Song of the Nile (41 page)

To my horror, the emperor laughed. “Maybe a dunk will help you cool off !”

Now was not the time to taunt the man. I rushed to say, “I’m sorry, Agrippa. You startled me. You shouldn’t have put your hands on me.”

“Why not?” Heaving himself up, Agrippa shook like a wet dog and water sprayed me in the face. “You’ve come to play the whore, haven’t you?”

I let the insult slide off of me. If the price for Egypt was that I must give the emperor a son, I’d do it, though all the world might think me a whore. It’s what Egypt would expect from me. But whenever I allowed myself to imagine it, I wanted to throw myself into the sea and drown.

Agrippa turned to leave, puddles on the floor in his wake, and the emperor cried after him, “Where are you going?”

Agrippa turned back only once. “Back to Rome to look after her interests. One of us should.”

I was aghast—stunned in the aftermath of Agrippa’s fading footfalls. Like my father, Agrippa was popular with the legions. He was a hard soldier and a brilliant tactician. He was the emperor’s
might
. “Are you just going to let him leave? Send someone after him!”

The emperor returned to scratching notes into his wax tablet. “Tell me, Selene,
who
should I send to fetch Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa back to me like some errant schoolboy?”

“I don’t know, but you need him for your war with Parthia.”

“I don’t need him. I have Tiberius.”

“Tiberius?”
Livia’s drone of a son could be counted upon to perform his duty competently, but he was still a young man with little fighting experience.

“Yes,
Tiberius
. It’s good to have men of your own family at war. Iullus will join us shortly, and I have my legions. Agrippa isn’t the only general in the Roman military, you know.”

“No, but he’s the
best
,” I shot back.

At last, he looked up at me. “I hadn’t realized you were such an admirer. Agrippa doesn’t seem to share the sentiment when it comes to you. It’ll be far more comfortable for us to conduct our business here without him.”

“And what exactly is our business here?”

“Oh, my Cleopatra. That’s entirely up to you.”

Twenty-nine

HONEST negotiation was never part of the emperor’s game. My mother and Julius Caesar hadn’t haggled. She’d rolled herself into his bed. Augustus wanted that same kind of passion and daring from me. I’d have to find a way to give it to him. I must arouse the emperor’s interest, awaken memories of my body. And I must do all this without ever giving gossip-mongers cause to condemn me as an Eastern seductress. It was a very fine line. One that I was keenly aware of when my servants dressed me for the evening’s entertainment. We weren’t in Rome, where a married woman might cause a scandal if she failed to wear a
stola
over her gown. Nor were we in Athens, where women were sometimes sequestered away. We were, however, in the heart of Hellenistic society; some latitude was permitted.

“Not the
chiton
,” Lady Circe advised. “Let her wear the Egyptian
kalasiris
so that she might reveal as much, or as little, as she desires.”

Chryssa huffed with indignation. However, Lady Circe’s recommendation had much merit. This particular
kalasiris
, spun of brilliant white gossamer threads, covered each breast but its wide straps left my arms and breastbone bare. For the sake of modesty, I normally topped the garment with a pearl-studded pectoral necklace and wrapped my arms in a shawl. Tonight I would be less modest. Donning my gown like a suit of armor, I slipped the sheath over my body, knowing how it accentuated the curve of my hips. With eerily steady hands, I fastened earrings, which glittered above my smooth, bare shoulders. Chryssa draped a strand of pearls over me as I adjusted the straps over my chest, knowing that glimpses of my breasts might be seen if I let my shawl slip away. Then, once my hair was brushed to a sheen so that it resembled mahogany silk, Chryssa divided it into ringlets at the back of my neck and drew patterns around my eyes with the scrape of kohl and the powder of malachite in the ancient Egyptian fashion; I intended to put on a performance that would let everyone in attendance know that I’d come to this island for my mother’s kingdom.

At the banquet that night, Maecenas was so startled by my dramatic appearance that he rose to his feet. “Ah, Queen Cleopatra Selene of Egypt!” A nervous titter alerted him to his mistake. “I meant to say
Mauretania
, please forgive me.”

“All is forgiven,” I said, as if forgiveness was mine to give. “After all, I’m Mauretanian by way of Egypt!”

The guests laughed, but the emperor scowled. “Perhaps your latest
costume
confused him.”

“Why, I’m dressed to honor the sea,” I said, touching my pearls. “Mauretania is rich with oysters, and I’d be a poor queen not to boast of that. In fact, I’ve a gift for each of your guests.”

The room was filled with Easterners, all of whom happily accepted my gifts of pearled jewelry and pearled knives. I was to share my couch with Archelaus of Cappadocia and his daughter, Princess Glaphyra, who fastened a string of Mauretanian pearls around her neck and exclaimed, “Why, they’re beautiful. I feared you’d give us
garum
sauce.”

We all laughed. Especially Terentilla, whose hyena cackle hurt my ears. In full view of Maecenas, she draped herself over the emperor’s knees. I wondered that he allowed his mistress such latitude in public, but with Livia looking on so serenely, who could object?

“Princess Glaphyra, we have more than fish in Mauretania,” I said, describing the olive orchards, the vineyards, and the exotic animals.

“It does sound wonderful,” the young princess said, her eyes wide with admiration. “If I were you, I’d keep it quiet, though, lest one of your rivals invade your kingdom and steal it all.”

I admired her brazen honesty, because she reminded me of Julia. Sometime after the traditional first course of boiled eggs was served, her father, King Archelaus, leaned toward me, his voice not quite a whisper. “There’s something I must say to you, Cleopatra Selene. Your father made me King of Cappadocia. No doubt, you’ve been told that I abandoned him and took up Octavian’s cause. Realize that I did so only
after
Actium. Only when all was lost and to do otherwise would bring ruin to my kingdom. I know you must count as betrayers those who turned against your parents, but I hope you won’t count me amongst them. I was your father’s true friend.”

Archelaus had come to the Isle of Samos to receive official forgiveness for having sided with my father in the first place; he had nothing to gain by saying this to me. In fact, he gambled. He couldn’t know that I wasn’t every bit as loyal to the emperor as I claimed to be, unless, of course, this was a test. I couldn’t risk a sincere answer. “King Archelaus, if I held Actium against the survivors, I’d have scarcely a friend left in the world.”

The king’s expression hardened, as if he sensed my political artifice. “I support your claim to Egypt, but not every monarch does. You have enemies, and none more implacable than King Herod of Judea.”

That hateful man again. “Is Herod here, on the island?”

The King of Cappadocia shook his head. “No. He sent an ambassador, though. Nicholas of Damascus.”

At this, I brightened. “I remember Nicholas. He was one of my tutors in Alexandria.”

“Don’t trust him,” Archelaus said. “He’s Herod’s creature now and will undermine you. Herod would be here to do it himself except that he doesn’t like to compete for the emperor’s attention.”

Neither did I, but I didn’t have to glance over my shoulder to know that the emperor’s eyes were on me, lustful and contemptuous in equal parts. I shifted, letting my shawl slip over one shoulder so that only he might see bare flesh. But I never looked his way. Instead, I made an excuse and left my dining couch.

“Well done,” Lady Circe whispered in my ear. “You have a stillness about you that conveys purity. Even better, because your face is aristocratic rather than beautiful, you bewitch without seeming as if it were your intent. The emperor can’t take his eyes off you.”

“I begin to regret asking you along, Lady Circe.”

If she was wounded by my reproach, her soft smile didn’t reveal it. In a flutter of silk, I turned from her and mingled with royalty, including Iamblichus of Emesa, who’d just been restored to his throne. “Queen Cleopatra Selene,” he said with a regal dip of his head. “Will you walk with me?” The men were drowsy in their cups and the cooler air of the terrace beckoned, so I followed the swarthy king, my own guards and attendants at a discreet distance. As I made my departure, the emperor’s stare was sharp enough to cut me, but I pretended not to notice.

“I think you met my uncle, Alexander,” Iamblichus was saying, and my attention fell away from all notion of seducing the emperor to remembering the day he dragged me through Rome in chains.

The memory was still vivid. The flower petals, the trumpets, the roar of the crowd. The baying and the crimson pool of blood at my feet. I had to clear my throat to find my voice. “He—the Prince of Emesa was very kind to me . . .” My peers shouldn’t remember me as a humiliated prisoner, so I said nothing more of how Alexander of Emesa marched beside me in the emperor’s Triumph. And died for it.

“My father sided with Augustus,” the king said. “My uncle Alexander sided with your father. They each had their reasons.” It wasn’t unlike the kings of Mauretania, Bocchus and Bogud, brothers who’d chosen opposite sides to preserve their dynasty. Exactly the reason that Juba maintained only one man must rule the empire. “Queen Selene, I was hoping you could tell me of my uncle’s remains. Emesa is a holy city and my people would like to see Prince Alexander of Emesa honorably buried.”

Even now, I could feel the prince’s lifeblood as it poured over my sandals.
We fought for the Golden Age, but they fought for an Age of Gold
, he’d said. It all seemed so ludicrous now. “His body wasn’t kept,” I said, as gently as I could.

Emesa might not practice embalming, but it was the duty of a monarch to bury his predecessors with due honor, and I could see that this weighed upon King Iamblichus. I wished I could say something to comfort him, but he quickly took his leave.

BEFORE the banquet ended, I went to the emperor’s rooms, where Strabo stood with spear and crested helmet. Having once seen me bloodied with the ecstasy of Isis, the emperor’s praetorian avoided my gaze. He admitted me to the emperor’s rooms and I was certain that he’ d warned Augustus of my presence, but when the emperor arrived to find me sitting at his desk, his steps stuttered to a halt, as if he’d come upon a hooded cobra. “
What
are you doing here?”

Oh, dear Isis, was I ready to play this game? The bedroom was the battlefield of other women. Women like my mother or Circe or Terentilla. Not women like me. My confidence fled from me like wounded Aphrodite at Troy, but I’d left myself no path for retreat. I glanced up from beneath long lashes. “I’m here to answer your summons, Caesar.”

“I didn’t summon you to my private rooms,” he said, snatching maps and battle plans off the table. Did he suspect me of espionage ? He leveled me with a withering gaze. “I thought surely, by this hour, you’d be sharing a bed with Archelaus or Iamblichus or any of the other petty kings you shamelessly enticed this evening.”

Sensing that my hands trembled, I tucked them beneath my gown. “I’d never humble myself to bed with men such as those. And if those men are enticed, it’s no fault of mine. I’m a vessel of Isis. All men desire
her
and if they see traces of the goddess in me, they must be forgiven their lust.”

“Must they?” As if he’d been given permission, Augustus stared openly, his eyes drifting to my breasts, down the flat of my belly, and to the curve of my hip as if he were comparing my womanly figure to the body of the girl he’d taken all those years ago. I half worried that he might not feel desire if I didn’t look barely old enough for marriage, but when his lips parted for a deep intake of breath, I knew better. Though he rarely drank after dinner, he turned to fill a silver cup. “You’ve driven me to wine, Selene. You’ve driven me to excess. To
drunkenness
, I may even predict.” He drained the entire cup and slammed it down on the table with his discarded maps and papers. Thus fortified, he lurched forward as if to ravish me.

I raised my hand.

He knew the defensive gesture that had flung Agrippa into a pool and stopped in his tracks. “Now you toy with me, Selene.”

“Because you love games, Caesar.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t enjoy being
taunted
. It seems that I cannot lay a hand upon you without your consent. But you’ve no right to secrete yourself in my bedchambers, then expect me to resist you from a sense of virtue.”

“True,” I confessed. “Who knows better than I that you only
pretend
to be a virtuous man.”

“Oh, you’re a sharp-tongued whore!” he spat. “Your costumes, the way you behaved tonight—you belong in a brothel.”

I pressed against the chair to brace myself. “A queen cannot dress as a Roman matron, but there’s nothing scandalous about my clothing.”

“You’re right. It isn’t the way you dress. It isn’t the things you say. Your manners are perfect. Your words, the plain meaning of them can always be denied.” He lectured me as if we were back on the Palatine Hill and I could see it aroused him. “You
play
the irreproachable woman, but everything about you is improper.”

I arched a brow. “Did you summon me all the way from Mauretania to discuss propriety?”

“I didn’t summon you here to be my mistress!”

“Of course not. You already have Terentilla.”

He seethed, teeth snapping together. “You
defied
me, Selene. You left Rome. You ran from me.”

“I couldn’t have defied you. You never forbade me to go.”

He crossed his arms over himself, as if he felt a sudden draft. “I’ve spent the last year plotting all the ways I could make you
suffer
, but I only wanted to see you again. Agrippa is right. You’ve ensorcelled me.”