"Tell them the truth, as far as you can. Sometimes, Meto, the truth must suffice."
"Diana will be distraught when she finds out about her mother. And am I simply to say that you refused to leave Egypt?"
"Tell them I love them; they know that already. Tell them I shall come home as soon as I can… if the gods wish it to be so."
The captain of the ship gave a final call for all to board. Sailors hurried about the deck, preparing to cast off. Never taking his eyes from me, Meto stepped aboard. Rupa and the boys stood beside him. As the ship moved away from the dock, they stared at me in puzzlement.
The ship drew away. Their faces grew smaller and smaller until I could no longer read their expressions. I lifted my eyes to the great lighthouse that towered above the harbor, and thought of the first glimpse I had seen of its flame that night aboard the Andromeda, with Bethesda, before the storm struck and swept away all our expectations.
CHAPTER XXXI
I paid a call on Queen Cleopatra. To my surprise, I was admitted to her presence almost at once.
She reclined upon a purple couch strewn with gold cushions. Slaves fanned her with ostrich feathers. The gown she wore was loose and flowing, but did not conceal the fact that she was great with child.
"Gordianus-called-Finder! I thought you were leaving Alexandria for Rome today, along with that irksome son of yours."
"I was supposed to go, Your Majesty. I changed my mind."
She raised an eyebrow. "You've come to visit me instead?"
"Your Majesty once spoke to me of the special circumstances attendant upon a death in the Nile."
She peered at me and nodded slowly. "Those who perish in the Nile are blessed by Osiris. He embraces the ka even as the currents and eddies of the river embrace the hollow reed of the body."
I shook my head. "All this talk of the sacred Nile! I've seen the Nile. I wandered up to my neck in its muddy waters, searching for Bethesda's body. I felt the ooze of the bottom suck at my feet. I smelled the stench of rotting plants along the steaming bank. There's nothing beautiful about the Nile. It's fetid, smelly, dark, and dank! The Nile brings death."
"Yet it also brings life!" Cleopatra placed her hand upon her swollen belly. "Some men-squeamish, ignorant fools!-make the same complaints about the sacred delta between a woman's legs. And yet, from that place comes new life. Silly men, turning up your noses at the slippery fluids and strong odors of fertility! You'd rather play with your hard, shiny swords and spears, and watch the blood spurt from each other's wounds! Yes, the Nile is all you say it is-a vast, endless expanse of sluggish water and oozing mud. It spills across Egypt, bringing life and death wherever it goes. That's what gods do. They give life. They give death-and life after death."
"So you say; those who perish in the Nile are reborn. But are they ever resurrected?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do they ever walk again in this world?"
She looked at me darkly. "Are you thinking of my brother? It's true, his body was never located, but-"
"There was another whose body was never found."
She knitted her brow, then nodded. "Your wife?"
"Yes."
"Why do you ask such a question, Gordianus?"
"Let me ask another. You told me you know the old priestess at the temple outside Naucratis."
"I've visited the temple. I've met her."
"Is it possible that I might have seen her here in Alexandria, in one of the markets?"
"She's very old, but there's no reason she shouldn't travel to the city if she wishes. Even a priestess must gather provisions. But if you'd merely seen the priestess, you wouldn't be asking me these questions, would you? You saw someone else."
"I saw a woman with the priestess. So did Rupa. But we didn't see the same woman. He saw his sister, Cassandra, whose ashes he scattered in the Nile. I saw… Bethesda. That makes me think…"
"That neither of you saw a woman you truly recognized."
"Exactly. Unless…"
"Unless you both saw what you thought you saw. Cassandra and Bethesda, somehow joined by the river and risen from the dead."
I shuddered. "Do such things happen in Egypt?"
"Perhaps. But I think you would prefer a more rational, less mystical explanation, wouldn't you, Gordianus? Perhaps the two women shared a stronger resemblance than you realized. Perhaps the woman you and Rupa saw in the market was indeed your wife-who never died, after all."
"But the woman I saw looked younger than Bethesda…"
"She was ill when you last saw her, was she not, and had been ill for quite some time? If she's better now, refreshed by the mild Egyptian winter and tanned by the warm Egyptian sun, might she not look younger than before?"
"Bethesda-alive! But how is it possible? We searched and searched-"
"Perhaps she didn't want to be found. Had you done something to offend her?"
I thought of Cassandra. Bethesda had given no indication of knowing what had passed between us, and yet…
"Or perhaps something happened to her in the river," said the queen. "Perhaps she forgot herself and became lost."
"But when she came to her senses, she would have looked for me, surely-"
"Looked where? You were carried away by Ptolemy's army; how could she know where you had gone? Even if she did somehow follow you to Alexandria, for many months no one from outside could reach any of us inside the palace. Perhaps, all this time, your wife has been residing at the temple of Osiris beside the Nile, expiating whatever impurity caused her illness, rejuvenating herself and restoring her vitality by serving the priestess."
I drew a ragged breath. "That's what I would like to believe."
"But you fear false hope?"
"Yes!"
"The only solution is to do what you've done all your life: Find the truth for yourself, Gordianus. Go to the temple outside Naucratis. See what you find."
"What if Bethesda isn't there?"
"You'll find her. If not in the temple, then in the river. You must find her, and you must join her, one way or another. Is that not what you want? Is it not your heart's desire?"
"It is!"
"Then overcome your fear. Go to the temple by the Nile. Do whatever you must to be reunited with your wife."
I left the queen's presence, shaken and trembling with doubt, but resolved to do as she counseled. She smiled as I left. Was it because she had shared the sacred wisdom of Isis with me? Or was it because, if I did as she told me, she would have seen the last of me forever?
I made the journey by canal boat, and thence on horseback down the river road. Traveling alone, without the comfort or distraction of companions, I realized that I had not done so in many years. I was reminded of my younger days, when I had set out on journeys without knowing how long they would take or where they would lead, following the road as a man follows his fate, sometimes anxious, sometimes exhausted by the rigors of travel, but more often buoyed by a sense of freedom and the possibility that something surprising and wonderful might lie around the next bend. It was good to be alone with my thoughts, watching the sights along the canal pass by, and then the sights along the road. As I approached the vicinity of the temple, I felt at once calm and filled with anticipation.
The weather was mild. Palm trees swayed in a gentle breeze from the south. Farmers were at work in the fields, tending to irrigation ditches and repairing waterwheels to prepare for the annual inundation. Alexandria seemed far away; Rome, even farther.
This was the Egypt I remembered from my youth, the Egypt I had longed to revisit. I felt the sun on my face, breathed in the smells of the life-giving Nile, and felt transported back in time, as if all the intervening years had never happened. I was the youth I had been when I first arrived in Egypt, owning little, obliged to no one, but confident of the future, as only the young can be confident.