Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  My half sisters too, in hushed whispers, invoke my forbidden goddess, for I taught them how, years ago. We gather round Octavia’s bed with our sacred amulets. Antonia with a tiny ankh, the symbol of eternal life. Minora with a bead carved like a scarab beetle, the symbol of transformation. And me with the jade frog round my neck that reads I am the Resurrection.

  We are with Lady Octavia until her final moments. Then she asks for her brother, the emperor, and he comes to her bedside. He shuts the door on us, so I do not know what passes between them. I do not hear Octavia’s last words. I only hear the world as it is without her, more hollow and silent by far.

  Never again will anyone mother me. I won’t be scolded for dallying, I won’t be lectured on the proper way to raise my children, I won’t be tut-tutted for my clothes or for my foreign ways. I will not be worried after in the way Octavia worried after me. I will not be loved the way she loved me.

  She loved me even though I was a sullen and resentful child. Even though I reminded her so very much of my mother and gave her every reason to despise me. So if ever the emperor’s sister won a victory over my mother, it was this: I loved Octavia too, and I loved her longer.

  Octavia mothered me for almost twenty years. For almost twenty years, I basked in her praise and shrank from her disapproval. Almost twenty years, she has been the touchstone of my life. Now she is dead and Isis is the only mother I will ever know again.

  Twenty-eight

  SOMEONE has been here before me. Behind the bent bars of the locked temple gates, I find that someone has swept up the crumbled stone, the desiccated plants, and the crocodile bones. Inside the inner sanctuary of the Temple to Isis where once my blood blossomed into flowers, I find an array of melted candles upon the cracked altar. Though the statue of Isis is weather-beaten and unadorned—no priests have dressed her or fastened jewels upon her ears—the marble has been scrubbed clean of paint and the moss that once grew in the neglected folds of the white stone.

  As always, the smile of my goddess, compassionate and mysterious, warms me against the cold. The hum of heka in the stonework tells me a secret—that she has been worshipped against the emperor’s command. She is still worshipped here in Rome. Now she is more beloved here than ever before and no chained gates can stop it.

  “Wait outside,” I tell Memnon. “I want to be alone.”

  He leaves me, but I am not alone. I have been drawn by an instinct in my sadness over the loss of Octavia. I need the comfort of my goddess. I need some sign that Isis will champion Octavia in the afterworld. I need to find the strength not to cry every time someone mentions Octavia’s name.

  But not only that. I feel that I have been drawn here by a prayer. That I have been called here … and in my weeping, I hear an echo that makes my heart begin to thud in my chest.

  I do not need my eyes to see him in the shadow at the farthest reach of the temple. The scent of him is too familiar. The rush of his breath, the slight thump of heka in his blood that pulls me to him. I sense him with every part of me. With every fiber of my being. I know my twin as I know myself.

  And that is my undoing.

  Can it be possible that, at long last, my beloved twin has come for me? When Helios emerges from the shadows, I drink him in, drowning in equal parts elation and despair. The weathered lines of his face are deeper with age. The size of him is still impressive. Helios is as big a man as our father ever was. His hair, darker now than it was in his youth, is still a lion’s mane of thick tawny curls.

  He holds out to me a warrior’s hand, then squints as I shrink back. “Don’t you know me, Selene?”

  “Of course I know you,” I whisper through lips gone dry and cold. “But you cannot be here. You cannot have found me here, in the middle of Rome.”

  “Where else would I find you on the day of Octavia’s funeral? Will you not take my hand?”

  “No,” I say in anguished disbelief, steadying myself against a pillar for fear my knees will buckle. “Because it will not be real. You are in Africa. You are fighting with the Garamantes. Horus the Avenger, they call you. When I heard it, I knew that you were alive. I knew you were still alive in this world with me. Still real. But if you are here. If you are here now …”

  He steps forward and captures my hand. His is as warm and alive as any hand I have ever known. His fingers are leathery as they tangle with my own and my hand seems tiny in his calloused palm. It is the calloused palm I have always sought during my darkest hours. “We are one akh, Selene. We’ll always find each other.”

  That is true. He is part of me and I am part of him. But have I dreamed him up, summoned his spirit to comfort me? For the first time, I wonder—truly wonder. “You cannot be here …”

  “But I am.”

  I shake my head so hard it dizzies me. “No. On the Isle of Samos, I was the only one to see you. No one else sees you.”

  Helios frowns at my ravings, adjusting his sword belt and stiffening his spine. “Shall we go out together into the street and be seen together?”

  It is no serious question. We could never be seen together without risking our lives. Trembling at the nearness of him, at the unbearable nearness of him, I whisper, “Seven years we have been apart. I never thought to see you again. Why now?”

  He brings my fingers to his lips, kissing them softly. “News of Octavia’s death brings me here. When I learned of it, I knew you would suffer. My ship was not far, so I came for you.”

  “You never cared for Octavia.”

  “But you spoke well of her … in spite of all.”

  My beloved speaks in sympathy but I hear only reproach. “Yes, in spite of all, I cared for Octavia. I still do. I cannot hate the whole world and prosper in it!”

  He allows me this outburst of grief, nuzzling my fingers against his stubbled cheek. By the gods, the feel of it makes me a girl again. I am lost in the sensation …

  “But you are prospering, aren’t you, Selene?”

  “Yes,” I say, as if it were a guilty confession. “Again, in spite of all.”

  Helios stares at me hard. “I wanted you to prosper. I wanted you to succeed where I failed. There is no world for me if you are not in it, carrying our name, caring for her …”

  Does he speak of Isis or my daughter? I cannot think clearly. And looking into the verdant depths of his eyes, I can barely stand. Perhaps he senses the shaking of my knees, because Helios ducks away, spreading his scarlet cloak at the base of the statue, giving me a place to sit before I fall. Then, with his hand upraised, he uses his heka to make fire leap into the brazier and set all the candles ablaze.

  In the firelight, we stare at each other anew. With my fingers, I trace the lines of his face, looking for new scars. And he—he stares at me with a longing that echoes deep in my soul.

  “Sweet Isis, how I have missed you,” I cry.

  I still remember the taste of his kiss. The feel of his body as it moved with mine. And now, the scent of him, the warmth of his caress, brings the memory back to me so vividly that I am moved to tears. I cry for myself, for him, for our family, for Octavia … all my griefs mingle together. While I cry, he holds me, stroking my hair, my cheek, pulling me tight against his broad chest. “Hush. I am here, now.”

  We speak of days long past, when we lived together as children in Octavia’s house, in fear of her wrath. We remember the wall that separated us then. How we were forced to whisper to each other at night through a hole left by a loose brick. Then I must tell him about our wizard and how he died. I tell him about Bast too. I can see these things hurt him to hear, but combat has hardened him. Helios does not sob like I do. And he is reluctant to tell me of his travels, his ships, and his wars. I fear it is because he must be fighting Romans, stealing from them when he can. “Helios, I cannot bear for you to have become a pirate.”

  “Don’t you know what I am?” he asks.

  But when I shake my head, he only reassures me with irritating vagueness. “I am no pirate.”

  Pe
rhaps he lies to me. I do not mind. I do not mind if all of this is a lie. Every precious moment is a reprieve from the world outside. “How long will you stay with me?”

  “I am always with you, Selene. I am always where you need me …”

  Now, that is a lie. It is the kind of lie we tell when people are torn from us, never to be reunited. The kind of lie that is meant to lessen the blow. But nothing will ever blunt the pain of our separation for me. “How long will you stay in Rome?”

  “How long will you stay?” he asks with a note of frustration. “You swore that you would break free of the emperor, but here you are.”

  “I have broken free of him. I’ve made myself as free as I can while protecting my family. I swore it to Isis and I swore it to you and I swore it to myself. I’m doing all that I can to keep that vow. Do not take me to task. Only tell me how long we have together …”

  He sighs, shaking his head with resignation. “Until moonrise. Should I stay much longer, I will be too tempted to burn Rome to the ground, and I imagine you are still against that plan.”

  My smile is bittersweet. “Yes, I am against it. It was our father’s city and Octavia’s too. It is a city that receives my children warmly now.”

  My smile fades at his anguished expression and the defeated slope of his shoulders. “When last I saw you, there was only the girl.”

  Nodding, I look away. “Now I have a son too. Juba’s son.”

  Helios exhales sharply. As if he knew already, but hearing it again from me opens a new wound. Then he braces himself for another. “You are content, then, with Juba?”

  I do not know how to answer. What I feel for Juba is not contentment. Neither is it what I feel now for Helios. This reckless passion that causes my heart to beat so wildly. This desperate longing. This pure love that has endured between us from the womb to this very moment. This love between two children of prophecy who came together on an altar as a young god and goddess. This perfect divine harmony between me and my twin.

  And so I wish I could tell Helios that it is only friendship that Juba and I share. But that too would be a lie, and Helios would know it. He would see it. He would feel it. Swallowing hard over the lump in my throat, I can only say, “Juba has given me a family. He has given me a son and my daughter a future. Together, we are rebuilding the House of Ptolemy.”

  Helios bows his head, and I see that even this gentle answer has cut him to the quick, but he says, “Good. That is good. That is what I wanted for you and for Cleopatra Isidora.”

  He speaks her name with such reverence that it breaks my heart. “She is nearly grown now, a girl of twelve. If you could see her—” Here I break off, because he is not her father and he cannot see her. Even if Helios was the one who gave life to her, and not the emperor. Even if Helios was the only thing that kept me from swallowing poisons to rid myself of her when she was still in my womb. Still, he is not her father. It is Juba who claimed my daughter. Juba who taught her about elephants and monkeys and the bounty of our kingdom. Juba who carried her upon his shoulders. Juba who protects her. No other man ever has. “Helios, has there been no woman, no children, no home for you?”

  “Only you,” he says hoarsely. “There will never be another. Your happiness is my happiness. The life you live, I live too. The rest is denied me, so you must live well for us both.”

  I do not like these haunting words, for I cannot imagine loving a man as unselfishly as this man has loved me. “I think you are telling me that you are not real.”

  “I am as real as you are …”

  In some fit of madness, I cry, “If you are real, then come away with me! We are leaving soon for Mauretania. I can make a place for you. You can serve in the guard or—” I break off, knowing that I’m a desperate fool to even suggest it; it isn’t workable. What if my husband were to catch a glimpse of Helios? He would know him. What would he do? My twin is an outlaw, an enemy of the emperor. Juba’s loyalty to Augustus has always been stronger than anything else. It would be a terrible risk and, perhaps, a cruelty to make Juba choose between loyalty and love.

  As I am now being forced to choose between them.

  I want to trace the beautiful outlines of Helios’s lips. I want to thread my fingers through his curls and pull him to me in a kiss. I want to lose myself in the warm circle of his arms. I want to recapture the love that was ours on the Isle of Samos. It is still a temptation. It is a temptation so strong that I feel my chest pried apart by the swelling ache of my heart. I want another stolen night with Helios. A lifetime of them.

  But perhaps that was a different lifetime …

  If I were free to run away, I would follow Helios into snowy mountains, into the sands of the desert, into the foam of the sea. For I love Helios. I love him still and always. But there is no place for us save this one; a secret sanctuary where no one must ever find us together. And when he reaches his hands for my body, to embrace me as a lover, to take me here in a temple, as he has done before … I remember that I am not free.

  Other bonds now hold my heart. I remember too the questions Juba whispered to me in the dark.

  Will he take you from me?

  I answered honestly then, for I will never leave my kingdom or my children. And I will never leave Juba. Helios does not ask it of me, but when he tilts my chin to him, hunger in his eyes, I must answer a different question.

  Will you dishonor me with him?

  My twin has lost everything. I cannot bear for him to think that he has lost me too. But I don’t know how to do this again. How can I make love to him again and let him go? How will I remember it if I do? My lovemaking with Helios has always before been untainted, a thing of beauty and secret sustenance. I never felt shame for it because he is my brother nor for any other reason.

  But this time I would feel shame.

  I would despair of betraying Juba this way, even as I despair now of betraying Helios. Taking my twin’s hands in mine, I stop them from undressing me, though it pains me more than I ever thought it could. I sob with the effort to deny my own desire and his, and because my heart is torn in two, every explanation I try to give tastes false on my tongue.

  Anguish howls through the hollows of my soul when Helios nods his head in surrender. “It’s all right. I don’t need to make love to you to be inside you. I don’t need to lay a hand on you to touch you. But I will never so much as brush my lips against yours without your leave.”

  There is something about what he says, about everything he has said, that makes me question what River of Time I am swimming in. He is here with me now, but I do not know if he is here in the mortal world or in the divine. We are in a temple, and I might have summoned him with my grief. I fear it is a thing I must never do again, whether he is real or imagined. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to love you and say good-bye to you, over and over, never knowing if I will see you again.”

  At this, he presses a kiss into my palm. “We will always see each other again. I taught you once that under your skin, between your bones, there’s space for other, more fluid things. Like blood. Like heka. Like fire and wind … and love. So long as you live, I live. We were born together. We will die together. And I will always seek you out …”

  *

  I have lost Helios. Again. And this time, forever, I think. In spite of his promises, I think I will never see his face again. Never hear the comforting rumble of his voice. Never hold his hands in mine. He is gone. All gone. And I let him go without giving him every part of myself that I could.

  I hate myself for it, even if I would have hated myself if I had done otherwise.

  Once, I could return to Juba from another man’s bed and feel no remorse. No longer. But I am so wrecked by the loss of Helios that I shy away from my husband’s touch in an inconsolable fog, unable to concentrate on anything.

  Unable to endure public scrutiny after the loss of his sibling, the emperor has withdrawn to our house across the Tiber, where citizens are not free to approach hi
m. In the days following Octavia’s funeral, the emperor spends his evenings by a warm fire in our study, cloistered with Juba, reminiscing or making battle plans or whatever else it is the two of them discuss when I am not in the room.

  We indulge the emperor as our guest—what other choice do we have?—but he notices our servants packing our trunks and readying for our springtime journey. And when I come upon him in the dining room, he insists, “You and Juba cannot leave me now, when I am utterly abandoned.”

  He means Octavia, of course. If he can grieve—if he is human enough for that—he is grieving for his sister. She was the moral center of his family. Like a Vestal Virgin, she tended the fire at the heart and hearth of the Julii. Now the fire has gone out and his inner circle has narrowed again. Octavia was always his true dynastic partner. The only person who knew him since childhood and still loved him. And I cannot help but think that if he were Egyptian, he might have married Octavia. Perhaps he would have been a better man if he had married his sister, who encouraged his good qualities, instead of Livia, who has helped goad him to every evil. Had he married Octavia, the whole twisted mess he’s made of his family might never have come to pass. But of course, he is Roman and would think taking his sister to wed more depraved than all his other wicked deeds …

  Now he is isolated, unsure of whom to trust, and aware that Livia holds unspeakable sway. He cannot harm her without unleashing her sons, both of whom are woven so tightly into his family and his structure of power that he cannot shake them.

  And so, bereft, the emperor leans upon me and my husband. He asks me to play my kithara harp for him as I once did to nurse him back to health. He makes himself at home on my terraces, indulging in the little game my children have made of throwing stones at the Tiber River. He plays ball with Ptolemy in my courtyard and he gifts Isidora with a golden bangle studded with amethysts and emeralds that he looted from Greece.

  When we’re alone, taking a meal of peeled grapes and olive paste on warmed bread, I warn him that the bangle is too expensive a gift, for my daughter is prone to mislay jewelry and only recently lost a ring while planting seedlings in a pot garden outside her rooms. But the emperor waves this away. “Let her be careless with such riches, for they are a fraction of what I want to give her. If you would only give me a little more time, you will see how I intend to honor you and our children.”