I intend to turn left into the hearth room, a large antechamber in the eastern corner of the palace that connects to the throne room and the eastern court. We seldom haveuse for a fireplace – our land is arid – but my mother insists on lighting this one every night. It is where she brushes my hair and is the only place that I can remember ever spending time alone with my parents. On rare, rare nights, where my father is not so drunk that he leers wetly at my mother, and not so sober that he barks in sharp-voiced contempt at me, he will pat our heads and tell us a story. He is a wonderful storyteller, my father. He has a talent for imitation, for performance, and can conjure, from his meagre limbs and paunchy middle, the swooning of damsels rescued by broad, swaggering heroes, snatched from the snapping jaws of monsters.
‘It is unwise not to examine all options.’
‘Must I always repeat myself? The decision is made, Cassiopeia.’
I have dawdled too long with my memories, and my mother has beaten me back here. Now I must choose between her disapproval and the enquiring of her women in the eastern court. The stain of blue across the marble flashes through my mind. I choose the eastern court and turn to retrace my steps, but something in my mother’s tone catches my stride and I listen out of sight behind a pillar.
‘They have travelled all this way. To refuse them now would be a slight.’
‘You should have thought of that before you invited them. Again. Any other man would beat his wife for such insubordination. Let alone a king.’
‘You are too generous with me, sir.’
‘Yes, I am magnanimous,’ my father replies. He is disgruntled but there is no sting to the words. He is not capable of sting where my mother is concerned. I imagine him, a plump,fuzzy bee, threateningly flashing his dangerous rump, and a caracal, my mother, feigning kittenish wariness while batting him into the dust, knowing that he will only draw blood when he wishes to tear out his own insides.
‘You are indeed. And your word is, of course, final, my king. But should we spurn so many young, agile, wealthy men, we may suffer for it later. Let them enjoy our famed Aethiopian hospitality, thexeniaof which you are so proud. Let them leave feeling they have gained a lustrous ally.’ I hear it, the purr of velvet wrapping round the steel beneath. I am not so layered, not so skilled a weaver. Is this an art I should learn? Or is it one that I should be kept ignorant of?Do as I say, not as I do.
‘So long as they do not call on us to fight their wars.’
‘Why should they? They know your army is not that of a conqueror.’
‘Well then, they might think we are ripe for taking!’
‘Never, my lord. It is well known how favoured you are by the gods.’
‘They will want her. Everyone wants her.’ I know it is me he speaks of. Theheris a huffed exhale, exasperated, a breath shy of a retch. I hear the rustle of cloth then, and my mother purrs. My father hums, his tone deepening to something low in his chest, and there is a strange, damp sound, faint like the flopping of freshly caught fish.
‘Your word is final, my king.’
A gasp, anahbecoming anoh, is the only reply.
I hurry away with a pit in my stomach, no desire to hear any more.
It is not the first time I have stumbled across such conversations between my mother and father. My father wishes meto marry Phineus. My grandmother agrees. She fears men, does not trust them and so would only trust me in the care of her son. I once asked her how this could be, if she had been married to one. She replied that she was a goddess and he was not.
‘But I am not a goddess,’ I had said, and felt a precocious pang, a forebear of future anxiety.
‘No, mylittle queen, you are not.’
My father does not fear men, but he cannot bear the idea of a foreigner on his throne. A foreigner may not be so favoured by the gods, may lose the kingdom to some reaching pharaoh, who would collect hishedjetinto apschent, and place a viceroy here ruling our kingdom from miles away. It is a mark of how much he abhors the idea that he approves of the betrothal, because my father has no love for his brother. He resents Phineus as he resents me, favoured above him by his mother. He did not inherit his mother’s affinity, and my grandmother, not one for tact, never bothered to hide her disappointment. Phineus is no more the kin of the Potamoi in aspect than my father, but he is clever and kind and people are always laughing around him. Other than on the evenings that my father performs his stories, they bear no resemblance.
My mother does not want me to marry Phineus. If she fears men, she does not say so, but then she is too rational for fear. Better to be clever than afraid.
After the drying of the Nile, she had chastised me for my inattention. ‘You had no business wandering into your father’s merriment! Look at the trouble it’s caused!’
‘May I not fetch a few pomegranate seeds? In my own home?’
‘This isnotyour home.’ She’d caught my face in herhands, her nails pinching slightly, as though she wished to imprint the lesson into my skin. ‘This is your father’s home, and my home. This would not happen inyourhome. Your home will be wherever your husband is, where you are most protected.’
I did not bother to argue that Phineus was to be my husband and so this was, in fact, my home, and always would be. My mother had spent much of my life presenting me to kings of more powerful kingdoms, rulers in Kerma and Carthage and Canaan. They would arrive on fine brushed horses, sometimes camels and even the occasional elephant. They would be dressed in gold, smelling of sweet oils, almond and vanilla, entirely too densely concentrated. They would line my father’s palace, from the throne to the northern court, packing the halls with musk. In Aethiopia, strong perfumes, those that drown out the smell of our land, are considered offensive. The Nile smells honest and earthy, the air of fruit and flowers; everything is balanced. It is all I could do not to retch or swoon with each breath. They, of course, are charmed by this, and believe me overcome by their princely prowess and kingly presence. I assume tonight will be much the same as usual.
I hurry through the eastern court, sidestepping my mother’s ladies with pretty, deterring noises, reminding them that I must dress for dinner and that my mother has instructed that I take special care. My apartments are a series of small, connected chambers, decorated with the faces of goddesses. Aphrodite being attended to by the Graces. Persephone and Demeter abloom. Artemis bathed in the light of the moon, wolves howling behind her. The latter, in my bedchamber, is my favourite. It is so very skilled, I have admired itoften, the brushwork perfectly capturing the lightness of her feet, her speed across the forest. It is as though the painter wished to leave me with some secret intent, allowing me to read warning in each stroke, feeling a prickle at the action in painted Artemis’ stride.Run.
My bedchamber is the one door that I am permitted, and I barricade myself behind it. It is immediately opened by servants, carrying warm spring water and natron and a small amount of blue lily oil, my preferred choice, which, when mixed with the salt and water, forms a satisfying foam beneath which I submerge myself. The smell is soothing; the water from my grandmother’s favoured spring is lightly infused with violets, the scent subtle and fresh. I breathe, sigh, breathe again. Sink deeper into the limestone basin and feel momentary reassurance.
It will not be so bad, being married to Phineus. He will be kind to me, he will not hurt me when he takes me to his bed – I might even enjoy myself. I have heard the girls of the palace – servants, daughters of nobles and advisors – murmuring of such things.And I won’t have to leave.I cannot imagine life without the gnomon shadow swing of each day across the sundial of my home. The ceaseless churn of the Nile in the east; the verdant south-facing gardens ripe with all my favoured treats; the flurrying activity of the western villas, where nobles and administrators live, houses strewn beside the two temples in the palace compound, devoted to Zeus and Athena. Beyond these, over the walls, lie the lives of people; markets, homes, work, play. People who, in Phineus’ care, will be safe, will bemy people – tall and handsome and long-lived with their many elephants, rich in gold and ebony.
I rise and dress, my servants bringing the whitekalasiristhat my mother has laid out for me, its edges trimmed with silver. With it they carry something new, something that I have not seen before. A beaded overlay in lapis lazuli and turquoise, the kind I have seen my mother wear in jasper and carnelian. My stomach twists and I raise my brows, but I say nothing as I am shucked into it, feel its press against me, hugging my body in ways to which I am unaccustomed.
