Cleopatra's Moon (5 page)

Despite the awkwardness of our sudden pairing, I found Euginia’s company a comfort in the long months after my parents’ departure for war. In the beginning, though, she tended to assent to every request I made. I was used to the push-back I received from my brothers. It took some time for her to develop a backbone.

“Let us climb the Lighthouse again,” I said one morning.

Euginia hesitated. “Yes, that would be lovely.”

But I knew she disliked the endless airless stairwells, the dizziness as we climbed higher and higher, the roar of the fire at the summit — the very things I loved about our Lighthouse. Why didn’t she stand up to me? Her quick capitulation irritated me.

“Euginia, tell me what
you
want to do for a change,” I said, trying to goad her into making a decision.

“I will do anything you want,” she answered quickly.

I stomped my foot. “By Ares’ sword,
you
choose!”

Euginia’s face paled. I crossed my arms and stared at her. Zosima saw my expression as she passed by. “Do not give her that Horus look, child! She does not deserve it when she is only being obliging.”

Zosima looked back over her shoulder at me and laughed. “Yes, you have a Horus look. It is your mother’s in miniature!”

As always, part of me rejoiced in being likened to Mother, while another part of me ached with the reminder of her absence. I watched Zosima as she gathered up the many toys we had left on the floor — the jeweled spinning tops, the alabaster toy chariots, the carved ivory cats on wheels, even Alexandros’s favorite onyx horse, Bucephalus.

“And you,” Zosima said, straightening and turning to Euginia, “will only survive if you show some mettle. Trust me on this.”

Euginia reddened a little. “How about … Can we … Let us go to the Royal Menagerie instead,” she said.

I intended my assent to sound imperious. Hadn’t Zosima just said I had a Horus stare like Mother’s? But I could not help it. I grinned. “Let’s go!”

Euginia indeed learned to “show some mettle,” much to Zosima’s dismay, for it meant she had to arbitrate our loud, intense arguments about how we would spend our free time. Still, as the months wore on, not even the distractions she provided lessened the blow of Mother’s continued absence, which dragged on past the winter and into the spring. When I questioned Caesarion, he always claimed all was well, and I took him at his word. I assumed that Tata’s forces were on the march, defeating Octavianus’s armies, while Mother waited for him in Actium, in Greece. My brother said nothing to disabuse me of that notion.

But when summer approached, and still my parents did not return from Actium, the palace grew hushed with uncertainty. Fewer servants bustled through the halls, and when they did, they congregated in dark corners and whispered. I held steadfast to my belief that we would win against Octavianus. After all, there were only two generals in all of history better than my tata — Divus Julius, Caesarion’s father, and our own ancestor Alexander the Great.

Euginia grew no fonder of visiting Pharos Island and our Lighthouse over time, so I often went without her. The immense statue of the Goddess in front of the Pharos Temple of Isis became a place of comfort. Isis of Pharos, or Isis Pharia as we called her, stared out to sea, her face beautiful, confident, serene. I imagined that she could see over the vast ocean all the way to Actium to watch over Mother. I often brought gifts for the Goddess, especially a fine earth-colored incense powder that I held up as high as I could, watching as the ocean breezes scattered and swirled the sacred scent around her.

Isis Pharia held a giant marble sail filled with the Favorable Winds all sailors prayed for. One blustery day, I stood beside the statue and held the ends of my silk cloak so that the wind filled it and made it billow like the Goddess’s marble sail.

“Look, Katep!” I cried, standing like the statue of the Goddess and gazing far out to sea. “I am Isis Pharia! Protectress of All! Keeper of Souls Who Ride Her Seas!”

Katep crossed his right arm over his heart in the sign against evil. “Princess!” he cried. “How dare you mock the Goddess!”

I let go of the ends of my cloak and it whipped out behind me, forcing me to stumble. My stomach dropped. I wasn’t mocking her! I was just pretending.

“The Goddess of Life does not take umbrage when her children play at her feet,” someone said from behind me.

I turned and looked up into the face of Priestess Amunet, the lady of the Temple of Isis on Pharos. Strands of her long dark hair escaped from her saffron mantle and waved in the whipping wind. Deep crinkles around her eyes and mouth sunk into a complexion that glowed a rich buttery brown.

Katep bowed, and I remembered my manners, inclining my head to acknowledge the powerful head priestess.

“I have watched you approach Isis Pharia many times,” Lady Amunet said to me. “The Goddess must be calling you.” I blinked, not sure I understood what she meant. “Come, let us get away from this wind and I shall explain.”

I followed her under the first massive pylon of the temple, beneath the carving of Isis suckling her beloved son Horus, the first pharaoh of Egypt. We emerged into the shaded forecourt, where shaven-headed priests in long white kilts scurried past.

She took me into the
purgatorium
for purification. A long-haired maiden washed my feet and hands with warm marjoram-scented water, then anointed my forehead with sacred lotus oil. I closed my eyes at the
touch of her gentle fingers tracing the Knot of Isis on my skin, breathing in the heavy, sweet smell of Egypt.

After our absolutions, I followed Lady Amunet into a private chamber, a small room with high windows that let in both the fresh sea air and the sounds of sistrums jangling in time to chanted prayers.

“Sit, Princess,” Lady Amunet said as she lounged on a bloodred pillow on the floor. “Now tell me,” she said once I had settled myself. “How has Isis been calling her daughter?”

I did not know how to answer. So I didn’t. A servant came in bearing two faience blue cups. The servant took sips from both to prove they were not poisoned, then passed one to Amunet and one to me.

“Barley beer,” Amunet said. “With honey.”

I commanded my facial muscles not to wince at the yeasty sharp taste. I knew that this specially brewed beer was from an ancient recipe, as ancient and sacred as the Great Pyramids. My family had been brought up to prefer wine, in the Greek way, but we respected that most Egyptians preferred beer.

“Do you dream of the Goddess?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. Do you?”

Lady Amunet laughed and shook her long black hair, threaded with silver, behind her. “Indeed I do. And I have dreamt of you wandering alone among rubble and ruins. And so when I saw you standing in the Goddess’s shadow … well, I could not dismiss it as coincidental.”

Ruins? What did that mean? “Are my parents safe in Actium?” I blurted.

The priestess paused. “Why do you ask me this question? The queen’s War Council likely has more information than I do.” She took another sip.

I did not say that I had hoped that perhaps the Goddess’s magic had given her more information than anyone else had.

“However,” she said. “My augurs indicate that all is not well. You must know that your parents have been trapped in Actium all winter, yes?”

I nodded even though I had not known. My stomach contracted in fear: Caesarion had never used the word “trapped.”

“During their entrapment, a great sickness has swept through the general’s camps….”

My head shot up. “Is Mother all right?”

Amunet took another sip of beer. “As far as I know. But I worry that the general may have underestimated Octavianus.”

“That is not possible,” I cried. “Tata is the better general!”

“Granted,” she said. “However, I fear that your father is like the Egyptian who hunts the crocodile but is felled by the small snake he either did not see or ignored.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but the Lady of Isis spoke before I could. “Tell me about the amulet that hangs from your neck,” she said.

I pulled the Isis knot from under my tunic and held it out to her. “This one?”

“Do you know what this knot means?”

“That I follow the Great Goddess,” I said, remembering Mother’s words.

Amunet took another sip. “Yes, but this particular amulet means you have been initiated into the Mysteries of Isis. Yet you have not, so I am curious as to how it is that you wear it around your neck.”

“Mother gave it to me,” I said.

“For safekeeping?”

“No. She gave it to me on the night we talked about Isis and why she is the One I must follow. It was after Euphronius took us to speak with a rabbi and we learned about the Hebrews’ religion.”

“And what did you learn that day?” she asked.

“That the Jews believe in only one male god and a strange concept he called ‘free will.’“

“Why do you call it strange?”

“Because, well …” I did not know how to answer at first. It was strange to me because I hadn’t completely understood it. I related the story of the Garden of Happiness the rabbi had told us. “He said their
god gave his first people a command, but they had free will and disobeyed, bringing evil into the world….” I trailed off.

Amunet stared at me over her shimmering cup of beer. “This idea of ‘free will’ is neither strange nor new — it is implicit in
ma’at
. What is strange is the belief that a woman making a choice brought evil to the world.”

I took another sip of the beer, wondering if I had conveyed the story correctly. But I wondered too why the Priestess of Isis had brought me into this small chamber. Surely it wasn’t to discuss what the Jews of Alexandria believed, was it?

“Tell me,” she finally said. “Do the Greeks believe in free will?”

“No, we believe in the
Moirae
— the Three Fates who determine our lives at birth. One should not try to escape one’s fate because it angers them and the gods. Even Zeus-Amun feared the
Moirae!”

She nodded. “And what did the
Moirae
set as your fate, do you think?”

I looked at her, confused. Wasn’t it obvious? “That I would be queen of Egypt, of course.”

But my airway nearly closed as I realized that I would only become queen of Egypt if Mother
died
. I did not want Mother to die. Had my thoughtless rumination called Anubis to fall upon Mother? I quickly touched two fingers over my heart.
I take it back
, I begged Anubis.
O God of Judgment, Preserver of the Dead, Guardian to Hades. I beseech you to keep my mother safe
.

Amunet looked at me for a long moment. “The Seven Hathors and the
Moirae
may claim to set one’s fate, but Lady Isis knows that you must still choose right action and live by the rules of
ma’at
. The question I have is whether your mother ignored the rule of
ma’at
by giving you that necklace. The queen knows the meaning of this amulet and who may or may not wear it. Why, then, did she give it to you? And why,” she asked in almost a whisper, “would she go into
war
without it?”

Was Amunet going to tell me I had no right to it? Or worse, that my possession of it somehow endangered Mother?

“Isis of Pharia is your safe harbor,” Amunet announced after an eternity of scrutiny. “Isis is your savior.”

“What is she saving me
from?”
I asked. And more important, shouldn’t she be saving
Mother
?

Lady Amunet continued looking at me without speaking, and I struggled not to fidget under her gaze. After a few moments, she rose and brought a white lotus to me. “Spit into it,” she commanded.

I paused, but her dark eyes were insistent. I obeyed. She sat back on her heels, closed her eyes, and chanted in the old sacred tongue, plucking the petals my essence touched and casting them into a golden bowl filled with Nile water. The white petals swirled, some barely skimming the surface, others tilting their curved edges just under the water’s skin. Amunet examined them and made a little noise in her throat, which alarmed me. What had she seen? What did it mean?

“Come with me,” she finally said. I followed her out into the courtyard and into a small, windowless room that reeked of sweat and incense and something else too, sweet and familiar. I stood in front of a cartouche, trying to read the painted hieroglyphic symbols.

“It says, ‘Isis Great of Magic,’“ Amunet said quietly. “Even Ra was humbled by Isis’s magic. It is a powerful force to harness.”

“We are in the Room to Call Forth Isis’s Magic?” I croaked in surprise. “You are going to do magic?”

“No. I am going to instruct
you
on how to cast the spell the Goddess bids me teach you,” she said.

A spell? That
I
was to learn? My pulse quickened in fear and excitement.

Amunet lit a bowl of incense on a low table. The smell was sharp, bitter, and smoky, and I tried not to cough but could not help myself. “Frankincense,” the priestess said. After murmuring instructions to a servant, she purified every corner with the incense smoke. The room grew hot and hazy. The servant returned, carrying a large bowl of a dark, viscous liquid and placed it in the center of the room. Amunet picked up an ivory elephant tusk covered in carved symbols, ciphers, and codes.

She stood with me in the center of the room, setting the bowl at my feet. Then she placed the tip of the horn onto the dirt floor and drew a circle of protection around us, chanting a prayer in the old language.

“Now you,” she said, bidding me to repeat the secret words as I redrew the circle, which seemed to pulsate as we closed ourselves in. She dipped a brush made of goat hair into the liquid and watched as it dripped. I knew the sweet metallic scent then — blood. A bowl of blood. But from which sacrificed animal?

Amunet began painting with the thick, clotted liquid on the ground at our feet, dipping the goat-hair brush over and over again to make the lines thick and sharp. I could not make sense of the image, thinking at first it was a hieroglyph. But then she gave the brush to me. “Paint over the same lines,” she instructed. “You must know the image. You must ‘see’ it to understand.”