, the Mauretanians were dispirited and, in Maysar’s case, insolent. Hastily announcing his resignation in the empty audience room, the Berber chieftain gave no hint of that flashing white smile I’d come to appreciate. “I wish you luck, madam. If it’s time for you to return to Egypt, then it’s time for me to return to my tribe. I wasn’t meant for city living and can no longer be of use.”