Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  He gnashes his teeth. “Why should she grieve so bitterly for a husband she never wanted in the first place?”

  “Does she not owe some loyalty to Agrippa’s memory, especially when she is wracked with guilt for having always put her father before her husband?” In this, I mean to remind him of how Julia left Agrippa in Spain, at her father’s command. “She’s always honored you above everyone else—”

  “Where is her filial piety now?” he growls, though his high color is fading. “The contemptuous look she gave me just now would be cause to end a life were she a man.”

  Fearing a time might come when my children displease him, I say, “You jest that you have two wayward daughters you must indulge. Julia and Rome. Well, it is no jest. Your daughter is near her time of birth, mantled in sadness. This time, this one time, you must indulge Julia.”

  “She must remarry. I cannot indulge her or forgive her!”

  “You can forgive her. Surely that much is in your power.”

  He narrows his eyes. “One day soon, I will show you what is in my power.”

  *

  “GREAT Caesar, what offense have I done these sons of mine that they should plot against me?” King Herod’s question, made without any apparent irony, booms theatrically through the crowded basilica.

  It is greeted with a murmur of disapproval in the audience. Even Augustus, seated upon his curule chair, wearing his oak-leaf crown, is forced to raise an eyebrow at Herod’s nerve. Undeterred, the King of Judea plays the aggrieved father. “Have I not bestowed upon these two young men the finest opportunities, entrusting their education into the hands of Rome? I’ve given them royal princesses to wed. Whether they asked for servants or spending money for fine clothes, I’ve never refused either of them if I was able to provide it. And yet their minds are bent on hatred for me.”

  Herod’s sons make a pitiable sight, red shackle marks upon their wrists. The younger brother swallows, the apple of his throat bobbing. The older brother glares daggers at Herod, but is wise enough not to interrupt.

  “Even though I’m their sovereign king,” Herod continues, “even though I have the power of life and death over them, I bring them before you, great Caesar, for justice. Though I have uncovered their parricidal plots—schemes so vile that any other king would put them to death—my love for them is such that I forbear the rightful vengeance of a king or a father. I risk my own life to bring them here and submit the matter for Caesar’s judgment as if they were my equals and not my subjects.”

  Someone in the audience snorts. Someone else laughs. By this scorn, Herod ought to measure his words, but he’s too caught up in his tirade. “They’ve written letters to stir up revolt. They’ve concocted poisons to slip into my food. They’ve hired assassins. I’ve borne this misery in silence for years now, but no more! Punishment must be done, lest I live the rest of my days in fear.”

  Though Herod claims close friendship with Augustus, he seems not to sense the emperor’s distinct displeasure. Knowing the mood behind the emperor’s every gesture, if I were in Herod’s place I would silence myself. For though Augustus loves a spectacle, he loves best those spectacles that he creates himself. This matter, made so public, is an embarrassment. The accusations Herod has laid at his sons’ feet may result in their execution. Herod wants them dead. He wants his own sons dead so much that he will risk infuriating the emperor. Everyone in the audience seems to recoil in collective realization of it.

  Glancing from face to face, I search for Herod’s allies. Not one Roman displays sympathy. Nor can I find a gesture of support from the mingled royalty or foreign officials. Nicholas of Damascus, one of my old tutors, now in the service of Herod, looks green. It is only amongst the Judean royal family that I finally find Herod’s ally. His son Antipater anxiously perches on the edge of his seat. He stands to benefit from his brothers’ deaths and I think his anxiety is eagerness.

  Herod roars, “Great Caesar, I wouldn’t sully your ears with tales of vile treachery if it were not for the pollution of my sons’ minds. Both are blinded by low ambition to seize my throne and murder me.”

  “What proof do you offer?” Augustus asks quietly.

  This ought to terrify Herod, for the emperor is never so dangerous as when he withdraws in quiet fury. Nonetheless, the King of Judea continues boldly, “Courtiers tell tales of snide remarks my sons make when my back is turned. They have somehow convinced Jews in my country to call them the true heirs. And when I admonish my sons, they answer with biting words, scarcely disguising a roll of their eyes. Disrespect is where treachery starts, Caesar. You cringe to hear it, but you’re a father too. What would you think if your own daughter showed such disrespect?”

  A collective gasp sucks the air from the room and all eyes turn to where I sit next to Julia in the gallery. Herod must be a madman to compare his sons to Agrippa’s mourning widow. He must be absolutely mad to impugn the character of the emperor’s daughter, even by implication, for at this moment, Julia is more popular than the emperor himself.

  Julia’s response is to turn her head and whisper to her slave, as if she had not been listening, but I narrow my eyes at Herod to show my derision. He has gone too far. Surely he will pay for it.

  Alas, Herod made his career not in stepping back from a breach but by compounding his error with such audacity that he must be forgiven. “If your daughter were to disobey you, Caesar, would it not lead you to the inescapable conclusion that she plotted your murder?” It is an absurd premise, but Herod knows exactly to whom he speaks. “Augustus, I submit to you, the only child who does not fear a father is the child who intends to ensure the father will not live long enough to take vengeance.”

  Herod hits a nerve. A pulsing raw nerve—one that I doubt he reached for on his own. He cannot have learned of Julia’s quarrel with the emperor from his own spies. He learned it from someone else. Someone taught him how to play upon the emperor’s paranoia. Someone has positioned his bow and pointed his arrow.

  Someone is aiming for Julia …

  Twenty-five

  FROM her seat in the gallery, Livia’s tiny twitch of a smile tells me I was a fool to ever think that Herod was Agrippa’s creature. Now I realize that he must have belonged to Livia all along. She has rid herself of Julia’s husband as an obstacle. Now she must be rid of Julia and her boys. Livia may not be able to poison them, but she can poison the emperor’s heart against his own daughter.

  It is, I admit, the best play, because in her widowed and pregnant beauty, Julia is loved in a way that Livia has never been loved nor ever will be. And if the emperor makes common cause with his daughter—if he takes Julia as his political helpmate, a role that she has always longed to fill—the Claudians will remain powerless. The only way that Livia’s family can rise to power is by cutting Julia down and getting her out of the way.

  Livia must see just such an opportunity in Julia’s refusal to remarry, which infuriated Augustus.

  The quarrel must be fresh on the emperor’s mind because Herod’s comments about disobedient children make Augustus lower his head, rubbing his temples as if to quiet a roaring pain. If anyone provokes him now, an execution will follow. One snap of his fingers and someone will die. So I am breathless with fear when my husband, seated at the emperor’s side, leans over and whispers to him.

  A moment later, Augustus calls a break in the proceedings. Then the emperor retires with my husband and the small retinue of men who now make up his shrinking inner circle. At my side, Julia smiles as if untroubled, but whispers, “If Agrippa were still alive, he would tear King Herod’s head from his neck …” Then she rises from her seat, giving an affectionate wave to the crowd. “I’m going to rest.”

  I go with her, escorting her down the shadowed corridor of the basilica, where we are set upon by Princess Glaphyra, whose beautiful face is swollen with tears. “Lady Julia,” Glaphyra whispers by way of greeting, a sob in her throat. “Your Majesty.”

  Julia knows that nothing good can c
ome of meeting with the wife of the accused prince, so she abandons me. “I would invite you to dine, Princess Glaphyra, but I’m afraid I don’t feel well. Selene, stay and be reunited with your friend.”

  When Julia goes, Glaphyra grasps my hands beseechingly. “I beg your help. King Juba is a great favorite of Caesar, as are you. Can you persuade your husband to speak on our behalf?”

  “I’m quite certain that my husband is doing so even now.”

  “Tell him King Herod has vowed to kill us, whether Augustus grants him permission or no.”

  I find this hard to believe. “Not even Herod would defy the emperor … but in case I am wrong, you should flee Judea at the soonest opportunity and return to your father’s kingdom.”

  The unhappy princess grips my hands harder in desperation. “Herod has the power to call back any person who flees from him from anywhere in the empire. He says that Caesar has favored him with this authority, granted to no other king.”

  With an indignant laugh, I disabuse her of this notion. “Herod claims a great many things are granted to him and him alone. Think the way Romans do. In their eyes, you’ll always belong to your father before you belong to Herod or even to your husband.”

  Glaphyra inhales, taking in my words, then squeezes her eyes shut. “I can’t flee. Even if I could leave my husband, Herod has my sons. My two little boys …”

  At this, my throat swells with sympathy for her plight.

  She gathers her composure, opens her eyes, and meets mine. “My husband and his brother and my sons are all that’s left of the Hasmonean dynasty. Herod wants them dead. He is a man with a rotting heart who suspects intrigue behind every pillar; he’s not fit to rule Judea. Truly, he is not fit. Tell me how to make the emperor see it.”

  There is no one alive who has danced on the edge of the emperor’s blade as often as I have, so perhaps she has asked the right person. Herod appealed to the father in Augustus. The emperor will be thinking of Julia and her recent rebellion. So I tell her, “Your husband and his brother must be humble.”

  “My husband and his brother are both proud men …”

  “Their mother was also proud. That is why Herod executed her, is it not? They must be humble.”

  Glaphyra nods as if she understands, but the way she dissolves into tears makes me doubt that my words will do any good. Glaphyra leaves me, returning to the chamber in which the trial will soon resume. “There goes a pitiable princess,” I say, when my husband comes upon me. “Do you believe in the innocence of Herod’s sons?”

  Juba shrugs. “Herod offers no proof of guilt.”

  “But do you think they are innocent?”

  “I think …” My husband hesitates, his amber gaze dropping to the floor. “I think that I’d rather die than see my children dead, no matter what crime they might ever commit.”

  It is a sentiment that prompts me to put my hand in his, though the Romans think it is vulgar for a husband and a wife to show such public affection. “Say we will never become like the Herods.”

  A sound of light amusement rumbles up from my husband’s chest. “Do you fear that beneath my scholar’s robes I disguise a bloody tyrant?”

  I fear that I will never know Juba as I know my own soul. I fear I will never sense his presence when I walk into a room nor feel the tug of heka pull between us, two halves of a soul straining to reunite. Juba is not my twin. He is not my other half. He is always a foreign creature to me, one with strange habits and customs. He is neither fire nor ice. He is a man I think I will never wholly understand. But of this I am absolutely certain: Juba is no tyrant.

  In all the empire there may be no other king like him.

  And, perhaps for the first time, I realize how fortunate I am to call him my husband. It is only the circumstances under which we came together that put us at odds. If we had met in another place, another time, I would never have resisted him. By the gods, if I were a different woman and came before this king, I would have held nothing back …

  Pressing his lips very briefly to my forehead, Juba says, “The trial is starting again. We must go.”

  We return to the hall, where Prince Aristobulus sobs as if bewildered by the danger in which he finds himself. I advised that they be humble, but truly, they are wretched. The eldest prince reaches for his brother’s hand in comfort, and this spontaneous display of fraternal love moves the crowd to groan. These two princes have said not a word and yet women weep for them in the audience. Grown men rub their eyes and the current of emotion that flows through the crowd seizes even the emperor’s cold, withered heart. “Fear not to speak before Caesar,” the emperor tells the princes.

  Dramatically, Glaphyra’s husband turns to face Herod, his accuser. “Father, that you have brought us before the emperor, the savior himself, is proof that you mean to save us. Still, how can we live knowing you believe us guilty? If you truly believe we’re such fiendish conspirators, it’s better that we die.”

  I hold my breath at this bold and dangerous gambit. As every eye turns to look at him, Herod seems to suddenly notice the crowd. He sees hostile faces, women weeping, men ready to shout in favor of the princes, and his expression changes to one of affected sorrow as he considers a reply.

  Prince Alexander speaks again before Herod can. “It’s an easy thing for your advisers to say that my brother and I want to take your throne in revenge for our unhappy mother. But could not such an accusation be made against any young men in our circumstance? Suspicion is not proof. Let any man come forward and testify that we have procured poisons. We beseech any man who has witnessed conspiracy to speak of it now.”

  Not one person steps forward. The floor remains empty. The emptiness stretches on and on, which fuels the prince’s righteousness. “Our mother is dead, this is true. But isn’t it possible her death has served as a warning to us? We cannot confess to evil deeds never done, but we are sorry for any conduct on our part that has let you believe the worst. Before Caesar, we put this to you. It is a terrible thing to be falsely accused. Yet we cannot bear for our father to live in fear of us, so if you are not convinced of our innocence, then we desire to die.”

  Pandemonium breaks out with shouts in favor of the princes. Whereas Herod is late to appreciate the sympathies of the crowd, the emperor can plainly see that any order of execution will cause a riot. Herod has made himself hated. There is not a slave or senator in the room who does not count the King of Judea a deranged fiend. Should the emperor sanction Herod’s butchery, Augustus too will be seen as monstrous … and for no political gain.

  So when Augustus turns to Herod, a chasm has opened between them. One wrong word and Herod will fall into it. I’m eager for it. Do it, I think, and you will be destroyed.

  Unfortunately, Herod sees the danger. At this last crucial moment, he wisely takes a step back. “Like the rest of you, I am moved by the words of my sons and apologize to you, Caesar …”

  Augustus waits, his fingers steepled beneath his chin.

  Herod begins to speak, then stops. Begins again. Stops.

  “Oh, why apologize, King Herod?” Augustus finally breaks in. “Though your sons are surely innocent of the crimes of which you have accused them, they are not entirely blameless. After all, it is the duty of a child to behave with such subservience to a father that such suspicions would not be believed by anyone.”

  Here the emperor’s gaze lifts to the gallery as if seeking out his daughter, and I am glad Julia made a hasty retreat. The emperor clears his throat. “I admonish you to be reconciled with your sons. Dismiss gossip and rumor in the future. Harbor not suspicion for your sons, but affection.”

  It’s both a command and a reprieve. The emperor’s evenhanded justice allows the king to save face. But the truth is seen in gestures, not words. Augustus does not embrace Herod. Instead, he summons the two princes forward. Knowing they’ve been spared, they both drop to their knees in supplication, but the emperor lifts them up, one after the other. The gesture is understood by all. Augu
stus has given his personal endorsement to the two princes.

  None of this is lost on Herod. “I shall send an amended will to you, Caesar, for your approval. I shall restore these sons to the succession.”

  “Make whatever provisions you like,” Augustus snaps, as if envisioning an endless stream of paperwork every time Herod wishes to punish someone. “Divide your kingdom evenly between your sons for all I care; I don’t need to approve every change.”

  Herod forces himself to smile at this chilly response and bows graciously. “This is a great honor, Caesar, that you grant me the authority to dispose of my kingdom as I see fit. How many other client kings may say the same? I will do it now, if you so desire. In the spirit of harmony we have found here, I will make such arrangements before all assembled.”

  It’s another blunder, and Augustus narrows his eyes. “You would do better to keep your final arrangements to yourself. I would not want, after all, to deprive you of the power over your kingdom, or your sons, while you live.”

  With that, the emperor turns on his heel. In a swirl of red cloaks, his praetorians snap to attention and assemble at his back, and then they are gone.

  *

  MY poet writes an amusing verse mocking Herod, but he is wise enough to show it only to me in the privacy of my apartments. “I thought to pass it off as the work of an anonymous epigrammist, Majesty, but my style is too distinctive, my talent unmatched.”

  The poem amuses me but I blot it out with ink from my reed pen. “Let the moment pass unheralded, Crinagoras.”

  “Don’t you want to immortalize Herod fleeing with his tail between his legs like a broken dog?”

  “Herod is not broken,” I say, bitterly.

  “Bruised, then.” Crinagoras takes a seat without being bidden, draping one leg casually over the other while admiring the length of his own thigh. “So bruised that he is trying to buy his reputation back in the East. Nicholas of Damascus shared with me a bit of gossip that the King of Judea has promised to fund the Olympic Games in perpetuity and they’ve appointed him to preside over the coming games …”