Lily of the Nile Read online

  Snow began to fall.

  I’d never seen snow before and I held out my hands to catch the crystalline flakes while the emperor tucked his hands under his armpits for warmth. “Your reasons were self-serving, Selene, but you did well. What other languages do you know?”

  I startled as the snowflakes melted to water on my fingertips. This was like a new kind of magic altogether, and it took me a moment to remember that the emperor had asked me a question. “Our tutors in Alexandria saw to it that we learned the languages my mother knew. Ethiopian, Arabic, Syrian, Latin, Greek, Egyptian, Parthian, Hebrew, and a smattering of some other Eastern languages and African dialects.”

  Juba’s gaze took on an intensity too admiring by far and his chest seemed to puff up with pride. “Selene’s work in my classroom demonstrates a strong grasp of history too. She’s very accomplished, Caesar.”

  “And quick-witted,” the emperor said. “Agrippa says she’s unnatural.”

  Juba draped his arm over my shoulder, ostensibly to warm me. “Were it not for her sex, I’d recommend her as a scholar.”

  The emperor brought his fingers to his temples. “Must I now doubt all my translators? I’m of half a mind to have the girl report their accuracy to me. Interpreters wouldn’t dare dissemble when Maecenas is near, but they won’t worry about the presence of a girl.”

  My consent wasn’t needed or sought and suddenly, the emperor’s mood was buoyant. “How shall I reward your good service today, Selene? What do you want?”

  I wanted to go home to Egypt, but I knew better than to ask. “Will you let me speak with the Syrian?”

  “No.”

  “Can we send a letter to our friends and loved ones in Egypt? Fat Mardian and Olympos and the servants don’t know what’s become of us here …”

  “No.”

  “Will you let us worship at the Temple of Isis?”

  “No. Ask for something practical, Selene.”

  I clenched my fists. “I want the gifts that the Syrian brought my brother and me.”

  “Ah, a girl’s avarice,” Juba said, trying to be helpful. “One can’t accuse her of being impractical there.”

  The emperor chuckled. “True, but I can’t encourage Isiac fantasies. You saw the Syrian’s ecstasy. He thinks Selene is a savior of some kind.”

  Juba tilted his head and asked, “If it appeases the Isiacs to think of you as the benevolent father of their holy twins, is that so bad a thing?”

  It was painful to even consider. Octavian was not my father and would never be. Wasn’t it enough that he drove my parents to their deaths? Must the emperor also try to steal their places? It seemed so, because the emperor’s thin lips stretched into a smile and he handed me the polished mirror the Syrian had left behind. “Why not, then? The Saturnalia approaches and I’m feeling generous. I’ll have my sister weed out any inappropriate gifts and give the rest to you. Run along, Selene.”

  Reluctantly, I returned to the baskets and fruits where labor alongside Julia awaited me, but I could still hear the emperor as he rose from his chair. “Come, Juba, it’s time for a warm fire and maybe just a sip of wine. Fortuna has a sense of humor. A thousand important positions to fill and my most talented child is a Ptolemy princess!”

  They both laughed.

  JULIA had overheard everything and within hours the rest of the children knew. Overnight, I transformed from a shunned interloper into an exotic princess of the East—a tragic demigoddess still worshipped across the seas. Whereas only Julia had shown me any warmth before, now all the girls of the household wanted to share my tasks. When adults were near, they babbled about their plans for the Saturnalia—wondering what gifts they should give, what gifts they might receive, and who might come to entertain. But when we were alone, they plied me with questions.

  “But why do they worship you?” Minora asked. “Is it because you can work magic?”

  “I can’t,” I said hurriedly, both because it was true and because I knew how dangerous such talk was.

  “There’s no such thing as magic anyway,” Antonia sniffed.

  I shouldn’t have challenged her, but something compelled me to say, “Yes, there is. Magic comes through Isis. Ordinary people bring power to her temples every day, and she lets her priests draw upon it to work heka in her name. I’ve seen them do it, so I know it’s real.”

  Marcella scowled. “Next you’ll tell us that crocodiles and hippos and baboons were meant to rule over us and be worshipped. We ought not even be speaking about such matters.”

  Marcella was the oldest girl in the house; they all deferred to her and I was eager to change the subject anyway, so I enchanted them with tales of Egyptian gods and described Alexander the Great’s gold and alabaster sarcophagus. They asked about Egyptian customs, about our slaves, our palace, and my wardrobe. Even Marcella wanted to know about my inglorious reign as Queen of Cyrenaica.

  As we worked, the smells of the kitchen were spicy and there was natural warmth to our shared endeavor—making treats for street children. Meats roasted in the fire, skin sizzling and crisping with spices in the heat, and slaves kept checking on them; everything needed to be prepared to Octavia and Livia’s exacting standards. In Egypt, we’d never have performed such lowly tasks alongside the slaves, but the emperor liked for his family to keep up at least a pretense of industry. Besides, in Rome, any excuse to be near the stoves was a good one and I found myself enjoying the moment in spite of myself.

  “What was your kingdom like?” Marcella asked. “Did you have your own palace?”

  “I never visited Cyrenaica,” I confessed. “But they say the soil is fertile and dotted with many oases.”

  Minora used too many fingers to tie a sloppy ribbon and Antonia ripped it out of her hands to fix. “What’s oases?”

  I tied my bow carefully lest Antonia snatch it away from me too. “An oasis is where the tears of Isis fell onto the desert sand and brought life out of death.”

  “Your country was filled with tears?” Minora asked.

  It seemed to me that every place that had anything to do with me was filled with tears. “Picture nothing but sand and desert. Then where you least expect it, trees and fruit and water spring up, like a hidden treasure trove. Like magic!”

  I’d said the forbidden word again, and Julia put a finger over her lips to quiet me. The steam from the pot Julia stirred made her brown hair curl into a frizzy halo around her head and to cover my mistake she asked, “What do they eat in Cyrenaica?”

  I finished tying a ribbon and started on a new one. “Rosemary, almonds, and a special bitter honey. They sent the honey to me as a gift and I had a chance to taste that.”

  “And who was your king?” Julia stole a wine-soaked plum from the pot when the slaves weren’t watching, then tried to wipe the telltale purple off her fingertips.

  “I was sole ruler, and a coin was even issued in my name, but my mother was regent for me until I came of age.”

  “Sole ruler?” Julia asked. “Not even your mother ruled alone!”

  “Well, she did. In practice,” I said. “Besides, many women ruled Egypt—mostly from my family.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Marcella said, her face a stern imitation of her mother’s.

  “No?” I countered. “Egyptian women are the freest in the world.”

  Marcella wasn’t having it. “Well, you say you’re Egyptian, but we all know you’re really Greek and the Greeks treat their women worse than sheep.”

  The Antonias giggled and I felt my cheeks grow hot. “Not all the Greeks. The Athenians said that Spartan women were equal to their men. And in any case, my blood is Macedonian and some of my ancestors were Illyrian warrior princesses.”

  Marcella snorted. “Warrior princesses, indeed. Women don’t make war.”

  “My mother did,” I reminded her.

  It was an imprudent thing to say and several of the girls stared pointedly. I was rescued only by Julia’s quick intercession. “You should learn from w
hat Selene’s trying to tell us, Marcella. I’ve heard Egyptian women have rights in the law courts. They can be scribes or physicians or scholars.”

  Marcella scoffed. “They cannot, Julia. Whoever told you such tales? Egyptian women even need perfumed eunuchs to guard their chastity.”

  The things they’d been taught! It was true that my mother had eunuchs like Fat Mardian, but I never had any watching over me. My tutor was Euphronius, a priest, a magician, and a whole man. Reminded of him, I now missed him terribly. How could he have shown his face to us on the very streets of Rome only to disappear again?

  Taking a deep breath, I continued, “I’m just saying that there’s nothing unnatural about women ruling a country.”

  Julia offered me a plum. “Would the people allow it?”

  I took a bite—it was rich with wine and spices, and the best thing I’d tasted since leaving Egypt. I savored the flavor, indelicately licking my fingers clean. “Sometimes the people demand it. Since the son of Ptolemy took his sister to wed, women in my family have ruled with men in partnership or even on their own.”

  They all startled, and I wasn’t sure which part of what I’d said alarmed them. From the way a half-eaten plum dangled from Julia’s lips, I gathered that maybe it was everything and my stomach knotted.

  Antonia hissed, winding the ribbon around her bough too tightly, crushing the treat beneath. “You speak as though there were no shame in a sister wed to a brother!”

  She was my half sister, but there were no traces of our father in her. The set of her jaw was all Octavia and I felt thoroughly chastised. “Why should there be shame in it?” I asked slowly. I had to remember that these people were nothing like my own. “It’s a long tradition in Egypt. Sometimes a son can’t even become pharaoh without wedding Pharaoh’s daughter—his sister.”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” Antonia returned.

  I felt their gazes upon me. They were trying to make me ashamed, just like my mother warned they would. I tried to explain it the way my mother had explained it to me. “Brother and sister marriages prevent rival families and civil wars. It keeps foreign princes from coming to Egypt to court Pharaoh’s daughter and steal our treasure. Besides, the royal family of Egypt descends from the gods. Isis and Osiris were siblings, and no one would question their pairing.”

  “Jupiter and Juno are siblings as well, or so the stories say,” Julia added, giving me a reassuring smile, but the rest of them still looked at me sourly.

  “Are you going to marry Helios, then?” Minora asked.

  The question caught me entirely off guard. I used to believe I would wed Caesarion. He was king and I was Pharaoh’s daughter. But those had been the old ways, and my mother hadn’t always adhered to them. Now that Caesarion was dead, what would that mean for the royal line of Ptolemy? As Pharaoh’s only daughter, I must wed the ruler of Egypt, or the Nile might not rise. But who now was the ruler of Egypt? Wasn’t Helios the rightful king?

  “Helios is betrothed to Princess Iotape of Media,” I murmured, and then realized that I didn’t even know what had happened to her. Perhaps she’d also been dragged through the streets in Octavian’s Triumph and I hadn’t even seen her.

  Just then Livia swept through the kitchen, berating slaves and checking over our progress. “You girls are dawdling! If you don’t finish your boughs, I won’t let you attend the poetry reading.”

  “A poet?” I tried to seem less interested than I was. “Is he talented?”

  Livia scowled into the pot of plums, as if she’d counted each one and knew some were missing. “Of course. It’s Virgil, you stupid girl.”

  Twelve

  THE emperor kept his promise to give me the gifts offered by the Syrian magi. The most wonderful gift of all was a spotted cat for my brothers and me. Cats were sacred in Egypt and there were strict laws against harming them, or even taking them to other countries. This sleek gray huntress had obviously been smuggled from Egypt, but as she bounded around my room chasing after a ribbon that Philadelphus wiggled for her, we couldn’t disapprove.

  “Let’s call her Bast!” Philadelphus said.

  It was hardly original to name her after the cat-faced Egyptian goddess, but if Bast too was an aspect of Isis, this was one way in which we could honor our goddess even on the Palatine Hill. “Yes, Bast,” Helios insisted. “Selene, you should let her sleep here in your room.”

  Then the little wild cat leapt into his lap and made him laugh. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Helios laugh so I said, “No, you and Philadelphus keep her. She fancies you.”

  Besides, with Bast’s dappled fur coat and her bright eyes, I was already growing to love her, and I was terribly afraid to love anything new. Things that you loved could be taken from you, or used against you, after all.

  Fortunately, the cat wasn’t the only gift the Syrians gave us in honor of our birthdays. There had been a bed netting with silver stars that reminded me of the drapes that swept over my mother’s bed in Alexandria, but Lady Octavia called it licentious and wouldn’t let me keep it. A shimmering silk gown, a box of cosmetics, and vials of perfume were also deemed inappropriate and sent away. Octavia did, however, allow me to have an incense burner shaped like a cornucopia. My room was also now adorned with a colorful new woven rug and a chest full of silken gowns that Octavia deemed modest enough for me to wear. A carved kithara harp rested against the far wall, and in spite of Octavia’s warning about music, I’d been allowed to play it. In fact, the emperor said I might even have some talent for music.

  Finally, Octavia allowed me to keep a blue linen tunica cinched with a silvered girdle to wear during the Saturnalia—a Roman festival that I was about to experience for the first time.

  FOR the Saturnalia, the emperor’s household was strewn with ribbons to mask its architecture in seasonal charm. Dried spices and gilded pinecones—an unusual extravagance—were set in decorative bowls as centerpieces in every room. Everything seemed touched by green sprigs or red berries.

  The Saturnalia was to be our first official public appearance since the Triumph, so care was taken that Helios, Philadelphus, and I looked every bit the part of happy Roman children. I was even allowed to style my hair more fashionably, held in place with pearl-tipped hairpins that I borrowed from Julia.

  As the guests filed in for the emperor’s banquet, they shouted to one another in greeting: “Io Saturnalia!” The men wore colorful muslin tunics with loose-fitting bottoms. The women wore gowns that would normally be too immodest for public. And everyone wore a red pileus—a loose peaked hat that was the sign of freedom.

  The emperor’s guests included nobles, merchants, freedmen, and even valued slaves. In fact, during the Saturnalia, the masters served the slaves, so Livia sent the children of the household mingling with trays of treats. But when Minora and Philadelphus were caught eating more pastries than they gave out, Lady Octavia sent them to play in the courtyard.

  I refilled goblets with spiced wine and Julia handed out the boughs of sweets that we’d fashioned, gossiping about the guests all the while. Lady Octavia had impressed upon us the importance of our manners and modesty, so I feared the smallest misstep. I needn’t have been so worried. When I sloshed some wine out of the side of one senator’s cup, he merely winked at me and shouted, “Io Saturnalia!”

  I overheard snippets of conversation, some of which I understood and some of which left me confused. I’d occasionally hear the emperor complain that seven days of Saturnalia was too long a time for courts to be idle; he felt that the celebration should be shortened to three days, but no one seemed to agree with him. Livia bragged about the talents of her sons and everyone was in high spirits—even Helios, whose natural earnestness gave way to sportsmanship when the other boys invited him to wrestle outside.

  I learned that night that even Agrippa had a sense of fun; I saw him demonstrating a thrust of the sword to some soldiers and they all burst into laughter at whatever jest he told. Then Octavia offered him so
me fruit from a platter and allowed her fingers to brush his. They stood there for several moments, just smiling at one another until Agrippa’s fingers closed around her hand as if he held a precious jewel. This made Octavia scurry away, crimson-cheeked.

  The other guests were less inhibited. Flirtation abounded. The emperor scolded Julia for “flashing her eyes” at male visitors, but when Tiberius and Iullus flirted with pretty girls their own age, no one counted it amiss.

  The food was plentiful for a change and singing was encouraged. Some of the guests even danced. How envious I was! In Egypt, this was also a time of celebration; this was the time to honor Isis and Osiris for the yearly cycle of life. They brought forth the bright sun rays of Horus, the divine child, so that another year of planting would commence. The Romans viewed it differently, and Juba delighted in telling the tale as children gathered around him.

  In truth, it made me smile to watch Juba with the children. He liked to tell stories almost as much as he enjoyed hearing them. When I refreshed his goblet of wine, he took in my silvered girdle and smiled. “You’re lovely tonight, Selene. The blue of your gown brings out your green eyes.”

  “Thank you,” I said, altogether flattered that such a handsome man should compliment me. In truth, I liked Juba more than I would have admitted.

  “It’s good to see you smile,” he added. “I hear that a little gray cat might have something to do with that. You know, I’d like to buy a cat and then maybe Bast can have kittens.”

  I grinned. “And I hear that with your writing, you’re a wealthy young man. But Egyptians don’t sell their cats. There are some things money can’t buy.”

  He laughed. “Quite so, my pretty princess.”

  I blushed again, nervous that Julia’s too-big ears could eavesdrop at long distances when she smirked at me from across the room. She took special gratification in sending me knowing looks whenever Juba and I spoke.

  “Tell more stories!” Philadelphus interrupted.

  Juba laughed in surrender. “Very well, Philadelphus. When the end came to Saturn’s earthly reign, this time he wisely chose to set aside his crown.” I’d heard darker tales about Saturn, but I kept quiet as Juba continued his story. “He sailed away beyond the Northern Wind where he now sleeps upon a hidden island at the top of the world. Thus in the coldest season, we send our prayers to Saturn’s snowy realm to wake from sleep the ancient and kindly king. One day, his divinity will be reborn into this season and we will enjoy the blessings of a Golden Age.”