Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  The Roman looks down at me over a crooked, hawkish nose. “You take me for an Isiac? I am no woman or slave or prostitute.”

  Fighting back irritation, I ask, “What god do you worship, then?”

  “I worship the forms of nature. Mathematical ratios. The sacred cohesion of sand and lime and stone.”

  I begin to see why he must pay women to spend time in his company—and it is not because of his nose. “So are you a Pythagorean or a Cynic?”

  “Neither. I am not a philosopher. I am not a priest. I am a builder. I will build you a temple that brings mortals to their knees, but do not ask me to hold with mummery and witchery and superstition.”

  I dismiss him without further consideration.

  This temple is to be my greatest work. It is to save the belief in Isis that has sustained wretched people in their darkest hours. I cannot entrust something so sacred into the hands of a man so profane.

  There must be someone else. I will find someone else.

  *

  MY husband is indifferent in the matter of my temple, but the proposed Iseum is greeted with mixed reaction by our courtiers. On the one hand it pleases the Isiacs amongst us who seek a familiar goddess in this strange land. On the other hand, it displeases many of my Alexandrians who take it as evidence that I will never lead them home as the Queen of Egypt.

  None take it harder than my mage. He absents himself from court, withdrawing to his chambers, where I find him sitting on his balcony alone, feeding seeds to little birds who peck around his feet. “Don’t you want to see Isis honored with a temple?”

  His eyes flutter closed. “Your mother was going to build an Iseum in Dendera, alongside the temple for Hathor. When she pledged the funds, your mother was carved there. Caesarion too. And I saw myself, in the Rivers of Time, as the chief priest. What a fool I was.”

  Sliding onto the bench beside him, I put my hand beneath his, catching some of the seeds in my palm. “You were never a fool. Not everything we envision for ourselves can come true. The world changes. Or, as you would say, the river flows in a new direction. We must swim in it and see where it leads.”

  “That has always been your gift, Majesty. Even without the small magics I have taught you, you swim the treacherous currents, no matter where they lead. Your parents … your brothers … the rest of us sink. We drown.”

  Letting the seeds fall for the birds, I take his hand in mine, stroking the knuckles and veins that bulge beneath his aged and liver-spotted skin. “I will not let you drown, old friend.”

  “I thought I would return to Egypt. There, where the gods know my name. Here, not even men know my true name. And when I die, they will forget me.”

  I do not like to hear him speak of dying. “The gods will know your name, Euphronius. Because I know it and what I build here will be remembered.”

  “Will your mother be remembered? Or will all anyone knows of her be that which the emperor tells them? The paintings of her, the stories they tell, that is not the Cleopatra I knew. Not the queen I served. Not the Egypt I remember.”

  He wants to go home. He dragged himself across the world to be with me, leaving everything he knew behind, and I can give him no solace. “If you want to return to Egypt, if you want to leave me, I would release you. I would thank you gladly for your service and send you with my tears and all the gold you could carry.”

  He stiffens, affronted. “I return to Egypt with my queen or not at all.”

  That even Euphronius cannot see the importance of what I do here in Mauretania reminds me just how acutely my royal prestige relies on the idea that mine is a court in exile. My power resides chiefly in people remembering that I am the heir to the world’s greatest dynasty. That I am Cleopatra’s daughter.

  And so I commission a coin that stuns poor Master Gnaios, our gem cutter and sculptor. “In your mother’s image, Majesty? You want me to make a coin honoring Queen Cleopatra?”

  “You do remember what she looked like, don’t you?”

  “I remember that she was—she was …”

  He reddens.

  “An enemy of Rome? The emperor’s nemesis?”

  Now he begins to sweat. “Do we have the emperor’s permission?”

  “We don’t need it. The emperor has vested in us autonomous powers of coinage.” This does nothing to calm the poor artist. He frets, stammering that we will give offense to the emperor until I am forced to demand, “Do you think you know Augustus better than I do? My mother is long dead now, no danger to him. He is not frightened by her image. He delights in it. Has he removed my mother’s golden statue from his family temple? He has not. I have even heard that he took one of the pearls he stole from Alexandria and split it in two halves for earrings, to adorn that statue. He will not take offense.”

  I believe every word I say. But I also know Augustus will see the coin differently than others do. He will not see it as a challenge to Rome—as the glorification of his enemy—but he will see it as a message from me, a reminder of all that has passed between us, and my promise that I would be his Cleopatra. That much will incite him. But not to fury. So long as I do not cling to vain hopes to be made queen over all the lands that belong to me by right, I can only stand to benefit from the emperor’s preoccupation with the past. And so I issue a coin that reminds the world that mine is still House Ptolemy.

  *

  MY son’s first word is horse, a thing that delights the Berbers because they are all mad for horses. Indeed, horses are so important to the Berbers that, under the old kings, horses were counted in the census. Unfortunately, our first attempt at a census proves to be a disaster.

  When our city-dwelling subjects learn they must register for taxes and military recruitment, the proclamation is greeted with grudging cooperation here in Iol-Caesaria, but in the faraway city of Volubilis, it provokes the Mauri tribesmen to violence. One of our magistrates is killed in the fighting.

  “There must be a response,” Juba vows, apoplectic before our council. “Those responsible for killing the magistrate must be brought to painful justice.”

  I regret that I have chosen this day to allow the girls to sit in the council chambers. My daughter swishes her feet back and forth, alarmed when the men call for vengeance. And Pythia’s eyes widen, but she leans forward, interested and intent.

  “What kind of justice shall it be, Majesties?” Maysar asks, coming before our throne in the long burnoose of a desert nomad. Always protective of his Berber brethren, he argues, “Your largest tribe is the Mauri, and yet the people near Volubilis have never seen the royal family that rules over them. They do not know the king and queen who tax their lands and ask their sons to be soldiers. I do not argue that men who murder should be left free to do it again, but if you send Roman soldiers to hunt them down while counting Berber tax money safely behind these walls, they will not see it as justice.”

  “What do you suggest?” I ask, annoyed. “Should the king wrap himself in the blue cloth of your people, mount his horse, and ride after these brigands himself with a sword at his side?”

  Maysar shows a glint of teeth. “I wouldn’t serve King Juba if I didn’t think he could do just that.”

  My husband does not seem to hate the idea, but I find it absurd. “That is not what you are suggesting, is it?”

  The Berber chieftain shrugs. “I do not think it the worst plan, but perhaps you will like better the one where you move the seat of government to Volubilis. You have won the loyalty of Berbers here. Why should you not do the same in all your cities?”

  Maysar has never seemed to understand that the farther we are from Rome, the fewer resources at our disposal, and I snap, “Volubilis is more than twenty days’ travel from Rome in the best conditions and at least two weeks from Iol-Caesaria. That city is an indefensible, landlocked outpost at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, totally unsuitable to serve as a capital.”

  “I do not mean that you should settle there, Majesty, but a presence is required. Why not move your c
ourt there for a short time?”

  Because I don’t want to. Because Iol-Caesaria is my city—the city I saw in my mind’s eye and helped to build from almost nothing. It’s Alexandria in miniature, a mirror of all I lost in Egypt. Moreover, if there is an uprising in Volubilis, are my children not safer here? I could not leave them, after all.

  To my surprise, Juba says, “I’ll go, Selene. You’ll look after the children and rule here in Iol-Caesaria while I’m gone.”

  We have only just returned to our kingdom and now he thinks to leave again? His ready willingness to part from me is a jolt I do not expect. But it is, perhaps, only the most sensible solution. I can make no argument against it. We cannot ask Romans to put down an uprising in our own city; Juba must go. Except that … I do not want him to.

  When my husband braves the cold and drizzly afternoon for his daily ride, I insist upon joining him, though the rain soaks through my cloak and puts a shiver into my bones. Our breed of Barbary steeds, sleek and fleet-footed, often take top prizes in the chariot games in Rome. Nevertheless, I always feel unsteady upon these fierce horses, as if they might bolt out from beneath me.

  Juba, however, is a fearless rider who does not stop for rest until we are miles from the palace, at the edge of a coastal lake. Leaving the horses to our guards, I follow him in no good humor. But before I can complain, Juba catches me unawares, asking, “Have you been to this lake before? I would like to give it to you. The rights for it came with the many honors Augustus paid me before we left Rome. I think you and your freedwoman will make good use of it.”

  Shielding my eyes from the gray drizzle, I allow my gaze to skim the surface of the water, where I see nothing special at all. Not even a fishing boat. “I don’t understand.”

  “Look by your feet, Selene. Amber washes up here.”

  I’m suddenly a little warmer beneath my damp cloak. “Truly?” Stooping down, I’m amazed to find a raw chunk of the yellow stone and clasp it in my hand. I know it is very valuable when polished. I know it has strange qualities. It burns, and when it does, it yields a scented oil. Sometimes, when it is polished to a sheen like glass, one finds insects inside it. Rising up again, I say, “It’s beautiful. Do you believe amber is, as they say, the tears of the sun, fallen to earth?”

  Juba gives a curt shake of his head. “No. I would say it is a gum stone, maybe honey hardened to a rock. But since the Greeks believe amber belongs to the sun god Helios, I thought you should have the rights to this lake and mine the amber from it as you will.”

  It is a gesture both practical and sentimental, the kind that appeals to me best. It calls to mind my beloved twin, but I need my husband to believe the emotion he might see in my eyes is the longing of a grieving sister. For Juba, like the Romans, has long believed my twin is dead. Still holding the amber in one hand, I touch his arm with the other. “Thank you. What an extraordinary gift. I am more grateful than you know.”

  “I will be gone in Volubilis for some time,” Juba says. “It might take a year or more to establish peace. We will have to each keep our own courts …”

  “When would you go?” I ask somberly.

  “A week from now,” he says, his eyes on the horizon. “Tomorrow, if it pleases you.”

  “Well, it does not please me,” I say, puffing my displeasure into the air.

  “No?”

  “No! You will miss the Saturnalia … the children would be so disappointed.”

  Most children know their nursemaids better than their parents, but my husband is such a large presence in my children’s lives that I know they will take it hard.

  “I will send the children little gifts and letters,” is his mild reply.

  I stand there, my chest rising and falling with some emotion I don’t understand. He is a king; he has duties. I know this better than anyone. Mauretania cannot prosper if we do not bring our tribesmen to heel. But I don’t want to him to go. Not now when we have only just come home. Not now when we are finally learning to be good to each other.

  As I struggle for the words to explain myself, he lifts an eyebrow. “Would it not be easier for us to be apart, Selene?”

  I frown, more confused than before. “Easier? Why would you think it easier—” Then I know. And I go hot, my fist curling round the amber as I consider hurling it in anger. “What did Augustus say to you? Or did he threaten you?”

  Juba catches my wrist. “He said nothing to me about you, Selene. Nor did he threaten me. Why would he?”

  I want to shout at him for being so naive. I want to tell him how the emperor all but vowed to make me a widow if I should ever give Juba a child. But I bite back the words, caging them behind my teeth, because there is no way for my husband to respond that will not do more harm than good.

  If I tell Juba of the emperor’s threat and he refuses to believe me, then whatever trust there is between us will be smashed. Then again, it is no better if my husband does believe me. If I say that Augustus still claims me as his own, Juba may well decide that I am still the emperor’s property. My husband has, after all, given me up before. Or perhaps he will, like a coward, decide to come to my bed only in secret, resigned to a profaned and infertile marriage bed. How will I ever look at him without despising him if he does?

  There is a chance Juba would fight for me—a thing I had not realized, until this moment, that I desperately want. But what a wretched woman I would be to encourage rebellion when no one but Agrippa can fight the emperor and live to tell the tale. No. There is nothing I can say. Nothing that will not destroy my husband or destroy me.

  So I stand there, silently seething in the damp mist of the lake.

  “This isn’t about the emperor, Selene. It’s about you.”

  “Oh, I think you are wrong. It is always about him.”

  “Was it the emperor who issued a coin celebrating the infamous Cleopatra?”

  I meant to tell him of the coin myself once Master Gnaios was done with the design. I did not think someone would show it to the king before I did! “It is only to remind people that our children are heirs to the House of Ptolemy. The coin will—”

  “Did you think to ask me, first?”

  I cough, damp and cold and cross. “I am empowered to mint my own coins without your approval.”

  He rubs at his face, as if to master his emotions. “Give me a son, you said, and we will forget Augustus. But now you know, now you have seen, that the emperor has not forgotten you. That he still desires you. Perhaps you thought to stay with him in Rome, even if it set every tongue wagging.”

  The emperor said I can never be content, but I have smothered my dark ambitions and my hunger for revenge. On the last day of the Secular Games, I bested my khaibit to make room for the better parts of me. How can Juba doubt me now just because of a coin? I see now that I was unwise to commission it without informing the king, but I am too angry to admit it. “Yes. I could have stayed with the emperor in Rome and set every tongue wagging. But did I? No, I set sail for Mauretania with you.”

  This seems to soften Juba. “You did nothing to encourage him in Rome? This coin is not meant to provoke him now?”

  “I did not mint the coin to provoke Augustus,” I say, my throat pained under the emotion swelling there because I suspected it would provoke him, but took the risk anyway for a greater purpose. “It was not my aim to provoke him. Nor did I encourage him in Rome. And if you dare … if you dare to accuse me again after all these years—”

  “I’m sorry,” he says harshly.

  “I did not encourage him!”

  “I am sorry,” he says again, trying to soothe me. I will not be soothed. I am shaking my head, a distraught girl again, caught in the memory of how I told him I’d been forced, how he would not believe me when I needed him most. “Selene, it was not my intention to accuse you.”

  I do not know if he is speaking of now, or then. It is still a wound more raw than perhaps either of us realized. And I am guilty too because part of me believes he has no righ
t to be angry that I honored my mother this way and another part of me believes he has every right. “Then what did you intend, Juba?”

  “It is only that I must know what you want, Selene. You say you chose Mauretania. Well, if you have now thought better of it, I must know. I cannot bear to do this again …” He looks away. “I cannot bear to always be the one to hold you back from what you want. There are two cities in this kingdom that need rulers; there is no reason we must live together, always in each other’s way, trying to make a solid thing out of something hollow.”

  I flinch at the word hollow, then swallow my anger and my pride. He is making a sincere offer to step aside in deference to my ambitions. For my sake—or perhaps for the sake of our children. But I did choose Mauretania. “I have not changed my mind.”

  He does not look as if he believes me. Instead, he stares off at the southern horizon, as if he were eager to pack up and go off into the wilderness without another word as he did when we were first married. Will he make me say it? Must he hear me speak the words aloud? “I don’t want you to go to Volubilis, Juba. I don’t want to be apart.”

  “You know I must go,” he replies. “And if there is to be fighting, I cannot have you or the children there with me. There is no choice to be had. I must go and we must be apart.”

  “Yes, you must go,” I admit. “But you do not have to stay away. And I don’t want you to.”

  “You don’t?” he asks, reaching for me as if afraid to believe it.

  I meet his gaze. “No. I don’t.”

  Rubbing my arms against the damp chill, he asks, “For the sake of the children?”

  By the gods, must he humble me so? I have already said enough. I have already said too much. “Not only for the sake of the children.”

  With a sudden jerk, he pulls me closer, wiping the mist from my cheeks, staring at me all the while. “Selene, someday, we will be called to Rome again and you will be tempted. You must know that.”

  I do not want to know it. I do not want to admit it. I do not want to think about it. So I say, “I only know that this is your home … and that I will be here waiting for you when you return.”