Lily of the Nile Read online

  We gave away the Syrian incense and I gave each girl in the household one of the silver stars I’d plucked off of the netting before Octavia had gotten rid of it. I also gave Julia an ivory comb, and she embarrassed me with a basket full of hairpins, ribbons, and rings.

  “I’m touched by your gifts,” I reassured her.

  Livia snorted and stretched out upon her plush couch. “Don’t be too grateful, Selene. Julia is particularly free with her possessions in a way that only someone can be when they tire of things quickly.”

  Julia’s cheeks reddened and she looked away, and I wondered why the emperor never defended his daughter from Livia’s barbs. He ignored the exchange, tossing us each a pouch of Egyptian gold coins.

  Then he gave my mother’s jewelry to the women of the household. “Here, Selene. Your mother was famed for her pearls. You should have a strand of them.”

  They should have been mine anyway, but I was obliged to thank him while he fastened my mother’s gold and lapis lazuli bracelet around Livia’s wrist. The emperor was in a good mood, which meant that the rest of the household could be in a good mood as well.

  Over and over he told the story of how I’d helped him catch the lying interpreter, though in his version of the story, I’d merely confirmed what he already knew. Then the emperor glanced down at the wax tablet he often kept with him for notes and reminders. “Ah yes, I almost forgot. Tomorrow, Selene and Helios will have a birthday and I’ve heard that Helios has taken a fondness to the slave girl Chryssa.”

  I held my breath. Did he know about the conversation we’d had with Chryssa in my room about Euphronius? I braced for the worst. The emperor, however, smiled. “I bought her away from Livia and now I’m giving Chryssa to Helios as a birthday gift. A young man of his stature should have an attendant.”

  I tried not to gasp with relief. A slave was a generous gift and everyone praised the emperor’s largesse. Helios could only stammer his thanks, but if the emperor was put off by my twin’s ingratitude, he didn’t show it.

  “I’ve not forgotten Selene’s birthday either. I’m gifting her with the works of the greatest poet of all, a Roman at that.”

  The emperor opened a trunk before me and I ran my fingers over the smooth skin of the vellum scrolls within. They were copies of Virgil’s poetry. A complete collection. It was a generous gift indeed. “Thank you.”

  “Good,” the emperor declared, satisfied with himself. “You’ll even have a chance to speak with the poet himself. I’ve always thought he doted overmuch on my nephew Marcellus, but now he’s quite taken with you, Selene. He says he’s going to pay you a visit before the end of Saturnalia.”

  Fourteen

  WITH the gift exchange over, I went with the girls to the kitchen to clean up dishes from the feast. Helios had also been sent to work with the girls as punishment for a smart remark he’d made to Agrippa.

  Philadelphus and Minora swept the hearths while the rest of us tackled the mountain of filthy platters. Meanwhile, Bast made herself useful by gobbling up the scraps of food we spilled, her spiny cat’s tongue scratching against the floor.

  Julia whistled while she scrubbed. “I wonder if Virgil has grown fond of you in a certain way, Selene.”

  The way she said it made Helios bristle, so I quickly interceded. “Julia, you think everyone is fond of me in a certain way.”

  “And why not?” she asked. “You’re of marriageable age now. Once Marcella marries Agrippa, you’ll be the oldest girl in the emperor’s household and everyone will be interested in you. After all, you do come with a great legacy.”

  “Of death?” I asked, brooding.

  But Julia only laughed and rolled her eyes at my dramatics.

  “Why else would Virgil wish to see you if he didn’t want to marry you?”

  Helios turned so quickly I thought he might strike Julia. “Marry her!” He slammed the platter in his hands down so hard it cracked. “Virgil can’t marry Selene. He’s just a rich poet. He’s not even noble and completely unfit to marry the daughter of Pharaoh.”

  “This much is true,” Julia allowed. “Now that Selene is a member of my father’s household, she’ll have to marry someone of a certain stature. A distinguished old senator or maybe a soldier like Plancus.”

  I shuddered more that I should be married off to a traitor than that I should have to wed some wrinkly old man, but either way, I must have lost all color in my complexion, because Julia put a hand on my arm and said, “No matter who my father marries you to, your wedding should be glamorous, Selene.”

  “Glamorous?” Helios slammed down another platter, as everything Julia said seemed to make him angrier. “A Roman wife is subject to the complete authority of her husband. That’s hardly glamorous, Julia.”

  He was right, and if the emperor married me off, I’d be separated from my brothers.

  “Don’t be angry with me,” Julia said to Helios. “It’s not as if I wrote the Roman laws on marriage. In any case, I’m sure my father will find someone of proper age and stature to marry Selene.”

  My twin and I said nothing. We were both all too aware that there was only one person left in the entire world of proper age and stature to marry a Ptolemy princess, and that was Helios.

  “I hope you don’t mind the brisk weather, Selene,” Virgil said, offering his arm to me. Mindful that the emperor might marry me to him or to any other man that he chose, I was afraid to take it.

  “Come, Selene,” Virgil coaxed me. “Rome isn’t normally so cold in the winter, but I thought a walk might do you good. Pretend we’re on a country stroll.”

  I pulled my cloak tighter and wrapped my fingers around the poet’s arm. “I don’t mind the weather, but I thought you’d be reading me poetry today.”

  “I’ll show you poetry,” Virgil said, sweeping one arm across the landscape. Trees were silver spires, and Rome finally looked clean under a blanket of white snow. I could hear laughter and the tunes of minstrels in the distance as everyone made the most of the last day of the Saturnalia.

  “It’s good of you to meet with me,” I said. “The emperor gave me all of your works but one. The Fourth Eclogue is missing.”

  “No, you have the whole set,” he said, and I saw that Virgil too could make a mask of his face, for he forced a smile as he guided me toward the construction site where lightning had years ago struck and burned down part of the emperor’s home. “In any case, Selene, I have a different gift for you, something I’ve wanted to give you for quite some time.”

  Julia’s words came back to haunt me, and I tried to show indifference. If the emperor wished to marry me to a poet, I’d have no say in the matter, but no matter how kindly Virgil’s face was, I couldn’t imagine being married to him. “I’m afraid I have nothing to give you in return.”

  “Your company is gift enough,” the poet said, steering me round a snowcapped tree where a group of slaves passed around jugs of wine while meat roasted on an open fire.

  “Io Saturnalia!” the slaves shouted to us in greeting and our presence chilled their celebration not a whit. I was desperately glad for their interruption.

  Impervious to the cold that made their cheeks and noses red, they danced amidst the construction. The open congress between men and women was enough to make even an Alexandrian blush. Modestly looking away, my eyes settled upon the ivory doors of the unfinished building and wondered if the emperor was finally going to construct something beautiful for us to live in. “Is this the emperor’s new home?”

  “No, my dear. But it’s quite lovely, isn’t it?”

  That’s when I noticed the stolen pillars and war booty. Was it a shrine to the nations that Octavian had conquered? Then I stared in wonder at the bas-relief myth of Niobe who had offended the gods with her arrogance and had watched each of her children struck down by Apollo’s arrows.

  A slave offered me a cup of warm spiced wine. Though the cold would have made it welcome, the dread inside me prevented me from even holding a cup. “Wh-
what is this place?” I asked with foreboding.

  “This will be a temple to Apollo,” the poet replied. “The emperor has chosen Apollo as his patron. Here the most precious artwork in the world will be housed alongside libraries of Greek and Latin.”

  Had not the emperor boasted to me that he would claim to be the incarnation of Apollo? Had he sent me here with Virgil to witness these doors as a warning? Did he mean to kill all my mother’s children as Apollo had killed Niobe’s?

  Virgil mistook my hesitation for chill; he took my hands and rubbed them between his to warm them. “Before you freeze, I must give you your gift. It comes with a rather strange story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “A personal story,” he began. “You see, as I mentioned before, I knew your mother. When Julius Caesar brought her to Rome, every young artist sought out her company. I was no exception. The Queen of Egypt was a dazzling visionary.”

  When Virgil spoke about my mother, his eyes lit up with such affection and admiration it gave me pause. I had to wonder at all the stories the emperor told of my mother’s promiscuity and an impertinent question rolled from my lips before I could stop it. “Were you her lover?”

  “Oh no.” He looked down shyly. “Your mother was too infatuated with Caesar to notice me and I prefer men.”

  Embarrassed, I fumbled for a reply. “I see.”

  He noticed my discomfort. “I hope I haven’t disturbed you. Your mother was never offended by my preference.”

  “Nor am I offended,” I said quickly. Men who preferred other men were common enough in Greek society. My mother’s court had viewed it with indifference. In fact, because of Julia’s taunting about how Virgil might like to marry me, I found myself quite relieved.

  Virgil’s hands were warm on mine as we slowly walked away from the slaves. “Your mother was here at Julius Caesar’s invitation, but those were dangerous times—before the Ides of March that year everyone in the city was seeing omens and having dark dreams. The very night Julius Caesar was assassinated, I went to reassure her she was still welcome in Rome.”

  “But she’d already resolved to leave?” I knew my mother had fled Rome for fear of her life. Still, I couldn’t help but be entranced by the telling of it from someone who was there.

  “Yes. I found Queen Cleopatra in a state of disarray, overcome with grief. The air was thick with burned incense and her eyes were wide as if she’d taken a draft of magical potion. She clutched my arm, gave me this bracelet, and said, ‘Give this to my daughter.’ ”

  From a pouch at his belt, Virgil now took a golden coil—an armlet shaped like a hooded snake with emeralds inset for eyes. He pressed it into my hand.

  I narrowed my eyes at him skeptically and stared at the snake bracelet as if it were a live serpent about to strike. Virgil had to be lying and it angered me. “I wasn’t even born when Caesar died.”

  Virgil nodded as if he expected my objection. “I reminded her that she had no daughter, but she couldn’t be reasoned with. With her hair wild and magic talismans of Isis clutched at her breast, she said, ‘Give this to my daughter and tell her that it wasn’t her fault.’ ”

  The words washed over me as if I’d somehow plunged through the ice into a frigid pond. The guilt of my mother’s death was still with me, and I hurt to remember. “You’re lying.”

  “No,” the poet said. “I always wondered if we’d laugh about it later, but I never saw her again. When news came that she’d given birth to a daughter, I considered sending this bracelet, but by then everything had changed. Partisans of Antony and Octavian were already choosing sides in the civil war, and it seemed unwise of me to continue any association with Cleopatra.”

  How could he know about the serpent I brought my mother to kill her? Even the emperor didn’t know I carried the snake in that basket of figs. No one knew that but Euphronius and my brothers. “Stop lying!”

  “I’m telling the truth,” Virgil said, sadly. “Looking back now, I think she foresaw the tragedy. She was an Isiac oracle, so maybe she could see beyond the veils that separate this world from the others. Her request left an impression on me that I never forgot.”

  I squeezed the bracelet until my knuckles whitened, rage at Virgil and my mother burning just beneath my skin. “Why are you saying this to me?”

  Virgil’s eyes softened with sympathy. “I didn’t mean to upset you, my dear, but when I saw you marching in Octavian’s Triumph with such royal bearing, I became eager to fulfill the only request Cleopatra ever made of me. Now I feel relieved to discharge the duty. It’s been weighing on me these years.”

  If my mother had known the future, why would she have done everything she did? Had my mother known the futility of her fight against Rome and fought anyhow? Could she have absolved me of her death even before it happened? Before I was born? My throat tightened with my efforts to remain composed. I couldn’t cry in front of Virgil and all I wanted was to be alone.

  “Selene, are you well?” the poet asked gently.

  I was not well. I shook my head and bolted for Octavia’s house, running away from the poet without so much as a reply. He called after me, but I didn’t turn back.

  Seeking out my room, and the simple pallet that was my bed, I curled up miserably beneath the blankets. Why would my mother have devoted herself to a losing battle? How could she have foreseen her own death and played out the farce of the war so fearlessly anyhow? I remembered the banner in her room that she placed there for the emperor to find—our family motto—Win or Die. Was it just to make a point that the Ptolemy dynasty, the last of the Pharaohs, would rather die than lay down their arms? Had she risked the lives of her people and her children for the sake of that gesture? Did she want me to do the same, or was this latest message meant to release me from her fate?

  HUDDLED with Bast in my bed, I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face in her fur. I tried to deny the truth in what Virgil had said, but something inside me knew it was true.

  Terribly, horrifically, true.

  My mother had seen everything and let it happen anyway. I remembered the way she’d said good-bye to us, and now the words of Isis, as they had carved themselves into my hands, also seemed like a farewell. In spite of the pain, in spite of the danger, I had gloried in being a vessel of the goddess. It had marked me as special and reaffirmed my faith, but as I stared at my hands now, I didn’t even feel the tingle of heka inside the lines of my palms. Whatever magic lay inside me had gone dormant, and I had best forget it ever happened lest I wind up like my mother.

  When anyone asked for me, I told them I was ill, for I was sick at heart. Livia sent Chryssa the slave girl to bring me one of her elixirs, but I wouldn’t open the door. I didn’t even answer Helios when he removed the brick from the wall and called for me. “Did Virgil hurt you, Selene? Why won’t you talk to me?”

  I was too lost in anger to soothe him. “Just leave me alone. I don’t want to bleed anymore or learn magic or see Euphronius. I don’t even know that I want to be Queen of Egypt anymore.”

  “That’s not something you can choose.” He sounded incredulous. “Selene, what’s wrong with you?”

  How could I tell him that some of the terrible things the Romans said about our mother might be true? That she’d been so ambitious that she’d fought the Romans from spite and left us helpless against their power. She left us. She left us!

  Angrily, I got out of bed and ducked under the dressing table so that I could see my twin through the hole in the wall. I slid the bracelet down to my forearm. “A gift from Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt. Virgil gave it to me.”

  Shock registered behind my twin’s green eyes as he took in the shape of the golden serpent—for my brother too had been there on the day my mother died. “How would Virgil have anything that belonged to our mother?”

  I was relieved of the need to answer by the knock at my door. Without my having to tell him, Helios put the brick back as I slipped the bracelet beneath my mattress, then strai
ghtened my clothes. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Juba. I’ve come to check on you.”

  “Please come back later.”

  “Octavia says you’re ill,” Juba replied. “Let me check you for fever, Selene. Open the door.”

  I crossed the room, opening the door a crack—enough to see that Juba’s eyes were suspicious. “Who were you talking to?”

  I spun a quick lie. “I was just singing a tune from the Saturnalia.”

  He sniffed the air, then pushed his way in. “It sounded more like a spell than a song.”

  I stepped back. “You would know, I suppose.”

  Juba lifted an eyebrow at me in the way he did in his classroom when we misbehaved. “Selene, you know how Lady Octavia feels about spells. Are you working magic?”

  Now was the time to test him. Euphronius wanted to know if Juba could be trusted. It was time to find out. “Are you working magic?”

  Juba’s cheeks puffed with surprise. There was a moment’s hesitation before he said, “Someone has been telling tales.”

  I covered my mouth with both hands, then whispered, “Juba, you’re an Isiac, aren’t you?”

  His face went carefully blank, and then Juba closed the door behind him. He risked Lady Octavia’s wrath by being alone with me behind bedroom doors now that I was of marriageable age, so I knew he took my question quite seriously. He sat at my dressing table, staring down at his smoothly elegant hands. “I visit the Temple of Isis from time to time.”

  My heart surged with joy. “Sweet Isis!”

  I wanted to throw my arms around him. Though he was a man grown, Juba was still an African prince in the same situation as my brothers and me. He might be able to help us protect the temples. After all the turmoil of the last few days, there was good news at last. Perhaps Euphronius was right when he said that the followers of Isis would be watching us and watching over us. First Chryssa and now Juba.

  “This isn’t something to spread,” Juba cautioned.