Daughters of the Nile (70 page)

“
Forget
,” I whisper against her temple where I can still catch the scent of her as it was when she was a babe. “Forget what you’ve seen, my love.
Forget
 . . . because we’re going to be happy here. That is what I want and I am the queen and I mean to have my way.”

* * *

AUGUSTUS
does not want us to be happy.

“Do not upset yourself so near to your time of birth,” Juba says, at my side, laying a gentling hand over my belly to feel the kick of his son in my womb.

Letting Pythia’s letter fall to the side of the bed, I protest, “How can I not be upset when he is now preying on my niece?”

My poor niece has been left a widow and now the emperor insists that she remarry immediately, giving her no time to indulge her sentiments—or respectful tradition—with a period of mourning. He is forcing her, as he forced Julia, as he forced me . . .

“Selene, this new marriage will make your niece the Queen of Pontus, the Bosporus, Cilicia, and Cappadocia besides.”

“Only through the husband Augustus is foisting upon her.”

“Pythia will benefit from King Archelaus’s experience and protection. I thought you liked him.”

“Friendship with Archelaus be damned. Pythia doesn’t need another old man to rule over her.”

With wry amusement, Juba says, “I doubt any girl who looks to you for an example finds herself ruled by her king. This marriage mends any hard feelings Archelaus might have toward us. He wanted Isidora for a bride and now he will have your niece instead. Cappadocia becomes a powerful alliance for us. Not everything Augustus does is done just to vex you.”

I think he is wrong. I think Augustus means to provoke me into a reply. Or perhaps to provoke me into returning to Rome. If he cannot provoke me through Isidora, he will do it with Pythia, who is so very far away and out of the reach of my protective arms. “Everything he does
is
to vex me.”

Juba presses a soft kiss to my cheek. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps Pythia’s new marriage has nothing to do with the fact that the empire needs a strong power in the East to keep the Parthians and the Sarmatians at bay . . .”

I sulk at his sarcasm. At least until the next day, when another letter comes from Julia.

To My Friend, the Most Royal Queen of Mauretania,

Never has anyone died with such impeccable good timing as Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus. Drusus will always be young and handsome and virtuous and perfect. He will forever be a golden hero. And I cannot even resent him for it because I am sad that he is dead and grateful too because he has deprived Livia of her best weapon.

Now all she has left is Tiberius, who is so destroyed by grief that he shuns even his friends. By contrast, Livia is remarkably composed. Ovid mused that he would write a poem calling for her to reveal her sorrow, but Livia insists that she does not weep because her son wouldn’t want her to.

Good Drusus, so considerate of his mother right to the end!

Too bad he did not think more about his wife before riding out so recklessly. The emperor insists that your half sister must have a new husband. But in her bereavement, Minora fled into Livia’s bedroom and found shelter there. The poor girl does not seem to realize that Livia is no true ally.

Livia has already convinced your half sister that her youngest is some sort of drooling idiot, and must, therefore, be surrendered into his grandmother’s care. Livia has baby Claudius in her nursery now. Little Germanicus and Livilla are sure to be next.

It is all quite a mess and my father seems at a loss as to how to put it right again. I think you had better come back to Rome, even if you must come without your husband . . .

I will never return to Rome. Not with Juba, and certainly not without him. And it would have to be without him because Juba receives no invitation to return home for Drusus’s funeral. The client kings and queens in the empire will use the excuse of the funeral to descend upon Rome to settle debts and press their cases for grants of land and authority. Our absence will be noticed and remarked upon.

I wonder if, even now, gleeful letters are floating across the sea, proclaiming to our rivals that we are
ruined
and if such news is received with the same rejoicing I once felt at learning of Herod’s troubles. There is little doubt that our courtiers are wondering the same thing. There was a time when disgruntled merchants and petitioners would not dare appeal our judgments to Rome, but there has been a subtle shift. An erosion of both our authority and our court. Our fall from favor portends abortive careers for our retainers, the more ambitious of whom will abandon us.

I spread Julia’s letter upon my writing table. Though our citrus-wood tables must be polished with wax and wheat to maintain their delicate luster, they are prized for their fiery color and complex grain. The pattern is like a consuming inferno, with spirals and waves and spots of burning black coals. In the surface of this table, I see the fire that killed my son and struggle against an explosion of rage.

I will not be persuaded to return out of love for Julia or fear of the emperor or even for the good of my kingdom. Never again will I be dragged back. Not in chains made of metal, ambition, or affinity. Yet I must acknowledge that it will not serve to remain estranged from the powers in Rome.

Who are our allies there? Julia, certainly. And Iullus too. He has taken my advice. He acquitted himself well as consul, making powerful friends in the Senate. Now my Roman half brother is preparing for his command as the proconsul of Asia. Iullus is becoming powerful. And I
want
him to be. If the emperor should die next week, next month, next year . . . only my Roman half brother will stand in Livia’s way.

So whenever Iullus asks my help by way of letters of introduction or money or favors that may be called on his behalf, I do what he asks. Still, it is not enough. I cannot rely on these efforts alone to defend my family . . .

Juba must be reconciled with Augustus.

* * *

“NO,”
the king says, stubbornly and with a vicious swat at the bees trailing us through the gardens.

“But you have not even let me finish explaining—”

“Selene, did we not agree that we must keep apart from Caesar, lest he ruin us? Is that not what you said? Did we not agree that we will have nothing to do with him now?”

Because I am so heavy with child, I cannot match my husband’s angry strides, so I sit beneath a grape arbor, forcing him to circle back. I speak only when I see that he has taken a few calming breaths. Then I say, “I am not suggesting that you go to Rome and clasp hands and reminisce about your days fighting Egyptians and Spaniards. I am suggesting that you remind the emperor how powerful and influential a king you are, by
being
a powerful and influential king. You should make a trip East to remind the emperor that your gift at diplomacy outstrips that of most men and that you have been vital to the advancement of his regime.”

“I don’t care what Caesar thinks of me.”

My husband wishes he did not care, but he does. He always has and he always will. But it will do no good to argue the point. “If Herod executes his sons and Princess Glaphyra with them, war may break out between Cappadocia and Judea. Prevent that and the emperor may take it as an apology . . .”

“An
apology
?” Juba snaps, eyes bulging with rage. “I’m not at all sorry. If I regret anything, it’s that I didn’t bloody Caesar. And I’m not going to Beirut to preside over another trial of Herod’s sons. I’m not leaving when you are so soon to give birth.”

Men do not arrange their affairs to be near their wives in childbirth. It is my husband’s eagerness for another baby—or perhaps his terror for me—that makes him want to stay, so I do not fight him on this. “Wait until I have delivered. Then go East for the Olympic Games, for Pythia’s wedding, and to sit in judgment over Herod’s beleaguered sons.”

He notices my careful wording. “You’re suggesting I make the trip without you?”

“I’ll have a new baby to care for,” I say to excuse myself. But in truth, my presence would undermine him. Augustus must see Juba on his own merits—as a valuable piece upon his game board that he cannot afford to lose.

Alas, the reminder of our forthcoming child only sets Juba’s mind firmer against the idea. “No, Selene. You and I have spent enough years apart.”

He is right about that. “I would not part with you either. I swear I would not, except for a greater cause. It is only a summer, and with Herod’s treasury empty, his family at war, and his kingdom in disarray, this is our opportunity to rise in prominence.”

The king sits beside me, plucking an unripe grape from a vine, rolling it between his fingers. “Will you make me say it? I don’t want to be without you. When I married you, I vowed,
When and where you are Gaia, I then and there am Gaius.
It means where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay.”

His beautiful sentiments, spoken so earnestly, make my heart ache. I lace my arm in the crook of his elbow and say, “I too made that vow. But I think it means wherever you are, I am also. Wherever I am, you are there too. Whether we are sitting beside each other under a grape arbor or separated by a sea, we are together. That is the strength of marriage. That
is
marriage.”

Juba peers down at me. “Do you mean it or is it something you are saying to have your way?”

“I mean it,” I reply, resting my head on his shoulder. Time has tested our vows. Defined them. Made them real. Again, we are together beneath a grape arbor, but this time we need no priests or contracts. “
When and where you are Gaius, I then and there am Gaia
.”

He softens, threading his fingers through mine. “What would you have of me?”

Never have I hesitated to offer an insincere apology when it would suit me, but where my husband’s love for Augustus is genuine, his anger is too. So I must appeal to his heart, not his head. “We can both well imagine if we had allowed Isidora to marry Herod. We would be desperate for someone to help us now. And the man I love, the man I call
husband
, is not a man who abandons a desperate princess to her fate . . .”

* * *

I’M
excited for the coming of my child. Restless in my own skin. But I know something else is coming too. I taste the spice of the cinnamon desert on the wind. I sense it days before the dry heat descends. I feel the crackle of magic lift the hair on my nape at least a week before the giant wall of red haze rolls in from the desert.

It is the sirocco in all its majesty.

My Berbers know this violent storm. They rush to draw water from the wells into sealed amphora and water skins. The merchants pull down a rainbow of carpets and awnings from the marketplace and load their wares into bundles and barrels. The tribesmen hurry their shaggy goats and bleating sheep up into the hills. Their women shutter up their brick houses, scurrying to cover any crack that lets daylight in.

All the city of Iol-Caesaria makes ready against the strengthening winds. My own women sweep through the palace, taking down precious artwork from the walls and hauling statues in from the gardens, for the open design of our palace invites the wind to howl down its pillared corridors.

Her eyes on the darkening skies, Isidora asks, “Is it true you once swallowed a storm like this one?”

Before I can answer, my poet says, “It is true enough.”

I smile, remembering that it was in that storm I found Helios. It was in that storm I found myself. I did not know then that the land of the sirocco would become as much a part of me as my own flesh, and that these winds would become as my own breath. But now I know.

I was saved by a storm like this one, and that is why I am not distressed when I awaken that night to a rush of water and blood between my legs. The contractions come swiftly after that and my ladies rush to me. The drowsy palace comes wide-awake, whispering the news that their queen is laboring to bring forth another babe.

As I am hurried to the birthing room, Isidora peeks out of her bedchamber and goes white to the tip of her nose. I know she is fearful of her vision that she will be the death of me, and so I command her not to follow. I do not want her to see me sweating and panting and writhing in agony should this birth go badly . . .

And yet my daughter seems frozen, grasping at my hands as if she will never be able to hold them again. Like a startled bird that cannot remember it has wings to fly away, she goes rigid. I must command my ladies to remove her, threatening to have them exiled or sold into slavery until they obey me.

“Mama!” Isidora calls after me, but there is another child I must think of now.

It is the third time for me. I know what to expect. But the pains, when they come, are severe. In the birthing room, the ladies light incense, which lends the room a soothing fragrance. Both the midwife and the physician are sent for. Chryssa too, for I need her as I have not in quite some time.

In spite of all the vows I make to myself not to cry out, a wave of agony rolls from my back to my front, sweeping away the foundation of my courage. I scream. Then I scream again because I’m angry at myself for having done so.

The physician arrives and does nothing. The midwife insists that I drink some herbal infusion. Certain it will make me vomit, I shove it away. Then a pain closes over me as if my belly were caught in the maw of a hippopotamus. The contractions go on and on, until the midwife decides I must be strapped into the chair, saying that the pull of the earth should help me birth the child.

Squatting over the opening, I push fruitlessly, until I am shaking with exhaustion.

Chryssa presses a wet cloth to my face, sponging the sweat from my cheeks.

Again and again, I try to dislodge the child from my womb. The pressure of the midwife’s hands comes down on my middle as if to position the child, to push it from the outside. But it will not come.