Hand of Isis (36 page)

He cried himself to sleep. Coming in later that night to pronounce him forgiven, I found Demetria curled up sleeping beside him, their arms and legs entwined like so many kittens. She had forgiven him long before the unjust adults.

There was a letter waiting for me in Alexandria.

Hail Charmian,

I am in Rome again. Octavian and Antonius have made common cause, and for now they hold the city together. We hear that Brutus has fled east to Cassius, and that whatever they plan will be there. For now we are getting into winter, and I do not think much will happen before the spring. . . .

For us, it was the season of the harvest, and the grain came pouring in, as though the land itself were pleased.

I had more work than ever.

When a kingdom is ill served, everyone notices. When there are wars and diseases, when there is little food and it grows more expensive each day, everyone notices. But when a kingdom has peace, when there are doctors and food enough, when an honest workman’s wages buy food and good things, no one notices. No one wakes up in the morning and says, “Today I have clean water! Thanks be to the gods who have worked through Pharaoh, through the men of the Royal Engineers, through the scientists who have designed our sluices and gates, through the men who have built our wells! All praise to the woman who oversees the Queen’s domestic projects!” Of course they do not. This work is invisible when it is done well, just like the work of a servant. For that is what we are. We are the servants of the people.

M
EANWHILE
, from Dion I learned other things. He had agreed to teach me the esoteric disciplines he practiced, and now our lessons began in earnest. I had thought that perhaps some of the work of the Magus that he practiced should be forbidden to women, but Dion dismissed that. “Nature contains both male and female, and the gods are male and female alike. Why should women be barred from the study of magic? That’s not logical, though it is true that there are some disciplines that seem to come easier to men than women, and the inverse.” He shrugged. “I do not know why this is true, but observation indicates that it is.”

I learned the four elements and their properties, the names of their guardians and their proper invocations. It was complicated, for Dion insisted that I should learn them in several languages and several systems.

“The concepts are universal,” he said, “but just as the Greeks and the Egyptians may use different names for the same gods, people use many different names for the elemental guardians, depending on their need and the nature of the place where they live. In the Hebrew, we use the winged angels, the Messengers of God. The Romans call them differently, dryads and nereids, salamanders and creatures of air. In Egypt, the Sons of Horus stand at the corners, as they do about the bier.”

I nodded. “But which is the right one?”

“They all are,” Dion said. “Some tools are better suited to one task than another, but they are not better tools! If you need a hatchet and pick up a hammer, is the fault in the hammer or in you? The better you understand all systems, the more tools you have in your workbox. I prefer the Hebrew system for manipulation, the Egyptian for divination. Neither is better. I have a hammer and a hatchet!”

“And some tools,” I said, as I understood, “are better suited to one workman than another. I am more useful with the stylus than the plow.”

Dion bent and kissed the top of my head. “Ah, but that is because of the kind of tool you are! The gods did not make us all the same, nor give us the same gifts. What good would it do them to have a bucket of hammers and nothing else?”

I laughed. “And what is it that they do with their hammers?”

His face was sober. “Build the world. The world is not a garden, Charmian, but a wild place ill suited to kindness. It has been so since the earliest days, when men and women ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and in ceasing to be animals lost their paradise.” He put his robe over his arm, cleaning up after teaching. “Look at the lions in the desert, or the cattle in the field. They have no knowledge of good and evil, no understanding of what mercy should be, no sense of justice. They are happy and they live in the moment alone. They do not wonder what next year’s harvest should be, nor build granaries against scarcity. They dwell still in paradise.”

“And we?” I asked, bending to blow out the lamp on the table before us. “Why are we different?”

Dion lifted it gently for me, careful of the heat of the flame. “We are taught that once men and women lived in Eden, in paradise as I have said. In that garden there was a tree, and its branches held the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. God had said that they might eat any fruit in the garden save that, but the first woman was curious. Lilit, her name was. And so she ate of the fruit, and when she did all was different. She knew that night would follow day, starvation follow plenty, and pain would follow joy. And in that moment were all the demons born, all the dark thoughts and worries that trouble mankind. For before we knew that sorrow waited, who worried? Before we knew that someday we should die, who regretted? Before we knew that ill could come to us even in the midst of joy, what had we to trouble us? Lilit knew, and she was no longer an animal like the other animals.”

Dion blew out the lamp. Its flicker illuminated his face for a moment before it was plunged into darkness. “So she left her band and went apart, dwelling alone as no human did, and her man took another mate. Her name was Eve. One day, she walked alone gathering food, and she stopped beneath the tree. Lilit came to her and she spoke to her, and offered her the fruit. And Eve tasted it. When she did, her innocence was gone, and she cried bitterly for all of the knowledge that had come upon her. What of the child she expected? What if it were sick, or if it were taken by a lion? What if it were lost and she could not find it? What if death came for her son? She cursed Lilit, but she could not forget. She could not be as she was before, an animal.”

“So what did she do?” I asked.

“She brought her man to the tree, and begged him taste of the fruit even though it was forbidden. And when the first man put it in his mouth, he gained the knowledge of good and evil as well. But he was made of stronger stuff than Eve.”

“Like Lilit,” I said.

Dion smiled. “He said, let us build a shelter against the storms that will come. Let us plant grain here by the river against the day when there is no food and the hunting is poor. Let us drive the lions away from here with fire, so that they may not hunt our children. Let us make of this world a better thing than we found. We cannot know less, but we can know more.”

Dion put the lamp down. “And so mankind was driven from the garden, and since that day we have all toiled according to our natures, some to build and some to worry, some to put up walls and some to teach.”

“And some to go apart,” I said, thinking of Lilit. “To go apart and guard the sacred mysteries.”

“Just so,” Dion said. “And now you are here with me, building the Temple.”

I smiled into his eyes and led him out onto the terrace where the clean night air washed over us. The harbor spread beneath us in a bowl, the waves white touched in the starlight. Across the water, Pharos gleamed, each beam of light cutting far out to sea as the vast mirrors turned. “And is this part of it not beautiful?”

Dion put his arm around me. “More beautiful than anything I have ever seen,” he said.

W
ITH THE DRY SEASON
and the new year an envoy came from Cassius. The other clients in the east had made their bows to Cassius. Would we? Our tribute to Rome was due, ten million sesterces, payable immediately to Cassius.

I should not have liked to have been the envoy when Cleopatra rose in her chair and handed him a lump of soil. “This is all your master will ever have of Egypt,” she said. “I do not pay tribute to dogs and murderers!”

He went away empty-handed, and we armed for war. Some of the money coming in would pay for more ships, and to hire a guard of our own. Wisely, the Queen hired mostly veterans of Caesar’s legions, either legitimately discharged, or men who would not serve the conspirators. We should not hold against an onslaught for a week, but we had to begin somewhere.

It was as well we did, for in the summer his envoys came again, demanding tribute and grain.

“You shall have no grain,” the Queen said. “The Inundation is inadequate this year, and we shall need all of the surplus we have stored. There is none to give your master.” So they went away empty-handed again.

It was true the harvest would be inadequate. Caesarion’s first act as Pharaoh beside his mother was forgiving all farmers this year’s taxes, that they might not lose their fields if they were in debt, nor mortgage all they had to buy seed for next year. He put his name to the papyrus very seriously, and I watched him biting his lip as he did it, the careful letters that said that they would owe nothing in this hard time, by order of Pharaoh Ptolemy Philometor Caesarion. The ministers and nobles could not help but smile, and say that it was well done.

Hail Charmian,

You will be surprised to hear that I am at Apollonia in Epirus, and wonder why. We have come across to Greece to see if we cannot bring them to bay at last. Antonius is a good general, very workmanlike, and we are in good supply. I also cannot fault Agrippa, who is better than I imagined. He has the talent, and that is saying something.

It is hard to believe that Caesar has been dead almost two years. It seems like a hundred, or a thousand, that he died in some ancient past like Alexander. I am glad to hear your description of the temple for him. They have declared him a god in Rome too, and Octavian has coins minted saying that he is “the son of the God Julius.” He is calling himself Caesar’s son now instead of his great-nephew, through some Roman custom of adoption, which I think is all very confusing. He is already the closest kinsman of age, and he is doing what he should to avenge his great-uncle. Why does he need to say more?

I wish that I might see you and Dion again, but I fear you would find me greatly changed. War does that.

I expect you will hear from Octavian and Antonius soon, now that you have got a fleet. We need to keep Brutus and Cassius from escaping by sea, when we have finally trapped them. . . .

That request came soon enough.

“The Triumvirs Octavian, Antonius, and Lepidus request that Queen Cleopatra send her fleet through the blockade at Cape Taenarum and into the Aegean, so that the murderers of Caesar may not escape vengeance by sea.”

They had sent Rufio, one of Caesar’s men who had been in Alexandria before, and he was greeted in the most formal manner in the great throne room, before the Queen and Pharaoh, who sat at her side in white linen, an ancient pectoral across his chest. Caesarion was five years old, and he sat as still as a statue on his throne.

“We will consider your request,” the Queen said, the uraeus on her brow, “and give you an answer tomorrow. We know how urgent your business is.”

Afterward, the Queen paced up and down in her rooms, Apollodorus and her captains at hand. Iras stood quiet by the window, but her fingers twitched.

“The fleet is ready, Gracious Queen,” the admiral said. “I will not say that it is perfected, but it cannot be perfected without battle. Training only imparts so much to green men. I have trained all I can. Now it is time to use what we have learned.”

“To run the blockade because these Romans request it?” Cleopatra’s tone was mild, as mild as Caesar’s had been, and I was reminded abruptly of him. Caesarion was not the only one who resembled him sometimes.

“To put an end to the conspirators,” Apollodorus said.

“And is that safer?” Cleopatra asked. “While the Romans are killing each other, we are secure.”

“Only as long as no one wins,” I said. “Then the winner will turn himself to face Egypt, and ask if we were ally or foe.”

“And better that be Antonius or Octavian rather than Cassius and Brutus,” Apollodorus said. “We don’t want them to lose. If they do, Rome will be our implacable enemy.”

The Queen nodded. “That must be prevented at all costs. Very well, then. We go to war.”

With those simple words it was done.

T
he Queen and Iras sailed with the fleet soon after. This time it was I who stayed with Dion and Apollodorus in Alexandria. Caesarion was too young and too valuable to risk, and so I stayed as well.

They were not gone long. An unusual summer gale caught the fleet only a few days out, and the ships were tossed and separated. Indeed, we learned afterward that several had made the Greek coast and there been wrecked on the shore, but most were just driven off course and far apart, though some also sustained damage, principally to their oars. The Queen and Iras were back in Alexandria in two weeks, with nothing to show for the expedition besides damaged ships that limped back into port for a month after, and a case of seasickness that had laid the Queen and Iras prostrate.

I thought to myself that surely I would not have been so sick, but that was easy to say when I had not left Alexandria.

Needless to say, orders were given to reorganize and repair the fleet as soon as possible. While we repaired in Alexandria, the conspirators might be escaping.

They did not. Before our fleet could set out again, news came that Antonius had faced the conspirators at Philippi in Macedonia, and it had been a bloody stalemate, neither side gaining any real advantage. Antonius and Octavian had lost more than sixteen thousand men, but Cassius had been slain.

There were no letters for me or Dion.

“Emrys must not have had time,” Dion said. But the messenger had left two days after the battle.

If he were dead, I thought, would I know? His was not the crashing and resounding death of a Caesar. Would I know, only because it mattered to me? Probably not.

I wrote to him and said nothing of it, instead giving only light talk and gossip, news of the children and Demetria’s latest doings. Before our messages could even have arrived, there was a second battle at Philippi, three weeks after the first. This time it was decisive. The conspirators were defeated, and Brutus committed suicide rather than be captured.

When we heard, Antonius was already on the move, across the Hellespont into Asia. He and Octavian had divided the world between them, and the East was Antonius’.

The year had already turned when I got a letter from Ephesos.

Hail Charmian,

I write to you from Ephesos, where I am recovering from a wound at the first battle at Philippi. I got a bad slash on my left leg, as that was what they could reach with me mounted. It wasn’t bad itself. But then I had blood poisoning, and Sigismund tells me I was mad, but I don’t remember a thing about it. He says I called for my wife to see her once more before I died, and hurled invective at my brother-in-law, but as I have neither that seems unlikely. However, I am not dead yet.

Brutus and Cassius are, and it seems we will finally be finished with this war. I hear that we are going into garrison somewhere in Syria to be on our guard against the Parthians. Garrison duty would be nice after so much war. Perhaps it will be so. I only have five and a half years left before my discharge. Maybe I will even get there, though they say that when you start saying that your number will come up.

Farewell,

Emrys Aurelianus, Praefectus

I am now the Beneficiarius, or second-in-command, of the Alia Milliaria. Which is twice as many men, about seven hundred. In other words, the whole unit that is left of us whom Caesar raised in Gaul together. Which means I have staff duties now, but I do not mind that while I am still on light duty.

“Well, that’s that,” I said to Dion as we shared our letters. “I doubt he’ll be in Alexandria any time soon.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Dion said. “The letters came with Antonius’ envoy, Quintus Dellius. He’s got a letter for the Queen from Antonius. He wants to meet with her.”

“He knows where she is,” I said. “I expect it has something to do with Judea. You know a lot of people are saying Herod poisoned Antipater himself. The young lion couldn’t wait for the old one to die. And Herod has attached himself to Antonius fairly firmly.”

Dion raised an eyebrow. “And the Queen?”

“She’ll deal with Herod if she needs to,” I said. “And Antonius. If we are to meet with him, it will be on her terms. You can be certain of that.”

W
E WENT BY SEA
to Tarsus, on the coast of Asia Minor, where Antonius was wintering. I went with the Queen, and the others stayed in Alexandria, because this time it was my skills that were needed to transform our flagship into a floating palace. No,
more
than a floating palace. A dream.

Our sails were dyed purple, and the rails gilded. The oars were painted pink and gold, and the bow decorated with Triton blowing on a conch shell, done in lightweight wood and painted to look like gold. Her sides were painted as well. All of the female servants arrayed themselves in the rigging and on the rails as we came into the harbor, dressed in pink and saffron gauze, while on her deck musicians played, the sound of drums and flutes echoing over the waters.

Amidships the Queen waited, reclining like Isis Pelagia beneath a pavilion of sea-green mesh held back with golden ropes. Her gown was cloth of gold, pleated in a million folds lest anyone forget that Isis Pelagia ruled Egypt, Queen of the Waters, the Lady of the Sea incarnate.

As we made our way up the river mouth, crowds came to stare, pointing and shouting. In the rigging, our ladies waved back, and I had two pretty youths dressed as Eros go around and light two huge censers that stood well forward, full of second-quality myrrh and copper powder. They burned with a blue-green flame, and the scent of Asia followed us, billowing out in clouds to starboard. Which was a good thing, because otherwise the Queen would have been choking.

People were running along the banks, and I had the trumpeters blow a fanfare. The oars dipped in perfect time, gold tips biting. The sails came down precisely.

“Aphrodite! Aphrodite!” The crowd was yelling as we came alongside the dock. “Cythera!” There were even some shouts of “Cleopatra!”

I could make out the Romans now, ordinary soldiers running and shouting the same as the people of Tarsus. I stood behind the Queen, in a sea-green gown the same shade as the curtains, ropes of seashells in my hair.

“Isis!” someone shouted ashore, but the shouts of “Aphrodite!” were louder. I could see their faces now, townsmen and children, shepherds and soldiers. Even the Romans were impressed.

I nodded to the first of the women slaves on the rail holding to the rigging, and she brought out a handful of silver and copper, coins of Egypt showing Cleopatra as Isis the Queen of the Waters, the lighthouse on the reverse. With a wild wave and smile, she threw them high in the air, some landing on the edge of the dock, but most plunging into the harbor. The other girls followed suit, smiling and laughing like nereids, the coins rising in a glittering shower.

Boys started jumping into the shallow water after them, cheering and splashing. All through the town people were running down to the port to see what was happening, clouds of incense rolling over our bow.

“I expect Antonius knows we’re here,” the Queen said out of the corner of her mouth.

“Yes,” I said, one eye on the girls in the rigging to make sure that all was well.

I saw him then, standing with a group of men in the street above the dock, his head bare and his eyes on us, Emrys well and whole. When he saw me looking he bowed, the acknowledgment of work well done, one Companion to another. My heart jumped.

The trumpeters blew a long fanfare. One of the Queen’s officers came forward, flanked by royal guardsmen, as the sailors ran to put the gangplank down and let him go ashore. Two Romans were shouldering their way through the crowd. One of them was Dellius, who Antonius had sent to Alexandria.

The officer thumped his staff. “All hail Cleopatra, Pharaoh of Egypt, Lover of Her Father, Isis Incarnate, Lady of Justice and Mercy, Queen of the Seas. She has come seeking Marcus Antonius, the First Man of Rome.”

Dellius was grinning as he pushed his way to the fore and bowed deeply. “On behalf of Imperator Marcus Antonius, I wish to extend every welcome and courtesy to Her Majesty. It would give the Imperator the greatest pleasure if the Gracious Queen would consent to dine with him this evening.”

“Our Gracious Lady thanks the Imperator, but would rather be his host this evening.”

Dellius bowed deeply again. “I will inform the Imperator of the Queen’s kind invitation immediately. I am sure he will be honored.”

In other words, I thought, you will make sure he is honored and that he is there. If the Queen can come here from Egypt, Antonius can come down to the dock.

“Now,” I whispered, and the boys loosed the golden ropes, letting the heavy curtains swing shut over the Queen’s pavilion, and the light mesh over them. Inside, the light was cut to the blue-green consistency of underwater. All of this time Cleopatra had not moved a muscle.

When the curtains were closed she sat up. “It went well. Thank you, Charmian. That was excellent theater.”

“You are very welcome, Gracious Queen,” I said, smiling at the public praise.

“Will he come, do you think?” She took off the heavy headdress and ran a hand through her damp hair.

“He will come,” I said. “And we will be ready.”

A
S ROYAL BANQUETS WENT
, it was fairly small, constrained by the size of the ship, large as she was. Breaking down all of the bulkheads on the main deck except for the very aft cabin, which was Cleopatra’s, we could create a sizable audience chamber for a banquet—twelve couches with room between for tables—able to dine thirty-two in perfect comfort, as neither the Queen nor Antonius should share a couch. Since Apollodorus, the captain, and Admiral Alexas should all be present as a matter of course, that meant Antonius could bring with him as many as twenty-nine officers, so for form’s sake when I spoke to Dellius in the afternoon I gave him word we could seat twenty-four, so as to leave some room for the Queen’s ladies who would be delighted to share the couches of the guests. Dellius took that quite properly as twenty, and sent word around to the eighteen most senior officers who would not be on duty that night.

As soon as the bulkheads were down I spent the afternoon overseeing the final rehearsals of the entertainment, the cleaning and placement of the banquet furniture that had been stored in the hold, the gifts for Antonius, and of course the details of the floral arrangements. We had been limited in the number of food animals we could bring on the ship, but the duck that would be served was our own, so that was one less worry. The cooking was already well begun, the scent of coriander wafting from the grills, and the fruits being sliced on tables in the sun on the foredeck. One of the boys was standing over the tables with a fan, keeping the flies off.

“Nicely done,” I said to him as I went by.

By evening the curtains were rigged out on the deck, hiding the wooden sides of the ship with embroidered hangings in green, blue, and aqua, appliquéd together in wave patterns, so that with all of them hung it seemed that one stood in an undersea grotto. There were twelve couches, in four groups of three along the length of the ship, alternating right and left, and separated with curtains of sea-green gauze studded with the aforementioned painted seashells and looped back with golden rope so that there were almost nooks for the couches. Gilded lanterns hung above, their flames encased in cut glass that had a slight green tint.

The couches for the Queen, Antonius, and the one that would be shared by Apollodorus and Antonius’ most senior officer were the farthest aft, with the hangings screening them from the stern cabin. The musicians were all the way forward with the big table drum and the seats for the trumpeters. They would move about during the evening, but the wind players, except for the flutists, couldn’t be expected to stand the entire time.

My gown was cobalt-blue silk, with wide gold borders at the neck and across the shoulders and on the cascading fabric over my upper arms. The cloth had come from Hyderabad, and it had been intended for a wedding sari, the work of weeks on the loom. The Queen’s gown was more fantastic still, sea green and embroidered with pearls. There were more than a hundred large pearls sewn about the neckline and across the shoulders, with more seed pearls worked in. Drops of peridots hung from her ears, and the collar of peridot, turquoise, and gold that she wore above the plunging neckline was so heavy that it had a counterweight attached at the back, like the ancient pectorals that she wore for state occasions.