Hand of Isis (25 page)

Yes, there had been that lightning sense of connection, that spark. But I did not really know him, not enough to miss him. And if sometimes at night I wished he were there, or wondered who he would be if I actually knew him, I did not cry for him. I had my friends and my sisters, Caesarion and Demetria. I had charge of the Royal Nursery and the Queen’s wardrobe and personal plans, while Iras had the Royal Household and Apollodorus the Ministry of State. There were not enough hours in the day for all that needed to be done. I had no time for a love affair, and no particular inclination to look for one. A few hours now and again with a handsome man would be pleasant, but not worth the risk to my heart.

“Perhaps,” said Dion, “you would do it if there were someone worth it to you.”

“Yes,” I said. “Let me know when you see someone worth it.” Besides him, I thought. But that was categorically not going to happen.

T
HE HARVEST CAME
, and then the spring. Caesarion was changing from baby to child, walking on his small feet and chasing my cat Sheba, who ran away and retaliated by hissing at him from the tops of cabinets or other high places. Demetria was learning to talk a little, though she was far behind him. Six months is a vast gulf at that age, though it would close as they grew older.

Caesar went to Hispania. It seemed that Sextus Pompeius had escaped from the ruin of their plans in Africa, and waited, one last foe.

Emrys wrote to Dion from Corduba, a letter weeks on the way and half-illegible from seawater.

Hail my friend,

I cannot think of anything you would like better than making an astrological ceiling for an entire temple, and I liked hearing you tell about it though I do not know the constellations you name. I suppose every people sees the stars differently and tells different stories about them. In Gaul they are not the same as the Roman ones. We have the Wain and the Hammer, the Swan and the Wolf. The Germans tell me they have the Dragon, which is some kind of great flying lizard that a hero killed once and their gods put into the sky. Sigismund swears to me that he has seen the skull of a dragon that one of the great chiefs has, pulled from the earth, and that the teeth of the monster are longer than a man’s hand, but I am not sure if such a thing can be true.

We will be leaving Hispania soon. I think we would be already gone, except that Caesar is ill. He had some kind of fever, but it is not just that. Lately he has been sick more often, and sometimes his headaches are so violent that he must stay in the dark all day. I think he is feeling his age.

We will be back to Rome soon, I suppose. I do not know whether to hope that we go by sea or land. By sea is quicker, but there is no misery like a horse transport in a storm in the Middle Sea. By land we will go along the coast, and will come at last to Massalia, which though it is far from my actual home, is beginning to seem like it. It was the first big city I saw when I joined up. I thought it was the grandest thing in the world. I had never seen a sewer before or a gutter for the rain, or a hundred ships at once.

You ask me if I intend to marry. It’s forbidden during our enlistment. We can’t until after we get our discharges. Even if I could, how could I leave someone else waiting for me and wondering where I am? Perhaps with a child to take care of? That is what I think of when I am wanting home comfort and a warm bed, a woman to love me and need me. It would not be fair. . . .

“Oh, Dion,” I said, when he showed it to me. “How did you find the good one?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and smiled ruefully. “I’d share him with a woman if he wanted. I know he likes women too. But . . .”

“I know,” I said. “Who knows when you will see him again?”

“Not even the gods,” Dion said. “It’s one of the things you learn as a magician. The gods may know more than we, and understand things that are beyond our learning, but They do not know the future.”

“Beyond our learning? Not beyond our understanding?”

Dion nodded. “That’s one of the first laws of Hermetics, of the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. The created universe operates according to natural laws, and all things obey them, even the gods. We, the younger children of time as we are, may not understand how they work, though the gods do.”

I shook my head, fascinated. “Like what?”

Dion grinned as he always did when he had something he enjoyed to explain. “For example, I can take this scroll and drop it on my foot. I can do it a hundred times, and do you know what I’ll have learned?”

“That it’s heavy?” I grinned back. “What will you have learned, Dion?”

“That it falls down. Every time. You could take scrolls, rocks, feathers, bones, anything you wanted, and drop it and it would fall down. Why?”

I blinked. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” Dion said. “Nor does any man. But anyone, from the village fool to the most learned man who ever lived, can tell you that if you drop something it will fall. It’s a law of nature.”

“Unless something else acts upon it,” I said.

Dion nodded. “Exactly! If I throw a rock, it will go some distance before it falls. If I sling it from a catapult it will go farther still. And if I put a piece of metal on the ground and hold a lodestone above it, it will fall up. There are other laws in play. The Law of Attraction, for example. Some things are attracted to other things, like the metal to the lodestone.”

Dion was, I thought, a rather good teacher with a knack for making complicated things simple. No wonder he was well liked at the Museum.

“It’s observation,” he said. “If a thousand men have all seen the same thing, there’s something to see.”

“Suppose five hundred see something and five hundred don’t?” I asked.

Dion looked pleased. “Then you have to figure out what the difference between the men was, rather than conclude there was no phenomenon to observe. Why did some see it and some not? Like the gods. Every people in the world has gods, and every people has those who talk with Them. If thousands of people all over the world in every age have observed something, it’s more logical to assume there is something to observe that requires certain abilities to perceive.” He nodded at my quizzical look and went on. “For example, when you sound the highest string on a kithara many men can’t hear it. However, it’s rare that children can’t, and more women can hear the very high notes than men. Is it that there is nothing to hear, or only that for some reason we don’t understand, children and women can hear high notes better than men?”

“The latter is more logical,” I agreed.

“So Hermes Trismegistus teaches us that the understanding of natural law helps us understand the entirety of the created world, including the gods. There is no separation between the material and the numinous.”

I put my head to the side. “Dion, do you think you could teach me?”

“I don’t see why not.”

S
UMMER CAME
. Caesarion was two. The floodwaters rose and began to fall. The Inundation was high that year, and many marginal fields were deep in life-giving mud. The harvest would be good and the grain would pour in, refilling granaries emptied of their surplus in lean years. Isis was enthroned, and the Black Land was at peace.

It was only a few weeks before another letter came from Emrys, this time from Rome.

. . . we are back in Rome and camped outside the city. We are with the bodyguard, at Caesar’s country house, where he is ill again. He’s getting better, and I’ve seen him outside and up and about with my own eyes, though he looks thin. They say he’s rewriting his will, that this illness has scared him. I don’t think dying scares Caesar, except perhaps for leaving things undone.

You ask me why I love him, and I have thought about it. He’s Caesar. He sees people and things for what they are, not for what circumstances surround them. He sees the worth in a man regardless of his family or friends, of the language he was born speaking or his name. He sees things around him the way they are, not the way they should be or the way we want them to be. And when you stand next to him, you see it too.

You ask me, is he good? I do not understand what you mean. He is honorable, surely. He has kept faith with those he has given his word. That is the measure I know. Remember, I do not know how to debate ethics, or play those kinds of games about which god gives better commands. You say that your god forbids you to kill, yet we would have been dead in Alexandria if not for Antipater and the Fighting Jews. It must not be as forbidden as all that.

I am glad you have never killed, and I hope you never have to. If, as you say, you cannot value your own life high enough to say that you would kill rather than be killed, then that is what will happen. But I would be sorry if it did.

Or perhaps one day you will find something worth killing for.

Farewell,

Emrys Aurelianus, Praefectus

(As you can see, I am a praefectus now, with command of an ala of four hundred men.)

Caesar’s letter was equally to the point. “Come to Rome,” he said. “Come to Rome, and bring the child. I should like to see Ptolemy Philometor Caesar.”

W
e came to Ostia, Rome’s seaport, on a beautiful early fall day. The passage had been smooth and uneventful, our great ship carried along by moderate winds, the two warships in our escort more for show than for protection. It had been many years since Pompeius had defeated the pirates and secured the shores of Sicilia and Campania. It was hard enough to outfit two ships properly. We had still not recovered our navy well enough from Caesar’s fire.

Our galley was the first of the new ships, with five banks of oars and eight decks, and cabins large enough for the Queen and all her household. This was necessary, as Caesarion should come, and therefore I should too, as well as his nurse and all of the other servants. Iras came to take charge of the Queen’s personal arrangements, while Apollodorus stayed in Alexandria to oversee things there. Dion also stayed, as now he was teaching at the Museum, and could not leave except to the detriment of his career.

Demetria also came. She was not quite two and I was loath to be separated from her, but I also hated to risk the dangers of a sea voyage, not to mention the uncertain airs of an unfamiliar place when she was so young. Still, Caesarion must come. Caesar had never seen him. And at least Demetria could bear him company and be a familiar playmate from home. He was two and a bit, and the age difference between them was beginning to close now that they could both walk.

For my part, I understood Asetnefer better now. The daughter I had carried and the nephew I had not seemed equally mine. I looked at Caesarion and Demetria together on the floor with some toy, seeing the children as refractions of us, different facets of what it meant to be a Ptolemy. In truth, Caesarion was more like Iras than his mother or me, while in Demetria I saw the clever persistence of Auletes.

As we came into port in Ostia, I saw Cleopatra tweaking aside the curtains at the window, searching for Caesar. Of course he was not there. If the Dictator of Rome were to come to Ostia, it should be an act of international significance, as though Rome bowed to Egypt.

“He would come if he could,” I said, seeing her face as she let the curtain fall. “I think he would. But he is more than your lover, the father of your child.”

“He is Caesar,” she said, and lifted her chin. “And I will have no less.”

I nodded, and helped her with the clasp on her necklace.

If Caesar could not come himself, he had at least sent his representative in great state. Some of the arrangements had been made before we departed Alexandria, through Iras’ lengthy correspondence with Apollonius, Caesar’s slave and secretary who handled his affairs as Iras handled the Queen’s, so we were not surprised to see the great crowd at the wharf.

There were a dozen covered litters, white curtains moving in the breeze, a full escort of soldiers in steel and harness, and behind all a parade of wagons for the Queen’s things. I was pleased to see that the soldiers looked like the familiar bodyguards we had known in Alexandria; they were Caesar’s own men, and he trusted them. And of course a crowd had gathered on the wharf and behind, idle spectators of Ostia who were curious about the Queen of Egypt.

Waiting at the front of the crowd, just before the bodyguard, were two young officers and a senior officer. He did not wear a helmet in the sun, and his brown hair curled over his forehead. He was nearly as tall as the bodyguards, and the military harness he wore in the heat bared his legs, which were very muscled indeed. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but I could not place his face.

One of the junior officers came forth to talk with Iras, arranging the precedence of the welcome in a few words. Iras nodded, and walked back to join us behind the curtains. “Caesar has sent one of his closest associates, his former Master of Horse, a man named Marcus Antonius. He is to escort us to Caesar’s villa just outside the city, where Caesar will join us this evening for an official reception. The villa is to be ours for the duration of our stay.”

I glanced over her shoulder at Marcus Antonius, who was waiting in the heat. Now I recognized him. He had been a young officer with Gabinius, when they returned Auletes to power. Ten years ago. The years had certainly been kind to Marcus Antonius. Even Iras gave him a glance beneath her heavy eyelashes.

Cleopatra nodded. “Is it agreed whether Antonius will bow?”

“He will bend but not kneel,” Iras said. “It’s not their way. They are so proud of having no kings.”

Cleopatra nodded. “That will suffice. After all, I do not come to Rome as a suppliant, as Auletes did. I am Caesar’s guest.”

“I hope they understand that,” I said, looking about to make sure Caesarion had not gotten his white chiton dirty already.

“If they don’t now, then they will soon,” she said serenely.

Antonius greeted her properly, bowing deeply enough and holding it long enough that it was clear he had been well rehearsed. “Gracious Queen,” he said, as he straightened, “I bring you the personal greetings of Gaius Julius Caesar. He regrets that he is unable to meet you at the harbor himself, but sends his own vessel to bring you upriver. He hopes that these humble conveyances may be enough for your comfort, and that his house will be pleasing to you. He will join you in the second hour of the night, that you might dine together and that he might bring you greetings from the first men of Rome.”

All very unofficial, I thought. From the first men of Rome, not from the Senate. From Gaius Julius Caesar, not from the Dictator. He has enemies, I thought. And things of which he is not certain.

Cleopatra nodded once, gravely. “Please convey to Caesar my pleasure in accepting his kind hospitality. As I am traveling merely as a friend, not as the sovereign of Egypt, I am happy to dispense with tiresome ceremonies, and will look forward to receiving him this evening, and with being introduced to his intimates. Do you count yourself among the evening’s guests, Marcus Antonius?”

He inclined his head again, and I could see how his eyes lingered on her face. “I am so fortunate, Gracious Queen.”

“Then I shall look forward to speaking with you,” she said. “I understand you have been my guest before, in Alexandria.”

Antonius flushed, and I wondered what it was about these Romans, blushing like girls. “It is kind of you to remember, Gracious Queen. We did not speak on that occasion.”

“As I recall you were practically outdoors on that occasion,” Cleopatra said, and I saw her lips twist in a real smile. His couch had indeed been at the very back of the hall.

“I was,” he said. “But that was many years ago. And we’ve both had a promotion or two since then.”

“So I see,” she said with a glance at his gleaming harness. It was Greek, from the look of it, and faced with gilded lions. Beneath it, his tunic was aqua blue with worked borders, rather than anything he ought to be wearing. But I suppose if Caesar didn’t tell him to put on proper uniform, no one else could.

Caesarion twisted, grabbing at the front of my gown. From where he stood it was nothing but a sea of legs, and he wanted to get up where he could see something. I thought it was better to go ahead and pick him up, rather than have him start pulling and yelling, so I hoisted him up as quickly as possible. Of course Antonius saw the movement.

“Is this Prince Caesarion?” he asked, his face lighting with a smile that seemed genuine.

Caesarion, for his part, stared at the gilded breastplate and aqua tassels as though it were the most lovely thing in the world.

“This is Ptolemy Caesar,” Cleopatra said carefully.

Marcus Antonius inclined his head gracefully to the boy in my arms. “Hail, Ptolemy Caesar,” he said seriously. “I have a little boy of my own just your age.”

Caesarion looked at him curiously, his head to the side, and his feet unfortunately digging into my breast. He said nothing.

“A man of few words,” Antonius said to the Queen, smiling. “He handles the crowd quite well.”

“He has been brought up to it,” Cleopatra said.

“My son Antyllus would be screaming,” Antonius said. “But then he’s not a prince.”

“Or a Caesar,” Cleopatra said pointedly.

“I don’t think Fulvia and Caesar have ever been that close,” Antonius replied, laughing. He stopped when he saw the look of icy horror on Iras’ face behind the Queen. “Your pardon,” he said, stepping back. “I am a plain soldier, and unused to diplomacy.”

I wondered if it were indeed the fashion in Rome for husbands to joke about their own disgrace, or if there were a message there—that Cleopatra was not the only woman who had claimed Caesar’s favors, Queen or not. Or perhaps Antonius was just putting his foot in his mouth.

W
E CAME UP
the Tiber in morning, and the bustling business of the river was no surprise to me. It was much like the harbor traffic in Alexandria. Caesar’s barge, too, was not surprising, save in its luxury and workmanship. The cushions were of scarlet leather, and the fixtures were gilded. There was chilled wine to drink while we made our passage upriver, though I got none of it. Iras attended the Queen and Antonius, while I tried to keep Caesarion from falling in the Tiber. Demetria knew better, but Caesarion scaled the rail and leaned out alarmingly, yelling at the seagulls that swarmed around the ship hoping for a handout. By the time I had found bread for him to throw to them, and gotten Demetria bread of her own because she was hungry, then found Caesarion bread because Demetria had some, we were passing under the Sublician Bridge and into the city proper.

We did not, however, stay in Rome. While the city spanned the right bank of the river, instead we came about and docked along the left side. There trees and parkland came down right to the water, and above, among the cypresses, I could see the occasional gleam of marble.

“A Palace Quarter?” Iras asked.

I nodded, steadying Demetria as the ship bumped against the dock. “It seems so.”

Many of the rich men of Rome kept more than one house, and while an old family home on the Esquiline or Palatine was expected, many had built newer houses outside of the city proper, in the parks and wooded vistas on the other side of the Tiber. One of these was Caesar’s.

I had never before been in a house that was entirely new. In Egypt, an old house may be a thousand years old, one floor built on top of another, one wall patched and remade of blocks that were once a city wall or a temple so long ago that the carvings are faded. Even in Alexandria, which is new by the standards of the Black Land, our houses were a hundred years old, or two. Of course new rooms might be added, old decoration torn down and brought up to date, a modern bath affixed to an older building, but a house built entirely from the beginning was a novelty to me.

And yet that is what Caesar had done. Ten years ago this had been a wooded plot on a hillside. Caesar had approved the plans in Gaul, without walking the land himself, and in his absence the trees had been cut to supply a glorious vista of river and city on the other side, gardens and groves cunningly arranged, and amid it all the marble splendor of his new house. There was a hypocaust beneath the floors to provide radiant heat in the winter. The long colonnade facing the river had pots of Indian jasmine, whose perfume would fill the area during the summer. The walls were plastered and painted with scenes in bright colors, precious as a jewel box, as though even the smallest room were the setting for a brilliant play. The furniture was all new, elegant, and graceful, without a single scuff or mark of wear. There were twenty rooms, and each was perfect.

“And this is to be the Queen’s bedchamber,” Caesar’s secretary, Apollonius, said as he showed me about.

The walls were painted green, and on each panel was a pastoral scene—farmers working in fields, hunters with bows shooting at waterfowl, and so on. Through it all a great blue river ran. Boats plowed it, sailing serenely past cities half-imagined.

“It’s the Nile,” Apollonius said. He shrugged. “Or at least what the artist thinks the Nile looks like.”

To my mind it looked more like the Tiber out the window than the Nile, but it was still very pretty, and I said so.

Apollonius nodded. He was a small man with graying hair and the purest Greek possible. Sold into slavery as a boy in Athens, he had been freed by Caesar some years ago. Since then he’d been at Caesar’s side from Gaul to Hispania, managing his affairs and writing his letters. He was, I thought, a man of whom to make a friend.

“The Prince’s room is across the hall,” he said. “The windows are right above the guard post.” He looked at me significantly. “But I suppose you are used to guarding the boy.”