Daughters of the Nile (56 page)

WE
set sail for Rome in late October. We are not delayed by storms, though I briefly consider calling one in the hopes it will buy us time. Or at least drown my son’s dog, which barks incessantly every time a gull flies too close to the ship. When we make landfall, I try to persuade Ptolemy to leave the dog with the sailors, to guard over the ship’s hold, but my son is as in love with his dog as he is with the pearl stallion Juba gave him. So we are stuck with the slobbering hound and the fierce but beautiful horse.

Our trip from Ostia to Rome is unimpeded. Nothing delays us. Not the weather. Not plague. Not a broken wheel on a carriage. The servants at our house on the Tiber know to expect us, and everything is ready when we arrive. A thing that, for once, annoys me.

Again, we reach Rome before the emperor does. He is coming from Gaul in the company of Livia’s sons, both of whom are returning with more military glory. Drusus has been elected as one of the two consuls this year, and though Tiberius has earned a Triumph, Augustus will not allow him to celebrate one. He is to have a lesser parade, an
ovation
, which tells me how jealously the emperor guards his privileges, and just how much the emperor has to fear from Livia’s sons.

Julia complains bitterly of it when we are reunited. “Do you know that I must arrange the festivities for Tiberius? Not too lavishly, lest I offend my father, and not too humbly less I offend my husband. Men!”

Still clasped in Julia’s embrace, I tell her, “I’m sure you will manage precisely the right balance.”

“Who says I want to?” But I know she will do her duty as she has always done. And she will do it with her very own stamp and style.

When Juba and I settle into our home on the Tiber, we find gifts waiting from one of my daughter’s new suitors, the new King of Emesa. He is the son of my old friend Iamblichus, and he sends Dora a gown embroidered with gold and silver threads and a tapestry depicting the Emesan cult’s sacred stone being carried in a golden chariot by four horses.

Of course, Dora is more interested in the stone than the dress. Running her short, ragged fingernails over the tapestry, she asks, “It is a black stone they worship in Emesa? Not a god or a goddess?”

“The stone is a meteorite,” I explain. “They say it was cast down from the heavens by their god, whom they call
Elagabal
, the invisible sun god.” I say this with respect, for the Emesani people are a people of great faith . . . and I too have a place in my heart dedicated to an invisible sun god. “The King of Emesa is the chief priest of the cult.”

I am careful to say no more than that, for I want her to choose freely of the men the emperor has approved for her hand in marriage. This must be my daughter’s choice, as much as it can be. That is why we break with custom and allow her to meet her suitors before the emperor returns to Rome.

We host a small dinner for her suitors under the guise of welcoming the visiting royalty to the city, including my niece, the young Queen of Pontus, who bursts through the doors of my house with glad tidings and warm embraces. Pythia and Dora hug each other until they cry and my eyes are damp too. At this happy reunion, Pythia has her servants present me with a cloak made of the fur of silver foxes from the cold mountains near the Black Sea. She has a cloak for each of us: white rabbit for Dora, reddish-brown sable for Juba, and spotted lynx fur for Ptolemy.

Pythia is eager to tell us about her children, two boys and a girl, all of them under the age of three. And Julia cannot resist quipping to me behind her hand, “It would seem that watching horses breed was very good preparation for your niece after all.”

Indeed, Pythia already has three children and I only have two, though I have lived twenty-nine years now, going on thirty. And my husband is younger than hers. But anyone who might think the Queen of Pontus is a mere broodmare is quickly disabused of this notion when she impresses our guests with her knowledge of business and governance.

She is exactly as I taught her to be and has given her children proud names. Zenon after the famous orator. Marcus Antonius Pythodoros after my father, and Antonia Tryphaena after both my father and my mother’s line. That her husband, the elderly King of Pontus, is both attentive and indulgent enough to allow her to name her children this way makes me feel badly for ever doubting him, and I give him a place of great honor at our feast. Is it too much to hope that Dora will look upon this example as proof that such marriages may turn out happily?

We’ve invited some of the more popular members of Roman society, including Julia’s favorite poet, Ovid—whose style Crinagoras dismisses as puerile and salacious. Of course, that’s exactly why we invited him. We want the event to be so informal that every gesture my daughter makes won’t be scrutinized for political import. We don’t want the banquet to be an official matter of state. The more frivolity the better because we want Dora to meet the men who vie for her hand in such a way that she might decline their attention and not cause public embarrassment.

Though I know Dora would rather greet her suitors in a simple white
chiton
with her hair thrown up carelessly in a comb, I make sure to dress her carefully. “A queen can use her appearance to make an impression,” I tell her. “You can have as many appearances as a goddess. You can dazzle a man in a pleated gown with high slits that show peeks of your thighs. Wear purple if you wish to emphasize your royal bloodline. Wear a modest veil and pretty little flower patterns on your hem if you wish to seem vulnerable or make people underestimate you . . .”

My daughter nods politely at my advice, but I am not convinced she is listening.

When I’m finished, her golden hair is swept up, knotted at the back, held in place with an exquisite golden hairpiece carved in the likeness of a rising goddess and studded with amethysts. Her peplum gown, dyed a most royal shade of purple, brings out the beauty of her eyes. Oh, but she is a fair princess, delicate and perfect, with plump rose-pink lips.

Such is her beauty that Juba stares at her when we take our places in our dining room, which has been festooned with pine for the coming Saturnalia. Then, she beams at him and Juba mutters darkly, “Good gods, none of them deserve her.”

When the servants bring silver trays of baked eggs, asparagus, and oysters, we introduce Isidora to the guests, including her suitor, the young Emesani king, who is quite handsome under his dark ringlets and closely trimmed beard. The moment this king sees my daughter, he plainly wants her in the way a man wants a woman, and his eyes smolder like black coals. I search Dora’s eyes for any hint that the young king’s hot gaze can make her forget her Berber boy, but Dora is politely remote. She thanks her suitor for his gift, engages in light conversation as etiquette dictates, but otherwise gives the royal stranger no encouragement.

“I don’t like how he looks at her,” Juba whispers to me.

“How else should he look at her?”

“I don’t know,” Juba confesses. “But I don’t
like
it.”

When the second course is served, the recently widowed King Archelaus of Cappadocia arrives. It pains me to see how our old friend has aged since last we saw him. Not even his ornate crown can disguise that he’s balding and has lost a few teeth. He is, I should think, the suitor a girl should least wish for. And yet Dora smiles brilliantly when he presents her with an oak chest carved with the symbol of a serpent wound tight round a branch.

It’s the symbol of Asclepius. A reminder of her serpent. Not a poisonous cobra intent on murder, but a snake meant to teach us how to shed our old skin and learn to live in a new one. My daughter’s eyes light up and she cries with delight, “A medicine chest!”

Then she throws open the lid and marvels over the contents of each little pouch of herbs she finds inside. King Archelaus listens patiently as she natters on about this rare plant from the East or that new poultice from India.

From across the room, Crinagoras smirks, obviously guilty of having meddled in the matter. Having once told King Archelaus how to trick Herod, Crinagoras obviously advised him how to win the affection of my daughter too. By the gods, my poet is a wily old thing. I’m not entirely sure I approve.

At any rate, Isidora spends the rest of the dinner with the old Cappadocian king. I want to urge her to pay more attention to the King of Emesa, who is at least still young enough to give her children. But we have already asked much of Dora. If she prefers a man old enough to be her grandfather, then that is whom she will have. Better Archelaus than Herod. That is what I keep repeating to myself.

At the end of the evening, when we make our farewells, the King of Emesa’s words are tinged with sadness. “It was my father’s wish that our families be bound by blood and kinship, but I fear your daughter would rather be the Queen of Cappadocia.”

I try to soften the blow. “Oh, don’t be hasty to draw conclusions. It is only that she has known Archelaus since she was a little girl . . . He is a familiar face and knows what sort of things capture her imagination.”

“I should have thought to give her a box of dried weeds . . .” He laughs at himself, good-natured for a man who has been snubbed, and I decide that I like him even if Dora does not.

Clasping his hands, I say, “I too would have our families bound by blood and kinship, for I have not forgotten your father’s friendship on the Isle of Samos, nor have I forgotten that a Prince of Emesa once gave his life for me. I have a son who will need a wife. Perhaps there is an Emesani princess who longs to see the beautiful mountains of Mauretania . . .”

He grins and I see that he likes the idea. And I am grateful that we part friends. Meanwhile, all Rome waits for the emperor’s triumphant return, and Augustus sends word that my son is to command a troop of boys in the Trojan Games.

I know these games to be quite dangerous, involving horse-mounted drills and mock-fighting. Boys have been known to break bones and I do not want my son to take part. I remind my husband that once, years ago, my twin was forced to rescue Livia’s son, Drusus, from being trampled in the melee. But my husband reassures me that Ptolemy is a better rider than even my twin brother was at that age and I know this to be true.

Moreover, Ptolemy is overjoyed at the news.

When it comes to horses, my son’s Berber blood serves him well. He doesn’t even use a saddlecloth atop Sirocco. He is accustomed to galloping in the plains of Africa and riding down antelope. But to command troops in the Trojan Games will require much discipline, and so Ptolemy goes to the stables every morning to practice while we await the emperor’s entrance into Rome.

One evening, the king presents my daughter with a necklace—a sardonyx cameo with a perfect little portrait of our family. Juba carved on one side and me on the other with Ptolemy upon my lap. My daughter is plainly touched by this gift, clasping it to her breast and promising to wear it always so that she may think of us in faraway Cappadocia.

“It’s to be Archelaus, then?” Juba asks.

Dora nods. “I think he will be kind to me, Papa. He reminds me a bit of you.”

Yes
. I can see it now. No king in the empire can match Juba’s scholarly mind, but Archelaus of Cappadocia is intellectually curious and has a fatherly manner about him. I doubt that Dora will ever know love or passion with him, but he will allow her to be whatever she wishes to be . . . and there are worse fates for a princess.

“If that is your choice, I’ll make the arrangements,” Juba says.

“Yes,” Dora says bravely. “That is my choice.”

I dread the moment we must let her become a bride, but Juba is in good humor, lifting himself onto one elbow and glancing about the dining room as if he cannot see our boy. “And where is Prince Ptolemy?”

“Right here!” Ptolemy calls from where he is sitting on cushions.

“Did you get taller since this morning?” Juba asks, feigning at surprise. “Why I scarcely recognize you. Oh, well, never mind, then, I suppose you are grown enough for these.”

In a flash, Juba presents a quiver of golden arrows to Ptolemy.

I protest immediately. “Those arrows aren’t blunted. They’re sharp at the points.”

“Mother, these arrows aren’t for
shooting
,” my son tartly informs me with a roll of his eyes as if I have never before seen the Trojan Games. “They’re just to be slung over my shoulder while I take my troops through the maneuvers.”

Tala cuffs him for impertinence, but he’s so proud, so tall, so earnest about the Games that I can only ruffle his hair before he goes off to bed. Ptolemy gets almost to the archway before rushing back to hug his father in thanks. He hugs me too, dimpling me a smile before pressing a quick kiss to my cheek.

Then he runs off like a ruffian.

Together, Juba and I laugh. We cannot help it. And when we are alone, the king reaches into a pouch at his hip. “Don’t think I forgot you, Selene. Where is it? Ah, yes, here is another cameo for your collection.”

This cameo is also sardonyx, cleverly carved where a layer of whiter stone meets the bloodred color. On one side is a likeness of my daughter and on the other, a likeness of my son. Two portraits of my children. Like my jade frog, this is another kind of sacred amulet—one that I will wear with the first.

I thank Juba over and over again, then let him fasten it upon my neck, saying, “Master Gnaios has become even better at these. I recognize his handiwork. You must have had this made long before we came to Rome.”

Our fingertips brush as we straighten the chain, and the king murmurs, “Yes, and it wasn’t easy to keep it secret from you all these months.”

Oh, how my heart hurts for the secret I keep from him. The time we have now is so precious, for when he realizes I will not return to Mauretania with him, he will think himself abandoned. He will never forgive me. Not even if, in his heart, he knows that I have no choice in the matter. But I hold a hope—surely a vain one—that he might still remember me a little fondly. That is all that I can ask for.

“I have something for you too,” I say.