Hand of Isis (17 page)

“Be still,” I cried, and all was dark.

I
DREAMED
, and in that dream I walked insubstantial as shadow through the pickets of a great camp. Horses stood sleeping in their lines, tents spaced just so, sentries moving quietly through the dark.

I did not hesitate. I knew where I was going, drawn by him as though by an invisible light.

A lean, balding man in a red tunic sat at a writing desk, a scroll unwrapped before him. Behind him, the walls of a tent rose, lit by lamplight.

“What wind is it that blows the lamps?” he asked, looking up as the flames stuttered.

“The wind from Egypt,” I said. He had dark, lively eyes, and a face that seemed readily given to either laughter or sternness. “I have come for you, my Lord. The Black Land is waiting for you, as for a lover.”

“Why have you come?” he said, and he rose up and walked toward me. “Have you come from Pompeius?”

“I have come from Cleopatra,” I said. “I have come to bring you home.”

“The world is my home,” he said. “And thus I can never be away.”

“Your home is in Alexandria too,” I said, my voice strengthening, “and by your relics I call you. The Black Land needs you. By those who love you, I call you. By those who have died for you, I call you. By your bones resting in honor in Alexandria and Thebes, I call you. Come to Alexandria, Son of Amon!” I raised my arms, and it seemed they were white in the lamplight. “You are the wind of the world, and the wind is blowing!”

“Isis Invicta,” he said, and it seemed to me then that everything spun around once again.

I closed my eyes tight. After a few moments the sensation of movement ceased. I moved my hand and felt stone beneath it. I opened my eyes.

C
LEOPATRA LAY
on the lid of the sarcophagus, her eyes closed, her face turned up toward the stars, while Iras knelt beside it, leaning against it, one hand raised as though stilled in the movement of reaching for her. She lay like a carving on a tomb, her hands closed around crook and flail crossed on her breast.

I moved my hand. I lay on the stone some little distance away. I shook my head, trying to clear it. Across the water, I could see torches, see the movement of people.

I tried to speak, and a faint croak came out. I swallowed and tried again. “Iras?”

I saw Iras stir, and I crawled across to her, taking one of her hands in mine. “Sister? Iras?”

Her eyes flickered open and I saw sense return. “I’m here,” she said.

I found my feet would hold me and I got to them, leaning over my sister Cleopatra, my heart seized with a sudden dread. She looked so pale, so lifeless. I could not even see the shallow movement of her chest. “Sister?” I reached out to touch her throat and saw the tremor of pulse there. Her lips opened, and her lashes trembled. She opened her eyes, and for a moment they looked wide and dark, reflecting the painted stars on the ceiling in a way that assuredly they couldn’t.

Iras put her arm behind her and helped her to sit up. “Can you speak?”

“Yes,” she said, and looked down at the crook and flail in her hands, symbols of divine kingship as old as the Black Land. “Where did these come from?”

I blinked. “I have no idea. You must have picked them up after I fainted. What did you?—”

Cleopatra raised a hand and stopped me. “Not now, Charmian. Not yet. It’s too new.”

Iras nodded. “Then let’s get back in the boat.”

It was I who rowed on the return journey, while Cleopatra sat in the front with the crook and flail in her hands, still as an effigy carried on a feast day. As I rowed, I felt life returning to my muscles, my head settling without so much as an ache. I could not explain what had happened, and like Cleopatra I thought it was too soon to talk.

When our boat touched the shore, Memnon’s deep voice rang out, echoing in the far corners of the chamber. “All hail Isis, Lady of Egypt, Mother of the World, Ruler of the Two Lands! All hail Isis, all hail Cleopatra!”

“All hail Isis,” the priestess who had played Nepthys said, beginning the litany. “All hail Isis, She Who Treads the Waves. All hail Isis, who made laws and gave them to men. All hail Isis, who taught us writing. All hail Isis, who quickens the child in the womb. All hail Isis, who rules with justice and mercy.”

“All hail Cleopatra,” Memnon said as one of the junior priests handed him the double crown of Egypt with the sacred serpent in the front, the crown that Pharaohs had worn for three thousand years. She did not incline her head as he put it on her, heavy though it was. She held her head straight like a painting off the walls of a tomb as it settled upon her hair, Isis born in darkness, coming forth by day.

T
HE REST OF THE NIGHT
was a blur to me. I hardly remembered the rest of the rite, Cleopatra dressed in royal raiment, reborn like the new sun, Dion once again masked as the serpent, leading her back through the desert, or the final rituals in the long exit corridor, in which Iras and I carried the double crowns to the eastern gate, there to await the precise moment of the reappearance of the sun.

At last we emerged from the final passage, from the door of the temple, just as the first rays of the new day broke over the temples and palaces of Abydos, striking fire from her high, gilded crown, from the golden uraeus on her brow. We walked out to the sounds of trumpets.

A
FTERWARD
, when all of the assembled notables had finished making their respects to Cleopatra, we repaired to the small palace to wash and have the first meal of the day. Clean, and sitting about the remains of our breakfast, we at last had a moment for private conversation. All of us were quieter than usual. I, at least, was very tired.

“You are troubled,” she said.

“I had a dream,” I said carefully. “When I fainted, or whatever it was that happened. I don’t know entirely what it means.”

“What was it?”

I thought of the first part, but it was too confusing, too indefinite. I shook my head. “I was drifting through a camp, and then I saw a man. An older man, a Roman I think, from his clothes. I dreamed that I summoned him to Egypt, that I summoned him by his bones where they lie in Alexandria and Thebes.” She said nothing, so I went on. “I summoned him by his bones, to draw his wandering spirit back to Egypt, whatever name or face he might wear now.”

“In Thebes,” she said. “In the Valley of the Kings. I wonder which Pharaoh?”

“I don’t know,” I said, though at the same time I could imagine him so easily, a lithe, dark-skinned young man.

Her eyebrows rose. “And in Alexandria.”

“In his own city,” I said.

“Alexander,” Cleopatra said.

“It was just a dream,” I said hurriedly.

Cleopatra looked at me sideways. “Charmian, why are you always so quick to dismiss your own gifts?”

“This is a later age, sister,” I said, “and we are civilized people. Alexander lies in the Soma, and I have seen him there. Gods do not rise from the grave and walk the earth.”

“Why are you so sure of that?” she asked. “You believe I am the Hand of Isis?”

I looked away. “I feel in my heart that you are, but I do not want to be foolish. It was different when we were children.”

She shook her head at me. “Charmian, I need you to believe. You may not trust your dreams or gifts, but I do. And I need you to tell me when there is something that matters so much. I will never laugh at you, not if you tell me to get up in the night and sail to Syria.”

“I don’t want to guide you badly,” I said. I hardly knew how to say what was in my heart. “Sister, I am no scholar, no counselor or wise man. I know I have a pretty face and that I can organize a banquet or dress you as a queen should be dressed. But I am not a savant like Dion, or even like Iras. I do not understand the half of what they talk about in the Museum.”

“You speak four languages, and compare yourselves to the greatest scholars of the age. It’s true that you’re no mathematician or engineer. But I have no need of a mathematician or engineer just now! What I need is you. We are all three Her hands, remember? We are royal Ptolemies. If She chooses to speak through you, then She has chosen what is best for the Black Land. Trust it, as I trust you. We will see if your dream is true.”

I
T WAS NEARLY
ten days later, as we prepared to leave Abydos for Memphis, that the messenger came speeding up the Nile by swift ship.

“My Queen,” he said, falling to his knees in Cleopatra’s presence, “Caesar has landed in Alexandria.”

Amenti

I spread my hands, looking at Isis and Serapis on Their thrones. “And then there was Caesar.”

Anubis stirred where He stood beside Serapis’ throne, His pointed ears twitching. “And your fates became entwined with one of the Great Stories.”

I looked at Him, His eyes bright as amber stars, and I dared to ask a thing I had always wondered. “Gracious Lord,” I said. “What is he?”

Anubis smiled like a hound, while Isis and Serapis exchanged a look. “What do you think he is?”

“I do not know,” I said slowly. “Perhaps he is some god’s avatar or a god himself. He comes, and he leaves a changed world behind him. I do not know what he is, Caesar or Alexander. I do not know.”

It was Isis who spoke. “He is a man. An extraordinary man, who has become so often the focus of men’s hopes and dreams. And yet, if he wished to remain disincarnate and take his place among the other spirits who have become more than men, he could. But he is bound instead by his desire for the world, by his longing for all there is in it. He is imperfect, bound and binding. He blows through the world like a wind, reflecting the spirit of the age, leader of men and yet their mirror. Ahmose and David, Kyros and Alexander, Caesar, and more whose names you would not recognize, for they have lived and died in lands that are strange to you. And in his wake you are blown about, you and the other Companions who have tied your fate to his at some point.”

“And yet ships driven far from home by the storm may discover new lands,” Anubis said. “In the wake of the fires that burn the grass, flowers bloom and new worlds are born. You called him to Alexandria. Why?”

I shook my head, trying to find the words for what was in my heart. “We needed him,” I said. “We could not go on as we were without being consumed by Rome. The kingdom of the Ptolemies had to change to survive. In Caesar we had a chance. And I knew he should love the Black Land as she loved him. I thought it was best.” I lifted my eyes to the thrones. “And we needed a father for Horus, someone who was worthy of Osiris’ place, and who should take on that role willingly. Caesar knew what he did, I think.” I stopped for a moment, thinking of how best to say it. “We needed Alexander. We needed that sacred fire. Gracious Lady, did I do wrong? Was it I who courted ruin when I called him?”

“The Great Stories are always perilous,” She said. “And yet their outcomes are shaped by men. You brought Egypt into his tale once again, for good or ill. Tell us what befell when Caesar came to Alexandria, and perhaps you will find the truth in it.”

C
aesar had come to Alexandria while Ptolemy and his advisers were still in Pelousion, chasing a rumor that Cleopatra had decamped to Gaza. They hurried back to the city by sea just in time for Ptolemy to be welcomed to his own palace by Caesar, something that was no doubt awkward. If they had hoped that Caesar should be mollified by the death of Pompeius, and, his mission in Egypt accomplished, simply sail away again, they were gravely disappointed.

Caesar was furious.

“Apparently,” Cleopatra said tartly, “it’s only Romans who are allowed to murder Romans.”

Instead of sailing away again, he announced that he was in Alexandria on behalf of the Senate and people of Rome to mediate the dispute between Ptolemy and Cleopatra, and to make certain that Auletes’ will granting the throne of Egypt to them jointly was honored.

As she read that part of the message out, Cleopatra put it down on the table before her, looking thoughtful.

“He wants the money,” Iras said.

I was glancing ahead at the page. “He’s brought two legions, but they’re not up to strength. Maybe five thousand men, the Patriarch says. And he says one of the legions was Pompeius’ that Caesar pardoned and signed on. And that they haven’t been paid.”

“He wants the money,” Cleopatra said. She started pacing again. It seemed like she did that every time money came up, and it was turning into a familiar gesture. “Everyone wants to milk us like an old cow, drawing more than there is.”

“They don’t have it,” Iras said. “Pothinus and Theocritus can’t find it any more than we could.”

“Mediate the will?” I asked.

Cleopatra shook her head. “It’s an excuse to get into the middle of it.” She turned to Apollodorus. “Find out everything you can about Caesar. We need to know what he wants, what his ambitions are, what he enjoys, what he eats for breakfast. Anything might be important. Anything might give us an edge.”

“He’s not going to be like Gnaeus,” I said. That at least was already clear. At fifty-two, Caesar was no green young man to be dazzled by sleight of hand. “You can’t handle him that way.”

“That’s something of a relief,” Cleopatra said. She paced away again. “We need to go back to Memphis. It’s important to be closer to Alexandria.”

“And a better place to raise your army,” I agreed.

O
F COURSE
all of the world knew Caesar and his story in later days, but at the time I knew comparatively little. He was fifty-two, of an old noble family that traced its lineage back to ancient gods, an able soldier and an active ruler.

Once, he had been Pompeius Magnus’ father in law, Pompeius’ third wife having been Caesar’s daughter, Julia. Perhaps if she had lived there would have been peace between them. But she had died some years earlier, delivered of a son who did not live more than a few days—Caesar’s only grandchild by his only child, a younger brother I am certain Gnaeus would not have welcomed. Indeed, knowing Gnaeus, it was impossible for me not to suspect . . .

If I thought of it, no doubt Caesar did too.

But such things are unknowable, and certainly it is possible for an infant to die of all manner of natural causes. It is just that we consider such things, in the House of Ptolemy.

In any event, Caesar had spent years conquering various Keltic tribes, away north of Massalia. At some point, things had come to a rift between him and Pompeius. Pompeius, styling himself the legitimate representative of the Senate of Rome, and Caesar, styling himself who knows what, had come to blows. The echoes had reverberated from one end of the Inner Sea to the other as they fought, first in Hispania, then in Italy itself, and most lately in Greece.

Now Pompeius was dead, and it was uncertain what Caesar would do next. Would he return to Rome and be recognized as their king? Would the nobles of Rome raise another army against him, under some younger and more vigorous general? Whatever might happen, he should need money. If he lingered in Egypt now that Pompeius was dead, there could only be one reason for it.

Still, if he had no reason to support Cleopatra, he had no reason to hate her. Whether his anger over Pompeius’ murder was real or feigned, she had no part in it. And Ptolemy Theodorus did.

It was little surprise, then, that Caesar sent a messenger to us in Memphis, inviting Cleopatra to return to Alexandria, where he would “fairly and fully” mediate the dispute between Queen Cleopatra and her brother, Pharaoh Ptolemy Theodorus.

The response of her de facto council was swift. “You can’t do it,” Memnon said. “Not when you’re raising an army and your legitimacy in Upper Egypt rests on being Pharaoh, the avatar of Isis and the sole heir. If you recognize Theodorus as Pharaoh, your support will evaporate into thin air.”

Dion nodded from where he lounged by the door. “And right now that’s the only support you’ve got.”

“There’s the Patriarch,” I said.

“Who has Caesar camped on him with five thousand men,” Iras snapped.

Cassander, the son of the governor of Pelousion, took a deep breath. “Do you have any concept what five thousand Roman legionaries can do? Even if you had two or three times as many troops at your disposal, you would have levies from Upper Egypt. Unarmored archers. Spearmen with no shields who have never drilled together. Volunteers who haven’t been properly trained. There’s no way those men could stand against even the two understrength legions Caesar has, even if they outnumbered them three to one.”

Cleopatra nodded. “We cannot make an enemy of Caesar,” she said. “Even if all the gods smiled upon us and we held him off, he would simply return with more troops and an ample reason to annex Egypt as a province, as Rome did lately in Judea.” She steepled her hands before her chin. “No, we must make a friend of Caesar. And make Theodorus his enemy.”

Thinking of Caesar’s displeasure at the murder of Pompeius, I said, “The thing about Theo and his advisers is that if you give them enough rope, they’ll hang themselves.”

“But to give them the rope,” Apollodorus said, meeting Cleopatra’s eyes across the room, “you have to be in Alexandria.”

W
E RETURNED
to Alexandria on a merchant ship, embarking by night, Cleopatra, Apollodorus, Dion, and me. Memnon and the rest of the council stayed in Memphis with Iras. They would sail north two days later on Memnon’s great barge. Iras would play the Queen. Meanwhile, for the journey north, Cleopatra would play the serving girl, the handmaiden of a young Greek woman traveling with her husband and her father.

Apollodorus found the role difficult, and had to be constantly reminded to ignore his daughter’s slave. Dion, however, enjoyed himself immensely, telling Cleopatra to come and go, and to fetch and carry things. She made a grand production of it for Dion, bowing and scraping as though he were a god on earth, as though he were Pharaoh. They made such asses of themselves that on the third day one older woman among the passengers took me aside and told me that I mustn’t take it to heart if my husband’s eye strayed. Obviously the girl was a hussy, and I should sell her at the first opportunity in Alexandria!

I was as embarrassed as if it were true, but Cleopatra and Dion thought it a grand joke.

And what if it were? What if Cleopatra stretched out her hand to Dion? Would he come to her as he had not come to me? Such jealousy ill became me, I thought. And it made me happy to see my sister laughing and jesting for once, as though she were only a young woman of twenty-one, not a queen.

If she were the handmaiden, would she be happier?

Pharaohs are not made to be happy
, Isis whispered.
Pharaohs are made to serve.

C
AESAR WAS NOT STAYING
in the palace itself. He was staying in one of the guesthouses in the park, the best one, surrounded by a high wall with a defensible gate of its own. And of course it was Dion who thought of a way to get in.

“Tradesmen come and go all the time,” Dion said. “A merchant with something Caesar has ordered should be able to pass the gates and go to him. If Apollodorus stays in the part of a merchant and takes a large package, like a carpet, with him, the Queen could be inside it.”

“Caesar won’t be alone,” I pointed out. “He’ll know he hasn’t bought a carpet.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Cleopatra said. “Once we’re inside the gates it will be all Romans. They’ll take me to Caesar, not to Theo or Pothinus.”

“Does it have to be you?” I asked.

I didn’t expect for her to throw her arms around me. “Dearest Charmian,” she said. “I know you would if you could. But think what Caesar will feel when he finds out he’s been talking to the wrong Cleopatra! If we make a fool of him, we make an enemy.” She put her hand to my cheek. “It has to be me. Do you see?”

“I do,” I said.

W
E WAITED IN THE PARK
, Dion and I. After they passed the gate, we could see and hear nothing. We stood in silence under the trees, while the night wind played around us. After a bit, I put my head on Dion’s shoulder and he put his arm around me.

“We can still get clear,” he said. “If it all goes wrong. No one will look for us.”

“I know,” I said.

If it did, I would. There was nothing I could do for them from here. Memnon would still have a bargaining chip. He could claim that Iras was the real queen, and that the Cleopatra Caesar held was a fake.

We waited for what seemed like half the night. I suppose it was a few hours. The Roman watch changed, at any rate.

At last Apollodorus came out with two Romans. They did not touch him, and seemed to accompany him rather than escort him.

Dion stepped out of the shadow. “What’s happened?”

“We’re to return to the palace and make the Queen’s quarters ready for her. Caesar intends to enforce the terms of Auletes’ will, and reinstate her as Queen of Egypt. He is meeting with her now.”

I saw how the men tried to follow the conversation, but apparently they did not speak Koine. Still, my answer was carefully gauged. I nodded deeply. “It is my honor to prepare my Lady’s things.”

We fell in with them, crossing the park and the street beyond, walking along beneath the trees in the starlight. The moon was rising, and not yet a quarter grown.

One of them, the one on my side, seemed to be trying to follow the very formal conversation between Dion and Apollodorus, his eyes flicking back and forth from one to the other. They were hazel, almost green, and, unlike any Roman I’d ever seen, he wore his hair long and caught behind him in a chestnut-colored tail. He also wore trousers, faded buff woolen ones beneath a scarlet tunic and leathers. The sword that hung at his side seemed longer than the others I’d seen.

Making my Latin more halting than it was, I asked, “Are you Roman?”

He nodded. “Decurion Aurelianus, of the Seventh Turma of Pollio’s Lancers.” He gave me a sideways glance. “We’re cavalry. That’s why we don’t wear steel.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I’m Aremorican,” he said, as if that made it all make sense.

“Oh,” I said again. “Where’s that?”

“We’re a tribe in northern Gaul,” he said, with a tone that suggested he’d explained it a hundred times. “Along the coast, on a peninsula jutting out into the sea.”

“That’s very far away,” I said, forgetting that my Latin was supposed to be halting. “Why are you here?”

“We hated the Arverni,” he said. “So when Caesar raised an auxiliary cavalry legion of eight hundred men to fight Vercingetorix, I joined.” Aurelianus shrugged. “It seemed more exciting than raising sheep. I’ve seen a lot of the world in the last six years.”

“Your Latin is very good,” I said.

“So is yours.” He glanced at me sideways again. His eyes were actually green, not just greenish. “But I’m not following the Greek very well.”

“You’ll learn Koine if you stay in Alexandria long,” I said.

“That will be as Caesar commands,” he said.

We were at the doors of the Queen’s quarters. Aurelianus stopped. “I’ll be here. Caesar has my turma on guard duty. Cavalry’s not much use in the city, and we’ve been with him a long time.” There was pride in his voice. “I imagine your Queen will be along in a few minutes, with Constantius’ turma. You can rely on us.”

I certainly could, I thought, to obey Caesar’s orders rather than Theo’s, which was something. The others went in ahead of me, but I stopped in the doorway. “Shall I ask for you if we have any difficulty?”