I gasped. “With
you
?”
“We’re his sisters too,” Antonia replied. “If you won’t put him in the tomb of Augustus, give him his own place here in Rome.”
I always stay in Rome
, Philadelphus had insisted. Had he foreseen that he’d remain behind, even in death? What was I to do? He
would
be a stranger in Mauretania, alone in an empty tomb. Was I to risk his earthly body, his
khat
, to a voyage across the sea? “He was a child of Isis. Who would invoke the goddess over his remains?”
“We will,” Julia said, her tone brooking no argument, and the Antonias nodded their agreement. “Teach us to honor Isis and the rites he should have and we’ll perform them.”
They left me quite speechless. If the women in the emperor’s own family came to love Isis, would it not soften hard Roman hearts to my faith? How I wished that Isis would guide me, engrave her words on my hands. I held my palms up now, as if summoning her, but there’d been no Isiac blood spilled to work that magic.
“We’ll help you, Selene,” Minora said, taking up the jug to pour libations. “We’re not going to leave you alone.”
I’d never wanted sisters; it had upset my sense of place in the world where I had thought myself my father’s only princess. Still, as the Antonias laid out offerings to a forbidden goddess I knew I’d never be able to hold myself aloof from them again. I must love the Antonias because Philadelphus had loved them. And though I was heartsick, I resolved to entrust my youngest brother to their care.
WE sealed Philadelphus in a tomb that I commissioned, knowing it wouldn’t be complete for months. The funeral was small. Though Crinagoras offered to compose poetry, I refused. No grand orations would accompany Philadelphus from this life to the next. Teeming crowds of professional mourners and curious onlookers would not pass by to lay flowers upon his bier. I allowed none but those who’d actually loved him. I did for Philadelphus what I couldn’t do for Caesarion—I touched the lips of his sarcophagus with the iron wand and performed the Opening of the Mouth ceremony that would allow him to eat and breathe and speak in the afterlife. Beyond that, I won’t describe the funeral; I cannot, for it hollows me to think of it. And once it was done, I retreated to my house on the Tiber and shut myself in.
In my grief, it seemed only natural that the fields should be fallow. As if my sorrow had sent the whole world into a dark time of famine and ill omens. A wolf was caught in the forum and the river rose, flooding the city. Whereas the Tiber was usually unnavigable, it now ran swift and deep enough to accommodate small galleys filled with grain . . . if only there’d been any grain to be had. The wheat and barley in Rome had been spoiled by mice and other vermin; the people starved. Whenever I went out onto my terrace, my eyes were drawn to the Temple of Aesculapius, where the sick and hungry thronged for help and every wind carried the moans of the dying. Slaves had once sought sanctuary with Isis for compassion, healing, and scraps of bread. Her temples were all closed, but there were more Isiacs in the city than ever. Many of her followers had taken to wearing
pileus
caps, like the ones Romans wore during the Saturnalia, so that they might recognize one another and promote the cause of liberty. They called openly for reform.
At the same time, a different impulse was taking hold. Some said, “We were well fed until Augustus gave up the consulship.” They were wrong. The roots of this famine could be found in the emperor’s policies, but this didn’t stop the Senate from meeting with the express intention of asking Augustus to take up his mantle of power again.
This must have been his plan all along.
From the relative safety of my balcony across the river, I watched the angry mob gather, fists raised and shouts carried on the frigid morning winds. I had no idea what would happen next. If the mobs turned on Augustus and his family, I’d have to leave by carriage in the dead of night—fleeing Rome as my mother once did, and with even less to show for it. I
would
leave. I wouldn’t risk my daughter’s life, even for the throne of Egypt. Shivering with cold, I went back inside. Retrieving her from the nursery, I grabbed Isidora into my arms and pressed my lips to her temple, where her hairline was downy soft. Though the city was in an uproar, I could think of nothing more important than the way her little fingers curled around mine.
A few hours later, Julia and Iullus called upon me. I should have discouraged them from using my home as a clandestine meeting place, but how could I deny them even a moment’s happiness? Besides, no one raised an eyebrow at Julia’s arrival, for it was well known in Rome that the daughter of Augustus had befriended the daughter of Cleopatra. Likewise, because I was Iullus’s half sister, there was no scandal associated with his visits. My servants brought out modest refreshments. A silver pitcher of wine and a matching platter of olives, nuts, and cheese. Meanwhile, Iullus shrugged out of his bulky toga and tossed it over the back of one of my couches. It was an unwieldy outer garment that he was required to wear to official functions and he looked relieved to be free of it. “A motion just carried to make Augustus dictator for life,” he said.
Julia threw up her hands. “
Dictator for life?
After all the controversy about how my father intended to make himself king, now they offer him a lifetime dictatorship!”
Iullus took a handful of olives. “He refused it. You should’ve seen him. He dropped to his knees and rent his clothes like a grieving woman, begging the Senate not to put this burden upon him. He accepted responsibility for the grain supply—said he’d send Tiberius to Ostia to help oversee everything—but he wouldn’t accept a dictatorship. He told the Senate that he desired nothing more than to settle outstanding business and retire to private life.”
I knew him too well to believe that. “He’s afraid. Dictator for life is the authority they offered Julius Caesar before they plunged their knives into him. Augustus either fears he’s being offered a death sentence or he simply wants to be seen to refuse so that no one can accuse him of ambition.”
Julia bit her lower lip. “He
is
afraid. Without Agrippa here to protect him, he’s vulnerable.” Which made all of us vulnerable. How must my mother have felt here in Rome with little Caesarion in her arms, wondering if
her
Caesar would triumph or fall? I thanked Isis for the thousandth time that I’d never claimed my child was the emperor’s, or Isidora’s fortunes would be tied to his even more surely than mine were.
“How can you both be so cynical about Augustus?” Iullus asked.
I’ d learned from long experience that arguing with men who admired the emperor was fruitless, so I didn’t bother. Julia and I knew the truth of it. This was the emperor’s mad gambit. It was risky. It could all go wrong. The mob could tear him limb from limb, or the senators might turn their knives on him, then come to murder his family. We’d be next, my daughter and me. I was trapped in this dangerous situation, in this hateful city! As I paced, Iullus tried to comfort us, but some curious activity on the Tiber caught my attention.
I went to the balcony, where I looked down at teams of oxen on the towpaths alongside the river, hauling barges through the frigid water. It was an otherwise ordinary sight, but people flocked to the shore, swarming the bridges, pushing and shoving their way. That’s when I recognized the cargo.
Grain sacks.
Heaps and heaps of them, all stamped not with the emblems of Egypt—but of
Mauretania
. My Mauretania!
Twenty-one
SOMEHOW, Euphronius had done it. Perhaps he’d enchanted the sailors or bankrupted the treasury to bribe them. Either way, I was sure that it had cost us dearly. I stood watching barge after barge make its way up the Tiber. A man climbed atop the sacks of grain and lifted one hand in the direction of my house. He might’ve said anything in that moment, and the people would have cheered, but he cried, “Thank the Queen of Mauretania!”
I stood dressed only in a gown of mourning. I wore neither a diadem nor a circlet crown upon my head. My lack of queenly adornment seemed to win the crowd. This year had been one of grief and misery; they knew that I’d lost a brother and shared in their pain. “All hail to the queen!” someone cried. “All hail, to the
good
Queen Cleopatra!”
The crowd roared their approval and my guards pushed their way out onto the balcony. It seemed as if my entire household rushed out with them—only Julia and Iullus remained in the house. The people continued to cheer. “Thank Selene of Mauretania, blessed of Isis! Thank Selene of Egypt, last of the Ptolemies!”
“Not the last,” I murmured. “Not the
last
of the Ptolemies.”
Crinagoras rubbed his hands together against the chill. “Majesty, have you learned nothing about the allure of tragedy? Let them forget Princess Isidora for the moment. Let them think you’re the last of a noble line. It’s the sorrow of your story that’ll win their love and send you back to Egypt.”
He spoke openly this way because my aims were no secret to any of my courtiers, many of whom seemed more ambitious for my success than I was. “Who is that man standing atop the grain, proclaiming my largesse?”
“It’s Captain Kabyle!” Until that moment, I’d never believed the stories about Cupid and his bow, but watching the flush that stained Tala’s cheeks, no one could doubt that the Berber woman been pierced by an arrow of desire. Given that he’d just delivered food to a starving city, I wanted to kiss the captain myself, but Tala was breathless. Had she conceived her affection for the man on our journey from Mauretania?
Not wanting to question her, I said, “Tala, go down to the river and tell Captain Kabyle that I’ll receive him and hear what news he brings from King Juba.”
But moments after Tala rushed away, I received a summons from the emperor.
THE Temple of Apollo was a magnificent structure, a monument to the emperor’s victory over my parents. Each sculpture wrought with symbolism, every gilded adornment chosen with care, every cornice framing priceless artwork. Not for his
own
glory, Augustus would say, but for the glory of Apollo. As I passed through the giant bronze doors, which were carved in relief with the story of proud Niobe and all her slaughtered children, I shivered. As far as the emperor knew, all of my mother’s children had been struck down too. All except me.
Though it was a temple, it was also a massive governmental office. Amidst scrolls and various secretaries who hurried to do his bidding, Augustus was to be found in an antechamber not far from where he’d later lock up what remained of the Sibylline Books after he’d purged them of prophecies he feared. When I reached the entryway, his
lictors
tilted their ceremonial axes to either side of the entryway to let me pass. Alone behind closed doors, the emperor lowered his hood and pinned me in place with his icy eyes. “I suppose you expect me to thank you for your shipment of grain. It’s changed the mood in the city. A nice bit of sorcery . . .”
I thought he’d be glad, but I detected an edge in his voice. Was he actually displeased while all the city rejoiced? “It wasn’t sorcery, Caesar. I simply sent word when you were too ill to do it yourself.”
He pushed papers across the table in annoyance. “You conjured grain out of the air.”
“I conjured grain from Mauretania, where farmers worked the land and Isis rewarded them with a harvest, so that a fleet of sailors could risk their lives to bring it across the winter sea.”
“No,” he said. “There was magic in how it happened. The crowd threatened to burn down the Curia until I promised to take control of the grain. Mere hours later, your sacks of grain were ferried up the river.”
I realized he
was
displeased, as if he suspected me of something. “It was fortuitous timing.”
“Fortuitous?”
he snapped. “Do you know what my enemies say? They say I feigned my illness and engineered the famine. They say that your
fortuitously
timed shipment was positioned to make me look like a savior.”
I myself might have wondered if he’d purposefully brought this famine down upon Rome, but there were some things not even Augustus could control. Something else had him agitated, and I couldn’t guess at what. “It’s the fate of a ruler to do good for his subjects and be ill spoken of by them in return,” I said, quoting Alexander. “Our enemies will always have something to say against us, Caesar. The important thing is that the hungry have a little more food.”
He tilted his head, appraising me. “Do you know what I think? I think you held the grain back to please me. To glorify me. Is that what you did?”
I’d never hold back food from starving people, but that wasn’t the answer he wanted. “I might have done it had it occurred to me. I’ll find a thousand ways to glorify you if only you restore me to my mother’s kingdom.”
“I can’t,” he said, simply. “There’s war in Egypt.”
I was taken entirely off guard. “War? In Egypt?”
“The Kushites took advantage of Gallus’s disastrous campaign in Arabia.” He leaned forward, so wasted by his recent fever that his gaunt face took on a serpentine edge. “The temples at Aswan have been captured by a Kushite force from Meroë.”
I blinked. I couldn’t help it. Meroë was to the southern border of Egypt, a land of ebony people who shared many of our customs and gods, but they’d been friendly during my mother’s reign. “Why should they attack Egypt?”
The emperor steepled fingers beneath his chin. “The Kandake of Meroë claims she’s a pharaoh. She’s seized the temples in the name of Isis. She’s
routed
Roman forces.”
Impossible. I hadn’t believed any force in the world could rout the Romans, and yet, somehow, this queen had done what I couldn’t! “I never thought . . .”
“There are rumors that the Kandake is served by a fearsome wizard who can throw fire with his bare hands. Do you know what the small people call this mage? They call him Horus the Avenger.”