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“My queen.” Pieton disturbed the peace. “A word in private?”

His scolding tired Berenice. The eunuch was bitter because she’d defied his advice and charmed Seleucus’s men. It was his own fault. He’d thought her incapable of such magic.

“What could be more private than here, before my trusted councilors?” She wouldn’t dismiss her advisers on the eunuch’s whim. She was queen; neither man nor god threatened her rule. She’d dispatched the one creature who’d dared profane her body. Uncoupled from his Seleucid friends, Nereus proved no threat.

“As you wish,” said the eunuch, glowering. “Though I hate to question your judgment, I must ask: is it wise to speak such harsh words to the high priest of Ptah? I know you hold his counsel in low esteem, but the common folk—”

“The common folk are happy that the Nile rises and their babies eat,” Berenice interjected in her most didactic tone. “They don’t care for the worries of their betters. I believe you taught me that.”

“On the greater part, I agree. But my queen, the gods breed madness. The high priest still holds sway over this city. Should he decide to turn the hearts of Memphis against your reign—”

She cut off his mewling words. “Where would he turn their hearts? My father and his sons have fled. The natives haven’t risen against Alexandria in a generation. I’ve heard enough.”

Pieton sucked in his breath through his teeth and looked away. In another life, she would have begged for forgiveness. She didn’t need a eunuch’s approval, not now that whole men shouted for her in the streets and on the battlements. She had finished waiting, wheedling for love and acceptance. The throne was hers and hers alone. Even the soldiers who had scuffled in the alleys cried out her name. The time had come to solidify her power, to retake Cyprus, perhaps even to seize parts of her unlucky husband’s splintered empire. Her army spoiled for war—and so did she. All she needed to do was wait for high harvest to arrive, and then she’d make her move. In the meantime, she’d garner more support—and lure more troops to her cause.

“We’ve another, more pressing matter to discuss. I’ve decided to wed once more.” She’d been foolish to shirk marriage before—it was a bargaining chip, a useful one. This time, she’d wed her own choice, at her leisure.

“An excellent notion,” Thais chimed in, eyes bright. A taut quiet met his words. He’d spoken too fast, and too soon. He flailed, anxious to correct his error. “After a suitable period of mourning, of course, my queen.”

“I am stricken over Seleucus’s death. But in these dark times we must all find the strength deep within ourselves to carry on. Tell me, Thais: what man should I wed?”

Her adviser paled at her words. But then he paled at most words.

“Don’t fret, my friend. It’s no punishment. I mean to ask you each in turn.” Berenice was especially eager to ask Nereus. What would he say now that his favorite, his Selene’s son, had been slain? How would he try to turn this changed course to his advantage?

Meanwhile, brow bent in thought, Thais looked as wise as she’d ever seen him. Perhaps he possessed some untapped knowledge of the princes and kings of Asia. Somewhere in his dull-witted mind, he must have a passing opinion on some relevant matter.

“Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia has two sons, neither of whom is wed, and both of whom would bring some number of loyal soldiers,” her minister of lands told her slowly.

Berenice cared little for the kings of Cappadocia. In Mithradates’s wars, they’d proved themselves to be weak, no more than puppets beholden to Rome, fleeing at the slightest sign of defeat.

“And then,” her reedy councilor went on, “there are the sons of Antiochus of Commagene.”

Nereus scoffed. “And how old are those boys? The elder can’t be more than twelve.”

“Twelve is old enough to wed—”

“For a girl, perhaps,” the old man sneered.

“That’s enough, Nereus.” Berenice smiled. She took joy in mocking him. At last, she could show this fickle man how small he truly was. “What would you suggest? I recall you had some rather strong opinions when last we broached this matter.”

Nereus coughed into his hand. His face reddened beneath his palm. “I’m sure there are many worthy men…” His voice faded away.

“But none so worthy, it seems, as Seleucus,” she taunted. The old man’s eyes grew wide and frightened. His fingers tugged at the sagging skin along his gullet. “Nor with so grand a Ptolemaic pedigree. Did you know, Nereus, that there are those who thought Seleucus’s claim to the throne outweighed my own? My dear husband often reminded me that my father is called Bastard for a reason. But perhaps you were not familiar with that particular appellation…”

“It’s the father’s blood that matters most,” the old man replied.

“And that’s why you were so eager to see Seleucus crowned: so that my children would have the proper blood—a father’s blood.” She drew out each syllable willfully, watching Nereus squirm.

“My queen, if I’ve done something to offend—”

“Offend?” Berenice laughed brightly. “No, never that.”

Nereus bit back his tongue and stared. She could read each passing fear flicker across his face. She savored that for a moment before returning her attentions to the rest of the set.

“Each of you is to draw up a list of suitable men along with the number of soldiers and the amount of gold they’re likely to bring. We’ll go about this in a sensible manner, as we should any weighty decision for the realm.”

Berenice’s words cut as they were meant to. But much as she blamed Nereus’s treachery, she knew her own naïveté had been at fault as well. Trusting had been her downfall. Hounded by her fear of the Piper’s rise in Rome, she’d panicked and wed too soon. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Pieton looked up from his scroll for the first time. “I don’t need to make a list. I can tell you now whom you should wed: your brother Ptolemy. Take him as your husband. Your father lies low for the moment, but he won’t stay quiet forever. And Rome would never dare depose a united brother-sister pair.”

This tick again. Berenice clenched her fists. Why did Pieton harp on the notion? He knew that she would never wed her brothers, that she needed soldiers to take Cyprus. But she didn’t want to air these arguments. Nereus had no inkling of those plans. Best to keep it that way.

“And how, pray tell, might I heed your advice?” she asked with false sweetness. “My two brothers fled some time ago. And, you may recall, we’ve encountered certain difficulties in finding them.”

The eunuch’s face glowed; he always reveled in his trump moves. “I’ve discovered them, or at the very least discovered a means of contacting their mother. She won’t refuse you; she wouldn’t dare. And you’ll find no more malleable consort than a young boy.”

Berenice’s stomach churned. He’d had some contact with the concubine, then. The very thought sickened her. She remembered the first time she saw the woman, young and lush and beautiful—everything her mother wasn’t—sitting at her father’s side. She’d fed him grapes and laughed at his jokes and whispered treason in his ear. How could the eunuch speak to that creature? Suggest again that she wed one of that woman’s sons?

“Today, perhaps, and tomorrow he’ll be malleable,” Berenice answered through gritted teeth. “But what of in ten years? He’ll grow into a man—I hear even the youngest of boys do that in time—and one who some will believe has a claim equal to my own.”

“My queen makes a point,” Dryton seconded, and she felt a distinct warmth for the pretty man. “There’s a poor history for queens who rule alongside brothers.”

“Berenice.” The eunuch’s tenor strained. “I’d urge you to worry about holding the throne for the next ten weeks, never mind the next ten years. The Piper might be waylaid in Ephesus, but he will find an army, one way or another. Your brother appears to be a hardy boy of five, but who can say what the Fates have in store for him? He might not see another ten floods.”

Berenice raised her voice, her sense of calm shattered. “I will not wed my brother.” She hated the eunuch at that moment for foisting horrors at her feet. She would not repeat her mother’s mistakes. Her life would not be marked by birthing monsters year after year. Had Tryphaena ever stared at one of her strange and stillborn babes and wondered at their shape? A godly punishment for bedding her brother, for daring what only immortals do. At least with Seleucus’s seed Berenice might have borne healthy children, perhaps even handsome ones, to carry on her house.

“If I were you, I’d come up with a list after all, Pieton,” she added, reining in her anger as best she could. “See that it’s a good one.”

Her advisers hurried off; not even the eunuch lingered. Doubt clouded her mind. Why did Pieton press her brother’s claim? Wasn’t it enough that Nereus had betrayed her? Must she suspect the eunuch too, the tutor who’d raised her and shielded her more carefully than either of her parents had? She dug her claws into her hair, loosing clumps from their net. Pieton had lobbied for it the first time as well, though he knew better than the others how she loathed the idea. Did he plot in secret with the concubine? Berenice had never imagined him capable of betrayal. For years, she’d held that eunuchs were less changeable than other men. But now Tryphaena’s enigmatic warning rang in her ears. Berenice shouldn’t have dismissed those words so lightly. Perhaps they were more than symptoms of her mother’s delusions.
Do not trust the eunuch. He’s no Ptolemy. He will…

“He will
what,
Mother?” Berenice asked aloud.

Younger

S
he had terrible dreams, terror stalked her nights, she shook with fear.…She dreamed she gave birth to a snake.”
^*
Arsinoe read with hunger. She knew what would happen, how the Fates would unfold before her eyes. She’d drunk in these tales a hundred times, first with Ganymedes alone, and then with Ganymedes and Alexander, and then over and over and over again on her own. Myrrine teased her each time she asked for the text: “Arsinoe, it isn’t natural for girls to stay cooped up reading indoors.”

Arsinoe ignored the taunts. What mattered was that she read on.

“Aeschylus again, I see.”

Ganymedes. Arsinoe looked up eagerly. The eunuch didn’t often visit her in her chambers. Perhaps—she hoped, she prayed—he’d come to discuss her dreams. In the days after their meeting in the library, she’d tiptoed around him, praying that if she was very good, the eunuch might speak to her in confidence again. She’d almost given up hope, but now—perhaps in her private rooms? After all, her tutor could hardly bring up their conversation before Alexander. Or she certainly hoped he wouldn’t. She couldn’t imagine trying to talk about the deaths she’d seen in front of her friend.

He smiled. “I have a surprise for you, little one.” He called her that in his gentler moods.

“A surprise?” Arsinoe’s limbs lightened. She bounced up from the floor. “What is it?”

“Follow me, and I’ll show you.”

Arsinoe did as she was told. She trailed the eunuch out of her rooms and into the familiar corridor, with its shining frescoes of the first Ptolemy the Benefactor’s victories in Asia. They passed the cedar staircase that curved down to the courtyard below, and instead continued on toward the nursery.

She felt a stab of sickness in her spleen as the eunuch opened the door. What sort of surprise could this room hold? Empty of children, the chamber felt dank and dismal. The walls themselves, with their brightly painted panels of hyenas circling one another and baboons bounding through the grass, seemed to have dimmed. As a girl, she’d traveled down the Nile with these images, picturing herself lounging in the rounded skiff as fish leapt about her toes. Each time Cleopatra returned with their father from the Upper Lands, Arsinoe would quiz her on which of the exotic animals she’d glimpsed: a rock python, a sphinx monkey, a rhinoceros? Many of their names were painted below their depictions, and those words marked some of the first that she’d learned to read. It all seemed foolish now. A child’s world of guessing games and imaginings.

Arsinoe glanced around the rest of the room; she might as well look for Ganymedes’s surprise. But all she saw were the scattered remnants of her brothers’ toys. The boys were long since gone, but their mess remained. In the far corner, a pair of hobbyhorses leaned against the wall, as if waiting for some ghost children to return. A chill ran down her spine. She didn’t like it here. The nursery reeked of death and fear.