“My first child, the one I nursed at the same time as Alexander, my lady? Only the first three months. My second, the one I nursed with you? I never had a day’s sickness at all. It will pass, my lady.” Nesa patted her hair gently.
“So, another month. Maybe more. Maybe less.” Eurydice groaned under her breath. “How can the child grow if I can’t keep any food down with which to feed it in my belly?”
“I don’t know, but they do,” Nesa told her cheerfully, and changed out the damp cloth for a fresher, cooler one. “You’ll soon know all about this, too, my lady,” she added, turning towards Selene, who flushed and then went pale.
Eurydice heaved herself upright. “Come along,” she told Selene tiredly. “I have just enough time to go with you to see Mother before Malleolus said he should have come to terms with Magus Banit, and might be able to bring her to me.” She didn’t want Selene to feel marginalized, but there were more important things afoot than her sister’s marriage plans. “Caesarion agreed to let Magus Banit stay here at least long enough to teach me about her magic—and, possibly, join my bodyguards here, at least for a time. Which will be a help. Come along, Selene,” she repeated, standing at the door of the huge royal bedchamber now, trying not to look at its wide expanses or the ancient frescoes on the walls, which made her feel like an intruder on her own family’s history. “Let’s go find Mother and get this over with.”
Selene walked beside Eurydice, deeply dispirited. In the first delicious moments of accepting Antyllus’ proposal at last, she’d been dizzy with happiness. Now, everyone seemed intent on stealing her joy. Caesarion was angry. Eurydice didn’t even seem to care. Though a little voice at the back of her mind whispered, Someone did just try to kill her. While she’s pregnant. And she has to take over the rulership of the Empire’s second-most important region inside this month. Maybe I’m being selfish. I . . . I am.
Chagrinned, Selene retreated into silence as Eurydice and she made their way through the royal quarters, finding the rooms Cleopatra now shared with Antony. And on finding themselves admitted, Eurydice said wearily, “Mother, Selene has some news for you,” and just looked at her. Waiting for her to speak.
Selene’s stomach clenched as she looked at her mother. And suddenly, she didn’t even want to share her happiness. Her mother would just spoil it, anyway. But the die was cast, and she had no choice but to speak now, otherwise she’d just be wasting Eurydice’s time. “I’ve accepted Antyllus’ proposal,” Selene mumbled.
“Ah, excellent,” Cleopatra said, smiling. “I knew you’d see reason eventually. He has too much of his father’s charm not to succeed with any woman with whom he’s determined to court.” A brisk nod. “So, we’ll set the wedding for a month from now—“
“Caesarion said to make it quick,” Selene said, looking at the floor. “Else he and Eurydice would not be able to attend, given the need to travel south to Thebes.”
Cleopatra turned towards Eurydice, frowning. “This is as royal a wedding as your own, not that your ceremony in Rome at the Temple of Isis had much grandeur to it,” she told her older daughter crisply.
“I rather thought that the one we did for ourselves, in the gladiatorial arena, covered everything that was needed,” Eurydice returned mildly.
Cleopatra waved that away. “Selene is entitled to all the majesty due to a princess of Egypt. Barges on the Nile. A week of festivities for the commoners—and that sort of thing is just as important here, as providing bread and games in Rome. You and Caesarion will surely be back from Thebes by the time everything can be made ready—“
“Perhaps,” Eurydice said, her tone brittle, “we might ask Selene what she wants.” She looked over at her sister now, and Selene raised her eyes from the floor, swallowing.
Cleopatra sighed, folding her hands in front of her. “Selene,” she said, her tone not unkind, “has gone out of her way to turn herself into a mouse. But she is a princess of Egypt, as well as the daughter of the Emperor of Rome, and it is time that she takes up her public role, and that she stops hiding.”
“No,” Selene said, her voice shaking, and she raised her head to look her mother in the eyes.
“No?” Cleopatra repeated, clearly finding the word unfamiliar.
“No,” Selene repeated herself, feeling her knees weaken. “I don’t want all that fuss. I’m sure Antyllus would find it just as repugnant as I do—“
“Oh really?” Cleopatra asked, sharply. “Have you asked him? Have you asked the young man who wants a public career, particularly a career that involves reaching out to Rome’s provinces, and any manner of foreigners, if he’s unwilling to make use of his wife’s political and familial connections to add luster to his own name? Have you asked your betrothed if he’s willing to give up the shine that a public marriage to royalty will give him?”
Selene swallowed, her tongue feeling thick in her mouth. No, she thought, dimly. He kissed me. He said his heart would be mine, if I wanted it. It’s not just about politics. But the sinking feeling she always had, when subjected to her mother’s political mind, returned, and the last vestiges of happiness tore away from her. “Caesarion said to marry quickly, and for us to go to Syria as soon as the harbor opens,” Selene whispered. “I don’t think he wants us to stay here and . . . and prolong this.” As he made it clear I’ve already dragged it out past all reason, she added, silently, feeling coldness steal through her. I don’t think at this point he even cares which of them I marry, so long as I do so.
Cleopatra sighed. “Caesarion is a fine fighter and a wonderful general, but he has the political acumen of a bedbug sometimes,” she replied uncharitably. “This is a marriage that firmly allies the Julii and Antonii families—much more so than mine, since you’re a daughter of Caesar. Of course a fuss must be made. I don’t think Antony would tolerate anything but a fuss.”
“Have you asked him that?” Eurydice suddenly interposed, a dry, direct thrust that stole their mother’s previous words to Selene and threw them in Cleopatra’s face. “Don’t answer,” Eurydice added, raising a hand as Cleopatra’s brows lowered into a frown. “For the moment, I’m done with this conversation. Selene, with me, please. I have a Magus with whom to discuss magic, and I will address everyone’s concerns when I’ve had time to think about the social, political, and personal needs of everyone concerned.”
“Daughter, I have not finished talking to you—“ Cleopatra began.
Eurydice’s eyebrows rose. And Selene had never loved or admired her sister more than when Eurydice said, calmly and evenly, “But I have finished speaking with you on this topic, Mother. You are, as always, my cherished advisor, as is your husband, the governor of Egypt. But for the moment, I do not wish to hear more of your counsel. Selene, accompany me. Now.”
And Eurydice swept out of the room, dragging Selene in her wake. Small ships might have been pulled along with her, so thoroughly did she sweep. Though, two passages down, Eurydice muttered under her breath, “I enjoyed that too much. She’s going to make me pay for it.”
“Thank you,” Selene whispered.
“Don’t thank me,” Eurydice replied, unknowingly echoing Caesarion. “Just talk to Antyllus and figure out what you both want, and I’ll try to arrange it so you get it.” She made a shooing gesture. “Go.”
And on entering her apartments, Eurydice found four Praetorians, including Malleolus, standing around Damkina Banit. No weapons drawn, but the Magus appeared highly conscious of their presence, eying them all sidelong. “Thank you for agreeing to at least speak to me,” Eurydice told the woman, smiling. “I’ve been doing my best to scrape up information on magic, so that I can learn, and those of our people who have similar gifts, can learn to use them. But it’s been slow going. The Hellene tradition of magic is wrapped up with Hecate, and most of her priests live as quietly and out of sight as they can. The rest are the mage-philosophers of Crete—“
“They had a stronger tradition of magic, once,” Damkina murmured. “When the godslayer
s walked the earth.”
Eurydice gestured at a chair, inviting the other woman to sit. “I’ve been struggling,” she admitted candidly, “with both the traditional spells locked in the Book of Thoth, which seem terribly limited to me, and with the traditional philosophical notions first put forward by Aristotle, of four major elements, and a fifth one, divine and pure. Why is air so damnably heavy to move, for example? It’s weightless!” Eurydice sliced her hand through the air in demonstration.
Damkina’s brow creased over her veil. “Because there’s so much of it,” she answered, her tone confused. “Air is still something that is present; it’s still a thing. We’ve conducted experiments in which we’ve managed to remove all air from a glass vessel, using magic. Every time we’ve done so, the vessel collapses in on itself. Why?”
Eurydice’s mind raced. “The weight of the air around the now-empty vessel . . . crushed it?” she offered. Air can crush. So can water—look at how strong waves are, as they beat on a ship or a quay.
“That was the supposition put forward by Nebo Bel-Zikri, the Magus who first made the attempt,” Damkina replied, her eyes alert. “You have an apt mind, my lady.”
Eurydice smiled and asked, “So talk to me about earth, Damkina. I’ve seen how water and air can behave the same way, pushing at whatever it touches, impelled by . . . force. Wind propelling water. Water propelled by . . . the tide, I suppose. I’ve seen water, in frozen form, ice, come down a mountainside in the form of a wave, too. If water in both solid and liquid form can behave like a wave, can earth behave like either of these things?”
Damkina’s eyes lit up behind her veil. “Yes,” she replied, with enthusiasm. “Both when rendered liquid by heat, as by a volcano, or when the pieces of earth are very small, like grains of sand slipping down the side of a dune—“
Eurydice lifted her head and gave Malleolus a beatific smile. Which garnered no response from the Praetorian at all; his attention remained locked on the Magus, almost entirely.
That didn’t deter the two women from talking, non-stop, for the next hour. Eurydice removed scrolls from out of the chests she’d brought to Alexandria. And Damkina asked if her scrolls and cuneiform tablets might be retrieved from her house and brought to the palace.
______________
With a sigh, Antyllus tapped on the door of Tiberius’ room. He had a bottle of wine and two cups with him. This is not at all how I thought the day of my betrothal would go, he thought, wincing. He’d informed his father next, and received Antony’s blessing, in between his father shouting at the various members of the urban cohorts to deal with the merchants who were objecting to having their wagonloads of fish go bad in the sun, unable to leave the city for the fish processing centers on the outskirts of town.
When Antony’s attention had returned to Antyllus, he’d smiled briefly and told him, “Good show. Brought the unicorn in from the hunt at last. Now get the marriage sealed, and her with child as quickly as you can.” A quick nod, and Antony directed his attention towards a centurion, being at least as busy as Caesarion at the moment. “In the meantime, if you’re feeling up to walking around, why not put on some armor and help with the search for the attackers?”
His father’s famously blunt manner did sometimes grate. “Ah, thank you,” Antyllus muttered. How nice to know that all the work I’ve put into making her smile simply boils down to ‘Good job. Now get her pregnant before you get killed or she regains her sanity and divorces you.’ “Caesarion asked me to go patch things up with Tiberius before anything else—“
Antony’s head lifted with a frown, which turned into a grimace. “Most of the time, I’d say ‘too bad for him, you got in first,’” he told his son with brutal frankness. “However, I’ll admit that it makes it easier to work with men when their eyes don’t say ‘fuck you,’ while their mouths say ‘yes, sir.’” He shrugged. “Once you get things ‘patched up,’ drag him out of whatever hole he’s hiding in,” Antony added. “A broken arm shouldn’t have him prostrated on his bed, and I need commanders out in the street, helping to coordinate this mess.” A gesture of impatience at the scrolls heaped on his own desk, and the string of couriers scuttling in with information every few minutes.
Now, Antyllus stood in front of Tiberius’ door, holding two cups and a clay bottle of wine, chafing a little at reality. He’d always somehow imagined that having his proposal accepted would mean a quiet half hour or so in an antechamber of the girl’s house, not out of earshot, but definitely unseen by her parents, to be spent in blissful contemplation of the kinds of silent conversations two pairs of lips could hold.
And received no answer at his tap. Perhaps he already left to go join the search? Caesarion did heal his arm, and my father doesn’t have eyes everywhere. Antyllus tried the door’s latch gently, and found it swinging open under his fingers.
And to his surprise, Tiberius was inside, but didn’t even look up from his desk as he continued to work at whatever he was writing. “I said go away. I don’t need any—” the younger man snapped, and, looking up, cut his words off short. Set his stylus down on his desk, and stood behind his desk.
That was when the awkwardness of the moment set in. Caesarion was right. I do need this addressed before we’re in the field. Damn it. Antyllus stepped inside, closing the door behind him, and approached, trying to find some portion of the desk that wasn’t covered in parchment. Finally finding a thin strip near the edge, he set the cups down on it, commenting, “These don’t look like maps of Alexandria.”
“Britannia. Gaul.” No inflection in Tiberius’ voice.
Antyllus poured the wine into both cups, adding, “My father’s asked us both to join the effort to find the attackers—“
“I’ll go directly.” Tiberius moved out from around his desk, heading straight for the door.
Antyllus caught his arm, and felt every muscle in the younger man’s body stiffen at the contact, and for a moment, he thought Tiberius might spin and punch him. But all the younger man did was rock to a halt, looking at the door, a muscle working in his jaw until Antyllus let his hand fall. “You really don’t like being touched, do you?” Antyllus asked, mildly.
He’d been at the baths last year with Tiberius, Alexander, Caesarion, and a handful of other young nobles, and Tiberius had declined, repeatedly, the suggestion that they all leave the waters for the tepidarium, where they could all get massages. Only when Alexander had told him that the services were already paid for, and to continue to decline would be unsociable, had Tiberius reluctantly left the pool. And he’d scowled the entire time the slave had been working on his back and legs, in spite of the bath attendant’s quiet, plaintive requests that the young lord please relax now.
“It depends on the person.” Tiberius remained precisely where he was. “Your father’s waiting for us. Let’s go.”
Antyllus sighed. “I thought we might share a drink together first.”
“We’re about to go on duty.”
“Fuck duty for a moment, Tiberius. My father’s out of line even asking us to volunteer. We were excused duty today after being wounded, for the gods’ sakes.” Antyllus took a deep breath. “Just . . . sit and have a drink with me, all right?” He’d rarely found anyone he couldn’t charm or talk around to his point of view, given time. Other than Octavia. Nothing worked on that woman. Not smiles, not reason, not humor. Nothing.
Tiberius turned. Picked up one cup, and said, clearly and distinctly, “To your impending wedding.” He snapped his head back to drink the whole thing in one go.
Antyllus reached out to stop him, unsure of how to do that without touching him, and finally grabbed his friend’s wrist, anyway. “That wasn’t—damn it all!” Antyllus swore under his breath. “I didn’t come here to make you drink to my wedding.” Incredulity filled his voice. “Dis, do you think I’m that devoid of understanding?”
His friend didn’t answer. Antyllus gestured at one of the room’s chairs, and repeated, “Please sit down.”
Tiberius obeyed. Drank when Antyllus filled his cup again. “Caesarion threw one of the legs of that brazier at my head,” Antyllus offered, after a moment. “That’s going to be a conversation-starter in my tent next time I’m in a castra.”
Tiberius heard the words, but couldn’t come up with anything to say in reply. So he nodded. That was, more or less, what trophies were for. For helping to remember what you’d done. Or reminding other people of who and what you were.
Antyllus drank from his own cup now, looking uncomfortable. “Caesarion said he’d given you the other one.”
Tiberius nodded once more. Again, there didn’t really seem to be much he could say that would add to this one-sided conversation. So he emptied his cup and put it aside.
“You plan to hang yours up in your tent?” Antyllus felt lost. He had no idea what to do or to say to get Tiberius to talk. React. Anything, really. If Tiberius had gotten raging drunk and punched him, Antyllus would have understood it better. They could have had a nice, cleansing fight, and gotten whatever jealousy or rage was in Tiberius out of his system, and while the expensive furniture of the palace might have taken a beating, and some teeth might have been loosened, it would have been done.
But all Tiberius did was shake his head in reply. “Why not?” Antyllus said, more sharply now. “I’ll put mine up. We fought together. We won together.” He cast about for words. And both of us having one is important. It shows that we’re brothers, in a way.
Children of Tiber and Nile (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 2) Page 24
