Song of the Nile (43 page)

Aghast, I nearly shot out of my chair. This was Agrippa’s counteroffer. Augustus could save face by marrying his rebellious general even more closely into his family. By giving Julia to Agrippa, he would be declaring the old soldier his heir. It would seem as if the whole thing—even the divorce—had been the emperor’s own idea. It was brilliant. I would never,
never
underestimate Agrippa again.

“The admiral aims too high!” Tiberius cried.

No higher than you
, I thought. Livia had planted the idea that
Tiberius
was a viable candidate for Julia’s hand. That
he
could inherit the empire. Neither of them had counted upon Agrippa’s ambitions. Nor had I. But perhaps wily Maecenas had seen it coming, because he leaned back, adjusting a gold ring upon his finger, and said, “Augustus, I think you must allow it.”

“Why must I?” the emperor asked. “Agrippa is my creature. I’ve made him everything he is.”

“It’s
because
you’ve made Agrippa so great,” Maecenas said. “You must now either kill him or let him marry your daughter.”

Augustus circled the table, catching us all in the eye of his storm. That’s when he noticed me sitting there. “And you, Selene, what do you advise? You know the women of my family.”

I sickened at the idea that somewhere in Rome, my dearest friend sat unaware that her future was being decided right here in this room. Clever, beautiful, warmhearted Julia. The last time I’d seen her, she was more in love with Iullus than ever before. Agrippa would never stand for it. He would make her life a misery. What was I to say? Was I to encourage the emperor to murder or to war?

You should kill Agrippa.
The words were in my mouth but wouldn’t pass my lips. The admiral stood in my way and I should be glad to be rid of him, but I couldn’t make myself say it. “Shame on Agrippa. Find a way to tell him no. Julia isn’t a war prize to be passed out to your victorious general. She wasn’t born to give you an heir. She’s a grown woman with desires of her own.”

These bold words should never have been spoken in front of these men, but now I couldn’t take them back, and Augustus stared pointedly. “Tell me, Selene, about these desires my daughter has.”

Julia’s secrets weren’t mine to tell, and I shrugged, knowing it would make no difference in the outcome anyway. “She desires to be consulted in matters of her own future.”

The emperor shook his head, then read Agrippa’s letter again. “Apparently, my sister supports the idea. Why would Octavia be well disposed to this match between Agrippa and my daughter if it means that her own daughter must be divorced and discarded?”

To spite Livia
, I thought. Octavia swore that she’d never allow the emperor’s wife to profit from Marcellus’s death. This was one way to keep Livia’s sons from climbing any higher. “Why don’t you ask your daughter what
she
wants?”

Augustus wiped at his face with his hand. “Selene, it doesn’t matter what Julia wants if her happiness leads to war. We must all make sacrifices for the greater good. Don’t you agree?” How could I argue? If I’d made only the choices that would lead to my own personal happiness, I wouldn’t be here at all. “Maecenas is right,” Augustus said, his mind made up. “I’ve let Agrippa rise too high. I must either destroy him or let him marry Julia. Or both.”

Or
both
. I should have thought of that, but the emperor’s mind always worked faster when it came to treachery. A marriage to Julia would advance Agrippa politically, but it would also tie his hands. The admiral couldn’t divorce or offend
Julia
without giving the emperor an excuse to destroy him.

Having secured the emperor’s permission, Agrippa wasted no time. Before winter we learned of two weddings in Rome. In a hastily arranged ceremony, Agrippa married Julia and in the most perverse twist I could imagine, the discarded wife, Marcella, was married off to Julia’s secret lover.

WAITING for the delegation from Meroë, months passed. At the back of the emperor’s magnificent villa on the Isle of Samos, I’d been apportioned my own private beach, accessible only from the terrace outside of my rooms, closed off from outsiders by tall green hedges and a rock wall. It was the perfect place to avoid Livia.

While I stretched out beneath a palm tree, Isidora splashed in the ocean with Tala’s boy. The winter sun on my arms and legs was warm, not hot, and my ladies and I could be at our ease, but I was restless. In Mauretania, there’d be a hundred petitions to read, a thousand decisions to make. It wasn’t in my nature to be at leisure and I worried that precious few messages came to me from Mauretania. As I brooded upon this regrettable fact, Isidora squatted in the surf, using her hair ornament to dig into the wet sand, the Isle of Samos itself a canvas for her imagination. “She’s going to lose that expensive silver circlet,” Chryssa warned. “Surely your mother didn’t allow
you
to run loose like a wildling child!”

I don’t think my mother ever allowed me to be a child at all. Playful by nature, my father had indulged us, but all my mother’s amusements had some political purpose. Everything in her life was calculated to Egypt’s advantage—every burst of laughter and perhaps even every sigh of pleasure. I was becoming just like her, but I didn’t want Isidora to become just like me. “Let her play.”

That evening the delegation from Meroë finally arrived. Wild with anticipation, every sense heightened with hope that Helios might be with the delegation, I berated servants who weren’t swift enough to make ready. On the emperor’s behalf, I went to greet the Meroites, my litter accompanied by torchbearers and a small cavalcade of mounted guards, commanded by Tiberius. So anxious was I to see this Kandake of Meroë that my first steps upon the creaking wooden dock were unsteady, and not even a deep breath of night air could calm me. Pearls and jewels and purple cloak all weighed me down, but the dazzle of my finery was swallowed in the dim light. I’d come all this way for a chance to reunite with my twin and wondered if he’d know me in the dark.

As they disembarked from the ship, I saw that Meroë’s emissaries were few in number. All men with long limbs displaying every manner of decoration in the old Egyptian style. Thick gold bracelets at their wrists. Jeweled trinkets on their strong ankles. Carnelian amulets about their necks. Lines of kohl and blue azurite around their eyes. They looked as if they’d stepped off the wall of an Egyptian tomb, but they weren’t a honey brown like native Egyptians. Their skin was dark. Luxurious. Black as night. No pale Macedonian Greek could have hidden himself amongst them and I didn’t sense Helios near.

Though I should have felt nothing but relief that my twin hadn’t been foolish enough to come to this island with his warrior queen, I despaired. That gaping maw of misery gnashed in the pit of my stomach. I was so stricken that it took me a moment to realize Tiberius had introduced me in surprisingly majestic terms, using the full panoply of my titles. I’d have thought he ridiculed me, but Livia’s eldest son didn’t have
any
sense of humor, not even a cruel one.

The Kandake’s ambassador said, “Greetings, Queen Cleopatra Selene. We come on behalf of Queen Amanirenas, the Kandake of Meroë, Priestess of Isis and Pharaoh of the Kushites.” He’d been chosen as a diplomat, I thought, because he spoke passable Greek.

That wasn’t the language I wanted to use. I addressed him in Egyptian. “And we,” I began, using the royal
we
, “were sent by Augustus to encourage you to make a peace treaty. We can tell you from personal experience that it’s the more customary practice of the Romans to invade places, steal everything, enslave the populace, and expand the boundaries of the empire so that a general can be granted a giant victory parade. Take advantage of this rare opportunity to negotiate, since Romans don’t normally offer terms.”

The ambassador grinned, agile in switching to the Egyptian tongue. “The Romans don’t normally find themselves fought to a standstill either.”

So, they were proud, these Meroites. I had nothing else to say.

In my chambers that night, I let my fingers play over the oil lamp, flirting with the flame. Chryssa watched me. “That seemed a rather feeble effort at diplomacy, Majesty.”

“What do you expect from me? If I mean to help Helios, I doubt very much he wants me to negotiate on behalf of the Romans.”

She glanced at me sharply, alarmed. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “After all these years, you cannot still think he lives.”

I didn’t answer. I
knew
Helios was still alive, but perhaps it was a secret best kept by me alone.

IF the emperor required proof that I was capable of politicking on a world stage, I’d given him no evidence of it. That the delegation from Meroë included neither Helios nor his warrior queen had rocked me; I’d allowed my bitterness to show, and by the next morning I knew I must make up for a poor first impression.

I invited the ambassador to call upon me aboard my ship. Captain Kabyle was charming and gracious to the Meroites, and the Kandake’s ambassador lunched with me on the deck beneath my purple sails. The ship was the only place on the island that belonged to me, where I could be reasonably certain that no spies would report our conversation. “Ambassador, I’d like very much to know about your Kandake.”

The ambassador smiled, brilliant white teeth against his ebony lips. “Our pharaoh is the most beautiful woman yet born. Blessed of the gods. She doesn’t bow to the Romans or to any man. A fierce fighter, radiant of spirit and beloved of our people.”

I put down my spoon, suddenly quite without appetite. Would it have been better to hear that she was ugly and hated? “And the Kandake thinks she can beat the Romans? Drive them from Egypt?”

“I’ve heard tale of you, Queen Selene, so you’ll hear only the truth. The Kandake didn’t fight this war to conquer Egypt. Like you, the Kandake considers herself to be a daughter of Isis.”

Perhaps a truer daughter than I had been. “So, she wants the temples.”

“She makes war to
protect
the temples, but our mother Isis doesn’t like war. As Pharaoh of Meroë, she speaks to the gods. Horus told her to make peace. He also told her that
you
would be here and that you’d do everything in your power to see this war end to our advantage.”

I hoped the sound of waves below disguised the fluttering of my heart. “
Horus
told her?”

“He comes to the Kandake as a young man with golden hair and eyes as green as the Nile. A young warrior who wields a sword with ten times the strength of any other man. A desert soldier who shares the privations of men under his command. He fought beside us in battle and the men all love him. The women too.”

I closed my eyes as if the sun reflecting off the water were too bright, but it was only to hide the searing longing inside . . . “The Romans will want to know where to find him, this Horus the Avenger. Will you tell me where he is?”

“Where Horus is now, I cannot guess.”

“He’s left Meroë?” My voice rose in pitch. “He’s left the Kandake?”

“He’s with us always in spirit, Majesty, but gods go where they’re needed.”

I was crestfallen. For almost four years now, I’d yearned for Helios. Now he was gone again like a shadow. Still, he’d somehow guessed that
I
would be here. He’d promised the Kandake that I’d help her, and I would. I said, “When the negotiations begin, remember that Rome is poised to make war on Parthia. Augustus is capable of fighting more than one war at a time, but the battles aren’t finished in Spain either. Roman generals celebrate as if they’ve returned victorious over the Cantabri tribes, but then have to fight again. The Cantabri don’t stay conquered.”

“None of us do,” the ambassador said softly. “Every great power eventually tumbles down.”

Once, I’d said something similar to Maysar. I had believed it then. Now, I was less certain. “I fear that Rome is like Augustus, always at the edge of death, coming back stronger. You have an ally in me, even if it may not seem that way. The mask I wear for the Romans isn’t a true reflection of my heart.”

I only hoped that I hadn’t worn the mask so long that I forgot my own face.

Thirty-one

PINCHING my cheeks to make them appear pink with offense, I reported to the emperor. “The Meroites are insufferable. They call the Kandake a
pharaoh
, even in my presence!”

“That pricks at your Ptolemaic pride, does it?” the emperor asked, amused. “Does the ambassador know how resentful it makes you?”

“I’m not a fool, Caesar. You asked me to make them amenable to a peace treaty, so I did.”

He stroked at his chin and I could see that he was enjoying this immensely. “Tonight I’ll allow you to be present during the negotiations for peace in Egypt. You may have Livia’s place at the banquet.”

I bristled but not for his wife’s sake. “I don’t wish to give rise to gossip.”

“I assure you, Livia will endure it silently, as she must.”

This would only be to my detriment. Octavia had once played the silently suffering wife with my father. Caesar’s wife Calpurnia had endured with dignity his open association with my mother, engendering a hatred for Cleopatra in the hearts of sympathetic Romans. If I allowed Livia to cast herself in the role of the wronged wife, it would ruin me as it had ruined my mother. “I won’t be paraded about like Terentilla, just another mistress.”

He stared, much unspoken between us. “I assure you that you’ll be shown all due honor.”

“Not when your wife is here. I want her gone. Send Livia away.” The request had seemed natural, inevitable, but his eyes narrowed and my stomach fell away. I’d gone too far. My mother had been young, overawed by Caesar; she made requests of him, not demands. Augustus wanted that same humility from me. I had blundered.

“Go to your rooms, Selene,” he said, his voice icy. “You’re banished to your rooms like the child you still are. I’m no longer certain that you can conduct yourself properly at tonight’s negotiations.”