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“But I heard you. I believe we all heard you when I announced my plan. Thais.” She prodded her least courageous adviser. “Did you hear Dryton make a noise, a noise perhaps of disapproval at my words?”

“I—” Her reedy adviser gulped. “I did indeed, my queen.”

“And you, Nereus? Did Thais and I imagine some noxious commentary on the part of our dear Dryton?”

“You imagined nothing, my queen.” The old man’s tone was civil. This response, more than any other, made Berenice realize that she’d gained his favor that day. More often than not, Nereus expressed displeasure when she picked at Dryton’s scabs.

“And so, Dryton, why don’t you tell us what amused you so?” Berenice smiled as sweetly as she could. “I’ve been known to enjoy a good laugh.”

“I merely thought, my queen…five thousand men. It seems so few to buy the throne of Egypt.”

And she did laugh. It was her best weapon. There was nothing like a woman’s laughter to unman the cockiest of men. “Oh, is five thousand troops so few? Should I wed you instead, my master of armies? Should you serve as my king? Tell me: how many soldiers would you add to Egypt’s fleets?”

To her delight, her councilor turned a bright red, a hue that only lowborn Thracians from the craggy north could achieve. Dryton didn’t look so handsome now that he’d been shamed. His family might have served hers for generations, but royalty wasn’t bred by proximity.

“No, my queen. I would never—” Dryton sputtered.

“Of course you wouldn’t. For all your service to the realm, you are a commoner, of no royal blood nor of any other particularity to recommend you except your loyalty. Don’t forget that.”

“No, my queen, I won’t—I won’t forget. I’ll keep that at the very forefront of my mind.”

After Berenice sent away her advisers, the eunuch lagged. At first he collected the scrolls he’d laid across the golden table, furling each one with care. Once he had finished and stacked them with precision in his arms, he stared across the table and out to the sea below. His patience set him apart. When Berenice was a child, Pieton used to sit in silence for whole afternoons, waiting until she stumbled onto the right answer on her own. Once or twice, she’d tried to match his quiet, but she’d never been able to hold her tongue for long. As she watched him now, her anger dissipated. He could be callous, her eunuch, but he didn’t—he couldn’t mean to betray her.

“Am I wrong?” She broke first; she always did. But before whom could she break if not him? “Am I wrong to accept him for so few men?”

“I wouldn’t say you are wrong. This Seleucus may bring you much: arms, an heir, and fresh Ptolemaic blood. There’s no more that you can ask from a husband. And besides: the more men he brings, the heavier his hand in rule, my queen. Isn’t that another of your concerns?”

She nodded; that did worry her. Sometimes she thought he could steal her thoughts. “I want you to handle the particulars here. I don’t trust Nereus.”

“I would mistrust him too.” The eunuch smiled, as she’d imagined he would. After years of practice, she knew how to charm him, how to win him to her way of seeing things. He might be the more patient, but he had his weaknesses and vanities as well. “He’s rather eager to see you wed. And I do recall some rumors from the old regime, rumors about his relations with Selene—”

“I trust you to be the master of all rumors, Pieton,” she told him. “But don’t trouble me with ones from ancient times. Not now, when I must look ahead with clear eyes.”

Days bled readily into weeks, and Seleucus followed on their tide. The maids whispered at his arrival: “He’s handsome—and such a royal bearing. A wonder that he should wed one so ugly as the queen.” Berenice, too, had marked the beauty of this man who haunted her court, peddling his smiles. Despite his attempts to arrange an audience, she refused to speak to him before the wedding. Sentiment would only sully her decision. If she liked him, then she might be accused of wedding him for that reason; if she loathed him, well, there wasn’t much that could be done in that case. The fact that he was a well-formed man, with a cunning face and piercing eyes, was no matter. If she wished, she could have a dozen such men—queens took their liberties as well. She wouldn’t be ruled by false stirrings as her father had been, with his actors, musicians, and concubines. A pretty man’s cock would be much like any other, she imagined.

The morning of the wedding ceremony dawned, and with it fruitless hours of preparations: primps and curls, oils and paints. Two dozen women flooded in and out of the royal apartments. With each new player, Leda would whisper some astonishing detail in a hushed voice. “This woman has dressed the hair of every queen and priestess from Antioch to Rome.” Or “The queen of Nubia refuses to attend a royal function unless that one draws her eyes.” Or “Pompey’s wife will let no other servant clip her toenails.”

Berenice would give a slight nod of encouragement and let these women go about their duties, until the last one—who came to trim her nails and paint her lips—had melted from her chambers. But when Leda gestured to the serpent-headed mirror that hung above her dressing table, Berenice looked away. She’d endure this duty, but she didn’t wish to see herself. She knew she made a poor imitation of an eager bride: eyelids sunk with kohl, lips swollen crimson, cheekbones burnished coral. She was accustomed to the stylized makeup of state, not the lush cosmetics of lust, and her fingers longed to wipe away this altered face. Pieton had insisted on it all: the embroidered chiton, the lapis earrings, the gold armlets. “Half of Alexandria will care only for your costume. Give the ladies what they wish to see.” He was right. Her own delicacies shouldn’t interfere with that.

“I don’t suppose my husband-to-be is undergoing such a dramatic transformation.” Berenice had meant it as a joke, but the words tasted bitter on her tongue. It struck her as more than a bit unfair that she should be the one to be painted, she who brought a throne when the princeling would contribute nothing but a few thousand armed men and a pair of practiced balls. Of that she’d been assured. “He’s sired at least three bastards that we’ve found,” Thais had informed her with delight. Her trembling minister of grain took a strange pleasure in all this chatter of husbands—she couldn’t quite understand it.

“I’m sure he’s just as eager to impress,” Leda prattled on. “Grooms always are.”

Those words surprised Berenice, and she looked at her nurse with fresh eyes, at her worn breasts and belly. The body of a mother and a wife. Berenice had never given much thought to her nurse’s life outside her service. But it might avail her now. Leda, after all, had fed her and bathed her and loved her since she was a girl. Berenice knew that the servant would never breathe a word to anyone about her questions. The woman had been a mother to her, the gentle, nurturing sort. “You’ve been married, haven’t you, Leda?”

“Oh, yes, my queen, four times in all.” The nurse busied herself with final touches: sharpening the lines that blacked her mistress’s eyes, capturing stray hairs with an ivory comb, smoothing the folds of her violet skirts.

“Four husbands. That’s no mean feat.”

“Yes, and ten children among them all, though only six lived long enough to name.”

Berenice wondered idly where those half dozen were now, whether they, too, made their way as servants, or if one or two had managed to break from that life, and if Leda ever saw them.

“You must know quite a bit about men,” Berenice pressed. The words sounded foolish to her ears, but it made no difference. She hadn’t much time; it was best to get in her questions while she could. Besides, she’d heard rumors about commoners: that they knew all sorts of bedroom secrets—the type that proper nobles would blush to mention.

“Why, my dear, are you nervous?” Leda’s hand stalled and her face wrinkled with concern.

Berenice laughed. “No, I am not that.”

“Many a bride is. And the gods know my own nerves were trembling before I wed the first time. And you a maiden too.”

“I know well enough how it works.”

As a girl sailing down the Nile with her father, she had seen bulls mount heifers more times than she could count. And peasant women from the Upper Lands to the cold islands beyond Gaul managed the task with stunning frequency; the brats they churned out each season were proof of that. How much skill could be involved? But still, there might be an advantage she could work. Perhaps, where her looks failed, she could beguile Seleucus with sex. Already, she’d noticed the glances he cast at pretty maids; it would be simpler, surely, if he sought his pleasure in her bed. She had enough bastards to contend with. She refused to share her mother’s fate.

Berenice forced herself to continue. “But there must be more to it than rutting cows. Loveliness can’t be the only power a woman has in the bedroom.”

“I daresay it’s not. I’d have myself in a right bit of trouble if it was.” Leda’s words burst forth eagerly—as though she’d long awaited this very moment to offer her queen counsel. “There are…well, my fourth husband strays only on the high feast days, and I’ve seen nearly sixty summers. I’m no blushing flower.”

“And I’ll never be.” Berenice smiled. “Go on. Don’t spare me. I won’t be a maiden for long. What can I do?”

“Well.” Leda’s voice took on a conspiratorial tone. All at once, Berenice saw how Leda must have been as a girl of fifteen, full of life and mischief, before age and disappointment had weighed her down. “You might try mounting him. It’ll surprise him, to be sure, but most men like a change.”

She liked that idea. Mounting sounded more appealing than lying motionless beneath some rutting beast.

“There’s one other thing that’ll please him for a certainty, in particular if he’s having a bit of difficulty,” Leda went on, though Berenice didn’t follow her meaning. The nurse must have caught her puzzled look for she hurried to explain herself. “You know, sometimes, when they’ve had a bit of wine, their parts don’t always work proper. And if that happens”—her voice hushed to a whisper—“take it in your mouth until it hardens. I’ve never had a husband who didn’t like that.”

“In my mouth?” Berenice repeated, stunned. Though she tried, she couldn’t mask her disgust. She should have heeded the nattering of her childhood playmates. Penelope, for instance, was always blushing over some boy or another, and Berenice recalled that Eurodike had been wed in a hurry. Surely they would have given similar advice, but she’d never thought to pay attention to their youthful swoons. At the time, she couldn’t imagine how those girls would ever be of any interest.

“Yes, that’s right,” the nurse whispered back, reddening to her ears. Berenice hid a laugh behind her hand; it was strange to see her old servant blush over bedroom talk.

A trumpet blared to mark the start of the procession. “It’s nearly time, my queen.” Leda patted her hand. “And I know you’ve no nerves, but drink a spot of wine. It’ll calm you, and perhaps you might even have a bit of fun.”

Berenice noticed her nurse’s shaking fingers as she poured from a golden pitcher into a goblet, stray droplets splattering on the table. She’d grown so very old, Berenice realized with a shock; before her eyes, the woman had transformed from ample mother into bent crone. A rush of tenderness came over Berenice, and a mad part of her wished to guide those withered hands.

“Here, my dear.” Leda pushed the wine on her.

Berenice brought the goblet to her lips and drank deeply. The liquid sloshed down her throat so fast she nearly spit it back up. She forced herself to swallow and gave Leda what she hoped was a captivating smile.

“That’s the spirit. Weddings are joyful occasions, after all.” The nurse dabbed a damp cloth to wipe the dregs from Berenice’s lips. “You look lovely, my dear. A true queen.”

“Loveliness is not the business of queens,” her mother would have snapped. Berenice agreed, but she didn’t begrudge her nurse the pleasure of admiring her handiwork.

“I won’t forget your advice.” Berenice smiled as she stepped from the chambers.

Flanked by her honor guard, she crossed through the refurbished colonnades. She marked the glorious decorations: the great hanging carpets and polished silver mirrors, the retouched murals and dazzling mosaics. It was like crossing through a fevered dream, every piece familiar but somehow more vivid than it ever was in life. The repainted nymphs danced in flamboyant reds and greens along the walls, and the lion-headed mosaic had been polished until his mane gleamed gold. The great statue of Isis stared out with new intensity: fresh emeralds had been set in her all-seeing eyes. As the procession wound through the gates, she caught sight of the churning mob—children hoisted on their fathers’ shoulders, sweethearts clutching their beloveds’ hands, crones hunched over canes—and her heart quickened.

The last time she’d performed this pilgrimage, she’d walked to take her crown. Then she’d rejoiced at every face, each one a mark against her father’s ledger. The mob had snaked all the way up Pan’s hill and onto the step of the goat god’s temple—anywhere to steal a glimpse of the new queen. But now Berenice watched her subjects with apprehension. Who would they belong to now: her or the handsome Seleucid?

Too soon she reached the carved pillars of Serapis’s temple, gleaming gold and emerald in the Harvest sun. From the great pediment, the god himself stared down, flanked by his attendant nymphs and bulls. Berenice could never tell whether the deities stared at her in kindness or cruelty. By now, her scented robes were soaked through with nervous sweat. So much for the fresh and eager bride.