Hand of Isis (41 page)

“You’ll take care of her, won’t you? You’ll guard my daughter?”

“I will guard her with all my strength,” I said. “With all my heart, to death and beyond.” I could not stop my voice from choking, though I tried. I held her to my heart instead, my tiny niece.

He turned it on the next contraction, though there was blood, so much blood. I held my niece so she should not see, not that her eyes could focus that far or that she could understand.

Amonis looked at his assistant. “Now,” he said, as another contraction came. “I’ve got a snarl in the cord. It has to be now.”

Cleopatra screamed, and he pulled his hand free in a rush of blood, intact caul coming after, tight over the second baby’s face.

I clutched the first and squeezed my eyes shut in a desperate prayer. Bastet, Mother of Cats, Isis, Mother of the World . . .

There was a choking sound. I looked. The baby was free, limbs hanging limp, while Amonis tore the caul from its face and covered its mouth and nose together with his mouth.

Breath of life I give you . . . , I thought, part of the Liturgy of Isis, heard a thousand times at Bubastis and at the Serapeum.

“She’s fainted!” the assistant yelled, and I saw Amonis hesitate, torn for a moment in the physician’s oldest dilemma, between one patient and another.

The blood, and the Queen, her head lolling back against Iras’ arm.

“Come on, damn it,” Iras swore at her, Iras who never in her life raised her voice, who never lost her composure. “Come on, don’t do this!”

Amonis blew, once, twice, three times, and then four. I saw a tiny fist clench, flushing pink, as the child drew a first ragged breath.

The assistant was trying to get the afterbirth, while Iras swore still, laying a cold wet cloth against the Queen’s forehead. “Come on! Come back to me!”

The other infant sputtered as Amonis took his mouth away.

“Iras!” Amonis’ voice cut through all. “Take the infant. Let me see to the Queen.”

Awkwardly, they traded places, a servant holding the cloth for the other child. A boy, I thought, a boy and a girl, before he was wrapped and held to Iras’ chest. Her tears fell on his small and bloody head.

“Your mother loves you,” she whispered. “Oh, how she loves you, sweet boy.”

The blood would stop or it would not.

“I think it’s placental,” Amonis said to the assistant, and I did not want to interrupt him to ask anything. “I don’t think it’s a uterine tear.”

I looked at Iras. The girl was quiet in my arms now, her breath soft and even against the warmth of my skin. Iras bent her head over the baby. “I will stay with you, sweet boy,” she whispered.

I walked to the window, swaying gently. It was past dawn. The sun was coming up, the first bright rays touching the sea. The seabirds were crying, turning on the currents of dawn.

Bright Helios, I thought, Ra of Egypt, Horus the Son of His Mother, oh please . . .

“Helios,” she croaked.

I spun about. Her hair lay matted around her and her skin was pale as silk, but her eyes were open.

“His name is Helios,” she said. “Helios and Selene.”

“Lie still, Gracious Queen,” Amonis said. “The bleeding is slowing, but it will stop better if you lie still.” He looked at me. “Is the girl strong enough to nurse?”

“Maybe?” I said. Her little hands were kneading at me like a kitten, her rosebud mouth puckered.

“Put her on one nipple and see if she will clamp,” Amonis said. “And you draw on the other. It makes the uterus contract more strongly. That will help stop the bleeding.” He held his hand flat against Cleopatra’s pubis, feeling each contraction.

I held the little girl to her left breast, popped her mouth open with a practiced motion I had forgotten I knew, clamped her jaw shut. Selene’s eyes closed, long dark lashes fluttering, and she moved her jaw to suck.

“That’s it, darling,” I said. “That’s how you do it.” I bent my head to my sister’s other breast and drew her nipple into my mouth, trying to find the rhythm. I suppose we forget these things when we are no longer babies, and no longer need it. Once, Iras and I had suckled from the same breasts, like twins ourselves.

It seemed a long time, but must only have been a few minutes before I raised my head.

“Let Helios try,” Iras said, and I moved and positioned the pointed brown nipple for him.

He had more trouble than his sister. He was smaller and his hands and face were very thin. Selene was sucking away, more for comfort than anything as there was nothing there yet, not even the thin foremilk.

There was color in the Queen’s face again, and the linens were not soaking through with blood in just a few minutes.

“I think,” said Amonis, “we may have made it.”

I
T WAS THREE WEEKS
before Cleopatra was strong enough to get out of bed. She nursed them around the clock this time, though there was a wet nurse too, to make sure they had enough. We did not announce the birth until a few days had passed, and the services could be ones of thanksgiving.

Selene seemed strong enough, though small, but Helios had to be held constantly against someone’s chest, skin to skin. His breathing was irregular, and sometimes he stopped, as though he forgot to take a breath. Skin to skin, he would be jostled and startled, and then would draw another quickly, half-choking. It would be months yet before we were certain of him, but Selene gained weight quickly, rosy and warm.

And yet there was thanksgiving. The trumpets sounded, and fire ran down the channels in the Serapeum in celebration of the miracle of twin children for the House of Ptolemy, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, Sun and Moon, one born by night, the other by day.

A
NTONIUS SENT HIS BLESSINGS
and his wishes from Brundisium, where he besieged Octavian’s allies. Word came from Greece that Fulvia had died of a fever in Athens.

“Antonius will be here soon,” Cleopatra said. “He will not be long now. He will want to see the children.”

“Yes,” I said, but I wondered. I had a letter from Emrys too.

Hail Charmian,

Now we are in Epidauro, waiting, they say, for passage to Italy. I am not sure it will come. Antonius did not want to fight Octavian now, and since Fulvia is dead there is more chance he can come to terms. Better, of course, to end war rather than fight it.

I miss you both. Four more years. If the gods will grant I live that long. . . .

In the new year, word came that Antonius had married Octavian’s sister, Octavia.

Her husband Marcellus was dead, which was not a surprise as he had been older than Caesar, but it was very convenient all the same. Octavia and Antonius celebrated a state wedding, centerpiece of a new treaty between Octavian and Antonius. Octavian should rule in the West and Antonius in the East. The successors did not need Cleopatra.

The Queen’s face was tight and grim. “He will need me,” she said, “to hold what he claims. Whatever he claims.”

There was anger there, real anger. She had fought her battle while he avoided his, only to win unregarded.

“He wasn’t good enough for you,” I said, enraged. “He was no Caesar.”

“Charmian, be quiet,” she said, and stalked from the room.

“The alliance is the wise thing to do,” Iras said. “It would be foolish to fight Octavian now. Especially if he can get what he wants through marriage, not war.”

“That does not keep me from hating him,” I said.

“It should.”

“Caesar would have done it.”

“What she has been through for him?—” I began heatedly.

Iras shook her head. “Not for him. She bore Caesarion for Caesar, and for Egypt. Selene and Helios are for herself. Can’t you see that she does not need a consort? She is a goddess, complete in herself.”

“She is also a woman,” I said, “and if Antonius cannot regard that as well as goddess and Queen, what kind of man is he?”

“Mortal,” Iras said.

T
HE
P
ARTHIANS
crossed the Jordan again and overran Judea. In Jerusalem, the king was killed and the royal family fled for their lives. One of the royal ladies, Alexandra, held out still against the Parthians in the desert fortress of Masada, while Prince Herod fled across the desert on a Bactrian racing dromedary to Pelousion.

He came to Alexandria, of course. Three years younger than I, he cut a handsome figure in his borrowed clothes, making his bows to the throne respectfully. He was not a pretty man, though his face had a cultured coolness to it, close-trimmed black beard and flashing eyes. He was two inches taller than the Queen; I thought they would have made an impressive couple, if things had been different.

“Gracious Queen, I beg the honor of a private audience with you,” he said. “You know of my house’s long friendship with the House of Ptolemy, and of my closeness to the Imperator Antonius.” He did not mention, of course, how he had come with his father to rescue Caesar, when he had been besieged in Alexandria, but they both knew that.

“I do indeed consider you a friend, Prince Herod,” Cleopatra said, her face unreadable beneath the heavy makeup of a court day, the double crown, and the uraeus. “And you are welcome to Alexandria and to Egypt. I am certain that you have many friends in the city. I will speak with you privately later in the week, and I will look forward to our conversation.”

It became clear in the following weeks that Herod had more on his mind than troops. He was in constant attendance on the Queen, witty and charming, always at her disposal with a literary reference or a choice word. Then he moved to observing this and that small thing about her bodyguard, and how her horsemen could be better drilled.

I watched him with her, convincing her that she should learn to ride a horse, helping her astride, coaxing and laughing while he held the bridle for her. The sun glinted off his gold earrings, his beautiful white teeth. “He looks like a candidate for office,” I said to Iras.

Iras smirked. “A candidate for consort. After all, if Antonius is away, what claim has he? A prince of Judea is a perfectly reasonable consort for the Queen of Egypt. Why win a throne by force when you can charm your way into a wealthier one?”

“He has a wife already,” I said.

“So did Antonius.”

“Who will certainly hear about it,” I said.

“Perhaps that’s the plan,” Iras said. The Queen was laughing now, leaning on Herod’s shoulder, in front of half the court. “Cleopatra certainly knows he will hear of it. If I were Antonius, I would have a whole bundle of reasons to come East, away from Rome and Octavia.”

A
ND SO HE DID COME
East, but not without Octavia and not to Alexandria.

Hail Charmian,

I am in Athens again, with Antonius, where we are planning to go against the Parthians next spring. They say that Rome must recover Judea and Syria, and that Antonius has promised Prince Herod all his support. So I suppose we will be sailing for Antioch in a few months. I do no wrong in telling you this, as all must know by now that the legions are coming in from as far as Gaul, and that Octavian has promised Antonius four of his legions to help fight the Parthians. It will be a major campaign, I am certain.

Antonius’ new wife Octavia is here in Athens with us, and every night there is a play or a declamation of some kind. She is something of a scholar, it seems, and she wants to see everything Euripides ever wrote performed at Athens. Though that may be curtailed soon, as she is obviously great with child.

I miss you and Dion very much. Give Demetria my love. . . .

She’s going to kill him, I thought. When the Queen gets her hands on Antonius, there will be blood.

T
o Emrys’ surprise, Antonius did not march east that year. Instead he sent a general called Ventidius, a veteran of Caesar’s army, to Syria in his stead. He remained in Athens where he presided over the Panathenaic Games and made a sacred marriage to the Goddess Athena.

Emrys, of course, did march east. While Antonius and Octavia celebrated in Athens, Emrys was in the field. I was beginning to find it hard to even be rational on the subject of Antonius.

The Queen said little about him at all. Herod went north to join Ventidius in the liberation of his kingdom, richer for a few nice presents from the Queen, but without having gotten either troops or a lover in the bargain. Instead, when the dry season came and the land was parched, we made the sacred pilgrimage again to Philae, the Queen conducting business along the way. Helios and Selene were nine months old, and deemed sturdy enough for the trip. When we returned there was both bad news and good.

Antonius was still in Athens, while his troops fought back and forth in Syria under another man. In Athens, Octavia had borne him a daughter, named Antonia, and was pregnant again four months later.

The Queen said nothing, only handed the dispatch to Iras and left the room.

Iras and I looked at each other.

“I will never forgive him for causing her this pain,” I said, my hands twisting together as though I could get them about Antonius’ neck.

“I don’t think he much cares about your forgiveness,” Iras said, frowning down at the scroll as though it were a snake in her hands.

“Probably not,” I fumed.

Iras looked up at me, a rueful expression on her face. “And you ask me why I would rather have no man?”

“Not all men are as faithless as Antonius,” I said. “And not all women are as wounded by it as Cleopatra.” I had never begrudged Emrys Dion or anyone else, but then Emrys had not left me for another.

“But I would be,” Iras said, putting the scroll in its place on the table. “And show me a man of high temper, mettle, and spirit who is not? Where should I find a faithful Dionysos?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Truly, it seemed to me impossible that anyone worth having would be so tame. On the other hand, I thought Antonius an exceptional ass.

W
E WERE SETTLING BACK
into our routines at the palace when a note came from Dion, carried by a message boy I did not know.

Charmian,

Come as soon as you can to my apartment.

Dion

“What in the world?” I said to Iras.

Iras’ eyebrows rose. “Maybe he’s ill?”

“I shouldn’t take Demetria then,” I said. “Will you see her and Caesarion to bed while I see what’s wrong with Dion?”

“Of course,” she said, and kissed my brow. “It’s probably not bad. He’ll be fine.”

I hurried. It wasn’t like Dion to ask for things. Well, not for things that didn’t involve money from the Queen for bizarre scientific experiments.

Emrys opened the door.

I drew a breath that was almost a sob, and fell into his arm. Arm, singular. The other was strapped tight against his chest in a sling, heavy wrappings beneath it.

“Where in the world did you come from? What happened?”

Dion stepped out from behind him, grinning. “He was sent by the general to buy supplies. He needed someone who spoke good Koine and had the Queen’s ear.”

Emrys held me about the waist with his good hand. “And who wasn’t very useful right now. I broke my left arm in two places against the Parthians. My horse went down with me under her, and I can’t ride or fight for months. So since I can’t be any use there, and I can buy supplies without being cheated by every merchant in Alexandria, I was sent to empty the purse for grain and foodstuffs.”

I leaned up and kissed him. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“And I you,” he said, kissing me hard and sensually, right in front of Dion. “It’s been two years, and I’ve missed you both so much.”

“We’ve missed you,” Dion said, drawing us in and closing the door. “And with any luck your general will forget he sent you for months and months.”

“Not so long as that, I expect,” Emrys said, but he did not let go of me. The lines around his mouth were more deeply graven, and his fair skin scourged by sun.

“Was it bad?” I asked.

He twitched an eyebrow. “Oh yes,” he said. “Yes.”

I
N THE NEXT WEEKS
he said little, but I pieced together what I could from the official dispatches, and from the little he would say, about a long campaign in the desert against the Parthians, the people of Syria unexpectedly hostile to the Roman forces. Herod was no help. After a year of fighting, he only held part of Galilee while Antigonus held Jerusalem and most of the rest of Judea. He had no help to give.

Emrys’ body bore the marks of the struggle, flesh worn close to the bone, and the way he started up in the night, calling out to men who were dead, or shuddering in some dream. We were less lovers than family, sitting together late into the night, the three of us, talking of anything but war. Dion bore the brunt of it, as he had more hours with Emrys than I did, and I saw the shadows in his eyes when the night before had been sleepless.

We did not like to leave him alone at night, after one morning when Dion came home from the Observatory to find Emrys gone. He turned up late in the afternoon, having wandered the city looking for something, not entirely certain where he was or what he sought. That was the first time I had ever seen Dion really alarmed.

I was disturbed myself, disturbed enough to talk with the Queen’s physician, who sent me to another doctor at the Temple of Asclepius. “It takes men that way, sometimes,” he said. “Too much war. It’s the strongest ones who bend that way, the ones who will not break. The ones who break go mad and hurt themselves or others, or sit down one day and cannot get up. The ones who bend . . .” He steepled his hands together, his eyes bright as though he studied something that interested him. “They bend in interesting patterns.”

“That is all very well,” I said. “But what may we do?”

“Time and rest,” he said. “Those are the only cures. But old soldiers will tell you that many never lose the ill dreams, not after twenty years have passed. But time and rest will effect some aid if his heart is strong enough.”

I came away no less disturbed. I could have told myself that without the fee and trouble.

And so we did not leave him alone at night again. I stayed with him when Dion had to be at the Observatory. Once, Emrys started up from a dream, and I was surprised to find Dion there too, curled on the other side, his body curved around Emrys who was curved around me.

“It’s only us,” I said, smoothing Emrys’ hair back from his sweated brow.

“Oh,” he said, and still half-asleep, put his arms around me while Dion slid his arms around him from behind. I saw Dion’s face, and he gave me a little shrug.

“Sleep, my darling,” I said, and he did, safe between us.

I
N THE MORNING
, the gray light slipped in through Dion’s white curtains moving in the dawn breeze, cooling and soft. I dressed quietly.

Emrys and Dion were still sleeping, the sheet drawn up around them against the morning air. Dion lay on his side, the sleeve of his oldest and softest chiton half-covering his face where he had ducked it against the back of Emrys’ neck. Emrys wore no shirt, and his shoulders were pale against Dion’s skin.

Seeing them curled together there, I knew we were all growing older. Emrys’ fair skin showed the worst of it, pitted and scarred, his bad arm outstretched on the pillows in sleep, seamed with red lines still. They would fade to white in time, but his arm would always be stiff. He was thirty-five.

Dion, the same age, was not the swift, precocious boy he had been. There were threads of silver among his dark curls.

I raised my arms in the light. I was thirty-two, and while my skin was still good there was no denying that there was more of it. The curves of my breasts were more generous, my hips wider. Rich food had its price.

But, I thought, looking at Emrys and Dion lying side-by-side in sleep, Dion curled around Emrys’ back, there was nothing in the world that I would trade for this—certainly not youth, when I had wondered if I was beautiful or if Lucan wanted me, wondered if the price of love should be everything else. This was love.

And so I dressed and went back to the palace to wake the children and begin the day.

A
FEW DAYS LATER
, a sunny afternoon, the Queen, the younger children, and I were playing on the broad terrace overlooking the sea. A quinquereme was putting out, her five banks of oars moving together, and the whitecaps were breaking against the harbor mole. Gulls cried on the breeze, circling where a fishing boat had just put in. Above, the vault of heaven was a clear and breathless blue.

It was not often that the Queen had a full afternoon to spend with the children, and Helios and Selene were making the most of it, tussling and falling and tugging at her with all of the enthusiasm of children who were not quite two. I rescued her from Helios’ tiny hands in her hair.

Our eyes met, laughing.

“This is beautiful,” I said.

“And fragile,” she said.

I knew that, and none knew as well as she how all of this could be so easily shattered, the peace of the nursery, the peace of the city, half a million people sleeping in peace tonight in Alexandria. And throughout the Black Land, how many more? A hundred thousand in Memphis, seventy-five in Faynum, fifty in Thebes. And how many more? At best guess, six million people knew peace because of what we did, woke each morning to laws as fair as we could make them, to enough food and clean water, to the best medicine in the world.

“So fragile,” I said.

She spread her hand against Helios’ chest, where he leaned giggling against her, his brown curling hair like Antonius’. “Do the gods feel the weight of it?” she asked, her son’s cheek against her own.

“They must,” I said, “or They would not need us.”

I
T WAS SOON AFTER
that Dion decided to give a dinner party. There were just six of us really, old friends of ours, and Emrys, who looked better by the day. He had put some flesh back on his bones, and no longer startled at every loud noise. We ate on the balcony in the cool of the evening, two couches of us. There was fish in an olive sauce, and everything as good as one might find anywhere in the city.

Dion arranged our couches as though Emrys were the guest of honor, reclining on his left elbow with me reclining in front of him, while Dion sat on the end at our knees, the host taking the least comfortable spot. There was laughter and good conversation, though the other guests left early, moving on to some other party with more drinking.

“They left the good wine for us,” Emrys said, leaning over me to refill our cup.

“No,” said Dion, “I saved the good wine for us!” He poured into his own cup and touched it to ours. “Good friends and good wine.”

“Oh yes,” I said, and drank, handing the cup to Emrys.

He took it, and a sudden shadow washed across his face. “Absent friends,” he said.

“Absent friends, my love,” Dion said, and touched cups as though they pledged. Their eyes met, though just their fingers touched, and I felt it leap like a spark between them.

“I should go, dears,” I said, starting to push up on my elbow. “It’s getting late.”

“Don’t go just yet,” Emrys said.

“Besides,” Dion said, “it’s your turn.”

“It is?”

“It’s the fourth night after the new moon except on a state dinner or the Roman kalends of the month. How can you mix up the schedule like that?”

Emrys burst out laughing. “How in the world can anyone keep a schedule like that straight?”

“I have no idea,” I said, smiling. “I lost track a long time ago. I just come and go when Dion tells me to.”

“Dion says stay,” Dion said.

I laughed. “If you mean that, I’ll go down and tell the litter bearers to go and come for me in the morning.”

“They’re probably drinking across the street,” Dion said, “I’ll go down.”

He hurried off, and I leaned back against Emrys’ shoulder. “He’s very good to you,” I said.