Alexandria, Egypt—48 BCE
She should have known better than to trust a Roman. She should have never listened to his honeyed speech, or considered his strange ideas, or dared to search his onyx eyes. Seth’s teeth—she was a fool. ‘Beware the heirs of Romulus and Remus,’ the High Priestess had always cautioned her, but the words had been but a riddle in her young ears. By the time she finally understood their meaning, it was too late. She was already in love and doomed to die.
She remembered the day she started down that terrible path. She was working at her master’s brew house in Alexandria, Egypt’s capital city. She had lived through one and twenty inundations by then and had been bound in slavery since the age of twelve. She had never tasted meat, or seen her face in a mirror, or touched the waters of the Big Green Sea, though the harbour was only streets away.
What she had done was toil. She awoke each day at dawn and worked without rest—stirring mash, cleaning pots, pouring beer—until the last of the brew house’s clients stumbled out on to the moon-drenched streets. Then she would curl up on a floor mat outside the door of her master’s quarters and welcome the oblivion of sleep.
That was Wen’s life—day after day, month after month, from akhet to peret to shemu. It was a small, thankless existence, redeemed only by a secret.
The secret was this: she knew Latin. She knew other things, too, but Latin was all that mattered. Few people in Alexandria spoke Latin. The official language of Alexandria was Greek, the language of Egypt’s Greek Pharaohs, though Egyptian and Hebrew were also widely spoken. But even Queen Cleopatra herself had sworn never to learn Latin, for it was the language of Rome—Egypt’s enemy. The tongue of thieves, she had famously called it.
As it happened, the brew house in which Wen laboured was frequented by Roman soldiers who spoke only Latin. They were known as the Gabiniani—tolerated in Alexandria because they had once helped restore the late Pharaoh to his throne.
But the Gabiniani were villains—rough, odious men who belched loudly, drank thirstily and sought their advantage in all things.
She knew their depravity intimately, though she tried not to think of it. It was enough to admit that they were loathsome men and she was happy to keep her watchful eye upon them.
Thus she earned her bread as a kind of spy—an Egyptian slave serving Roman soldiers in the language of Plato. She pretended not to understand their Latin chatter and placidly filled their cups. But whenever one bragged about thieving beer or passing a false drachma for a real one, she would happily inform her master.
She had saved her master thousands of drachmae over the years in this manner and he was able to provide his family with a good life. It was for this reason, she believed, that he never used her body for pleasure, and always gave her milk with her grain. It was also why she knew he would never set her free. She began to see her life as a river, flowing slowly and inevitably towards the sea.
But the goddess who weaves the threads of fate had a different plan for Wen. One morning, a man entered the brew house wearing an unusual grin. He was as dark as a silty floodplain and handsome in an ageless way, as if he had been alive for a thousand years. She believed him to be Nubian, though his head was shaved like an Egyptian’s and he wore a long Greek chiton that whispered across the tiles as he walked. A bracelet of thick gold encircled his arm and a heavy coin purse hung from his waist belt.
A tax collector, she thought. She was certain the man had come to collect taxes on behalf of the young Pharaoh Ptolemy, who was seeking funds for his war against his sister-wife, Queen Cleopatra.
‘Please, sit,’ she invited the man. ‘Goblet or cup?’
He did not answer, but regarded her closely, first in the eyes, then quickly down the length of her body, lingering for a time on the scar that peeked out from beneath her tunic.
‘How long have you been enslaved?’ he asked.
‘Nine inundations, Master. Since the age of twelve.’
‘Then you are the same age as the exiled Queen.’ Wen glanced nervously around the empty brew house. It was dangerous to speak of Queen Cleopatra in Alexandria. Her husband-brother Ptolemy was currently preparing to attack her somewhere in the desert. ‘You have a regal air about you,’ the man continued jestingly. ‘Are you sure you are not a queen yourself?’
‘I am as far from a queen as a woman can get, Master.’
‘That is not true. The roles and riches of this life are but—oh, how does that old saying go?’
‘The roles and riches of this life are but illusions,’ Wen said. ‘They matter not.’ It was a saying the High Priestess of Hathor had often repeated to her, though Wen had not heard it since she was a child.
The man’s face split with a grin. ‘Will you take me to your master?’
‘My master is away,’ Wen lied, as he had instructed her to do on such occasions. He despised tax collectors and would surely beat Wen if she let this man through to him.
But in that instant, her master emerged from his quarters and heralded the stranger, and soon the two men had disappeared into his office. When they re-emerged, she noticed that the coin purse no longer dangled at the man’s waist.
‘Serve this honourable traveller what he requests,’ her master told her, a rare smile beguiling his face, ‘and do whatever he asks. He has paid in full.’
Do whatever he asks? She felt her ka—her sacred soul—begin to wither. Her master was not a kind man, but she had always believed him to be decent. It appeared that decency had been only in her mind, for he had apparently sold Wen’s body for his own profit.
I could just run, she thought. I could dash out the doorway and on to the streets.
But the streets were more dangerous than ever. A Roman general had lately landed in Alexandria—a man they called Caesar—and was conducting diplomatic meetings with Pharaoh Ptolemy in the Royal Quarter. The General travelled with a legion of soldiers fresh from battle. They wandered Alexandria’s streets in search of diversions. If Wen were not captured by slave catchers, then surely she would be captured by one of Caesar’s soldiers seeking female company.
‘What do you ask of me, then?’ Wen whispered, speaking her words to the floor. She studied its cracked tiles, as if she might somehow mend the rifts in them.
But the man said nothing, nor did he attempt to lead her away. Instead, his stretched out his arms and held his hands open. ‘You need not fear me,’ he said in Egyptian, her native tongue. ‘I am not here to take, but to give.’
Then, as if by magic, a large coin appeared between his fingers. He toyed with it for several moments, then tossed it in her direction. Her heart beat with excitement when she perceived its formidable weight. But when she squinted to determine its worth, she saw that it was stamped with an image of the exiled Queen.
‘I am afraid that I cannot accept this generous gift,’ she said carefully in Greek. ‘Coins like this one have been forbidden by Pharaoh Ptolemy since Queen Cleopatra was exiled.’
‘Then you view Cleopatra as the rightful ruler of Egypt?’
Wen felt her jaw tense. It was a question too dangerous to answer. Cleopatra had been the first in her family of Greek Pharaohs to ever learn the Egyptian language and the first of her line to have worshipped the sacred bulls. When the River had failed to rise, Cleopatra had devalued the currency to purchase grain for the starving peasants and had saved thousands of lives. In only two years since she had assumed the throne, the young Queen had shown a reverence and love for Egypt unheard of in her line of Pharaohs.
Of course Wen viewed Cleopatra as the rightful ruler of Egypt. But she would certainly never admit it to a stranger, especially in the heart of pro-Ptolemy Alexandria. ‘No, ah, not at all,’ she continued in Greek.
‘You are a terrible liar, my dear,’ the man said in Egyptian, ‘though I sense much boldness in you.’ He flashed another toothy grin. ‘A cat with the heart of a lioness.’
‘What?’
‘I am Sol,’ he said, sketching a bow.
‘I am—’
‘Wen-Nefer,’ he interrupted. ‘I already know your name, Mistress Wen, and much else about you, though I admit that you are more beautiful than I had anticipated.’
Wen-Nefer. That was her name, though her master never used it. Nor did the clients of the brew house. They preferred you there, or girl. It had been so long since she had heard her own name aloud that she had nearly forgotten it.
‘I suppose you cannot read,’ said Sol, producing a scroll from beneath his belt, ‘so I will tell you that this scroll attests to your conscription by Cleopatra Thea Philopator the Seventh, Lady of the Two Lands, Rightful Queen of Egypt.’
His words became muffled—replaced by the loud beat of her heart inside her ears. He traced his finger down rows of angular Greek script and pointed to a waxen stamp. It depicted the same queenly cartouche that Wen had observed on the coin.
‘Your master has been paid,’ Sol continued, ‘and has released you to me. I have been instructed to escort you directly to Queen Cleopatra’s camp near Pelousion. Our driver awaits us outside.’
He was halfway through the open doorway when he turned to regard her motionless figure. ‘I see,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I must have been mistaken about you. It appears that you support Ptolemy’s claim to the Horus Throne.’
‘What? No!’
‘Then why do you not follow me?’
‘I...’ She paused. Her thoughts would not arrange themselves. How could she trust this strange man when his errand stretched the bounds of reason? ‘Forgive me, but I must know, why would the Queen want...me?’
‘It is my understanding that you have a special skill.’
Skill? She searched her mind. Beyond pouring beers and mixing brews, she had only one skill. ‘Do you refer to my ability to speak Latin?’
‘It must be that,’ said Sol, ‘though the Queen did mention something about your holy birth. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘I am a child of the Temple of Hathor.’
‘Ah! A child of the gods—it is no wonder the Queen summons you.’
Wen stood in confounded silence. Up until that moment, she had perceived herself unfortunate in her birth.
‘I assure you that I mean you no harm,’ said Sol. ‘But neither do I have time to waste. You may come with me now or remain here for the rest of your days. It is your choice. Only choose.’
Wen turned the coin over in her hands. She studied the profile that had been etched into its golden metal. It was a woman’s profile to be sure—a woman who, until only a year before, had ably ruled the oldest, most powerful kingdom in the world. She was a woman who had never known her own mother, had been neglected by her father and was hated by her husband-brother, who had lately put a price on her head.
If Sol was telling the truth, he would be leading Wen into mortal danger. Cleopatra was a woman surrounded by dangerous men, fighting to survive and likely to perish.
‘Well?’ asked Sol. ‘Are you coming or not?’
* * *
The carriage was of modest size, but to Wen it seemed a great chariot. They raced past the grand colonnades of Canopus Street with such speed that the pedestrians paused to observe them, staring out from beneath the green shade cloths.
Wen’s heart hummed. How bold she felt sitting on the bench with Sol—how wholly unlike herself. She undid her braid and let her hair fly behind her like a tattered flag.
Soon they had boarded a barge and were sailing upriver with the wind at their backs. Wen gazed out at the verdant marshlands as long-forgotten memories flooded in.
As a child, Wen had often travelled the River as part of the holy entourage of the High Priestess of Hathor.
It had been a great honor to travel with the High Priestess. As the goddess Hathor’s representative on earth, the Priestess was required to attend ceremonies from Alexandria to Thebes. She would always select from among the children of the temple to journey with her, for she loved them as her own.
There were dozens of children to choose from and more every year. They were conceived during the Festival of Drunkenness, when high-born men were allowed to couple with the priestesses of Hathor and experience the divine. Any children that resulted from their holy act belonged to the temple, their paternity unknown, their maternity unimportant.
For each of her journeys, the High Priestess chose a different set of temple children to accompany her, but she never failed to include Wen. While they sailed, she would invite Wen beneath her gauze-covered canopy and instruct her in the invisible arts.
She called the lessons ‘reading lessons’, though they had nothing to do with texts. They were lessons on how to read people—how to look into a man’s eyes and discover his thoughts.
She taught Wen how to spot flattery, how to uncover a lie and how to use the art of rhetoric to pull the truth from a man’s heart. She told Wen wondrous tales—the Pieces of Osiris, she called them, for they were words gathered together to teach Wen lessons.
‘You have the gift,’ the High Priestess told Wen one day as they floated towards Memphis. She stared into the eyes of her golden-cobra bracelet as if consulting it, then gave a solemn nod. ‘When you are ready, I will take you to meet the Pharaohs and we will find a place for you at the Alexandrian court. You will become a royal advisor, just as I have been.’
But that day never came.
Wen gazed at the silken water. So much had changed since then, though the River itself seemed unaltered. They skirted around shadowy marshes thick with lotus blooms, and floated past big-shouldered farmers who laboured in the deepening dusk.
Sol studied Wen with amusement as she gaped at the sights. ‘You watch with the eyes of a child,’ he mused, ‘though a child you are not.’ He glanced at her scar, which she had allowed to become exposed.
‘It is a battle scar,’ she offered, quickly pulling her leg beneath her skirt.
‘And did you win the battle?’
‘I am here, am I not?’
They travelled relentlessly into the night, moving from the gentle current of the river to the jarring bumps of unseen roads. Wen willed herself awake, fearful she might close her eyes and discover that the journey had been nothing but a dream.
She must have finally slept, however, for by the time she opened her eyes it was evening again and the souls of dead Pharaohs had already begun to salt the sky. Wen sat up and smelled the air. It was thick and briny, and she knew the sea was near.
They descended into a wide, flat plain where thousands of men loitered amidst a collection of tents. Sol explained that the men were soldiers—Syrian, Nabataean and Egyptian mercenaries who had been hired by Queen Cleopatra with what remained of her wealth. They were her only chance against her husband-brother’s much larger army, which was stationed in the nearby town of Pelousion, preparing to strike.
They came to a halt beside a large cowhide tent, and Sol leaped to the ground. ‘We have arrived. This is where we must part.’
‘Arrived where?’ asked Wen, taking his hand and jumping down beside him.
He flashed her an enigmatic grin, then motioned to the tent. ‘Go inside and wait. The Queen’s attendants will find you when her council concludes. No matter what happens, you must never address the Queen directly. You must wait until she speaks to you. Now go.’
‘You are not going to accompany me?’
He laughed. ‘The fate of Egypt will be decided in that tent.’
‘Do you not wish to learn it?’
‘The less I know, the better.’
‘I do not understand.’
He shook his head. ‘I think you do understand. You only pretend not to.’
He does not wish to be implicated in what is being decided, Wen thought. ‘Sol is not your real name, is it?’ she asked.
‘No, it is not,’ he said, smiling like a jackal. ‘Good for you.’ He bent and kissed her hand. ‘It has been an honour, Wen-Nefer. Perhaps we shall meet again some day.’ He gave a deep bow, then jumped back into the carriage.
‘Wait! You cannot just leave me here!’ she yelled, but he was already rolling away.