Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  We must all learn to turn our differences into united strength.

  When our brave processional is over, the king cries out to me in approval. “What a sight you made!”

  Domesticated, indeed …

  I am sorry that Crinagoras is not with us. My poet would have written verses comparing me to some many-armed Indian elephant goddess. Or perhaps Dido as she rode into Carthage. I know he will regret having missed the elephants, but I take comfort in the latest missive from Judea, in which Crinagoras sends word that he believes Herod to have been taken by some sort of illness of the genitals. How he knows this, I do not ask, but it makes me more determined than ever that Herod will never marry my daughter.

  The rest of our entourage sets immediately to the task of making Volubilis our seat of government. It is not a big city, but it has its advantages. It is a paradise in the wilderness, surrounded by a quilt of green and gold fields that blanket the hills. Still, as a grim-faced magistrate shows us the way to the palace, I wonder aloud if it was wise to build a remote city so far inland.

  “Berbers are not afraid to be far from water, Majesty,” Maysar replies.

  No, they are not. They are hardy men who can strike and disappear into the desert, scattering like sand on the wind. It is why they have never been truly conquered, these people. I am not the only one to think it. “This city will need a better wall,” one of our Romans says.

  The palace is very old; it was built when Carthage still ruled, and the Punic architecture is a marvel to me. Everything I touch is a historical wonder. I am heartened that the simple red and white mosaic floors greet me with only one symbol—the one for Tanit, so similar to the ankh of Isis. This grand, flat-roofed house with sandstone columns and staircases that lead to rooftop terraces is not so impressive as the palace we built by the sea. Still, I am enamored by an inner courtyard filled with rows of fruit trees intersected by hedges of shrubs and little gutters of running water.

  Is that cherry? It is! Here in the cooler weather of the steppes, it grows well. And looking up, past the fruit trees, I discover a tower capped with a pyramid. Ah, it comforts me to know there is Egyptian influence here too.

  The next day, the king insists that we inspect the stable yard, which stinks of straw and manure and liniment. From behind a stall door ornamented with golden lions with emerald eyes, a groom coaxes forth a cream-colored stallion fitted with a plume upon its head. My son is slack-jawed at the sight of the awesome creature, its glossy coat stretched over powerful muscles.

  “He is yours,” Juba says as the horse snorts, pulling against his golden bit. “In keeping of my promise, Ptolemy.”

  When the horse stamps and gives a roll of its eyes, I cannot think the king means to give such a fierce creature to my son as a mount, but my boy is fearless, after all. Approaching the horse’s side, Ptolemy strokes its nose, then uses the roots of the stallion’s mane to vault himself up onto the saddlecloth while all the Berbers cheer.

  The stallion is a racer, Juba says. Faster than any other in our stables. And my son names him Sirocco after the windstorms that sometimes beset my land. The fierceness of this horse has me beside myself with worry, but the king himself vows to help Ptolemy train his new mount to perfect obedience.

  Meanwhile, I must keep a vow of my own. Every day, when Dora has finished her studies in mathematics, geography, philosophy, and music, I teach her to use magic without letting the heka ravage her. I teach her to use her collar of gold amulet to channel the power inside her, but she finds it difficult to do as I instruct.

  She cannot call the winds; we try it, but she fails. She cannot throw fire from her hands either. There is a moment when I think that she can—a moment that I think I hear flames roaring in my ears, when I think I glimpse the torches spark with our efforts—but then the moment is gone, and Dora says she felt nothing.

  This should not surprise me. She has no strange birthmarks in the shape of hieroglyphs. Nor was she born under a prophetic star. But her way with animals is not simple affinity. I think her understanding of their wounds and how to heal them is not something she learned from my mage. Though it still makes me shudder to see, it does amaze me that she listens for wisdom in the whisper of her brown snake’s scaled skin as it coils around her wrist. And what she can see in a simple pool inspires in me both awe and terror.

  “There are so many currents,” she says one day, staring at the surface of the water in a divination bowl. “So many different paths for the future. How do I know which way our river is flowing?”

  “If you knew that, my sweet, you would rule the world, and perhaps you shall.”

  Thirty-one

  VOLUBILIS, THE KINGDOM OF MAURETANIA

  AUTUMN 11 B.C.

  GRASS, wood smoke, and fresh apples perfume the air on the day we join the residents of Volubilis for their orchard festival. Children are sent with baskets to see who can gather the most fruit while women gather near the presses to squeeze cider out of the misshapen ones.

  With lazy bees buzzing about and the mountains mantled in the colors of an African autumn, Juba and I hold court beneath a canopy. Nearby, Tacfarinas keeps watch over the horses because even though all our royal horses are of a fine breed, my son’s impressive pearl stallion has become an attraction.

  Meanwhile, I keep a wary eye on my children, afraid they are going to fall out of the apple trees and break their bones. I am thus distracted when our subjects come before us to offer gifts of welcome.

  One mountaineer sets down a small chest before us, a gift of silver for the king, he says.

  “My queen is more likely to make use of it,” Juba jests, offering the chest to me. Silver is an extravagant gift from hill people and I make ready to find some way of rewarding them for their generosity, but when I open the box, I do not see any silver.

  I see only a bundle of beautifully woven cloths.

  “How exquisite,” I exclaim, eager to praise the mountaineer, who is suddenly shy, withdrawing from our dais. Reaching into the bundle to find the treasure inside … I am suddenly attacked.

  “No!” Tacfarinas cries. The boy hits me hard, wrenching my shoulder and knocking me to the ground with the weight of his whole body. The chest of silver flies from my hands, crashing to the ground a few feet away while chaos erupts around us.

  With my face pressed into the dirt, I see only the feet of the retreating mountaineer, who shouts in Berber, “Remember the crucified heroes of our rebellion!”

  Shouts and screams erupt all around us. Several of Juba’s guards run after the mountaineer, but Memnon draws his sword, shouting at Tacfarinas. “Get off the queen, you little bastard, and I’ll kill you quickly instead of drawing it out as you so richly deserve!”

  But Juba yells, “Everyone out of the tent!”

  Gasping under the bulk of the boy, I can make no sense of what is happening until I see the black scorpions swarming Memnon’s feet. “Don’t move,” I whisper to my guard, but it is too late. I see that he has already been stung, and when he realizes it, he begins to crunch the scorpions beneath his sandals.

  Tacfarinas rolls me away, and moments later, Juba’s guards have me by the arms, the rest of them dispatching the venomous creatures. “What is happening?” I shriek, though it is not difficult to understand. Someone is trying to frighten or kill us.

  And poor Memnon is the unlucky victim. One scorpion sting will cause discomfort; it need not be fatal for a grown man. But Memnon’s been stung in at least a dozen places. His heart thumps so loudly in his chest that even I can hear it as we drag him from the tent and try to lay him down. “No, keep him upright,” Dora says with great authority, rushing to Memnon’s side. “Hold him standing to keep the poison from spreading and tie off his legs.”

  Everyone listens to her because none of the rest of us have the first idea of what to do. I am too stunned to stop her when she kneels at Memnon’s feet, her new embroidered gown crushed beneath her knees in the dirt.

  Her examination is too mu
ch for Memnon, who insists that the pain does not vex him, even though we can plainly see the redness and swelling where he has been stung. He is shamed to be tended to by the royal princess, who once, as a small child, stepped on his feet to see if she could make him lose his composure while he stood stiffly for parade.

  But my daughter is no longer a small child. She pulls a dagger from Memnon’s belt and uses it to cut the ribbon from her hair in half. She uses each half to tie off his legs just above the knee. Then, without hesitation, she slashes open one of the welts. Her golden hair spills over her shoulders as she bends to suck the poison, and we are all stupefied when she stops to spit it out, blood running down her chin.

  “By Jupiter!” Juba cries. “What is she doing?”

  “I have no idea what she is doing,” I confess, holding him back. “But she seems to know …”

  My daughter has become, quite suddenly, a commanding presence, snapping orders to the servants to hurry Memnon back to the palace. And no one dares disobey her. Not even me.

  Memnon’s breathing shortens and becomes labored. By the time we reach the palace, he is soaked with sweat, too weak to protest Isidora’s ministrations. She insists that he drink a tonic of thistle and calendula, and he does, but I leave the room because my presence is one more indignity than he can bear.

  In the courtyard, I find the boy skulking nearby, arms folded over each other, head bowed. “You may have saved my life,” I say.

  Impertinently, Tacfarinas only tightens his jaw with pride, as if he now considered his debt to me repaid. But he will not get away so easily. Rubbing my shoulder, for it still pains me from his attack, I ask, “How did you know there were scorpions in the box?”

  His pallor turns to ash. “When you opened the lid, I saw a black scorpion, from the corner of my eye, Majesty.”

  I find it difficult to believe he could have glimpsed into the box before I did, but perhaps I am making too much of it. Or perhaps he has already made friends with the bandits and rebels of this place.

  In my experience, men and boys of nefarious intent tend to seek one another out. I do not press him on the matter because of one important thing. Whatever he knew about that box and the men who delivered it to us, he threw himself in harm’s way to defend me. He may sympathize with his Berber brethren who resent us. Indeed, he may resent us just as much. But he risked his own life to save mine, and what more can one ask of a boy like him?

  *

  THAT night, my husband is in a black mood. “I should never have agreed to bring you all to Volubilis. I thought it was safe here. How many more men must I crucify to avoid a rebellion … or have I already caused one?”

  My hands go to Juba’s shoulders, kneading the flesh there, trying to push the tiniest bit of heka into his sinews and bones in order that he might find some relief. “There are always men such as these, Juba. We can never win all of them. But we must win most of them and I think we have. We weren’t set upon by a cavalry from the mountains or pelted with arrows from on high. Assassins are usually men who cannot find compatriots to fight with them, so they resort to scorpions in a box. It is a desperate thing.”

  “A thing that may have killed Memnon. Even if he recovers, we cannot go on as we have been. You have your guards. I have mine. It is all haphazard. That must change now. We will organize a royal guard of praetorians, modeled after the emperor’s own corporis custodes.”

  “Don’t you worry to anger Augustus with our presumption?”

  “I spoke to him about it when we were last in Rome. He said he would not allow it in other kingdoms, but he would sanction it for us if we thought it was necessary. I am now convinced it is necessary.”

  I have no more arguments even though I do not like this idea. I have known no other security in my life but for my Macedonian guards. Moreover, it feels disloyal to even discuss such a thing while my poor Memnon might not live to see the morning …

  *

  WE are all amazed when, by sunrise, my daughter seems to have cured my trusted guardsman. Dora asks, “Can you feel your tongue, Memnon?”

  “Yes, Princess,” he says, gruffly, unable to meet her eyes.

  “Then the worst of it has passed,” she says, inspecting his hands. “Have your fingers always curved that way?”

  “No,” he answers, suddenly snatching them away. “I mean, they were this way before the scorpions.”

  “Your little toe on the right foot is bent strangely too,” she says. “And when I saw you reach to pick an apple in the orchard, you grimaced when you lifted your arm over your head. How long have you had such pains?”

  Memnon wants nothing more than to flee, but I command him to answer her. “The past year or so, Princess Isidora. It does not hurt. A little soreness. Nothing more.”

  “It is a special pain of the joints, Memnon. It will get worse if untreated. You must season your food with turmeric. It is a spice from Parthia. It is costly, but we can provide it for him, can’t we, Mother?”

  “Of course,” I say, saddened by the realization that my poor Memnon is getting old. Always I remember him as the fearsome soldier who stood outside my door. But like the rest of us, he cannot be forever young. “Perhaps it is time you retired your shield, Memnon, and took your ease on my plantation as overseer. Your shoulders might pain you less if you did not have to carry a sword.”

  He stiffens as if I have commanded him to suicide. “A Macedonian guard is never without his sword, Majesty. Never.”

  So Juba’s new scheme will not go easy, I think. Memnon’s honor will never endure his being set aside. I will have to divine a new duty for him, special and urgent, that I can entrust only to him.

  *

  SOMETHING about Volubilis changes me.

  I am not the darling of the Hellenes here, always required to serve as the example of fine Greek culture. Neither am I an exotic magician. To the contrary, the Berber natives are accustomed to wisewomen and tell stories of Juba’s grandfather, King Masinissa, whose mother was a sorceress.

  There are fewer Romans here, and because I am not challenged, there is no need to fight for my place as queen. Indeed, my worries about our safety here are put at ease when the native Berbers capture and turn over the rebel who delivered the box of scorpions.

  Normally, I am keen to see terrible justice done to anyone who tries to harm me and mine, but I leave this to Juba because he asks it of me and because I wish to do as he asks. Somehow, I find myself able to be a different kind of woman here. A softer kind of woman. The kind of woman who obeys the king and does not resent giving him his way.

  And every day Juba does not abuse my deference to him, I find myself more eager to oblige. I resolve never to refuse him when he desires me. Two years, I remind myself. Much less than that now. That is all the time we have together. And I want another child.

  More importantly, I want to give Juba another child. One the emperor can never claim as his own.

  If the emperor has me and Ptolemy at his side, he will forgive Juba for touching me. I will make him forgive it. So whenever the king comes to my bedchambers, I set aside my fears and call upon the magic that makes me fertile. But every time, my goddess denies me. And it is with the greatest bitterness I begin to fear that my womb is barren after all.

  We do not let the people forget our entrance into the city. Juba has a coin struck with elephants to remind them. The coins are put into wide circulation by means of gifts and grants to the tribes who come down from the mountains to treat with the city elders. We keep busy repairing crumbling buildings, cleaning out faulty drainage, commissioning new roads and marketplaces and artwork for the public buildings.

  And Juba wants to build a wall. “Strabo writes from your niece’s court that the King of the Bosporus constructed a wall nearly three hundred and sixty stadia in length to protect against attacks from nomads …”

  “Sometimes a wall keeps attackers out,” I say, “but it can also be used to trap people inside. Is that not how Julius Caesar defeated V
ercingetorix?”

  My words give Juba pause, as I mean them to. He has been in a quiet fury since the day Memnon was stung by scorpions, and even after dispensing with the culprit, he has behaved more like a general plotting a campaign against barbarians than a king seeking to civilize them. I don’t blame him. I know it’s the Roman way to respond to every setback with a fortress or catapult. It’s what he’s been taught. But my husband is as responsible as anyone for teaching me that when there is no defense left, you must resort to diplomacy.

  During the winter solstice, we recognize the Berber sun god Ba’al Hammon and their moon goddess Tanit. I host a banquet for every prominent Berber family in the city. It may be too much to ask the proud, horse-mounted tribesmen to forget that we are foreigners, but I think their women can be won over. My daughter and I approach these women during the celebration with our hands tattooed in henna, Berber designs bold on our skin. We speak to them in their own tongue, and when they do their tribal dance with drums, a line of chiseled men facing a line of colorfully dressed women, we join them.

  We start the dance veiled as a symbol of our isolation and need for enlightenment, but the veils are abandoned when the dancer feels the spirit of the movements has captured her. We throw our hands to the north, south, east, west. Then we reach for the heavens and for the earth. A gesture to the past behind us and to the future before us. It is a dance of abandon and blessing—and I feel the heka rise in me as I flick it from my fingertips, always from the liver, where true emotions reside.

  Then begin the gyrations and the tosses of head that make a music of tinkling silver jewelry worn by every Berber woman of status. I dance, though I do not know all the steps. I dance until my feet hurt. I dance until the sweat wets my hair and soaks my gown to the small of my back. I dance in firelight until I cannot dance anymore.

  I collapse on a couch with the king, who makes eyes at me as if he wants me alone. But everyone else’s eyes are on my daughter, whose very fair coloring is a curiosity here in the hills. She is not Berber by blood, but she knows their dances, their stories, their crafts, and the meaning of their symbols. Tala has made her a Berber in a way I can never be.