Work Text
disturbed is the condition of my pool
the mouth of my sister is a rosebud
her breast is a perfume
“Not that song; the other,” ordered the Philopator quietly, as small hands cupped up the cooling bathwater and gentled it over her dark golden back, her sun-browned shoulders. Xenia nodded behind her, though the queen couldn’t see, and started on the lyric she preferred, a long droning song that shifted between Ionian and Aeolian modes, dragging out its tragic phrases as slowly as if the singer were exhaling her last breath. The Philopator liked sad things, even in Greek, and Xenia was smart enough to know why, as well as smart enough not to say anything about it.Instead she just soothed her queen’s humors as best she could; dropped dried citron rinds and blue cornflower petals into the bath, made tisanes of the herbs they had taught her in Rome: hawthorn, ginkgo, purple passionflower, lavender, chamomile, poppy. Taught her the wisest sayings and dirtiest jokes she knew, in Latin, Hebrew, and an extremely vulgar dialect of Etruscan. Winning a half-smile from the Philopator was like receiving a bracelet set with fine gems; getting her to laugh, almost unheard of. Xenia had kept a tally since they had arrived in Sinai: six times. She had made the queen laugh six times. She wondered, of late, if there would ever be a seventh.Since Ptolemy had sent them away (or more accurately, since they had fled in the night, with Arsinoë and barely two dozen servants), the queen was almost entirely silent. Her limbs, usually so animated when she argued with advisors and fought with courtiers—pacing, gesturing—had fallen still and waxen. She was rarely given to amusement, but formerly she would roll her eyes and scoff at Ptolemy, shove at him in affectionate annoyance; now, everything about her was muted and hushed. Xenia had seen others, mostly slaves, with this illness: the slowing-down disease, in which words seemed to wander away and eyes drifted shut, where people lay motionless abed far beyond the zenith and long into sundown, refusing food and drink, refusing companionship.But it stood to reason that a goddess could become ill just as readily as could a slave.Like others with the sickness, the Philopator drank too much wine, muttering a phrase Xenia only half-caught, something about her inimitable liver. Xenia poured it out when she could, or mixed it with honeyed water. Also like others, the queen seemed to rouse a little after dark, when she might permit Xenia (but only Xenia) to bathe her, braid her hair, or change the bedding, and would sometimes sit and listen for a while as Xenia sang to her, or read, or wrote out complicated puns in Egyptian for her to correct. Xenia was still at an early, fumbling stage with hieratic and hieroglyphic, so she struggled to read aloud most sacred texts; but her demotic was fine, and she could readily translate, with a few messy scratches on papyrus, any unusual vocabulary in official documents.Though of late, there were few of those. Mostly messages from the front; mostly bearing more bad news. The queen’s lips grew thin and compressed and her face settled into the weary lines of a battle-hardened, cold-hearted general rather than those of a still-young girl.Xenia finished the last refrain, in her clear alto voice, and immediately switched into an Egyptian love song without asking, loosening the queen’s braids and drawing a wide comb carefully through them, fingers of the other hand gently, carefully rubbing at the taut muscles of her neck. Xenia could feel rather than see the Philopator’s head dip down just slightly, as she relaxed into the touch.She prudently left out the first verse, the one about the brother, picking up in the middle:
we are in the midst of the stream
I clasp the flowers to my breast
which is naked and drips with water
the moon makes them bloom like the lotus
From the bath, head still bent, the Philopator made a slight snorting sound and Xenia paused in mid-movement, disbelieving. She smoothed back the hair, pinning it with a bronze clasp—a simple one but the queen’s favorite, with its faience scarab and lapiz lazuli cloisonné inlays—and cupped her majesty’s smooth forehead with her hand, checking instinctively for fever or chill.“Child, I am fine,” said the queen, reaching up to push away Xenia’s fingers, and made that strange huffing sound again. Was that a laugh? Did it count if she were laughing at Xenia, rather than with her? Somehow their fingers caught, and the queen was holding her hand. Xenia swallowed and a strange feeling tingled through her chest; she began talking without being quite sure what she was about to say.“Thea Philopator still calls me child, yet I am almost ten years her senior,” she heard herself say, unthinking. Oh Horus, no—but at least I still used the formal address, she thought in a panic, and tried to pull away her hand; but the Philopator held it tightly in hers, water sloshing a little in the stone tub, voice low and miserable.“No, that is true. I sometimes forget, but only because you seem so small, like a little glass ushabti, liable to break if I were to drop you.”Xenia tried to breathe quietly, but it was hard; her purple chiton suddenly felt tight against her chest. “I am short, yes, but not so breakable as that, Philopator. Shall I—should I finish the song?”For a third time, that small cough, the broken half of a laugh. “Yes, but for Hathor’s sake use the feminine ending. I would rather think about anyone giving me a blue lotus but my kat-takhat of a brother.”Xenia stifled her own startled impulse to laugh, still unsettled, but obediently sang the last verse:
I give you my flowers
because they are beautiful
and you are holding my hand
in the middle of the water
With the last notes still buzzing in the room, their upper-floor windows open to the soft night air of the city, the Philopator then did something that, even years later, Xenia thought she would never understand—she brought her servant’s fingers to her lips, and kissed them.Xenia clutched at the lip of the bath with her other hand, reeling. Why would—no, surely not. Just gratitude, of course. She could feel the Philopator smiling against the backs of her fingers, and then she turned Xenia’s hand over and kept it pressed close against her lips as she began speaking, her mouth exploring, moving over the sensitive skin of Xenia’s palm. What was she supposed to—Xenia closed her eyes, bewildered, fighting for composure.“We received a message from Rome not an hour ago, little ushabti.”She had to clear her throat twice before she could speak. “It must be so, my queen.”“Oh, it is. And for once the news was not all irredeemably foul. Pompey has been killed—beheaded, and the Caesar is not at all pleased.” She dropped a soft kiss at the base of Xenia’s wrist, then curled her tongue between her fingers, short cat-licks of curiosity, as if she wanted to know what Xenia tasted like. “We may at long last have an opening, if we act quickly.”Xenia sagged a little against the tub’s marble edge, mind a blur of thoughts, her whole body alight and aroused. “But Pompey had fled to Alexandria, for the protection of Theos Philopator—”“Amun-Ra, do not call him that!” the queen hissed, flinging away Xenia’s hand. “Ptolemy is anything but father-loving, anything but a god—he is nothing but a traitor and a coward.” She stood up and turned to face Xenia all in one movement; almost like her old self, Xenia thought, through a bolt of fear: tall and heavy-boned, bathwater coursing away from her hips and down her thighs, flower petals still clinging to her olive-skinned breasts, calves and armpits and mound carefully scraped of all their dark curling hair by Xenia’s clever sharp-edged knife.She could not believe how much the queen trusted her. She could not believe how much she trusted the queen: her mistress, her goddess, and in some sense her friend, someone made to rule too young. No longer the bright chattering girl she had chased down palace hallways, cursing and hurrying after her, chiding her to return to her lessons; more latterly, the colleague with whom she had worked late into the night, drafting documents and legislation and bills of trade and title deeds and proclamations and battle plans until both were giddy and quarrelsome with exhaustion.She also could not believe what she did next; it was heady to think about, unimaginable. But holding her breath, moving slowly, deliberately, Xenia leaned forward, pressed as close to the hard edge of the tub as she could get, and reached out to take the Philopator’s waist, firmly, in both her hands, for no purpose other than raw blind touch. The queen’s skin was damp and warm underneath Xenia’s grip, the muscles of her back shifting beneath Xenia’s fingertips as she arched under Xenia’s touch. She fought not to curl them into the rich curves, not to reach down any farther—“Listen to me, my goddess. The throne has never stopped being yours, by action and by achievement as well as by right. Caesar knows this as well as any of Ptolemy’s dogs; all we need do is come up with a plan—a stratagem, some way for you to meet with him, alone, and gain his trust, and then, then you can easily…” Xenia faltered, and stuttered to a stop, palms slipping a little on wet skin as the Philopator reached down and covered Xenia’s hands with her own.Looking into the Philopator’s eyes was like drowning—they were wide-set, tilted like her high cheekbones, and black shot through with Phoenician purple, dark as old wine. Xenia lined them herself with kohl every morning and wiped it carefully away at night, but she never got used to the thrum low in her stomach when the Philopator looked into her the way she was doing now, chin jutting forward, head a little on one side, the aquiline arch of her nose just visible. She smiled her half-smile, the serpent-subtle one that Xenia knew from long days at court, and stepped out of the tub, heedless of the water making rivers on the floor, keeping Xenia’s hands pressed against her.“I am far ahead of you, child. During endless hours lying in my sarcophagus of a bed, waiting and hoping to die in my sleep, I have had plenty of time to come up with a—what did you say? A stratagem.” Her Greek was native, fluent; but she seemed to be tasting that word for the first time.Xenia moved closer, then wondered if that had been the right idea; she was about eye-level with the queen’s breasts, small but perfectly shaped, with puckered areolas the color of plums. Xenia’s mouth watered. A cloth, she is wet from the bath, I should get the drying cloth, she thought wildly, though another part of her mind was still and calm. “You are dripping, you will get cold, I must wipe you dry and oil you, Philopator. Stratagem, from the verb stratēgein,” she added, irrelevantly, feeling herself flush.“To be a general,” said the Philopator, thoughtful, while Xenia stood there helplessly, as if fixed in place, unable to pull away her hands from the queen’s hips or to reach for the sunbleached white cotton, unable to look away from the water beading on the curved undersides of her breasts. “To be a good general, one must mastered have the art of devising advantageous plans.”“Advantageous,” agreed Xenia, a little feverishly, now looking around for the cloth.“I am very good at stratagems,” said the Philopator, and took a step forward, her long thigh now barely in between Xenia’s, brushing against the damp gauze of her chiton. Another step, Xenia wasn’t sure whose, and the joint of the queen’s hip wedged against her, thigh lifting up into her soft parts, now warm and throbbing, with the weight of the Philopator’s firm thigh and the top of her hipbone pressed close, right against her—up against her—“You have indeed always, always been very—good at them, my goddess,” breathed Xenia, and the queen ducked her head down then, unhesitating, and caught up Xenia’s mouth with her own.It was a long kiss, a kiss that tasted of red grapes and dates and ripe figs, of months of anger and frustration and exile, of long sweaty windless nights bent over a table covered in scrolls and ink bottles, shattered flagons and styluses broken in temper. Xenia pulled away just far enough to snatch a breath—what did the Philopator know of this, barely twenty years of age, most of that spent in schooling or ruling or warcraft—and immediately pressed their mouths together again, moving her hands upward finally—finally—to cup her queen’s breasts, thumbs caressing the buds of her nipples, until the Philopator’s mouth opened on a gasp and Xenia slid her tongue inside, moaning a little, glad of the answering shiver that ran through the queen until they both fell against each other, trembling, the queen clutching at her neck, mouths parted just enough to draw air.Xenia thought she should object, even if only for form’s sake, before it was too late. “My queen, you should not permit me, we are women—”She smiled against Xenia’s lips, then took over her mouth again, tongue warm and wet and fearless. “Speak for yourself. I am a sovereign, not a woman.”“Thea Philopator,” Xenia tried again, voice rough—The queen said a shockingly coarse Medean word; or Xenia would have been shocked, had she not taught it to her. “Call me by my name, little ushabti. Call me who I am—not by my serekh, not by my father.” Xenia felt the Philopator’s eyelashes fluttering against her cheek, and sought her mouth again, blindly, the queen’s hands now on Xenia’s breasts, both of them swaying, hips shoving, kiss veering from hot and wet and clinging to something fiercer and more needy as the queen let go of Xenia’s mouth and dragged down the sensitive side of her neck, sucking and biting.Xenia shuddered as the top of her chiton was yanked down and the Philopator fastened her mouth onto one of Xenia’s collarbones, teeth leaving behind bright sparks of pain that melted and bloomed into something warm and liquid, achingly low in Xenia’s pelvis. The queen made a soft sound and lowered her mouth still farther, sucking at one of Xenia’s breasts right through her dress, mouth leaving a wet mark as she moved to the other side, biting at the nipple through the thin-woven gauze. Xenia arched her back, curling her fingers into the springy black hair at the nape of her queen’s neck, its texture so familiar it was somehow comforting, while at the same time everything she was doing with her tongue was strange and new and maddening.“Cleopatra Netjeret,” she got out, finally, winded, before pushing her—Cleopatra, beloved goddess—one step backward, then another, Cleopatra whining at being separated from Xenia’s breasts, until the backs of her knees hit the low soft couch where the drying cloths were neatly folded in a stack, a stack which promptly cascaded to the floor when Xenia pressed her back against the sofa and licked a narrow, pointed stripe against her nipple, loving the way it drew itself taut between her lips, then all but pulling it against the roof of her mouth, suckling at her hard, hearing Cleopatra cry out and feeling the sting of a sharp slap against her hip but not caring, it was all part of it, then letting go of Cleopatra’s breast to rub her face between both of them, pressing them into her cheeks, kissing down her sternum frantically, then Cleopatra fumbling underneath her chiton and Xenia, hands shaking, dragging it out of the way herself and making an incredibly undignified sound, a cross between a grunt and a sigh of relief, as Cleopatra wetted two fingers in her own mouth and slid them home.“Fuck,” said Xenia, in Gothic; and thrust a knee between Cleopatra’s bath-slick legs, wanting to put her mouth on her, Cleopatra’s inner thighs still beaded with droplets, wanting to part the dark purple lips with her own tongue and taste her, but she couldn’t get down there while Cleopatra’s hand was inside her, twisting, stroking, soft as water and hot as a candle flame, faster and harder, her thumb making slick circles over Xenia’s kleíō, her secret, her key; and Xenia’s knees were getting weak and she couldn’t hold herself up, hips moving against Cleopatra’s hand, until she slumped inelegantly to one side, panting, as Cleopatra let out a low, satisfied-sounding groan and said, “I learned this from a playmate in Rhodes.”“Learned what?” said Xenia, dizzy; and then Cleopatra took her hand away (no, no) and smiled (the full smile, not the half-one) and moved, lying back down again facing the other direction. Xenia closed her eyes. She’d seen this on a vase painting once and the image had never left her—The reality turned out to be even better, with her face between Cleopatra’s strong thighs, surrounded by her smell, her taste, her sleek damp skin. Cleopatra had both arms slung around Xenia’s hips and was alternately kneading her open, stroking across her with delicate fingertips, and gripping her hip bones, grinding Xenia into her own face. Xenia barely noticed; she finally had her tongue inside Cleopatra, who smelled like lemons and tasted like mince, salty and rich, like taking into your mouth the plumpest, smallest, most buttery quail—until she finally had to force herself to stop licking and to take Cleopatra’s own key between her lips and tease at it, curl her tongue around the hot little nub of her, firm swipes, again and again, somehow this was all moving so quickly they didn’t have the time to be gentle, to learn each other slowly, Cleopatra lapping at her fast and hard and so wet, she could feel herself about to break.Xenia struggled to stay focused, to suck as much of Cleopatra as she could inside her mouth, to curl against and fondle the hard ruby of her with some semblance of skill, but it was overwhelming and when Cleopatra slid two fingers back inside Xenia she cried out, she tried to do the same in return until, clenched around by her rippling wet heat, with Cleopatra shuddering and whimpering around her, just the feeling of being inside her was too much, like caressing drenched velvet.Xenia’s head fell backward, her hand slipped out, nerveless, and she shoved it in her own mouth so she could still taste her, bit at her own fingers—but couldn’t stop it from happening, felt herself rising anyway, the pitch of her moans sharpening into helpless soprano cries, the long muscles of her thighs trembling as with a palsy and tightening shamefully around Cleopatra’s head. She fought not to clamp down, not to shove herself into Cleopatra’s face, she didn’t want to hurt her. But Cleopatra just laughed, a dark thick sound, and leaned into Xenia with all her weight, humming and shaking her head back and forth, tongue a soft blur against Xenia, fingers thrusting into her perfectly, again and again, smooth and slender and relentless and it was too good, it was too good—her breath caught and held at the top of the arc and she hung suspended there for an infinite instant, heart thudding in her chest, everything silent, then broke into too many pieces to count and fell, over and over, fingers digging into the sleek plump curves of Cleopatra’s ass and crying out muffled against her skin, all the filthy words she knew, Gaulish, Parthian, and in the end just her own Greek, begging for something, apologizing, shouting, writhing in the tight circle of Cleopatra’s arms, until she collapsed back on the couch, boneless, the pine-needle prickle of tears scattered across her cheekbones, shards of brilliance coruscating behind her eyes.Number seven. “I made you laugh,” Xenia managed, but felt so disappointed that she’d broken first, and without taking Cleopatra with her, that she flung an arm over her eyes so as not to have to see Cleopatra’s. She would make it right, she would; she just needed everything to stop spinning first.But Cleopatra was leaning over her and pulled her arm away from her face, smiling down at her, propped up easily on one elbow. “I always laugh in that moment, when it’s that good.”Xenia tried to look self-possessed and knowledgeable, but her chest was still heaving up and down. She felt sweat gathered at the roots of her hair, and slickness dripping from her thighs onto—onto something washable, she hoped. “You had—there was a moment?”“Did you miss it?” said Cleopatra, eyes twinkling. “Because it was truly…not to be missed. I would perhaps be willing to give you another chance, in case this time you would not be distracted.”Xenia closed her eyes and tried not to moan. “But my Philopa—”Lips were on hers, silencing them. It turned into a long kiss and when it stopped Cleopatra was holding Xenia’s fingers pinched on her nipple, shivering and sliding her leg between Xenia’s again.“None of that. Say it,” her queen demanded, in a voice so low Xenia felt it vibrating through her chest.“Cleopatra Netjeret,” she said for the second time in her life, feeling it rush through her like a wave, sliding her hand from Cleopatra’s breast down between her legs.“Xenia Despina Alexopoulos,” said Cleopatra against her mouth, making her close her eyes again briefly, it had been so long since—and then Cleopatra shook when Xenia drew slick wetness up from between her lips to stroke against that bright diamond place where Cleopatra was most herself and most intensely, everything that made her fierce and good and loyal, a hawk, a star, a k’at, a wild colt, an inland sea, a sword, a thorn, a jewel, she was everything, everything, everything.The queen would always suffer melancholy, and the path laid out for her by the gods would always be a hard one, perhaps an impossible one, likely a short one, even for a goddess; Xenia knew all that. But if she could bring her to any relief, any more moments of laughter like that, as if something taut had been severed and joy had broken free inside her, however briefly—“Have you ever thought,” Cleopatra gasped, as Xenia shifted around so she could get her mouth on that place again, “about whether you would rather open an apothecary’s, or teach at your own school, perhaps one for servant girls—if you were in Alexandria you could use the library—”“Yes, why have you not already emancipated me,” Xenia murmured against her, feeling rash and insane, reaching deep up inside her to touch that little rough patch, to mirror her movements and twine pleasure both within and without, stroking with the pad of her finger and matching each stroke to a delicate flick of her tongue, feeling herself start to throb again as if she hadn’t been touched at all. She moved her hips against the coarse fabric of the sofa and concentrated on the woman under her hands, pouring all her own aching need into caressing Cleopatra, twisting more deeply into her, coaxing her, asking secret things of her, tugging at her, bringing her closer, closer.Cleopatra called on a god, or several, voice cracking. “Oh, Xenia—oh, if you love me don’t stop—”I’m never stopping, thought Xenia, and this time when Cleopatra’s body arched off the couch and bucked up against her, the queen wrapping both fists in Xenia’s hair and pulling until it hurt, Xenia sealed her mouth around her and clung, hanging on, not letting go, tongue stealing out to lick one last time, one more, just one more—until Cleopatra laughed again, that rich, trusting, completely filled-up one, all at once sagging back down to the couch, limp and sated. And then they both started laughing, like girls telling silly stories in the dark, and then they couldn’t stop, Cleopatra’s hoarse cackle and Xenia’s high-pitched squeaking, until they lay side by side, breathless, still covered in each other, drenched in sticky salt-water as with seaspray, or tears.“Because I could not have you leave me,” said Cleopatra, finally, not looking at Xenia but holding her hand loosely against her breast.Xenia nestled more closely against her side. “You are too wise to be so foolish.”“To have you gone from me would be like never having wine again. Or sleep.”“As if any life I would choose would take me more than fifty steps from your side,” said Xenia, and heard herself sounding cross, like they were arguing about wheat tariffs. “I forgot to oil you.”“We can oil each other,” said Cleopatra, sounding smug. Then: “Wait. I know how to keep you.”She sat up, shook her glorious hair out a little, and then moved to the stand where she kept her jewels. Xenia watched her through half-open eyes, still too undone to move. Cleopatra rummaged in a drawer, frowned, crossed the room and opened a chest. “This,” she said with satisfaction, and Xenia blinked. Cleopatra was holding out her thin golden diadem, a woven circlet with fragile chains dripping from its rim, each strand tipped with tiny bright gemstones.The queen had lost her mind. “Thea Philopator,” said Xenia, reverting to title deliberately, “this is a gift which will cause far more trouble than you think it solves.”Cleopatra looked at her searchingly—the assessing gaze, Xenia realized: the one that pretended to care what you were saying but was profoundly disinterested. “You misunderstand me, little ushabti,” she said, almost under her breath, and then knelt in front of Xenia, who sat up and tried to rearrange her rumpled, and, in one place, torn, chiton more neatly around her. She had no idea what her hair was doing, only that it had left its braid sometime long ago.“You are to wear it like this,” Cleopatra murmured, unclasping the Herakles knot and fastening the circlet, in one smooth movement, around her throat like a collar. Xenia reached up to touch it, something indefinable running through veins her like the strong current of a rain-choked river. “And only when you are with me, I think,” she went on, running her strong fingers through Xenia’s now-unbound hair, patiently teasing out the snags, until Xenia felt her eyes closing, and let herself drift forward until her forehead and Cleopatra’s were touching.She felt drugged, but still needed to ask. “Cleopatra”—would that name ever stop being a slice of ripe apple in her mouth—“what is your plan for the Caesar?” She looked up at the queen, curious, studying her heavy-lidded gaze; her full lips, the point of her chin. “What theatrical performance do you devise this time, to stage for Rome?”“Come into my bedchamber with me,” said Cleopatra, in that strange new thrumming voice that made Xenia feel more liquid than solid, “where the drama will be more manageable, and besides which, there is wine. And my ushabti can sing us both to sleep.”Suddenly Xenia felt unbearably tired, like stretching out on Cleopatra’s linens of cool cotton and falling asleep next to her would be the best thing she could possibly imagine. “But why ushabti,” she yawned, as Cleopatra pulled her to her feet and started steering her away from the bath.The curtain fell closed behind them, the small Damascus silver bells sewn to its hem tinkling faintly. Somehow Xenia was sitting on her bed—not the first time they had slept together, not even the first time unclothed—but she still flinched a little when Cleopatra pulled her chiton over her head and tossed it carelessly on the floor. She had a dampened drying cloth in her hands and was wiping Xenia’s thighs as carefully as any handmaiden might, but then left a kiss at her very tip and met her gaze, eyes sparkling up at her like a wicked little girl’s. “Because the ushabti says: I will do it, verily I am here when thou callest.”“And I am,” breathed Xenia, drawing the queen down into her arms and into the nest of bedclothes, their naked legs tangling together. “As are you.” She pulled Cleopatra even closer, guided her head to rest in the curve between shoulder and breast; and when the queen at last stopped fidgeting and settled, she began singing, in her lowest voice, barely a pitch above breathing, listening to the dust blowing outside and the distant voices in the city, thinking that soon they might see Egypt again; thinking that for tonight, whatever morning brought, whatever then befell them, she held Egypt in her arms.
thou beautiful one
my heart’s desire is to procure for you
your food as your husband
my arm resting upon your arm
you have changed me by your love
thus say I in my heart in my soul at my prayers
I lack my commander tonight
I am as one dwelling in a tomb
be you but in health and strength
then the nearness of your countenance
sheds delight by reason of your well-being
over a heart which seeks you with longing