Song of the Nile (38 page)

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 goddess 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 whore. 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 prostituting 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 whore 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 passionate 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 ambassadors 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.”

IN Juba’s study I read the missive twice; then, as I dizzied, the lettering ran together like spilled ink. It wasn’t the emperor’s handwriting. Nor was it an expression of imperial fury. It was a formal and official document penned by Maecenas that summoned me to Greece. A broken water clock perched precariously at the edge of Juba’s writing table and he tinkered with its decorated parts, intent upon repairing it. “Why do you seem so stunned, Selene?”

Because the reckoning is finally at hand
, I thought. More than a year had passed since I’d fled Rome. Plenty of time for the emperor’s cool anger to rise to a roiling boil. I’d used the time to make myself a capable queen; the reports he’d receive from legionaries and plantation owners should convince him I was a useful, if not essential, part of his plans. I’d gambled that his ambition was stronger than his vindictiveness. How anxious I was not to lose that gamble. “Why am
I
stunned, Juba? Why aren’t
you
? What have you heard? What does the emperor intend?”

Juba carefully removed the little chime from the water clock, inspecting it for rust. “I’m not surprised that you’ve been summoned because all the Eastern royalty are being called to Samos. Archelaus of Cappadocia and Iamblichus of Emesa are both seeking to be reaffirmed to their kingdoms. I’m told that Augustus will restore Tarcondimotus to his ancestral lands. He might do the same for Mithridates III of Commagene.” In short, there wasn’t a petty prince in the Mediterranean world who wouldn’t be there, currying the emperor’s favor in the hopes of retaining or regaining his patrimony. I was only different because I was a woman and because I was Cleopatra’s daughter. Augustus had gone to the East to play kingmaker, and he was summoning
me.

Juba leaned back, jingling the bell in his hand, avoiding my eyes, but his concentration on the water clock couldn’t disguise the bitterness in his voice. “If I had to guess, Selene, I would say that at long last the emperor plans to give you your heart’s desire.”

At the word
desire
, an arrow of shame pinned me to my seat as I remembered my lust-soaked lips pressed against Juba’s mouth. In Rome, I’d given no consideration to the emperor’s proposal to bear him a son, though it may have granted me everything. Then I’d kissed Juba for no advantage whatsoever. Regrettably, he had plainly read something into that kiss. Taken some sign from it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered with genuine sorrow, for it seemed as if I were destined always to disappoint him.

“Augustus will expect tribute,” Juba said, stoutly. He was right. From the other princes, the emperor would demand monuments and oaths of loyalty. From me, the emperor would demand grain, but I couldn’t lie to myself. Augustus might demand much more.
You want Egypt
, he’d said.
Well, I want you to give me a son.
Inwardly, I flailed like a bird in a net. Could I actually
let
Augustus put his defiling hands on me? Even for the throne of Egypt, could I open my legs for the same man who had forced them apart?

Augustus had wanted me to be his Cleopatra, his lover, the mother of his son. Perhaps that was what he still wanted. Or perhaps his single objective was now to punish me. If that was the case, my only defense would be to enchant him, drawing his fascination tight as a bowstring until he’d risk anything to have me and do anything to please me. Digging my fingernails into my palms as if to raise blood, I reminded myself that I’d endured worse than a rutting man inside me. What right did I have to hold my body somehow sacred while others suffered? Hadn’t Isis herself written that I was more than flesh?

Juba interrupted my thoughts, a look of melancholy settling on his features. “Are you going to go?”

I let the summons fall from my lax grip. “What choice do I have?”