Lily of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  SERVANTS streamed into my mother’s tomb with plates of dates and cheese, grilled flat breads, bowls of fruits, and platters of roasted meats. I noticed that it wasn’t just the Greeks and the light-skinned Alexandrians who came to honor the queen. The maidens from the country came too and they had skin as brown as the beer they served.

  My brothers and I had been so isolated since my mother’s death that we were eager to be amongst people again. I had to actually restrain myself from throwing my arms around our prickly doctor, Olympos, when we saw him. I was even happy to see my mother’s eunuch, Fat Mardian!

  Mardian bowed and kissed my hand. “Princess, it’s so good to see that you and your brothers are well. I have a little good news in all this sadness. I report that in your mother’s final year, the Nile swelled and flooded to its greatest extent. Pharaoh’s last gift to her people is a bountiful harvest.”

  A bountiful harvest for the Romans to gobble up, I thought.

  “Where is that traitor, Plancus?” Helios asked. “If he takes even one mouthful of my mother’s funeral feast, I hope he chokes on it.”

  “What’s this about choking?” asked Olympos, his voice flat. He’d been devoted to keeping my mother alive; now his brown eyes seemed hollow. “Are the Romans feeding you children? You look thin.”

  “They bring us food, but never anything good,” Philadelphus replied, his eyes lighting up at the treats being served.

  I blinked back unexpected tears at the comfort of familiar voices and faces. Still, my mother and father’s closest friends were not with us. My father’s lieutenant, Canidius, had been executed. The other soldiers, scholars, and minor royalty that had once called themselves the Society of Inimitable Livers were nowhere to be found. I was afraid Euphronius would tell me that they too had been killed.

  All who remained were scholars like Nicholas of Damascus, Lady Lasthenia of the Pythagorean School, and nobles like Diodromes who had sometimes teased my mother for being too Egyptian and not enough Greek. Alexandria was the epicenter of Hellenistic culture and Greek-Macedonian blood flowed in our veins too, but my mother had been an Egyptophile in every respect. She’d raised us to feel the same way, so Euphronius kept us separate from the Greek nobles. Unfortunately, we could still overhear their conversations.

  “They say King Caesarion has fled to India,” Lady Lasthenia said. “But I think he must be hiding here in Alexandria. He’ll wait for the right moment to rally the people, then strike at Octavian.”

  “No,” Diodromes replied. “Queen Cleopatra was all that stood between us and Rome. They’ll kill the boy and crush the Isiac temples. Octavian will tolerate no rival to the name Caesar.”

  When he realized I was listening, the lord lowered his head and went silent beneath my gaze. He let a servant pour rich brown beer into his cup. I tasted my own and it was bitter.

  I wasn’t hungry either so I offered what was left on my plate to Philadelphus, who gobbled it up as if he’d never eaten before. Oil lamps kept the walls around us lit, but shadows loomed inside me. The headdress and grief weighed down on me, and I stared at my cup. The paint on my face left a smudge on it that looked like a grotesque death mask and I began to realize from the eyes of all those in attendance that they were saying farewell not just to my mother but to us too.

  “They act as if this is our funeral,” Helios whispered, echoing my own thoughts as he reached for a washbasin. Then he was washing his face and hands, leaving bloody water and flecks of gold in the basin. I noted that my twin resembled me, but in the fashion of a boy. His arms and legs were longer than mine, his face flatter and his thick, flaxen hair curled where mine was dark and wavy. He looked like Alexander the Great, the conqueror he was named after. I wondered how my mother had known to name him that, but I tried not to think of her, for every time I did, it reminded me that I was the one who brought her the deadly basket.

  “Eat, Princess,” Olympos insisted, so I nibbled at some flat bread until the temple prostitutes approached us and laid holy amulets at our feet.

  One of them, with a dark braided wig, wept openly. “Holy twins, Saviors, what will we do without Isis?”

  I started to make some reply, surprised as I was by her question, but Euphronius intervened, his lips drawn into sharp lines. “Don’t upset the children. Be off with you.”

  At last, the scent of grassy funeral magic filled the air, as the priests read the words painted on my mother’s tomb in ochre, carnelian, and azure. Invigorated with power from the Temple of Isis, they cast spells on the shabti—the small wax figures of servants and soldiers that would serve my mother in the afterworld. Then the remains of the meal were carefully gathered and placed in the burial chamber along with my mother and father’s sarcophagi. The holy books were also placed inside with what treasure the citizens had gathered for her. Then, with kisses, the tomb was sealed.

  Outside—where the setting sun lit the sky purple, the color of kings and queens—the Roman admiral Agrippa waited for us. “I’ve come to fetch the children. We sail for Rome in the morning, so make your good-byes.”

  Our wizard stepped in front of us protectively, planting his staff in the ground. “Lord Agrippa, winter is almost here. It’s too dangerous to risk the sea.”

  “Have you ever commanded a ship, you old warlock?” Agrippa demanded, without waiting for an answer. “Until you do, you mind your potions and I’ll mind my ships.”

  Philadelphus pulled the husked crown from his head and began to quake. “But we’re supposed to go to Rome overland, the long way. That’s what almost always happens.”

  Helios and I both stared at Philadelphus. Since my mother’s death, our little brother didn’t speak often, and when he did, he said strange things like that. Our tutor, however, didn’t seem to notice. Instead, Euphronius tried to reason with Agrippa. “At least let me accompany the children to Rome. I’m sure that Lord Octavian, in his infinite mercy, will permit me to continue their schooling.”

  Agrippa eyed our wizard with an expression between contempt and fear. “We won’t let you teach these children more Isiac witchery. We don’t want you or any temple whore near them; they’re now prisoners of war. Property of Rome.”

  Not if Caesarion came to rescue us. But for that, we needed time, and that’s what Euphronius argued for now. “Surely, the noble Octavian wishes to stay a little longer in Egypt and see the riches that he has won with his great victory.”

  “Oh, Caesar will stay awhile,” Agrippa said. “Meanwhile, I’ll keep Rome for him in his absence and attend to these brats.”

  Euphronius winced. “Don’t you wish to visit Alexander’s tomb and—”

  Philadelphus interrupted, staring out at the water of the harbor. “They broke Alexander.”

  “It was an accident,” Agrippa said impatiently, eyeing Philadelphus suspiciously. “Caesar merely reached out and Alexander’s nose came off in his hand.”

  Our wizard nearly barked with outrage. Had Octavian actually dared to touch Alexander the Great? For generations, pilgrims had come to Alexander’s tomb, to see his golden body preserved in honey. Julius Caesar himself had knelt by the alabaster coffin and wept. Now Octavian had desecrated the corpse. The Romans really were barbarians!

  Euphronius got hold of himself with visible effort. “If you’ve desecrated the tomb, you must make peace with Alexander’s spirit. This is an ill omen.”

  Agrippa shrugged. “Or a good omen. We say Alexander’s spirit recognized in Octavian his own successor and allowed Caesar to come away with some part of him. In any case, I’m taking the children to Rome.”

  “Lord Agrippa,” Euphronius said, beseechingly. “Again I implore you to mind the seas. The Emergence has begun, when farmers sow the fertile soil left behind by the Nile flood. Stay a little longer so that you appreciate what you bring to Rome.”

  “Not one extra day,” Agrippa said. “I’ve no love of this corrupting land of beast worship and black arts. Soldiers who stay in Egypt too long become like Antony.”


  With that, Agrippa walked away, content that his soldiers would gather us up to follow him. Philadelphus cried, clutching our tutor’s leg. “Enough tears,” Euphronius whispered. “Octavian worries about mutiny at home. There may be trouble in Rome, and then there are his unruly veterans. You must go and hope that your mother’s visions come to fruition …”

  Caesarion’s army would come too late.

  “Aren’t we ever coming back home?” I asked. “Have you seen it in the Rivers of Time?”

  Euphronius wouldn’t lie to us, though I saw that he wanted to. “I don’t know if you’ll come back to Egypt, but I know that Egypt and Isis are always in you. They have desecrated her temples and rounded up her priests. With your mother gone, Isis can’t live here anymore. Until her faithful sit the throne, she must go with you. We must cast you out upon the water like lilies, blossoms of Egypt still to bloom.”

  RIPPED from the warm embrace of Alexandria’s golden shores, we were loaded onto a ship for Rome. As the enormous vessel slipped slowly through the harbor, men at several banks of oars, I saw the glittering white and gold Serapeum, where my father had crowned me queen of lands I’d never seen.

  The gulls cried on the wind, the palm trees seemed to wave to us in farewell, and I clutched the frog amulet around my neck. The mysterious man who had conquered our kingdom hadn’t been able to capture our mother. She had died rather than face whatever cruel fate he’d planned for her, so he had settled upon us instead. We were his captives, his war booty, and we had not even seen his face.

  Euphronius said that we now carried Isis with us; if I jumped into the sea, would she save me? Even if she didn’t, would it not be better to drown here instead of bringing her to Rome where we might be slaughtered? Philadelphus’s eyes were red from weeping when General Plancus approached us. “Come, children. I’ll bring you below to get some rest.”

  Philadelphus recoiled, and facing a stony glare from my twin, Plancus looked to me for help. “At least let the little one come with me, Selene. I was your father’s friend once; I’ll treat Philadelphus kindly.”

  I gripped the wooden rail of the ship, the measure of my hatred for Plancus taking me by surprise. “We don’t accept kindness from traitors. Don’t presume to call us by our first names again.”

  “Princess, don’t you know how many men deserted your father in the end? We changed sides not because we didn’t love Antony; we joined Octavian because your mother insisted on ruling beside him as an equal. She was the ruin of—”

  “It’s bad enough you’re a traitor,” Helios said. “Don’t slander her as well.”

  With that, Plancus shrugged his shoulders and walked away. So it was that Philadelphus stayed with us on the deck as the sails billowed and the sparkling blue sea swallowed up more of the horizon until all we could see of Alexandria was its beacon.

  Helios’s features were grim and inscrutable, his cloak flapping angrily in the sea breeze. I followed his flinty gaze to the Pharos lighthouse and decided I wouldn’t jump; as long as the lighthouse stood, with its beacon bright, as long as the people called for Isis, and as long as I had Helios with me, I would not jump.

  Four

  JUST as Euphronius had warned, the trip took much longer than it should have and I spent most of that journey huddling together with my brothers in a ship’s cabin while the winds howled outside. Even after we arrived in port, we were kept onboard because Agrippa said that the alternative was to throw us into the Mamertine Prison with the rest of the captives. One might think, having spent nearly eight months on that ship, I would have vivid recollections of it, but I don’t. Perhaps it’s grief that stole those memories from me, or perhaps the kindness of Isis. And yet I remember our arrival in Rome with complete clarity.

  The Romans dressed us in royal attire for Octavian’s Triumph. I wore a Grecian gown of white and Tyrian purple with a pearled diadem upon my brow, so I tried to keep a regal bearing as Roman soldiers herded us into place. They marched my brothers and me onto the open space of the Campus Martius with the rest of the captives while slaves, soldiers, gawkers, and even caged animals witnessed our humiliation.

  Foreign princes once allied with my mother were bound at the neck and hand. It did not surprise me to see those who had taken up arms against Rome now in chains, but I had not expected to see so many Isiac priests and priestesses amongst the captives, and was relieved not to see Euphronius with them. Some of the prisoners stood with grim resignation, but some of them wept with fear. They were measuring us—the children of their fallen leaders—so I knew that I couldn’t cry. In older times, prisoners of war in Roman Triumphs were occasionally pardoned, but that was too much to hope for. This war had been different—and this was a new Rome. Octavian’s Rome.

  We could hear the anticipatory roar of the crowd from behind the city gates and knew they called for blood. Under the watchful eye of Admiral Agrippa, the soldiers grabbed Helios, to wrestle him into golden manacles. Though we had known it was coming, the reality of the situation was suddenly unbearable.

  “Leave him alone!” I screamed.

  Agrippa slapped me across the face; it dizzied me. Before I could gather my composure, strong Roman arms grabbed me and shook me until I went limp with fear. I wish I could say that I fought against my bonds that day, but I was too stunned by the violation. My twin, however, fought the Romans so hard, it took two of them to hold him down and snap the collar shut around his neck.

  As they did, Helios delivered a kick to the groin that sent one of the soldiers down to his knees. “Spirited little bastard, isn’t he?” Agrippa chuckled. “Too bad Cleopatra’s army didn’t have half this boy’s fight in them. It might have been better sport.”

  The soldiers laughed and Agrippa nodded in satisfaction as my brother and I were finally restrained. Not even my Ptolemaic dignity kept me from clawing at the metal as the golden collar bit tightly against my throat. “I can’t breathe!”

  Speckles danced before my eyes as a Roman guard spat at me and shoved me forward. “You wouldn’t be hollering if you couldn’t breathe.”

  I stumbled three steps before the weight of the chains brought me down. I skinned my knees in the fall, but all I could think about was the tightness around my neck. I knew that the Romans strangled their prisoners and this must be what it felt like.

  “She’s just a little girl,” another captive said. I glanced up to see that it was the Prince of Emesa, an ally who fought beside my parents in the war and now paid the price for his loyalty. “She doesn’t understand what’s happening.”

  He was wrong. I did understand, all too well.

  Agrippa swaggered over. “Antony thought she was old enough to name her queen when he was giving away the Roman Empire to his bastard brats. She’s old enough to march in chains.”

  My fingers dug under the metal, trying to loosen the unrelenting collar. It was only Helios’s hand on my elbow that centered my reality. “Don’t let them see you on your knees,” he whispered. “Breathe slow. It’s snug, but you can breathe.”

  Several slow breaths later, I realized he was right. I let him help me to my feet. Helios breathed with me, each of us matching our rhythm to the other until I fought the panic down. Dazed, I used my fettered hands to brush the dirt off my gown until I was yanked forward as the Romans attached our chains to a giant statue.

  There she was—an enormous figure of my mother with a coiled serpent around her arm, and the images of her faithful handmaidens dead at her feet. My cheeks burned to see that they had portrayed my mother naked.

  Octavian had promised the Romans that he would bring my mother before them, a conquered slave. Now I wondered if he had found a way to make good on his promise. Did the Romans know how to imbue a wax statue with my mother’s ka and reanimate it? They said only powerful magicians like Euphronius knew how to do such things—though we had never even seen him try—but maybe the Romans had learned. Was it my mother’s enemies’ plan to bring her back to life only to humiliate her and
kill her again?

  Just then, a crimson-faced man strode past and mounted the chariot in front of us. I saw no more than the swirl of his purple toga, before guards carrying ceremonial bundled rods and axes surrounded him. A cheer went up from the soldiery and I realized it could be none other than Octavian, but once he mounted his golden chariot, my mother’s statue blocked him from view. He’d not bothered to spare us even a glance, the children of his fallen enemy, who he would drag through the streets.

  A man stood by in the crowd, a raven on his shoulder. It flapped its wings and called out, “Hail, Victorious Imperator Octavian!”

  “A clever bird,” we heard the Triumpher say. “You must be a loyalist.”

  “Ha!” another man cried. “He has another bird and he trained it to say Hail, Victorious Imperator Antony!”

  The soldiers laughed until their merriment was drowned out by the deafening blare of the trumpets announcing the opening of the gates. Screaming crowds greeted the snow white sacrificial bulls that lead our procession into Rome. My mother’s treasure followed: a convoy of wheeled chariots piled high, amphorae filled with Egyptian gold.

  “You’re watching the celebration of bandits,” the Prince of Emesa said. “We fought for the Golden Age, but they fought for an Age of Gold.”

  He was angry and proud, as if daring the Roman soldiers who lined up beside us to punish him for his defiance, but his comments barely carried over the rumble of chariot wheels.

  My father, Mark Antony, had told us stories of his beloved Rome. He had even once boasted that he would carry me into the city upon his shoulders. How his spirit must have wept to see us dragged through his city in chains.

  “They’ll kill us. We’ll be strangled like common criminals,” one of the other prisoners shouted. I saw that it was Lord Diodromes of my mother’s court, but now he did look like a common criminal. The Romans let him keep only his loincloth, so that the marks of the whip could be seen plainly upon his back.