0316382981 by Emily Holleman Read Free Book Online Page A

“You’re so rash—I am so afraid for you!” *
    Engrossed in the daughters’ tales, Arsinoe didn’t long for company. Her own travails paled against those of Antigone, the girl who shattered King Creon’s uneasy peace. Arsinoe admired her righteousness, and feared it too. Sometimes she herself bristled with that firmness of conviction. And how weak and paltry lesser loves grew in comparison: Ismene’s love, and Haemon’s as well. They couldn’t measure against Antigone’s wild passion for justice, for the laws of the gods, no matter how Arsinoe wished they might sway the fated path. “Deserted so by loved ones, struck by fate…” * Only in the evening, when her maid carried in her final meal, would she pry her eyes from the texts and repeat the practiced phrase, “I beg an audience with my beloved sister, the Shining Queen, Berenice.”
    As Arsinoe read on, Antigone’s woes came to an end: she hanged dead as her weeping lover slammed his hands against the rock. And Ismene, sweet and kind and useless Ismene, was left to live on, knowing that she could neither change her sister’s path nor share it. To Arsinoe, that always seemed saddest of all.
    Her own trials wore on too. In her darker moments, she wondered whether she’d ever leave her chamber again. She cursed the eunuch, and his plans, with every dirty word Cleopatra had passed along from her long weeks on ships. How could she set up an audience with Berenice when no one spoke to her or remembered that she still lived? She was neither great nor brave nor bold. She was the ordinary daughter. That was why she’d been left behind. Not only by her father, who’d always whisked Cleopatra away, but also by her mother, who’d saved her brothers even though they were only dull babies.
    One evening, instead of delivering another text from Ganymedes, her mute maid bore a different gift: a note sealed with an unfamiliar mark, the bloodred image of a woman crowned by the vulture headdress. A stiff hand informed, “The queen will grant you an audience tomorrow.”
    The words didn’t frighten her, though she imagined that they should. Instead, the knot in her stomach loosened and she was overcome with a strange sense of calm. Arsinoe knew what she must do. She had to write, and act quickly. Somehow she had to convince Berenice to spare her. To prove to her sister that she didn’t conspire with their father.
    “My august and royal sister, the Shining Queen of the Upper and the Lower Lands…” Her quill scratched against the papyrus. “I beg not for my life.” Her handwriting had grown straight and even with practice. She smiled at her work. “For who can twist the wrist of fate?” Over and over she scrawled and scorched each phrase until her hand ached and her fingers crisped. “I merely ask for mercy.” She couldn’t say why she burned each practice papyrus. The childish part of her wished to hold on to them and show the neatness of her letters to Ganymedes. But torching them seemed somehow wiser than leaving them strewn about her chambers. Her eyes grew weary and watered at the flame. She rested her head on her hands, but only for a moment. And then dreams carried her far from Alexandria’s palaces and across the great sea to Rome and her incumbent terrors: Cleopatra wounded, Cleopatra weeping, Cleopatra dead.
    The sun had risen high by the time Arsinoe awoke, and in haste she scrubbed her face raw in her silver basin’s cooled waters. She scoured her hands as well, but she couldn’t rid herself of the grime between her bruised and bitten fingernails. When the maid entered, she hid her hands behind her back. Myrrine would have scolded her for them, but this new girl didn’t seem to notice. In silence, she rooted through Arsinoe’s chest of clothes until she pulled out a pale blue chiton.
    Arsinoe would have rather worn her turquoise tunic—she almost would have rather dressed herself. She felt more comfortable in tunics; they were looser, easier