Daughters of the Nile Read Online Free PDF Page A

my eyes to see not the death god but the mage at my bedside. This wise old man of Egypt is the only man, save the king, whom my guards would admit into my chambers. His name is Euphronius, but to escape the emperor’s wrath, he masquerades at court as a physician by the name of Euphorbus Musa. I know the mage’s secrets and he knows mine, for he has gifts of seeing I do not possess.
    “How will I die?” I murmur. “Have you seen it in the Rivers of Time?”
    My wizard presses a cool cloth to my brow. “You have years ahead of you, Majesty, and much left to do.”
    From my birth, much has been foretold. I was to be a divine child and a powerful queen. I was to bring about a Golden Age. I was to save my goddess too. I have failed at it all, save that I am queen. But if I am to fulfill any of the prophecies that attended my beginning, I think it will be easier to know how I will meet my end. Perhaps death will come to me in poison, offered to me by a false friend at the behest of my enemies. Perhaps it will be the edge of a knife’s blade that slithers into my body to bear my soul away. Perhaps one day when I’m swimming, a strong current will drag me under and I will sink into blackness. Or perhaps it will be the venom of an asp, its fangs sunk deep into my flesh, bringing me to the gods like the serpent that killed my mother.
    I think it will go better for me if I know .
    “Tell me how I will die. I command you.”
    The old man only smiles, for he knows his disobedience will never result in punishment. He has been with me too long, or perhaps he has reached the age at which men no longer fear their monarchs. “Majesty, I can only tell you that yours will not be an ordinary death.”
    * * *
    I awaken to the scent of roses. It is the season when blossoms are harvested to make wreaths for funerals, weddings, and festivals, so slaves have adorned my bedchamber in rose garlands. The whole palace teems with the perfume as I reach out for my son and they put him in my arms.
    He is tiny and his skin is petal soft, pale like mine. I can see the blue veins beneath his skin. And I worry over a shallow indentation on his chin that I hope will become a dimple. My daughter hovers over us, watching her newborn brother sleep. I stare at them both, this daughter I didn’t want and the son I shouldn’t have had. And I love them fiercely. They are part of me, molded inside my body, brought into being like magic. They will be my legacy. The part of my family that lives on.
    For nearly three hundred years the Ptolemies have thrived. It will not end with me.
    With a lilt of excitement, my daughter says, “The king has returned from Spain, Mama. And he wants to see the baby.”
    My freedwoman frowns and I know what she is thinking. The baby is fragile yet. No one can say if he will live. Better to wait until little cheeks are flush with color lest a husband be tempted to order a sickly child be left on a hillside. Many babes have died at the command of their fathers, exposed to the elements, vulnerable to predators, at the mercy of the gods. This is what all my women are thinking, though they will not say it in front of my sweet daughter, Isidora.
    And they dare not say it to me.
    I draw my daughter close and kiss her fingertips. They are lightly sticky, as if she’s recently visited the kitchens where the cook spoils her with honeycombs. My daughter has never known fear, and if I have my way, she never will. So, when she looks up at me with her unnerving blue gaze, I am decided. “Then we’ll take the baby to the king.”
    My freedwoman frowns again. “Your fever has only just broken. You shouldn’t be so soon out of bed, Majesty.”
    I do not want to admit that Chryssa speaks the truth, but as my servants dress me, I can barely stand upon my shaky legs. I feel bruised and battered inside. Worse, a glance in a polished mirror reflects back my image, deathly pale and stripped of vitality. Still, what I’m about to do, I need to