Daughters of the Nile (69 page)

And yet, I fear that Juba will refuse this plea.

To forestall this, I tell the emissary that I do not feel well, and that we would be honored to speak to him again in the morning. Then I call for servants to escort him to well-appointed chambers and command that he be treated as a most honored guest. He withdraws from our chambers, his shadow retreating between our marble pillars.

When we are alone, Juba turns to me in concern. “What is the matter? Is it the child? Shall I call for the physician?”

I do not feel at all well, but say, “I only wished to buy time to consider King Archelaus’s request.”

“There is nothing to consider. It is a fool’s errand.”

“Even so, there is no reason to give a hasty answer.”

Juba broods and I know what has darkened his mood. It has darkened mine too. Herod is now favored in Rome again while my husband is in virtual exile. It is so unjust that it forces me to exclaim, “Let the two of them reconcile, then. Herod and Augustus. The two
madmen
. It is no wonder they are bosom friends. Why, they are just alike, the bloody tyrants.”

Juba’s lips thin. “Are they truly alike, Selene? Can I have been so wrong, so blind, all my life?”

I feel the weight of my husband’s stare. Oh, my poor Juba. He still loves Augustus. Even now. Once, his devotion infuriated me. Now it fills me with the most tender compassion. For my sake, Juba is estranged from the man he has lionized. Now, again, for my sake, he will condemn himself for loving such a man. He looks to me to tell him if his hero is
all
villain and I cannot do it.

“No,” I say, cupping Juba’s cheek with my hand. “Herod and Augustus are not the same. Augustus has brought some peace to the world—good will come of his legacy. You were not blind. There
is
greatness in him. You were not wrong in that. It is only that we must have no part in it now or he will ruin us.”

* * *

WE
make ready the birthing room. Stacks of linen tower over pots of ointments and bottles of oils. The new birthing chair boasts a fleece covering. Juba even commands that a small dais be fitted into the corner where musicians will play to soothe me during my birth pangs.

This makes me laugh. “I’m more likely to hurl a chamber pot at the head of a hapless musician than to allow one to pluck at a harp while I am on a birthing chair.”

Juba laughs too. “I’ll tell the musicians to wear battle helms.”

Isidora does not share our merriment. In fact, she leaves the room in a sudden fit of melancholy. Later that day, when Juba goes to attend a Berber festival involving camel races, I make my way to the library, where I am told my daughter is attending Lady Lasthenia’s lecture on mathematics.

Alas, I do not find her in the lecture hall. Nor do I find her in the pillared gallery surrounding the pool in the courtyard. Instead, I find her tucked away in a reading niche with a letter that she hastily sets aside in favor of a scholarly treatise, the vellum of which she pulls over her lap.

She will have to do better than that if she means to hide something from me, but I pretend not to notice the missive behind her back. “What are you reading?” I ask, sliding onto the bench beside her.

“Herophilos’s treatise on midwifery,” she replies.

“Ah . . . is that what has you skulking about? You’re worried about the birth of the new baby?”

Shamefaced, Isidora gives a miserable nod of her head. “I should have warned you of danger. But you and Papa were barely speaking to each other when we returned. I didn’t think the Rivers of Time could possibly be flowing this way . . .”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve seen?”

She stares down at the sea of green and blue tiles that make up the mosaic beneath her sandaled feet. “The baby could die. I’ve seen the birth go very badly.”

I hear myself swallow. “Have you seen it any other way?”

“Yes,” she admits, but it does not cheer her.

“I suppose you have little reason to rejoice at a new baby. When we left Rome, I told you that you were now sole heir to Mauretania. With this baby, that will change again and no one consulted you . . .”

At this, she takes umbrage, stiffening her spine. “I’d be gladder than you know to have another brother. In truth, it would be a very great relief to me.”

She knows it will be a boy, then. “A relief? Even though your future will be put in doubt again?”

“I am not in any doubt. If your baby lives, the Romans will make him king and I will be content to let him rule.”

“Oh, Dora, this baby is not yet even born and there is time to arrange for a throne for you yet . . .”

She draws her knees up to her chest. “What if I don’t want to be a queen? Must I have a throne for you to love me?”

The question forces me to gasp. “What a question! You need be nothing but yourself for me to love you. I’m your mother; nothing could destroy my love for you. Even when you speak nonsense. Of course you want to be queen.”

With a tremor in her voice, she insists, “No. I never wanted to be queen. Not of Mauretania or any other place. I am not like you or Pythia. I cannot sit still in council. My mind wanders when claimants come before your throne for justice. I’ve studied the laws because it makes you and Papa smile when I do, but I’ve no gift for picking out the liars or the cheats. I’m made uncomfortable by the false flattery of ambassadors and I would much rather suck the venom from scorpion wounds than sit through a banquet wearing my hair in tight braids and combs, with jewels weighing down my earlobes and pearls choking me about the throat.”

Listening to her, I am agape. And when she glances up at my horrified expression, she hurries to add, “I’ll always do my duty to my family and my kingdom as you’ve taught me to do. If I’m to be Queen of Mauretania, I’ll try to follow your example. But I would be happiest healing the sick and teaching others to do the same.”

It is too much. “Isidora, you are a Ptolemy. You are meant to wear a crown, not serve as a court
physician
.” My poor daughter is confused. With the uncertainty about her future, perhaps it is a consolation to tell herself that she does not want to be queen. She deserves a mother’s kindness, not reproach, so I moderate my tone. “We need not discuss it now, Isidora, but I hope this baby can be good news for all of us.”

She starts to smile, but it is only halfhearted. To tease a
true
smile out of her, I say, “And in the meantime, you have your letters. I am guessing that the one you hide behind your back is from your Berber boy, no?”

Isidora shakes her head quickly. “No, it’s not from Tacfarinas.”

Still, she crimsons, convincing me of her guilt. “There is fear written all over your face. You say you don’t want to be queen, but even as a royal princess you must learn how to hide what you’re feeling. You’re not a good liar, Dora.”

“I’m not
any
kind of liar. It isn’t from Tacfarinas!”

“Then why don’t you show me?” I ask, since she is now clutching the letter.

When she makes no move to relinquish it, I try to pluck it from her hands and she tries to pluck it back. I laugh at our comic pantomime, but then I see the red seal that I know so well. A symbol of a sphinx, pressed into the wax with a signet ring. My laughter becomes a cry of alarm as I realize that the emperor is writing to my daughter.

Tearing the letter from her hands, I demand, “What does he say?” I am furious to realize that my Isidora has more on her mind than boys and brothers and babies and thrones. Skimming the letter, I see nothing of import. Mindless little anecdotes and a complaint about his slave—a
nomenclator
whose job it is to remind Augustus of the names of important men to help him avoid political embarrassment. Apparently this slave did not do his job well and when he asked the emperor if there was anything he ought to bring to the forum, the emperor replied,
Letters of introduction, I should think, since you know no one there
.

“What does he mean by this?” I ask my daughter.

“I don’t know . . . I think it eases his mind to confide in me the things that vex him in his day.”

I crumple the letter. “He has written you before?”

“A few times . . .”

“When did this start?”

“After Ptolemy died. He asked if I would write to him about my studies and about what happened here in our kingdom. I knew you wouldn’t like it, but I was afraid to say no. I was afraid of what Augustus would do to us after that day when Papa had him by the throat and you used fire against his praetorians.”

Oh, why didn’t I kill Augustus that day?

I know why. I know exactly why. He is still better for me and my family, better for the world, than those who might follow him were he dead. But at this moment, at the thought of him getting his fangs into my precious girl, I am again bent on murder.

He could not have my mother, so he settled for me. Now he cannot have me, so he wants my daughter. The monster! “You don’t have to write to him.”

“Of course I do. He is the emperor and if it appeases him, it may protect us here in Mauretania.”

“It’s not your place to protect us, Isidora.”

At this, she sits straighter. “I
know
what he is to me.”

She can’t know. She can’t see into the past. She can’t see what he did.

“He is nothing to you, Isidora.”

“Now who is the bad liar?” she asks tartly. “In the Rivers of Time, I saw a future where Ptolemy didn’t die in those stables, and he grew into a young man, and the emperor claimed him as a son and made him Pharaoh of Egypt. In that vision, the emperor claimed me as his daughter too.”

So there was some possibility that the emperor would do what he said he would do. Perhaps it was not all lies just to toy with me. Perhaps I was not a fool to believe him . . .

None of it matters now. What matters is that I don’t know how to defend myself or comfort her. “I say again, you don’t need to protect us, Isidora. That’s not your place. It’s mine.”

“What if you aren’t here to do it?” she asks softly.

I’ve always assumed I would outlive my enemies as the emperor has outlived his. Still, even
he
has considered how to defend his family and his legacy after he’s gone. He has made all the wrong choices, but he has made an effort. Looking now into the eyes of my frightened daughter, I see that I must also prepare for a time when my magic fails me or my death leaves my kingdom and my family at risk. “You have seen me die in childbirth . . .”

“Sometimes,” she replies, letting a curtain of her fair hair shield her face. “I have seen all of us die. We all do. Everyone does. I cannot be sure of when or how.”

Tell me how I will die
, I once commanded my mage.

He refused, saying only,
Yours will not be, cannot be, an ordinary death.

Now I take my daughter’s cold fingers into mine. “What have you seen, Isidora? I’m not afraid.”

“I am,” she whispers, her lower lip trembling. “Because I’ve seen that I am the one who kills you.”

Forty-two

AT
her confession, she begins to cry, trembling so violently that her teeth chatter. What words she gets out are not all intelligible. “Why would you kill me?” I ask, trying to soothe her.

She will not be soothed. “Sometimes . . . I don’t mean to do it. I try to help you with your birth, but it goes wrong. I’m studying midwifery, but you cannot have me at your side when you give birth.”

I would not have her there. I would not have my daughter see me in the throes of agony. I am still too prideful a queen to allow it and tell her so. “So you need not fear an accident.”

“But it’s not
always
an accident,” she cries, her voice near hysterical. “You should imprison me. Call Iacentus to put me in chains so I can do no harm!”

I hold her tight against my pregnant belly to keep her from rushing to my guards and proclaiming herself a criminal. “Isidora, you see only possibilities. I’ve never met a mage in whom Isis has vested perfect knowledge. I don’t fear you.”

In this, I am telling the truth. The emperor may have abused his family until it is nothing but a mass of festering wounds and Herod may have twisted his family into a knot of plotting, suspicion, and dread. But in spite of all we’ve suffered and all the ways we have found ourselves at odds,
my
family holds strong. At our worst, Juba and I have never schemed to ruin each other. We have never pitted our favorites against each other. Nor have we tolerated the sort of factional rivalry that leads to so many deadly power games in other royal courts.

My family is not without its troubles, my court is not without its squabbles, and my kingdom is not without ambitious men and strife, but we have built a place like no other. Our court is diverse, scholarly, and civilized. Our king is both wise and just. Our family is bound by love. And I will not trade what we have for suspicion or fear no matter what Isidora sees in her visions.