Song of the Nile Read Free

I thought. She could have imagined it. Perhaps she had even planned it.
    Worn around my neck, a jade frog amulet dangled from a golden chain. It was a gift from my mother, inscribed with the words I am the Resurrection . On my finger, I wore her notorious amethyst ring, with which she was said to have ensorcelled my father, Mark Antony. It was now my betrothal ring, and I hoped it would steady me, for I was a tempest inside.
    At just fourteen years old, I had neither my mother’s audacity nor the brazen courage that allowed her to so famously smuggle herself past enemy soldiers to be rolled out at the feet of Julius Caesar. I had heka— magic—but had inherited none of my mother’s deeper knowledge of how to use it. I didn’t have her wardrobe, her gilded barges, nor the wealth of mighty Egypt. Not yet . But the Romans often said I had her charm and wits and the day she died, she gave me the spirit of her Egyptian soul.
    Today I would need it.
    It was early yet in the emperor’s household; only the servants were awake, bustling about the columned courtyard, trimming shrubbery and hanging oil lamps in preparation for the wedding festivities. They were too busy—or too wary of my reputation as a sorceress—to acknowledge my presence beneath an overripe fig tree, where my slave girl and I made devotions to Isis. My Egyptian goddess was forbidden within the sacred walls of Rome, but no one stopped us from lighting candles and using a feather to trace the holy symbol, the ankh , into the soft earth. The Temples of Isis might be shuttered here in Rome, her altars destroyed and her voice silent, but my goddess dwelt in me and I vowed that she would speak again.
    Once we’d offered our prayers, my slave girl and I strolled the gardens with a basket because it was the Roman custom for a bride to pick flowers for her own wedding wreath. The summer had been ablaze, so hot that flowers lingered out of season. I had my choice in a veritable meadow. Stooping down, I plucked two budding roses to remind me of my dead brothers, Caesarion and Antyllus, both killed in the flower of youth. I chose a flamboyant red poppy for my dead father, the Roman triumvir, who’d been known as much for his excesses as his military talent. Finally, for my mother, a purple iris because purple was the most royal color, and my mother had been the most royal woman in the world. The sight of a blazing golden flower, the most glorious in the garden, reminded me of my beloved twin. But Helios was only missing, not dead, and I refused to tempt fate by plucking that flower from its vine. Helios promised me that we’d never live to see this day; he swore he’d never let me be married off to one of the emperor’s cronies, but the day had come and Helios was gone.
    A startled murmur of slaves made me turn and see a shadow pass between two pillars. It was the emperor. Augustus . The first time I ever saw him, he was a dark conquering god, a crimsonfaced swirl of purple cloak and laurel leaf, ready to mount his golden chariot and bear me away as his chained prisoner. Today he wore only a broad-brimmed hat and a humble homespun tunic cut short enough to expose his knobby knees. But the smile he wore with it wasn’t humble. This morning—the morning of the day he’d give me away in marriage—Augustus looked supremely smug.
    He was without his usual retinue of barbers, secretaries, and guards. Even so, the slaves, including my Chryssa, all dropped to their knees and genuflected. He stepped over their prone bodies as if he were one of the Eastern rulers he derided for tyranny, for he was the master here. He owned everything in this garden: the Greek statuary, the marble benches, the colorful flowers, and the slaves. For four years now, I’d been his royal hostage and he believed he owned me too.
    One day soon, I meant to prove him wrong.
    “Good morning, Caesar,” I said, sweeping dark hair from my eyes.
    Understand that the emperor wasn’t an imposing man.