Hand of Isis (45 page)

“I know the look you mean,” I said, blinking back tears.

“He wrote to you and Dion both,” Sigismund said. “When we got here. But the letters must have crossed you on the way. How did you get here so fast?”

“The Queen can move when she must,” I said. “And two weeks out of childbed.”

“Well, the little boy will cheer Antonius,” Sigismund said. “And for me, I’m well enough, all things considered. There’s a bonus for my arm on top of my discharge, and as soon as the doctors say I’m fit, I’m gone. This was the last campaign for me. I’m through.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

He shrugged, and I knew the world would end before he didn’t put a brave face on it. “It’s my fate,” he said. “I hope Mucilla will still have me. If so, look for me next time you’re in Rome. A little tavern in the Subura, under the shadow of the Esquiline Hill.”

“I’ll look for you, Sigismund,” I promised.

E
MRYS CAME IN
from the rain and checked.

Before he could even take off his cloak my arms were around him, saying incomprehensible things, squeezing him to make sure he was real.

He bent his head over mine, his arms around me, and I felt how thin he was, and how beneath his leathers he shivered. “I’m coming home,” he said.

I
STAYED ASHORE
that night, as the Queen wanted to. I had Philadelphos in the room next to the one she and Antonius had, to watch over his sleep and to rouse her when he was hungry. He nursed several times a night, and should also have to be changed at least once.

In the fourth hour of the night I sat wakeful while Philadelphos snored softly against my neck. Emrys slept in my bed. I watched him sleep, the slow rise and fall of his chest, the sweep of his lashes against his cheek. My heart was full of thanksgiving. So few of the cavalry had returned. His hands twitched in sleep, holding invisible reins.

Cleopatra opened the door, her robe loose around her. She looked exhausted, her eyes circled dark. And why should she not be, a woman with a month-old baby who has come to the end of a long journey to find that nothing is as it should be?

“Is he still asleep?”

I nodded. Philadelphos had not stirred yet.

“I’ll take him,” she whispered, holding out her arms. “He can come in with us, and you can lie down.”

“I don’t need . . .”

My sister bent and kissed my brow. “Tend your lover, Charmian. I’ll tend my child. Get some rest.”

I nodded, my eyes filling with tears. “Good night, sister,” I whispered as I carefully passed her Philadelphos.

I heard the door close as I lay down beside Emrys, felt him flinch in his sleep. “There now, darling,” I said, smoothing his hair where it lay on his back. “It’s only me.” He sighed, and I closed my eyes against him.

A
LL IN ALL
, it was two months before we could sail for Alexandria. Antonius’ troops needed time to rest and recover on our supplies, and he needed to set in motion the requirements of sending them into garrison in Antioch and Apamea. They were very much sweetened by the bonus of four hundred sesterces per man that Antonius gave them out of his own funds, especially the retirees who should have it in addition to lands in Macedon. It took Emrys all of a day to sell the deed to his future plot to some other man. It was with more than a thousand sesterces, all told, that he should come to Alexandria, more than enough to start some sort of business.

I was thankful daily that small Philadelphos was not delicate as Helios had been as a baby. Like his sister, he was strong and nursed readily, though at four months he had a bout of colic that kept everyone up at night, including Antonius, who insisted on getting up with him as though he were an ordinary man.

I came upon them at night, Antonius walking the deck of our warship as we sailed homeward, Philadelphos on his shoulder, while he talked in a low voice, pointing out the constellations we steered by. I stepped back into a shadow, not wanting to interrupt. I thought for a moment in the moonlight that Antonius was almost beautiful, now that his handsome features were worn to the bone, as though in extremity some spirit shone through that had never been apparent to me before.

I had not liked Antonius, but I could almost forgive him.

I heard a step along the deck and startled, but it was only Emrys. He had been allowed to travel with us on the flagship, because I had asked the Queen, and of course he was well known to Antonius.

Now he checked, but Antonius turned, tensing, his right hand going to where his sword should be.

“Peace,” Emrys said. “It’s only me, Aurelianus.”

“The boy won’t sleep,” Antonius said, Philadelphos still curled on his left shoulder, his head beneath his father’s chin. “I thought he could keep watch with me.”

Emrys came along the deck and leaned on the rail beside him, looking out over our wake. “He’s young to keep the watch, don’t you think?”

“Could be.” Antonius leaned beside him, carefully keeping Philadelphos inboard. “I remember when Antyllus was this small. It’s hard to believe now. I hear he beats Caesarion at horse racing.”

“And your daughters?” Emrys asked quietly.

Antonius took a deep breath. “I have to divorce Octavia, don’t I?”

Emrys spread his hands but said nothing.

“I’ve never even seen the younger daughter,” Antonius said. “Octavia writes and says I must come to Rome. I have to decide now. Rome or the East. One family or another. I can’t delay anymore. I’m going to have to divorce Octavia.” He looked out over the sea. “I have to divorce her to marry Cleopatra.”

Emrys’ brows rose, but I doubt Antonius noticed. “That marriage won’t be valid under Roman law. I know surely enough that a Roman must marry a Roman citizen.”

“It will be valid under Egyptian law, which is where my children are.” Antonius half-turned toward the prow, the baby still beneath his chin. “Which family do I desert, which woman do I break? You sail for Alexandria yourself. Can we really leave Rome behind?”

“I was never Roman to start with,” Emrys said gently. “I do not have Roman bones, lares to follow me whispering. Out of all the world I’ve chosen my home, but I leave no one behind me. I can walk away and say that was my last battle.”

Antonius shook his head. “And I can never say that until I die. There will always be one more. I envy you, friend.”

I couldn’t see Emrys’ face, but I could hear the compassion in his voice. “I would not take all of the wealth in Egypt in exchange for being done with war.”

Antonius sighed, his arm still around Philadelphos. “And what would be the price of a normal life? Of watching my son grow into a man? I want to live, Aurelianus. I was in Parthia when I knew it, clearly as if the gods themselves had put the choice before me, to die a hero’s death and have unending fame, burning like a moth too close to a fire, Icarus too close to the sun. Or to just go home. I would trade all glory, all pride, all oaths, anything—simply to go home, to my children, to marry Cleopatra.”

I felt a frisson of cold run down my back, as though the bull had shied at the altar, and held my hands to avert the omen. But I knew, even then, that it was too late.

“Well,” Emrys said, ducking his head, “the women of the Ptolemies are extraordinary. How can any other in the world compete?”

Antonius laid his rough cheek against Philadelphos’ head, and I saw that the baby had fallen asleep. “Never, until the end of time, will there be a woman like Cleopatra.”

“Probably not,” Emrys agreed.

W
E HAD BARELY RETURNED
to Alexandria when Cleopatra set the council afire. She intended to marry Antonius. Their objections were entirely predictable. After all, the council had dealt with Antonius as long as I had.

Memnon at last cut through the debate. “I will not remonstrate further as long as we are clear on the fact that the Queen reigns with Pharaoh Ptolemy Caesarion, as she has these last years. Antonius is no Pharaoh of Egypt. His position as the Queen’s official consort is entirely different.”

“I believe we are clear on that,” the Queen said from her end of the table. Her hair was done in ringlets, and she wore a massive collar of pearls rather than the more simple attire she usually wore for the council. “I do not suggest that the Imperator share my throne.”

“What about his children?” Memnon asked pointedly.

“Princess Selene and Prince Helios and Prince Philadelphos will be granted client kingdoms outside of the Black Land,” she said. “Obviously at present they are Pharaoh Ptolemy Caesarion’s heirs, and should he die without children Helios would be Pharaoh, but there is no reason to think that he will not beget heirs of his body as he grows older.” She looked around the table. “The marriage will not be a state affair. That I will grant you. We will marry simply and privately, when his divorce from Octavia is complete. This changes nothing in terms of our succession, and he will hold no Egyptian rank.”

Glancing around the room, I saw that she had them. It would be as she wanted.

And yet I wished that it had more strings, for all I did not especially love Antonius. If he did not have Egypt, did Egypt have him?

M
EANWHILE
, E
MRYS AND
D
ION
and I settled into a comfortable if unusual routine. Emrys moved into Dion’s apartment, and I continued to live at the palace. Demetria lived at the palace, but spent many evenings at Dion’s apartment when she finished late at the temple. Sometimes Emrys picked her up and walked her back rather than Dion, and I found myself just a little jealous of the way she told them everything, but was more reticent to me.

“It’s just the way of girls,” Dion assured me. “Did you tell your mother everything? She’s twelve, and anyone in the world is more comfortable than her mother. Besides,” he said, “she is feeling a bit fragile. Caesarion has abandoned her company for that of Antyllus.”

“That was only to be expected,” I said. “He’s a boy. Sooner or later his best friends would be other boys. It will be several years, in the normal course of things, before he sees her again as a person. And then it will be as a young man and young woman, not as children together.”

“Well, she’s lost her best friend, and I think she has a hard time of it at the temple in some ways. She’s talented and too smart. That’s always hard. Other girls don’t like that.”

“I’ll have a word with the Hierophant,” I said hotly. “There’s not supposed to be any favoritism.”

Dion put his hands on my shoulders. “That’s precisely what you shouldn’t do. Her beautiful mother, who’s not like anyone else’s mother, blowing in and talking to her masters. Do you want to set her apart even more?”

“Of course she’s set apart. She’s a Royal Ptolemy, and the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Of course she’s too smart and too strange. How could she be anything else?”

Dion brushed his hand over my hair. “Someday she’ll be glad of it. But not when she’s twelve. Didn’t you want to be normal when you were twelve?”

“No,” I said. I had been at Bubastis. “All I wanted was to go home.”

A
NTONIUS DIVORCED
O
CTAVIA
. If there was uproar in Rome, it was muted by the time it reached our ears. I was sorry, for I had liked her, but I had never had the impression that she felt passion for Antonius. Still, it was a strong move against her brother. I wasn’t certain that was a good idea, but Cleopatra and Antonius were set upon it. Nothing should prevent their legitimate marriage and their declared intention to spend their lives as one.

Caesar, I thought, should have found some pretext to carry on two marriages at once. In fact, he had across the width of the Tiber, not the Middle Sea. But then Caesar had never loved. Or, if he had, it had never clouded his judgment. In love, as in all else, he had been reasoned and cool.

Antonius was not cool, and perhaps that is why she loved him. Wrong and hardheaded as he might be, he loved her. She came before reason. She came before ambition. She came before the gods.

Cool herself, trained to the service of Isis and the Black Land, slave to her mind and to logic above all else, passion came hard to Cleopatra. She did not love easily. With all of his flaws, she did love him and his hot head, his warm nature. And once she gave her loyalty, she never withdrew it.

A
ntonius did not go to war again until the following spring, more than a full year later. For one thing, he needed time to rebuild his army after the disastrous campaign. For another, the Queen would not finance it until after the taxes came in at the end of the harvest. Lastly, I don’t think he particularly wanted to. Instead, we spent the year peacefully, though none of us could ignore the storm clouds on the horizon.

For my part, it was as happy a time as any I knew. When we sailed for Philae on the Progress of Isis, Emrys and Dion both came with us, ostensibly so that Dion could see how the astrological ceiling at the Temple of Hathor was progressing. In actuality, it was more of a holiday, and one Emrys sorely needed.

He had come home too thin, and the slightest noise startled him. It was weeks before he slept through the night, and I wondered if the evil dreams would ever leave him. He had fought one campaign too many, but at least he was whole in body, and perhaps in time his spirit would heal as well. He had nothing he really needed to do, as there was money enough, and he took his time inquiring into businesses in the city. In the meantime, he walked Demetria home and helped her with her lessons. I think he learned as much as she.

Coming into the apartment and seeing them sitting at the table, papers spread before them and their heads together over something, never failed to make my heart leap with gladness.

Antonius went to war a year later, and this time, for the first time, Emrys stayed behind. After they had gone without him, something in Emrys seemed to lighten and loosen, as though he finally believed that it was over. He’d tutored a friend of Dion’s in Gaulish before, but now he actually taught two classes, one in Gaulish and a much smaller one in his native Brythonic, which was spoken only in Aremorica and across the straits on the island of Britain. I think he enjoyed it. Certainly Dion and I were relieved to see him going about and taking an interest in things, meeting new people as he always had before.

One day, when I had less to do than usual, but Demetria and Dion had their respective classes, we went to the Soma together. Side-by-side we paid our admission and went in, pausing just inside the doors to let our eyes adjust to the cool darkness after the bright street. There were not many people there. We walked across the marble floor, Emrys leaning back to look up at the domed ceiling and the starry skies painted there.

I went and scattered a handful of myrrh over the coals in a brazier there, intended for such offerings. The old blind woman who I bought it from took my small bronze coin with a whispered, “Bless you, Lady.”

I went around the outside of the circle and came back to Emrys, who stood looking at the glass sarcophagus. I was still not used to seeing him in civilian clothes, a dark green chiton with worked borders. He seemed very tall and rawboned still. I took his arm.

Before us, beneath the epicenter of the dome, Alexander lay in his sarcophagus of glass and porphyry. The glass was thick and not entirely clear. His profile wavered when I moved, as though he slept underwater, perfect still after nearly three centuries. One could see that his hair was fair, but the details of his face blurred. Every sculptor imagined him differently, even those at first who had worked from life. Who Alexander was depended on who was looking.

I imagined Caesar would be the same. Certainly his statue in the Temple of Caesar was good enough, as such things go, but did not capture the mobile grace that animated him.

“Thinking?” I asked.

Emrys nodded. “Thinking. Wondering how they could have embalmed him like that if the embalmers weren’t allowed to get to him for two days after he died.”

I slid my arm through Emrys’. “I heard a doctor putting forth the theory that Alexander died of typhus. With typhus, one often lies in a coma for hours or even days before one actually dies. It’s possible that he actually died hours after people thought. So it wasn’t really that long.”

A door in my mind began to open, and I slammed it shut, a melee around the corpse on the bed, the young eunuch’s bent head as he covered him with his own body, a flash of a scene only, through the cracks of time.

Emrys nodded. He did not look away from Alexander’s still countenance. “Do you wonder? Where you will go when you die?”

I shook my head, smiling. “I know where I will go. Right here. I will always return to the people I love.” I laid my head against his sleeve. “And so will you, my darling. If you’re ever lost, I’ll find you. Again and again. That I swear to you.”

He leaned down and kissed me as though I were the only real thing in the universe, kissed me in the presence of the dead. For an Egyptian, that is no strange thing.

T
HIS WAS ALSO
the first time in several years that the Queen had gone somewhere without me. She had sailed as far as Syria with Antonius, to make her way back overland via Jerusalem and Gaza. Iras went with her, as this trip was entirely business, while all of the children had stayed in Alexandria. Cleopatra returned before the summer was at an end, and Antonius was not far behind her.

He had not really defeated the Parthians, but he had put a good face on it. Instead of storming straight back to Praaspa, he had besieged and defeated the King of Armenia, his lukewarm ally of two years ago. After a short foray into Media, he returned successfully to Syria, announcing that he was now overlord of Armenia and Media.

This announcement seemed a bit premature to me, as we did not in any sense physically hold Media, nor was the populace likely to view us as their saviors rather than unwelcome foreigners, but it was certainly better than the disastrous campaign of two years earlier.

I wondered if he would enter Alexandria as a triumphant Roman, or as the Queen’s consort. Either, of course, would have tremendous political implications. He did neither.

A
NTONIUS ENTERED
A
LEXANDRIA
as Dionysos, with a procession of maenads and dancers, with flutists and drummers, with pretty boys who distributed wine to the populace. It was less a solemn Triumph than a gigantic street party in all of the quarters of the city. The temples held vast services of thanksgiving, but they were not crowded. Everyone was out in the streets celebrating instead.

Originally, he had planned to enter in a chariot drawn by leopards, but that idea was scrapped when it was pointed out that there were no trained leopards in Egypt, and the cheetahs that were meticulously trained for hunting in the desert would not draw a chariot under any conditions. The coins struck still showed the leopards, but Antonius was more prosaically drawn by four white horses. I drew a sigh of relief at that, as I had no idea how I was supposed to get the cheetahs to pull a chariot!

But it was more than a celebration, of course. It was a sacred procession. As I watched from behind one of the great columns along the front of the Temple of Serapis, I felt a chill run up my spine.

Wreathed in vine, Antonius came, bringing treasures. His one-time ally, the King of Armenia, marched as he would in a Roman Triumph, but his chains were flimsy things of gold, and he wore robes of silk. He would not bow to Cleopatra, nor acknowledge her overlordship, but instead of being garroted at the end of the procession he was sent into house arrest.

I watched the procession swing around the last corner, closer and closer to where Cleopatra waited on the steps of the temple. She was robed as Isis, of course, Isis Pelagia in blue and white, with the uraeus on her brow. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw it move, and wished she had worn one of the other crowns instead.

The choirs were singing, and it came to me suddenly that more than anything it looked like a sacrificial procession. Antonius was the bull, his horns wound with flowers, brought to the altar. The feeling struck me so strongly that I reached out to squeeze Iras’ hand, where she stood near. She turned, and I saw in her eyes that she had been thinking the same thing.

A
FTER THAT
there was a great feast at the palace, and most of the city was consumed in revelry. I was not. The next day there was to be an even greater event, and I must spend all night preparing.

The site of this should be the New Gymnasium, called that because it had been built by Auletes, rather than the Old Gymnasium, built by Ptolemy Soter. Instead of a platform for the winners of the games there were two thrones in gold leaf over cedarwood, a tall one for Cleopatra with the square lines of the throne of Isis, and a slightly smaller one for Antonius, with arms like a curial chair. On the lower level of the platform before her stood four more thrones, the largest to the Queen’s right, in the block style of ancient paintings.

There was a grand procession into the Gymnasium, with representatives of all the temples of Alexandria, including the Patriarch of Alexandria, the chief rabbi of the largest synagogue. They were followed by nobles and wealthy merchants, representatives of all the cities of the Black Land, and a singing choir from the Serapeum. Demetria had her part there, among the other singers.

When everyone had reached their seats, the Queen and Antonius appeared, not carried as one might expect, but walking down cordoned aisles. Her robes were cloth of gold, and she wore the uraeus on her brow. Behind her, her cloak flowed and caught the sun. She held Philadelphos by the hand, and when he stopped, frozen at the wave of applause and shouting, she swept him onto her shoulder, waving. The crowd screamed, “Isis! Isis! Isis!”

Antonius came in behind her then, crowned with vine like Dionysos, or Serapis when his statue is dressed for the harvest. He grinned and waved as well, then put his arm around her in a charming unrehearsed gesture. Again the crowd shouted.

Caesarion followed, not dressed in the formal linens of Pharaoh, but in a chiton of rose-colored silk, like the lead in a play or the young Apollo. He was never reserved in front of a crowd, and instead of standing back, half-jogged along the cordon, grasping hands and being touched while the bodyguards tried to keep him from being crushed.

Behind him, well escorted by bodyguards, came Selene and Helios. They were six, and beautifully dressed in saffron silk, they knew how to behave at this, their first very public ceremony. Helios looked as though he wanted to run. Selene was solemn, not sporting the crowd like Caesarion. I thought, from my position to the side and above where I should make certain the program ran efficiently, that Caesarion was more like Caesar every day. I could see in him that boyish charm that people still talked about even fifty years later.

When everyone had reached the dais, and the choir had finished their long paean, almost inaudible beneath the cheers, Antonius held up his hands for silence.

He did speak well, I thought. He was used to addressing armies, and his voice carried over the crowd.

“I came to Alexandria,” he said, “as a young man, when Pharaoh Ptolemy Auletes was restored to his throne. I came from Rome, and as lion meets lioness, when I saw Alexandria I was stricken.” He looked over the crowd from left to right, nodding, as though to friends. “Yes, stricken. But I sailed away, and saw her no more.” The crowd was silent now. Antonius took two steps to the left, as though composing his next thought. He looked out again. “And instead Rome sent Caesar.” He paused, and I remembered that he had spoken Caesar’s funeral oration, set the Roman mobs upon the conspirators with no weapon besides words. Antonius could speak, oh yes.

“Caesar came to Alexandria, and it was Alexandria that restored him, that blessed his endeavors and set him, like some latter-day Aeneas, on the path to victory. Alexandria.” He looked to the right, then cast a glance behind him fondly. “Alexandria, and Cleopatra!”

The crowd roared. He waited until they calmed before he continued. “And of that sacred marriage was born Pharaoh Ptolemy Caesarion, Horus of Egypt. What I do today is in honor of Gaius Julius Caesar, my friend. What I do is for the honor of Rome. It has often been said that Rome is known by what she takes.”

Antonius paused again, waiting as the crowd silenced. “I mean that Rome shall be known instead by what she gives!” He turned, and bowing, went on one knee before the throne of Cleopatra.

The crowd shouted, screaming themselves hoarse.

When Antonius rose, he did so to take a garland of pink roses from the hand of a servant who held it out. “Rome confirms the legitimate heir of the Divine Gaius Julius Caesar, Pharaoh Ptolemy Philometor Caesarion, as the lawful ruler of Egypt, Ally of Rome!”

He laid the wreath on Caesarion’s brow, who inclined his head gravely, then embraced him.