Lily of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  I clasped my hands before me. “Juba, you have to believe me. I would never tell the emperor your secret!”

  Juba frowned. “It’s no secret, Selene. The emperor knows of my interest in various cults, especially in light of the book that I’m writing. He asked only that I be discreet and not shame his house.”

  His words came crashing down around me like a house in collapse. Reeling, I sat down hard on the edge of my bed. “But the emperor hates Isiacs!”

  “No, he hates anything that threatens the peace. I mean nothing to the Isiacs so there’s no harm in my curiosity. You, on the other hand, are a symbol of their faith …”

  Curiosity? Did he think our worship could be studied like all the scrolls in his library? “But—”

  “But nothing,” Juba interrupted. “Say what you will, but the emperor has very simple and admirable goals. He wants to preserve his own legacy, preserve the peace, and bring the advances of Roman culture to the rest of the world.”

  “What about Greek and Egyptian culture?” I asked.

  Juba brushed this aside and spoke with the conviction of a disciple. “For the first time in decades we don’t have one bully fighting another using Africans as pawns. We don’t have pirates plaguing our seas and starving the citizenry. An entire generation has grown up knowing nothing but civil war, and the emperor has put an end to it. He wants to build things instead of tear them down, if they only accept the Roman way.”

  I fingered my arm where the bracelet had been. “But the Roman way is built upon oppression.”

  “Oppression?” Juba sighed. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget that you’re only a girl. Then you say something like that.”

  It made me stiffen. I was not only a girl. I was a Ptolemy. I was the rightful Queen of Egypt. I’d even been, at least for a short time, an embodiment of Isis. When I spoke, I didn’t hide my indignation. “So, you’re going to defend the Romans and their way? Juba, someday Rome will run out of new countries to conquer and steal from, and then what?”

  “We’ll both be long dead by the time that happens. Besides, Rome doesn’t choose war. She fights just wars. She’s pushed into war.”

  That’s what Romans told themselves, but the generals, like my father, knew better. And so did I. “Juba, don’t you realize that Rome looks for excuses to wage war?”

  Juba met my eyes. “Is it really so different than anything Alexander the Great did?”

  “Yes, it’s different,” I said, remembering what my mother had taught me. “Alexander wanted to bring people together as citizens of one world. He had a design behind his conquests that went beyond booty. Does Rome?”

  “Of course,” Juba said.

  My chest rose and fell and my face was hot. Juba was confusing me. How could I explain that even Alexander’s Egypt had been different than Rome? Where Egypt fed the world, Rome tamed it. Where Egypt fostered, Rome disciplined. Egypt was seductive as a temptress, nurturing as a mother, and wise as a crone. To me, Rome’s spirit was all male.

  “Selene, you and your brothers are the last of a distinguished line. You’re the last of the Ptolemies. Don’t you want to honor that legacy? Serve the emperor loyally and perhaps some place in Africa can be found for you—”

  “The emperor wants us all dead!”

  Juba reached out his hands as if he wanted to shake me. “Stop thinking like a child. The emperor has done everything possible to keep you alive. Africa isn’t fully subdued. She chafes under Roman rule. Why would he kill you and ignite the spark that might rekindle the flames of war?”

  “In other words, he might lose Egypt if he killed us.”

  “You’re his investment in the future,” Juba explained. “Remember how masterfully he set the scene the day of his Triumph so he could offer you clemency. Even if you hadn’t begged for your life, Lady Octavia would have.”

  My mouth went dry with humiliation. I hadn’t had to beg for our lives.

  Juba leaned forward and made me look at him. “If you and your brothers threaten the peace, he’d have no choice but to destroy you, but what threat can you be to him as a loyal member of his own family? Your glory reflects upon him. I happen to know he wants to let you go home to Africa.”

  “My home is Egypt.”

  “Then convince him you can hold Egypt without betrayal. In Egypt, Octavian is letting them call him the father of the country. There’s symbolism in that. So give the emperor your loyalty as a good daughter might.”

  I hated myself for letting the hope swell in my breast. Still, I was skeptical. “And where has your loyalty gotten you, Juba? Are you King of Numidia or just the teacher of ungrateful royal orphans?”

  I expected some show that he harbored resentment. Instead he gave me his most patronizing smile. “Patience is the hallmark of the emperor’s regime. If you learn nothing else about him, learn that. He moves slowly and surely. I’ve had to prove myself to him, but one day he’ll send me back to Numidia.”

  I all but snorted at him. “The Romans have turned Numidia into a province. Do you think the emperor can snap his fingers and turn it back into a kingdom for you to inherit? Is he so powerful now that he can anger the senators in Rome, each of whom vies to be the thieving governor of a province like Africa Nova?”

  “I think he is that powerful,” Juba said. “And if he isn’t, I’ll help him become that powerful. And you should do the same.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because he’s the only man who can make you queen of anything. And because he spared you, Selene. You owe him your life.”

  My stomach dropped at the memory. “He only spared us to keep as hostages.”

  “Just the same, Selene, would you be a Brutus or a Cassius?”

  How dare he make such a comparison? Offense heated my cheeks. “I’m no Brutus or Cassius.”

  Those were men that Julius Caesar had pardoned—men to whom he’d shown mercy—and they murdered him. But neither was I like Plancus, who’d sworn his life to my father and been turned with bribes and lies.

  “Selene, aren’t you even a little bit grateful to the emperor?”

  In truth, it was hard for me to tell the difference between what I felt and what I made myself feel. Tears of frustration started to rise. “I am …”

  Juba used a fingertip to brush them away. “You’re not the only one who has lived through Roman conquest. I know what you’re going through because I suffered it too. I saw my father die …”

  And I had watched my mother put her hand into a basket with an angry cobra. This common history made me look into Juba’s princely face. I sensed no guile in his warm honey-colored eyes. “How did your father die?”

  It was as if he’d only been waiting for me to ask. “The night my father realized that Caesar’s legions had defeated him, he and a loyal Roman general got themselves drunk. Then they made a toast to death before taking up arms against one another.”

  I sat perfectly still, transfixed.

  Juba continued, “The general swore that his last duty of friendship would be to give my father an honorable death. I was younger than Philadelphus, but I remember watching as my father and the man rounded one another, locked in bloody tearful combat. Their swords clashed and they grappled, until a sudden lunge erupted in blood. It was my father’s sword that struck true. The other man lay dead by my feet, but my father had been fatally wounded. I cried as a slave slit my father’s throat.”

  I felt a shiver at the base of my spine. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I knew there were no words that could ever make appropriate reply to such a story. I wanted very much to comfort him then, so I reached out to grasp his fingers in simple empathy the way Julia had done with me.

  “It took time, but I’m past it,” Juba said, bringing my fingers to his lips and planting a gentle kiss there. “You’ll get past the death of your parents too.”

  At the feel of his lips against my fingers, I flushed warm. He’d kissed me—my fingertips at least—and my stomach was all aflutter. I
felt the pull between us. He drew closer, leaning toward me, his eyes on my lips. Then—abruptly—Juba rose and walked to the doorway.

  “Juba …” I started, but I had no idea what to say.

  He cleared his throat, and looked back at me. “Now, you must think about everything I’ve said, Selene, and decide. Will you and your brothers be the last sad chapter in the history of the dying Egyptian dynasty? Or will you make a new glorious beginning under the Roman banner?”

  Fifteen

  “THEN Juba can’t be trusted,” Helios whispered from his side of the wall. “And he can’t be our messenger. If Juba even knew that Euphronius was in Rome, he’d tell the emperor and they’d arrest our wizard before we could do a thing to help him.”

  I was irritated that after having conveyed the entire conversation to my twin, this was the only thing Helios had taken from it, but I couldn’t disagree. “You should send Chryssa back to the Temple of Isis to warn Euphronius away, then.”

  “I can’t send Chryssa again. She’s my slave now, which means they’ll follow her and trace all her doings to me.”

  “You think that the emperor gave Chryssa to you because he means to trap you?”

  “Could there be any other reason?” Helios asked. “Fortunately, I’m not the slow-witted boy the emperor thinks I am.”

  No, he wasn’t. From a sense of pride, I’d tried to impress upon the Romans that we were royalty, that we were smarter and better than they were. But Helios had smothered his talents in the schoolroom. He’d shown them nothing, and maybe there was an advantage in that too.

  “Then what are we going to do? Euphronius can’t come to us. The Romans had him flogged in Alexandria; surely, he knows they’d do worse if they caught him here.”

  “We’ll have to find a way to meet with him secretly,” Helios insisted, raw determination in his eyes. “Egypt needs Pharaoh. Egypt needs Isis. We need a throne to carry her back to. We’ll find Euphronius, and he’ll help us to escape before the emperor marries you off to some horrible old man.”

  He didn’t seriously think we could simply run away, did he? I was aghast, wondering if Helios was like my mother, fighting even when he knew he’d lose. I tried to hide my rising panic. “Helios, remember that you promised we’d do nothing until springtime.” He scowled and began to protest, but he was never one to break his promises and I reminded him of that now. “A king doesn’t break his word. Especially not to his sister.”

  Helios growled. “We’ll wait until the Navigium Isidis, then, when the city is filled with revelers and it’ll be easier for us to get lost in a crowd.”

  The Navigium Isidis was an Isiac festival that celebrated the opening of the sailing season in early March. That my brother had chosen it was a testament to how serious he was about his plan. There was no more likely day in which we could find Euphronius in Rome, or at least find someone who had seen him. “We lose nothing by trying,” Helios said.

  He was wrong—there was much we had to lose by trying, but before I could tell him so, Lady Octavia was pounding on my door. “Wake up, Selene! The morning lamps need to be lit, and after that you can help Marcella gather up her childhood things.”

  THE slaves were already scurrying in and out of Marcella’s room when I got there, and I found her standing in the midst of the bustle, wan and drawn. Since Chryssa now belonged to Helios, who gave her precious little to do, the imperial family relied upon another ornatrix named Phoebe—who was now explaining to Marcella how her hair must be divided with a spear tip into six braids for her upcoming wedding. “It’s to drive curses and evil spirits out of your hair,” she explained, and Marcella just kept nodding her head, her eyes somewhere off in the distance.

  I was loathe to interrupt, but I said, “Your mother said I should help you gather your childhood things. Are you going somewhere?”

  This made Marcella frown. “I’m marrying Agrippa tomorrow. I’m going to live in his villa.”

  Now I frowned too. “You’re marrying tomorrow?”

  When Lady Octavia had told us that her eldest daughter would marry Agrippa, I certainly never thought it would happen so quickly, and I also thought it would be attended with some pomp and circumstance. Marcella was, after all, the emperor’s niece. “Isn’t there to be … a celebration?”

  “What is there to celebrate?” Marcella asked, biting her lower lip and turning to stare at the saffron veil draped over her bed as if it were her burial shroud. “Livia says that on account of Agrippa’s low birth, we shouldn’t mark the occasion lavishly. The patrician families won’t approve.”

  “Not even a banquet?” I asked.

  “Oh yes. A small one. Then a wedding breakfast the next morning at Agrippa’s villa. But nothing so grand as the Saturnalia.”

  Like her mother, Marcella often wore a carefully guarded expression, but I could see she was miserable. I tried to offer what comfort I could. “I’ll help you pack.”

  “You don’t need to,” Marcella said. “Most of my things have already been sent ahead. All that remains now is to burn the rest.”

  “To burn?” I thought I’d misheard.

  “Tomorrow I’ll be a bride,” she explained, tracing the charm she wore at her neck. “Tonight I have to offer up this bulla and the rest of my belongings from girlhood.”

  That night, we all gathered round as Marcella removed the bulla from her neck and burned what remained of her childhood in offering to the household gods. Agrippa and Octavia were both on hand to watch her feed these things to the flame, but neither of them spared one another a glance.

  The next day, the slaves slaughtered a ewe and erected an altar before which Marcella and Agrippa were to be wed at dusk. Octavia was in a temper all day, and I made sure to stay out of her way, busying myself by helping the slaves light the candles and lanterns to welcome the few guests and witnesses required to make the marriage legal. Then I sat together with my brothers and Julia who viewed the entire proceedings with distaste. “When I get married, my veil is going to be embroidered with gold thread,” she insisted. “And there will be an enormous party to celebrate.”

  The musicians took up their instruments and Marcella finally appeared, emerging from the house.

  “She looks like a bejeweled mummy,” Helios whispered to me, and that wasn’t far from the truth. Marcella wore a long white tunic, the bright orange veil drawn over her face like a hood, showing only the coiffure of her hair. With her fair complexion and the wreath of flowers that adorned her, the emperor’s niece looked like a Vestal Virgin, a veritable symbol of innocence and purity.

  Her groom, however, was unquestionably drunk. Looking awkward with his burly warrior’s frame draped in a toga, Agrippa gulped down the last of the wine in his goblet before lumbering to his place beside his young bride.

  Was I the only one to catch Agrippa and Octavia share a meaningful look? They stared at one another as if there were years of unspoken longing between them. For a moment, I even wondered if they might rebel and call an end to this wedding. But in the end, in their way, I think each of them loved the emperor more than they loved each other, or even themselves.

  “Who is the little girl?” Philadelphus asked, noticing the child in Agrippa’s wake, about his own age.

  “That’s Vipsania,” Julia explained. “Agrippa’s daughter.”

  Octavia had said that a Roman husband shouldn’t have to take in the girl children of other men, but Marcella would clearly be expected to mother Agrippa’s daughter, who eyed the whole exchange with wide-eyed wonderment.

  I was only four years old when my own parents married, but I actually remembered the wedding and the riotous celebration that attended it. I still had flashes of memory: my mother’s golden gown and my father’s glittering eyes. The wine, the dancing, and merriment had tired me out long before Iras and Charmian had fetched me for bed. So it was uncomfortable to see the stoicism with which Agrippa and Marcella now approached the altar. Marcella held her lips tight. Sewn up. Fastened down. I wonde
red whether she had ever breathed a day in her life or whether she’d always been that girl arguing with me while we decorated boughs for the Saturnalia.

  In short order, while the guests looked on, the bride and groom exchanged bites of spelt cake, then said the simple Roman vows. “When and where thou art Gaius, I shall be Gaia,” Marcella murmured.

  “When and where thou art Gaia, I shall be Gaius.”

  Then it was done, as simply as that. They were married, and all the guests cried out their congratulations. All except for Julia, that is. “Poor Marcella,” she said, but as I glanced around at the faces of the rheumy old senators in attendance, I decided that things could have been worse.

  The banquet that night wasn’t lavish, but the menu had been chosen by Octavia and included some truly tasty dishes. My brothers, both of whom missed living by the sea, gorged themselves on shrimp and oysters, but I couldn’t find my appetite. I kept thinking of my mother and how she must have banqueted here in Rome. No doubt, wearing the serpent bracelet that she’d asked Virgil to give to me.

  When the candles had burned low, it was time for Agrippa to take his bride home. Marcella was supposed to cling to her mother and Agrippa was supposed to rip his bride from her mother’s arms. But only too well did Marcella play her part, weeping openly. Too little did Agrippa play his, standing there stammering and wine-soaked. Even in the face of jubilant taunts, he could barely bring himself to touch his new bride.

  At last, at the emperor’s impatient glare, Agrippa took Marcella by the shoulders and yanked her backward, hoisting her up into his arms. “Talasio!” our guests cried, an ancient Roman encouragement.

  Agrippa looked like a bear with a child in his arms as he let the torchbearers lead them away. I rose from my seat, all too well imagining myself in Marcella’s place and wanting nothing but to flee.

  Julia stopped me. “Where are you going, Selene? You’ll miss the procession!”

  “You’re all too young for the procession,” Octavia said, overhearing us. “I don’t want your innocence spoiled by the bawdy jests that the guests will make as they lead the bride and groom away. Off to bed with you, and take poor Philadelphus with you. He can barely keep his eyes open!”