Daughters of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  At the sound, I dart out into the atrium, where I see every slave, servant, and courtier turn to the peristyle garden. Guards rush to defend us against unseen danger and we find Isidora sitting alone beneath the grape arbor, her bags of herbs scattered around her and a divining bowl, filled with water, clutched in her trembling hand.

  I sense the heka—it tingles up and down my arms—and I know she’s been reading the Rivers of Time against my wishes again. Alas, I cannot fly into a rage at my daughter’s willful disobedience because I’m too terrified by the tears in her eyes … and the way her lips are tinged with blue.

  “Dora?” I grasp at her hands. They are ice cold. How long has she been sitting out here without so much as a cloak to shield her from the bite of winter? My daughter trembles, red-rimmed eyes so filled with horror that I cannot imagine what she has seen, or what she is still seeing. She screams again, her eyes looking through me. And I am afraid for her. I can see that she is being swept away to some other place and I feel helpless to stop it. I shake her. I shout at her, “Isidora!”

  I give her my voice to latch onto, to swim her way back to me, but she is fighting strong currents of magic. It isn’t until after I drape my own cloak over her shoulders and try to rub warmth into her arms that she begins to groan. “Oh, Mother, no …”

  She knows who I am. That much is good. “What is it?”

  My daughter dissolves into sobs, and it is difficult to make out her words. She is shouting at someone I cannot see. She is warning them to run away!

  Iacentus helps his princess to her feet but she cannot see him either, a thing that plainly disturbs him, even under his professional veneer. I send for Musa, the emperor’s very own physician, for if there is something physically wrong with her, I will trust no one else to heal her. Then I take her to her room, swearing that I will search it and confiscate every potion, talisman, or magic item I can find.

  And I will kill that snake, wherever it is.

  As I get her to bed, she sobs, “Ptolemy run!”

  The blood drains from my face. I feel it go, nearly taking my sanity away with it. Where is Ptolemy? I start for his room, then remember he is at the stables. I don’t want to leave Dora, not like this, when she is so fragile, drowning in the Rivers of Time. But now I must find my son.

  There is a commotion downstairs. Banging at my gate. The sound of boots on tile as people rush into my atrium. It is the shrieks that send me running down the stairs two at a time. That is when the scent of smoke gets into my nostrils and I feel a terrible thunder underfoot. The house seems to shake with it, and someone cries, “There’s a fire at the stables!”

  Thirty-seven

  OUTSIDE, black smoke rises from the stables like a pillar into the sky. Spooked Barbary horses with perfect pedigrees gallop wildly through the street in front of my house, smashing carts with their back hooves and rearing up at anyone who approaches them. Rushing out into the madness, I have a near miss with my son’s stallion; the big horse’s eyes roll with fear, his mouth foaming with fury, a gash on his shoulder and a smear of blood upon his fair mane.

  One trampled man howls in pain, while others try to wrestle the horses into submission. My guards shout warnings, but I am only dimly aware of the danger from the horses; my eyes are on the fire beyond. “Ptolemy!” I cry, sprinting toward the fire, dodging broken gates and smashed carts. Even before I reach the stables I’m nearly overcome by a wall of heat that warps and bends the air. I can hear nothing but the roar of fire as it blazes in brilliant red and orange.

  I throw both my arms up, summoning my magic to clear the smoke away with my winds. The sail-shaped birthmark on my arm tingles with power but when I hurl a pillar of air at the flames it only fans them and forces them to jump higher. Somewhere in the stables, I hear my son’s dog barking and I know they must both be inside.

  Screaming Ptolemy’s name, I break away from my guards and sprint into the burning stable, stumbling over something that feels human. It is the body of a man whose head has been split open, his face to the dirt, unrecognizable. Still, I know the dead man’s hands—hands that have protected me. It is Memnon, sooty fingers clutched round a dagger.

  Where his sword and shield may be, I don’t know.

  I let out a cry of grief, but I cannot stop for him. Again and again I hear the dog bark. Frantically, my eyes sweep the conflagration for the sight of my son. All I find is the end of a familiar blue cloth. Crawling beneath the flames, I follow the cloth like a ribbon, knowing with each turn of it on my hand that it will lead to bitter tears. For this is Tala’s turban. “Tala!” I shout. “Ptolemy!”

  Sooty smoke dims the air around me, and the heat scorches my lungs with every breath. But I surge forward until I find the barking dog and find my Berber woman on her back in the dirt, her unseeing eyes wide open, staring at the sky. In the cradle of her tattooed arms … I find a broken boy.

  Not my boy. No. No, this cannot be Ptolemy. I curse my lying eyes, for my little boy, my little boy, has always been so perfectly formed. This little boy’s arms bend in ways they should never bend. His legs are shattered, splintered bones bloody and exposed. And his little lips, that precious mouth that has kissed me so fondly, are caked with dirt and stretched open in wordless agony like a frozen scream.

  But I scream for him. Oh, I scream.

  Falling to my knees, throwing myself over his body, I scream his name again and again. My son will not answer. Perhaps he cannot answer. He is trampled and bloody in more places than I can count. Choking on sobs and smoke, I’m afraid to touch him, afraid to hurt him more than he has been hurt. I fear he is far beyond pain now. He doesn’t feel the bones piercing through his flesh or the gush of his life’s blood as it stains the earth. I put my hands on his wounds. I will my own life force into his body. I call on my heka to make him live. I wail to my goddess, for Ptolemy cannot die.

  I will do anything for her. Anything. But she must help my child.

  He is my baby, my precious boy, and this cannot be happening. For if he is dying, then I am dying with him. Let him have my blood, my bones, my blistering flesh …

  A beam creaks overhead, breaking free of its moorings and crashing down in a spray of sparks. Beyond it, I see Iacentus and his men braving the smoke and flames to get to me. We are all going to burn, I think. We are all going to burn alive. Then something happens to me. In the roaring inferno of my grief, I become a thing apart from myself—convinced I am caught up in some otherworldly lake of fire and I must master myself and my magic to escape it.

  Whatever else I do, I will not let my son burn to ash.

  Ptolemy will not burn.

  I think I see a flash of golden hair. A man with broad shoulders who beats his way through the flames to rescue us. Helios. I call to him for help. He sees me and holds out his hand. Fire seeks him out, leaping into his palm.

  Except he is not here.

  It is not his palm.

  It is mine.

  The flames are not leaping into his hand. The flames are leaping into my hand. I catch fire like a torch, but I do not burn. The fire does not consume me; I consume it. I inhale soot and ash until it is part of my blood. I drink in flame until it licks the inside of me and flares in my eyes. I find the magical core of this fire and catch it between my teeth, sucking in its heat, its luminosity, its sparks and suffocating smoke, making room for it inside me just as my twin once taught me.

  Under your skin, between your bones, there’s space for other, more fluid things. Like blood. Like heka. Like fire and wind … and love.

  I eat the fire. I swallow it whole, down to the last shining ember. And when it’s inside me I stand covered in soot in a blackened stables, with quaking guards and a barking dog.

  I grab up the broken body of my son, staggering under his weight.

  “Take Tala,” I command. “Take Memnon too …”

  That is the last thing I hear, for all the sound and sensation in the world ebb away. The winds come to me, summoned by the hot t
ears on my cheeks. I do not hear what my guards shout to one another as they find Memnon, their fallen comrade. I no longer hear the incessant barking of the dog. I only know that they all crowd round me in the circle of my winds as the ash swirls high. And with my son in my arms, I leave that burned-out place, a trail of his precious blood in our wake.

  Returning to my house, we are met by my daughter, still wild-eyed but in possession of herself. She has fought her way back from the Rivers of Time and now rushes forward to help me.

  We gently lower my son’s mangled body to our table in the tabulinum. “Oh, oh no, please no,” Isidora moans, backing up until her back touches the wall. “Poor little Ptolemy!”

  Then someone sends for the king and pulls the curtain shut.

  I realize that it is Musa, and remember that we summoned him. Good fortune too, for we need him desperately. The physician examines my son where horse hooves have crushed and broken and left him bloody. Then he says softly, very softly, “Majesty, Prince Ptolemy is dead.”

  My son is dead. The words are more devastating than any I have ever heard before. The possibility is so horrible, the mere contemplation of them makes me push the words away. It isn’t possible. Ptolemy kissed me only this morning, boasting about the little bruise he’d taken from another boy’s wooden sword. He is badly hurt, but he can’t be dead. It’s unthinkable. Numbness spreads through my arms and fingers like armor, preventing my fear and horror from breaking through my certainty that my son still lives. “No, you are wrong.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Musa says, with the tenderest sympathy. “But he’s gone.”

  He is trying to say Ptolemy is dead? My son is dead of so many wounds we cannot even know the one that killed him. That is what he is trying to say to me. And though I shudder, I must hear it because I am a mother, and Ptolemy needs me in life or death.

  “Reset my son’s broken bones,” I whisper through lips gone cold.

  “Majesty, it will not help him …”

  “Do as I say! Set the bones.” Ptolemy’s legs may not heal in this life, but he will need them in the next. If he is dead—but no, he can’t be—if he is dead, it is even more important that we do this for him.

  The physician doesn’t want us to stay in the room while he sets the bones. Musa doesn’t want us to see him push and pull at my son’s limbs like they were slabs of meat on the butcher’s table. Wringing her hands with helplessness at what she foresaw but could not prevent, Isidora seems ready to stand at my side whatever horror will come. But I send Isidora away. She will not see this, but I will not abandon Ptolemy now.

  If my little boy must suffer this, I will suffer it with him.

  I stay. I watch. I see things that no mother should ever see. I see things and hear sounds that I will never describe to a soul. Things that destroy me. Shatter me.

  I am going to fall to pieces. I know it. I didn’t cry when they told me that my twin was killed. I did not shed a tear at the death of Ptolemy Philadelphus, after whom my son was named. Never did I lose my composure when I saw Octavia pass into the world beyond. I have borne much with a regal, uplifted chin. I have borne it all under cold, hard armor.

  But this I cannot bear.

  The moment I breathe too deeply, everything that holds me upright will collapse and I will come tumbling down. So I do not breathe deeply—determined to hold the broken pieces of myself together just long enough to care for my son.

  Just long enough for that, I tell myself.

  When Musa’s grisly work is done, I send slaves scurrying for water. I wash Ptolemy myself. His little hands and feet, still soft and small. The little dimple of his chin. His hair, dark and straight and perfect. Why did I ever insist that it must be curled? If only he would open his eyes, I would never make him curl his hair again …

  How can this be happening? I loved this boy from the moment he was a flutter in my belly. I dreamed for him such grand dreams. Now all the things I taught him, all the things I wanted for him, all for naught. All the scrapes I kissed, all my worries, and all my love did not keep him safe.

  I was to protect him; that was my sacred charge, and here he lies dead in my house while I still breathe. The injustice of it cannot be borne. When I have finished bathing him, tremors build inside me.

  My hands shake. Then my arms. Then I quake all the way through to my soul. Excruciating pain breaks through whatever is left of my defenses and it hurtles me into the darkness. My chest tightens.

  And from far away, I hear my own keening wail.

  My legs fail and I sink to the floor, the world falling beneath me. My ladies rush to attend me where I crouch, dizzied. On my hands and knees, I begin retching and sobbing by turns. When they try to lift me from the ground I slap them away because they cannot help me. They cannot wake me from this nightmare. They cannot make my son breathe again. And that is the only thing I want.

  I am still on the floor when Juba bursts in with his men, their boots thundering on the black and white tiles. My husband throws open the curtain and jolts to a stop as if he has crashed, headlong, into a wall of torment. Surely someone has told him. Surely they did not let their king come to see this unprepared. And yet my husband’s mouth falls open at the sight of me on the ground.

  Then he looks upon our son, and a sound explodes from his lungs—a horrible sound.

  I watch those lean legs of his as he comes closer, and I see that they are shaking. He reaches for the sheet of cloth that covers our son’s most grievous wounds, and I clasp him at the knees. “Juba, don’t look. Don’t!”

  He doesn’t listen or perhaps he doesn’t hear me. He pulls back the cloth and I feel the shudder that goes through him right to the marrow of my bones. For once, my husband is unable to master himself. “Oh, gods!” He cries out again, and again, as if he can summon all the powers on high. He hurls his voice toward the sky as if to command their attention. As if to demand an accounting. “How? How could this happen?”

  I don’t know. The fire. The horses. I shake my head helplessly, still clinging to his knees. I know only that it must be my fault.

  *

  SOMEONE sees to it that the stables are searched for survivors. Someone else arranges for the escaped horses to be rounded up and stabled with neighbors, though they do not find my son’s magnificent stallion. Sirocco is gone. Stolen, most likely. Stolen from us like the boy who sat astride him like a conqueror.

  Someone calls for the libitinarii, but I do not want Roman undertakers for my son’s funeral. I will have him embalmed in the traditions of Egypt. This is the only decision I make.

  In the days following my son’s death, Juba and I are both so insensible we frighten our servants. Wisely, they closet my husband in his chambers where he may give private vent to his grief. He is a king and must not be seen this way, even by the household staff.

  But I am a mother and I care nothing for that. I sit beside my son’s body where he rests in the atrium, his feet to the door. I sit still, staring, hollow. I am emptied of tears. Dried of everything but grief. Sorrow has carved me out again until I am nothing more than a shell. I do not notice the daylight when it comes or goes. I do not eat. I do not drink. I do not sleep.

  I am not hungry, for I feed on remorse. I am not thirsty, for I drink from a well of suspicion. I am not tired, for my mind is spinning. I am remembering, reckoning, and burning for revenge.

  I should never have brought my son to Rome … this festering cesspit that has always meant misery for me and mine. My son was in danger the moment he set foot here, and I didn’t safeguard him. What kind of queen am I—what kind of mother am I—when I cannot protect my own children? Isis hid her son in the reeds until he was strong enough to fight for himself. I should have done the same. I have failed in many things, but this is more than failure. It is the damnation of my soul. I feel certain that I have killed my own child. Like Medea, like Hercules, I have killed my own child.

  And there can be no redemption for me. I will never forgive myself. Perhaps t
hat is why I do not want the forgiveness of my goddess, even when I feel her reach for me, heka tingling in my fingers and hands. I hesitate to lift my palms to see what Isis is writing in my skin with stinging cuts and slashes. It is only a torment of the flesh that will heal, whereas the agony of my son’s death cuts deeper than sinew and bone. These hands of mine were only yesterday bathed in my son’s innocent blood and that is why my goddess has come to me, I know. But I let my hands dangle at my side, letting blood drip from the tips of my fingernails until it puddles beneath my chair.

  “Mother, you’re bleeding!” my daughter says, rushing to me as if she would bandage my wounds. Has my poor Isidora been sitting with me all this time? I do not remember her coming or going, but it is her presence, the tears of grief in her eyes mingled with fear, that makes me lift my arms.

  “This is how my goddess spoke to me when I was your age,” I say, letting her marvel at the hieroglyphic symbols that engrave themselves in my skin, with bright carnelian blood. Feathers and owls and vultures and twisted wicks. The language of ancient Egypt scrolls over my palms and wrists, blood flowing like ink from a reed pen.

  “What does it say?” Isidora asks, and so I read it for her.

  I am the Mother of the Dead. Your child will suck at my breast and taste my sweetness. Through me, he will be reborn.

  My goddess is salvation. Because of her, death is not the end of all things. She is a goddess of mercy and compassion. She offers me the comfort of knowing that my child will be taken into her loving embrace … but how can I rejoice when I know that I will never again have him in mine?

  It is on the second night of my vigil that I hear what I think must be another stampede, but is the emperor’s men as he comes to darken our door. Augustus has returned from some errand in Ostia, disheveled and unshaven. Someone must have sent word to him because his eyes are bloodshot with a grief he has no right to claim.

  Rushing to the side of Ptolemy’s bier, he clasps my son’s feet, weeping.