Song Of The Nile Part 25

"I'm touched by your confidence."

The blood of the Ptolemies ran in my veins; Alexander's ambitions were a siren call to me too. Much as I might will it away, the desire to be near the center of the political world was as real for me as the pull of the moon. That was something else to appreciate when in the presence of Augustus. "I shouldn't have doubted you, Caesar. Agrippa may have formulated a genius battle plan, but you . . . While Agrippa is off battling Cantabri hillsmen in Gaul, you're here threading each kingdom into your alliance like so many disparate beads on a single string."

The emperor had been the subject of much praise in his life. But what he had wanted-what my mother deprived him of-was her appreciation. She'd died before he could make her look upon his brilliance and recognize it. Now he wanted that recognition from me. My words changed his posture. He preened at my praise, like Bast sometimes did when I told her she was a good kitty. My genuine appreciation of his talents also aroused him. Instantly. Powerfully. He took no pains to hide it, his face flushed, a rising bulge between his legs. "Selene, the Indians bring me creatures large and small for my amus.e.m.e.nt. What will you offer me? Surely I've earned some reward beyond a kiss." I'd known from the start that he wouldn't be forever content to plunder my mouth with lips and tongue, so I braced myself for his approach as he rose to his feet. "I must leave soon for Parthia, but I will make you Queen of Egypt once the Parthian matter is decided. Trust in Caesar. Do not refuse me."

"I only refuse to be bedded as a prost.i.tute," I said as he circled me, his breath lifting the downy hairs at the back of my neck. "My mother did what she liked with shameless disregard for the judgment of good Romans. I'll never allow myself to be dishonored, even by you, because it would taint your honor and that of your son."

His hands went to my hair, roughly. "No more games. Tell me what you want."

"I want to give you a son. A legitimate son and heir. Make it possible for me to give myself over to Caesar's hands, body and soul."

That stopped him. "You wish-you wish to be my wife?" The idea of marrying the emperor was revolting in every possible way, but he wanted to possess me. He'd always wanted that. Let him believe that I wanted it just as much. He stammered with astonishment. "I'm married to Livia."

"I know it all too well. And I wonder if it was this way with your father, Julius Caesar, whining about Calpurnia. Do you think he skulked about in the middle of the night, pretending he didn't summon my mother to his bed? He took her to bed and to wed, his Roman wife be d.a.m.ned."

"I'm not-"

"Caesar?" The word echoed through the room, and the oil lamps flickered, as if we'd summoned his spirit. The emperor now stood taller, strength regained. He was Caesar; he'd never admit otherwise.

"I'll consider it," he said, and I was stunned into silence. I'd just asked him to make me Empress of the Empire. He should have slapped me for the suggestion. He should have cursed me or banished me to my rooms the way he had the day I demanded he send Livia away. "I'll consider it, and you'll allow me liberties this night," he said, his lips capturing mine. The acrid tang of his kiss burned like poison. It made me want to spit, but I commanded my lips to receive it as honey.

Every princeling in Asia Minor would have eagerly lain beneath the emperor, so why should I flinch from it? But Augustus took pleasure in the despoilment of virtue. Not the lack of it. So I wouldn't allow him to ravish me. I broke away from his kiss and said, "We won't make a child this night." He must have heard me, but his mouth fastened on the hollow at my throat. Then he yanked the front of my gown open, mauling me with both hands. To my surprise and relief, this was less intimate than kissing. Easier to pretend that I wasn't inside my own body and that my ba was floating somewhere near, somewhere apart. "Gentle," I scolded as his fingernails raked at me. "I'm not some Gallic girl you captured in a field."

"You're as tall as one," he said, and I knew that displeased him, but I could feel his arousal pressed against me. "You're my Cleopatra. More like her every day. I didn't think it would be better with you willing, but perhaps it will be."

With that, he lowered his head to capture one of my pink nipples between his lips. I hadn't expected this because suckling was the kind of hedonistic, pleasure-giving, pleasure-taking indulgence that he viewed as oriental deviance. Yet he gloried in it. I arched my back, pus.h.i.+ng upon his shoulders to encourage him. In so doing, I forced him down to one knee. A wors.h.i.+pful pose.

A thrill went through me. He was kneeling before me. I'd brought the ruler of Rome to his knees, and I wanted to make a fistful of his hair and revel in my triumph. I wanted to force his head back and make him beg, as he'd made me beg. I wanted to strike him across the face as I'd done when he raped me, but it had excited him then. Now, it might break the spell, and I was almost as bound by it as he. It was the feel of his hand moving up my leg that brought me back to my senses. "I've allowed you liberties, Caesar, but I warned that we'd make no child."

He didn't hide his annoyance but pushed no further. "As you wish, Selene, but this will be the last time you refuse me. When I return victorious from Parthia, you'll be the one to kneel."

THINGS happened swiftly after that as the grand machinery of the empire rolled into place. Preparations for the emperor's departure were made with military precision. He readied for a campaign. He wouldn't be delayed even by the news that the Romans had again refused to elect a new consul, hoping Augustus would relent and take up the office again. The Romans had clearly not realized what the rest of the world already knew-if Augustus succeeded in Parthia, the highest office in Rome would be too small for him.

And I-what part would I play in making him a giant? Since the night he told me that he might call me to his side on the battlefield to use my sorcery for war, I'd dreamed of battle and blood. Horrible dreams. My mother had been a warrior, but she'd given that strength to Helios, not to me. Like the emperor, my weapons were treachery and guile, and I doubted that either of us would fare well in open warfare. Still, the emperor pressed on with his plans.

In the absence of an elected consul, a man named Rufus had claimed the office for himself and created some sort of minor rebellion in Rome that was swiftly put down. Along with this news came a cadre of men accompanying a boy. "Who is he?" I asked as we loitered on the balcony.

"A Parthian prisoner," Lady Lasthenia said. "Tragic, really."

"A pretty boy, though. He'd fetch a fortune in certain Greek quarters," Lady Hybrida said.

I glanced down again at the boy with his dark ringlets, all gleaming with oil. He wore gold bands about his neck and an expression upon his face that I recognized, for I too had once been a chained captive. "How dear is he to the Parthians?"

"He's the son of the Parthian king," Lady Lasthenia replied. "He was kidnapped."

I closed my eyes. Surely there is something the Parths want that you can offer in exchange for Roman battle standards, I had said. Now I must earnestly hope that the King of Parthia would bargain for the life of his son. "A package, Your Majesty," someone said, and I opened my eyes to see it was Captain Kabyle, who was so restless with his s.h.i.+p always at anchor that he'd taken it upon himself to bring the first news from the docks every day. Or perhaps it was only his excuse to see Tala.

It was winter; I hadn't expected letters until spring, but Chryssa must have believed it urgent, for she'd sent me a letter along with a tiny pouch. I opened the letter first.

Beloved Queen, I write to inform you that as the Proconsul of Africa Nova, Lucius Cornelius Balbus has begun a campaign against the Garamantes on the eastern frontier of your kingdom. King Juba has not committed Mauretanian soldiers to the cause, but neither will he hear the appeals of the Berber tribesmen who want the king to negotiate a truce. In truth, the king will hear nothing at all on any subject but his horses. He's out riding all morning, at the stables all afternoon, and in the evenings he shuts himself up in his study. Only one command the king has given-to strike a coin. I thought you might like to see it.

It had all unfolded just as Maysar predicted, only made worse by the fact that my husband had somehow transformed from a competent monarch into a brooding malcontent. I opened the little pouch and reached in for the coin, with its new portraiture of Juba. But when I turned the little gold disk over, I startled to see my own face. It was an engraved image of me in profile, a diadem in my hair, my cloak fastened over one shoulder. I traced the lettering. Juba's side was engraved in Latin. Mine was in Greek. Moved beyond words, my throat tightened. I, Cleopatra Selene of House Ptolemy, was no petty plaything for an unimportant princeling. Here was proof. I was queen. Queen of Mauretania. Writ there on enduring metal for all the world to see. It wasn't the best likeness of me, my nose too long, my chin too short, but I imagined that all that I'd suffered, all that I'd survived, was somehow captured in my expression.

"Is it bad news?" Circe asked.

I clutched the coin, but only said, "There's war on the boundary of Mauretania. We must return."

Tala, making eyes like a moon calf at the s.h.i.+p's captain, seemed pleased by this statement, but my Alexandrians were stricken. Lady Lasthenia actually grasped the hem of my shawl. "Your Majesty, Mauretania is behind you. Alexandria is before you. Egypt is in your grasp."

She couldn't know how truly she spoke. Euphronius would have told me to forget Mauretania if he were here, but he was not. He was safely ensconced in my palace by the sea. My palace, which I had helped design in every particular and which might almost be finished now. And this coin, this coin!

Below, the emperor was finis.h.i.+ng his business and preparing to depart. Smartly dressed in his military garb-a blue tunic layered over a red one, all worn beneath a colorfully enameled breastplate-he removed his oak-leaf crown and made to leave.

I swept down the stairs and stopped him before his procession reached the gates. In a rush, I said, "Balbus is making war on the Garamantes in Africa Nova."

Augustus nodded. "They are just tribesmen, no? In his dispatches to me, Balbus claims he can defeat them handily."

"Send me back to Mauretania," I said in some fit of madness. "To help end the conflict. Surely you don't wish to leave such instability in the empire while you fight the Parthians."

Augustus tilted his head as he regarded me. "Mauretania is a half world away. Let Balbus handle matters. I need you here and you know why. There's a chance I must send for you." As his sorceress. His secret war weapon. Here waiting in the East where stormy seas couldn't prevent my journey to the battlefield. It'd been foolish to ask, but if I hadn't tried, how could I call myself queen?

When I bowed my head, Augustus said, "You will stay here. Or do I need to leave soldiers behind to guard you?"

"I'll stay," I promised. "Memnon and my Macedonians will be sufficient protection."

"Good. I'll either call for you to serve on the battlefield or return to you victorious, Queen Cleopatra Selene. Either way, there shall then be a reckoning between us."

With that and a red swirl of his cape, he took his leave of me.

Thirty-four.

ISLE OF SAMOS, GREECE.

SPRING 19 B. C .

AT the edge of the sand, I watched the emperor's s.h.i.+p go. I'd come to this island for Egypt-I might well come away with the world. I might have everything. My daughter, a queen of Egypt. My son, the Emperor of Rome. That had been my mother's dream when she came to this island. She'd given me her ba and so now it must be my dream too. It wasn't my only dream, though.

There were darker ones that called to me like a siren from the sea. I'd made myself endure the emperor's groping. Reveled even, in the way I forced him to his knees. I'd made him desperate to have me. So desperate that he might well make me his wife. It would be a stunning triumph, one that repaid Livia for her crimes against me and mine. So why did I wish to throw myself beneath the waves?

Mine was a dark, soul-spearing despair, like a bony hand closing upon my throat. Did I need to breathe? My expressions were carefully composed works of art. My blood now stilled and slowed at my command. For my survival and my ambitions, I'd mastered myself. When Augustus returned to me, he would find a body flushed with arousal for him. A body that molded itself to his comfort, just like his gilded chair.

At this thought, my chest rose, fell, then did not rise again. How heavy my limbs felt without breath. How long was it before sound rushed in upon me with a strange quality and numbness crept into my extremities? I stood there, swaying, my white gown flapping in the wind, until I became aware of something soft against my thigh. I looked down to see Isidora clutching at my leg, her warm cheek pressed against me . . . In her strange blue eyes, all possibilities unfolded and I sputtered for air.

MY father was a man who allowed the darkness to crowd him in. One extreme or the other-wild parties or hermetic seclusion, raucous laughter or bitter recriminations. My mother, by contrast, kept the darkness at bay by never allowing herself to be idle. In this, I followed her example. When I wasn't writing correspondence, I enrolled in a series of lectures at the Pythagorean School. I purchased art from traveling merchants and entertained aboard my s.h.i.+p. I even prepared for my reign as Egypt's queen. When my mother was defeated, the emperor had issued a coin depicting the crocodile of Egypt in chains. My first coin as Queen of Egypt would show an unchained crocodile, a signal to the world that I was free. That Egypt was free. This and other plans I made as winter became spring and the whole world awaited news from Parthia.

"How much longer do you think we must wait?" Tala asked, feeding seeds to my little caged birds. "The sea is open once again, and our good captain grows restless."

"Our captain, is he?" I asked with an arched brow.

"He's loyal to my queen," she said, then grinned a little. "But she's not the only moon in his sky."

"Will you marry?" I wondered aloud.

Tala sobered, shaking her head. "To be a sailor's wife is a misery. You never know where he is, when he'll return, or what battles he must fight on the sea. To be tied to such a man is to have a phantom husband, only real for those few nights he returns."

"Aren't those few nights better than none at all?"

Tala shrugged. "I loved a husband and lost him. I grieved him and wove in his honor. I have my son now, my Ziri, and no other man can have my whole heart."

Long after Tala drifted away, I watched the songbirds in their cage, thinking of what she'd said. I too loved a husband and lost him, though we never spoke vows. I'd loved Helios and I'd loved Egypt, and no other man and no other land could have my whole heart. Wasn't it better to forget about Mauretania and its rains, to forget about Juba and the coin he'd made with my face on it?

I must forget.

Visitors crowded the Isle of Samos to gloat in the aftermath of the emperor's defeat or to celebrate his victory, whichever might come. Thankfully, most of the guests called upon Maecenas and Terentilla at their exquisitely luxurious villa. There was one visitor I was happy to see at my gate, however. "Virgil!" I cried, eschewing all formality when the poet presented himself. "How unlike you to travel so far."

"The emperor commanded me to be here when he returns," he said. Three years of grief had robbed him of his vigor so that his smile was barely visible beneath heavily lidded eyes. "I accused Crinagoras of flattery when I read his verse about you, but to see you now, Cleopatra Selene . . . you've become all your mother could've wished."

I wanted very badly to believe that. "That's kind of you to say and I'm so pleased to see you. You must tell me of Lady Julia. How fares her son?"

"Little Gaius is sickly and small, but he still lives."

Be glad or d.a.m.n your soul, I told myself. "There must be something I can do for Julia, some gift I can send her."

"I doubt she'd receive it," Virgil said. "You should know that she's been forbidden to write to you. Agrippa believes that you've been a corrupting influence. He packed her off to Gaul to join him and his legions, and allows nothing to pa.s.s into her hands that hasn't been seen by him first."

Oh, Agrippa could be so arbitrary and unreasonable! My heart ached for my friend. Why hadn't I pushed the emperor to kill the man when I had the chance? That Agrippa wasn't truly a bad man, but a misguided one, should have no place in my decisions; sentimentality didn't suit rulers. Such concerns were not for poets, however, so I said only, "How fares this grand Aeneid, which will declare Augustus our savior, our messiah, the bringer of the Golden Age?"

He knew how I felt about his work. "Oh, Gracious Majesty, please don't take me to task again . . ."

The days when I'd been young and idealistic enough to protest the emperor's propaganda seemed long past. Virgil would write the story and now it seemed that I would do everything in my power to make it true. "I only ask that you not use your work to vilify African queens."

"Ah, you are no Dido of Carthage." Virgil laughed. "You're beloved in Rome, in spite of your sorcery. They call you a G.o.ddess of grain, a maiden and mother. You're no temptress to lure good men from their duty and you have no fear of comparison in my work."

Even Virgil didn't know me. He knew only the masks that I wore. "Is the poem finished?"

"No, which vexes the emperor. He's given me a deadline and I fear that meeting it may kill me." Now he leaned forward to whisper. "But you needn't worry. I've instructed my slaves to burn the rotted thing when I perish."

"Burn the Aeneid?" I sputtered.

"It isn't very good," Virgil said, though I thought he was wrong. "And I don't expect to live long."

I frowned, examining his pallor, looking for telltale signs of fever. "Are you unwell?"

His smile was tight. "Not with anything but a longing to be with a young man who is lost to me."

I should have chided him for this morbidity, but it resonated too closely with my own.

CIRCE licked her lower lip as she gazed through the gauzy curtains of our enormous litter. "G.o.ds be good, Hercules has returned to walk amongst the mortals. That man must be a rower to have arms like that."

She always noticed handsome men so I paid no attention until Lady Lasthenia also leaned out to look. "With those scars? I think he must be a gladiator! A most dangerous man."

Hybrida sighed. "I'd happily risk that danger to press up against him."

Now I too lifted myself off the cus.h.i.+ons, straining to see. In truth, I never knew if the man my eyes fastened upon was the same one my ladies had singled out for admiration. The man that captured my attention hefted a wooden chest onto his shoulders, the glistening muscles of his back rippling with the effort. He was broad as a bull, and as he turned, I glimpsed a flash of golden hair. Our eyes met and the whole world went still.

Helios. I wanted to call out his name, but the breath went out of me. If I hadn't known him soul to soul, I might never have recognized him, for there were no traces left of the fair-skinned prince with whom I'd shared a childhood. Beneath that tawny mane of hair, the boyish softness in his face had burned away. He was all man now, sweating in the sun like a dock laborer and not a prince of Egypt.

"Stop the litter!" My shout caught the bearers midstride so there was a great deal of confusion as they attempted to bring the ma.s.sive carrier to a halt. I didn't wait, but leapt out. The moment my sandals struck the ground Memnon announced, "All hail, Queen Cleopatra Selene of Mauretania!" Beggars surged forth with outstretched hands and merchants crowded round with baskets of trinkets, amphorae of wine, and carts filled with fleece; I couldn't get past. Had there ever been a moment I wished more to be unimportant and obscure?

My eyes searched the crowd, desperate for another glimpse of my twin, but he'd disappeared, as if he'd never been there at all. I trembled all over and my entourage stared at me as if I'd gone mad. Perhaps I had. Lady Lasthenia tried to draw me back inside the litter. "Majesty, the heat-"

"That man. I must find that man," I sputtered. Only after Memnon promised to make inquiries did I curse myself for a reckless fool. If Helios was here on the Isle of Samos-and how could he be?-calling attention to him put him in jeopardy. And yet, and yet . . . the need to find him was sharp and urgent. Unrelenting.

We returned to the emperor's villa and I paced my rooms, waiting . It can't have been more than a few hours before Memnon returned, but it seemed as if I aged years in that time. "Majesty, there is no man on the island that meets the description you gave," he said, concern etched onto his scarred face. "Your ladies say he had dark hair, but you say he was golden. The only fair-haired man the merchants can think of is a mercenary man, a s.h.i.+p's captain."

"What s.h.i.+p?" I whispered, knowing that I sounded half deranged. "Where is the s.h.i.+p? Where is it now?"

"Anch.o.r.ed offsh.o.r.e . . . Is this man some kind of danger to you?"

"No," I said, my throat closing, and because I was too shaken to concoct a better lie, I said, "I thought he may have been from Mauretania, come with news."

Memnon didn't question me further; he had a tendency to accept everything I said without reservation, a quality in a guard both valuable and alarming. I dismissed him and the rest of my servants too. I didn't want anyone to see me like this.

Helios. The presence of him like a whisper, luring me to stumble across him, as if I might open the patio doors to the terrace and find him sitting there. On my secluded beach, I held my hand over my brow, squinting against the sun as I considered each of the boats at anchor, wondering which one might be his and whether or not he was staring back. Caught in some kind of madness now, walking back and forth in the surf, letting it wet the hem of my gown, my mind raced through possibilities. Had he come to find me? Ought I be seen in public where he might approach me? I'd decided upon that course, climbed the stairs up from the beach, when I heard a song, a prayer.

I call you to me.

I call you by the breath of your body.