Lily of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  And just like that, she crushed the gratitude out of me with her cloying familiarity. I bristled, hissing, “My father divorced you. It’s my mother who rests eternally by his side. It does you no honor to claim her place.”

  The warmth left Lady Octavia’s eyes. “Be that as it may, your parents are gone now. It’s best you forget them.”

  I wasn’t going to forget them. I would never forget them. “What happened to the Prince of Emesa? What was done with his khat?”

  Lady Octavia’s mouth thinned. “The dead prisoners are usually burned.”

  I remembered all the times my mother had wept that Julius Caesar had been burned, denied the magical funeral rites that would guarantee him entrance to the afterlife, and I now knew how she felt. It was as if they had killed the Prince of Emesa a second time.

  “His body was either burned or left for the crows,” Iullus added.

  “Enough about that,” Octavia snapped. “The bath is ready for you, Selene. After, we’ll sit down to a meal with your brothers and Juba. He’s your new tutor.”

  That wasn’t possible. Juba’s classically handsome features were youthful; he looked to be only nineteen or twenty years old. How could he possess the wisdom to teach anyone? “But Euphronius is my tutor,” I said softly, trying to be polite.

  “Not anymore,” was Octavia’s curt reply. “You’ll have many teachers here in Rome, but Juba is a prodigy. He’s already published books on archaeology. You’ll like him. He’s from Africa, just like you.”

  Juba smiled at me politely, but I looked away.

  I was eager to slip into a warm bath to wash away the grime and the ache but I also wanted to get away from the rest of the children. There were too many new faces, too many new names, and too many people claiming kinship to me.

  Of course, I knew that my father had children with previous wives, but besides Antyllus, we’d never met our half siblings. My father never even spoke of them. I’d grown up feeling special—his princess, one pampered girl in a household of brothers. I never imagined there could be other daughters. Especially ones like Minora, who were just a bit older than Philadelphus—conceived before I met my father for the first time.

  So absorbed was I in this new and unexpected revelation, I barely noticed my surroundings. My mother had told me once—with some revulsion—that the Roman nobles sometimes bathed with the common folk at public baths. As it turned out, however, a private bath was readied for me. Colorful tiled steps led down into a pool and I groaned as I stepped into it.

  Pain mingled with relief as the water slid over my injured skin. A slave girl named Chryssa waded in with me, a reed basket filled with oils and scrapers floating beside her. “You’re Greek,” I said, taking in her features with some surprise, because in Egypt, Hellenes comprised the noblest class, not the slaves.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m also an ornatrix. It’s my job to tend to your hair and make you look presentable, so let me scrub the blood off you.”

  Gone were the days in Alexandria when my mother and I used to soak in milk and honey before drying in the sun while servants rubbed us with oils. Thus, I endured without complaint the harsh scrape of a Roman strigilis even though I was sure that the slave girl took some of my skin off along with the dirt.

  After I was clean, Chryssa helped me step into new garments. There were no pearl brooches or ribbons to adorn me. Just a rather plain tunica, the color of almonds, embroidered at the hem with white leaves. It was too big for me by far. The slaves themselves were dressed in clothing of only slightly lower quality, which only confirmed my opinion that everything in Rome was inferior. So when I saw the slave reach for my discarded silk gown, I snatched it from her hands. “Give me that.”

  “Your chiton is bloody and tattered,” Chryssa chided me.

  “I’m keeping it,” I told her, knowing the blood on that gown was all that remained of the Prince of Emesa. It also held my memories and I wanted to remember. My mother had told me to remember.

  The slave girl tried to yank it back. “Lady Octavia wants the dress burned.”

  I slapped her hands away. Such insolence from a slave! “Yes, I know Romans love to burn things.”

  With that I stormed out. Chryssa chased me, so I took off at a run through the corridors until I burst into the garden and was thoroughly lost. Turning abruptly, I was jarred by the sudden sensation of running into a wall. I looked up to find that the wall was actually Agrippa. The big Roman caught me by the arm. “What mischief are you up to now?”

  It was strange to see Agrippa dressed as a civilian. Even so, I braced for violence. Agrippa had already slapped me once and clapped me in chains. I anticipated more brutality and was surprised when he merely stared at my arm as if he’d accidentally caught a serpent by the tail. “What did you do to yourself?”

  “You did it. You and your chains,” I said, expecting to see bruises around my wrists but when I looked, my arm was covered in tiny bloodred hieroglyphics. I lifted the other arm and my mouth fell open with a sharp intake of breath. There too pictures cut into my skin, winding around each wrist and down my arms. The cuts were needle-fine, with only the faintest trace of blood.

  Agrippa’s voice turned strangely gentle. “Why did you do this?”

  I shook my head as fiery pain raced up my arms. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

  “Where did you get a needle to do this?” Agrippa asked.

  “You think I carved them myself?”

  “These symbols …” Agrippa was mesmerized. “What do they say?”

  I tried to translate them. “It’s about Isis. She saw her children shamed—” I stopped. Was this a message from my mother? Had she seen my shameful begging on the steps before Octavian and found a way to reach through to chastise me?

  Agrippa’s gentleness vanished. “Isis?” He grabbed both my arms and dragged me forward. “What vile magic is this? Caesar has brought an asp into his sister’s household.”

  I was desperate to read my own flesh, but Agrippa dragged me when I fell behind. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To Caesar!” he said, jogging up the stairs into a two-story building that apparently belonged to the emperor. We passed through a room where wax masks of Julian ancestors leered down at me from the walls. Then, together we burst into the triclinium where women and children readied to dine.

  Agrippa threw me down to the floor where I stumbled to my knees amidst couches and low tables, dropping the bloody gown. Philadelphus cried out to see me treated thus, and Helios jumped up to come to my aid.

  “Look at her arms!” the admiral roared.

  Lady Octavia rose from her seat and put a restraining hand on Helios. “Agrippa, you’re frightening the children.”

  “This is a matter for Caesar,” Agrippa barked.

  “And Caesar is here,” Octavian said, coming in behind us.

  He was the master of the world, yet he looked like an ill-dressed peasant in his wool tunic. The children in the room stood to greet him and I took the opportunity to tuck my old bloody gown under my ugly new garments while Octavian turned to Agrippa. “Some civility please, Agrippa. I’d hoped for a nice family meal with all of the children. What troubles you?”

  I hadn’t seen Agrippa cower before; I hadn’t thought the intimidating man was even capable of it. But now he shrank back from Octavian’s rebuke. “My apologies, Caesar. It’s just that you pardoned this girl only yesterday and already she’s working magic. She’s carved symbols into her arms.”

  They all stared at me, even my brothers.

  Octavian said, “Selene, show me your arms.”

  Again, my mother’s enemy was standing over me, and I was again kneeling before him in a trembling heap. Whatever defiance I had felt toward my captors froze within my chest. The chilling threat in his eyes was enough to contain me. I hadn’t begged for my life only to anger him now, so I lifted my arms.

  “Bruises from the chains?” Octavian’s question betrayed his confusion. “She’s a
Ptolemy. No doubt she bruises easily …”

  I looked up abruptly to see that he was right. Nothing was carved upon my arms, after all. Where tiny hieroglyphics had wrapped around each wrist moments before, there were only bruises. I was both relieved and anguished at their disappearance. What message had they carried?

  “She carved symbols all over her wrists as we’d find on Egyptian temples and tombs.” Agrippa stopped himself as he came closer to inspect my arms himself and flinched when he saw nothing there. Agrippa was clearly not a man who liked mysteries.

  “What did you see here before?” Octavian traced his cold fingers over my wrists experimentally. I wanted to recoil from his clammy touch, but I didn’t dare.

  “I don’t know, Caesar. I’m not feeling myself,” Agrippa answered. “Were I myself, I’d never have raised my voice in your sister’s presence. May I be excused?”

  Octavian scrutinized me, nodded, and released my hands. Agrippa looked over his shoulder at me only once, and his eyes were as confused as I imagined my own must be.

  After Agrippa had gone, the emperor mused, “We were in Egypt too long. All their talk of death and magic affects the mind.”

  It was clear that he wanted us to behave as if the incident never happened, but I was shaken. Careful to conceal the bloody gown, I took my seat with my brothers as slaves laid out our meal of simplest fare—porridge, coarse bread, foods you might expect at a slave’s table.

  Philadelphus climbed into my lap and my twin brother ate in brooding silence, while all the children introduced themselves. There were the emperor’s two stepsons, Tiberius and Drusus. Then there was the emperor’s daughter, Julia, his nephew Marcellus, and his nieces too. But there were too many names to remember and too many girls with the same name. Mostly, I kept glancing at my hands, wondering how Agrippa and I had both seen something that wasn’t there.

  As for the emperor, the women fussed over him. His sister, Lady Octavia, scolded him for not wearing a hat outside and his wife, Lady Livia, brought him a tonic for his cold, holding the cup for him with slim, delicate fingers.

  The meal could not be over fast enough for me, but the emperor seemed to be savoring it. “I love to dine with my children,” he said, leaning back and stretching his arms. “You know, a soothsayer once told me that I’d have only one child—a girl child at that. But I make my own fortune. Look now how I’m surrounded by children.” Then his smile turned malevolent. “Mark that you’re all mine now.”

  Six

  AFTER our meal, we waited in Lady Octavia’s atrium. There were no breathtaking fountains here—just a well-tended pool and some stone columns. The artwork was expensive but scarce, and the paucity of furnishings would have embarrassed an Alexandrian of any standing. Later, I’d come to appreciate Octavia’s simplicity, but to my royal eyes the whole of her household was inexcusably common.

  While we waited, my wool garments itched and I fought the urge to scratch. My brothers looked equally uncomfortable in their togas bordered at the bottom with a large band of purple—an attempt to transform them into Roman schoolboys, indistinguishable from the rest. With every motion Helios showed his contempt for the garb and for me. “Stop glaring at me,” I hissed at him.

  Helios’s green eyes flashed and his vulture amulet seemed to glow in the sunlight. “Why shouldn’t I? You begged for our lives in front of thousands of Romans.”

  “I had to. They were going to kill you.”

  In the way of twins, I knew he was about to say something ugly in reply, but Philadelphus interrupted us. “Don’t fight.”

  Everything was so strange and stark here; I could not tolerate the anger of my twin too, so I tried to reason with him. “Mother said the emperor would have less reason to hurt us once she was gone—she wanted us to be safe …”

  Helios said, “And now our enemies can say they saw Antony’s children beg for Octavian’s mercy.”

  I didn’t know how long we’d been waiting, but at last Lady Octavia strode into the atrium with the emperor’s wife at her side. They made an oddly balanced pair. The emperor’s sister had a stately bearing with arms as solid as a milkmaid’s. But the emperor’s wife was as thin as a reed—with a body flat and hard. Together, their matronly presence was like a wall of granite, blocking all escape.

  It was Livia who spoke first. “Children, you stand here today by my husband’s mercy. You’ve been stripped of all thrones and titles. Your dowries and fortunes are forfeit. You retain no personal possessions, slaves, nor servants—in short, you have nothing but that which we give to you. Don’t think of yourselves as much above slaves.”

  Now it was Lady Octavia’s turn. She folded her arms, making the fabric of her gown pull tightly across her fleshy breasts. “Things will be different here in Rome than you’re used to. There’ll be no dallying or frivolity. Caesar has laid out a rigorous plan for your studies.”

  Caesar. I was sure that I could never call the emperor that. That name belonged to Julius Caesar, a mentor my parents had both loved and who had loved them both in return. That name belonged to Julius Caesar’s only son—my missing older brother.

  Nonetheless, Lady Octavia continued. “Eventually you’ll make appearances at the ludus with other Roman schoolchildren, but until things have settled, most of your time will be spent here at home with private tutors. You’re fortunate that Juba has been chosen to oversee your studies; even at his young age, his scholarship is well respected throughout Rome.”

  “Will we study music and dancing?” I asked, because these disciplines had always been my favorites and I used to like to sit by the ocean and play the kithara harp.

  But at my suggestion, Octavia glanced up with one rounded eye. “I’d beware music. Your grandfather was a flute player and no one respected him. Moreover, dancing leads to scandal and promiscuity. There’ll be none of it here.” With that, Lady Octavia resumed making pronouncements like a military commander. “When you’re not studying, there are chores to do.”

  “Chores?” I asked in amazement. So then we were to be slaves …

  “It’s Caesar’s policy that all the children in his family make themselves useful. There will be no spoiled princesses here, so don’t try to cajole the slaves into doing your chores. If you can’t find work to do, we’ll invent some for you. We weave like our ancestors did, so Selene will be spinning and sewing in the afternoon with the rest of the girls.”

  My mouth opened involuntarily. Surely with all the gold he’d stolen from my mother, the emperor could afford to buy his own clothes! But I hadn’t yet come to understand the importance of such ridiculous but symbolic acts in Rome.

  “Meals are to be taken with the family,” Lady Octavia continued. “And each night, Caesar will lecture. We have a routine that won’t be disturbed. You children won’t get away with indolence as you did in Alexandria. You’ll learn that discipline is a virtue. Indeed, I’ve advised Juba not to spare the rod.”

  Neither of my brothers responded to this litany. A gentle breeze rustled the strange Roman trees, whose leaves were like tiny needles. The wool was itchy against my skin and it was maddening not to scratch at my arms, but it was also beneath my royal dignity, so I stole a glance at my bruised wrists to confirm for the thousandth time that the hieroglyphs were gone. “When will we worship?”

  Livia gave a thin-lipped smile. “There’ll be occasions for state worship.”

  “Do you mean the lares and the penates?” Octavia asked, pointing to an alcove with what looked to be a tiny shrine. “Our household gods are in the lararium right over there. We also keep some in the pantry to protect the storeroom.”

  “But my brothers and I worship Isis,” I told them.

  Octavia reacted as if the name of the goddess alone was anathema. “I won’t have you speak of that Goddess of Whores!”

  Livia smirked at Octavia’s outburst. “Members of the emperor’s household cannot worship a foreign goddess, Selene.”

  “But Isis isn’t foreign,” I argued. “S
he’s a goddess of all places.”

  “Listen to the way she talks, like some zealous Vestal Virgin,” Livia said, then laughed as if she’d told some grand joke. “Find a Roman goddess, Selene. Fortuna is my husband’s favorite.”

  I stared. Did they think you chose religions as easily as clothing? How cavalierly Octavia had insulted Isis. Had these Romans no fear or piety at all?

  Meanwhile, Octavia was impatient to get on with it. “I’m sending you to learn with the rest of the children. I know you’ve barely recuperated from your ordeal, but exhaustion is the best thing to erase pain.”

  Livia put a hand on her hip. “Well? Have you anything to say before you’re dismissed?”

  “Yes,” Helios said, giving both women a resentful look before his eyes drifted across the courtyard. The walls of the house surrounded us on three sides, and the fourth side was a low fence upon which grew a green, creeping plant. There was a guarded doorway there. If Helios sought an avenue of escape, there was none. “I hope our brother King Caesarion, Pharaoh of Egypt, brings his army here to sack Rome and make you both slaves!”

  Had I begged for our lives just so that my twin could throw them away at the first opportunity? As Octavia sputtered, I tried to think of something to say to lessen the blow. But before I could ask their forgiveness, Livia’s eyes narrowed with unmistakable malice. “Hasn’t anyone told you that Caesarion is dead?”

  Her words forced the air out of my lungs. I could suddenly hear my own heartbeat crashing in my ears. My eyes studied her face, disbelieving.

  “Oh yes,” Livia sneered. “His own tutor betrayed him. He was strangled. A death befitting a criminal—not a son of Caesar—as if the gods themselves proved him to be a fraud.”

  “Liar!” Helios shouted.

  “Oh, it’s quite true,” Livia said. “Rhodon was your brother’s tutor, no? He betrayed Cleopatra’s brat. No doubt, the emperor will reward him handsomely.”

  I felt the rush of panic and denial swelling in me. Caesarion couldn’t be dead. I had loved his adventurous nature. I had loved his stories and his jests—and the fact that no Roman soldier could pass him without stopping to take a second glance, so much did he look like his famous father. He was the King of Egypt. He couldn’t be dead, because so many people depended upon him. He couldn’t be dead because I had loved him. And because we needed him. He was our only hope!