Song Of The Nile Part 14

Juba's disinterest in the coming famine disturbed me even more than the fact that my enemy was providing my husband with female companions. To my immense irritation, I could do nothing about either as long as I was obliged to stay at the emperor's side. One morning, as I prepared to make my daily pilgrimage up the Palatine, Tala said, "It's shameful that you tend Augustus like a humble nursemaid. He doesn't need you there every day."

She made a good point and not just because the emperor's health was improving. In spite of his drama with the signet ring, almost everyone still believed that he intended to rule Rome as a monarch. I feared they would blame his ambitions upon me and didn't wish to give rise to gossip that I hosted lavish feasts while the Romans went hungry. Nor did I want to be seen as closeting myself away from Rome's plainer citizens. I had my own reputation to protect, so I decided to take Philadelphus for a day at the races.

THE Circus Maximus was politically neutral. Patricians, plebeians, equites, freedmen, and slaves were all equally pa.s.sionate about the races, and the enormous stadium was an excellent place to be seen. How Roman he's become, I thought as Philadelphus excitedly rattled off the names of the best charioteers. I couldn't help but be a little excited too.

Julia and Marcellus joined us at the arena, which turned my royal processional into an even grander thing, prompting trumpeters to announce our presence to the crowd. As we took our seats in the imperial box, the Romans cheered for the beautiful young married couple, and Marcellus glanced at the chair usually reserved for the emperor, laughing. "I could get used to this!" I must have looked appalled because Marcellus turned to Julia and said, "I see the sunny sh.o.r.es of Mauretania have done nothing to improve Selene's sense of humor."

"Don't taunt her," Julia said, waving to the crowd. "We'd hardly recognize Selene if she weren't fretting about something! "

"It's just that you shouldn't jest about taking the emperor's place," I said. "People might think that you wished him dead."

Below us, in the arena, charioteers rode into view, flying their colors. Red, white, blue, and green. Four matched white horses in golden harnesses trotted at the command of one of the circus stars, and from the crowd, rose petals fell like rain. The lash of a whip sent the stallions into a gallop and over the thunder of horse hooves, Julia said, "Don't be so dramatic, Selene. Of course we don't wish my father dead. Besides, everyone knows he's getting better. I sense that it's your doing, but they're going to erect a statue to Musa in the temple of Aesculapius for saving my father's life."

"Musa is a fine physician," I said. "I don't begrudge him."

Julia plucked grapes from a platter and wiggled her toes in her sandals. "Neither do we. Like I said, we don't wish my father dead, but he will die sometime, and when he does, Marcellus and I will change everything in Rome."

Philadelphus had been counting coins to make his bets, but this made him look up. "What will you change?"

Marcellus waved his hand with a carefree patrician air. "I'd pack up Livia's things and throw her out onto the street. What's more, I think she knows it!" Marcellus and Julia both laughed, but I worried that they were overly sure of themselves, grown wild and careless after a few months of relative freedom. Rome was filled with Livia's powerful Claudian family, and their clients numbered in the thousands. Some of them were probably in the stands even now. Such words, cast so casually about, could get back to her. "Tiberius and Drusus can stay," Marcellus added, motioning to a vendor who poured us some very fine wine. "Livia's sons may be Claudians, but they aren't evil."

"Tiberius is a boor," Julia told me. "The only one who ever seems to make him smile is Agrippa's daughter. If I thought Tiberius actually had a heart, I'd swear he was sweet on her." By Agrippa's daughter Julia meant Vipsania, of course, not little Marcellina, Agrippa's youngest, born to him by the emperor's niece. But someone outside the family might be forgiven the confusion. The Romans mocked my family for our brother-sister marriages, but they wound their own families almost as tightly. "Every young aristocrat in the city wants to entertain us," Julia continued. "We all go. Drusus, Minora, Philadelphus. Even Marcella and Antonia can sometimes be persuaded to abandon their dour old husbands for a good party. But Tiberius claims that he's too busy counting money in the treasury and advancing his career as quaestor to be out gallivanting with the smart set."

My, how things had changed since I'd been gone. "Your father lets you go to parties?"

Julia smirked. "I'm a married woman now. My father says it's my husband's burden to rule me."

"And I'm a tyrant over her," Marcellus rea.s.sured me with a wink. "When Julia misbehaves, I threaten to take her to Greece."

Julia sighed happily. "I so want to go to Greece and Egypt and Spain and everywhere! But mostly Greece. My friends tell me about the Mysteries at Eleusis. Some of them have been initiated and they had visions. Even those who believe in your G.o.ddess take part."

"Isis isn't only my G.o.ddess," I said. "She's all G.o.ddesses."

"How very convenient!" Julia laughed then clutched my hands to soften the sting of her mockery. "We should do it together, Selene. Go to Athens and take part in the Mysteries. You can work your magic. The kind with the wind, though, not the b.l.o.o.d.y hieroglyphics. That always ruins your gowns."

"Julia," I began, exasperation all too evident in my voice. "You're-"

"A wicked, shallow girl," she finished. "Yes, I know. Livia tells me all the time. You love me anyway!"

I did love her and somehow knew, even then, that this time with my loved ones was precious.

Philadelphus placed his bets on the blues. I bet on the greens because the horses were Barbary steeds, bred in Mauretania. "You're going to lose your money," Marcellus told me. "If Philadelphus bets on blue, we all do. He has a knack for gambling. He beats Augustus at dice all the time."

Was Philadelphus so foolish as to use his powers of sight for sport? My littlest brother didn't seem to notice my glare, and then the horses were off. While the chariots roared around the treacherous circuit below, Iullus and some of his friends dashed up the stairs to join us. Like Marcellus and Tiberius, Iullus had also started upon the so-called cursus honorum in which young Roman men took on a succession of public offices with the intention of reaching the pinnacle of power. I knew he was campaigning for office and had wondered how he afforded it. Seeing the way Julia greeted him with a kiss upon both cheeks, I wondered no more. Iullus smiled at Julia, eyes smoldering, and she turned pink from head to toe. If her husband hadn't been seated between them, so untroubled, all of Rome would have known they were lovers. "Iullus Antonius," Marcellus said, raising a cup. "We've chosen the wrong profession, campaigning for office like common drudges. If we took up racing, we'd be able to hire our own armies. Have you heard the absurd sums charioteers take home?"

"Only if they live to collect their prize money," Iullus replied. The two young men laughed together and I realized how comfortable they were with their arrangement. Though I tried to fight it, I envied them. It had been here, in this very arena, where Helios had won the crowd's adulation in the Trojan Games by rescuing Drusus from being trampled. That was the very same day the emperor tried to give him a new name, the day that Helios ran away . . . now I despaired of ever seeing him again.

"HOW can you waste your gift on gambling?" I cried.

Seated by my hearth with Bast purring contentedly in his lap, Philadelphus only shrugged. "Should I use my sight to help Augustus plan his war on Parthia? At least gambling doesn't hurt anyone."

I shouldn't chastise him. He was only doing as I'd commanded him. Finding a way to survive in this Roman world. Though he would soon don the toga virilis of manhood, Philadelphus had managed not to draw too much notice to himself as one of the children in the emperor's household. His relative obscurity might protect him. Even so, I couldn't help but wonder what I might do if I had his gifts. "I wish I could see into the Rivers of Time . . ."

Now he looked very grave. "You wouldn't like it. I see horrible things, like starving people . . ."

Juba and I had been sent to Mauretania to stave off famine, but it was coming anyway. "It's a late harvest in Mauretania. I worry that the next s.h.i.+pments of grain won't be ready before the sea closes. To get more, Juba will have to coerce s.h.i.+p captains into risking the winter journey and some won't go at any price."

"Write him a letter," Philadelphus suggested. "With Augustus so ill, maybe no one has."

"I have! Juba doesn't reply."

Philadelphus glanced at me, alarmed by my distress. "Is he a bad king? A bad husband?"

I told only the plain truth. "He's well intentioned, but I fear neither kings.h.i.+p nor marriage has turned out the way he expected . . ."

"Is it what you expected? To hear some tell it, Mauretania is an unforgiving land filled with howling savages."

"Oh no. Mauretania is beautiful. The sea is so blue, and the harbor looks like the G.o.ds created it to be Alexandria in miniature. In the market people speak a thousand tongues. Desert merchants on camels bargain with wealthy s.h.i.+pping magnates. Bankers and financiers shop alongside silversmiths and stoneworkers and slaves. One day, I'll take you into the wheat fields where the farmers drive oxen behind their plows. I can't wait for you to see it all."

"I can see it," Philadelphus whispered.

"With your eyes. I want to take you there."

"I always stay in Rome, Selene."

He'd said that before, when he was ill. I liked hearing it even less now. "You don't know that. You've said yourself that the Rivers of Time can s.h.i.+ft course."

"I don't mind," he said. "Our family is in Rome."

Philadelphus had lived fully half his life in Rome and our half sisters had become his siblings in truth. It broke my heart that he should forget what brought us here, but he was young. Perhaps it was a blessing for him to forget what I never could. I knelt beside him. "Philadelphus, when you look into the Rivers of Time, does the emperor make me Queen of Egypt?"

"Sometimes."

Sometimes. A frustrating answer. "When you see me become Queen of Egypt, how does it happen?"

He closed his eyes. "Augustus opens an engraved box of silver and gold, bearing the Ptolemy Eagle, then places our mother's diadem on your brow and her scepter in your trembling hands."

It was a tantalizing image, one that seared itself into my soul like destiny. "How? What leads to that moment?"

Philadelphus flinched and his eyes flew open. "You don't need to know."

"Tell me."

"No." Suddenly, he leapt to his feet, making ready to leave. "Telling you won't help make you queen. I've never seen it happen because I told you anything!"

What had happened to the pliant boy I'd left behind? I had to take him by both arms to make him stay. That's when I realized he was shaking. "You're upset."

"I don't want to talk about my sight," Philadelphus said.

"All right," I said, eager to calm him.

"I don't want to talk about it, Selene. We don't have much time together. We have to talk about something else. Ask me about the chariot races, or let me tell you how I bested Drusus in the gymnasium, but you mustn't ask me what comes next, because I won't answer and I can't bear it."

Nineteen.

ROME.

SUMMER 23 B.C.

IT 'D been another hot summer, tempers on edge, and not enough food. Riots weren't uncommon in Rome, but the increase in gang fighting and public unrest worried me. I sent letters to Euphronius, commanding him to find some way of sending more grain, no matter what the risk, no matter what the cost. Bribes. Magic. It didn't matter. We needed more grain.

When the emperor was well enough to get out of bed, I could put off a dreaded task no longer. Carrying Isidora in my arms, I knocked softly on the door to his study. "Leave the door open for a breeze," Augustus said, rising gingerly from his couch. "I'm still feverish, but I think Virgil will have no cause to write mournful funeral poetry on my account."

"I'm glad." He searched my face for a lie, but he wouldn't find a trace. I needed him to live, at least until he made me Queen of Egypt. "Caesar, this is my daughter." There are no words to explain how difficult it was for me to close the distance between us, bringing my child near enough that he could touch her.

"Is she ill tempered?" he asked, taking her from my arms. "Julia was a very disagreeable child." I didn't answer him, ready to s.n.a.t.c.h her back at the slightest provocation. He stared at her little face and said, "She's a Ptolemy, that's certain."

It was then that Agrippa happened by and went pale at the sight of my baby kicking her little feet while Augustus held her aloft. "You should be abed, Caesar, not entertaining the queen."

"The queen is entertaining me," Augustus said, returning Isidora to my arms. "She's been at my bedside nearly every day."

"Touching," Agrippa said, flatly. "Now that you've recovered, perhaps she can return to Mauretania and help Juba with the task we've set for him. We need grain. Between the mess in Egypt and the imbeciles administering the dole, famine is inevitable. We'd best prepare for it."

I seized my opportunity. "If I were Queen of Egypt, you'd never want for grain."

Agrippa exploded. "How much further will you two play out this farce! What next, Caesar? Will you don red boots and a laurelleaf crown and cruise down the Nile with her?"

This open insubordination shocked me but shocked the emperor more. "Remember yourself, Agrippa."

The admiral worked his square jaw. "I remember that when Rome believed you were dying, they turned to me."

The emperor all but hissed with fury. "Remember also, that you'd be nothing without me."

In truth, the emperor would be nothing without Agrippa. He'd have gone down in defeat at Actium, and my parents would now rule the world. Neither man seemed to realize it. Agrippa dropped his eyes, one meaty hand outstretched in a plea. "Caesar, there are those who plot your death even now. If you even entertain the idea of giving Egypt to Selene, it will inflame your enemies. Make Petronius the Prefect of Egypt. He's a military strategist. He'll crush rebellion and ensure the grain supply."

My mouth went dry when the emperor asked, "And if I don't? If I entertain the idea of giving Egypt to Selene?"

"By the G.o.ds!" Agrippa choked, his accusatory glance falling upon me. "She's bewitched you. First Caesar, then Antony. I won't watch it happen to you too." With that, he pried the signet ring from his finger and winged it to the floor near the emperor's feet. That done, the big soldier turned and stomped away, his boots thundering in the hall.

This was disaster. With Isidora in my arms, I gave no thought to my royal dignity but chased after Rome's most fearsome general, my sandals slapping against the tile floor as I hurried. "Agrippa!" I caught up with him on the landing, where a statue of Apollo watched down on us from behind a potted plant. "What do you intend to do?"

He was a simmering pot ready to over boil. "I'm leaving Rome."

It was the last thing I thought he might say. "Wh-where will you go?"

"East," he snapped. "You're every inch your mother's daughter, so I can predict your moves before you make them. You'll try to contact old allies, drum up support for your return to Egypt. Money for bribes, soldiers for your cause. Just know that I'll be there to see that your ambitions are thwarted."

"WELL, good riddance to Agrippa," Julia said as we made our way into the city, rows of Nubian slaves carrying our covered litter. The four of us were often together-Julia, Marcellus, Philadelphus, and me. We traveled everywhere with a large contingent of my courtiers and Julia's new friends. Some of them, like the poet Ovid, were upand-coming artists, eager for patronage. Others were young patricians who made a compet.i.tion of outspending one another with entertainments. In their company, Julia had blossomed from a neglected little girl into a vibrant center of attention. She had the glow of a young woman in love and whenever circ.u.mstances permitted, she and Iullus met secretly for their trysts. Marcellus cheerfully made excuses for them. In truth, Julia's false marriage seemed a good deal happier than my own, so I set aside my misgivings and enjoyed spending time with friends my own age and the children of my youth.

In the litter, Julia leaned back against her husband and said, "I wonder why Agrippa really left." I knew exactly why Agrippa had fled the city, but some secrets were too dangerous to share, even with those I loved. Julia continued, "Marcellus, your sister says that her husband, our good admiral, was in a fit of pique. That he had some falling out with my father."

Marcellus yawned. His face was shadowed and he looked tired. I guessed he'd spent one too many late nights carousing with Virgil, or perhaps he'd been working too hard, trying to impress Augustus. "Who knows what goes on in Agrippa's iron heart. My sister certainly doesn't. As for me, I've no time to pay attention to Agrippa now that the emperor has appointed me to the College of Pontiffs; I'm too busy obeying his commands to chase down and destroy sc.r.a.ps of paper with false prophecies about saviors and sun G.o.ds."

Philadelphus and I exchanged a secret glance at the knowledge that even now, the emperor still feared Isiac beliefs. Julia pressed her painted red lips together in thought. "I think Agrippa doesn't approve of my father's theatrics. Have you heard, Selene? My father has given up his consular powers and says he intends to restore the Republic."

Everyone had heard, but Philadelphus said, "Don't believe it." I lifted my eyes to his in warning. But he was right. Even half dead, Augustus had consolidated his power while silencing his enemies. They all accused him of choosing Marcellus to succeed him, so he gave Agrippa his signet ring. He offered to have his Last Will read in the Senate to prove that he'd not given Marcellus anything that wasn't his to give. Now he was orchestrating a bit of stagecraft that would humble the finest playwright in Rome: He'd announced that he wished to become a private citizen.

Marcellus smirked, his eyes still drowsy. "Augustus knows how to put on a good show. It wasn't enough simply to resign the post. Like some musty old forefather, he had to go all the way to the Alban Mount to lay down his office. Do you know he chose Sestius to replace him!"

"You think his resignation is only a performance?" one of Julia's new admirers asked. "It seemed real enough. Sestius is an avowed Republican. Why would Augustus elevate his worst critic unless he meant to give up power?"

Newcomers were so naive about the emperor. I found myself explaining, "He's only given up the consuls.h.i.+p. In exchange, he accepted some form of tribunician powers for life." What I didn't say is that he'd made a pretense of giving power back to the people, all while gathering new and unorthodox powers. And I couldn't find it within myself to be sorry about it either. It wasn't for the good of Rome, after all, that I'd sat by his bedside, willing the tyrant back to health.

Julia tapped to make the litter bearers set us down. We wanted to walk the rest of the way to the site of the new theater Marcellus was building, but as soon as we climbed out we were mobbed by hungry citizens, begging for food. With the surge of the crowd, Marcellus stumbled. It seemed at first that he'd merely caught his sandal on a stone, but when Julia tried to steady him Marcellus slipped through her hands, drenched in sweat, his eyes gla.s.sy. He managed to find his footing and gave a dazzling smile to our entire retinue as if it were all of no consequence.

Then he collapsed.

THE first day, Marcellus burned with fever, quaked with chills, and ended the night in a sweat-soaked bed. By morning, he rallied and summoned Virgil to read to him. But within two days, the cycle started again, this time with headaches that made him groan. Julia stayed with Marcellus as if she were his true wife, tending to him even when he vomited, proving what I'd always known-that her compa.s.sion was greater than her vanity.

How swiftly fate turns. When the emperor lay dying, it'd been Livia who haunted the halls, fearful. Now, as summer faded into autumn, it was Octavia who became a shadow of herself, hovering near her son's bed as if she could will him back to health. The Antonias beseeched her to sleep, but she sent them away with angry words. I braved her wrath with a platter of fruit and urged her to eat. "Don't be kind to me right now, Selene," she said. "It galls me."

She was thinking that her son was dying and that as Cleopatra's daughter I ought to take pleasure in it. I didn't. This fever was no divine retribution. Marcellus had nothing to do with the tragedies of my family. He was a beautiful young man, intelligent and good-humored. He was my friend. He was an innocent, and in some ways, so was Octavia. Sitting beside her, I said, "I understand. Your kindness has always been difficult for me to accept, but somehow we both must bear it."

"Oh, my girl." She reached for me, her calloused fingers lacing with mine. Her hands had once seemed stronger than Agrippa's, but now they shook with human frailty and fear. "My other daughters have never known real suffering. But you know. You can tell me. If I made sacrifices to your G.o.ddess, would she save my son? Will you ask her to do so?"

"I will," I promised, and that night I burned sage and poured a libation to Isis, asking her to spare the emperor's heir.

Marcellus got no better. Musa feared the air in Rome and suggested that we go to the resort town of Baiae. Thus the imperial family made ready to travel but I was overcome with a feeling of foreboding. I thought to stay in Rome, but Philadelphus said, "You have to come with us. Octavia needs us and I need you!"

So we all went to Baiae. Virgil owned a house near Lake Avernus and opened it for me and the rest of our entourage. The emperor's poet was himself never overly fond of company, but his fondness for Marcellus was never more evident. He would do anything to restore the young man's health. At dusk, before our procession could bed down beneath the shadow of Mount Vesuvius where the air smelled of sulfur and the ground itself was warm, Musa insisted that Marcellus must swim in Lake Avernus. The evening air was frigid, and I was tired from the journey. Even Philadelphus complained of aches and pains resulting from our b.u.mpy carriage ride. He was all out of sorts.

But Marcellus was wild with fever and wouldn't be persuaded to go out into the lake unless we all went. As Bast prowled the sh.o.r.eline, stalking fallen leaves, Philadelphus s.h.i.+vered beneath his cloak. "Hold my hand, Selene."