Song Of The Nile Part 15

He was nearly a man grown now and usually shrugged away from my affection in embarra.s.sment, but now he clutched my hand like a small child. "It's peaceful here," he said, staring at the surface of the water, his eyelids half lowered. But when I looked into the sky and saw its royal purple mantle darken the moon, I feared that the G.o.ds were readying a kingly cloak for a dying prince.

"Just a little moonlight swim," Lady Octavia said to encourage Marcellus. Her voice was strung tight with fear. She'd poured all the hopes of her life into her son and if she lost him, I knew it would break her. Still, Marcellus was young and vigorous. The emperor's health had never been robust, yet he survived this fever. Surely it would pa.s.s over Marcellus too.

"Come now," the emperor said to Marcellus, and began to strip off his clothes. "I'll go in too." I turned my head to dislodge the memories that the emperor's pale torso aroused in me but admired the way he encouraged his nephew by saying, "If I can bear it, you can too. You're a strong Roman boy. It's just a bit of cold water."

While Augustus waded into the lake, Philadelphus let go of my hand and shrugged out of his own clothes. "I'll go with you, Marcellus," he said. I took my brother's cloak, wrapping it over my arm, smiling to find a bag of dates tucked inside it, as Philadelphus braced himself against the cold water, his hand on his amulet as if to give him strength. Then he splashed up to his knees. "It's not so terrible. We can do this together."

At this, Marcellus finally consented, though the physician had to help him into the water, and I felt an unnatural shiver down my spine. While everyone else watched Marcellus, my eyes skimmed over the water to where Philadelphus swam. He looked at me, our eyes locked, then he dipped below the surface. He reemerged a moment later, gasping, then disappeared again. Clutching his clothing, I cried out for him. "Philadelphus!" I called his name again, but all I saw was the surface of the lake. Unreadable black ink.

No, no. My G.o.ddess couldn't let my little brother drown! I shouted again, and the emperor hastened to my call. He didn't wait for the guards but swam to where Philadelphus had been. I dropped the garments in my arms and threw off my own cloak, ready to dive into the water myself, when the emperor fished Philadelphus from the depths. Rushing to sh.o.r.e, Augustus carried my brother in his arms. Philadelphus was wet and unmoving, and I died inside to see his foot trailing limply.

"He's breathing," the emperor said, spitting water to the ground, and yet again grat.i.tude made me sink to my knees before him.

I cornered Musa outside the room in which my little brother shivered. "What's wrong with him? He didn't drown. Why hasn't he recovered?"

"I don't think it was the water, Majesty. It's an illness. A fever."

"Or poison." I said aloud that which everyone else was whispering. The emperor's illness had pushed Livia to the edge of desperation. She didn't want to be left at the mercy of those who despised her, so it made sense to strike at Marcellus. But why my poor Philadelphus ? Musa stared up at the Doric columns as if their scrolled caps contained the secret to the mystery, but he made no answer. "Maybe the sweet wormwood will help," I suggested. "It helped Philadelphus before!"

Musa bit his lip. "Your brother is much sicker this time. I've felt his spleen and it's swollen-"

"Musa, if you ever loved my father, I call upon your loyalty now. You must heal Philadelphus. You must make him better."

Emotion bobbed at the physician's throat. "My dearest Majesty, Philadelphus is a stouthearted boy and I have much affection for him. He never complains. He never has a harsh word for anyone. He has your father's charm and if there were more that I could do, I'd have done it without your needing to ask. Sit with him. Hearing your voice may help him where medicine cannot."

Later, when Philadelphus and I were alone together in his room, he murmured. "I told you, I stay in Rome."

"Stop saying that! We're not even in Rome now. We're on the Bay of Naples. Can't you smell the sea?"

"I'm dying, Selene," Philadelphus rasped. "I've seen it in the Rivers of Time . . ."

That stilled my heart. "Whatever you've seen can be changed."

"Do you remember our mother's funeral? You were dressed as Isis, Helios as Horus, and I was Osiris."

Osiris, the dead G.o.d. I shook my head, vehemently. "You'll outlive me."

"I've never seen it happen that way, Selene. You're the last of us."

This couldn't be happening. I wouldn't let it happen. They all said the emperor would die, but I'd willed him back to health and I'd make Philadelphus better too, somehow. "Not the last," I said, a meaningful look pa.s.sing between us in which we acknowledged the brother whose name we couldn't say. "And there's Isidora."

He shivered but smiled at the mention of her name. Since the day our mother died, Philadelphus had never been without his shining Collar of Gold amulet. Now he removed it from his neck and held it out for me to take. "Give this to your daughter. You may be tempted to give it to the son you'll bear, but it's meant for her . . ."

I stumbled back. "No. You keep it. It's yours. You'll need it."

Despite his entreaties, I left the gold chain coiled around his fist like a viper. I took it only hours later, when seizures wracked his frame, and it dropped from his hand to the floor. He didn't cry out-not like Marcellus, whose howls echoed through the halls. Philadelphus, my precious little brother, only whispered, "Isis."

He died in the depths of the night when the sky was as black as the soil of Egypt. I was with him, clutching his amulet, breathing with him until he breathed no more. I thought I'd cry or sob. Anything to break the unnatural quiet. Instead, I sat stunned, crushed beneath a pain too large to contemplate. How could it be that my Philadelphus would never see another dawn? Somehow I made myself get up. I'd go to Octavia. She'd tell me that Philadelphus was only sleeping. She'd chide me like she did when I was a girl and set the world back to its natural order. But when I stepped into the hallway, I was a.s.saulted by a keening wail.

"Marcellus!" Octavia stumbled out, tearing at her clothes as if some creature were eating her alive. "My boy is dead, my son is dead, my son is dead!"

Twenty.

ROME.

WINTER 23 B.C.

FRESH timber was cut for the enormous funeral pyre and it seemed as if all the city came out into the damp and somber cold to see Marcellus burned. It was a grand state funeral. Augustus himself gave the eulogy. Virgil, grief-stricken and shattered, read a section of his unfinished Aeneid, in which the great Roman hero saw the shade of Marcellus in the underworld, lamenting that he was destined to die young, without fulfilling his promise. At hearing this, Lady Octavia collapsed. She'd borne all the other calamities of her life with grace, but this was too much. What's more, the public spectacle of her grief shamed her such that she never allowed another poet to speak her son's name.

Augustus p.r.o.nounced that he'd finish the theater of Marcellus. Whether this was because the emperor genuinely mourned or because it was the politic thing to do, I'd never know. Those Republicans who'd seen Marcellus as a champion of their cause wondered whether the emperor had poisoned his son-in-law to keep his own power secure. Those who'd seen Marcellus as a threat to Republicanism insisted Livia must have poisoned him to make room for her own sons. Still others gossiped about the conspicuous absence of Admiral Agrippa. The celebrated military commander didn't return for the funeral of his brother-in-law. Not even for the sake of his wife, Marcella, a grieving sister. Not even, I thought, for Octavia, a grieving mother, the woman he loved.

This wasn't because Agrippa was a cruel man but because all his fundamental beliefs, all the ropes that tied him so tight inside, had begun to fray the moment he heard the emperor say that he'd fathered my child. It was somehow my fault, I thought. All my fault. And in all this sorrow of great personages, all this speculation and jockeying for position in the new political landscape, the death of Antony's boy-young Ptolemy Philadelphus-was entirely overshadowed. It was only the smaller people who seemed to remember him. The slaves, the priests, the Alexandrians, and the friends of my parents who'd long since been driven out of public life.

And the Antonias, of course. Both my half sisters came to help me prepare his body, but I'd let no one else touch him. I brushed a ringlet of auburn hair back from my little brother's dead face, knowing that I'd never see a flush upon those once-rosy cheeks again. He was in danger from the moment he was born, a living token of my father's break from Rome. He'd been born a prince of Egypt and made a crowned king, but he'd never dwelled upon that. He'd been a thirteenyear-old boy whose greatest joy had been betting on chariots and throwing dice. Philadelphus found pleasure in simple things, like eating and playing with our cat, as if he'd known all along that his time in this world would be brief. Why hadn't I listened? Why hadn't I understood when he told me that we didn't have long together . . .

He wouldn't be burned like Marcellus but embalmed according to Egyptian custom, let no one try to stop me! I'd have his organs preserved in canopic jars, his body mummified, protective amulets wrapped in the bandages to ward off dark magic. It would take seventy days to do it properly, which meant I'd have to stay in Rome until the seas opened again in the spring. I didn't care. Time had lost all meaning. I'd lost my mother, my father, my older brothers-all cut down violently or forced to suicide. Only Philadelphus had been taken from me for no reason I could discern, and I desperately wanted someone to blame.

IT was the saddest Saturnalia. The grimmest holiday in memory. Like mimes, we went through the motions of the festivities but took no joy. Octavia didn't want music, poetry, or games. She purged the household of everything that reminded her of Marcellus and took personal affront to any show of merriment. But with the death of Marcellus, Octavia's influence was waning and the emperor's wife was once again the most powerful woman in Rome.

Livia made no secret of the fact that she thought our grief was excessive. Un-Roman. Since Virgil couldn't be persuaded to celebrate, she hired minstrels and invited King Herod's young sons, who had lately come to the city, as honored royal guests. When Terentilla, the beautiful wife of Maecenas, fawned over Augustus so scandalously that guests openly acknowledged her as the emperor's mistress, Livia revealed not the slightest tremor of jealousy.

Livia's game was transparent to me. She was making new allies in the emperor's circle who could be counted upon to support her. She was recruiting royals to lessen my prestige and encouraging promiscuous women to turn the emperor's eye away from me. For all that she was my enemy, I didn't care. I only knew that if I found any evidence that she'd poisoned my brother, I'd have vengeance.

Beneath the frescoes in the dining hall, Terentilla's high-pitched laughter echoed and I sat staring into my goblet of wine. It was a sweet Falernian that had gone dark with age, so strong that it bit the tip of my tongue. I wondered how many cups I'd have to drain before I no longer felt the bite. The Herodian princes presented Livia with a pair of emerald earrings as a Saturnalia gift and she made much of them, even as she demurred, "Perhaps you'd better give these gems to my stepdaughter, as Julia so loves to ornament herself. As for me, my children are my jewels."

Julia took no notice of this. "Marcellus and Philadelphus both loved the Saturnalia," she murmured, and I remembered the long ago Saturnalia, when Philadelphus chose the pastry with the bean and was proclaimed the Lord of Misrule. I remembered too how delighted he'd been when we were given a gray kitten . . . and now Bast curled up in my lap, her chin low and ears back as if she also mourned for him.

"The pine wreaths," Julia continued, stammering and sniffling. "The r-red berries, the gilded candles and spiced w-w-ine . . . Marcellus loved it all." She dissolved into a gale of sobs. Iullus rose to comfort her and she buried her face in his toga while he stroked her hair. He risked much by revealing his tender feelings, and for the first time, I thought to myself, He truly loves her.

The same thought must have occurred to the emperor because he disentangled himself from Terentilla and called Julia to him. Then he dismissed the rest of the family and our guests to exchange gifts elsewhere. I stayed behind with Julia, hoping to defend her. Or perhaps I was simply too drunk to stand. Facing the emperor, Julia whispered, "I want my mother."

At this, Augustus rocked back in his seat. "Your mother! You dare mention her to me?" Whatever Julia's mother had done to merit her virtual exile from Rome I'd never learned, but we all knew better than to mention Scribonia. With bleary eyes, I watched the emperor lean forward and say, "You're an embarra.s.sment, Julia."

Julia dabbed at her eyes, losing a battle to still her trembling lips. "I'm a widow."

"What do you have to show for it?" Augustus snapped. "Are you with child?" Julia shook her head, crossing her arms over her empty womb. Then the emperor turned on me. "Her moods are your bad influence, Selene. When are you going to give your brother a funeral? You can't keep his sarcophagus in your house forever."

What a silly thing to say. Nothing was forever. Not Philadelphus. Not my house on the other side of the Tiber. Not even Rome itself. In this life, everything would someday turn to ash. Bereft, I took another fortifying swallow and let the wine burn all the way down. "Let me see him safely to Egypt and put him in my mother's crypt."

Augustus rubbed his face, eyes upon the ceiling as if begging Jupiter's indulgence. "Don't try my patience, Selene."

Perhaps he thought it was a ploy, a desperate gambit. This time he was wrong. I set down my goblet to plead with him. "Caesar, I'll go secretly to Egypt and I won't stay. I'll perform the proper ceremonies. No more than that. Just let me see to it that Philadelphus rests with our mother and father. That's all I ask."

"All you ask? You're a Ptolemy, Selene. You can't step foot in Alexandria without being proclaimed Queen of Egypt."

"Why would that be so terrible?" Laid bare, I pressed with both palms to my cheeks to hold back the grief. "I've done everything you've ever asked of me. Let us go home. Can't you, for the sake of mercy, at long last, just let us go home?"

He just stared at me, then stood up and walked out of the room, his toga trailing after him. Even after he was gone, his footsteps still echoed in my mind, and I drank deeply, chasing after the drunken state of oblivion my father had so often sought for himself.

"How do you do it?" Julia asked. "How can you not weep?"

Because I'd spent my youth swallowing my grief like it was mother's milk. Because I'd learned to mask my pain. Because I was bleeding inside and dared not pull away the bandage to inspect the wound and because- "If she starts weeping, she'll never stop," Octavia said from the doorway. Though some Roman women wore white in mourning, she wore a stola pulla, all in black. Sadness had etched itself into the very lines of her face and I wondered at my own reflection on the surface of the wine. How was there color on my lips? How had that comb come to be in my hair? Tala must have dressed me, but I could scarcely remember.

Slaves had been dismissed from work on account of the Saturnalia, so Octavia took it upon herself to start cleaning up the meal. I should rise to help her, but I glanced over to see Julia fiddling with something in her lap. When she saw me looking, she held up little vials. "Perfumed oils. A gift from Tiberius. I fear he means to begin a courtship."

Perhaps if I'd been sober, I wouldn't have said, "Anything Tiberius gives you comes straight from his mother, and Livia is nothing but poison to you."

I'd only meant to point out Livia's all-too-obvious campaign to marry one of her sons to the emperor's now-widowed daughter. Octavia fastened on a different meaning to my words. She never looked up, never changed expression as she gathered up plates from the feast. She only asked, "Do you think Livia works in poisons?"

We shouldn't have this conversation. Not here in the emperor's household where Livia's spies lurked behind every pillar. Certainly not with Octavia half mad from grief. Even though my lips had gone numb, I was still wary enough to say, "I don't know."

"My son was healthy," Octavia said, her lips pinched tight. "His brilliant future was cut short at the moment, the very moment, Livia saw her fortunes dwindling. Do you think it's coincidence?"

Livia was known to prepare tonics for the emperor. Only I knew that she'd dosed him with something the night he took me to his bed. Only I knew that she'd offered me poisoned wine the next morning. And that was nothing I could share. I wanted to blame Livia for Philadelphus's death; I wanted to punish her for it, but what proof did I have? Surely if Livia had hated anyone enough to poison them, it would have been me. Yet here I was, alive.

Octavia grabbed up a napkin and shook it free of crumbs. "There is one thing that's certain. I'll never let Livia benefit from the death of my son, even if that means Julia never remarries."

At this, Julia flinched. She'd done her duty to her family; she deserved some reward, some hope . . . "Julia will have to remarry," I said. "She's sixteen and hasn't any children yet. Marcellus wouldn't have wanted her to live as a widow forever, and the emperor will insist that she take another husband. So why not Iullus? He's twenty-one, another son of your household, and a quaestor with great potential-"

"He's Antony's son." Octavia shook her head. "For the emperor to give Julia to Iullus would be like allowing Antony to bed his daughter. It would humiliate him. Don't you know that Augustus would see them both dead before he allowed such a match?" I'd warned Julia that a future with Iullus was impossible, but Octavia's words rang down like unshakable prophecy and there was nothing I could say to lessen the blow.

Julia's expression fractured. "But Iullus is loyal to us," she cried. "He isn't Antony."

As if she hadn't heard Julia, Octavia reached for my goblet. I held it fast. I thought she'd lecture me on the disgrace of inebriation and almost welcomed the argument that would follow, but she only said, "I'd like you to lay Philadelphus beside Marcellus in the family mausoleum."

In the tomb of Augustus, she meant. She'd loved Philadelphus and wanted to honor my brother as if he were her son, but how could I allow Philadelphus to rest eternally beside the emperor?

WITH a jar of wine and a basket of barley cakes, I went to the old Temple of Isis. With Saturnalia celebrants still stumbling drunk about the city, there was no one to stop me. The temple was dark and the gate was closed, but Memnon broke the chains and pulled the overgrown vines away so that I could slip inside. The potted trees were now nothing but desiccated stalks, dead and brown. This place had once been a sunlit sanctuary for me, where my blood blossomed into flowers. Where magic flowed and crocodiles defended me. Now the inner sanctum was shadowy and filled with a vile stench. The pools were clogged with muck. Following a chain on the ground, I found the rotted skeleton of a crocodile with spears in its remains. I couldn't say if the magnificent beast had been killed for sport or mercy, but I grieved for him too. Everything I touched, everything I loved, I seemed destined to lose. Perhaps it was my punishment for allowing this to happen to the temple. Philadelphus once told me that I'd save the G.o.ddess, but I looked up at her statue to see the damage I'd wrought. Though moss had grown in the folds of her stone garments and all her finery had been stripped away, that perfect compa.s.sionate expression hadn't lost its power. This was Isis in her own guise. A sistrum rattle in one hand and the sacred knot between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Oh," someone whispered. "Isis is beautiful."

I turned to see Julia standing with the Antonias amidst the debris. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"We followed you," Minora said.

"You shouldn't risk yourselves! Augustus has ordered this temple closed . . ."

Julia held up the hem of her expensive silk gown, stepping over a fallen chunk of marble. "Yet here you are, Selene, in defiance."

I didn't want them here. I wanted to fling stones at them and drive them away. "Will you just go? Leave me!"

As a queen, I was becoming accustomed to obedience, but Antonia put a stubborn hand on her hip. "No." With that firm-set jaw, she was her mother in miniature. She adjusted her stola as if afraid to touch anything. "We want to know where you're going to entomb Philadelphus."

"In Mauretania." I'd built a tomb there for one brother; it would have to shelter another.

"Please don't take him," Minora said. "Philadelphus would be a stranger in Mauretania. Leave him with us."

I gasped. "With you?"

"We're his sisters too," Antonia replied. "If you won't put him in the tomb of Augustus, give him his own place here in Rome."

I always stay in Rome, Philadelphus had insisted. Had he foreseen that he'd remain behind, even in death? What was I to do? He would be a stranger in Mauretania, alone in an empty tomb. Was I to risk his earthly body, his khat, to a voyage across the sea? "He was a child of Isis. Who would invoke the G.o.ddess over his remains?"

"We will," Julia said, her tone brooking no argument, and the Antonias nodded their agreement. "Teach us to honor Isis and the rites he should have and we'll perform them."

They left me quite speechless. If the women in the emperor's own family came to love Isis, would it not soften hard Roman hearts to my faith? How I wished that Isis would guide me, engrave her words on my hands. I held my palms up now, as if summoning her, but there'd been no Isiac blood spilled to work that magic.

"We'll help you, Selene," Minora said, taking up the jug to pour libations. "We're not going to leave you alone."

I'd never wanted sisters; it had upset my sense of place in the world where I had thought myself my father's only princess. Still, as the Antonias laid out offerings to a forbidden G.o.ddess I knew I'd never be able to hold myself aloof from them again. I must love the Antonias because Philadelphus had loved them. And though I was heartsick, I resolved to entrust my youngest brother to their care.

WE sealed Philadelphus in a tomb that I commissioned, knowing it wouldn't be complete for months. The funeral was small. Though Crinagoras offered to compose poetry, I refused. No grand orations would accompany Philadelphus from this life to the next. Teeming crowds of professional mourners and curious onlookers would not pa.s.s by to lay flowers upon his bier. I allowed none but those who'd actually loved him. I did for Philadelphus what I couldn't do for Caesarion-I touched the lips of his sarcophagus with the iron wand and performed the Opening of the Mouth ceremony that would allow him to eat and breathe and speak in the afterlife. Beyond that, I won't describe the funeral; I cannot, for it hollows me to think of it. And once it was done, I retreated to my house on the Tiber and shut myself in.

In my grief, it seemed only natural that the fields should be fallow. As if my sorrow had sent the whole world into a dark time of famine and ill omens. A wolf was caught in the forum and the river rose, flooding the city. Whereas the Tiber was usually unnavigable, it now ran swift and deep enough to accommodate small galleys filled with grain . . . if only there'd been any grain to be had. The wheat and barley in Rome had been spoiled by mice and other vermin; the people starved. Whenever I went out onto my terrace, my eyes were drawn to the Temple of Aesculapius, where the sick and hungry thronged for help and every wind carried the moans of the dying. Slaves had once sought sanctuary with Isis for compa.s.sion, healing, and sc.r.a.ps of bread. Her temples were all closed, but there were more Isiacs in the city than ever. Many of her followers had taken to wearing pileus caps, like the ones Romans wore during the Saturnalia, so that they might recognize one another and promote the cause of liberty. They called openly for reform.

At the same time, a different impulse was taking hold. Some said, "We were well fed until Augustus gave up the consulship." They were wrong. The roots of this famine could be found in the emperor's policies, but this didn't stop the Senate from meeting with the express intention of asking Augustus to take up his mantle of power again.

This must have been his plan all along.

From the relative safety of my balcony across the river, I watched the angry mob gather, fists raised and shouts carried on the frigid morning winds. I had no idea what would happen next. If the mobs turned on Augustus and his family, I'd have to leave by carriage in the dead of night-fleeing Rome as my mother once did, and with even less to show for it. I would leave. I wouldn't risk my daughter's life, even for the throne of Egypt. Shivering with cold, I went back inside. Retrieving her from the nursery, I grabbed Isidora into my arms and pressed my lips to her temple, where her hairline was downy soft. Though the city was in an uproar, I could think of nothing more important than the way her little fingers curled around mine.

A few hours later, Julia and Iullus called upon me. I should have discouraged them from using my home as a clandestine meeting place, but how could I deny them even a moment's happiness? Besides, no one raised an eyebrow at Julia's arrival, for it was well known in Rome that the daughter of Augustus had befriended the daughter of Cleopatra. Likewise, because I was Iullus's half sister, there was no scandal a.s.sociated with his visits. My servants brought out modest refreshments. A silver pitcher of wine and a matching platter of olives, nuts, and cheese. Meanwhile, Iullus shrugged out of his bulky toga and tossed it over the back of one of my couches. It was an unwieldy outer garment that he was required to wear to official functions and he looked relieved to be free of it. "A motion just carried to make Augustus dictator for life," he said.

Julia threw up her hands. "Dictator for life? After all the controversy about how my father intended to make himself king, now they offer him a lifetime dictatorship!"

Iullus took a handful of olives. "He refused it. You should've seen him. He dropped to his knees and rent his clothes like a grieving woman, begging the Senate not to put this burden upon him. He accepted responsibility for the grain supply-said he'd send Tiberius to Ostia to help oversee everything-but he wouldn't accept a dictatorship. He told the Senate that he desired nothing more than to settle outstanding business and retire to private life."

I knew him too well to believe that. "He's afraid. Dictator for life is the authority they offered Julius Caesar before they plunged their knives into him. Augustus either fears he's being offered a death sentence or he simply wants to be seen to refuse so that no one can accuse him of ambition."

Julia bit her lower lip. "He is afraid. Without Agrippa here to protect him, he's vulnerable." Which made all of us vulnerable. How must my mother have felt here in Rome with little Caesarion in her arms, wondering if her Caesar would triumph or fall? I thanked Isis for the thousandth time that I'd never claimed my child was the emperor's, or Isidora's fortunes would be tied to his even more surely than mine were.

"How can you both be so cynical about Augustus?" Iullus asked.