Cleopatra Confesses by Carolyn Meyer

wrong. But perhaps comfort is not what he intends. If I am truly to follow in his footsteps, I must learn to handle whatever difficulties—and losses—come to me.

Chapter 13
    E XPECTING T ROUBLE
    Our journey up the Nile is now in its twenty-seventh day, each day much the same as the one before it. The heat clings to my skin and dries my lips, but after sunset the nights turn cold.
    After close to a month on the river, my older sisters complain constantly about nearly everything. Arsinoë grieves for Nebtawi, and to distract her I play countless games of Hounds and Jackals and let her win. Ako, who escaped a horrible end in the jaws of a crocodile, scampers around the boat, bothering everyone, though no one dares object. I am surely not alone in wishing it had been the monkey instead of Nebtawi who was devoured.
    I welcome a summons from Demetrius, who is accompanied by Captain Mshai. The three of us watch the farmers at work in their fields. Canals carry water from the river to the crops. A laborer works a shaduf, a pole balanced on a crossbeam with abucket on one end and a weight on the other. Over and over he fills the bucket, swings the shaduf, and empties the water into the canal.
    “Rain seldom falls here. Everything depends on the Nile,” Mshai says, calling my attention to a Nilometer, a long flight of steep steps cut into rock on the riverbank. “The markings on the rock show the height of the water during the Inundation. This year the torrential rains in the highlands far to the south were much less than hoped for, and so there is less water in the Nile,” he says. “When that happens, the fields dry out too soon, and the crops wither before they can be cut. You can see that the water is low. Farmers again expect a poor harvest.”
    Demetrius and I exchange glances. This is not what the king wants to hear. I have already seen the worry on his face.
    The noblemen and their wives who attend the nightly banquets are not amused when Father decides to play his aulos and joins the dancing girls as they perform that evening. After dinner, I overhear the noblemen’s wives discussing him as they prepare to leave. “How disgusting!” grumbles one of the usual gossips.
    “It is undignified,” says another. “Auletes may be the pharaoh, but he behaves like any commoner.”
    Their remarks anger me. Slowly, very slowly, I stroll close by the women and greet them with the kind of false smile they are used to, letting them know by my smile that I heard every word they said. I see the fear in their eyes when they realize they have been caught speaking badly of the king—and caught by a princess. They are no doubt afraid that I will report their words toFather and that they will be punished. What if King Ptolemy—Auletes, as they call him disrespectfully—banishes them from his boat, from his banquets?
    “I wish you a pleasant evening, my ladies,” I say with another false smile, and walk on. In that moment I get a small taste of the power I have over them, and I savor it.

Chapter 14
    D ANGEROUS P ASSAGE
    I have been marking off the days on a shard of pottery: thirty-three days since we left Alexandria. I love the Nile, but I have begun to crave the intellectual life of the city. I miss the busy harbor with ships arriving from distant lands. I miss the great Library with its thousands of papyrus scrolls stacked to the ceiling, and the Museion when the scholars gather to debate.
    We stop for a short time at Hermopolis, a city built in ancient times to honor the baboons. Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing and wisdom, often took the form of a baboon, and thousands of these animals once made their home here. Thousands more were mummified and entombed in the catacombs beneath the city. Everywhere huge sandstone carvings of baboons crouch, seeming to stare at me with their glittery eyes. I find them unnerving.
    I am relieved when we are once again on the river, but soon I find Tryphaena and Berenike carrying around a baby