Stephanie has kindly contributed an excerpt from her latest book - Song of the Nile:
Selene
Rome
Autumn 25 b.c.
My
wedding day dawned rosy as the blush on a maiden’s cheek. Like the sun
peeking between pink clouds to warm the sprawling city of terra-cotta
roofs below, I must also shine for Rome today. As morning broke, I
surveyed the middling monuments that blanketed Rome’s seven hills. I
gazed to the Tiber River beyond, diamonds of dawn sparkling on its
surface, and tried to see this day with my mother’s eyes.
She
was Cleopatra, Pharaoh of Egypt, a woman of limitless aspiration. And I
was her only daughter. She’d wanted a royal marriage for me. She may
have even hoped my wedding would be celebrated here in Rome. But could
she have conceived that this wedding would come to me through her
bitterest enemy? In her wildest dreams, could she have imagined that the
man who drove her to suicide—the same man who captured her children and
dragged us behind his Triumphator’s chariot—would now make me a queen?
Yes, 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 my
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 the
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
their 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 crimson-faced 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. His power was all in the snare
of his ruthless winter gray eyes which now darkened with suspicion, as
if he’d caught me trying to slip past his praetorians with their crested
helmets and crimson capes. “What mischief are you up to, Cleopatra
Selene?”
After
all the opportunities I’d declined to run away from him, it was strange
that he’d suspect me of it now. I wondered what accounted for his
latest paranoia. “I’m only gathering flowers for my wedding wreath.”
I
showed him my basket, and seemingly satisfied, he glanced over his
shoulder through the open doors to where he received clients and other
morning visitors. The tabulinum was now empty except for the clutter of
scrolls, brass oil lamps, and busts of his ancestors, the Julii,
each painted to create the most lifelike rendition. “Walk with me,” the
emperor said, and I did, for no one refused him. “This morning I
granted an audience to an ambassador from Judea, Selene. King Herod
sends a last-minute wedding proposal. He wishes to take you as his
junior wife.”
The
mere mention of Herod’s name made my steps falter. The Judean king had
been my mother’s rival and had long urged the Romans to exterminate my
whole family. The news that he wished to make me, the last daughter of
the pharaohs, a part of his harem, actually forced a gasp from my lungs.
The proposal would have been more insulting if it were anything other
than a pretext to kill me. Herod had already murdered his most beloved
wife to make an end to her Hasmonean dynasty. He wouldn’t lose a
moment’s sleep over my death. “Caesar, you cannot mean to give me to
Herod. You swore to make me Queen of Mauretania!”
Augustus
smiled. I think it pleased him to see me lose my footing, to see my
confidence waver. “Trust in Caesar, Selene. You’re already promised to
another and in such an important matter as your marriage, I wouldn’t
cater to the whim of a Jew—even if he’s already proved his loyalty, and
you haven’t. Yet.”
I
breathed, realizing that he’d told me this only to frighten me. To
remind me of his largesse. To make me gasp with fear and then relief.
Though Augustus was more than twenty years my senior, no wicked boy
plucking wings off insects loved cruel games as much as he did. He
stopped beside a small sphinx he’d pilfered from Egypt to adorn his
garden. “Be grateful, Selene. By the end of this evening, you’ll be the
wife of a newly made king, and the wealthiest woman in the empire. Not
even your mother could have asked for more.”
Of
course, she did ask for more. Offering her crown and scepter to him in
surrender, she’d asked that her children be allowed to rule Egypt after
her. Then she took her own life. My mother’s suicide had been convenient
for him in every way, and I’m certain that his advisers all breathed
easier when she breathed her last, but Augustus had been shocked by her
death. Shaken by it. Octavian always wants most what he cannot have,
she’d said, as if she’d known that it would ignite an obsession in him.
He’d wanted her alive. He’d wanted her as a trophy. He’d settled upon me
instead. “Half of Rome will be here for your wedding, Selene. Let my
enemies bear witness to how kindly I treat Antony’s daughter. Your
father’s partisans may whisper that I’m the descendant of slaves, but
let them see how the grandson of a rope maker now gives away a royal
princess in marriage.”
There
it was. The cavernous insecurity at the center of his character that
drove his every action. It didn’t matter that he’d vanquished all his
rivals. Not his ever-expanding imperial compound with its marble and
showy gardens, not the mountains of gold in his coffers, nor the might
of his legions would ever conquer his fear that somewhere, someone was
laughing at him. “Are you sure it shouldn’t be a simpler wedding,
Caesar? More in keeping with austere Roman values?” I asked, because I
feared Roman crowds and knew from bitter experience that they could be
dangerous.
He
tilted his head, his eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his hat. “I mean
for your wedding to be a spectacle and you’re too ambitious to want it
any other way. Today will make plain to Isis worshippers who foment
dissent in Rome and rebellion in Egypt that they dare not oppose me, for
I have a Cleopatra of my very own. Remember our bargain. Marry the man I
choose for you and do as I command. Glorify me and I’ll show mercy to
your surviving brothers, your countrymen, and to those who worship your
loathsome foreign goddess. Be my Cleopatra and one day your mother’s
Egypt may be yours.”
By
late afternoon, the slaves had stripped my room bare. The golden
incense burners, the red and green tapestries, the painted oil lamps,
and even the kithara harp I played to amuse the emperor—almost
everything that had ever lent color or comfort to my room here—all
packed into trunks and satchels. Turning my eyes to my dressing table, I
thought of the loose brick beneath it, the one Helios used to pull out
of the wall so that we could whisper to one another when the Romans
slept. We’d never do that again, I realized. Even if the emperor’s
hounds hunted down my runaway twin brother and hauled him back to the
Palatine, I wouldn’t be here . . .
With
a sharp knock at my door, the emperor’s sister marched to my side to
attend me. It was a mother’s duty to dress her daughter for marriage and
Lady Octavia was the closest thing to a mother that I had left in this
world. She’d been my father’s wife when he embarked upon his grand love
affair with my mother. But after my parents were sealed in their tombs,
Octavia had collected all my father’s children. Though she was a rigid
woman, I’d come to love her. Even so, it felt like betrayal to let her
take my mother’s place on this day. We were awkward together as we
hadn’t been in years. “Well,” she said, both hands on her fleshy hips.
“Let’s get you ready, Selene.”
She
used a special comb to divide my hair into the six segments of the
tutulus, the traditional hairstyle worn by Roman brides. “What a vicious
little comb,” I hissed, wincing as she tugged mercilessly. “Why is it
shaped like a spear?”
“It’s
to drive out ill fortune,” she said, cheerfully. “It’s also to remind
us of the Sabine women, the first Roman wives, forced to wed at the tip
of a spear!”
“That hardly seems like something to be remembered with pride,” I muttered.
Octavia
only tilted my chin with a sentimental sigh. “Oh, Selene, you’re going
to be a lovely bride. Your father was always given to emotion, you know,
and I think if he saw you, it would bring a tear to his eye.” In spite
of the many wrongs he’d done her, Octavia never spoke against my father,
for which I was grateful. “I think you have Antony’s best qualities.”
This
puzzled me because my father had been a big jolly man with a raucous
laugh whereas I was slender and decidedly sober. “I can’t imagine how
I’m like my father.”
“He
inspired people and so do you,” she said. “My daughters imitate you.
Your royal poise, the way you hold your posture, and your piety. Because
you work so hard at your lessons, the little ones study more. It’s your
gift, Selene. You lead everyone around you to aspire to something
greater. Even me.”
I stammered, because it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. “E-even you?”
As
the emperor’s sister, Octavia had always held influence. Now that her
son Marcellus had married the emperor’s daughter, Lady Octavia was the
most powerful woman in Rome. Wearing her distinctively severe hairstyle
with its knot over her brow like a crown, she lifted her chin. “As the
emperor’s heir, my son is still young, untested. Marcellus will need
guidance more than ever and I think I can help him. He and Julia need to
win over the people so I’m going to find a way to fund a beautiful new
theater as a gift to the city.”
“They’re
fortunate to have an ally in you,” I said, knowing how this would
irritate the emperor’s ambitious wife, Livia. Octavia had supplanted her
role as First Woman in Rome. Truly, it was a new day.
Octavia
seemed to feel it too. “You’ve made a good match, Selene! And your
story sounds so romantic. Two scions of African royalty. Two orphans
saved by the emperor and adopted into his family, only to become
stewards over a new land. Why, if I were your age, I might even envy you
this marriage. Your groom is such a handsome young man.”
“I’m
familiar with his virtues,” I said, for Juba was no stranger to me. The
deposed Numidian princeling was a scholar. Such a prodigy, in fact,
that he’d been my tutor. Once I’d even counted him a friend. Now he was
just the husband the emperor had chosen for me and the first step I must
take on my path back to Egypt.
“You’re a lucky girl,” Octavia chattered on. “He’s going to be a splendid, civilized king. Rex Literatissimus,
they call him. And such a fine specimen of a man—no woman in Rome can
avoid following him with her eyes. But remember that he is a man. No
sweet boy like my Marcellus.” Given the clumsy way her hands worked in
my hair, and her unusually breezy banter, I realized that she was
working up to something. “Selene, do you know what Juba will expect from
you in the bridal bed?”
My
cheeks burned. Everyone imagined my mother as a seductress with great
knowledge of the sensual arts, but I’d been young when she died; she’d
never shared any of that particular wisdom with me. “I—I think I can
guess.”
Octavia
now looked sour, as if she were about to face a torment of the spirit.
“This is what will happen. When you’re alone in the bridal chamber, Juba
will call you wife and draw you into his arms. But you mustn’t go
willingly or he’ll think you’re a lupa.” A she-wolf, she said, but she
meant whore. “You must shy away and struggle just enough to please him
but not enough to make him angry. Then submit to him as your husband and
your king.”
Helios is my king.
The thought came to me so suddenly and unbidden that I feared that I’d
said it aloud. My twin was the rightful King of Egypt and dearer to me
than I could dare admit. Some said that it was for his sake that the
city of Thebes had rebelled. I’d bargained for my twin’s life, so I’d
have to submit to the emperor’s wishes and to Juba too. I’d just have to
remind myself every day how fortunate I was not to be married off to
old King Herod of Judea.
When
my little gray cat leapt onto the dressing table, upsetting a tray of
hairpins and ribbons, Octavia cried, “Wretched creature! I won’t be
sorry to see that beast leave with you. I can’t see why cats are sacred
in Egypt. They’re nothing but mischief.” Bast took no notice of this
insult, purring and burrowing into my arms while Octavia scowled. “Oh
dear. I’m making a mess of your hair. My fingers aren’t as nimble as
they used to be. I’ll let your ornatrix fix it.”
My
slave girl fixed my hairstyle, and then we dallied until dusk, trying
to decide between two pairs of sandals, one of which was prettier but
pinched my toes. At last, Chryssa helped me into my wedding garments.
The white muslin tunica and accompanying girdle. The floral wreath and
the orange flame-colored veil. This was the garb of a modest Roman
bride, but in spite of all the years I’d lived amongst my father’s
people, it still looked foreign to me. When I glanced into the polished
silver mirror, I groaned in dismay. Octavia had bound my hair in such a
way that it smothered everything unique about me. The white muslin left
me looking pale, hiding what beauty I possessed, and I was all but
suffocated by the saffron veil. “It’s horrible.”
“No,” Chryssa said, softly. “You’re a beautiful bride.”
But this was something people said to brides, whether or not it was true. I pulled the veil away. “I need . . . something else.”
Chryssa’s eyes widened. “It’s almost time for the wedding. Half the city is at the gates.”
This
did nothing to calm me. Roman weddings were supposed to be small and
modest affairs, simple contracts that required only a few witnesses.
Mine would be different. The guests would be looking to see if I was
just a Roman girl, the daughter of Mark Antony, or if I was Cleopatra’s
daughter, a sorceress whose blood made flowers grow, whose hands left
crocodiles docile in her wake. As the foremost worshipper of Isis in
Rome, stories about me had passed from temple to temple, tavern to
tavern, and the slaves and the lower classes whispered that I might
bring them a Golden Age. I’d emboldened them. Perhaps I’d inspired them.
So maybe I need not fear the crowds; I wasn’t a prisoner anymore.
Be my Cleopatra, the emperor said, and one day your mother’s Egypt may be yours.
Augustus
was a grand actor in a pageant of his own creation and the only way to
remain in his favor was to play my role. He wanted spectacle? Well, I
would give him one. With deep resolution, I unwound the braids that
Octavia had so painstakingly fastened, brushing out my dark hair so that
it curled and cascaded, loose and free over my shoulders. “I won’t be a
Roman bride,” I said. “My mother was Pharaoh and I’ll let no one forget
it.”
Chryssa’s
mouth formed a circle of surprise when I threw open my wardrobe chest,
giving no care to the fact that the slaves had carefully packed it for
the journey. I rifled through it until I found a beautiful diaphanous
gown that Helios had given me. Octavia had tried to make it modest with
stitches and brooches. Now I refashioned it. Removing the pins, I
wrapped the gown under my arms and tied it between my breasts in the
knot of Isis, the tiet, a loop with trailing sides that was a variant of
the ankh. My wide-eyed slave girl watched me as if I’d gone mad.
“You’re going to give insult. You’ll anger the emperor!”
“I
know him better than you do.” Since I was a little child, I’d learned
to play all the emperor’s games; this was just one more. Be my
Cleopatra, the emperor had said, and I was young and foolish enough to
believe I knew what that meant. “Don’t stand there gaping, Chryssa. Help
me!”
Reluctantly,
she went to my dressing table, searching for the proper cosmetic pots,
as I told her what to do. My mother had been a Hellenistic queen, and
when she dressed for the civilized Greek-speaking world, she dressed
accordingly. But she’d also been Pharaoh of Egypt. It was that reminder
of Egypt I wanted now, so I urged Chryssa to draw on my eyelids with
black kohl, the dark lines of the wedjat—the eye of Horus. Then she used
the greens and blues and reds of Egypt to color my face. When she was
done, I held up the mirror and peered at myself with the green eyes of a
jungle cat, exotic and wild. “You need more jewelry,” Chryssa
suggested, finally warming to the idea. “Something sparkling to go with
your little jade frog and betrothal ring.”
I
knew just the thing. Carefully wrapped in the bloodstained dress I’d
worn as a prisoner, was a golden snake armlet with gemstone eyes that my
mother left for me when she’d foreseen her own death. I retrieved it
from under my mattress, where I’d kept the bundle hidden for years, and
slipped the armlet up until it hugged my bicep, its history merging with
my skin. The effect was dazzling and scandalous. “You look like your
mother’s portraits,” Chryssa breathed.
But I saw in myself someone entirely new.
Before she wrote novels, Stephanie was a lawyer, a game designer, and
a teacher. Now she uses the transformative power of magic realism to
illuminate the stories of women in history and inspire the young women
of today. She remains fascinated by all things Roman or Egyptian and
has–to the consternation of her devoted husband–collected a house full
of cats and ancient artifacts.
