Lily of the Nile Read online

  Iullus found this terribly funny. He laughed aloud. “Won’t the emperor be so pleased with his new favorite when he finds out.”

  I counted all the people who held power over me and with whom I must curry favor. Livia. Octavia. Agrippa. Octavian. My half brother, Iullus, wasn’t on the list, so I said, “Listen to me, you bitter worm. You may hate the family you were born into, but if you don’t help me find Helios, I’ll make you sorry you were ever born at all!”

  Iullus stared at me as if he were doing a calculation of his own. Now that I knew about him kissing the emperor’s daughter, I had something to hold over him. I was a girl, but he knew I was clever. In the game of imperial politics, I might win. He shrugged at me in surrender. “He’s probably still in the tunnels. They’re guarded by the praetorians, you know.”

  I nodded. “Show us where the tunnels are, Chryssa. We’re all going after Helios.”

  But no sooner had the words left my mouth than we heard a praetorian running up a path toward us. “What are you children doing out of your beds? Don’t you know the hour?”

  When we didn’t answer, he said, “There may be an intruder in the compound. Augustus wants all the grounds checked, and you should be in your room, Lady Julia! Your father will worry.”

  “I somehow doubt that,” Julia said, but guilt flittered across her puckish features as she looked to me for help.

  I had none to give her. “What intruder?”

  “A guard was found unconscious at his post at the Temple of Apollo. A big, bloody lump on his head. We think someone tried to get past him to come into the compound.”

  Iullus smirked his infernal smirk. “Or someone tried to leave.”

  THE emperor was a deep sleeper. He went to bed early and rose just before dawn, so interruptions of his schedule put him in the foulest humor. The day’s events had already unnerved him, and being awakened by the guards with news of an intrusion made it worse. He entered the tabulinum wearing slippers. His hair was in disarray and his gray eyes were bloodshot. “Where’s Agrippa?”

  “On his way, Caesar,” the guard told him.

  The emperor grumbled. “Would that he brought my niece back to live in my house instead of Antony’s. I’m surrounded by womenfolk and children, day and night, with their clamor.” Then the emperor turned his attention to us. “You say that you realized Helios was gone, you suspected that he went out through the tunnel, so you came running to find him and stop him?”

  My palms were sweaty, but I noticed that the emperor no longer seemed to care what Helios’s name was. “Yes. That’s what happened.”

  The emperor leaned toward me. “And you have no idea where he’s going, Selene?”

  But I knew what he really meant. He wanted to know if Helios had gone to find my mother, wherever she was. “No. Of course I don’t know where he’s gone.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. I knew that Helios would go searching for Euphronius and that he’d search for Isiacs sympathetic to our cause. But then what? Would Helios try to go to Egypt? And what if he succeeded? Would I be glad for him, or would being left behind be more than I could bear?

  The emperor eyed my little brother. “Philadelphus, you share a room with Helios …”

  Philadelphus shrunk back, wordlessly, and I answered for him. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  Then the emperor’s stony glare rested on Julia as if she were a great nuisance. “How did my daughter get involved?”

  Iullus’s eyes darted around the room as if he could hide his guilt amongst the tapestries and sparking braziers that lit the room. I enjoyed seeing his smugness evaporate and a part of me wanted to expose his secret, but nothing good could come of that. Besides, if I lied for him, maybe Iullus would feel bound to aid me. So I took a deep breath, and said, “I asked Iullus to help me find Helios. He suggested that we check your house and when we got here, I insisted on getting Julia to help, too.”

  The emperor looked skeptical. “And Julia, being a dutiful daughter, of course, alerted the guards?”

  Julia lied as effortlessly as I did. “No. I thought Helios might be in the garden. He likes to draw his ships there sometimes.”

  I knew what would please the emperor and now I did it reflexively. “Please find him, Caesar. Please don’t let anything happen to my twin!”

  He’d always liked to see me beg, and this time was no exception. It gave him a chance to fulfill the role of paterfamilias that he so cherished and he peered down at me with something akin to benevolence. “Don’t fret, Selene. A boy of royal breeding isn’t likely to get very far in the city of Rome. I’ll be shocked if he even finds his way to the Forum.”

  Just then Agrippa burst into the room, his armor askew. He’d obviously been roused from sleep. “I’ve got my best men on it. We’ll find him.”

  “Be discreet,” the emperor said. “I don’t want all of Rome knowing about this.”

  Agrippa nodded. “What do you want done with the injured guard? I’d have him beaten unconscious again, but the blow itself nearly killed him.”

  “But how did the boy do it?” the emperor asked. “Helios hasn’t even completed his soldier’s training.”

  Agrippa paused to rub his chin. “He just whacked the guard with a marble bust. We found it broken.”

  The emperor cringed, the hapless guard forgotten. “Not the new bust of Divine Julius, I hope. That cost a fortune!”

  “No, Augustus.” Agrippa worked his jaw. “It was the one of you.”

  Twenty-four

  TO find Helios, Agrippa posted guards at every shrine and Temple of Isis in the city. If Helios wasn’t hiding with the Isiacs, we assumed he’d make his way to the port in Ostia, then try to sail to Egypt. But days passed without a clue to my brother’s whereabouts and Agrippa was singularly frustrated. “When we find that boy, let’s enroll him in the legions as a scout; he’s sneakier than anyone under my command.”

  This was as close as Agrippa would come to making excuses. The emperor was counting on him to find Helios, and so was I. The longer Helios was gone, the more difficult it was to keep secret. What’s more, if my brother actually made it to Egypt and declared himself king, all would be lost. Childhood rebellion would become war and Rome wouldn’t spare us a second time.

  Meanwhile, the emperor was seeing my mother everywhere now. When an eagle roosted upon the new Temple of Apollo—the spot that had been designated by lightning—the emperor was outraged, for an eagle upon a lightning bolt was the Ptolemaic symbol. Later that week, an obelisk slipped as workmen installed it and one of the workman’s hands was crushed; the workers murmured that it was Cleopatra’s Curse, and the emperor was livid. That same day, a Roman courtesan passed the emperor in the street wearing an Egyptian wig, and the emperor had her jailed. He seemed to unravel more each day and decided to make good on his promise by taking out his anger at my brother on his slave girl.

  He had Chryssa beaten during our afternoon meal so that we could hear her screams while our food was served. Chryssa’s naked body undulated as the whip came down on her skin, leaving hot red welts upon her back, and it seemed to me as if Iullus was watching with more than morbid fascination.

  As the slave girl screamed, Julia dropped her spoon twice. Juba kept clearing his throat and Philadelphus whimpered. As for me, my stomach clenched so tightly I thought I might vomit.

  “Selene, you’ve become so thin since Helios ran off,” Octavia said. “You have to eat something, dear.”

  But I couldn’t eat, and it wasn’t only because Helios was gone. Watching the stripes of pain break across Chryssa’s ribs, I remembered that I’d struck Chryssa unfairly. In my wrath, I hadn’t recognized myself. It was as if, without Helios, I couldn’t serve Isis as I was meant to do, and I was as angry with him as I was fearful. It was hard to believe that Helios had abandoned Chryssa to take his punishment. Harder still to know that he’d abandoned Philadelphus and me too.

  It ached as much as any physical injury. Was Helios sorry for leaving us here, or relieve
d to get away? Had he found Euphronius? Was he hurt? Was he frightened? Was he lying dead somewhere? No. Surely I’d know if he were.

  When the flogging stopped and Chryssa’s screams at last softened to groans, the emperor looked up from his barley soup and announced, “I’m considering another wedding—a match between Juba and Selene.”

  Juba and I both greeted the announcement with silence, but Julia gasped. “Surely not! Selene was once a queen …” She glanced at Juba, whose status she was implying was far below mine. He’d only been a prince and his family name far less prestigious; he was no Ptolemy. “I’m sorry, but she was.”

  To my surprise, Julia wasn’t the only one offended on my behalf. My half sister Antonia also voiced her strenuous objection. “We love Juba, but if Selene must marry a foreigner, it should at least be a king.”

  Juba winced and I pitied him for his embarrassment. Meanwhile, the emperor stared, clearly not having expected opposition to his plan. He was unused to criticism, especially from girls. “Nonsense. We’re Romans. What use do we have for kings?”

  “Juba, forgive me,” Marcella added. “But Selene is the daughter of Mark Antony and you’re not even half Roman.”

  This seemed to offend Juba most of all, and it made him sit up in his seat. The emperor sputtered at the sudden mutiny. “Not Roman? I made him Roman. Isn’t he Gaius Julius Juba? Wasn’t he raised in my household?”

  I couldn’t fathom why the girls were arguing with the emperor on my behalf. Did they worry that if he made a poor match for me, he might make an even poorer match for them? But when Julia reached out and squeezed my hand, and the two Antonias looked at me in reassurance, I realized that over the years I’d become more than an exotic pet. They saw me as part of their family.

  The emperor finally threw up his hands. “By Apollo, all I did was wonder aloud about a match. It just seems to me that Juba and Selene have a great deal in common. What do you think, Octavia?”

  “I’ve approved of this match from the beginning,” his sister replied, shocking me even more. “In fact, I recall it as my own idea.”

  Livia sniffed at her wine. “Does the emperor have some matches in mind for my sons?”

  For the first time, Tiberius and Drusus became interested in the conversation. The emperor scowled and said, “Tiberius is already betrothed to Agrippa’s daughter, Vipsania.”

  Livia gasped. “But that was years ago, before Actium. I thought we had agreed such an arrangement was outdated and that you would consider greater marriages for my sons.”

  The emperor said, “Well, I haven’t considered it yet.”

  Livia’s gaze narrowed, holding special venom just for me. That the emperor was arranging my marital prospects before her sons was a slap in the face and she blamed me for it. Perhaps Julia knew it too, because she drew Livia’s attention to herself. “Maybe I should be betrothed to Tiberius this summer …”

  “Julia, it’s improper for a girl to suggest her own match,” Octavia scolded.

  Livia slammed down her cup. “You only say that because she wants my son, not yours!”

  Whoever married Julia would be the emperor’s heir, and both women plainly coveted that honor for their own flesh and blood. “I’m confident in Julia’s affections for Marcellus,” Octavia countered, and the two towers of matronly virtue glared daggers at one another.

  “That’s enough,” the emperor said. “How you women natter on. Take note, young men. This is what happens when you let a woman have the mistaken notion that she should have a say. Out. I want all things female out of my sight so that I can eat in peace.”

  THE emperor commanded that the household carry on as usual, as if the gaping hole that Helios’s absence left in my life should go unnoticed. And yet, he remained nervous about how my father’s old partisans might react. Perhaps, having bribed men like Plancus once before, he feared they could be turned against him again.

  With Helios missing, the emperor no longer trusted me to leave the household, so my whole existence was once again confined to the Palatine Hill, and Bast was my most constant companion. On a market day during which I was feeling particularly abandoned, Julia agreed to keep me company at the looms. “You’re very worried, aren’t you?”

  It was more than worry. Without Helios, I felt a rope inside me tightening, unraveling, ready to snap. I couldn’t even think clearly. The day Euphronius had asked me to run, he’d sent me back to the villa to fetch my brothers. I would never have left without them, but Helios had left without me. Perhaps he’d found Euphronius. Perhaps he’d learned my secret, and what must he have thought? I couldn’t even explain myself to him and it made me want to cry.

  Julia bit her lower lip. “Maybe I can distract you. If I tell you something, will you keep it a secret?”

  I nodded, slowly, never sure that it was a good idea to promise anything to Julia.

  Her eyes shone and her rosebud lips parted with a sigh. “Iullus has written me a poem. A love poem.”

  “What would your father think of that?” I asked. “He doesn’t even know about how you kissed Iullus in the garden … the risks you take!”

  “I’ll never have father’s approval anyway. You’re his little favorite.” And when I winced, she added, “He praises you because you’re foreign. You’re a Ptolemy. You can be smart. But me? I’m to stay silent and convey the status of heir upon the man he chooses. You see how he is with me, Selene. Nothing I ever say or do pleases him, so why should I even try?”

  “Did you somehow think it would please him to find out that you’re meeting clandestinely with the son of his enemy?”

  Julia made a face at me, as if I sounded just like an old Roman matron and I probably did. “You don’t understand. I love Iullus.”

  I’d been embroidering and her words surprised me so much that I stabbed myself with the needle. I wasn’t yet fifteen years old, but everything I knew of love told me it was deadly. Bringing the scarlet drop of blood to my lips, I said, “You shouldn’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true. I love Iullus fervently!”

  “My parents loved fervently and it cost them everything.”

  That silenced her, at least for a moment. When she spoke again, she was sullen. “They say that, in Egypt, a woman can choose.”

  I’d boasted about the brave women in my family who had taken power and wielded it. Had Julia felt her face rubbed in it every time I told those stories, knowing her father would always discount her? Still, it galled me to listen to Julia complaining about a lack of choice in her life when I was being forced to marry Juba. Given a free choice, I might have chosen my handsome young tutor for myself, but I chafed knowing that it wasn’t a free choice at all.

  Julia continued on, oblivious to my concerns. “They say, in Egypt, a woman can even take lovers before she’s married.”

  “Not royal women. Or at least they’re not supposed to.” Admittedly, I had a rather hazy idea of the chronology of my mother’s pregnancies and marriages, and it was hard to sort out the truth from the emperor’s propaganda.

  “Well, I’m not royal,” Julia said.

  “You’re also not Egyptian,” I replied, irritated with my own prudish tone. “Maybe you should ask your father to marry you to Iullus instead of sneaking about in the gardens.”

  Julia snorted. “Father will never betroth me to Iullus because neither Octavia nor Livia champion him. Livia hasn’t been able to give my father a son, so I’m his only path to having an heir. Why do you think Octavia and Livia are at each other’s throats over whether I should marry Tiberius or Marcellus?”

  “Which of them do you prefer?” I asked.

  “Neither of them. It would break my heart to be given to any man but Iullus, but if I have to choose, I’d choose Marcellus. Tiberius is always so gloomy. Besides, any man that came from Livia’s womb can be nothing but poison to me.”

  If I had a mother like Livia, I thought I’d be just as gloomy as Tiberius, so it seemed unfair to blame him for it. “Livi
a is an unpleasant woman.”

  “I hate her,” Julia said with surprising vehemence. “She wants influence and pretends not to. She wants power for herself, while decrying it for anyone else. I think she wishes she were a man! She lectures on propriety and sin, all the while helping my father to—” Julia cut herself off.

  “All while helping your father to what?” I prompted.

  Julia worked the loom with an angry clatter. “It’s enough to say that Livia would have poisoned me a hundred times over if she thought she could get away with it. As long as I live, her position as Mistress of Rome is threatened. She wants to be rid of me. Watch how she undermines me in my father’s eyes.”

  “What were you saying before?” I pressed. “What does she help your father do?”

  Julia didn’t even pretend to answer my question and there was nothing I could do to make her. Whatever she knew about Livia, she wasn’t going to tell me. Inelegantly changing the subject, she announced, “You must be outraged about this proposed match to Juba. Oh, I grant you that he’s pretty to look at. I’ve even heard he’s a decent soldier in the field. And I think my father actually means well by this match, in his way. For him, it’s the best Roman story—two exiled children of foreign royalty come under the sway of Rome to find romance. He knows it will make the plebs sigh and clutch their breasts with tender feelings for his generosity and mercy.”

  I studied her, realizing for the first time how well she understood her father.

  SINCE the emperor wouldn’t let me out of the house without an escort, Juba came to take me for a walk through the gardens. He led me through the courtyard where the boys were sparring. I hoped to see Helios amongst them but I didn’t, and again I was left feeling hollow and alone. “Juba, have you heard anything about my brother?”

  “You’re very worried about him, aren’t you?”

  “You’d tell me if you heard something, Juba?” I asked, fighting back tears. “You would tell me, wouldn’t you?”