Song of the Nile (26 page)

There were so many crimes the emperor had committed that I couldn’t begin to list them all, much less find any forgiveness for him in my heart, so I asked, “Why should you want my forgiveness?”

He captured my gaze, his mouth working slowly. “I wasn’t myself the night I forced you . . .”

He admitted it. Just like that. I hadn’t ever expected to hear such a confession from him. It didn’t change what had transpired between us, but my throat closed and my eyes dropped to the floor as I fought back tears. He’d told me to cry when he rutted above me, but he’d have no more tears from me unless they were artifice. If I must drive nails into my hands to teach myself to hold in my pain, then I’d do it. And if a glimmer of pity for him should rise up inside me at the memory of how Livia had dosed him, I’d shove it back again, knowing that I wasn’t the first girl he forced in his bed.

“You’ve had your revenge now, haven’t you, Selene?” He reached up with shaky fingers to brush my cheek. “You bore me a child, and yet how do I hear about your daughter? Not from you, no. From Juba.” A surge of nausea rose in my throat at the thought that Juba committed such things to paper. Did he have no care for discretion ? If his letters had been read by others, all the Roman world could be whispering that I was the emperor’s lover! “Why do you keep her from me when I’ve always kept my promises to you?” I don’t even think he knew he was lying. “I’ve treated Philadelphus kindly and I made you a queen.”

“You also promised to spare Helios,” I said bitterly. “Egypt too. Now Thebes is gone.”

He groaned, a sound of disgust in his throat. “I punished Cornelius Gallus for that. You should be grateful to me instead of keeping a dying man from his own daughter.”

“Isidora isn’t your daughter,” I hissed, wondering how I hadn’t considered before that he might take her from me. The emperor had taken Julia away from
her
mother the day she was born. Was it possible he’d summoned me to rip my child from my arms? I’d die before I let that happen. Or kill. My eyes drifted to one of the many cushions on his bed. Sick as he was, weak with fever, how hard would it be to smother him?

He didn’t seem to sense his peril. “Stop scheming, Selene. She
is
my daughter. Juba swears he hasn’t touched you and you think too highly of yourself to surrender to an adulterous affair with some low-bred man. Admit it. I’m not long for this world, so you needn’t fear me now.”

I’d fear him until the last breath rattled from his chest. “You
cannot
have Isidora. You cannot even claim her.”

“Of course not.” He coughed again. “It would reflect poorly on my reputation, and as I see the end of my life near, I’m concerned with how I’ll be remembered.”

“Then be remembered for doing the decent thing! Restore Egypt as an independent nation.”

Though he seemed too weak to do it, he managed to pull a hairpin from my coiffure. A dark curl fell over my shoulder. “You’re the same ambitious girl you always were.” I wanted to wrench away from him, but I’d just asked him to free Egypt and
he hadn’t refused
. “You’re fertile, just like your mother. You gave me a child. They tell me you even named a city after me.”

“Iol-Caesaria,” I confirmed, glancing up to meet his eyes.

He chuckled. “Clever girl. You’ve driven Herod mad. He’s promised to name
two
cities after me, and now every petty king in the East thinks to do the same. Ah, think what we could’ve done together,
my Cleopatra
, but now my tomb is nearly finished and I won’t live long.”

“You’ve cheated death before.”

He swallowed, his eyes closing. “I’ve never been so ill before. I haven’t slept well since we parted. Until you give me your forgiveness, I shall not even sleep well in my tomb.”

My forgiveness. Surely it must come with a price. “Then put me on the throne of Egypt and my daughter after me.”

“
My
daughter,” the emperor said. “I got a child on you and I’d like to see her before I die.”

At this very moment, a shadow passed in the doorway and we both looked up to see Agrippa. I choked on air, the emperor stiffened, and Agrippa looked like a gladiator who had just apprehended a fatal wound—as if someone had plunged a dagger into his chest. I knew, without question, that he’d overheard the last few words, and my blood went to water. Agrippa’s gaze slid over me, then back to the emperor, then back to me again. My hair was loose over one shoulder, my hand still in the emperor’s grasp, and I couldn’t seem to pull away. Agrippa cleared his throat. More than once. Then, slowly, he seemed to come into possession of himself. “Piso is here. I thought you’d want to know.”

THE emperor loved theater and he was the world’s greatest actor. I might have known that he wouldn’t permit himself to die without an audience. We all crowded into his sickroom. Livia took a place beside the emperor’s bed, her expression haunted. Julia was there too, clutching Marcellus’s hand, though it broke all rules of propriety for a Roman husband and wife to cleave to one another. Then there was Agrippa, ramrod straight, his eyes cutting me with every glance.

None of us spoke, and in the tension it was difficult not to jump every time the fire sparked in the brazier. “Piso,” the emperor said, breaking the silence. “You’ll find my papers in order on my desk. They detail the finances of Rome and our military situation. I entrust them into your care and commend them to the Senate.” Piso stammered, as if he’d never expected to have any official duties, and the emperor wheezed. “Contrary to the slander hurled against me, I don’t fancy myself King of Rome, nor will I name a successor to the honors I’ve
earned
under Roman law.”

Then Augustus held out his shaking hand where we could all see it and worked at pulling the golden signet ring from his finger. “This is the seal I’ve taken as my own. It stands as testimony to my authority.”

We all stared at the glittering ring in his palm, the one etched with a sphinx, an apt symbol for the man who even now, in his last acts, was a riddle. Lady Octavia nudged her son forward to take the ring, but the emperor motioned to his most trusted soldier. “
Agrippa
. I’m leaving my seal to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. I want everyone here to witness that until I recover, or until the Senate chooses someone to replace me, Agrippa shall have my authority. Even my bitterest enemies must admit that he’s qualified, experienced, and competent. I recommend that when I am dead, Rome choose him to rule in my stead.”

We dared not speak, and yet the room seemed to erupt. There were sighs, sharp intakes of breath, and a hostile sound came from the emperor’s sister. Marcellus shot his mother a warning look. Octavia’s son wasn’t such a crassly ambitious young man that he’d have demanded to know why he’d been passed over, yet the question still floated in the air. Agrippa took the ring, his expression unreadable, well-practiced stoicism.

The emperor glanced to his daughter. “I’m leaving my
personal
property to my son-in-law Marcellus and my daughter Julia. Let there be no more talk about how I mean to make a dynasty.”

Oh, it was a masterful performance! If he died, he didn’t want to be remembered for having tried and
failed
to make himself absolute ruler. Better that he pretend it was never his aim at all. Piso was entirely taken in. He clutched the papers against his chest and breathed with heavy emotion. “They’re
jackals
who say you mean to make yourself King of Rome. They don’t know what a great man you really are, Augustus. You’ve given us back the Republic. You’ve ended the civil wars. That’s what you’ll be remembered for.”

My fingernails dug into my palms as I awaited the next pronouncement. My throat swelled with emotion as I willed him to speak of my fate. But though he’d summoned me from across the sea to attend this grand deathbed drama, he made no reference to me at all. “I’m tired,” the emperor said. “I bid you all farewell.”

The officials hurried for the door and his wife went with them. Livia wasn’t one of the
Julii
and she’d given him no children. He’d made no provision for her or her sons, Tiberius and Drusus. He hadn’t even encouraged that honors be voted for her after his death. In humiliation, she couldn’t retreat swiftly enough. Only the emperor’s sister and I were bold enough to stay.

“I don’t understand,” Octavia said to the emperor. “I thought we agreed that Marcellus—”

“I saved your son’s life just now,” Augustus said. “Do you think I got where I am because Julius Caesar announced I was the successor to his reign as dictator? No! He gave me all his money and I inherited the loyalty of his soldiers. I made
myself
the ruler of Rome, and so shall Marcellus.”

That was all very fine and well for Marcellus, but what of me and my daughter? My mind reeled with a thousand schemes. It wasn’t in me to give up. When Octavia stormed out of the room, I said, “Call them back. Call them back and ask them to witness that you’re naming me Queen of Egypt!”

Augustus sighed. “Selene, didn’t you hear what I just said about Marcellus? If I named you Queen of Egypt now, I might as well order your execution. If I were alive to support your bid, you might reclaim your throne. But without me? Egypt is too wealthy a province to surrender without a fight. If I cede it to you on my deathbed, the Senate would deny it or try to make war on you. You’re not strong enough to hold Egypt. Not by yourself and not with Juba. Especially not when you’ve given me only a girl child.”

Curse him. I wanted to shriek and throw things. With his final breaths, he was content to betray those he loved and those from whom he’d asked forgiveness. When I whirled for the door, he called after me. “Be content! You have Mauretania. I’ve done right by you, and you’ll realize that one day. But if I ever wake up again, I want to see our daughter.”

UPON leaving the emperor’s chambers, I was overtaken on the stairs by the enormous shadow of Agrippa. As he stepped toward me, his eyes burned with dark emotion. “I’ve defended you,” he said, voice low and filled with pain, as if he’d been the victim of treachery. “I sat idly by while Octavia took you to her breast as a daughter. I let you be a sister to my own wife. Even though I knew you for a witch, Marcella and I were
happy
when you became Queen of Mauretania. Now I see how blind I’ve been. You’re a poison, like your mother. No, you’re far worse! At least your mother never made any pretense about being a
virtuous
girl.”

It’d been a long time since anyone had spoken to me this way and I bristled. “Just what have I done to deserve your insults? When I lived in this house, I offered only love and companionship to Octavia and Marcella.”

“You offered a great deal more to the emperor, didn’t you?” Agrippa’s expression was all fury. “How could you have done it to him?” That’s how it was with the men who loved Augustus. First Juba, now Agrippa. Neither of them would see that Augustus was a lecherous tyrant who abused
all
those in his care with neglect, casual cruelty, or betrayal. They refused to see the master they served as he was, so they saw him as a victim.
My
victim. “To take him to your bed,” Agrippa growled low with disgust. “To seduce him while betrothed to Juba . . .”

“I didn’t
seduce
him. Why don’t you go back into his room and ask him? Be a man and not a loyal dog!”

The grizzled soldier’s mouth fell open. “You want me to think that he attacked you?”

Why was it so hard to believe? “That’s just what he did, but you won’t ask him, will you?”

Agrippa looked back up the stairs as if considering it. Then the moment passed. “We all saw you at your wedding, Selene. If he—if he did such a thing—it would only be because you bewitched him. Just like your mother bewitched Caesar and then Antony. It had to have happened more than once for him to get a bastard whelp on you.”

I hadn’t hated Agrippa for a long time, not even though he’d made possible every bad thing that had ever happened to me. This, however, was a step too far. “Never call my daughter that again.” As if seeing a vengeful flash of
heka
in my eyes, Agrippa actually took a step back. Still, I was keenly aware of the emperor’s signet ring on Agrippa’s finger and knew this balance of power wouldn’t last. By morning, Agrippa would be the most powerful man in Rome. Then who would challenge him? Oh, the patricians would back Marcellus against a new man like Agrippa, but I couldn’t know who would win that power struggle or what it would mean for my future. Agrippa wasn’t the kind of man I wanted for an enemy, so I moderated my tone. “Agrippa, I know disillusionment, so I won’t hold your words against you. But whatever you heard, whatever you
think
you know about my daughter, you must never repeat.”

“Repeat it?” He looked at me as if beholding a lunatic. “To my dying breath, I’d deny that I heard Augustus claim your child! Thank Jupiter it’s a girl, or we’d have another Caesarion to deal with all over again. Whatever he promised you about Egypt, I’ll use this signet ring to make sure it doesn’t happen. If you expect him to play Caesar to your Cleopatra, put it out of your mind, because tomorrow he’ll be dead.”

Eighteen

BUT the emperor didn’t die. Not the next day or the day after that. Augustus lingered in some place between life and death, neither fully awake nor fully asleep, gasping so shallowly that it seemed as if all Rome held its breath to listen. Beneath the window to his sickroom, Livia sat in the courtyard, her eyes vacant, like a hunted animal unsure of what move to make next. I felt the same way. With the emperor would perish my hopes of winning back Egypt, unless Rome fell into complete chaos—which even I couldn’t hope for. My mind spun wildly as I tried to fasten upon a plan . . .

I wanted to side with Marcellus, but there wasn’t a ruthless bone in his body. Octavia’s good-natured son couldn’t stand against Agrippa without that signet ring. Even if he did, it would mean another civil war. Perhaps with Rome at war with itself again, the Parthians would seize the opportunity to expand their empire at Egypt’s expense. I couldn’t let that happen.