The eldest was born in the season of planting, when the waters of the Nile had receded once more and the land lay rich and fertile, warm and muddy and waiting for the sun to quicken everything to life. She was born in one of the small rooms behind the Court of Birds, and her mother was a serving woman who cooked and cleaned, but who one day had caught Ptolemy Auletes’ eye. Her skin was honey, her eyes dark as the rich floodwaters. Her name was Iras.

The second sister was born under the clear stars of winter, while the land greened and grain ripened in the fields, when fig and peach trees nodded laden in the starry night. She was born in a great bedchamber with wide windows open to the sea, and five Greek physicians in attendance, for she was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes’ queen, and her name was Cleopatra.

The youngest sister was born as the earth died, as the stubble of the harvest withered in the fields beneath the scorching sun. She was born beside the fountain in the Court of Birds, because her mother was a blond slave girl from Thrace, and that was where her pains took her. Water fell from the sky and misted her upturned face. Her hair was the color of tarnished bronze, and her eyes were blue as the endless Egyptian sky. Her name was Charmian.

Once, in a palace by the sea, there were three sisters. All the stories begin so.

The Hand of Isis is a historical fantasy by Jo Graham, and easily one of the best books I have read this year. The book follows Charmian, Cleopatra’s handmaiden and half sister, as she helps Cleopatra navigate the political turmoil as she becomes the Queen of Egypt.
Being a self professed Classics nerd, I knew that after reading Black Ships I was obligated to read anything else that Ms. Graham decided to write. The Hand of Isis eclipses all other historical fantasies I have read to date.

In The Hand, the veil between mortals and the divine is very thin, and the book begins with Charmian in the Halls of Amenti, telling her story to Serapis and Isis before her heart is weighed against a feather. Thus the book switches between third and first person, always coming back to where Charmian stands in judgment.

Charmian and her half sister Iras were born of different slaves, and Charmian’s mother died in childbirth. Thus Iras’ mother raised them both, and when they begin taking lessons with Cleopatra to keep her company, they become a triumvirate, each a face of Isis: Cleopatra, mother of the World with Horus at her breast, Iras as the Lady of Amenti, and Charmian as Isis Pelagia, the Goddess of Love. Thus with their individual strengths they secure a kingdom for Cleopatra, the embodiment of Isis on earth.

Charmian occasionally dreams and has visions of what will be, including her past life, as well as the lives of others. In a conversation with Caesar, she tells him:

Because you have known me for a thousand years. I have died in your service. I have saved your life when your enemies sought you, and I have killed a man across your funeral bier…We carried you to Memphis in a coffin of gold and laid you among the sacred kings, beside the bulls of Serapis until your city was ready. You may not remember, waking, this side of the River, but I think that you do know. I think you know much more than you pretend…You have come home to your place, Imperator, and she greets you as a lover long absent and much missed.

Charmian knows that she has served Caesar before, when he was Alexander the Great, and she his soldier. The simple idea of death and rebirth is told so naturally that I find myself truly believing (I am usually prone to eye-rolling). Charmian is a woman of Alexandria, the face of the goddess of love, and her love of men is only diminished by her love and devotion to Cleopatra and the Ptolemy line. I thought it was refreshing that Graham didn’t impose current Western ideals on Charmian, but instead made her just as I would imagine a powerful woman in ancient Alexandria. Her life is rich, with threads of past lives woven in, and her sexual liberation very characteristic of the time period, though perhaps shocking in modern day. Graham mentions a great many characters to flesh out the world, including Plato, Hero, Vercingetorix, and others. It is clear that this time period has been thoroughly researched, and I could appreciate the little tidbits that she dropped (geography, architecture, etc.).The worldbuilding is flawless, especially for a standalone novel.

Perhaps my favorite point in the novel (though there are many) is the idea of the afterlife. Even though Charmian visits the Halls of Amenti and stands before Isis and Serapis in judgment, the angel Michael comes forward to speak for her, though she does not follow his god. Again, this liberated sense of worship, religion, and love really is a really different take that so many authors of historical fantasies of the same era miss out on.

I cannot reiterate how much I enjoyed The Hand of Isis. I felt like it wasn’t really advertised or talked about as much as Black Ships, which is ridiculous becomes Graham’s writing has only improved. For the numbers people: I’d say Black Ships was a 9/10 while The Hand is 12/10. Highly, highly recommended: Go unto thou local biblioteca and procure The Hand of Isis. Statim.

Stealing Fire comes out in May of 2010 and further explores the story of Alexander the Great, as told by his soldier Lydias of Miletus.

Lavinia is Ursula K. Le Guin’s take on Vergil’s second half of the Aeneid. In the epic, Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus, is a central character and catalyst for events; however, Vergil gives her no dialogue, only a brief mention as the most minor of characters. While we had met Creusa and the infamous Dido, Lavinia’s betrothal to Aeneas, the subsequent civil war, and their eventual marriage, is never depicted in the Aeneid, because Vergil died before it could be finished.

Le Guin finally gives Lavinia a voice in this beautifully written book about pre-Julian Rome, where people have “a strong sense of duty, order, and justice”. Because the book takes place during the early republic, the places and people have a sense of austerity, very unlike the usual decadence one associates with Rome.

The book begins with Lavinia’s childhood, her closeness with her father King Latinus, and her fear of her half mad mother Queen Amata, who has never forgiven her for surviving a plague that took her other two sons. However, King Latinus dotes on her (“You are the light of my eyes, daughter”) and thus she grows into an intelligent and pious woman, often visiting the sacred grove of Albunea, where she meets the shade of Vergil. Their conversations are so interesting; the naive maiden and the man who mysteriously foretells many events in Lavinia’s life. In fact, he tells her he is a “vates“, or soothsayer, as Lavinia does not know the meaning of  poet. Vergil’s regret, and knowledge of his impending death are always weaved into his conversations with Lavinia, and her wit and personality often come through in these one on one conversations with Vergil.

“I favor none of them.”

“Why is that?

“Why should I? Where can a man take me that is better than my father’s house? What do I want with a lesser king? Why should I serve Lares that re not my family’s Lares, the Penates of some other woman’s storerooms, the fire of a foreign hearth? Why, why is a girl brought up at home to be a woman in exile the rest of her life?”

Eventually Lavinia grows into adulthood and is promised to Turnus, King of the Rutulians. Her mother pushes for this match; whether it is because he reminder of her lost sons or perhaps because she is a little in love with him herself is never really made clear. Of course, prophesy eventually dictates that Lavinia is meant to marry a foreigner, and Turnus in his anger incites a civil war against Aeneas and his men.

Le Guin follows Vergil’s work closely; she simply fills in the areas that Vergil left sparse, and thus illuminates corners of the Aeneid that we never knew existed. This is an excellent book for those interested in the classics or historical fiction.

“O Lavinia,” he said, “you are worth ten Camillas. And I never saw it. Well, never mind. Did you ever hear of Troy..There was a pretty prince of Troy named Paris. He and a Greek queen ran off together. Her husband called the other kings of Greece together, and they went to Troy, a great army in a thousand beaked ships, to get the woman back. Helen, her name was.”

“What did they want her back for?”

“Her husband’s honor demanded it”

“I should think his honor demanded that he divorce her and find himself a decent wife.”

“Lavinia, these people were Greeks, not Ro–not Italians.”

“King Evander’s a Greek. I wonder if he’d chase after a cheating wife.”

“Lavinia, daughter of the king, will you let me tell my tale?”

“I’m sorry. I won’t talk.”

“Then I will tell you the story of the fall of Troy, as Aeneas told it to the queen of Carthage,” he said. And he sat up straighter, there on the dark ground, a shadow among shadows, and began to sing.

It wasn’t singing like the shepherd’s songs, or rowers’ choruses, or the hymns at Ambarvalia and Compitalia, or the songs women sing all day at spinning and weaving and pounding and chopping and cleaning and sweeping. There was no tune to it. Its words were all the music of it, its words were its drumbeat, clasck of the loom, tread of feet, oarstroke, heartbeat, waves breaking on the beach at Troy away across the world.