Cleopatra's Moon

by Vicky Alvear Shecter

  “Do you know what this knot means?”

  “That I follow the Great Goddess,” I said, remembering Mother’s words.

  Amunet took another sip. “Yes, but this particular amulet means you have been initiated into the Mysteries of Isis. Yet you have not, so I am curious as to how it is that you wear it around your neck.”

  “Mother gave it to me,” I said.

  “For safekeeping?”

  “No. She gave it to me on the night we talked about Isis and why she is the One I must follow. It was after Euphronius took us to speak with a rabbi and we learned about the Hebrews’ religion.”

  “And what did you learn that day?” she asked.

  “That the Jews believe in only one male god and a strange concept he called ‘free will.’“

  “Why do you call it strange?”

  “Because, well …” I did not know how to answer at first. It was strange to me because I hadn’t completely understood it. I related the story of the Garden of Happiness the rabbi had told us. “He said their god gave his first people a command, but they had free will and disobeyed, bringing evil into the world….” I trailed off.

  Amunet stared at me over her shimmering cup of beer. “This idea of ‘free will’ is neither strange nor new — it is implicit in ma’at. What is strange is the belief that a woman making a choice brought evil to the world.”

  I took another sip of the beer, wondering if I had conveyed the story correctly. But I wondered too why the Priestess of Isis had brought me into this small chamber. Surely it wasn’t to discuss what the Jews of Alexandria believed, was it?

  “Tell me,” she finally said. “Do the Greeks believe in free will?”

  “No, we believe in the Moirae — the Three Fates who determine our lives at birth. One should not try to escape one’s fate because it angers them and the gods. Even Zeus-Amun feared the Moirae!”

  She nodded. “And what did the Moirae set as your fate, do you think?”

  I looked at her, confused. Wasn’t it obvious? “That I would be queen of Egypt, of course.”

  But my airway nearly closed as I realized that I would only become queen of Egypt if Mother died. I did not want Mother to die. Had my thoughtless rumination called Anubis to fall upon Mother? I quickly touched two fingers over my heart. I take it back, I begged Anubis. O God of Judgment, Preserver of the Dead, Guardian to Hades. I beseech you to keep my mother safe.

  Amunet looked at me for a long moment. “The Seven Hathors and the Moirae may claim to set one’s fate, but Lady Isis knows that you must still choose right action and live by the rules of ma’at. The question I have is whether your mother ignored the rule of ma’at by giving you that necklace. The queen knows the meaning of this amulet and who may or may not wear it. Why, then, did she give it to you? And why,” she asked in almost a whisper, “would she go into war without it?”

  Was Amunet going to tell me I had no right to it? Or worse, that my possession of it somehow endangered Mother?

  “Isis of Pharia is your safe harbor,” Amunet announced after an eternity of scrutiny. “Isis is your savior.”

  “What is she saving me from?” I asked. And more important, shouldn’t she be saving Mother?

  Lady Amunet continued looking at me without speaking, and I struggled not to fidget under her gaze. After a few moments, she rose and brought a white lotus to me. “Spit into it,” she commanded.

  I paused, but her dark eyes were insistent. I obeyed. She sat back on her heels, closed her eyes, and chanted in the old sacred tongue, plucking the petals my essence touched and casting them into a golden bowl filled with Nile water. The white petals swirled, some barely skimming the surface, others tilting their curved edges just under the water’s skin. Amunet examined them and made a little noise in her throat, which alarmed me. What had she seen? What did it mean?

  “Come with me,” she finally said. I followed her out into the courtyard and into a small, windowless room that reeked of sweat and incense and something else too, sweet and familiar. I stood in front of a cartouche, trying to read the painted hieroglyphic symbols.

  “It says, ‘Isis Great of Magic,’“ Amunet said quietly. “Even Ra was humbled by Isis’s magic. It is a powerful force to harness.”

  “We are in the Room to Call Forth Isis’s Magic?” I croaked in surprise. “You are going to do magic?”

  “No. I am going to instruct you on how to cast the spell the Goddess bids me teach you,” she said.

  A spell? That I was to learn? My pulse quickened in fear and excitement.

  Amunet lit a bowl of incense on a low table. The smell was sharp, bitter, and smoky, and I tried not to cough but could not help myself. “Frankincense,” the priestess said. After murmuring instructions to a servant, she purified every corner with the incense smoke. The room grew hot and hazy. The servant returned, carrying a large bowl of a dark, viscous liquid and placed it in the center of the room. Amunet picked up an ivory elephant tusk covered in carved symbols, ciphers, and codes.

  She stood with me in the center of the room, setting the bowl at my feet. Then she placed the tip of the horn onto the dirt floor and drew a circle of protection around us, chanting a prayer in the old language.

  “Now you,” she said, bidding me to repeat the secret words as I redrew the circle, which seemed to pulsate as we closed ourselves in. She dipped a brush made of goat hair into the liquid and watched as it dripped. I knew the sweet metallic scent then — blood. A bowl of blood. But from which sacrificed animal?

  Amunet began painting with the thick, clotted liquid on the ground at our feet, dipping the goat-hair brush over and over again to make the lines thick and sharp. I could not make sense of the image, thinking at first it was a hieroglyph. But then she gave the brush to me. “Paint over the same lines,” she instructed. “You must know the image. You must ‘see’ it to understand.”

  I did as she instructed, my eyes tearing from the smoke, my lungs burning with the heat and the clotted smell of fresh blood. Three times I painted over the image, waiting to see whatever I was supposed to see. It was only when my vision grew blurry from the smoke and my arm grew tired of repainting the lines that I understood. I dropped the brush in astonishment.

  “Anubis!” I rasped. “This is the face of Anubis. Why are you having me call up the presence of the God of Death?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “You must not fear the God of the West, He Who Judges Your Heart, Preserver of the Soul for Eternity,” Amunet whispered.

  My breathing came shallow as I tried to rein in my terror. The jackal-headed god of death and embalming! For what reason would she have me summon him? Was Anubis claiming me? But I did not want to die! Not yet!

  “Do you feel his presence, child?” Amunet whispered in my ear. “We have called him to us with the blood of a freshly sacrificed black dog — the only way one can ever summon Anubis.”

  I stared down at the image in blood at my feet, the pointed ears and long snout that I had drawn myself. My throat felt tight, my hands trembled, and my breathing sounded as it did when I finally made it to the highest point in the Lighthouse. What else could this terror be except the god’s presence? I nodded.

  “Good,” she breathed. “The Dark God has a strong presence in your life.”

  A small whimper escaped my throat, though I had commanded myself to be strong and act like a queen. In shame, I closed my eyes, trying to calm my breathing.

  “That means,” she continued, “that you may call on him in times of need to curse your enemies and protect the sons of Egypt.”

  “Protect the sons of Egypt — what does that mean?” I asked. “And how would I do that?”

  Amunet stood, eyes closed, as if in a trance, the incense smoke swirling around her like serpents coiling up a tall column. Had she heard me? Should I ask again? I held my tongue, staring into her face. The smoke from the incense made my eyes burn, and I felt tears of both frustration and fear well up in them.

  “You need o
nly know how to call the Great Jackal God,” she said quietly. “You cannot fail if you call him correctly.”

  But what would I need him for? I wanted to scream. And him of all the gods! Why?

  Amunet’s eyes opened almost with a snap. “Now,” she said. “I teach you how to unbind the magic.”

  “But you must tell me why —”

  She gave me a fierce look meant to quiet me. It worked. She sprinkled dirt over the blood-painted image in the reverse direction of our painting, then had me repeat the action. Amunet then redrew the circle with the ivory tusk, again in the reverse direction. When we stepped out of the circle, I took a deep, ragged breath as if something — the god? Fear? — had released me.

  The priestess must have sensed my agitation, for she held up a hand. “I cannot answer your questions. I have been led simply to show you the Magic for Calling Forth Anubis. The gods do not explain themselves. Child, do not look so stricken!” she continued. “This is a spell of protection and empowerment. You will use it to save the sons of Egypt. And you will know when to call Him.”

  “But does … does that mean Anubis is my patron god and not the Great Goddess?”

  Amunet turned to me with wide eyes. “Absolutely not! Anubis serves Isis, his true Mother, the one who raised him, and not the other way around. It is the Goddess who directs my hand in this. And it will be the Goddess who directs you to call upon her stepson, Anubis. That is all the gods privilege me to know.”

  I looked down, feeling chastened, but I did not know for what. Amunet clapped her hands, and servants began removing the remnants of her magic. I followed her out the door. “But how will I know the Goddess is directing me? Will I hear her voice?”

  “The Goddess speaks to me in dreams and visions. Sometimes she speaks to me with unbidden thoughts. She may well speak to you in the same ways, but we cannot know.”

  Well, that did not help. “Will you teach me more magic?” I asked, thinking I would feel better if I knew magic beyond just calling up Anubis.

  “After your first blood, you will begin training in the old language and the old ways. Then you will learn how to use Isis’s magic. It is unusual, but not unheard of, for the Goddess to command a spell be learned before your apprenticeship.”

  “But what does it mean?” I asked again, hurrying after her as she led me toward the temple entrance, where Katep waited for me.

  Amunet stopped and turned toward me. “Child, only the gods know what it ‘means.’ It is not for us to question the gods but to obey.”

  I followed more slowly after that, wondering where I had heard that phrase before. And then I remembered. Hadn’t the rabbi said that very thing about their first man and woman? I shook my head, more confused than ever. How can humans have free will and choose ma’at if our only job is to obey?

  Euginia normally roused me in the mornings by jumping onto my sleeping couch. Zosima often complained that she could hear our raucous laughter and whoops even down at the latrines. But one morning, I woke on my own, without her tickles or jumps. Had she overslept? I got up and padded into her room.

  “Euginia, am I to be your lady this morning?” I asked, grinning as I prepared to launch myself onto her sleeping couch. But I straightened when I saw she was already out of bed. Her long hair was in disarray, her nostrils red, and her eyes puffy. She was putting all her finest tunics and dresses in one pile on the floor at her feet.

  “What is the matter?” I asked, alarmed and confused.

  “I must leave to join my father,” she said.

  “What? You cannot leave! This is where you live! And you … you are mine!”

  She shook her head. “My father says the queen will lose the war….”

  I blew out air in surprise, but she continued.

  “My tata has left Alexandria. He renounced his position and calls for us, for my family, to join him in exile. He has an estate in Heliopolis and wants to ride out the remainder of the war in safety there.”

  “He has turned traitor?” I asked in disbelief.

  “No, not traitor,” Euginia said. “Just … just … He says he wants to keep his family safe.”

  “But you have been consecrated to me,” I cried. “You cannot leave!”

  Euginia shook her head. “Our dedication ceremony was never sanctified by the priestesses, remember? We were to wait until after our first bloods. Tata says that I break no sacred law by leaving you now.”

  My thoughts spun in confusion. Was it true? Were Mother and Father actually losing? I knew they had been trapped in Actium for some time, but I never doubted that they would turn things around. Did Euginia’s father know something I did not?

  “What if … what if I commanded you to stay?” I asked, lifting my chin. “I can do that!”

  Euginia’s large eyes filled with tears.

  “You would defy me?” I asked, stung.

  “No. It is that I … I cannot defy my father,” she said. “If I don’t come willingly, he will send guards to drag me away.”

  “But that is outrageous,” I cried. “Our palace guards would protect you! If I gave the order, they would not even let them inside.”

  “My father has already made arrangements with King Caesarion. Your guards will step back.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “But why? And why would Caesarion be involved in this?”

  “Because Father has told the king that if he does not allow us to slip away from Alexandria without notice, he will spread panic throughout the court and the city about what is really happening in Actium. So you see? We have no choice. I must go.”

  I could barely breathe as I took in her words. Was it true that my parents might lose the war? Impossible!

  “I do not want you to go,” I said, my voice dropping almost to a whisper.

  “I do not want to leave either,” Euginia said. “But … but when this is all over, when the queen returns triumphant, I will rejoin you as your lady. Then, by the Laws of Isis and Horus, we will never be parted again. That is a promise.”

  “I will hold you to it, sister,” I said through a tight throat. And so the process of losing everyone I ever loved began.

  Mother returned from Actium not long after. She decorated her flagship in victory flags and commanded her musicians to blare marches of triumph as she approached the Royal Harbor. All of Alexandria rejoiced that the queen had returned triumphant.

  But it did not take long for everyone to learn that it had been all for show. Mother had not “won” at Actium; she had merely broken through the enemy’s blockade. Father had broken through with her but then sailed for Libya to prepare his legions there to engage the enemy on land. We — along with all of Alexandria — only learned the truth of Mother’s ruse after she executed traitors, those who had secretly and not so secretly supported Octavianus. Later I would learn that Euginia’s father had been one of the executed.

  But so grateful was I to have Mother safely back, I never questioned her need to eliminate her political enemies — or whether Euginia’s father’s attempt to keep his family safe actually constituted treason. I prayed only that Euginia would be safe and reminded myself that when everything was over, I would find her and bring her back to be my lady.

  One night I visited Mother’s chambers in what I still called the “deep-dark.” She was poring over an untidy pile of scrolls, so I played with Hekate. The green-eyed creature seemed to have gone almost feral in Mother’s long absence. She was not interested in the peacock feather I waved in front of her face; she only had eyes for Mother’s bare ankles. Hekate crouched behind the shimmering mother-of-pearl screen across from Mother’s desk, tensed her back legs — tail swishing — and pounced.

  Mother yelped as Hekate bit and scratched her in one lightning strike, then skittered across the gleaming marble and onyx floor in a furious race for the antechamber.

  Mother jumped out of her chair in a rage. “You wicked beast,” she hissed. “How dare you!” She took one of the still-rolled scrolls on her desk a
nd threw it with all her might into the other room.

  I gasped. Never, not once, had I ever seen Mother react with such fury. Charmion and Iras both jumped up in alarm.

  “Lady, no!” Iras said. “That is sacrilege! Bastet will surely exact revenge….”

  Mother rounded on her. “As if she has not punished me enough? Well, if the good goddess wants to attack me, she will know that I always fight back.”

  “But …,” I started, and Iras shook her head at me in warning. I closed my mouth.

  Charmion made the sign for protection against evil and closed the door to the antechamber to keep the cat away. Mother’s eyes, ringed by deep, almost purple shadows, seemed huge and feverish. She cursed wildly under her breath as she checked her now-bleeding ankle.

  “Get me something,” she ordered. Iras brought her a soft linen cloth and began blotting at the deep scratch, but Mother snatched the fabric from her and applied pressure herself. I had never seen her so agitated. She must have felt me watching her because she turned to me, eyes blazing.

  “You come in here and rile that creature up with your ridiculous games! This is your fault. I need you to leave now!”

  “But I did not do anything. I —”

  “Go! Take that odious feather with you and GET OUT!”

  I looked up at her, frozen in shock, afraid and yet furious that she was blaming me for the cat’s attack. Then I threw the feather down and ran out of her room.

  Katep, who had been dozing on a bench across the hall, jumped up. “What is wrong?”

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted, and ran back to my rooms. I was too agitated to go into my chamber, so I paced outside it, waiting for Katep. To my surprise, Charmion walked beside him.

  “Little Moon …,” Charmion said.

  “I am not so little anymore, if you haven’t noticed,” I spat.

  She sighed. “I would like to explain,” she said, “about the pressure on the queen right now. Come with me.”

  Katep handed her a small oil lamp, and my mother’s lady and I moved into one of the side gardens ideal for private conversations. Date palms ruffled in the breeze, gray and mysterious in the dark. Occasional gusts of wind, rich with the smells of the sea, teased the scents out of sleeping lotus, jasmine, rose, and honeysuckle blooms. I never again smelled a combination so achingly beautiful — the cool salt of the sea intermingling with the heady perfume of Egyptian blossoms. I filled my lungs with the richness of it, trying to suppress the maddening hiccups that sometimes followed my tears.