Daughters of the Nile Read Free Page A

I’m not compelled to answer her question because we’re interrupted by the king’s slaves, who beg admittance to deliver platters of food for our supper.
    Tala makes them wait as she finishes dressing me. A touch of red ochre to my lips and I am left to recline upon cushions on the floor, where I will receive the king. Meanwhile, my husband stands awkwardly in the doorway with his slaves and our dinner.
    King Juba is ten years my senior, and the years sit well on him. He’s a man with a head of thick dark hair and high cheekbones. I’ve always liked the look of him, and I see that tonight he’s resplendent in a purple tunic embroidered with pearls.
    He is a handsome man; perhaps my duty will not be so unpleasant.
    When we’re alone, the king takes his place on cushions beside the low table. A flicker of lamplight shadows his eyes, so I cannot read his expression. I offer him first choice from the plate of lamb shank braised with quince and cinnamon, saying, “I hope I didn’t make you wait so long that it’s turned cold.”
    Juba cocks an eyebrow. “Do you refer to our meal or to your bed?”
    I smile at his cutting joke, for it reminds me that the king can be witty. Tearing a piece of warm bread from the loaf, I use it to scoop up a little of the meat. The aromatic dish is delicious and I’m grateful that he’s arranged for this private meal, as I’m uncertain I could bear with any dignity the ribald jests of our courtiers, who take an interest in our long-awaited reunion. It is already difficult enough to woo and be wooed without the eyes of others upon us.
    “Will you have wine?” I ask.
    The king shakes his head. “I had enough when we were apart.”
    It is, I think, his apology for the way I found him when I returned to Mauretania. He was abed in daylight, drunk to the point of illness. Nevertheless, I now fill his goblet near to overflowing, saying, “It’s my opinion that tonight we should drink to excess. My parents formed the Society of Inimitable Livers . . . We should see whether it’s possible to imitate them after all.”
    “As I remember it, the girl I married wasn’t overly fond of wine or frivolity.”
    The girl he married was a fourteen-year-old captive too consumed with the fear of death to take pleasure in life. He has only known me as the emperor’s caged bird, a prisoner of Rome and of my own ambition. All that has changed. It must change. I gulp from my own cup, then say, “I’m a woman of twenty years now—almost twenty-one. The girl you married is no more.”
    He leans back, eyeing me carefully. “So I’m married to a stranger.”
    “Aren’t we all?”
    Juba gestures like an athlete in the arena who has been felled by a well-dealt blow. Then he lifts his goblet. We toast in honor of something we do not name. We drink to fill the silence. My husband is a learned man who knows well how to pass the time in banter, but the weight of what we’re about to do consumes our feeble attempts at lighthearted conversation. “Will you tell me what happened?” he finally asks when the wine has loosened his tongue. “Tell me why the emperor has sent you back to me.”
    Since I was a little girl, marched through the streets of Rome in chains behind a statue of my dead mother, Cleopatra, I have been the emperor’s possession and obsession. Juba has always known it. What my husband wants to know now is why the emperor has finally released me. And I don’t want to tell him. There are things that I cannot tell him. Things too painful to remember. Things he would never understand or believe. “Let it be enough to know that I’m done with Rome, and Augustus too.”
    Juba snorts. “Augustus could turn our kingdom into a Roman province with a snap of his fingers. He’s our patron, Selene.”
    I do not need reminding. Everything my husband has ever done has been precisely calculated to please the emperor, and I hate this about him. It’s also what I hate about myself, for I have done