Daughters of the Nile (63 page)

What have I done to him? I judged Herod a monster for tearing his family apart, but look what I have done to mine. When my husband rises again, he grips his tunic, snapping it straight. Then, with a look of grim purpose, he storms through the scorched archway toward our front gate.

I follow, calling after him, “What do you mean to do?”

“I am going after him,” Juba says.

“To what purpose?” I demand to know. “To what possible end?”

Juba grips the iron bars, his biceps tight and trembling, his breath puffing in the cold air under an overcast sky. “I don’t know.”

“Please don’t chase Augustus. If anything, we should lock the gates against him and his men.”

“Lock the gates against me, if you like, but I’m leaving.”

I hold the shattered remains of myself lest I fly apart. “And where would you go?”

“To hunt down that horse,” he says with clenched jaw. “When I find that stallion, I’ll sacrifice him and bury him with the boy.”

My husband wants vengeance too, and if he cannot have it against Augustus, he’ll have it from the stallion. I know what Juba is thinking. He is thinking that this animal threw our son. That the majestic horse trampled our little Ptolemy beneath his hooves. So eager to find blame, I should think the same. But I remember, “Ptolemy loved him, Juba. He loved that horse. Let Sirocco go. I beg of you.”

The king turns to me, his eyes bleak as the winter sky. I think he will strike me. I think he will rage as I have never seen him rage. Instead, he shrugs his assent. “As you wish, Selene. Who am I to deny you?”

With that, he storms away into some dark recess of our house.

I cannot go after him. I have no right.

Instead, I go back inside and place my cloak over my son. Ptolemy does not feel the cold anymore, but I tuck it under his chin as if he were merely asleep. Then a whimper and a howl cuts through the winter air. It is Ptolemy’s dog keeping vigil by his bier, licking bloodied blistered paws that I realize only now were burned in the fire at the stables. The creature is skittish, shying away. She was faithful to my son. She was there with him at the end. My son loved this dog and everything he loved is now precious to me, so I stroke the animal’s neck to soothe it while the hound blows air through its nostrils in distress.

Dora stoops beside me and tears the hem off her garment to make a bandage. I help her wind the cloth round the dog’s paws and tie it tight. Then Dora clutches at the collar of gold amulet round her neck and declares, “Augustus will forgive you. I have seen it. He will forgive you anything.”

“I don’t care if he does,” I say.

It is Juba’s forgiveness I want and I do not deserve it, so I will have to content myself with vengeance. “You saw it happen in your divination bowl, didn’t you? You saw your brother’s death.”

Dora nods once, sadly. Perhaps if I had allowed her to work her magic, she may have seen it long before it happened. When there might have been time to save him. The thought hammers another nail of guilt into me. “Did you see who started the fire, Isidora?”

Tears spill over her lashes. “No. I only saw the flames and the stampede . . .”

“Fetch your divination bowl. I’ll give you my
heka
. I’ll hold your hand and pull you back if the currents of the magic carry you too far. I want you to look into the Rivers of Time and tell me who did this to Ptolemy.”

She rests her hand atop mine. “The Rivers of Time flow into the future. They have never shown me the past.” It is another crushing disappointment. She must see it on my face. “Could the wizard see the past? Could my uncle Philadelphus? If they did, maybe I can too. I’ll try.”

“No.” I remember with bitter certainty. “They did not see the past. Forget I ever asked such a thing. And when we go back home, things will be different between us, that much I vow.”

“But I’m not going back,” she reminds me gently, as if I’m addled. “Don’t you remember that I’m to marry King Archelaus and be Queen of Cappadocia?”

“That’s all done now, Isidora. You will never live anywhere but where you wish to live. You will never marry unless you wish to. And if you become a queen, you will be queen in your own right, for you are now the sole heir to Mauretania.”

* * *

IN
the seventy days it takes for my son to be properly embalmed, my Roman sisters flock to me. First the Antonias, then Julia and Marcella too. For my sake, they do not quarrel. They come carrying garlands and elaborate candelabra and vases of oils and ointments for my dead son. They whisper words of sympathy, their faces grave. Minora tells me that I am still young enough to have another child, and I forgive her, because I know she only says such a thing in a spirit of compassion.

The truth is that I am barren and, even if I were not, my husband recoils anytime I come near him, a thing that makes my pain deeper and more desolate by far. My husband loved Ptolemy as much as I did. He is the only one who can possibly know the loss I feel. He is the only person who could possibly understand there is an emptiness in me where Ptolemy used to be and it can never be filled. If there were any comfort to be had, I would find it in Juba’s arms. But I know we will never be happy again.

The soul of my dead son is now in my keeping and I can think of little else. I cannot even grieve properly for Tala, my friend who served me so long and so well. Nor can I properly grieve for Memnon, my brave champion. I am too lost, adrift, and broken.

My sisters pray with me, invoking my forbidden goddess, but my prayers to Isis are bitter. My heart is hard. I want the darkest magic to fill my being and I am bewildered that Isis should allow the days to grow warmer when my son is so cold. How can flowers blossom when my world is so gray?

I am resentful on the day Minora comes to my house carrying baskets of pink posies and red roses for my rooms, because she believes their brightness will cheer me. But she cannot know that the scent of roses will always remind me of the birth of my son, and the way I awakened to see him the first time, with that perfume in my nostrils.

She is not alone. Her children are in tow, and her husband, Drusus, is with her too. Ptolemy’s dog springs up at the sight of the tall military general, growling with such ferocity that I want to command my guards to throw Drusus out and slam the gates shut. Instead, I tell a servant to take the dog, then rise from my couch to face the newest Consul of Rome.

Filled with suspicion, I am brought up short by what Drusus holds in an outstretched hand.

“I don’t think you’ll remember,” Drusus says, offering a boy’s golden torque to me. “But I wore this many years ago when I rode in the Trojan Games. Your twin saved my life that day. I’ve always kept this torque as a lucky token and a remembrance of Helios. Now I give it to you to bury with your son because he should have lived to earn one of his own.”

I’m moved by the sincerity with which Drusus says these words, his voice choked with emotion. For years, no one in the imperial family has dared to mention my twin by name. Now Drusus dares. And with these words, he reminds me that he is not only Livia’s son, but my brother in marriage, and a boy I knew well. That doesn’t mean he is innocent, but if he is guilty, he is the most audacious fiend ever born . . .

“Take it, Selene,” Minora says, her eyes shining with love and admiration for her husband’s tender gesture. In the crook of her arm, she cradles little Claudius, their youngest. When I look at them together, a family in the truest sense of the word, I wonder how it is I can suspect Drusus of treachery. He is beloved by everyone. By his wife. By the Romans. By the Gallic tribes he ruled as governor. He is even loved by some of the Germans whose country he has ravaged. He is a hard soldier, battle-tested, and he is a canny politician; there burns in him a bright ambition, paired with exquisite charm. I must ask myself, is he the best of the Claudians or is he their cleverest villain yet?

I don’t know. I can’t know. So I take the gift and thank him gladly for it. I bid him fond farewell, for he is shortly to leave again on campaign in Germania. I embrace him, kissing both cheeks with all the affection I have conceived for him over the years. Then, when Drusus is gone, I take the token he has given me, and using a silk cloth, I rub the oils of his fingertips from the gold. At the small altar in my home, I offer this cloth to the fire, drawing the
heka
from my blood where it boils blackest.

And I intone a dark curse upon him.

I do not care what the curse claws out of me, for I am already hollow. And so I speak a spell that any evil he has done to me or mine be revisited upon him. If he stands innocent, let Drusus find glory and happiness in this world, but if he has stolen my son from me,
by the power of Isis,
let him meet with painful justice.

* * *

ONE
gray afternoon Julia finds me sifting through the ashes in the burned-out stables, searching for Memnon’s missing sword. I wave her away, telling her that her feet will get dirtied with soot and her fine stola may snag and tear on broken timber.

“This stable should be knocked down,” she insists, flinging herself onto the makeshift seat of a broken beam. “Juba should order it.”

But Juba is not giving orders. My husband is like a shade in the house. I sense his presence, but he is never there when I look for him. He doesn’t leave his chambers unless he is sure not to see me. So I make excuses. “He is occupied with other matters.”

“What other matters? He must have told you that my father has commanded him to return to Mauretania . . .”

My husband has not told me, but I am not surprised. “So we are banished?” I ask, seeing a glint of metal and stooping to find only the remains of an ornamented bridle.

Julia’s lips tighten. “Not you, certainly. Only Juba. And not officially. It’s only that my father commands your husband to set sail before the Lemuria.”

This is more bad news, compounded by ominous meaning, since the Lemuria is a springtime festival in remembrance of the dead. “How did you learn this, Julia?”

“I told you before, I have my own partisans. I have spies amongst my father’s secretaries and messengers. For the sake of my sons, I make it my business to know what Caesar does . . . That is how I know that my father’s chief praetorian is badly burned, though I do not know how it happened. I know King Juba has fallen from favor but I don’t know how that came about either. But, as always, you do . . .”

“Juba quarreled with Augustus,” I say, using my fingers to wipe clean the heat-warped metal bit with a sharp edge.

Julia’s gaze is just as sharp. “I suppose we both know that quarrel has been a long time in coming.”

She is never quite what she pretends to be. She is not merely the flighty girl in need of censure and a strong hand. She is not merely a shallow hedonist who basks in the good fortune to have been born the daughter of Caesar. She has always hidden a keen mind and a depth of spirit. She is not blind to her father’s madness. Did she guess that his love for my son was at the expense of her sons?

My hand clenches hard on the warped metal as the horrifying realization washes over me. There is no one who would have more cause than Julia to kill my Ptolemy. The idea leaves me gasping for breath, my heart galloping in my chest. Could it be possible that I see treachery when I look into the eyes of my first, and best, friend? My bloodless lips begin to stutter what I do not even want to contemplate. “Did you—have you some involvement—do you know something about Ptolemy’s death?”

She tilts her head. “Oh, Selene. You can’t think—”

“
Sweet Isis
, swear it was not you!”

If Julia were guilty, I couldn’t bear it. I would rather be dead than live with the knowledge of such betrayal. But I would kill her first. I would kill her where she stands. I would kill them all . . .

I feel the pain in my hands and think it is my goddess again carving into my flesh. When I look down, I see that I
am
bleeding, but only because I have cut myself on the warped metal.

Julia sees it too, and her eyes fill with worry.

“Watch and listen,” she says softly, taking the metal from me and making a swift slash across her palm, opening a wound. At the sight of her red blood mixing with mine on the metal edge, I start to shout my protest, but she hushes me. “Pay attention now. I am showing you that when you are hurt, I am hurt. I am showing you that I could never wound you without wounding myself. Could you ever bring yourself to harm
my
sons?”

I am, in this moment, a danger to all of Rome. There is in me a fiery avenging spirit that desires nothing more than murder. If need be, I would slaughter Livia and her sons. I would slay the emperor and his minions. I would bring to the world not a Golden Age, but a world of carnelian blood that turns the Tiber red. There is something,
someone
, in me that would destroy anything that remains of the emperor’s legacy. Does that include his grandsons?

No. I am not a murderer of children. That is the only virtue I still cling to. I exhale, relieved to speak the truth. “Never, Julia. I would never harm your children.”

She nods. “It is the same for me and you must know that. You are the only person in my entire life who has been true to me. I swear to you by my blood, by Isis, Juno, and every other god and goddess I know. I did not hurt your son. Nor would I stand by and let someone hurt him. You know my heart, Selene. You
know
me.”

She laces her bloody fingers with mine and I wince in pain at her touch. But she’s right. I do know her. I know her heart, for it is constant, no matter what she might say. Julia is no murderer of children. She is no monster. I am the monster. Grief has made me hate the whole world and suspect even those I hold most dear. I begin to tremble. “I’m so sorry. I am going mad. I am going mad!”

Julia pulls me into a forgiving embrace, stroking my back to soothe me. “It only feels that way. Take solace that this is the worst you will ever feel. When my baby died, I told myself that nothing could ever hurt more. That if I could stand this, I could stand anything . . .”