Daughters of the Nile (23 page)

The moment the humid night air touches my cheeks, however, I regret having done so. An escort of minor officials have gathered to see guests home, led by none other than Iullus Antonius. Julia sees him and her fingers clamp down so hard on mine as to cause me pain.

Iullus cannot take his eyes from her, but he greets me first, with unusual gallantry. “My sister, the Queen of Mauretania . . . Lady Julia . . .”

The unspoken longing between them after their heartbreaking separation is so suffocating that I feel certain everyone else must be holding their breath. But no one else seems to notice the anxiety on my Roman half brother’s face and the mask that descends over Julia’s.

Their love is a secret. And the way Julia’s fingernails dig into my palm makes me wish it was a secret I didn’t know. “How good to see you again, Iullus Antonius,” Julia says. “How long has it been?”

“More than three years,” he replies stiffly. “Almost four.”

Her grip tightens on my hand. “I trust the years have been good to you. Certainly your loyalty has been well rewarded. I’m told that my father relies upon you and Tiberius for everything. Much has changed since I’ve been gone.”

In the moonlight, he drinks her in, head to toe, his eyes burning with emotion that he dare not express openly, but still, he comes close. “Some things never change, Lady Julia. Some things are as eternal as the flame in the heart of Rome . . .”

I feel the tremor that goes through her hand. “Horace told me you’d taken up poetry, Iullus Antonius; now I believe it.”

“Any man may be a poet if he is graced by a Muse,” he replies. “And you have always been mine. May I escort you home?”

It is a plea to walk alone with her as they used to do in the gardens. He wants to take her aside from her attendants so that they might speak privately. Once, Julia would have readily agreed. I know she is tempted. She stares at him, weighing his proposition for long moments, her heart beating so loudly that I can hear it. She wants to go with him, but she is married to a man who will never forgive such impropriety. It will be disaster if she goes. I will not
let
her go, I decide.

Thankfully, Marcella emerges from an archway and the spell is broken. One glance at her rival seems to bring Julia to her senses. She gives a polite nod to Iullus’s wife. “Thank you for the offer, Iullus Antonius, but no.” The effort seems to makes her cruel, and she turns to show off her swollen belly. “I’m sure that Admiral Agrippa has sent a litter to fetch me now that I am great with child again . . .”

Then she walks away with me, her eyes straight ahead, never looking back. But I look over my shoulder and see the knob in my half brother’s throat rising as if he cannot swallow it all down.

* * *

IN
the morning, I have slaves bear me away from the city in a covered litter to visit the tomb of my little brother Philadelphus. I find his crypt well tended, the stonework in good repair, new paint upon the carved garlands and fresh flowers strewn upon the entryway. The Antonias vowed to me that they would tend his tomb and perform the rites due a child of Isis . . . and I am grateful when I see a little brazier with the fresh ashes of costly incense.

Then my steps come to an abrupt stop at the sight of a Roman soldier wearing a red-plumed helmet inside. I gasp, astonished. “Drusus?”

Turning from the wall behind which my brother’s sarcophagus is safely bricked in, the dashing military commander removes his helmet and tucks it under his arm. “Ah, Selene. I didn’t mean to give you a fright.”

Clutching my basket of offerings, I ask, “What are you doing here?”

“I stop here when I can,” Drusus replies sheepishly. “Today I was nearby on an errand, and Minora asked me to make an offering for Philadelphus.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I say, reminded that my youngest brother spent as much time in Rome as he ever did in Egypt. He was as much
theirs
as he was mine, but even though I’m touched at the sentimentality of Livia’s youngest son, I want to make my offerings alone.

Fortunately, Drusus does not stay long. He’s always busy with somewhere to be. And so he leaves me to make my offerings to the statue of Philadelphus—where I think my little brother’s
ka
may reside. I give him milk and barley cakes covered with honey, figs and dates and little pastries with beans in them. They were his favorite at the Saturnalia . . .

Then I tell him of all that has happened since I came to Rome. As I speak, I know that Augustus and Agrippa are making another sacrifice on the Capitol, this time a cow to Juno. But it’s always what Augustus does in darkness that most concerns me. Since I’m named after the moon, perhaps that’s only right. They tell a story of my goddess that she knew the secret name of Ra. Perhaps, like her, I was born to glimpse the souls of men at their darkest hours and know them for who they really are.

These gloomy thoughts are a reflection of Livia’s words. I told her that we’re different because I didn’t want Augustus; but perhaps she never wanted him either. I told her that I cast him off, and even though it is true, I did so only for my own survival. How many times on the Isle of Samos did I wish to throw myself into the water and drown?

Once, I nearly did.

I let the emperor send me away because I would never have been able to live with myself otherwise. Livia’s sense of self-preservation isn’t stronger than mine, nor are her ambitions greater. The only difference between us—the only true difference—is that I have tied myself to the emperor in the hope that he might one day be a better man.

I know the emperor’s dark side. I know the chained monster inside him that he unleashes to ravish young girls. I know the cold ruthlessness that slows his blood and makes him murderous. But I also know a side of him so pathetic and vulnerable that I have always been able to exploit it. He longs to be a great man. He longs to
be
the hero that the world needs.

Caesar
.
Aeneas
.
Apollo
. These are the names he wants as his own and I have given them to him. I have used him to have my own way. He’s given me riches. He’s saved men on my word and killed others because I wanted them dead. If I have such power over the emperor, if, like the goddess I serve, I know his
true
name and can wield him as a weapon—can I not also make him lay those weapons down?

I have done it before. I have convinced him to spare men’s lives. I have persuaded him against war. I have changed him in ways large and small. And that is why I return to my house on the Tiber to don the garb of an Isiac priestess.

Tonight I will go to the emperor wearing a clean linen tunic, the threads of which come from a plant so that no harm is done to a living thing. Dyed in bright colors to represent the various facets of my goddess, it shows how she can be found in every beautiful thing given to us in nature. Tied between my breasts in the sacred knot of the
tiet
is a black-fringed cloak weighed down in silver stars.

In my hand, I hold the
ankh
. The symbol of eternal life.

For those who believe me to be an incarnation of Isis—or my mother reborn—the sight of me dressed this way has a powerful impact when I make my way to the emperor’s side that night. Whispers swirl around me asking whether the ban on Isis worship has been lifted. The crowd parts for me not only because I am a queen, but because they sense the
heka
that tingles at my fingertips.

Augustus might well object to an apparition of my forbidden goddess here, in Rome, where she may not be worshipped by name. But whatever he tells himself, he
is
worshipping her on this night. He
is
sacrificing to Isis.

And I will help him do it.

The emperor’s gaze sweeps my way and I stop where I stand, lifting my eyes in challenge. This is my price. If he would have me call upon my goddess on Rome’s behalf, then I must be allowed this latitude to appear as her priestess. I have chosen this moment so that he cannot forbid it. I’ve chosen to ask forgiveness rather than permission.

We are seasoned bargainers this way; we no longer need words to negotiate. He gives one curt nod, and I find a place in the shadows beside him. The cow he will sacrifice tonight is heavy with an unborn calf. She’s a pretty heifer, snowy white and without blemish, adorned with garlands of flowers. Standing over her, beside the rushing birth waters of the Tiber, the emperor asks the great mother of all things to give birth to a new Rome.

When he has said all the sacred words, he looks to me to hand him the knife. I’m standing close enough to him that I might plunge this blade into his heart and rid the world of Augustus forever. But his body has always been at my mercy in some way or another, no more now than ever before. I have nursed him to health and shielded him from harm so that he might finally bring about some good in the world. And tonight, he is trying to. He is begging the gods to give Rome a new start—to clean the sin from this world and from his heart.

“It is not blood that she wants,” I whisper.

My voice is quiet but he hears me over the gurgling river beyond. He draws nearer until our torchlit shadows mingle on the ground and the rest of the world, all the priests, all the worshippers, all the citizens who watch and wait, seem to freeze in place.

The emperor asks, “What does Isis want?”

Once, I looked for the words of my goddess to reveal themselves upon my arms in blood. Now that I’m older, I think she carves them inside me where only I can see. They are no less painful for it. I’m saddened by the certainty of what she would have of me now. For Isis does not cling as hard to her hatreds and resentments as I do.

I may have been born to usher in a Golden Age, but the people don’t care if it’s mine or
his
. Their lives turn on small things like food in their bellies, the security of good laws, the prosperity of peace. What dynasty should rise or fall is nothing to them if it costs them everything else they love. They’ve known too many dark days to fight for a Republic anymore. It has all become empty talk for them.

I would gladly blame the emperor for this. I
have
blamed him. But this is what ninety years of civil war and instability has wrought. Now all they want is peace and
order
. They are hungrier for it than they are for bread.

And he wants to give it to them.

When I speak, my voice is still a whisper, only for him. “She wants a true sacrifice. You must make peace with Agrippa. You must forgive him for his defiance. You
must
forgive him and give people peace and security at long last. You must adopt Agrippa’s son as your heir, Caesar.”

The emperor’s eyes narrow as he whispers, “You know what I sacrifice should I do that.”

His fantasy that little Ptolemy is his son is potent. Having me close to his side during these proceedings lets him dream he might claim us in the future. This is a fantasy that must be cut out of him just as my hatred must be cut from me. “Caesar, Romans sacrifice the best horse, the winning horse, the October Horse to the gods. They do not sacrifice the losing stallion. It must
hurt
to surrender it . . . or it is no sacrifice at all.”

As the wind begins to pick up, the emperor looks thoughtful, as if he is hearing a truth he already knows. “And what do you sacrifice?”

What have I not sacrificed? Yet, still, I must surrender to my goddess the bitter bile in my spleen toward these people. These Romans. For their sake, my mother, my father, my brothers, and all their dreams of a different world have been sacrificed and burned like the lambs.

This is all that remains. These people. This empire—a thing I can only shape if I recognize my kinship with it. I must forgive those soldiers who abandoned my father at Actium; I must forgive men like Plancus and Juba whom I once called traitors. I must forgive even the emperor . . .

I must bury my
khaibit
, that shadowy, vengeful part of myself that fights the Romans, plots against them, pretends that their fate is not my fate too. That this empire is not the same one my parents fought and died for. Always I’ve been taught that forgiveness is a tender, uplifting force, but forgiveness can be sharp as a knife. Forgiveness will cut me this night and I will bleed. “What do I sacrifice tonight?” Taking the knife, I see that my hand is strangely steady. “Why, tonight I become Roman.”

I press the hilt into his palm. Our fingers touch and I let the spark of my
heka
flow into his hand, into the knife, and into the night. He’s seen words called forth upon my body, engraved in blood. He’s seen me call the wind with my upraised hands. But he’s never felt the force of my power as he feels it now. I yield it to him, using my hopes and dreams for a new world in the hopes I will make him blossom the way I once made a hillside in Mauretania bloom with flowers.

His eyes widen with the sensation, then widen again as we connect. The tendrils of magic wrap around him and bind us more tightly than anything else ever has. More closely than carnal knowledge. If I have never before truly bewitched him, this time I do, and the ruler of the world nods to me his surrender. He will do what is right. He will make peace.

My winds scour the night and make it clean, sweeping away the pains of the past to make room for a new world. I pray that Isis lifts any curses she has laid upon these people . . . even upon the emperor himself . . . and that she fill our hearts with forgiveness.

As the people cover their heads and huddle together, Augustus holds the sacred knife above the cow. Isis does not want blood, but the gods of Rome do, so Augustus slashes the poor animal with swift mercy. The cow falls before Occia, and the rest of the Vestal Virgins crowd close to pull the unborn calf from its dying mother just as I was ripped away from mine.

The cow and the calf are burned by the Vestals, their ashes to be used in remembrance of this night at all holy occasions in the coming year. And I stand in the wind, trails of salt on my cheeks where my tears have burned away.