Song Of The Nile Part 19

None dared to look upon my nudity. Chryssa seemed lost in reverie as she enveloped me in my white robe. Poor Memnon trembled. Crinagoras stood speechless, the papyrus he'd been writing upon lost to the breeze. Others joined Euphronius in prayer, and he led them, though his voice was hoa.r.s.e.

And then it rained.

RETURNING to Iol-Caesaria, I spread my arms and lifted my face to welcome each raindrop. I was no longer a stranger here. I felt connected to the camel, to every brown rock and green blade of gra.s.s. These were my juniper bushes that hugged the mountainside, my antelopes that danced across the steppes of the Maghreb, and my people who waved to us from pa.s.sing caravans. This was my Mauretania and love swelled in my breast as if I were seeing it for the first time.

When we reached the palace, riding through the gates and giving our weary animals over to the stable, Isidora ran out to welcome me home. I swung my daughter up into my arms and spun her in the rain.

Twenty-six.

MY servants prepared a bath of milk and honey to treat my sunburned skin. Once I was bathed, and perfumed with rose water, and wearing clean clothes again, I took supper in my rooms. Eggs and olives. Grilled flat bread and seasoned lamb. A creamy pudding made of goat's milk, dotted with raisins and dates. All to be washed down with a pot of hot mint tisane. I enjoyed it as I'd never enjoyed food and drink before, certain that a bountiful harvest was to come.

As I made to sink down with Bast into my indulgently soft mattress for a well-deserved rest, Memnon knocked at the door. "The king has returned," he said.

Stroking my cat's fur, I didn't even stir. "It's just another caravan with all his scrolls and hunting trophies, and possibly some other woman he's discarded."

Memnon gave a quick shake of his head. "Majesty, Tala saw King Juba dismount from his horse and says he's now coming in from the rain."

TOO late, the trumpeters rushed to announce the king's arrival. He waved them away. I wasn't sure I'd have heard them anyway, over the thunder of my heartbeat. Juba stood under an awning that shielded him from the downpour and nodded to me in stiff, formal greeting. A circlet of gold made him appear to be the king that he was, and such adornments finally seemed to rest easy upon his brow. It'd been almost two years since I'd seen him and I'd forgotten his good looks. I was momentarily captivated.

Whether it was the stuporous rain or the late hour, we were quite alone in the cavernous throne room and Juba said, "Salve, Selene." He often retreated to Latin when distressed, and truly, Juba did look pained.

"Are you ill?" I asked.

He laughed, sweeping his hand through his wet hair. "It's just that nothing here looks quite like I left it. Even you are changed. A woman now."

Why should I want for him to look at me and find me beautiful? What I wanted-what I truly wanted, I reminded myself-was to ensure that all my hard-won gains wouldn't be spoiled by Juba's return. "Perhaps you're just looking at it all with new eyes . . ."

Juba shook the rain off and looked abashed when it puddled on our mosaic floors. "I wanted to see you, Selene."

"That's why you've come home?" I asked, not ready to believe it.

"Perhaps it was the rain." It was autumn. A year since Philadelphus's death. I wasn't the only one counting months. Juba's gaze traveled down to the flat expanse of my belly. He didn't allow his eyes to linger on my empty womb, but Juba wasn't a practiced liar. That single glance told me his fears. That glance told me that he still thought of me as a wicked seductress and feared that I'd brought home another b.a.s.t.a.r.d child. If I told him, This time I ran from him. He told me what he wanted from me, and I ran, Juba wouldn't believe me. Perhaps he'd even tell me that I shouldn't have run.

With that horrible thought, I said, "I'll summon Lady Circe for you."

JUBA'S arrival wasn't the only thing to ruin the evening. While we were gone to the river, war in Egypt raged on. News arrived that the latest Roman prefect had launched a counterattack, destroying the Meroite city of Napata. I held my breath, terrified that I should read that the so-called Horus the Avenger had been captured or killed in the fighting. Instead of total Roman victory, however, I read of Rome's failure to make substantial gains against the formidable Kandake of Meroe and her war elephants.

Still, this news shattered me. In searching for the Nile, I told myself that if I could make the land fertile again, a burden would be lifted from Egypt. Now I worried that I'd simply fallen too much in love with Mauretania and the comforts it afforded me. No one else might ever know it, but I knew Helios was fighting the Romans. I should be with him, helping to free Egypt from Roman tyranny, trying to win back my mother's throne. She'd entrusted to me her legacy, but I let the Queen of Meroe fight my battles. And she was losing them.

JU BA had returned from his expedition with a caravan of precious salt from the marshes, spectacular hunting trophies, and a variety of exotic animals, including a Barbary macaque. The king came to my apartments with the furry monkey on his arm. "I've heard tell that the Princess Isidora likes animals," Juba said. "I brought this little creature back for her as an early Saturnalia gift."

Juba was a stranger to my daughter, but far from being afraid of him, she was delighted. She lowered to him in deference, a baby's imitation of the other ladies in the palace, and her bright eyes glittered as she reached out for her new pet. I was wary of the monkey's mischievous little hands. My Berber woman nodded a warning to me when the creature yawned, pointing out the sharp teeth. What kind of gift was this for a young child? I wanted to refuse it but didn't like to refuse my daughter anything. Moreover, I regretted the churlish way I'd left Juba the night before. "You're not to play with the monkey unless Tala is watching," I said to my daughter, then thanked Juba politely.

He was also polite, commenting approvingly on the artwork I'd chosen for this part of the palace and admiring the carved gemstones I'd brought back from Rome, for he collected them, and was a great connoisseur of beautiful things.

Then we had nothing to say.

The next day, letters arrived from Rome. Two were from my half sisters, the Antonias, telling me that the tomb for Philadelphus was now complete. Minora's letter was dreamy and idealistic, and she confessed to me an abiding affection for young Drusus, whom I remembered fondly even if he was Livia's son. By contrast, the elder Antonia's letter was stiff and stilted, expressing a deep sadness that she'd yet to give her husband a child.

While I was occupied with these letters, Isidora disappeared from under Tala's watchful eye and sent the palace into an uproar. After hunting for her behind statuary and potted palms, we found her in Juba's study, sitting on his lap. "North African elephants a.s.sist one another when they're hunted," he said, reading to her from his latest treatise, "and will defend one that is exhausted. And if they can remove him out of danger, they anoint his wounds with the tears of the aloe tree, standing round him like physicians."

I was in no mood for fanciful talk of elephants. "Isidora, you're not to run off from Tala!"

"It's all right," Juba said, cradling her. "Every writer needs an appreciative audience once in a while." Nevertheless, I pried her out of his arms and sent her off. As I turned to follow, Juba stopped me. "Stay awhile, Selene . . ." He motioned me into a seat that had ornate, talon-shaped feet that reminded me of a Ptolemy Eagle. When I was seated, Juba said, "I should have said this before now. I was saddened to hear the news from Rome. Marcellus and Philadelphus were fine young men. I can't imagine how you must have grieved for them."

No, he couldn't imagine it, and I could barely speak of it. "I still grieve for them."

"As do I," Juba said, then paused a moment before adding, "You were gone a long time in Rome."

"You were gone longer, Juba. Our advisers despaired of your return."

"My absence didn't grieve you, though," he said, amber eyes alight. "Did it?"

I flushed. "It gave me a chance to prove myself. To prove that I can rule-"

"Without me," Juba interrupted, shaking his head, though he didn't seem angry. In truth, his journey seemed to have rejuvenated him. He seemed somehow more at ease with himself and with me. "You're almost eighteen years old now and just look at you." I was wearing nothing scandalous-a white Grecian dress with a thick collar of aquamarine gemstones around my neck. My hair fell in a single braid down my back and I wasn't even wearing cosmetics. Nonetheless, Juba said, "You're tall as a G.o.ddess and just as a.s.sured. I suppose Augustus can't be blamed for keeping you in Rome so long."

Not this conversation again. I rose to my feet. "He didn't keep me and I'm sorry that Isidora disturbed you. She's normally a wellbehaved child. I'll make sure she doesn't bother you again."

Juba lifted a hand, a gesture of apology. "She's not a bother. She's my daughter."

Because we were alone, I dared to say, "We both know she's not."

"Has Augustus claimed her?" With silence as my answer, Juba leaned back. "Then I'm her father in every way that matters and I'd like to know her." It gave me pause. I had loving memories of my father whereas Juba had none. Perhaps he took pity on Isidora. "Selene, I promised that no one would ever have cause to believe that she's not mine."

That statement forced two years of pent-up fury out of me. "A promise you broke! You wrote to Augustus about her."

"G.o.ds!" Juba slammed his palm on the desk. "Do you think I wanted to tell him? Do you think I enjoyed the humiliation?"

To see Juba behave as if this tortured him was too much. "Then why didn't you lie? Why confess to him that you'd never laid a hand on me as a husband?"

His lips tightened. "Because I'm not a Ptolemy, Selene. Intrigue isn't bred into my bones."

I clasped my hands beneath my chin in a gesture of mockery. "How could I forget? You're the n.o.ble savage. The scholarly king. Rex Literatissimus. Too busy with your studies to worry about keeping your word."

"I thought you wanted Augustus to know," he said, rising to face me.

"Why would you think such a thing?" Had he believed I'd force the emperor to acknowledge my child and willingly make myself the most notorious woman in the empire? It's what my mother would have done. What she did do. But Isidora was a girl. There could be nothing gained from using her in such a way. "What gives you the impression that I wanted to reveal my humiliations?"

Juba came closer, as if to unsettle me. "Am I to believe, in the years we've been apart, that you've stopped scheming to reclaim what your mother lost?"

"Oh, Juba." I made a sound of disgust. "Have you returned only to rejoin our tedious circle of recriminations?"

"No." He held up his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry. This isn't how I envisioned our reunion."

"Then just how did you envision it?"

"Like this," he said, darting forward to fasten his lips upon mine. It was a sudden, unexpected kiss, and my hands flailed behind me, finding purchase on the edge of his writing table. He'd taken me entirely by surprise, but he didn't force his kiss upon me beyond that first shocking sensation. It was my own nature-awakened by the G.o.d in the river-that allowed me to give myself over to him, like some common doxy.

In Juba's kiss, I detected the hint of sandalwood and cinnamon, the scents of the desert that always seemed to cling to him. A scent I'd mistaken for heka, and perhaps Juba did work some small magic on me, because I didn't pull away even when I felt his hand press at the small of my back. Instead, I wrapped my arms about his shoulders and he rained kisses down the column of my neck, until I realized how very much I wanted him to kiss my mouth again. When he did, the brush of his lips against mine was electric. I kissed him back. I kissed him again and again, until my bosom rose and fell with desperate little breaths.

It wasn't until Juba pushed his knee between mine that I became a frightened girl again and the shuttered doors rattled open with a gust of wind. "Let me go."

Juba whispered, "Selene, I'll be gentle with you . . ."

"Let me go before the servants see us together this way."

He withdrew, blinking in bewilderment. "You're my wife. There's no shame in this."

"To the contrary. I've never done anything so shameful in my life."

IN my chambers, I threw myself down on the bed, burying my face in the pillows, smothered with self-loathing. What had I done? What had I allowed to be done to me. Always before, desire was the G.o.ddess in me. Not my needs, but hers. Desire had always been something holy. Something sacred-no, that wasn't true. My body had responded to Juba on our wedding night. Of course, that was before he'd given me over to the emperor's bed. Before he'd betrayed me and accused me and threatened me . . . what excuse did I have now? Juba had kissed me and I'd kissed back. I'd kissed a man I knew I couldn't trust. Agrippa, Livia, and Augustus had all accused me of being a wanton. I'd always denied it. Now I wondered if I knew myself at all. Perhaps I was a faithless wh.o.r.e. All my family was dead, or presumed to be. My twin brother was fighting a war. Egypt was suffering. And I? I'd survived all so that I could kiss a man I didn't love. If I'd known I was capable of prost.i.tuting myself, perhaps I wouldn't have run from the emperor. What difference did the man make if the shame was all alike? In Rome, I'd had the emperor in my hand and the double crown of Egypt poised above my head. But I'd fled, all so that I could offer myself to a man who had no higher ambition than writing his next treatise on geography !

"Majesty?" Chryssa entered the room. "The king told me that you were upset . . ."

"Of course he did. The king has no sense of discretion whatsoever."

She sat on the edge of my bed, unbidden. "I think that he cares for you."

I turned to glare. "Chryssa, you have little idea the myriad ways in which he's betrayed me."

She knew more than anyone not to argue in Juba's defense, but she asked, "Doesn't Isis ask us to forgive?"

I didn't want to listen. Her eyes were bright with love for her widowed Berber chieftain and I knew that love made women foolish. She probably envisioned that Juba and I could find the same companionship she'd found with Maysar. She simply didn't understand. "There are some things that are unforgivable. And I was born with my mother's hard, unforgiving heart."

Chryssa had the temerity to laugh at me. "You couldn't even make your heart hard enough to throw your husband's wh.o.r.e out into the street! And when you finally banished that odious Balbus, you sent him off with a ransom."

"Those were matters of political expedience. The king . . . my husband . . . Juba is another matter."

Chryssa rose to extinguish the candles in the sconces on the wall, plunging our talk into darker, deeper intimacy. "You think your mother wouldn't have forgiven him."

"She wouldn't have."

"Didn't your father break with your mother to marry Octavia?" Chryssa asked, snuffing out another candle. "Yet Cleopatra forgave Antony, didn't she? She took him back."

I'd been only a little child when that happened. Isidora's age. Even so, I'd known of my mother's distress. Her tears. Her pa.s.sionate vows that she'd have nothing to do with my father again. How had I forgotten that? Shaking the memory away, I said, "My mother must've forgiven him because it was in the interests of Egypt to do so."

I smoothed my hair back, returning myself to composure. From now on, I'd learn more control. I already knew how to mask my face; I could master the rest of me too. No one would see my cheeks flush with humiliation unless I allowed it. And no one would kiss me and feel my body quicken with desire unless it was for political gain.

EUPHRONIUS hunched over his table, sniffing something that looked like a cactus. "Your cat nibbled upon this plant and vomited it up with no ill effects. The local tribesmen say that it has a purgative effect and the king has promised to name it after me if I discover it's useful as an herbal remedy."

I rolled my eyes. "Is Juba afraid he'll need it as an antidote to poison?"

"You don't seem pleased that he's returned."

"Why should I be?" I asked, watching him work. Trying to learn. "Juba is ruining everything!"

"How so?" the mage asked. "Lady Lasthenia tells me that the king has acquired an interest in Pythagorean philosophy."

"What of it? Juba has an interest in everything and a commitment to nothing."

Euphronius cut the plant with a sharp knife, exposing a milky substance. "Our little princess seems quite taken with him."

"My daughter is a small child and she's excited about the monkey Juba gave her for the Saturnalia. She doesn't know better. Now that the holiday season is past, Juba's ordered that work start again on that horrid gladiatorial arena. What's more, he's countermanded my orders that Maysar invite amba.s.sadors from the Garamantes for a hearing of their grievances. Worse, he recommended to the Roman Senate that Lucius Cornelius Balbus be made proconsul of Africa Nova. Just as I thought I was rid of that man!"

"Majesty," Euphronius interrupted. "You summoned the rains; it's going to be a very good harvest. You'll provide Augustus with a veritable mountain of grain. He'll see, he must see, that you're meant to rule Egypt, so why concern yourself with a husband that you may not have for long?"

His question startled me. "You think I'll be able to divorce Juba . . . or . . ." I eyed the plant.

Euphronius scowled at my implication. "If Augustus sets you on the throne of Egypt, I think you'll be forced to divorce and compelled to give up all claim to Mauretania. It's one thing to restore Cleopatra's daughter to power. Quite another to expand her territory beyond the farthest reaches of the Ptolemaic Empire."

The vapors from the plant stung my eyes and I was suddenly eager to be done with this conversation. "It's useless to speculate," I finally said. "Augustus hasn't had a word for me since last winter."

Euphronius was uncharacteristically frank. "Your paths to rule Egypt do narrow, Majesty."

"WHY must we visit Master Gnaios?" Isidora asked, swinging like her monkey at the end of my arm. She didn't even notice the palace guards who followed us down the corridor; she took them as her due. "I want you to take me to see the lambs."

Now that it was lambing season, I had promised to take her to watch the ewes giving birth, but it would have to wait. "First, we're going to see Master Gnaios because he's made some statues for us."

"Why?"

"Because I asked him to."

"Why?" she asked again. This had apparently become her favorite question.

Fortunately, Gnaios relieved me of an exasperated reply when he cried, "Majesty!" Hurriedly grabbing up his tools when we were announced, he warned, "This is no place for a child. There are bits of stone and dust and sharp instruments-"

"She likes to be with me." I'd never deny her that, and whenever Isidora's tantrums strained my nerves, I reminded myself of all the dark nights I'd longed for my own mother, never to find her there.

Without fanfare, Gnaios pulled a curtain aside to reveal the first statue, and my hands went to my mouth. "It-it hasn't been painted yet," Gnaios said quickly, to fend off criticism. "It's only pale marble."

It was a ghost of Caesarion, features waxy, like they must have been after he was strangled. "I think you've captured his ka. This is what my brother looked like."

"It's what my brother looks like," my daughter said, spouting nonsense just to vex me.

"Isidora, behave!" I recovered from the surprise of seeing Caesarion, only to be saddened by the likeness of Philadelphus, with its cherubic cheeks and pudgy fingers. "Oh no. But you've made him look so young . . ."

Gnaios hung his head. "He was only six years old when last I saw him, Majesty." And when I nodded my understanding, he went on to say, "For Petubastes, I adopted the Egyptian style, in basalt. Only proper for an Egyptian priest."

"Selene?" I turned to see Juba in the doorway with an official dispatch in his hand. A purple cape trailed from his shoulders, and he looked kingly and resplendant. Yet his face was grim as death. "We've received word from the emperor. You've been summoned to the Isle of Samos."