Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  “I should like to know why the birth of a child has laid such waste to me,” I say, wondering how such a tiny baby could’ve been so very difficult to bring into the world. “You will say that childbed fever saps the strength of queens and peasants alike, but I wear an amulet that says I am the Resurrection. Isis is a mother goddess and has made me her vessel. Why should giving birth have been so dreadful for me, of all women?”

  I expect him to knit his brow in curiosity, or to rub at his chin the way Juba does when worrying over a problem, or even to scratch at his head as when confronted by my inability to work a spell. Instead, he stares with sad, watery eyes that fill me with foreboding. “What is it, Euphronius? Have I displeased the goddess? You cannot think that she’s left me …”

  The mage’s fingers squeeze tight on his staff. “Isis will be with you unto death … even if you were to abandon her.”

  It is a rebuke, and I might have expected one, given that he believes I have forsaken my birthright. I will never be Pharaoh, and while the rest of my courtiers dream of the day I will reclaim my lost inheritance, my mage can read my heart. He doesn’t need to look into the Rivers of Time to see that all other possibilities flow away from us now. So I admit it. “I will not chase my mother’s throne again. I’ve never forgotten Isis and I’ve never forgotten Egypt, but they’re not the same. Land can be taken from me by force, a crown and scepter wrestled from my grasp, but Isis lives in me and no one can take her from me. You told me—you told me—that I carry her wherever I go. I’ve used her magic here to make Mauretanian fields fertile. I’ve fed the people on her bounty. That is salvation. That is the true immortality. That will be my legacy.”

  “If so, it comes at great sacrifice,” the mage tells me flatly.

  His impertinence stokes my anger. “I am not my mother. I am done fighting Rome. I am done scheming. I am done longing for a lost kingdom. For a lost world. I intend to build a new one, and if you won’t help me—”

  “Majesty!” he protests. “There is nothing I would deny you.”

  “Then teach me to see in the Rivers of Time.”

  The request plainly surprises him. “Majesty, the heka we draw, the power and prayer that fuels our magic, is precious and rare. To be used sparingly. You’re no temple wizard, pulling magic from the sacred pools. You’ve awakened powers that are yours alone, but you were not gifted with sight—not every sorceress has it.”

  He means that I do not have it, and he is right. That gift belonged to my mother and my littlest brother, Philadelphus, nearly five years now in his tomb. But I’m desperate. My choices have led me to a path my ancestors have not charted before. How will I navigate the way ahead so that my dynasty might survive? More urgently, how can I go on without knowing the truth about Helios?

  It has been a year since I saw him last, but the pain of our separation is still a fresh wound. A pain made more excruciating by what I saw when I was fevered. “Teach me to read the Rivers of Time,” I insist. “How is it done?”

  My mage calls for his servants to fill an alabaster divination bowl with water. Upon the small altar in his chambers, we light a candle made of sweet-smelling beeswax. We burn incense too that we may be purified enough to invoke the goddess. I sit barefoot before the bowl and press the soles of my feet into the woven carpet. The mage tells me to close my eyes and imagine that it is the warm sand of the desert between my toes. To chant all the names of Isis. To envision a temple to her. To see the silver moon rise over it, glowing on the water of the Nile, shimmering upon the petals of each lotus flower.

  “Now draw upon your heka,” the old man says. “Open your eyes and see into the bowl of water. See the glistening ripples of the Nile and how they turn the shining round moon into the crown of the goddess. See her glorious face shimmer. See what she would show you …”

  I stare and stare, trying to see the beautiful face of my goddess, hear her words, feel her touch … yet all I see is water. I try again and it seems as if the room grows hotter, brighter, and I hear the blaze of torches and feel embers of glowing incense burn beneath my eyelids. I try to draw upon that, but eventually I admit defeat. “It is no good.”

  The mage bows his head. “The goddess does not bestow all her gifts upon any one person.”

  “But I see nothing.”

  “Not even the temple and its gold dome?” Isidora asks.

  We startle, turning to see that my little daughter has abandoned the birds to stare into the divination bowl. How careless of us to have forgotten her. But Isidora can be quiet when she wants to be overlooked, when she wants to be present for what the adults would exclude her from.

  “Do you see something in the bowl, princess?” the mage asks.

  “No, she does not,” I say, getting to my feet.

  I remember being a child both blessed and burdened by magic. I don’t want that for Isidora. Moreover, I don’t want her to realize that my mage is a mage. It’s a secret we keep from the king, and I remember what it was like to be a child who carried secrets that could send men to their deaths. I’ll have to be more careful with Isidora. We’ve just celebrated her sixth birthday and I won’t steal her childhood from her as mine was stolen from me.

  “Come, Isidora,” I say. “We’ve harried the king’s physician enough today.”

  As we make ready to leave, the old man lowers his head in deference to my wishes, but he stops me before I go through the doorway. “Majesty … your birth went hard. You mustn’t risk another child now.”

  A puff of indignant air escapes my lips. “My son is still an infant. I believe the king can be satisfied for the time being.”

  “Even if the king is not, you must be. As I said, the goddess does not bestow all her gifts upon one person. Not even you.”

  *

  KING Juba calls for a celebration to mark the birth of our prince, and Isis willing, it will be a good day. Little Ptolemy is still so small, so frail. I want to bundle him up and keep him in a close cocoon, away from the noise and demands of the world, but he is a prince. He must be seen. Neither of us can hide inside the palace forever.

  Our processional assembles just outside the courtyard beyond the gates where Isidora makes a game of stepping on Memnon’s feet to see if she can make the commander of my Macedonian guard scowl from beneath his fierce helmet. Thankfully, Memnon is made of stern stuff and maintains his Spartan demeanor until Tala rescues him from the torments of my daughter.

  Then my niece Pythodorida gently chides her. “Dora, behave like a fine princess today. You don’t want to disappoint the king, do you?”

  Though my niece is older than my daughter by five years, they’re playmates. Together with the other children at our court, they’ve made up infectious names for one another. Isidora is called Dora. Pythodorida is called Pythia, like the oracle. They are two girls as innocent and carefree as I can make them and both overly solicitous of the king’s attention.

  When Juba comes into view mounted atop a magnificent stallion, my daughter quivers with excitement. “Papa!”

  “There’s my girl,” Juba says from the height of his horse, and her cheeks glow rosy. “And isn’t the queen very pretty today?”

  Smiling as if such compliments were merely my due, I refasten my cloak. But if I am honest with myself, I am warmed by his praise, even if it is only flattery. My ladies have brushed oil through my hair to hide its dull brittleness. The drape of purple silk, tied tight at my waist with a silvered girdle, helps disguise the fact that I’ve become thin. But I fear childbed fever has robbed me of any vestige of beauty. “Let’s not be late,” I say. “The people are waiting.”

  The king’s merriment is not dimmed by my reserve. “My queen, it’s quite unlike you to forget your exalted status. I believe the people are obliged to wait for us.”

  Nevertheless, he wheels his horse round, and I climb into the large gilded carpentum with my children and my niece. The trumpets sound and we’re off, borne by a fine team of plumed horses in royal purple livery, g
littering gold breastplates emblazoned with my family sigil, the eagle and thunderbolt.

  The crowd showers us with rose petals. The king’s horse tramples them and a fragrant perfume rises up to surround us. The people cheer and it sends a jolt of excitement through me. I adore that sound: the music of my people’s love. And I resolve to banish my gloom.

  My infant son drowses in the crook of my arm, too regal—or still too raw from the realm of the gods from whence he came—to care about all this mortal fanfare. When I press my lips to his tiny forehead, scenting lavender and milk, my daughter draws closer, tugging at the silvered circlet in her hair. “When you were ill, Mama, they wouldn’t let me climb into your bed with you. I feared I might never see you again.”

  I flinch at her words, pained to think of her trying to climb into my bed and being turned away. Never should she face the terrors of being a motherless child. Terrors I know all too well. Clutching her to my side, I promise, “Don’t fear. I will never leave you.”

  Our noisy arrival in the forum drowns out the bleating camels, the clacking wagons filled with ripened fruit, and the wool merchants shouting their prices. And when I step out of the litter, a prince in my arms and a princess at my side, the crowd cheers again for me, their fertile queen. I am Cleopatra of the royal House Ptolemy, the eighth of my name, but they call me mother of the realm and other, more divine titles. I blink against the bright sun, straining to find familiar faces in a sea of people who want me to be the vessel of a great goddess.

  “Come this way, Majesty,” Chryssa says, guiding me to the dais that has been made ready for us. I take my seat beside Juba upon a throne of ivory, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Just beneath us, places of honor have been afforded to our children. Though my niece is not royalty, Pythia sits with us as if she were. Augustus took orphans into his family when I was a child; I now do the same, reminding myself that not everything I learned from the emperor was dark and twisted.

  Juba announces that this day of celebration is made possible by the grace of our patron, Augustus Caesar. Everyone chants, “Caesar! Divine Caesar!”

  The emperor is no god, but the people want him to be—just as they want me to deliver them salvation. So I must mouth his name with everyone else.

  Caesar, Caesar, Caesar.

  Our ministers make speeches to praise the gods for our new prince. A Greek choir sings a sweet tune. We’re treated to a poem by Crinagoras, commemorating the occasion. And then, mercifully, we’re free to make our way to the new royal library, an annex to our palace with stairs flanked by gilded marble lions that stand guard over our literary treasures.

  Portraits of Alexander the Great grace both sides of the entryway in vivid scarlet and gold, and the cavernous hall is made more inviting by numerous marble benches for scholars to sit upon and tables in niches at which they may read. Modeled after the Great Library of Alexandria, our library boasts three floors and three tiers of galleries overlooking a sunny central court. But the true wealth of this place may be counted in our scroll racks, where copies, and some precious originals, of the most important manuscripts can be found. As we marvel over mosaic floors and climb the stairs to the second-floor balcony, I wonder if it would be beneath my royal dignity to reach out and let my fingers play over my name engraved on the dedication plaque. I’m tempted, for I have a fondness for things that endure …

  The herald’s voice booms, shouting out the coming attractions. Beer and feasting. Dancers and poets. More exotic entertainment too. For the opening act, the crowd parts to reveal a man sitting on the lower level, surrounded by baskets and figs. He plays his pipe, and from the railing, I watch with a growing sense of dread as sinuous serpents rise up from the baskets at the sound of the music.

  Below me, six black Egyptian cobras dance on their tails, swaying.

  And all the joy of this day flees in an instant.

  I watch their scaled hoods spread wide like the uraeus on the crown of Egypt. Even from this height, I’m paralyzed by the sight of the asps, their forked tongues flickering out between deadly fangs. I don’t notice that I’m gripping the balustrade until my knuckles have gone white, all my effort concentrated upon not swooning and falling to my death.

  And I would swoon if I were not so filled with rage. Someone has arranged for this. Someone who knows what haunts me. Someone who wants to send me a message and make this occasion a moment of dread. The king must know it, for he calls down, “That’s enough. We’ve seen enough of the snake charmer!”

  There is commotion below, some upset at having displeased us. Then Chryssa snaps, “Who could think it a good idea to honor the daughter of Cleopatra by coaxing asps from baskets of figs?”

  The story the world tells of my mother’s suicide is that she cheated the emperor of his conquest by plunging her hand into a basket where a venomous serpent lay in wait. A legend only, some say, for the serpent was never found. But I was there. I brought her that basket. She was the one bitten, but the poison lingers in my blood to this day. I can still remember the scent of figs in my nostrils, lush and sweet. The dark god Anubis was embroidered into the woven reeds of the basket, the weight of death heavy in my arms. I can still see my mother reach her hand into that basket, surrendering her life so that her children might go on without her. And I have gone on without her. I have survived too much to be terrorized by the emperor’s agents or whomever else is responsible for this.

  If it is a message, a warning from my enemies, I have already allowed them too much of a victory by showing any reaction at all. So I adopt as serene a mask as possible. Juba, however, goes red. “I’ll have someone flogged for this.”

  My daughter blinks her big blue eyes, seeing past my facade. “Are you frightened, Mama? They can’t bite us from there. The snakes are very far away.”

  I get my legs under me, bitterness on my tongue. “Oh, but they’re never far enough away.”

  Four

  MY ancestors built the Lighthouse of Alexandria, a wonder of the world. Our lighthouse here in Mauretania is not as wondrous, but it’s where I go to find my courage. Leaving my guards behind, I make the long climb up the spiral staircase to the watch room, which does much to invigorate me. There, at the top of the world, I step out onto the gallery, where the stiff ocean breeze reminds me that I am a sorceress who can command winds with her upraised hands. I can defend myself and those I love, if need be …

  The howl of the wind keeps me from hearing footsteps on the stairs below. It is only the sound of a door crashing open that pulls me from my thoughts. I think it will be the harbormaster or the keeper of the lighthouse, come to attend me.

  I am surprised to see the king, instead, purple cape flapping behind him.

  He is without a retinue; we are quite alone. And it startles me when the king stands at my side near the rail and takes the unusual liberty of putting his hand over mine. It is an intimacy I’ve not invited since the drunken night we conceived our son. After all, I didn’t take my husband into my bed for pleasure; I took him to bed because I wanted a child, and now we have one.

  Nevertheless, I don’t pull my hand away. Juba isn’t my beloved, but what I remember of our night together is a pleasant memory and I have no urge to spurn him. Below us, big sweating oxen haul wood to the lighthouse to keep the fire fueled so that sailors don’t lose their way. Above us, in the tower, the fire burns so hot it warms our backs, and we are silent together, bathed in that fire’s light.

  When the king finally speaks, he raises his voice to be heard over the crash of ocean waves, which churn into white foam on the dark stones beneath. “Your hands are so cold, Selene.”

  “I only fear—”

  “I know what you fear, but the snake charmer was no threat from the emperor. It was only a tribesman from the Atlas Mountains, come to entertain his king and queen. No one thought better of it.” My hesitation must tell him that I’m not convinced. “It was no warning. If the emperor is displeased that we have a son together, he’s shown no sign of it in h
is dispatches to me.”

  “But has he sent felicitations? No. If Augustus were pleased, he’d have said something by now. I know him. We both know him. The emperor is often silent when he is most enraged.”

  Then again, Augustus is a new man since returning from Greece, having recovered battle standards from the Parthians without even taking the battlefield. He believes himself a peacemaker now; perhaps he’s too exalted to feel jealousy over a discarded lover. Perhaps he’s finally tired of me. Perhaps I’m no more to him now than before I was born. That is what I wanted, isn’t it? I should be glad of it …

  The king strokes his thumb over mine as if to ease my anxiety. “Rome is far away, Selene. We have a daughter and a son—a son! We rule over this kingdom and have nothing to fear here.”

  That is nonsense and he knows it; or at least, he should know it, so I don’t dignify it with an argument. “Would you have really flogged someone for my sake?”

  His brow furrows beneath his gold crown. “You make the mistake of thinking that because I dislike violence, I’m not capable of it. I can and will protect our kingdom and you.”

  Against everything and everyone but the emperor, he means.

  I have forgiven Juba for the part he played in driving my parents to suicide. But it is difficult to know that he would do it all again. He would do anything for the emperor and give anything to the emperor—even me. And yet, the only way we can live together as man and wife is if we never discuss all the ways we have wronged each other. So I press my lips together and say nothing to contradict him.

  Instead, my eyes drift to my city below, and the wall we’re building to defend it. Green palm trees and flat-roofed clay houses can be seen in miniature, tiny people swarming through the grid of streets, some of them hurrying in and out of our public baths. From this height, our fine royal capital looks fragile, as if it could be smashed beneath a soldier’s boot. But we’ve built Iol-Caesaria strong, stone by stone. It is my fortress against the emperor. Augustus has sworn never to set foot here and I pray it is one vow he will keep.