Lily of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  “Liar!” Helios shouted again as Philadelphus threw himself against me, wailing.

  I hadn’t thought there could be much more pain in store for us, but this news toppled me like a crumbling pillar and I was crushed beneath stone cold grief. “So, you’re going to kill all of us,” I said. “You’re going to kill us one at a time.”

  “No, Selene,” Lady Octavia began.

  “I told you, they’re lying!” Helios roared, his face red.

  Philadelphus pressed his face against me, sobbing.

  “Where’s Caesarion’s body, then?” I demanded. “If he’s dead, where is his sarcophagus? I want to see it.”

  “There’s no body,” Livia said.

  “Caesarion is King of Egypt,” I said. “We have to give our brother the king his funeral rites and perform the opening of the mouth. If he’s dead, it’s our sacred duty. Where’s his body?”

  “He was burned,” Livia said.

  It was as if the entire world went silent. I could imagine the words that Lady Octavia’s mouth was forming, but I couldn’t hear them. It wasn’t that Caesarion’s death crushed our last hopes for rescue; I had simply passed the threshold of loss I could bear with any composure. The emperor had given my mother and my father honorable burial, but he had burned Caesarion—the true threat. He killed Caesarion and denied him the afterlife too. The King of Egypt, the last pharaoh, was nothing but ash.

  The sound in the world came back in a rush, like the crash of waves when the tides changed. My hands came up before my face and I shrieked, “You murdered him twice!”

  The shrill note of my horror echoed through the atrium. As if summoned by my grief, a sudden howl of wind ripped through the open space, catching Lady Octavia’s skirts up into the breeze and making the water of the pool ripple. The gust carried my words with it, exploding through the house and slamming the doors inside like a clap of thunder.

  Both Octavia and Livia’s eyes went wide.

  I wasn’t finished. “You call Julius Caesar divine, but Caesarion was his son, and you killed him. You murdering hypocrites!”

  The wind strengthened. The shutters rattled. Maybe the goddess heard me and had come to leave Rome in oblivion. Blow harder. Oh, blow harder, I silently prayed as the wind knocked over two clay pots by the pool.

  Octavia looked at the sky. “Maybe we should go inside.”

  “Perhaps Agrippa was right about her dabbling in magic,” Livia began.

  “If I could work magic I’d use it to curse you,” I said.

  “Oh?” Livia asked, bringing her face very near to mine. “You weren’t so brave in the Triumph, were you? Do you think, before he died, Caesarion begged for mercy the way you did?”

  Shame clenched in my gut, but it was Helios who flew at Livia, his fists raised to her face. Before he could come to blows with the emperor’s wife, Lady Octavia grabbed him up by both arms and shook him. They struggled, my twin grasping Lady Octavia by the wrists until she said, “You’re hurting me, boy.”

  To my astonishment, Helios let her go.

  “So, Octavia saves you again,” Livia told Helios. “Had you struck me, how long do you think my husband would let you live?” Then the haughty wife of the emperor straightened and drew away, leaving me weeping as the winds finally died.

  “I hate you,” my twin raged. “I hate all of you.”

  “Maybe the whip will beat some of the hate out of him,” Livia sniffed, and swept past as Helios, Philadelphus, and I all clung to one another in a huddle.

  Guards had come running to see what my screaming was about, and the courtyard was soon abuzz with slaves and whispers. Juba was there too, scroll cases under his arm. “Perhaps Cleopatra’s children aren’t ready for lessons today, Lady Octavia,” he said with a polite bow of his head.

  Octavia put her hand on her forehead and surveyed the sky, drawing in deep breaths. “Perhaps you’re right, Juba. Perhaps you’re right. Children, go to your rooms.”

  No matter how angry Helios was at me, he’d try to protect me. He looked ready to fight, to struggle against the emperor’s guards, so I put my hand on his arm. “It’s all right. We’ll go.”

  “Our room is next to yours,” Helios said, as if to comfort me. As if he knew how I would feel the moment the guards locked me alone in my chamber. It had been foolish to think Caesarion would save us. It had been just another dream, now broken like all the dreams my mother dared. The last time I saw Caesarion he’d yanked playfully on my hair, and I’d been aggravated with him. Now his lost spirit, wherever it lingered, would bother me for eternity.

  When there was a knock at the door, I didn’t answer it. “Selene, it’s Gaius Julius Juba. May I come in?”

  “No,” I said firmly.

  He opened the door and came in anyway, his familiar scent wafting behind him like incense. Then he sat on the straight-backed chair in the corner. In Egypt, no tutor—even such a handsome young tutor as Juba—would have dared to enter without permission and I stared, agog.

  “I know what you’re feeling right now,” Juba said.

  I snorted indelicately. “You don’t know how we feel. No one does.”

  “I think I do,” he replied, sitting beside me. “I was marched as a prisoner in a Triumph just like you.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, but he had my attention.

  “It’s true. I was a Prince of Numidia, brought back to Rome when my father was defeated in war.”

  “Defeated … ? My family is dead.”

  “So is mine,” the African princeling said with a sad smile.

  I stared at the smooth planes of his face, and the sensitive curve of his lips in its sad smile. Would I be able to talk about what had happened to me with the same resigned expression? “Why did you get to live?”

  “Because,” Juba said, “Julius Caesar saved my life. He took me into his custody from the prison where they strangle the captives. I was a child at the time and the emperor was a young man, but Octavian took an interest in me.”

  I found this curious. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he has foresight,” Juba replied, his amber eyes warm and encouraging. “He knew I’d be useful to him someday; an African prince is helpful when converting African natives to the Roman way of life. When he came into his inheritance from the Divine Julius, Octavian housed me, clothed me, and educated me as if I were his own, and he’ll do the same for you.”

  I chewed my lower lip. “You speak as if you admire him.”

  “I admire him more than any man. He’s brought virtue back to Rome.”

  That was too much to bear. “Virtue?”

  “Yes, Selene. You may think that he conquered Egypt by force of Rome’s military might, but the emperor won because the moral fiber of his soldiers was stronger. The Roman way is the right way. It’s better that this happened; you’ll see that in time.”

  How could a man with such a beautiful face really hold the ugly belief that my family was better off dead? “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “I’m trying to help you, Selene. I want you to see that as difficult as things seem now, there’s a future for you, just as there was for me. I have wealth, status, friends, and learning. I’m happy here, and you can be happy here too.”

  “I want you to go,” I said.

  “Not until you promise that you and your brothers will behave.” Now he spoke to me like I was a little child again. “Tomorrow we’ll start your lessons, and I’ve been instructed to be a harsh disciplinarian if there is any disruption in the classroom. I don’t think Philadelphus deserves to be put through any more pain, do you?”

  I felt a pang of guilt. Ought we try to bear up with more grace for Philadelphus’s sake, and for our family dignity? I glanced at my wrists and wished the markings were still there. I wished I could have read them before Agrippa dragged me away. Maybe they would have helped me make some sense of everything. Then I realized that Juba’s eyes were still on me, waiting for an answer.

 
; “I’ll try to behave,” I said, turning over in the bed and facing the wall, pretending to be asleep until he left.

  After, I heard voices in the hall. I crept barefoot across the cold floor and put my ear against the door in time to hear Lady Octavia’s voice. “How is she?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Juba replied.

  “Juba, I hope you’ll help me understate what happened today when the boy tried to attack Livia. You know how the emperor meddles. He has an empire to run, but when it comes to the children of the household, no matter is too small.”

  “These children are his empire,” Juba said. “They are the building blocks of what he’s trying to accomplish. They are the game pieces on the board.”

  “I know that,” she said. “But they’re also children in need of guidance. Should I punish Helios?”

  “No,” Juba replied. “The girl will control her brothers. Our effort is best spent there.”

  THAT night, I resolved to hide my pain over Caesarion’s death. Egyptians believed that one of the nine parts of a human soul was the khaibit—our shadow—where our secrets and darkest thoughts live. I put my grief for Caesarion there, where I hoped the Romans could never find it, nor use it against me as Livia had done.

  But once I had put away that pain, I felt cold. Cold like Rome. No. Cold like Egypt without her pharaoh. What was to happen to Egypt? The pharaoh was the personification of the Nile—the link between Egypt and her gods. Without Pharaoh, the Nile might not rise and deposit her silt for the farmers. If the Nile did not rise, the people would starve. And if Egypt starved, the whole world would starve.

  Helios and I were next in line to rule jointly, as husband and wife. This was the custom of our dynasty. The responsibility for Egypt and her inundations now rested upon us. The people were our care, but how could we help them, trapped here in Rome?

  Game pieces, Juba had called us, and it lingered in my mind. Was it mercy that allowed us to live while Caesarion was burned as rubbish? Or had we been spared for more sinister purposes?

  Helios and I were now the heirs to the oldest, most prestigious throne in the world. More precisely, by killing Caesarion, the emperor had made us the rightful King and Queen of Egypt. Now he held us both under his control. In doing so, he had taken Egypt hostage. The crook and flail of Egypt must now be placed in Helios’s hands, and the bulbous crown placed upon my head, but the emperor held it all.

  I tried to feel nothing as the chill embraced me and I remembered the mask room in the emperor’s home. In Egypt, people wore wooden masks of baboons and leopards and goddesses. But here in Rome, people made masks of their own faces. The emperor. Livia. Juba. All of them put on faces that best suited their needs.

  I took my fingers and practiced turning the corners of my mouth. Well, I could wear a mask too.

  Seven

  MORNING came too early. Lady Octavia unbolted my door to see that I rose and dressed. Then an impish girl came into my room. “I’m Julia,” she said.

  I’d seen the emperor’s daughter with the other children, but it was the first time we faced one another up close. She was just about my age—maybe a little younger—with wide-set dramatic eyes and a small mouth that quivered with mischief. With her mouselike ears and upturned nose, she was undoubtedly the emperor’s child. On her father, those features seemed diminutive and sickly, but on Julia, they were appealing.

  “Livia sent me to teach you how to do your hair in proper Roman fashion. Sit down, and I’ll comb it for you.”

  I hesitated, uncertain. “That’s a slave’s job. Why would they send you to attend me instead of the ornatrix?”

  “Because Chryssa gets into everything. She likes to steal hair combs and jewelry when she thinks we’re not looking.”

  It seemed like cheeky behavior from a slave, but I said nothing.

  Julia tugged on my arm. “Sit down and let me do this or we’ll get in trouble for dawdling.”

  I sat on the bed and held a polished looking glass on my lap.

  “Actually,” she began, working dark strands of my hair through her fingers, “I wanted to meet you. I saw you in my father’s Triumph and you were very dramatic, like Antigone.”

  “No, not Antigone,” I said quickly, wary of the trap. I knew Sophocles’ play. In it, the heroine, Antigone, honored her vanquished family in defiance of the king, thereby assuring her own execution. I had no desire to share Antigone’s fate—or Caesarion’s. “I didn’t defy anyone. I bowed to your father.”

  Julia shrugged at my answer and pulled the comb through my hair with surprising gentleness. She parted my hair in the middle then fastened it into a simple twist at the nape of my neck. The younger girls like Minora all wore their hair loose, as was the custom, and I might have preferred it to this. I frowned because even though my eyes seemed greener without adornment, somehow my skin was too fair.

  “You know,” Julia began. “Watching you in the Triumph was even more exciting than the theater and I love theater. Do you?”

  I bristled to know she’d been entertained by our plight, and yet I was afraid to offend her. “Yes. I enjoy plays, Lady Julia.”

  In the mirror, I saw her doe brown eyes crinkle with laughter. “Lady Julia? Did Livia tell you to call me that? Just call me Julia. My father says you’re not a slave, no matter what my stepmother wants.”

  “Livia is your stepmother?” I asked in surprise.

  “I hope you didn’t think that wretched woman is my mother.”

  “I-I’m not …” I stammered, trailing off in confusion, wondering if we both shared the same loss. “Did your real mother … did she die?”

  “No,” Julia said quietly. “But she may as well be dead. My mother—Scribonia … she’s supposed to be dead to me. I’m not allowed to see her or talk to her.”

  I couldn’t have conceived that my heart should go out to one of these Romans, but to hear the plain suffering in Julia’s voice affected me deeply. “But why can’t you see your own mother?”

  Julia shrugged her shoulders. “It might have been different if I were born a boy. Then my father might honor my mother, just a little. But I was born a girl, so he hates her and keeps us apart. And on the few occasions he’s allowed me to see my mother, Livia throws a terrible fit. She wants no one to remember that my father was ever married to anyone but her.”

  “But that’s cruel,” I said, then bit my lower lip, fearful that I’d gone too far.

  “That’s Livia,” Julia said, tugging the last of my hair into place. “We can’t stand one another. Just this morning she caught me outside my father’s study and sent me away. She thinks I didn’t hear anything, but I did. Do you want to know what I overheard?”

  I was still cautious. I couldn’t decide if Julia had come to me in a spirit of malice or goodwill. “Yes, I’d like to know what you heard … if it’s proper to share.”

  “King Herod’s ambassador came to see my father about you.”

  “Herod?” I knew he was the King of Judea and that my mother hadn’t liked him, but I couldn’t imagine why he would send an emissary to Rome to ask after me.

  “Yes, King Herod,” Julia said. “He wants my father to kill you.”

  It was good that I was sitting down, because my knees went to jelly. Someone a world away, someone I didn’t even know, was asking the emperor to kill us. “But why?”

  “From what I could tell, King Herod quite hated your mother. Besides, there’s a prophecy.”

  “What prophecy?” I asked.

  Julia shrugged again. “Shouldn’t you know? In any case, King Herod thinks you and your twin might be a threat to his reign.”

  I’d never even been to Judea. Moreover, my mother was popular with the Jews. In her endeavors to make Alexandria a city of all nations, Jews were amongst the first to whom she granted citizenship. Yet, if Julia was to be believed, the King of the Jews wanted me and my brother dead. I tried not to panic. “What did the emperor say? Did he agree to kill us?”

  “No. My
father said he’d already spared you before all of Rome and that he doesn’t like to be seen publicly changing his mind. The ambassador left angry.” Julia snatched the mirror from my hands and made me look at her. “My father kills people, Selene. I remember the prophecy about Antigone, that if the king put her to death for her defiance, his entire family would come to ruin. Is the prophecy like that? Why did he spare you?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  Lady Octavia rapped on the door. “Girls! No dawdling.”

  Julia and I walked together in silence, the daughters of Octavian and Cleopatra, each wondering who might bring about the ruin of the other.

  IN Alexandria, my brothers and I sometimes took our lessons in the Great Library. Here in Rome our classroom was a woodpaneled room in the emperor’s home with a warren of scroll racks lining the wall from floor to ceiling. The classroom opened toward the courtyard for light. Nonetheless, the musty scent of sheepskin vellum lingered in the air and bloodstained rods rested upon Juba’s desk to remind us of what might happen if we misbehaved.

  In spite of the atmosphere, and the fact that Juba seemed far too young to be anyone’s tutor, the dethroned African prince was actually an excellent teacher with a great deal of enthusiasm. He told engaging stories. With his breezy charm and good looks, it seemed as if every girl in the household lived to impress him.

  Even so, I had trouble concentrating, tripping through the morning in a stupor. By late afternoon, I joined the rest of the women of the household, where Lady Octavia took it upon herself to teach me to spin wool.

  For this, I forced myself to pay attention, for I had been raised on Ptolemy pride. If a Ptolemy was going to be forced to do the work of a slave, a Ptolemy would do it with more talent than any slave could ever muster. So I learned to tease the wool with my fingers to remove debris and then to comb it to align the fibers. I learned to use grease on my fingers to twist a little wool between them, then to fasten it onto the spindle before spinning the whorl. It was tedious, mindless work, but it helped me keep my composure in the presence of these women whom I despised so very much.